Chapter 129
Arya froze, his eyes locked onto that multicolored flash—the exact same glow once emitted by the Abnormal from Leontios's body three months ago in Thrace.
He turned quickly toward Nirma, and within a fraction of a second, Nirma's left eye had already caught the unease on Arya's face.
They exchanged glances—a silent communication only possible between partners who had endured far too many battles together.
Arya gave a barely noticeable nod, then his hand moved swiftly to his waist pouch, pulling out a coin-sized circular device—an illusion tool he had long kept for emergencies.
He pressed several small buttons on its surface in a specific sequence, and a thin burst of smoke exploded around him, spreading at extraordinary speed, expanding, growing, until within seconds the entire region of Heraclea Cybistra was covered by an invisible layer detectable only by similar devices.
The Seljuk Dynasty soldiers who had been celebrating their victory suddenly stopped—their eyes blank for a moment—before continuing their movements with altered perception.
The Crusader forces fleeing in chaos experienced the same effect—they saw things that did not truly exist, heard sounds that had never been made.
Arya let out a relieved breath—his first task was complete—while Nirma shot him a sharp glance, the kind she always gave in critical situations, a signal that this was only the beginning.
But before Arya could savor that relief, Tegar moved.
With surprising speed for a man dressed in a jarik and wooden sandals, he snatched a 4444 AD bazooka from Ashita's hands, spun his body one hundred and eighty degrees, and fired it straight into the sky above the Mudlands.
There was no explosion, no thunderous sound—only an invisible projectile streaking forward, leaving ripples in the air.
From the glasses at his temple emerged a massive hologram that accompanied the missile, projecting dozens of phantom warheads with adjustable explosive power and controlled detonation range—a military pyrotechnic display only achievable with 42nd-century technology.
The holographic missiles spread in all directions, creating the illusion of a counterattack so convincing, so perfect, that the soldiers below—whose perceptions had just been altered by Arya's device—were now forced to confront another layer of deception no less complex.
Amid all this chaos, Ashita moved.
Without farewell, without warning, the woman in batik attire and a brick-red kemben suddenly ran.
Not an ordinary run, but one propelled by the speed only achievable by a trained agent enhanced with performance-modifying technology.
Her footsteps left traces on the dusty ground, her wooden sandals seemingly no hindrance at all.
She ran toward the edge of the hill—a steep drop plunging dozens of meters down into the chaos of battle below.
Nirma and Arya could only stand frozen as Ashita, without hesitation or fear, leapt.
Her body floated for a moment in the air, her batik cloth fluttering like the wings of a giant butterfly, her orange hair unraveling in the wind—then she fell.
Falling is surrendering to gravity—to the certainty that within seconds, the body will collide with the ground with a sound that will never be remembered, because the one who hears it will no longer be alive.
Ashita felt it—the rushing wind slicing across her face like thousands of paper cuts, tearing her hair loose into wild strands, her batik cloth flapping as if trying to escape its owner.
The world spun into a rapid vortex, the battlefield below dissolving into chaotic streaks of color, and for a fleeting moment that felt eternal, Ashita allowed herself to drift within that strange sensation between life and death, between control and surrender.
But between the frantic beats of her racing heart, her left hand moved—reaching beneath the folds of her kemben, retrieving a flat object hidden there, waiting for the right moment to be brought into the world.
Her trained fingers danced across its surface, pressing three combinations in a memorized sequence, and just as gravity drew dangerously close to its fatal promise, something bloomed from her grasp.
Wings.
Not heavy metal wings like a fighter jet, nor flexible ones like a modern parachute, but a pair of gliders with an ultralight frame and elastic membrane, resembling the paragliders popular in 2025—only made of carbon fiber woven with intelligent molecules capable of adapting to wind pressure and temperature within milliseconds.
In an instant, her body—once falling like a stone thrown from a tower—halted, slowed, then glided smoothly through the air with elegant and deadly precision.
"Huuuuuh…!" she exclaimed spontaneously—not a scream of fear, but a burst of exhilaration, a sound that felt strangely human amidst all the advanced technology enveloping her.
She now soared above the Mudlands at a controlled yet swift speed, her sharp eyes scanning below, searching, observing, waiting for the perfect moment to release the glider and land exactly where she intended.
Nirma had never been the type to stand still and watch.
As the orange figure of Ashita began gliding smoothly above the battlefield—her joyful cry still lingering faintly in the air—Nirma had already moved.
Without signal, without command, she stepped toward the same cliff edge—the very drop Ashita had conquered moments ago with her futuristic glider.
Arya opened his mouth—perhaps to ask, perhaps to warn—but Nirma gave him no time.
She jumped.
Her body split through the air under the same merciless gravity, at the same lethal speed—yet in her eyes there was no fear, no hesitation, only steel determination forged through years as a fugitive, an executioner, a woman who had never known retreat.
The air slammed against her face with such force it felt as though her skin would peel away, yet she merely narrowed her sharp left eye, letting the wind roar in her ears while her mind counted down in silence.
Three seconds before reaching the critical point—before the speed of her fall would render her bones vulnerable even with technological enhancements.
Two seconds.
Her right hand reached for a small lever at her waist—a mechanism she fully understood but rarely used, preferring combat on land.
One second.
She turned the lever four times in a precise rhythm, and at that exact moment—when gravity whispered of destruction—her shoes transformed.
Not an ordinary change.
The soles split open, releasing bursts of dark blue flames that instantly altered her trajectory.
In an instant, Nirma ceased to be a falling object, ceased to be prey to gravity, and shot upward into the sky at a speed that pressed heavily against her back with overwhelming force.
To be continued…