Chương 148: 61 - ROLLING THUNDER

The battle continued to rage on in the heart of the Looter's Paradise. Corlander was no longer on the battlefield, but his forces didn't seem to realize it yet. They still charged through the streets of Graceland with reckless abandon, and the Gracelandians continued to meet them in kind. Though they were slowly losing ground, getting pushed further and further to the center of the city. Regardless of how much a week of training taught them, they still weren't as experienced with their loot as the hunters were.

It was only by the grace of a shared goal that they managed to stand their ground this long. That goal:"Don't let them reach the Bestower!" And they fought like hell for it. It was the least T'balt could do to unburden them from this peril. He flashed around the city, mimicking the sound of rolling thunder.

"Left entrance of the eastern hospital," German thought to him. T'balt appeared there just a couple of seconds before a mountain of boulders crushed a Graceland soldier. He got the man out of the way and also dispatched his attacker in what probably looked instantaneous to them. Dispatched in the literal sense of the word. He had teleported the enemy to the middle of the desert. Or at least the dry canyon where the Wanderer once existed and left them there.

He quickly realized after dealing with Corlander that he didn't have to fight the hunters to get rid of them. He just had to separate them from the battle. With the Wanderer, he could do it one by one with almost no limit.

"Casino roof," German said, back in Graceland. The hunter who was up there suddenly ceased his attack when he found himself at the Fourth Tree Golf Course.

"Stay," T'balt told the hunter. At this point, he was just spawning them to the first places that popped into his mind. He even accidentally teleported one of them to his house. He paused for a moment when he saw it, realizing it was completely intact.

"I guess there was no one here for the Crimson Deer King to attack…" Then he noticed the hunter looking petrified on his grandparents' carpet.

"Don't break anything." He appeared back in Graceland.

"Alright, German, where to next?" Before the man could answer, a sharp cold infected the air. The giant white bear rampaging over the city just happened to notice him standing on top of a building. It had a hammer matching its size, completely made of ice, and brought it crashing down on top of him. T'balt didn't have any problem getting out of its way. That didn't mean the giant wasn't at the top of his priority list.

It had already done tremendous damage to the city and, based on the cold, intended to do much more. He thundered to its head, grabbing a tuft of frosted white fur. Then he reappeared back at the Hunter's club, hoping to drop the bear to destroy their home, as it had tried to destroy his. Though when he released the tuft of fur, there was nothing in his hand.

"What?" He flashed back into the city only to see the thing still standing there. Though it paused its attack, looking confused.

"If it isn't obvious, beast loots are tied to their hosts. If you take it away, it can just be summoned back," German explained.

"Ok… then what do I do about that thing?"

"Either incapacitate the host or incapacitate the Glacier Bear."

"I think I'll take my chances with the host." T'balt didn't know how effective the Wanderer would be without any attacking loot to back him up in a straight fight. He was still operating with just the thinker as his 2nd equip and needed to keep the third slot open for the Loot Thief, in case he needed it. But not even the thief was going to help him with this monstrosity. Beast summons didn't have loot. Their coin was in their hosts.

"Where are they?" T'balt asked.

"It's hard to tell," German responded. His hypersensitivity could see all kinds of things: heat, motion, sound, etc. He saw in shapes rather than detail. That didn't make people easy to differentiate. He tried to search for Emil, trying to remember his particular gait.

"Well, I'm gonna take out anyone who looks strange then," T'balt decided impatiently. He tried to aim for people around the Glacier Bear, German called it. Since summons didn't necessarily have to follow their hosts, he had to actually knock them out to see any results. That wasn't much of a problem since he'd picked up a few close combat techniques since his start as a Redeemer. He took three of them down with well-placed punches to the neck or jaw. None of them saw him coming.

But none of them seemed to affect the Glacier bear either.

"Hmmm…" There weren't any enemies in the area that he could see. The summons weren't tied to their owner's location, but they could be summoned back to them at any point. That meant the bear's host could've been anywhere on the island. Then he noticed someone. Just sitting in one of his coffee shops, dozing off as if nothing was going on. Suspicious wasn't even the word for it. Regardless, T'balt was there in a second.

"Hey!" He shouted, waking the man up.

"This bear belong to you?" T'balt was in the process of grabbing him, but he was cut off. What felt like a violent current of electricity coursed through his arm. He leaped backward, unable to lay a finger on the man.

"You can't quite own another living thing," the man said in an angsty moan.

