Chapter 1088: Levium (5)
Chapter 1088: Levium (5)
Erik was in a dire situation. He needed to make the blackguards focus on him rather than go searching for the Chimaeric Demon who left. After that, he would need to stall for long enough for his clones to get here.
The battle had stopped. Erik could only hear the loud buzzing of his own wings. He was flying so fast; he sounded like a tiny helicopter.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
The blackguards had lost sight of him, but they were still there searching.
Most were on the ground, looking like tiny ants searching for bugs to bring back to their nest.
Searching every place with the Veritas Lenses, hoping to find him. But they were not searching there; they were also searching in the sky, kept afloat through Levium\'s powers.
Few people could fly by themselves. But Uncle Benjamin used his power to help many search the sky.
<Parallel Wills is much more useful than I assumed. With a power like that of Uncle Benjamin, its usefulness multiplied.>
Erik was regretting a little having given it to the Chimaeric Demons, but at least it was serving its purpose well for them.
The clones were using it like Levium, too, but in a different way. They did it mostly to keep the battle they fought under control, to see attacks coming and avoid them, to think better and faster while not sacrificing their ability to think and focus on something else.
But Uncle Benjamin used it to boost his own brain crystal power.
Telekinesis was a rare power and not always powerful. There were many variants of it, like Mira\'s power, which was more leaning on the telekinesis side than on the wind one. But there were in between, like Ramon, the Band of Giant\'s member, who had a lesser version; he used to fight with multiple weapons at the same time. At least, that was what he said.
But Uncle Benjamin had a pure telekinesis power, one that allowed him to make everything fly.
Uncle Benjamin could control many objects at once, using them as weapons. He could create a storm of debris to attack enemies while staying completely safe.
He could throw cars or parts of buildings at his foes. He could also use small items like knives or metal pieces with great accuracy.
For defense, Uncle Benjamin could make shields out of floating debris to protect himself and others. He could also lift himself and others to move around better or escape danger, which was what he was doing. The problem was that those guys all had ranged brain crystal powers, meaning that he basically had flying artillery with him.
Uncle Benjamin was also great at changing the battlefield. He moved things around to make obstacles or clear paths and cleared his surrounding area to make it impossible for Erik to sneak upon him.
The power was already deadly as it was, but now, with the Parallel Will brain crystal power, while one brain focused on talking, breathing, moving, and thinking, the other focused on using just the ability.
That meant that if Uncle Benjamin could have had simultaneously used 10-30 items to attack before, with this new ability, he could use thousands.
<For sure, that\'s a big power boost. I mean, from 10 to 30 items to thousands...>
But the truth was in front of the young man\'s eyes. Uncle Benjamin was making thousands of people levitate to search for him while moving objects and keeping weapons close to him at all times.
Erik analyzed the situation.
<To kill Levium, I need the Chimaeric Demons taking care of his pawns. That net of people looks too tight for me to be able to go through it...>>
He paused. <Damn...>
Fleeing was not an option for Erik, not now that he had the person responsible for his father\'s death and the shit that happened to him in Etrium in front of him.
But the blackguards and their allies were too many to make a frontal assault, and they wouldn\'t stop searching for him even after months.
They would scour every inch of the city until they found him. No, he needed to take the fight to them, to whittle down their numbers and buy time for the Chimaeric Demon to bring reinforcements, before they combed the city and found out his hideout.
There was no other way for him to kill him.
<I will try sneaking on him though... Maybe I will be lucky...>
With that thought in mind, Erik flew low, skimming along the shattered streets and ducking into the shadows of crumbling buildings.
He scanned his surroundings, searching for any sign of the enemy, which wasn\'t hard to begin with. It was just that what Erik needed to do was find a suitable group of blackguards to kill.
Erik needed to choose his targets carefully. It wasn\'t just about how many enemies he could fight. He had to think about where they were located, too. He wanted to find a group that was big enough to matter but not too close to other groups that could help them quickly.
Erik knew his hit-and-run plan would only work if he could attack fast and escape before more enemies showed up.
There were many people searching for him, so the distance between groups wasn\'t bound to be a lot, but the more there was, the better it was going to be.
It didn\'t take long for Erik to find them. In front of him there was a group of blackguards, perhaps a hundred strong, making their way through the rubble.
Erik could see the glint of the Veritas Lenses built inside their masks-the devices that would strip away his shapeshifting disguise if he went too close.
For a second, Erik thought about using his Phantom Veil brain crystal power and turning himself invisible, but he couldn\'t do that because he needed them to be in the right place at
the right moment.
And that was a partially collapsed overpass.
With that thought in mind, he waited until the blackguards were in position. From his vantage point, close enough for him to see the blackguards well but far enough for them not being able to use the Veritas lenses, he observed them.
<These guys look though.>
Then he mentally grinned and then flew towards them. Mid-flight, he turned human again, startling the blackguards.
By the time they realized what was happening, it was already too late. Erik landed among them, his body once again human, albeit naked. His Force Bastion\'s armor materialized around him in less than a second, encasing him in a shell of mana-powered metal.
But the blackguards and their allies were not your run-of-the-mill fighters. In fact, despite not having prepared in time, they reacted relatively fast, considering the situation. Their powers flaring to life.
Among the blackguards, there was a guy that looked as big as an ox, and judging by the size of the sword he was wielding, he must have been as fast as that. But despite the enormous size, the guy was quick to absurd levels based on how he got distance from him.
<He probably had a body-strengthening brain crystal power and then got one who increased his speed. That\'s another good combination, albeit a simple one.>
But he wasn\'t the only one there. With him, there were people with ranged brain crystal powers of all kinds. The nastiest powers of them all were ranged.
Erik didn\'t exactly land among them, and even if he did, the blackguards created enough distance between him and them, enough for the ranged fighters to launch an attack.
But Erik was faster than them, his physical strength at least partially offsetting their mana
and number advantages.
<They must not have a lot, though.>
In truth, compared to the average Joe, Erik now had much more mana than them. In truth, he could say to also being among the ones with the most mana at all.
<The problem is that I\'m just one guy...>
Even if individually everyone had less mana than him, their numbers made it possible for them to barrage Erik with attacks as if he were fighting against a guy with an insane amount of mana. Even more than that, to be honest.
He lashed out with a blast of force coming from his Force Bastion brain crystal power, making at least 20 of the enemy soldiers explode because of the shock, sending a dozen flying backwards, their bodies crashing into the rubble with sickening crunches, and stopping every
attack raining on him.
"Too easy..."
But the attacks kept coming. A huge fireball, hot enough to melt metal, flew at Erik very fast. He didn\'t seem worried at all, though.
With a punch coated in wind and ice, he knocked the fireball away. The fire disappeared when
it hit his armor. Without leaving a mark. But Erik didn\'t like that, not because he couldn\'t stop
the attack, but because he couldn\'t avoid it.
Then the ox guy arrived.