Jin felt a jolt of lightning over his skin. The gravity pressure and the green lightning pinned him to the ground. Due to his Full Potential activation, Jin didn't suffer much damage, but he could feel the bone-crushing power over his shoulders.
"How can he be this strong?"
Jin lost his fighting spirit after facing such a humiliating defeat. When he activates his superpower, his abilities surpass his mother's level. And yet his attack never reached Ace.
"Jin... Arrrggg!!!" Trisa gritted her teeth and stood up. Jaxon used his healing Skill on her, risking his immortal body. Red Aura was flickering around her, "Don't fight... He is not our enemy. Didn't he help everyone? And look at Ivan..." She pointed toward Ivan. With her internal injuries healed, she could tackle the gravity force.
Ivan was lying on the floor, unconscious. His body looked healed, but there was no trace of Aura around him. The explosions that the white flames stopped had turned back to their original form. They averted a crisis due to that unknown person's help who is controlling Ace's body. Had the explosion occurred, countless people within the mansion's radius would have suffered.
"Time reversal... Is that even possible?" Clare muttered. In her 35 years of experience in the superhuman field, she has never heard anything about time-controlling powers.
"Nothing is impossible in this world..."
"But, I wonder... Whose power is this? Ace's or that freak, controlling his body..."
Lea Croft said as she looked at Ace's face. She thought that her boss was the strongest superhuman, but today she learned that there is always someone better than the strongest.
**Lea Croft [Clare's guard]
**Swordsman + Super Speed
**8th-level Weapon Aura Swordmaster
"He attacked because of this old hag... Why did you come?" Jaxon yelled at Clare, "He must have sensed hostility from you... Damn it!!! This insane pressure..." He was struggling to keep his head up.
"I only came to protect him from them," Clare said as he looked into the sky. There was a little humming sound in the area as if an engine was running that no one noticed during the commotion.
"Someone is watching us from above..."
Ace flew in the sky. With his enhanced vision due to Lucas's influence, he saw a massive invisible aircraft.
[Inside the aircraft]
"Shit!!!"
"Open fire!!! How the heck did he see us? F*ck..."
Irina Mason, the director of the Dungeon & Portal Experimental Society, ordered his people to open fire on Ace. Her superpower is Analysis. She can scan anything with her eyes. But, her power didn't work on Ace. Some higher power blocked her from using her ocular power.
She witnessed the battle on the land and wasn't confident that her new weapons would do any damage to Ace. She was planning to use those weapons on Silver World's armies, but the situation changed when Ace's bloodlust made her scared to her core. Her heart was beating faster in fear. She thought that it was better to destroy something she couldn't have.
**Irina Mason
**Analysis
**9th-level superhuman [Non-Combat]
"I have fought far worse than your puny machine. Allow me to show the courtesy back at you since you decided to attack..."
"Boundless Art Step 1: Extreme Annihilation..."
[Extreme Annihilation: Lucas's first successful creation, Step 1 of the Boundless Art. An energy blast penetrates the target, simultaneously shattering them from the inside and outside. This attack can not be blocked.]
Ace yelled and threw a punch in front, targeting the aircraft.
[Boooom] The aircraft exploded. The sky turned red. The high-tech weapons and bombs they were carrying created an explosion of massive scale. It looked like a nuclear explosion.
"Freaking hell!!!"
"What the hell were they carrying? Those lunatics..."
Clare yelled in shock.
The heat from the explosion could be felt on the ground. Everyone gritted their teeth in pain. The air got heavy and poisonous. They were feeling as if they were about to melt from the scorching heat waves. And they couldn't even defend themselves without their powers. The aircraft's parts were falling on the ground, covered in fire.
"Arrrggg!!! Aura Shield," Jin and Trisa yelled together. They were the only ones who still had their power under their control. But, to create an Aura Shield to cover everyone in the area was nearly impossible in such an extreme situation.
"Lea... Thomas... Do it..." Clare yelled in desperation. She didn't want to reveal her guards' real power in front of everyone, but the situation was dangerous, and she had no other choice.
**Thomas [Clare's guard]
**Brute assaulter + Unbreakable skin
**8th-level Savage Aura Master
"Sword Domain Activate," Lea stood up and stabbed her sword on the ground.
