Chương 50: CHAPTER 49 – Demolition and Recovery

The ground between them flew into the air, rising in a swarm of rock shards and mud. A white flash shot through, liquefying the stone. Grayson's entire forearm was covered in a dark, opaque coating, like a photo in negative. The negative mass wielded by him and Lachesi collided again. The impact drove the scientist backward before the ground collapsed beneath them. A second impact followed the collapse; This time, Grayson shot along the earth. He vanished with a crack before Lance's blow could reach him.

The shockwave swept away air and earth. From the cloud emerged a beam of brilliant light." Lachesi!" The dark iron and the clear bolt met in that brief instant. Around Lance, a dense cloud of sparks was released, sliding along his shoulders and legs." End!" Without warning, Lance found himself seized in a vice of iron and steel. It took him less than a second to shatter his chains, but the scientist appeared above him, blinding him." Origin."

All the rock beneath them became pure light, detonating in a violent column of white. Lance found himself airborne, his chest completely scorched.

"This is not pure energy. It leaves too many residues." He immediately regained control of his body, intercepting yet another dart. His entire body began falling with force. He crashed into the ground, sinking steadily deeper. Grayson materialised before him, holding a bluish gleam in his hand." Ray …" A violet light interrupted his words, as everything around them exploded in a barrage of blackish bolts. In that second of distraction, Lance's blow penetrated his defences.

His skin trembled before splitting on contact with that hateful artefact. He spat blood, staggering backward as he pressed his hand to the torn, bleeding skin on his face. Grayson could not have known it, but in that moment, Lance had been capable of completely distorting his flow and appropriating it." That armor is like a parasite..."

"I feel perfectly well…" He smiled, drawing a deep breath of cold air. A cloud of condensation formed around his thin lips, catching the yellowish gleam in his eyes. The lightning around him grew denser and more concentrated.

"Those flashes of light are limited by Frequency, are they not?" He asked, pointing his finger toward the crater left far across the battlefield. The silence between them served as an answer for the boy.

"I imagine they are too dangerous, so you limit your external manipulation with your own." Lance took his first step, smiling at Grayson. The scientist, for the first time, took a step back.

"Once your sequence has been deciphered…" A black bolt struck him squarely in the side, followed by a second to the back. The third, driven by Lance himself, passed through his stomach.

"You will lose this duel, Architect!" The blow sent the scientist flying, wrapped in blood and smoke. His eyes lost their colour, and his skin cracked.

"Is that truly so? Even now, I cannot do anything? After everything I have endured, I still cannot reach an understanding of it?" As these thoughts began flashing through his mind, a violent kick sent him back to the ground.

"I am sacrificing…" Among the dust and earth, Grayson reached a realisation.

"What am I sacrificing? At this point, I have lost everything. Even my own voice seems distant." A second kick drove him even deeper, cracking everything around them.

"Where is the paradise I wanted to create? Where are my instruments?" Suddenly, his vision went dark, leaving him lost in a haze of flames and smoke. In that burning fog, a figure rose, towering. An enormous colossus, its face covered in magma and iron. Around its powerful shoulders of marble and steel, swarms of rocks and craftsmen's tools floated. In his delirium, Grayson felt its gaze penetrate his flesh. His mind went dark, leaving impressed upon it only the image of that eternal, perpetually working architect.

"So you two are my successors? Interesting!" A voice echoed with joy. Only now did Grayson notice a mask floating at his side: a mask of military appearance, worn in the old war.

"Now I understand what to sacrifice. My voice, my thoughts, everything…" He opened his eyes definitively, seizing Lance by the leg.

"... JUST TO BUILD THIS WORLD!" The young man was launched into the air, cutting across the sky above the island at an extraordinary speed.

"His range is increasing?!" Lance regained control of his body, immediately evading the series of globules of light. He turned sharply, pointing Lachesi at him. In the scientist's eyes, Lance's figure became distorted and confused.

"More numbers, more perfection…" The horns on his face lengthened, twisting into an arc directed inward. He pointed his finger at Lance, drawing all those invisible data toward himself." Subtract!" Before the relic could detonate its bolt, the space between them shrank to a few paces. In that second of confusion, Grayson's bolt passed through Lance. He found himself airborne again, pressing at his perforated abdomen. Before his body could graze the ground, a force catapulted him toward the ruins on the coast.

His shoulder was pierced by wreckage as he struggled to keep pace with his own senses." Entang…" Grayson's voice died in his throat as Lance drove his fist directly into his stomach. The wounds on the boy's body had already closed, surrounded by a thick layer of black capillaries.

"His resistance is increasing too?" He seized his shoulder, using it to push himself up with all his strength. The second blow landed directly on the back of his head, sending him to the ground. Lance prepared to strike him again when a swarm of light emerged from the earth. Some vanished the moment they touched the black armor, while the others burned his skin. Lance's left wrist found itself caught in Grayson's fingers." Does he truly have that much frequency?!" The scientist had risen.

