Tia turned to sprint as she darted out of the server room and through the same sunny corridor she came through, the world turning into a blur.
An envelope of kinetic force surrounded her, a telekinetic push that turned her sprint into a near-flight, fueling her muscles and propelling her with a speed that defied the natural limits of her body.
Her mind raced, with strategies and scenarios flashing before her eyes as she made split-second decisions. 'The roof can hold. It's the main entrance that is most at risk.'
Steering sharply, she slipped past a corner, her focus unyielding and unswayed by the explosions of lights flickering behind the windows in a silent storm.
Her mind was clear, and her goal was simple: the quickly approaching elevator at the end of the long hallway—the fastest way down.
'Staircases are too slow. I need to move faster if I want both rewards.'
An invisible force burst forth from her, a focused wave of energy directed at the elevator's doors.
The air vibrated with the power of her intent as the metallic doors groaned, then yielded, bent, and finally tumbled into the black abyss beyond with a chorus of reverberating bangs and clangs.
'They shouldn't expect me to enter like this.'
In the heartbeat before the plunge, Tia steadied her breath, then leaped fearlessly into the gaping darkness of the elevator shaft.
As she fell, she unfurled the raw, pulsating energy of her telekinesis, forming a cushion of force around her that slowed her descent.
Her coat and skirt took on lives of their own, billowing fiercely and dancing in the turbulent air while the world turned into a dark, blurry mess, with occasional lights passing by.
'Five.' She counted the floors, the ground quickly closing in as her senses came to life, brightening the world around her and revealing the bare concrete walls of the shaft.
Her hair waved fluidly, like a platinum stream flowing in the dark, silently heralding her path downward.
'Three.' Her wand appeared in her free hand, three runes lighting up on its tip and brightly glowing in the shaft.
'Infuse linked with harden and deflect.'
Slowly and gently, like a death, she landed on the bottom of the shaft, and her eyes flashed, followed by the invisible force pushing the elevator doors open, allowing the light and dust to enter through the quickly widening crevice.
The vast entrance hall opened before her, the reception desk, walls, ceiling, and floor littered with burn marks and dead soldiers in the blue federation armor—precise holes burned through them.
The heavy air carried drifting clouds of smoke and dust, while the few surviving neon lamps flickered sporadically.
Metal clanged and fabric rustled as the lightly armored soldiers moving through the lobby raised their plasma rifles, aiming straight at her.
'Haha, they brought even the planetary guard here.' She immediately noticed that at least half of them lacked the power suits of the imperial elite commandos or even the full-body composite armor of the federation army she faced before—only wearing black kevlar suits with bluish plates covering their vitals and joints.
Under their maskless helmets were fear, surprise, and shock.
Without delaying for even a moment, her eyes lit up, and the guns and weapons scattered all over the floor rose into the air, slowly floating as if in zero gravity.
'Why have I never tried this before?'
"Fire!" At last, someone got out of the shock, and a bright blue light flashed across the lobby, reflecting in the remnants of the polished granite floor tiles.
'And so it begins.'
With the speed of a bullet, Tia launched out of the elevator shaft, blurry blue lights flashing all around her as the soldiers fired on her.
With a murderous gleam in her eyes, she mentally pressed the triggers of the floating guns, and immediately a barrage of blue plasma bolts hurled across the lobby, crisscrossing with the counterfire from the opposing direction in a blinding lightshow.
The soldiers collapsed in a scream to the ground, the plasma bolts exploding amidst their ranks, tearing their limbs and melting their armor and skin.
The concrete exploded and shattered, the metal melted and sprayed around, and sweat from the residual heat covered her pale skin.
Yet she remained unfazed, rocketing through the lobby like a black and platinum blur, her telekinetic powers flowing seamlessly through her wand, guided by the floating runes.
As it passed through, it metamorphosed, growing denser and shifting from a gaseous state to a more liquid form—its pace slowing yet amassing a stronger stopping power and a harder-hitting force.
The blue bolts flew toward her, only to slide off her hardened kinetic force imbued with deflection, defying the laws of physics and hitting and smashing into the wall behind her. The impacts erupted in a series of explosions, each shockwave causing her hair to whip wildly and her coat to rustle in a chaotic dance of fabric and force.
Adrenaline fueled her every move, lending a fevered pace to her actions as her mind split into numerous threads of focused intent, operating independently yet harmoniously.
Shockwaves tore and shattered the floor, sending the soldiers flying backward. Her kinetic tendrils directed the fire of her floating guns, the blue orbs showering the soldiers in devasting plasma explosions, and propped her circling around the lobby as if she were a marionette on strings.
While the final thread deflected the bolts heading toward her.
The soldiers and guardsmen died and fell around her, their screams reverberating in her ears.
Yet in the midst of this carnage, her emotions remained startlingly muted, offering no more than a flicker of pity, akin to a butcher amid the mechanical act of slaughtering livestock—a necessary action devoid of cruelty but absent of mercy.