Chapter 96: The Storm Part 1
The boulevard was in a complete state of emergency.
Gunfire, explosions, the grinding collapse of concrete barriers — all of it folded into a single continuous sound that pressed against every building on the wide access road.
The Covenant’s first wave did exactly what it was designed to do.
Draw attention.
While this was happening, multiple Covenant Teams began advancing through the different entry points.
Four individuals moved in the eastern area without sound.
Aris walked at the center, scythe across her back, her eyes reading the gaps between rubble.
Nathan was to her left. His weapon was not immediately obvious.
Strapped to his right forearm, fitted against the skin from wrist to elbow, was a bracer that looked like it was made from the scale of a beast.
Leah moved to the right.
Harlan was ahead of all of them.
What he wore on his hands did not look like a weapon.
The hand armor covering both fists from knuckles to mid-forearm looked like thick wrapping at a distance. Dense and dark, its surface was uneven like scar tissue hardened over time.
"Remember, don’t transform when not necessary. Let’s handle them with our weapons first to conserve energy," he reminded.
Nathan chuckled. "Don’t worry. The weapons they’re using are just weak imitations of ours. There’s no way we would lose to their mass-produced equipment."
Harlan gave him a scolding look. "Don’t underestimate them. Their weapon technology has already advanced so far through crystallization."
Nathan did not reply, but he kept the same easygoing attitude until—
BANG!
Harlan’s arm was already moving. His palm snapped out and deflected the bullet with a sharp metallic ring, sending it spinning into the concrete wall to his right.
"Sniper. Northeast corner," he said, without raising his voice.
Another shot came a half second later. Then two more in rapid succession, each one arriving from a slightly different angle.
Harlan swatted the next round aside without changing his pace. It struck the ground and exploded.
"Incendiary tipped," he noted. "There’s already a Special Category there."
"Mm," Aris only mumbled.
She was not interested in low to mid-level targets. Her job here was to deal with elite agents.
Besides, Harlan and the rest could take care of the small fry on their own.
The shots kept coming, faster now.
Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.
Harlan walked through it all, blocking every attack with his armored hands. Sparks jumped from his knuckle plating with every contact.
For some reason, each bullets lost its momentum the moment it landed on his palm.
Nathan watched him work from the left side and let out a low whistle. "You’re showing off."
"I’m walking," Harlan responded flatly.
"You’re walking like you know someone is watching. Are you that motivated because lady Aris is watching you? Man I can read you from miles away."
Harlan gritted his teeth in annoyance, but he did not engage, knowing full well that talking with Nathan was like talking to a thick, shameless rock.
BRRRRRRRRRT—
Two Gatling emplacements rolled out, both barrels already spinning at full speed.
The stream of fire hit the ground in front of the group .
"It’s my turn," Nathan said.
He was already gone by the time the words finished leaving his mouth.
His speed was not the raw explosive kind. It was fluid. He moved the way water moved through a tight space — finding the gaps, filling them, never resisting the shape of the environment.
His bracer activated as he closed the distance, the beast scale surface shifting, individual plates sliding over each other as something charged beneath them.
He reached the left Gatling gun in under five seconds.
The crew had no time to redirect.
"Too slow." he drove his forearm into the barrel assembly at full speed.
His attack discharged on impact. It slipped inside the mechanism, threading through metal before destroying it.
The two operators were still reaching for sidearms when he turned toward them
He didn’t bother with the bracer for this.
Two quick strikes, open palm, and both of them dropped without ceremony.
He straightened up and looked toward the second gutling gun.
Leah was already there.
The military men saw her coming and tried to shoot her, but to their surprise, she simply swung her whip.
The bullets were completely blocked, then redirected back, killing the two operators as they were struck in the head.
She turned her attention to Nathan and smiled, as if telling him it was too easy.
More soldiers were pouring out from both sides of the capitol building using the barriers as cover. Their rifles were already up.
She let them fire first.
The rounds came in fast, She moved through them with the same efficiency that made her so difficult to fight.
Then she countered.
Her whip extended again, longer this time, its reach eating up the distance between her and the first barrier. It caught two soldiers simultaneously, wrapping briefly before releasing, the force from the snap folding them against the concrete.
She was already moving to the next point before they landed.
Nathan rejoined from her left and the two of them worked through the military line the way tigers moved through a group of rabbits.
Harlan and Aris had maintained their pace the entire time.
They were twenty meters back, still walking, and the ground between them and Nathan’s position was littered with deflected rounds, cracked concrete, and dead bodies.
Not one of those rounds touched her.
Nathan let out a laugh while stepping over a corpse. "This is getting boring."
Another burst of gunfire came from the right flank. He tilted his head slightly, almost like he was listening to music instead of a battlefield.
"Seriously," he added, "is this all they prepared?"
Leah did not answer. Her whip snapped again, pulling a soldier off his feet before he could reload.
Harlan kept moving forward, eyes scanning the rooftops. "Stay focused. They’re just foot soldiers."
Nathan waved a hand without looking back. "Relax. I’m just joking to lighten up the mood—."
"Nathan. Transform!" Aris’s shouted.