[Wooosh] A vibrant blue energy wave gushed out of her sword, covering the entire mansion's vicinity. But, she lacked the Aura to make it strong.
"Unbreakable!!!!"
Thomas screamed. he touched Lea's sword and pushed his dark red Aura into it to strengthen the Domain further. He erased Lea's Domain's weakness.
"Shadow Domain Activate..."
[Sizzzle] A light tint of black appeared around the blue and red dome around them. Clare threw her dagger in the air, targetting the falling debris and volatile parts and shattering them before they could touch the Domain to reduce the pressure.
"Liquid Control: Kraken..."
Trisa yelled. She stomped on the ground, creating multiple cracks. Her power squeezed out water from the depths of the earth, creating multiple massive tentacles. She was controlling them with her fingers and helping Clare to extinguish the fire.
[In the Sky]
Ace looked down and smiled, "Ohh!!! So they were hiding their strengths in fear of harming this body... Humm. I am running out of time. It's time to end this and have a proper conversation." He muttered while pointing his finger toward the burning aircraft.
"Void Ice..." [This Skill can freeze anything and everything as long as it is within the caster's line of sight.]
[Crrrakkk] The burning mass of volatile turned to violet ice. The temperature dropped below zero degrees.
Tresa's water tentacles were frozen solid. The Domain was also frozen and shattered like a thin sheet of ice. Snowflakes were raining down from the sky. Everyone was shivering. From the scorching hell, they fell into a frozen hell.
"Hufff!!! Is it over?" Jaxon said while shivering in the cold. The gravity pressure disappeared, but their powers didn't return.
Ace flew down with a massive mass of frozen ice behind him, "Pheww!!! Sorry about that... I might have used too much power. I couldn't hold back... You see, bad memories emerge... whenever I see an attack aircraft..." He said while scratching his head with a smile.
"Is anyone alive in there?" Jin inquired.
"Yeah... All of them, actually... The ice will melt on its own after I am gone..."
"I got a few more minutes... So, let's have some serious conversation about how you will prevent his death..."
Ace sat down on the snow-filled ground.
"What???"
Everyone was shocked to hear the sudden declaration of Ace's death. They didn't want to believe the outsider's words, but they got no choice since he had the power to kill everyone, and yet he didn't. They thought that there might be some truth in his words.
"No more questions, and listen to me..."
"Ace's unique power is to shoulder everyone's misfortune and bad luck. It's a power he can not control... In short... after absorbing that much malice from the world, no human can live much long... It's his fate to die within his 20s. But, if he dies, something terrible will be unleashed into this world..."
"And all of you will protect him with your life till he passes his 21st birthday..."
[Sizzzle] [Crackle] Violet lightning was sparking around Ace's body while he was informing them about the coming disaster. Lucas's control is about to run out soon.
"How?"
Trisa asked with a grave expression, hearing about his son's upcoming death. She didn't want to believe it, but she didn't detect any trace of a lie in his words. And, if there is a tiny possibility, then she was ready to sacrifice herself and pay any price to ensure her son's safety.
"He must become strong since we don't know what will cause his death..."
"Become his friend and hold him here, or become his enemy and push him to his limits... Seal him somewhere unknown for 6 years..."
"Train him to make him strong... Ohh!!! Looks like my time is up..."
Ace said as violet vapor began to rise from his body. His words were getting faint.
"Sometimes... An enemy is better than a friend..."
"It allows you to mingle with other enemies and kill them from the shadows, protecting him from behind... It's your choice..."
Ace's body fell to the frozen ground with the final words from the controller. But, for a brief moment, he looked into Lea's eyes for some reason.
A wave of green energy emerged from Ace's unconscious body and swept over the area, healing the injured, and they all got their powers back. The frozen aircraft started to melt.
[Present Time] [Silver Family's mansion area]
[Bang] A loud sound of gunfire echoed in the area.
Ace's eyes were glowing with a green hue. He could see the bullet approaching him in slow motion.
He moved away from the trajectory. The bullet zoomed past him and struck behind him on the crystal wall, "An attack of that level won't work on me..." He threw a ball of white flames toward the sniper.