Chương 68: Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Chapter Where I Kill a Character for the Sake of the 67 Meme

No. There is no way. My vision shifts to the platform's edge where Vince now stands in front of Angus's bloody figure holding the buckler I gave him. A light blue barrier surrounds the two from the item's built-in array, and Vince's entire body is covered in thick armor from his <Harden> skill used in tandem with <Empower>. His defense amounts to nothing though, and before I can process what is happening, I see both their bodies get blown off the side of the wall as if struck by an invisible wrecking ball.

Not believing my own eyes, I take a step toward where they disappeared, only to here another scream off to my left. My attention whips toward the source of the screams, and I strain my mental skill as hard as possible, yet I only barely catch a glimpse of Sara's lifeless body hanging in midair with a gaping hole in her throat before she is also flung over the wall and into the horde of bugs. What. The. Fuck. No matter how far I push <Fixation>, I can't see a single thing in the spot where Sara was attacked.

Only eight of us remain, and the surviving group members completely blanch at the sight of their friends being taken out in a blink. Mana rages through my entire figure and I use <Infuse> to strengthen every muscle fiber and bone in my body. I don't know who or what is attacking us, but the logical part of my brain screams it has something to do with the notification I received. The bugs. It has to be the bugs. I force my mind to hone itself to a razor's edge. There is no room to panic right now.

To panic and act on my fears is a death wish. I need to move. I NEED TO ACT. Almost all of my skills are activated and pushed to their current limits as I quickly take manual operation over my Flare Loop for a moment and cut off any tubes still connecting me to the construct while fixing its stability to hold for a few minutes on its own without any support from me. <Polarize> fires up and I use the neglected skill to string together multiple layers of filters that I had only ever experimented with in my mind.

My right eye's surface is encompassed in all sorts of sensory complexities as I search the area around us for any trace of hidden enemies that somehow were able to infiltrate the Veil without us noticing. < Polarize Lvl. 9 -> Polarize Lvl. 10 > I cycle through thermal, kinetic, vibration, sonar, and a handful of other filters I had strung together in my mind ever since I reached level 2 with my starter skill.

Paired with <Emit>, I release waves of my own radiation that I pour my focus into managing while I lower their frequencies. I do this in order to sense when they brush along any sort of life in spots that my naked eye cannot perceive. I make sure not stay in one place, and my body moves on autopilot as I dash around the vicinity of my Flare Loop in efforts to not be a standing target for the invisible enemy among us.

Cries of pain, anguish, and fear begin to fill the walls while the imperceptible assassin moves at speeds impossible to track throughout the entire station. My eyes can barely keep up with the screams while I attempt to focus my search on the trail of bodies left behind. With a thought, I command 10 more points into MND, and my brain trembles under the influx of new stats while I use the boost to refine my new technique as fast as possible in order to find something, anything, amidst the camp in chaos.

Shouts ring out through the station as Brian finally emerges from the command tent, only to find his co-commander: Tobias, nursing a deep wound in his neck that I didn't even catch happening even while actively trying to track the attacks. Wait. Is there more than one assailant here? Shit. I stop moving altogether and use my control skills to bind the Flare Loop around my throat.

Shrinking such a huge amount of energy into a glorified necklace is much more difficulty than managing my mini-gun construct ever was, yet with my new levels and recent mental boost, I can manage the transition well enough to lock the loop into place once again; binding its life to my own. The throat seems to be the most common target of attack, and I think the only reason I haven't been killed yet is due to the storage unit I have been toting around since before the war ever began.

I imagine that even the seemingly mindless bugs still have primal fears of any animal, and they can probably sense the sheer destructive energies within. The Freylith might throw themselves into death's embrace without a thought, but one thing remains constant: They attack the weakest points at all times. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Now unmoving, I stand with a bomb strapped to my neck and pour every ounce of my concentration into finding the beasts.

My teammates continue to scramble and stand as ready as possible for any surprise assaults, but I am only interested in one of them. Nikki might be as scared as everyone else, yet I know that her skill: <Process> could be the key to tracking down the assailants. I continue to send out waves and read the EM frequencies with my right eye, but my naked vision is fixed on the girl. Observing her beyond all else, I believe in the logic underneath the bugs' tendencies and sit completely still as I wait.

The young woman's eyes twitch in a blur, so much so that I cannot even track the speed at which they move while her skill finally shows its true might. This entire wave, Nikki's mental skill has been creatively utilized and now its level should surely be well within the double digits. I just need her to see it. For one second, I need her to see something in the crossfire of my own field of vision. And she does.

