Volume 3—Chapter 66: Reckless
Outside a seemingly ordinary apartment building, a group of espers stood in formation, blending seamlessly with the bustling emergency response crews. Their uniforms bore the markings of the fire department, but none of them were here to put out fires.
“How’s it looking? Has the area been locked down yet?” asked a man in a dark suit.
“All clear,” replied a blonde woman beside him. “We’ve deployed as protocol. The current public report is a gas leak, nothing suspicious.”
The man, Takeru, pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is a worst-case scenario…”
“Or,” the woman said “, it might just be a blessing in disguise.”
Takeru’s brows furrowed. “A blessing? How?”
Elizabeth turned toward him, folding her arms. “Keeping Aria in the dark has only caused problem after problem. If she knew about her power, we could have taught her to control her power. We could’ve warned her about things like, say… I don’t know, dimensional cracks.”
“It’s not that simple.” Said Takeru
Elizabeth unimpressed “No, it never is with you, is it?”
He looked away, his gaze distant, haunted, even. “Just… stick to what you’re being told.”
She sighed. “Fine. But when she breaks the world in half with that power of hers, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“It was bound to happen, no matter what,” Takeru muttered under his breath.
“Hm? Did you say something?” Elizabeth glanced sideways at him.
“Nothing,” he replied quickly, brushing it off.
His eyes returned to the apartment building, its exterior deceptively calm. “Has anyone managed to make contact, or at least gotten inside?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No. We haven’t even identified a stable entry point yet. This kind of dimensional crack has no visible entrance, no active pull, and always gives us a headache. On the upside, they tend to be low-threat zones. Fewer monsters, less instability.”
“But unpredictable,” Takeru said grimly.
“Exactly.”
He paused, his expression hardening. “How long have Aria and Irana been inside?”
Elizabeth checked her watch. “Approximately one hour.”
Takeru closed his eyes for a brief moment, letting the weight of time sink in. One hour. That was already pushing it.
“Should I step in?” Takeru asked, his voice low but resolute.
Elizabeth immediately turned to him, frowning. “That’s a bad idea. Your identity as the Overseer is still classified. If you go in and someone sees you…”
“I’m aware of the risk,” Takeru cut her off, his gaze fixed on the apartment building.
“Don’t be reckless!” Elizabeth snapped.
Takeru let out a slow breath. “I’m not. But if we run out of options… I will step in.”
Before Elizabeth could respond, a flicker of light sparked just meters away from them. In a blink, a figure popped into existence.
“Wait… huh?! I’m… outside?” Viola blinked rapidly, spinning around in confusion. “How did I get here?”
Takeru and Elizabeth turned in unison, wide-eyed.
Meanwhile, deep inside the dimensional crack, a fierce battle raged within the warped corridors of the apartment building. The air pulsed with strange energy, and the walls flickered like unstable projections.
Irana gritted her teeth as she clashed with Ichiro. His strikes were relentless, clearly honed through years of combat experience. Despite the pressure, she didn’t retaliate with full force; she was still trying to talk sense into him.
“Hey! Snap out of it, will you?!” Irana shouted as she narrowly dodged a sweeping kick. “Can we at least talk before you try to murder someone?!”
But Ichiro wasn’t listening. His eyes were sharp with fury, focused entirely on Aneira. Every movement, every attack was aimed with lethal precision in her direction. The words "Spectre host" clearly echoed too deeply in his mind for him to question them.
Nearby, the clash between Aria and Shera was nothing short of intense. The room around them trembled as Aria hurled objects like chairs and shelves with her telekinetic might. Shera, laughing as if this were all a game, danced around the attacks with ghostlike grace.
But Shera didn’t just fight Aria; her attacks were deviously aimed. Aria noticed it right away.
“Tch… She’s aiming at the others,” Aria muttered, deflecting a burst of white flame away from Irana’s flank.
Shera grinned, her eyes gleaming with malice. “What’s wrong? Too distracted protecting your little sister? You’re such a big sister type, it’s adorable.”
Another skeleton burst from the floor behind Aria, lunging toward Irana.
Aria spun around and slammed her fist into it, reducing it to shards of bone and ash. Her breath was getting heavier. For all her strength, this was turning into a battle of attrition.
Shera was using the environment, her flame, and the summoned skeletons like a twisted conductor leading a deadly symphony. And her target wasn’t just Aria—it was everything Aria cared about.
Aria growled lowly. “You picked the wrong people to threaten.”
Irana quickly assessed the situation. Between dodging Ichiro’s strikes and glancing over at Aria fending off Shera’s relentless assault, it became obvious, Shera’s real strategy was to turn their fight into chaos. She was mixing the battlefield, forcing Aria to constantly defend the others while fighting her head-on.
“I’ve had enough of this crap,” Irana muttered.
With a sharp stomp and a swipe of her arm, a wall of ice erupted behind her. The icy barricade shot up in a jagged, crystalline pattern, sealing off Aria and Shera from the rest of the hallway. The temperature dropped instantly, frost creeping along the walls.
Now, at least, the fights were divided.
Irana turned back toward Ichiro, who didn’t even flinch at the sudden wall. His eyes were still locked on Aneira like a predator tracking prey.
“Hey! What are you doing just standing there?! Help me neutralise him!” Irana barked, blocking a kick with her forearm and countering with a sweep of ice across the floor.
Aneira flinched. “O-Okay!”
But hesitation slowed her steps.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help; it was that she couldn’t help the way Irana expected. Her only offensive power, the white flame, wasn’t really hers. It had been left behind by the spectre,
Worse, Ichiro seemed to sense it too. The moment she moved forward, his aggression spiked. He was no longer fighting to subdue; he was fighting to eliminate.
If I fight too hard… it’ll just prove his point, Aneira thought. The only thing I can do is avoid him… draw him away…
Instead of launching an attack, she focused on dodging, darting left and right, making Ichiro shift his attention constantly.
Irana gritted her teeth, throwing another wave of ice spikes toward him.
“Damn it, if you’re not going to fight, at least be useful!”
“I am being useful!” Aneira shouted back as she narrowly avoided a blow that cracked the floor tiles. “He’s more unstable when I move. Take advantage of that!”
Irana blinked. She hadn’t noticed it before, but Aneira was right. Ichiro’s attacks grew sloppier when he had to chase. His anger made him reckless.
“Fine,” Irana muttered. “Then keep him dancing.”
With that, she gathered more ice around her fists, preparing her next strike.
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