In an instant, his arm was torn away and twisted. A searing pain crossed Lance, who ground his teeth until they bled." Veil…" The boy's arm had been destroyed by a distortion of gravity between them, the same gravity that was now covering Grayson himself. The drops of blood in the air crashed to the ground, splattering at their feet." Negative…" Grayson drew Lance toward himself, gripping him by the neck. Lachesi tightened around his arm, spraying thick, dark liquid." Value…"

A minuscule white sphere formed between them. Lance immediately felt his skin being pulled away, as though it were being forced to retreat from that thing. The earth beneath their feet began to flow away from them both." This is very far from good!" He broke free from the grip, pushing the scientist away with effort. The sphere began to rotate more furiously, and Lance tried to seize it with the relic." Well!" A white gleam enveloped Lance's fingers, then engulfed both the scientist and the boy together.

From a distance, Maliard saw only an enormous explosion cover the mountains themselves. The shockwave sent him flying backward, nearly hurling him into the ocean.

"Lance?" A halo of despair covered his eyes as he rose. The haze thinned, revealing two figures. Both were covered in dust and injuries, their garments torn and bloodied." I managed to distort it…" Before the white well could expand its energy, the relic had altered its flow for a brief moment, making it partially collapse." Had it detonated, I would be in considerably worse shape." He fixed his left arm, in the process of regenerating, before studying the surroundings.

Now, not even the ruins were visible, devoured by an enormous furrow. Grayson coughed up a clump of dark, almost black blood.

"Are you truly willing to go this far for this madness?" Lance asked, catching his breath and repairing his tissues. Grayson, rather than answering, simply extended his arm. In an instant, it was severed, plunging into the crater.

"Stop…" Lance implored, this time the crack finally showing in his smile. Grayson watched his amputated limb bleed before smiling." NVG!" The boy was hurled away with unspeakable force, sailing past Maliard and slamming down a few steps from the precipice. He rose with effort, wiping his face of dust and grime." His Frequency is increasing. He is binding himself more and more tightly…" In the distance, Dirac's figure began to glow with bluish and violet lights.

At his feet, a wave of numbers and data in black began to expand.

"That is the dome that nearly killed Maliard and me." Lance immediately pressed his arm to the ground, creating a kind of shield between himself and the black wave. The numbers passed over him, expanding into the sea. A moment later, a cascade of salt water struck him. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Is he trying to drown me?" He raised his gaze, finding the sky covered by an enormous mass of iron vaguely shaped like a ship, though winged.

"What is that now?" Lance murmured, studying the barnacles and algae clinging to the hull and the rust slowly consuming its structure.

"A warship from the Great War?! At that altitude, that thing could perforate the entire island." Maliard stared in bewilderment at the enormous vehicle that had appeared from the ocean floor.

"S omething like that shouldn't be too hard to avoid…" Lance smiled when, without warning, the ship plummeted downward above him at a frenzied speed. His room to manoeuvre had narrowed terribly, and the ground and hull were now seconds from impact." Kneel." Concentrating all the energy absorbed from his blows, Lance accelerated. To his eyes, the remains of molluscs, the algae carbonising, the drops of molten iron bouncing in the vapour, all were simply things in passing along his path.

The entire belly of the ship was cleaved open by his speed, dissolving from the energy and the friction. With a roar, Lance emerged on the deck, wrapped in sparks and smoke. The moment he and Grayson came face to face again, his entire body twisted forward. The porthole completely severed the scientist's arm. Still falling, the boy pointed his black arm as though it were a pistol, directly at the scientist." Salve!" A burst of three white, black, and violet globes shattered at Grayson's feet.

Lance managed to touch ground a few seconds after the impact, the ship collapsing into a liquefied mass behind him." I can feel it, my body is accepting this relic." He immediately closed the distance with him, launching himself with both arms stretched behind him. Grayson fixed him, trying to regain his footing after the explosion. Despite his attempts, his own Frequency chose not to help him.

"With this, I can finish it!" An enormous mass of energy was absorbed from everything around and distorted into Lachesi. The whole of it compacted along the arm itself like a veil of dense energy." Aufpr…" His body shut down, freezing him in place. A discharge of pain reached his eyes, making them weep blood. The distance between him and Grayson grew steadily wider. Something seemed to pull him away, toward the darkness.

"You will need more than that now…" A mature, feminine voice laughed behind him as arms of smoke and ink coiled around his face. In that darkness, he could do nothing to react to the mass Grayson had launched. Grayson struck him squarely in the stomach, perforating his skin. An instant later, Lance found himself slamming against the earth, the edges of the crater, and the ship's remains, all dragged along by his ability.

In the confusion generated by the rapid movements and the dust, Lance began bleeding from every orifice in his face.

"I can only see red… I cannot focus on anything." His back slid along the ground before stopping unexpectedly. A violent impact shook his entire body, fracturing his ribs. He fixed the cluster of pyramids carving into his flesh through his red-tinted vision." ARCHITECT…" A black thread passed through Lance, sealing him inside a series of curves and parabolas intersecting one another, coated in a thick aura of bluish numbers." Hypersphere!!"

