The street outside was a spread of chaos: distant gunfire, the wail of sirens, and the relentless roar of water flooding the lower parts of the city.
Carol's breath came in short gasps as she grabbed Aiko's arm, stopping the spectral girl just as she was poised to vanish.
The blue apparition turned, eyes wide with a mixture of surprise and frustration.
"We can help Jack , " Carol started.
"Aiko does not understand how," she said, her voice edged with irritation but laced with curiosity.
The soldiers surrounding them stiffened, the tension crackling in the air like static.
Their eyes darted between Carol and the girl who shimmered with an otherworldly glow, uncertain and wary. Fingers hovered over triggers, ready to act at the slightest provocation.
Aiko didn't so much as glance their way.
"We have enough air power," Carol said, desperation fueling her words, "enough to make a difference, to tip the scales in Jack's favor. If we don't use everything we have now, humanity won't stand a chance. "
Aiko's eyes flickered with sudden understanding, the icy blue light in her form pulsing for a moment.
The translucent girl, bound by some unseen loyalty to Jack, seemed to shift, her expression changing from impatience to something more resolute.
The soldiers exchanged uncertain glances, some tightening their grips on their rifles, their distrust palpable. One of them, a young private with a streak of grime across his face, swallowed hard, his hands shaking.
"Aiko doesn't take orders from the soldier," the girl stated, her voice sharper, eyes narrowing like twin blades of frost.
But then, almost imperceptibly, her expression softened as she focused on Carol. "But if the soldier has a plan that helps Bossman , Aiko will listen."
Carol nodded, a glimmer of hope sparking in her chest. "We need to coordinate. Get the pilots ready. Bring in the gunships, the drones—everything we've got."
"Manifest!" Jack's voice resonated through the shattered floor, echoing with an otherworldly force.
He chanted for the new talent without even having had time to plan out its use.
The very air seemed to pause, heavy with anticipation, before a whirlwind erupted around him. Dust and debris lifted from the ground in a sudden tempest, crackling with surges of raw static energy.
The nearby prisms, once ominous and gleaming with Caesar's lethal intent, quivered as arcs of electricity leaped from the storm. With a shattering hiss, they sparked, cracked, and finally burst into sizzling shards, their threat extinguished in an instant.
Caesar's eyes narrowed, a flicker of intrigue breaking through his mask of arrogance.
He shifted his stance, watching the chaos unfold with a mix of annoyance and genuine curiosity. Whatever Jack was doing, it was unprecedented, even for him.
The storm reached a crescendo, and from within it, a silhouette emerged—tall, commanding, cloaked in a shroud of energy that sent electric pulses racing across the room.
As the dust settled, the figure came into focus: an elven warrior, her every detail a testament to warfare and ferocity. She was taking a knee before the bleeding Jack, one fist planted on the cracked floor, head slightly bowed in deference.
Her grey eyes, clouded like the heart of a storm, flickered upward with a fierce glint. Her skin was marked with intricate, swirling tattoos that seemed almost alive, pulsing in time with the electricity that danced across her blue, cornrowed hair.
"I am Nevya of Krassus," she said, her voice rich and steady, the trademark of a seasoned battle maiden.
Sparks crackled on her hair, jumping from braid to braid like serpents. "What is your order, my Lord?"
There was no hesitation in Jack's response, no trace of doubt. His command rolled out naturally, as if he'd spoken it a thousand times. "Kill Caesar."
"Your will, my hands," she replied, the words more than a pledge—they were an oath.
In one fluid motion, Nevya rose, her muscles stiffening with barely restrained power.
From her back, she pulled a polearm, long and elegantly lethal, its blade polished to a mirror sheen that reflected the dancing arcs of electricity.
The weapon seemed to breathe with power, electric currents crackling down its shaft and pooling in the blade's edge, a bright promise of violence.
Nevya pointed the spear directly at Caesar, the tip emitting a sharp hiss as a spark leaped from its surface.
The declaration of her target was silent ,it left no room for misunderstanding.
Caesar's smirk faltered, just for a moment, as he shifted his weight and rolled his shoulders back, eyes narrowing.
This was not the development he had anticipated, but if he felt fear, he did not show it. The prisms that had not been destroyed regrouped behind him, forming an array ready to strike.
Nevya's stance deepened, feet planted firmly as she adjusted her grip on the spear.
"You stand upon the path. Move, or I will provide death." Caesar's voice was cold, almost detached, as the prisms around him multiplied.
They hovered in formation, their dark surfaces gleaming like onyx, spreading out until they filled the shattered expanse of the room.
Jack's mind raced, his eyes narrowing as he tried to decipher the source of Caesar's seemingly endless stamina. The man's use of only one talent puzzled him, especially with how lavishly he wielded it. The thought gnawed at Jack, planting a seed of doubt—did Caesar even have a stamina limit?
Before Jack could consider further, Nevya shifted, muscles coiled like a predator.
Without warning, she hurled her polearm at Caesar, the throw backed by a surge of raw, primal strength.
The spear spun as it flew, skimming mere inches above the ground, dragging behind it a seething network of lightning that crackled and hissed like living roots. The floor beneath it scorched black as the energy lashed out, sparking against the shattered remnants of furniture and broken screens.
Caesar's eyes widened momentarily, recognizing the danger too late. He twisted his body to deflect the incoming weapon, his hand whipping out with a practiced flick that sent the polearm arcing off-course.
The spear glanced off , but the force carried through.
The world seemed to hold its breath as Caesar's boots scraped against the floor, the momentum propelling him backward. The concrete wall behind him crumbled like paper as he was driven through it, chunks of debris bursting out into the open air in a cloud of dust and gravel.
