Hover cars.
Although they might've seemed like something everyone would use when it was first created and introduced in this semi-futuristic world, the company who had produced them in bulk had forgotten to take one simple fact into consideration.
Human beings dislike change and people are naturally hardwired to resist change, even on a sub-atomic level.
So, when futuristic cars and motorcycles hit the market, it sold like hotcakes because it was something people were familiar with but it still offered a new sense of wonder.
The hover cars that were newly created however, required you to unlearn everything you knew about driving cars for an alternatively new form of driving.
It also didn't help that although these cars could technically offer the sense of portable flight, they could only really be allowed to stay 10 to 15 meters above the ground. Hence the name, hover cars.
The only advantage that they therefore had over normal futuristic looking cars and motorcycles was the ease of being able to completely bypass traffic but still, they were required to follow normal traffic regulations in the form of hover signs of their own which was littered around the city.
This was also why a certain obelisk member who had infiltrated the annual Adencia Royal Banquet as a guard was cursing quite bitterly on his hover car.
"Fuck! Why the hell is this brat so relentless?!"
He checked the rear view mirrors again and spotted a black-haired youth on a red motorcycle racing through the congested neon-lighted, night streets of Arcadia and hot on his tail!
Aiden glanced up to spot the escaping guard and his hover car about 17 meters ahead of him, the individual strands of his hair tousling and creating a wispy-like feel due to the immense speed at which he was riding the motorcycle at.
'Should have put on a helmet…' he thought to himself as he swerved and zoomed past the middle of two cars on the busy night street.
"[Illusion Series: Titan Wall]!!!"
"Try getting through this you fucking brat!" the guard said to himself with a derisive snicker.
Aiden glanced up again to see the hover car taking a swift right turn, after which he also proceeded to do the same but right as he sharply turned, he noticed that all the cars a few meters ahead of him suddenly began to halt, their tires screeching and creating a cacophony of ear ringing noises.
Right ahead of him in the distance was what seemed to be a gargantuan concrete wall that seemingly appeared out of nowhere and was the reason car drivers suddenly began to halt their cars to a complete stop while also getting out of their respective cars in an effort to make heads or tails about what was happening.
As if the weird occurrence wasn't enough, the people who had gotten out of their vehicle watched as a red motorcycle did a flip above them, along with a black-haired boy in a suit who was holding onto the handlebars while sitting on the seats of the chair upside down as if glued to it.
Prior to flipping through the air with the motorcycle, Aiden had immediately realized what was happening when he saw the wall, causing him to not even reduce his speed but instead, increase it even further and without skipping a beat, also extend his mana around the entirety of the motorcycle in an instant and using a spell.
"[Gravity Series: Zero]!"
Aiden watched his motorcycle levitate up into the air and above the halted cars to do a flip, using the momentum from the speed he had built up to traverse over the halted cars and the onlookers as the motorcycle completed the flip and was now about to crash headfirst with it's tires into the concrete wall.
'Man I hope I live to regret this!!!' Aiden thought to himself anxiously.
He then discontinued the [Zero] spell mid-air, and closed his eyes tightly as he was about to crash into the wall.
However, just as he had surmised, his motorcycle phased through the walls as if it was just an illusion, shocking the onlookers as the motorcycle landed on the other side without even so much as a scratch, it's strong tires bouncing slightly bouncing off the ground as it landed on the asphalt of the road!
"That was by far the riskiest thing I've ever done in my entire life! So glad I was right!" Aiden said to himself in a relieved tone, a few beads of sweat forming across his head.
However, an excited smile was also present on his face, indicating the undeniable wave of adrenaline rush he had gotten from successfully pulling off his half-baked plan out on the spur of the moment.
The guard in the hover car looked through the rearview mirror again with a smug smile but was shocked to see Aiden landing through the wall he had created without even a single problem.
'How did he even?!' the guard expressed his shock without even being able to come up with a single answer to his own question.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" he cursed to himself while banging his fist on the dashboard with the other still on the rectangular steering wheel.
He knew that if he couldn't even use his [Illusion Series] to stop the black-haired youth chasing after him, he had no chance of escaping, especially since even normal cars and motorcycles were just as fast as hover cars, not to even talk about the special edition motorcycle the youth was riding.
The only advantage he had was that he was in the air and if that was where he needed to stay till one of their fuel exhaust ran out, he sure as hell was going to remain in the air.
Aiden kept on chasing the guard for about fifteen minutes on the busy streets and even had to swerve onto an oncoming traffic lanes just to ensure he didn't lose his trail due to some horrible traffic congestions in some parts of the city.
"This guy! He's basically trying to make it a chase of attrition" Aiden muttered to himself in annoyance.
