Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 488: Craziest fucking human I ever met

The rest of the dinner is uneventful, and even though they suspect me of killing the servant, no one seems to make any serious complaints, and it ends there.

As we return to the tower with Sophie, I think about how strange that is. How would my two-years-younger self react to such a situation? And with that, I can’t help but think about what we’re doing right now. Currently, we’re planning to take over a city of mind mages. There’s no hesitation in any of us, and we’re all ready to kill just for the sake of reaching our goal.

Part of me wonders if we’ve gotten so comfortable with the thought of killing natives because we know they’re fake, or if we’ll find ourselves dealing with real people the same way. Everyone in Hell difficulty is twisted in one way or another, and I can’t imagine people from lower difficulties acting like this. Everyone in Hell is wilder, more dangerous, and just… more adaptable to the world we’ve found ourselves in.

Are we just a bunch of sociopaths and psychopaths? Is our ability to adapt part of normal human nature, or are we just better at it? We don’t hesitate to go out, hunt, and kill monsters that only want to defend their territory. If someone did something like that on Earth—went and killed all the deer in a forest, for example—they’d just be considered crazy. Yet, we don’t even hesitate at the thought here. Yes, there’s a difference between monsters and animals, but it’s a fine line nonetheless.

For now, I think we’re just taking full advantage of the opportunities granted by the tutorial, given that we still don’t know what awaits us out there.

(I’ll return to the tower in a bit,) I tell Sophie as we come to a stop in front of the gate.

She seems to realize what I’m about to do. (Sure, later then.)

(Yup.)

With those last words, I make sure she makes it through the gate, and only then do I head back into the city. There’s still some dried blood on my hand and some on my neck, but I don’t bother washing it off.

Connecting to the mark I made, I head in its direction and ignore all the scans I pass through along the way.

It doesn’t take too long, and I reach a tower only slightly shorter than ours. I boost myself up onto the roof of a nearby house, tearing through its defenses. Before the alarms ring, I reconnect the array, stop the signal, and sit on the rooftop, with my back against the chimney.

Then I wait.

The mark moves to the top floor an hour later. The man I promised a visit after he used the most disgusting methods of manipulation. He didn’t only do it to me and Sophie but to others at the dinner, and most protected themselves from him with ease as if they were already used to it. But something about the way he targeted me and Sophie really irks me.

He made several attempts to mess with my connection to my crown and force it to release the within mana with enough force to kill me. And he tried to make a subtle change to Sophie’s mark that would cause her tower’s defenses to turn against her, and he did more besides…

I sigh. Yes, he was the worst of all, but at this point, it’s safe to say I’m just looking for a way to vent, using this man as a scapegoat. Ever since we came to this city, I’ve had that feeling of gradually building anger.

As the man ascends the higher floors of his tower, I sense his attempts to remove or block my [Ley Line]—he’s probably just noticed it. Every attempt fails, no matter what he tries over the next ten minutes. Meanwhile, the defenses around his tower steadily strengthen, and my trait activates as I observe the fluctuations in the defensive array.

Having had enough, I stand up, take a step off the roof, and teleport through the [Ley Line], making my appearance in front of the man and his two bodyguards.

An immediate sense of pressure surrounds me and the main defense—a powerful, disruptive targeting field—marks me as an intruder. A piercing noise fills my ears as wave after wave of attacks slam into me, each one with the intent to disrupt my mana.

Even so, my mana seeps out, spinning itself into threads that weave themselves into the shape of a javelin, and nothing can stop it. No amount of interference has any effect.

It’s one of the things I’ve been working on, a technique of my own that I named Mana Weaving—weaving mana into complex, resilient patterns that are extremely resistant to external manipulation and much harder to disrupt.

My javelin shoots forward, piercing through the bodyguard and the man he’s protecting, completely unhindered by the barriers they’ve set.

Wraith Dance brings me closer, and using the same method as before, a spear forms in my hand, as a shield takes shape on my back deflecting an incoming attack. Before the mind manipulator can react, I boost my movement further using kinetic energy and thrust the weapon into his chest, swiftly shrinking and weaving the spear into a sword to cut through the remaining bodyguard’s ax and send him careening into the wall with a burst of kinetic energy.

[You have defeated Psyche Bender - lvl 258]

[You have defeated Mana Nullifier - lvl 265]

[You have defeated Breaker Knight - lvl 261]

I absorb the kinetic energy from the door to keep anyone from opening it and locate what appears to be a safe with my eyes.

[Resonance] turns the stone around it to dust, and I tie a [Ley Line] to it and teleport it along with me back to the front of our tower despite every attempt to stop me.

Once I’ve removed all the marks, I turn to the guards stationed outside and gesture at the safe, commanding them to “Bring this inside.”

“As you command!” they quickly confirm, hauling the safe between them as I pass through the gate myself.

“Give it to Dennis and Aaron and tell them to open it without destroying it.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Without waiting for an answer, I cross the garden and follow the path to the door. After a few checks, the guards open it, and I step inside. A quick scan reveals the other’s locations, so I head up to the top floor to find most of our group in the living room we’ve come to frequent.

The laptop I bought for Izzy during the tournament is playing some quiet music—emitting the sounds of a soft guitar accompanied by a soothing female voice. Even though it’s late, no one seems to be sleeping; the only people not present are Maya and Sophie who’ve settled in a different room with the twins.

I don’t like the room’s lighting, so I turn it off and replace it with a few of my thermal cubes, which float into place without a sound.