The masses of lines fused, generating an enormous sphere in rotation, perpetually in flux. The earth beneath the construction began to shift its own shape, almost joining in with its mutation. Behind Graysdon, a discharge of pure electricity exploded around him. He turned slowly, fixing his gaze on Maliard, fully recovered.

"There is no point in trying to break it… This is not a sphere." He took a step away from the surface, smiling faintly.

"It is a multiple intersection of several products generated by my ability and integrated with the equation of the world." The sphere behind him came to a halt, swelling and trembling simultaneously.

"In simple terms, it is a shape expanding across four dimensions that transcends human knowledge. Inside it, time may flow differently or intersect with other events. I do not even know." Maliard fixed him, narrowing his eyes. His gauntlet emitted a faint metallic shriek.

"Have you lost even more of your mind, or is it just me?" Maliard smiled, wrapping his arms in a thick layer of fire and lightning.

"I do not understand what you are referring to. I feel perfectly well." His exhausted gaze had finally turned entirely toward his opponent. His legs trembled faintly, yet his stride was stable and straight.

"All of his flow seems to have become more massive… He is stronger than before." The flames hissed through the air when suddenly something resonated. Crack The sphere lost a piece from its crown as a series of fractures began spreading across the surface. Grayson stared at his own construction, shattering with something almost like horror.

"This is…" A hand emerged through the cracks, seizing him by the face. A golden reflection appeared on the spectacled face of the figure that emerged.

"Impossible? I doubt it, given that I am right here!" Lance struck Grayson full in the face with Lachesi, stunning him. A burst of flame completely blocked his field of vision." NVG!" A jet of invisible force swept away the flames and the dust, destroying the ground before him. Grayson noticed that the sphere had disappeared entirely and that before him, the only one present, was Maliard." Vergehen…" A dense violet and black halo condensed around Lachesi as Lance launched himself low toward him.

"Take what you want, devour everything you want, but make this the end!" The entire mass of energy expanded for a brief instant, towering over them both like an enormous wave. The scientist had no time to react before all the accumulated Frequency condensed on Lance's knuckles. From the sphere, to Maliard's flames, to his gravity and even Lance's own blood, all of it had been united with the flow to construct that distorted mass of energy." AUFPRALL!!"

Grayson's figure vanished, followed by a tremendously violent cone of air that expanded before him. The energy transmitted into the atmosphere carried away the mountains and everything in its path, leaving only a smouldering furrow crossed by faint electrical discharges.

"LANCE!" Maliard rushed toward him, kneeling, with his arm dripping with blood and black ichor. The limb inside the armour had been completely pulped and destroyed in the impact. Maliard moved to extract the small syringe from his watch, but Lance stopped him.

"I refuelled the blow with your abilities… The overload should not be an issue." He answered, rising and resetting his arm. The black veins began swelling and contracting, deeply unsettling him.

"Do not use something like that again…" Maliard murmured in amazement, staring at the enormous hole left in the mountain.

"We do not know when you will find yourself in a situation where you cannot afford too much recoil." He smiled, folding the syringe back into the watch. Lance nodded, drawing a deep breath and washing the blood from his lips.

"We should look for Jeanne and Monica at this point. They are still down there with Roman." Lance said, looking toward the more distant buildings. Maliard seized him, holding him back.

"I understand your concern, but we should make sure Grayson is completely neutralised first." He specified, releasing his grip and directing their attention to the empty rubble ahead of them.

"I held back, but I think even his regeneration cannot allow him to stand after that…" He murmured, lowering his eyes and sighing at the sight of his mauled fingers. Maliard placed a hand on his shoulder, when suddenly something burned at their feet, exploding behind them." AXCL." Grayson materialised before them, stopping almost instantaneously in front of Lance. Before he could process anything at all, he was hurled away." The Frequency is intact? He did not teleport?!"

While he tried to understand what was happening, Grayson appeared behind him, still motionless, a beam of light in hand." I will not make it in time…" The dart fell upon the ground, detonating in a sea of golden sparks. Lance found himself behind Maliard.

"I dislike this operation being based purely on fortune…" He murmured in a thread of voice, letting out a sigh immediately after. Grayson returned to the ground, his arms now covered in strange bluish numbers and symbols. Maliard's face went dark at the sight of that man and his obscured appearance.

"Lance… This man is no longer Grayson Dirac!" A burst of flames enveloped his body. After the scientist stopped, an immense gust of wind struck the singularity, pushing away the sea and snatching the ruins from the ground. From the scientist's lips, a white condensation spread, followed by a thin jet of black blood.

"That erratic behaviour, that twitching... That unsettling aura. He went too far."

"We are facing a Berserker now…" Lance's face went pale, followed by a violent sensation of fear before that man who, only a few days ago, had been capable of smiling at him. Dawn still seemed far away, as the night remained eternally still.