As he kept chasing the guard, he had noticed a black limo that had been following both of them for the past few minutes and after glancing over to see who it was, he had not been surprised to see that it was Frank.
'Dad probably contacted him and ordered him to follow me' Aiden thought to himself.
'In any case, this guy's definitely an annoying one! I can't use [Suction] because it would pull other cars in the vicinity and neither can I use [Zero] because the distance is too far. That leaves only…'
While thinking of what he could do to catch the escaping member of Obelisk, he spotted a small construction site in the distance which seemed to be remodeling the lower floors of a skyscraper and immediately increased his motorcycle's speed a bit while moving towards it.
He then swiped a thin steel pipe which was lying uselessly on the ground and immediately placed it into his spatial ring, his lips curling into a smile as an idea struck his mind about how to take down the hover car he had been chasing for the past 15 minutes now.
'I just need to wait for the right moment…'
After about another two to three minutes of continuous chasing from when Aiden swiped the pipe, the guard in the hover car swerved and made a very sharp U-turn while hovering onto and above a small but less crowded highway with little to no vehicles by cutting above traffic.
He then smirked to himself because although he could effortlessly make that switch onto another road in an instant, Aiden could not and would require having to go forward a minute or two before making that U-turn and by then, he could have very well escaped.
"Hahaha! That's what you get you shitty brat!" he yelled at the top of his voice with a haughty laughter while looking at the rearview mirror and watched as Aiden's motorcycle came to a complete halt.
Aiden who had been waiting for an opportune moment like this quickly got off his ride, retrieved the thin steel pipe from his spatial ring and arched his back while positioning himself as if he wanted to throw the pipe, a dangerous smile on his face and an even more dangerous glint present in his eyes.
"What is he doing?" the guard said as he watched Aiden at a distance from the rearview mirror even as he kept driving.
Aiden after letting out a deep breath of air from his throwing stance, immediately threw the steel pipe he had coated with his own mana with such a devastating force while chanting his spell with a roar.
"[Gravity Series: Grav Boost] !!!"
-Thwoosh!
The steel pipe hurtled through the air at breakneck speed and punctured through the internals of the hover car diagonally while coming out through the other side of the engine almost instantly in the blink of an eye.
This caused the hover car to plummet down, tumble over, and skid a few times onto and along the asphalt of the empty highway road with a screeching sound before coming to a complete halt with a large crash.
-Screeeeech!! Crash!!!
"What the...???" was all the guard could mutter in confusion as his vehicle plummeted to the road because everything that had just transpired happened in mere seconds.
Aiden cupped his hands over his head to see the destruction he had caused and released a sigh of relief.
"Phew! So glad he isn't dead… yet. Better hurry on over before the car explodes to bits" he said to himself as he got onto the motorcycle and took the long U-turn before getting over to the site of the accident he had caused on the small highway.
Although Aiden could've thrown the steel pipe much earlier, even whilst chasing the escaping guard through the crowded and congested night streets, he had been wary of collateral damage and he didn't want to create a sudden accident to innocent onlookers and bystanders.
This was why the less crowded small highway came as an opportune moment to strike and he was glad he took it.
The hover car had no hooded covering due to the crash from its fall when he got to the site of the accident he had caused so pulling the culprit out of the destroyed vehicle was really easy.
He then dragged the Obelisk member who had now collapsed and was knocked-out out of the wreckage.
After dragging him a few meters away, the hover car suddenly caught fire and erupted in flames with a small explosion, causing Aiden to shield his face with one of his hands from the bright yellowish-red light of the sudden explosion.
-Boom!!
Aiden then heard the sound of a car pulling up on the highway behind him, causing him to turn around as he watched Frank alight from the car while hurriedly walking over to him.
"I presume this man has something to do with the large explosion that went off at the Royal Banquet, young master?" Frank asked upon seeing the guard who had been knocked out and had a trail of blood leaking from his forehead.
"Yeah… anyway, we have to get back to the hall quickly. I'll explain the rest when we get back"
"As you wish young master" Frank said with a bow and tossed the knocked out guard into the Limo's backseat while Aiden got back onto the bike as they both headed back to the hall.
It was now late into the night upon getting back to the venue where it all began.
Aiden went around to the parking lot and dragged the other guy he had knocked out before he left, much to Frank's surprise.
He then removed his now wrinkled long coat and tossed into the backseat of the limo while simultaneously pulling the other guy from it and began to drag both culprits back into the hall.
'Weird… I'd have expected people to be outside in droves by now…' Aiden inwardly said to himself at the absence of not a single person outside the hall.
"I hope you're safe Flynn!" he muttered as he ascended the long stairs to the hall, the sound of bodies scraping against and making dragging noises on the concrete steps as he dragged the knocked-out guards up the stairs along with him and Butler Frank in tow, following closely behind him.