Chapter 139
The weapon warehouse erupted behind them.
Lucas triggered the bombs with a pulse of mana that traveled through the connection he had established when he placed each charge, and the night sky turned orange as the building came apart.
Steel beams groaned and twisted. Concrete shattered into clouds of dust.
The shockwave rolled across the depot with a sound like thunder, and the flames that rose from the wreckage painted long shadows across the ground.
Ethan did not look back. "Move."
They ran.
The illusion spells that had disguised their features flickered and died as they crossed the open ground between the two warehouses, their mana signatures no longer suppressed, their true appearances emerging from beneath the borrowed faces like stones rising from receding water.
There was no point in hiding anymore. The mission had failed, and the only thing left was survival.
They reached the pathway that connected the weapon warehouse to the food warehouse just as the first auras flared behind them.
Lucas counted them without turning—ten signatures, then twenty, then more, all of them emerging from the wreckage of the building they had just destroyed.
Some were weak, flickering with the unsteady pulse of the injured. Others burned bright and hot with the fury of warriors who had just watched their comrades die.
Ethan stopped. Lucas stopped beside him.
They turned together, their weapons already drawn, and faced what was coming.
Sixty elites remained. The warehouse explosion had killed forty of them—those who had been closest to the blast, those who had been caught beneath falling debris, those whose bodies had been too slow or too weak to withstand the destruction.
The survivors were the stronger ones, the Five Stars and Six Stars and Seven Stars who had been far enough from the charges or tough enough to endure the shockwave.
But every Five Star was injured or heavily injured, their movements slower than they should have been, their mana signatures flickering with the unsteady pulse of those who had taken damage they could not ignore.
Tisha was among them. She had survived the explosion.
Thirty elites broke toward Ethan.
Thirty elites broke toward Lucas.
They had sensed the mana signatures of the two Black Ops agents and knew exactly who had destroyed their warehouse. Weapons rose.
Spells began to form. Killing intent flooded the pathway like a tide.
Lucas watched the thirty elites coming toward him, and his eyes became focused. He cast his enhancement spells in rapid sequence.
[Mana Spell: Body Enhancement]
[Mana Spell: Body Reinforcement]
[Mana Spell: Musculature Weave]
His speed climbed. His strength surged. He rushed forward to meet them.
The first clash was a Seven Star with a great sword who swung at Lucas's head with enough force to split stone. Lucas ducked under the blade and drove his katana into the man's side.
The Seven Star grunted and stumbled, but another elite was already there a Six Star with twin daggers who attacked from Lucas's blind spot.
Lucas spun and parried both strikes, his blade moving faster than the eye could follow, and then a Five Star with a spear thrust toward his chest.
Lucas sidestepped, caught the spear shaft with his free hand, and pulled the man forward into a knee that folded him in half.
Spells flew at him from all directions. A fireball that he cut apart with a Slasher. A wave of water that he parted with Arc Cleave.
A volley of stone shards that he dodged by using Flash Step to appear behind the caster, his katana already descending.
The Seven Stars were the only ones who could match his physical strength, but none of them could match his skill, and none of them could match his combat instincts.
His Mana Eyes, hidden behind his goggles, tracked every movement before it happened, every spell before it was fully formed, every opening before the enemy knew they had left one.
He killed a Six Star with a thrust through the throat and took a cut across his shoulder from a Seven Star who had been waiting for the opening.
He broke the Seven Star's guard with three rapid strikes and drove him back, but another elite was already swinging, and Lucas had to twist to avoid the blow.
The mace caught his ribs instead of his spine, and the impact sent a shock of pain through his side. He answered with a Searing Lance that punched through the attacker's chest.
Blood ran down his arm. His breathing was growing heavier. Explosions rippled across the battlefield as his spells met theirs, shockwaves tearing through the ground and sending debris flying in all directions.
Ethan was somewhere to his left, a storm of wind and steel, but Lucas could not see him and could not help him because there were always more elites, always another attack, always another spell.
They were pushing him to his limits. He was beating them, killing them—but they were injuring him in return, and the injuries were adding up. A wind blade cut across his back. A water lance grazed his leg. A stone spike caught his shoulder. His reinforcement spells held, but they could not stop everything, and his mana was draining faster than he wanted.
He needed to end this.
[Mana Spell: Mana Explosion]