"You just live in symbiosis until one of you inevitably eats the other." He didn't bother standing up. The Lightning Specter stood for him, standing between him and T'balt. It looked like a raging elemental, a spirit shaped as if it had arms and legs, but it was more like a herald of dark, empty space. No defined features, except for its aimless red eyes. Its outline radiated with blue sparking light that popped and sizzled into staticky white noise. T'balt had seen it before.

Corlander had used it when he attacked before. Now this dark-haired man had it.

"I guess all the rules aren't exactly the same this time," he said. But at least he found his target. The specter quickly came after him, as fast as someone with speed loot, if not faster. The thinker acted as a de facto reflex loot so T'balt could speed up his thoughts enough to realize he needed to teleport out of that building before that thing zapped him to kingdom come. He appeared outside as the walls and windows of his coffee shop exploded just by the sheer energy of the specter's movement.

"Careful," German said.

"That specter is fast and hyper-reactive. The energy in its body is highly lethal. Don't let it touch you." T'balt stared it down, lost in his mind for a way to take out the host quickly enough to get past that ghost of electricity. Its host was now standing lazily beside it. But now that they were outside again, T'balt felt like something was off. A strange, pungent, and somehow sweet smell was in the air. Mist was also quickly rising from the ground.

It was heavy and compounding on itself, quickly blocking his sight. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. His first thought was that the man in front of him was the cause. He could barely make out his silhouette in front of him and quickly teleported to it. He grabbed the man and teleported away to the inside of a mall. Before T'balt could punch him unconscious, he stopped. It wasn't the same man.

"Uhhh… Redeemer, sir. Where are we?" T'balt looked at the man, confused. He had accidentally grabbed a Gracelandian. He must've disoriented himself in that mist. Without speaking, he teleported them both back, and somehow the mist had gotten even thicker. It was like he was surrounded by murky white walls that gave him an uncanny feeling of claustrophobia.

"German, what's happening? What's this mist?" It was affecting everyone, allies and enemies alike. No one in there could see anything around themselves. The only things moving in the confusion were the beasts, who seemed to be operating on some sense of smell or other demonic sense. That meant practically everyone in the city was a sitting, blind duck. While there was no sight, the sounds of static, rumbling, and screaming bounced around in the mist. Cannon wandered around the middle of the city.

He had been leading their forces by the gate, but the mist came and quickly isolated everyone. He could barely see his own hands.

"Hello! Anyone there!" The arm of that giant bear suddenly pushed a burst of mist towards him. By natural instinct, he blocked upwards, feeling its swipe come down from above. It would've crushed a normal man, but by the grace of his strength, he held firm. But so did the bear. And its frozen touch soon began covering him, infecting Cannon's arm with a thick cold. He felt his limbs struggling not to give way to the frost.

Emil walked underneath the legs of his Glacier bear, seemingly unbothered by his lack of vision.

"Ughh…" he moaned.

"Now this place stinks of your perfume, Mauve." On the north side of the island, Madam Mauve calmly stepped out of the idling helicopter. She emerged like she was making her grand entrance in an elaborate ballet. Though there was no cheering, just the distant sounds of pain and confusion.

"Finally… back on the ground where people belong." She took a deep breath.

"You should appreciate my perfume, Emil. This particular one I call Deadly Veil by Mauve."

"That actually sounds like something I'd buy…" A man jumped out at Emil from the mist, wielding a loot sword. Before the sword could get anywhere near him, the Skull Eater snatched the man out of the air. He screamed, of course. It was muffled when the Skull Eater dropped its own skeletal jaw underneath its green fanning flames and put the man's head inside its mouth. There was a crunch, and the man's skull turned to putty as the Skull Eater continued to chew on their head.

"Ah, crap," said Emil.

"I'm sorry guys, but I accidentally killed someone." The blood continued to spill on the ground like a dropped bucket of red paint.

"Damn it, Emil," Hobbs chided through his earpiece.

"Corlander's order said non-lethal. Keep your beasts under control."

"I can try… but the Skull Eater kinda needs to eat skulls. Otherwise, it gets cranky."

"Like I give a shit. Give it a fucking pacifier or answer to Corlander." Emil chewed his tongue.

"Copy." He said the word, but the Skull Eater had already eaten three more people at that point. They weren't even all enemies. Emil shrugged.

"What he doesn't know can't hurt him. I'll just let it focus on people who don't look too strong. That shouldn't be a problem, right?" The sharp crunch of bone blasted through the mist. T'balt had to teleport to the top of the Bestower. It was one of the few places that wasn't touched by the mist because it was so tall. He had to get his bearings.

"What's everyone's status?"

"The entire island is covered in this mist. Everyone is disorganized and confused. And people are starting to die."