Caesar's body was hurled outward, left tumbling in a chaotic spiral as he began a freefall from the peak of the 200-foot skyscraper.
For a split second, silence reigned, the wind howling through the gaping hole in the building's side.
Then, the prisms reacted with the precision of a well-drilled platoon, flying toward Caesar as he fell. Their dark gleam grew sharper, slicing through the air as they raced to intercept him,like a swarm of loyal sentinels.
Nevya stood at the edge of the broken wall, her expression unflinching, eyes locked on the tumbling figure .
The chains of lightning from her spear had dissipated, leaving jagged scorch marks snaking across the floor. Jack stared in awe and disbelief at her raw power, the electric hum in the air resonating in his chest like a drumbeat.
Caesar brought one of his prisms close and grabbed hold to stop his fall as Nevya came leaping through the hole he had just dug with his back , her spear in grasp.
" You stand no equal of mine !" Caesar had his prisms swarm her , knocking her off trajectory and piling up all around her sending the woman crashing down to the ground below.
Just as Caesar was about to make a dive and finish her off , an F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet came swooping past , showering him with its own rapid fire.
It was a bitter way to have a taste of his own medicine , the powerful bullets from the jet eating though most of the arm he had used to shield his face. He easily healed through that however using his own Rejuvenation talent.
"I need to take these flying machines out of fucking air ," he decided to first deal with the jets , letting his prisms entertain Nevya for the meantime.
As for Jack , judging from how much damage he had sustained , Caesar reckoned that he would probably take some time to recuperate before coming back. Besides , he could always swat him away even when dealing with the new military arrivals.
The opponent he was worried about was Nevya , whose attack he had definitely come to respect.
Two more jets followed , cruising the sky at supersonic speeds .
They became the perfect avenue for Caesar to flex his abilities as an enforcer a little.
The man timed the incoming jet , then swung off the prism he was holding on to , landing perfectly on top of it.
The speed at which it was cruising let him slide past its top surface with ease and leap onto the next jet flying behind it. His prisms made short work of the first jet as Caesar crashed into the cockpit of the second one.
The second pilot, wide-eyed as the nightmare unfolded before him, reached for his radio with shaking hands, but Caesar was already upon him. He crashed through the cockpit , shattering it into a spray of shards.
The sudden intrusion sent the jet wobbling in the sky, its trajectory faltering as Caesar's weight landed heavily inside.
Panic surged through the pilot, his fingers instinctively searching for the ejection handle. He pulled it with a desperate shout, the seat jolting him upward.
Relief flooded him for a split second—freedom from the death trap.
But Caesar's hand lashed out, fingers clamping around the pilot's arm like a vice. The air rushed past them in a frenzied howl as Caesar pulled the pilot back down, an eerie grin splitting his face.
"A mark of shame, is it not, turning back upon the battlefield!" Caesar's laughter was guttural, vibrating with menace.
The jet sputtered and began to descend, losing altitude rapidly as its captor shifted focus.
One of Caesar's prisms, hovering in the periphery like a vulture, answered his silent command, darting into the open cockpit. Sparks and metal splinters flew as the prism's high-velocity rounds shredded everything within—controls, wiring, and the pilot's last, silent scream.
Nevya dug her spear into the ground and from it sprouted a chain of lighting that lashed onto every prism in sight , transmitting from one prism to another then blowing all of the annoying pieces to dust.
She took a small breather , before her mind got back to battle mode.
She quickly started searching the sky , her master's orders echoing vividly in her mind. With all the noise he was making on the jets, it didn't take long for Nevya to locate the man.
Grabbing hold of her polearm , she tensed her legs and took a powerful leap into the air that propelled her like flight.
Once Caesar was done with the second jet , he set his sights on the third and last one. The pilot in this one panicked through her breather when she saw the man jumping off the burning aircraft in front of her , now poised to do the same to her.
He almost got to the third jet before Nevya intercepted , spearing him from the side and sending the both of them ploughing clean through yet another skyscraper , passing clean through it's walls and making terrible landings into the second building through its board room windows.
Nevya fell on top of the board room table while Caesar rolled underneath it.
Seizing the advantage that he had , Caesar used the two prisms that had followed him to shoot from under the table at Nevya. A few bullets got her as they tore through the table's woodwork before she finally jumped off and took hold of her spear.
With the pressure taken off him , Jack was able to heal off the wounds and compose his thoughts.
The System immediately gave him a warning of the rapid rate at which Nevya was consuming his stamina.
It came as a shock to him , finding out that even if the Talent had taken independent form , it still relied upon and consumed the System's resources to remain active.
It was like giving a spendthrift your limited credit card and watching them spend it way past your budget.
The upside of Manifest , however , was that if the System user had really good luck , then it could summon a talent whose abilities were already maxed out. Luck was definitely on Jack's side right now , with Nevya buffed to her full potential.
As she stood , Caesar was absolutely no match for her. It served as a foreshadowing to Jack of how powerful he could become after upgrading his Talents and Personal Attributes to their full potential.
[
System Warning
Stamina Residue : < 50 %
]
" I won't have any fight left in me after this , so you better finish the job Nevya," he started looking for the stairs before the building caved in. Rejuvenation had healed him enough to walk out.
He had to be quiet and careful , engaging a monster at this point was a definite no. If he did , then he would be burning at his limited stamina from both ends.
" You've gotta be kidding me," he leaped to the side after spotting something he thought he'd already seen the last of.
On the new floor he had arrived was a Dread Ghost that was doing random patrols of the area.
It seemed to have sensed him , for it stopped its aimless walking and turned to the direction that Jack had hid himself.