AKAME ASSASINATION (37)
Angel's healing ability stems from advanced enhancement, Gil had noticed that her healing palm did something to his tissues and inner cells which forced them to multiply and heal his body. Who knew that such techniques could exist out here? He certainly didn't.
As of right now, her basic understanding of enhancement as a sub-category is unmatched.
"I hate to admit it, but her healing factor is second only to mine." Jericho once said in an interview for a local magazine back at the academy. Due to enhancement's nature to speed up internal body processes (Or slow them down), she can automatically heal herself and others.
Not only that, when she enhances her base strength he punched become more and more…
BOOM!
Explosive.
Teddy tried stabilizing the rock pillars he had raised off the ground, this was a measure he had taken to ensure that the enemy was at a disadvantage. But at the rate this was going, it would appear as though they were the ones at a disadvantage simply because the creatures kept destroying the pillars.
Jericho moved with the precision of a razor, giving the edge of her rod a sharp axe like appearance. This was for the simple beheading of the creatures which in it of itself was not as simple.
The creature with the horns pointed it, there was no charge of energy, there was no warning and a giant depression appeared where the two girls were standing.
On top of having to fight to of the creatures already. The void with the body builder form came at Angel who welcomed it with power stance separating her legs by a large margin, then followed by her coiling her fists and adding excessive amounts of fragment energy.
The void threw a punch, she dodged and caught its arms attempting to use that momentum into a pivot then a throw, but ended up failing as the creature saw through this move and used its elbow to hit her in the nose. But Angel quickly healed from the excessive damage and backed up.
Only to come again with a punch of her own right in the creatures chest.
CLANK!
Its sounded as though she was hitting straight iron.
"What the hell are you even made of?"
The creature stood there for a moment as it bathed in its immense glory, boasting at its physicality. A very human behaviour. A very prideful behaviour that came before its literal fall as the pillar it stood on readjusted throwing it off balance by no one other than Teddy who stood with an observant eye watching the two girls with his palms still on the ground. The thing about being part of a team is that one screw up could lead to the inevitable fall of the entire team. As one might imagine, Teddy's job, might just be the most important job.
The readjustment might have just confused the void for a second or two.
"More than enough time." Angel thought as she rushed to hit its skull head and was meat with only partial resistance.
"Aim for the head." Angel shouted to Jericho who seemed to be managing just fine on her own.
Her mind preoccupied she couldn't hear what Angel was saying. She was too locked in on the target or I suppose targets as two similar looking voids came scratching at her only to miss multiple times. Their skin was much softer and easier to penetrate, but what they lacked in toughness they made up for in agility. Being able to easily evade Jericho's attacks.
But Jericho could easily make up for that by producing smaller rods from her palm. But then again she couldn't do to the simple fact her supply of internal carbon was low. She'd engaged in too many back to back fights without refilling her tank, especially the fight with Nina, that really screwed her over.
Now she could only rely on Teddy's vigilant eye and her reflexive timing to even think of winning this fight. She gritted her teeth.
'That fucking bastard Akame!' Jericho almost chocked at the thought, 'If only I had managed to kill him there and then or at least incapacitated him for questioning.'
"Iman watch out!" Teddy's voice called her from her trance like state, the void with the horns was aiming it at her. Teddy readjusted the pillar pulling it back down and narrowly avoiding the shock wave which hit just a few meters away.
"Can your ass focus on one thing goddamn it!" Angel shouted, despite engaging in a tango with the literal devil.
THOOM-CRACK!
Angel's knuckles met the iron-hard abs of the hulking void for what felt like the hundredth time. A shockwave of pain lanced up her arm, but she gritted her teeth, the Fragment Energy in her cells screaming to adapt. "Fine. You want a slugging match?" She stopped dodging. The next piston-like punch from the creature landed squarely in her gut, folding her over with a sickening crunch of ribs.
Spit blood. Enhance.
Her internal systems, supercharged by her own will, flared. Bone fragments knitted, torn muscle fibers wove back together stronger, denser. The void reared back for another blow, but Angel was already inside its guard, her movements now a fraction faster, her body hardened from the last impact.
BOOM!
Her counter-punch, a condensed detonation of enhanced kinetic force, didn't just hit the creature's skull—it snapped its head back with a sound like a gong. The skull didn't crack, but the void staggered, its balance finally broken. "You hit hard," Angel spat, wiping blood from her lip with a grin that was all teeth. "I hit harder. Every. Single. Time." She was learning its rhythm, trading damage for data, her enhancement specialization turning each blow she took into a blueprint for her next, more powerful strike.
Twenty yards away, on a shuddering platform, Jericho was a storm of black carbon and fraying patience. "Teddy, a little stability would be nice!" she barked, her breath coming in sharp gasps. Two lean, fast voids harried her, their claws whistling past her neck and ribs. Pre-Nina, she'd have laced the air with razor-rods and pinned them like insects. Now, her internal carbon reserves were running on fumes. She could still form her primary rod and the protective coating on her skin, but the speed, the endless conjuration—it was gone.
She was forced to pure, exhausting melee. She parried a claw swipe with her rod, the impact vibrating up her arms, and instantly had to drop into a low sweep to avoid the second void leaping at her back. "I'm playing defense with goddamn animals!"
"Trying, Iman!" Teddy's voice was strained from below. His palms were flat on the ground, his brow furrowed in concentration.
EARTH ALCHEMY: TERRAFORM SHIFT!