"Guess our little scheme could only go so far. Can you help them?"

"I can try. My vision's been hampered, but I can still see. I can guide them, but that means leaving you unattended."

"That's fine. Get them situated and I'll focus on finding the person causing this."

"Her name is Mauve. She's a dangerous hunter. This is the result of a mist loot multiplied by 8. Don't be reckless." T'balt could almost feel German exit his mind. He then tapped into the thinker's loot, trying to develop a plan. The beasts were still attacking in this, but the mist was now his top priority. They were all helpless while it existed.

"For what it's worth. I am sorry about this." It was Uriel's voice. T'balt had honestly forgotten about the man, even though he was standing underneath his corpse-like body. He shook his head.

"Sorry doesn't help me." He went back into thinking mode. In it, he remembered that German had a tracking loot that Tyene took off him before his attempt on Corlander's life. That would be their best chance to find anyone in this mist.

"She must still have it." Because of the power of the thinker, he disappeared seconds after he spoke those words to Uriel. He appeared back in the building where he'd last left her. There was no one there. He called her name.

"Tyene!?" No one answered. He looked around, the inside of the building having not been infected by the mist. All he found was her jacket, splayed across the floor.

"What the hell? … German. Do you know where Tyene is? She should have your tracker loot." He didn't answer. T'balt picked up her jacket, searching around her pockets. He didn't know what happened to her, but there weren't any signs of an attack in the building. No marks or anything. It was like she had just taken it off and dropped it on the floor. He got lost in the thinker. The only conclusion he could reasonably draw was that she wasn't dead. If she were, he wouldn't be here anymore either.

So he had to focus on everyone else. He teleported into the library, having found the tracker in her pocket. German was cross-legged in the middle of the floor. He could see the words the man was thinking out to the people of Graceland because he mouthed them under his breath.

"Go left… Hide inside the building to your right… The Skull Eater is heading towards you. Find cover." It was uncanny how he could see how fast German's mind was moving.

"He's really giving his all for this." T'balt thought. But it was that thought that alerted the man to his presence. German held his hand out.

"You have the tracker?"

"Yeah. I figured it'd be better if you had it since…"

"I know. Give it here." It seemed he'd already read his mind. T'balt gave him the loot. Seconds later it was in his neck, and German sensed around. The tracker combined with the hypersensitivity meant effectively he'd be able to locate anyone on the island as long as he knew the right loot combination. With his already intense senses, that wouldn't be hard for him to learn if he didn't already know. He glanced down at a map in his lap. It was one of Vienna's.

Every single inch of Graceland was marked down in great detail. She had made it on her own, but T'balt had borrowed it to catch German up to speed.

"North side. Residential area," German quickly said. That's where T'balt appeared. However, he couldn't see anything yet, hampered by the mist. Though there was no time to waste. The longer this mist existed, the more people they lost, and the closer they got to losing this battle.

"Be careful," German told him.

"I know about her mist loot, but I've never seen her use her attacking loot. She's never revealed what it does."

"I'll be careful." That was a useless statement. How careful could one be when they couldn't see a damn thing? He could only walk ahead, hoping that he'd spot her before she him. He had no way to tell how much awareness she had in her own mist, so he walked slowly between the alleys of Graceland's housing district.

"Is she close?"

"Just a few paces ahead of you." Through the mist he was just able to make out a shadowy silhouette. A thin woman with a large sunhat. He approached slowly. The woman didn't move. She just stood there. He inched closer and closer.

"T'balt, what are you doing? I said a few paces."

"What? But I see her… she's—" He felt a sharp stinging in his neck. Something had stabbed him. Something small. He plucked it out of his skin.

"A needle?" he wondered. Then his vision started to twist, like everything was morphing out of existence. That silhouetted figure looked to turn upside down and then disperse with the mist.

"What is… Is this…" Even his own voice felt like it wasn't his. Then his shins buckled under his own weight, and he fell to his knees.

"Don't worry, dear." The silhouette appeared to the right of him.

"We had a no-kill order… so this poison is especially non-lethal. Though it's still very much effective."

"Pois…" he couldn't even finish the word. He felt his throat being choked up by his own saliva as he lost control of it, his mouth, and the rest of his body. The woman reached to grab him. But by some last gasp, some fleeting instinct, he teleported away out of her reach, appearing sprawled on the ground of a small grey room. He tried to stand. But there was no feeling in anything below his neck.

"No… no…" He needed to stop himself from passing out. But even his enhanced thoughts were turning into nothing but unsolidified mush. He had no choice but to close his eyes with only one word in the back of his mind. One single name.

"T… Tania…"