Chapter 114: Road to Power Part 4
"So they’re finally putting more resources into getting rid of me."
Francis did not slow his pace.
The air in front of him tightened again as he let out another roar. This time, the force did not spread in a wide wave. Instead, it stayed close and stacked on itself, compressing the space ahead.
Missiles that were flying toward him stopped moving in straight lines. Some bent off course. Others broke apart in the air before reaching him.
Detonations bloomed too early and too far away, leaving fragments to fall harmlessly around him. He kept moving through the smoke.
The enemy forces tried to respond right away.
Tanks moved to new positions. Turrets turned to aim at him again. Soldiers shouted into radios, but the signals were already breaking and becoming unstable.
He moved forward quickly. His body appeared like a sudden flash in the middle of them.
The first armored vehicle collapsed the moment he touched it. The metal folded inward like it had lost all strength.
Second vehicle tried to turn its weapon toward him, but it froze halfway through the movement.
Gunfire started almost at the same time. Bullets were fired in his direction, but they did not reach him properly. They lost direction in mid-air and dropped before hitting him.
His body carried forward without pause, more mouths forming along his shoulders and torso as if his shape could no longer be contained by a single point of expression.
Each one released short bursts of force. These bursts pushed against everything around him, bending the battlefield.
The entire front line started to break apart.
The soldiers who remained intact began to retreat, some still trying to maintain discipline while others simply turned and ran, their radios filling with overlapping reports.
Francis did not chase them.
He stopped for a moment and hit the ground with his fist.
The impact ran through the road like a shockwave. Cracks spread in every direction.
From those cracks, dark tendrils pushed upward. Each one was sharp at the end, like a blade.
They spread across the battlefield quickly. They moved over broken roads and between vehicles. Then they rose and struck.
Tanks were lifted or pushed off balance as the tendrils hit their weak points. Armor joints were pierced.
Vehicles stopped moving as metal was forced inward from below. Soldiers trying to escape were caught while still running. The ground itself stopped their movement and pulled them down.
Then, as though things could not get any worse, each tendril began emitting a low, pulsing frequency.
That sound spread through the air and ground at the same time. When the waves met each other, they created interference. This interference spread through anything caught between them.
Machines and bodies that were inside the area of effect started to break from the inside. Pressure built up too fast for anything to handle.
Some exploded suddenly across the field. Others shook before breaking apart.
The sound kept repeating, bouncing between the tendrils like it had no end point.
SQUEELCH!
SQUEELCH!
SQUEELCH!
More bodies burst into pieces.
The tendrils changed shape as they moved. Parts of them split open into hollow sections, like mouths forming along their length.
They dragged the broken remains inward without pause, consuming organs.
In no time, the entire ground unit had been wiped out, and the personnel aboard the airship were too afraid to even attempt a landing.
The airship continued firing missiles one after another, hoping to overwhelm him through sheer volume of fire.
But the tendrils had already begun to hum again. The sound built into an unseen field that formed an invisible dome.
Every missile that came close exploded too early, about three hundred meters away. None of them reached their target.
The Covenant members, who had already stopped advancing, were at a loss for words at what they were seeing.
Francis’s abilities continued to surprise them one after another. His destructive power had not yet reached the level of the Kings, but the flexibility and efficiency in how he used his abilities was far more terrifying.
He practically had an answer to everything.
Not just that—because his size was relatively small, he was harder to hit.
"If you are not coming down, then I will go up."
He bent his legs slightly, and when he pushed off the ground, the asphalt beneath him cracked outward.
SWOOOSH!
Defense systems activated late. Automated turrets rotated downward, scanning for trajectory, but he reached the hull before their targeting could stabilize.
His hand changed as he approached—fingers elongating, joints multiplying in reverse angles, skin layering, he was adjusting to the resistance he was about to meet.
BOOOOM!
Inside the ship, alarms went off everywhere.
Warnings about damage and structural stress appeared across many systems at the same time.
That order didn’t hold for long. The corridor he landed in was wide enough for armored squads, and three Special Category units were already there.
The first brought a blade that distorted light along its edge, the swing coming in clean and horizontal, cutting through the air.
The second released segmented armor plates that detached and circled with controlled precision before accelerating toward him from multiple angles.
The third dissolved partially from view, its presence reducing to distortions in airflow and temperature shifts that tried to map themselves around his position.
Francis didn’t stop to acknowledge any of them individually.
The blade reached him first and passed through what should have been resistance, slicing across his upper body in a clean line that briefly separated him into two halves.
But the halves did not pause or fall out of alignment; they continued moving in parallel for a fraction of a second before rejoining seamlessly.
"That won’t work anymore."
His claw went through the blade user’s body in one motion.
The second agent’s orbiting plates struck him moments after. They embedded themselves across his torso and limbs, cutting through wall panels and floor plating as they circled and returned.
But instead of resisting them, Francis allowed the contact to continue. His body absorbed the edges slowly, the metal sinking into him.
The third agent attempted a surprise attack using its invisibility, but it didn’t work—Francis could see through it.
"Weak."
His back burst out. Dozens of sharp blades unfolded from it, moving at hypersonic speed.
They struck in an instant, cutting through all three agents before they could react.
By the time the corridor opened into the next section, most personnel were already in motion toward evacuation points.
Officers tried to keep control, but their orders kept clashing. Emergency procedures conflicted with outside commands, and nothing lined up properly anymore.
Twenty minutes later, the airship crashed to the ground. Francis walked out of the wreckage.
He ran toward Aris’s group as if nothing had happened.
"I’m going solo now. Advise your group to leave the next city right away."
"Why?" she asked.
"I took down one of their airships. Now they know what I can do. They’re probably already tracking us with a satellite. If I stay with you, you’ll be at risk of an orbital strike."
None of them argued.
Before he received a reply, a pair of black wings grew from his back—more like a bat’s than a bird’s, jagged and heavy in shape. He lifted off the ground and shot forward.
Right now, he needed to be as fast and unpredictable as possible. He pushed higher into the sky, climbing past altitudes where birds or ordinary monsters could survive.
The wind thinned, then turned sharp against his body, resisting him in a way that wasn’t normal.
He kept going anyway.
The ground below faded into clouds, then into a pale stretch of atmosphere that grew colder and quieter the further he went. His wings cut through it without slowing, carrying him upward.
He considered the satellite.
If he could reach it, if he could break it, then the eyes above him would disappear.
He climbed higher, expecting the air to thin, expecting the usual limits to appear.
But they didn’t.
Instead, the atmosphere stretched farther than he had anticipated.
The resistance changed—not lessening, but becoming heavier, as if the sky itself had depth beyond what he understood.
There was a point where his ascent stopped feeling like movement through air and started feeling like pushing against water.
His speed started to drop, so he used vibration to push himself further forward.
When that still wasn’t enough, he activated ten different innate talents to increase his flying speed. He even expanded his wings to gain more lift.
But the higher he went, the stronger the pressure became, and the harder it was to push forward.
For the first time, his body didn’t respond cleanly.
The wings that had carried him effortlessly started to strain against an invisible boundary. Not a wall, not a barrier he could strike, but a continuous pressure that grew stronger the higher he went.
He forced more power into the flight.
The strain increased immediately.
Then, without warning, an invisible force slammed into him and sent him flying downward.
’What the hell?’
He tried to stabilize mid-air, wings tightening, adjusting angles, forcing control.
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