“Do parties really suck that much?” Min-Jae asks, catching a glimpse of the bits of blood stuck to my skin.

“Could’ve been worse,” I say, sitting opposite Izzy, who I catch taking pictures of a sleeping Biscuit. She’s putting a series of cute hats on his head, and I’m once again surprised there’s still any space left on the smartphone.

Noodle, seemingly disappointed with his owner, slithers over to me and patiently waits for me to gesture my consent before he crawls his way up to my shoulders, his head settling next to mine and looking in the same direction, his mouth hanging open slightly as he feeds on my mana.

As he likes to do, his size is now different from the day before. It’s overall very inconsistent, and it makes me question just how big he can grow.

“Do you need healing?” Lily asks, before continuing on to quip; “Also, your passive sucks.”

“I think I have fewer shards than I should. Can you heal that, Lily?”

“That’s a problem that can best be solved by being born rich,” Tess answers before our healer can.

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“You’re welcome. Or, if you want, you could buy my guide to becoming as rich as me.”

“How much does it cost?”

“Enough to make me rich.”Nôv(el)B\\jnn

“Smart.”

I notice the looks Lily’s giving Tess, and I’m sure Tess is aware of them as well, that amused smile curling at the corner of her lips until she laughs and pulls Lily into a full on hug. “Damn, Lily, you can be so cute sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” she demurs, pretending to sulk.

“More often than not. Want to spar tomorrow? I want to see how much you’ve improved.”

“I might hurt you if you aren’t careful, Tess.”

“You’d have to catch me with that enormous ax of yours though. But how about you make a bone javelin for me? I want to test it out.”

“Another one for your collection?”

I allow myself to listen to their banter for a while, feeling my mind relax slightly as I do. I close my eyes and calm myself. There’s a part of me that wants to use [Focus] to filter out these emotions I’m feeling, but I don’t.

Gradually, a determination builds up in me. My mind clears, and my chest feels lighter. My fists clench and unclench multiple times, and my erratic heartbeat slows until it becomes calm again.

When I open my eyes, Izzy is standing in front of me, watching me up close.

“You are so pretty,” she smiles, and I know she’s not talking about my looks.

Her small hand touches the side of my head and then moves to caress the top of it.

“There, there,” she says, still smiling. “You know you can ask for help if you feel like everything’s getting to be too much.”

These words hit harder knowing the situation she is currently in.

“It’s fine,” I say, standing up and carefully holding on to Noodle as he shrinks down to half his previous size and slithers onto Izzy’s arm.

“Good night,” I say to the room, and listen while everyone returns the sentiment behind me as I turn to leave the room, choosing to walk rather than teleport.

After entering my room, I close the door behind me, take a warm shower, put on clean clothes, and sit in the armchair I’ve set next to the large window. Surrounded by all the materials, golden chains, and items littering the room, I look out at the city before closing my eyes and retreating within my mind.

This time, it’s not a place taken from Whitey’s memories. I’m in an area that’s very familiar—a city on Earth, surrounded by a number of small apartment buildings. There are no cars, no people, and even the trees are still in the stagnant air.

I still stop before crossing the road as I have so often and look both ways before crossing. Walking between the two apartment buildings, I take a quick step to the left to avoid the pothole that I know is there.

As I reach the entrance to the building, I pull hard on the doors, remembering the way they tend to stick.

The stairway is just as dark as I remember it, and as I enter the second floor, I find the door to our apartment open and go inside.

Crossing the threshold, there’s one more door to pass—the one that leads into the room where Victoria and I grew up. And without hesitation, I open it.

Whitey sits there on my old bed.

“Yoo…,” he says with a big smile.

“Yo.” I nod and sit on Victoria’s bed, just opposite him.

“This is a really shitty room.” He gestures, “But it’s not like I can bash it too much. After all, I grew up in worse.”

Whitey takes a notepad from the table beside my bed and flips through it, looking at the silly drawings I used to make, mostly just scribbles.

He chuckles for a moment and holds it out in front of me, showing a drawing of some weird animal, most closely resembling a dog.

“Cute.” He smirks.

“I did my best. If you go to page thirty, you’ll find a much better drawing,” I say, defending myself and taking the opportunity to look around. Even though I have a lot of bad memories of this place, there were definitely some good ones too.

As tends to be the case with such things, some memories are blurrier than others, but the strong feelings will always remain.

Whitey lifts the notepad again, now open to page thirty, revealing a huge middle finger drawn on it. Even though it’s not the same gesture he’s accustomed to, he recognizes it from my frequent use over the last six months.

“Very nice,” he confirms and finally puts the notepad away. “You’re not going to ask?” he finally inquires, putting the notepad away and looking at me.

“I thought about it and there’s no need,” I respond.

His eyes haze and waver for a moment, and he observes me in that way only he can. Sensing the vibrations of movement, he watches for the slightest change in my blood flow, the most minute twitch of my muscles, the beating of my heart, and the flickering of my eyes.

I don’t do anything to stop him, nor do I try to hide the signs as he works to confirm my words.

"Crazy fucker. You’re the goddamn craziest and dumbest fucking human I’ve ever met,” he growls, irritation clear in his tone.

Looking at me for just a bit longer he stands in one smooth motion and takes Victoria’s old, barely-working laptop from the table. On the screen, is a scene of me using kinetic energy, as always from my POV.

“Now, let me explain what you did wrong here,” he says, sitting beside me and pointing out all my mistakes directing my kinetic energy during that brief clash in the tower.