The platform under Jericho's feet suddenly lurched, a section thrusting upward like a bucking wave. One void stumbled, its pounce becoming an ungainly sprawl. Jericho seized the micro-opening, driving her rod like a spear into its shoulder. It shrieked, a hollow, grating sound.
But the readjustment made her own platform tilt. The second void capitalized, its claws raking across her carbon-coated back. The coating held, but the sheer force knocked the wind from her and sent her skidding to the platform's new, precarious edge. She was slower. She was running out of steam. And the horned void in the distance was reorienting, its bladed head aiming for her pillar again. A cold drip of genuine tactical fear cut through her anger.
Below, Teddy's world was a symphony of tremors and impending collapse. He wasn't just making pillars; he was conducting a crumbling orchestra. He'd stabilize Jericho's footing, then instantly wrench another column sideways to intercept a lunge aimed at Angel, then reinforce the base of a third as the spider-legged void scuttled around, trying to find a weak point to get to him.
His role was absolute: control the battlefield. But controlling a crumbling, dynamic mess while five super-strong monsters tried to break it was like trying to rebuild a sandcastle as the tide rushed in. He saw Jericho's sluggish block, Angel's calculated trade of blows, the horned void charging its spatial-puncture attack. He took a deep breath, grounding himself. He had to change the score. Not just react—act.
"Aren't you going to help them?" Gil asked, frustration sharp in his voice as he watched Angel trade earth-shaking blows and Jericho barely hold her ground. Nala's hand was a persistent, urgent weight on his wrist, pulling him away.
Justine leaned against the dented hood of the ruined Hammer, picking at his nails with an air of profound boredom. "Nah, I'm not into strong folk."
"What?"
"You heard me. Fight strong people, get killed. Simple math. Personally, I'm not into that." Justine shrugged, his gaze sliding past the life-or-death struggle to the horizon, as if searching for something more interesting. A profound contradiction settled around him—a man with power who defined strength not as something to test, but as a hazard to avoid. To Gil, strength was a summit to climb, even if it killed him. To Justine, it was a cliff to step back from.
Gil's mouth opened, a hot retort about cowardice and purpose on his tongue, but it died before it was born.
THWACK!
A blunt, precise impact exploded at the base of his skull. His vision swam with white stars, then tunneled into darkness. The last thing he felt was his body going limp, and the sturdy, determined grip of Nala catching him.
She didn't hesitate. With a grunt of effort, she maneuvered his unconscious form onto her back, adjusting his weight with a practiced ease that spoke of a life hauling water or wounded kin. She spared one last, unreadable glance at the battle—not at the voids, but at the struggling Jericho and Angel—then turned and began to move. Not a panicked sprint, but a swift, ground-eating jog away from the chaos, heading deeper into the sea of tall grass.
Justine watched her go, his eyebrow slightly raised. "Huh. I'm wondering whether I should be concerned," he mused to the empty air, his tone flat. The girl had just cold-cocked her apparent protector and was now carting him off into the wilderness. It was either the stupidest or the smartest move he'd seen all day.
"If you don't get your ass up here I'll kill you myself!" Angel's roar sliced through his contemplation. She was being driven back, her enhanced fists meeting a new, unsettling intelligence. She aimed a crushing blow for the voids skull, its known weak point, but the creature weaved—a clean, practiced dodge it hadn't possessed moments before.
'No way,' Angel thought, a chill cutting through her battle fever. 'It's actually evolving.'
The void settled into a stance, its feet positioning, its weight distribution mirroring her own combat posture. It wasn't just getting tougher; it was learning. Now it was a brutal race: would her enhancement and healing outlast its adaptive evolution? The calculus, for the first time, felt uncertain.
Below, Teddy's mind was a map of stress points and trajectories. He saw Angel's precarious shift, Jericho's slowing parries, the horned void charging its silent, deadly beam. He needed to act, to reshape the board entirely. As he calculated the immense F.E. cost of a major terrain shift, something whizzed past his face.
A gleam of gold, so close it stirred the air by his nose.
He flinched, turning just in time to see Nala's summoned spear, now a streak of light, slam into the side of the spider-void's skull as it poised to pounce on him. The creature screeched, thrown sideways, its many legs scrabbling.
Teddy's gaze shot to the source. There was Nala, a hundred yards away now, Gil a dead weight on her back. She didn't look back for confirmation or praise. Her eyes were fixed on a point in the distance, fierce and urgent. She kept running.
"Thank you!" Teddy called out, an awkward but genuine gratitude in his voice. She didn't respond. Whatever she had seen, whatever she was trying to show Gil—or save him from—it was big. And it was happening now.
Beyond the grassy plains, where the land of the Massai met that of the Pokot, a different kind of storm was gathering.
The Pokot warriors had assembled in a bristling line of ochre and spears, their faces painted for conflict, not ceremony. The air vibrated with a low, tense hum of distrust and ready violence. Opposite them, the Massai elders and warriors stood with the Chief at their front. The air was thick with unsaid accusations—of stolen kin, of poisoned land, of broken trust.
The Chief sought peace, his eyes scanning the Pokot ranks for a familiar, reasonable face. But Zena and Orinx lingered at the Massai flank, their expressions carefully neutral, yet their presence like a spark next to tinder. The planned meeting had been forced early. The script was fraying.
In the tall grass, Nala ran towards this gathering storm, carrying an unconscious boy with lightning in his veins. In the sky above the battling sorcerers, the fragment-charged clouds continued to churn.
The two fronts—the supernatural and the tribal—were on a collision course.
TO BE CONTINUED!