The second I catch her gaze fix on a spot in which my zone senses nothing, I drain all of my remaining free attribute points and put 10 in BDY, 20 in MND, and any leftover points into PWR. Every scrap of my attention focuses on the intersection point of our vision, and just for the briefest moment, I feel a trace of friction left over on the air surrounding the spot. < Polarize Lvl. 10 -> Polarize Lvl. 11 > < Polarize Lvl. 11 -> Polarize Lvl. 12 > < Emit Lvl. 17 -> Emit Lvl. 18 > I've got it.

Any excess filters are completely thrown away, leaving the singular sensory field that tracks the slightest temperature changes and light reflections around me. These hyper-specific inputs are only found from the movement of air resistance against an object traveling through the space the air is currently occupying.

It's difficult, and my sensory field can't catch them every time, but after I've found their trace thanks to Nikki's assistance, paired with the knowledge I have accrued over the course of the wave; the monsters' movements are easy to predict. The entire platform shakes and part of the structure shatters underneath my feet as I release the biggest shockwave of kinetic buildup I've ever managed directly from the center of my back.

The sheer force behind my movements is enough to pop one of my shoulders out of its socket due to the abrupt G-force, yet it immediately pops right back into place as the rest of my body stays rigid and ready for the blast due to ridiculous amount of mana I used to reinforce my lacking constitution.

Without any real way to track my own movements in the blur of force moving my body through space, I simply prepare my next move as my hands blaze with flames that lick my skin with enough power to leave behind an itchy sensation even through my Thermal Resistance trait. I only have to wait a split second before my figure crashes into a hard and squirmy surface, and my body along with the invisible bug I had tracked down go crashing to the ground in a tangled heap.

Even with my surprise attack, the Freylith in my fiery grip reacts faster than I can track, and I feel steel-like mandibles crunch down hard on my wrist as the beast attempts to free itself. < Freylith Infiltrator – Lvl.??? > Finally, I identify the beast with my own two eyes since its stealth skill falls away, cementing the fact that the creatures we saw at the beginning of the fight were real after all. The stalker's husk is hard to get any traction on due to the slick blood of its victims covering its dark form.

Prying at the mandibles still trying to bite through my heavily mana-infused wrist, I gaze into the beady eyes hidden deep within the chitinous husk covering most of its body like armor. Sharp claws swing wildly at my form, cutting deep furrows into my exposed ribs, yet I ignore the onslaught of its multi-appendaged mutilation before shoving my fingers toward the only unarmored spot on the bug's form: its eyes.

Not caring about my wrist still in its vice grip, I twist my arm around to gain better visibility of my target. A hiss sounds out from the creature, and I can feel the entire figure underneath me squirm like a roach through a tiny crack in the wall as it fights to free itself from the tangle of legs and chitin. I won't allow the bug to escape, and using the only opening found on the bug, my fingers finally invade the beady eyes of the roach.

Despite its seemingly impervious husk, I learned hours ago from Kathryn that the Freylith's eyes are their weakest point. Pushing forward, I note that the eyes are soft and kind of scaly underneath my fingertips. Just like on the Honlir, I can feel an invisible barrier surrounding the Freylith's body as if its form somehow naturally rejects the presence of foreign mana.

I don't care though and quickly infiltrate the membrane with the sickly and volatile nature of my mana before using <Infuse> to fill the creature's tiny brain with enough thermal energy to make the bug's entire head smoke and sizzle. A horrible screech erupts from the infiltrator, and my nose is filled with the sweet scent of boiling oil and offal.

The last death throws of the bug ravage against my chest and ribs, but with the staggering amount of mana I use to reinforce my body along with the barrier I created to protect my skin with <Mana Construct>, the beast only causes superficial damage. Huge amounts of energy are funneled straight through my outstretched fingers while one of my hands continues to cook the assassin.

When the movements of the bug finally die down, I brace my legs against the mandibles holding me and slowly pull apart the bug's vice grip on my other hand. Even on death's door, the Freylith's body refuses to set me free. This doesn't matter in the end though, since I finally feel the creature's head give underneath the raging heat inside and blast apart in a fiery wave of gore and flames. < You have defeated: Freylith Infiltrator - Lvl. 98 > < Congratulations! You have reached: Level 53 > < Congratulations!

You have reached: Level 54 > < Congratulations! You have reached: Level 55 >