"Don't mess with me!" Kaya cried as she dashed forward abruptly toward Adam.
From the look of it, Adam couldn't nullify Nuiia's power because it was something that was somehow more complex than it looked. However, for some reason, Nuiia had stayed far from Adam along with Farah.
"I will kill you!" Kaya immediately launched another, while the other guardians, Cristoph and Gerrad, distanced themselves from Adam immediately.
Seeing this, Adam felt that the mastermind, the one who was pulling the strings from the shadow wasn't among the guardians.
Unlike what how she acted, Kaya was better than the other guardians. It might be because she was just feeling guilty, Adam wasn't sure, but from the information he managed to gather, she anonymously continued to support various orphanages for disabled children all around the Empire.
On the other hand, the one who appeared the most harmless, Nuiia, was somehow connected to the dark side of the Empire and worked secretly with Gerrard. She was in reality a woman with particular fetishes and made a contract with Gerrard in order to provide her young boys, for her to perform indecent and vicious acts that couldn't even be mentioned on them.
From an outsider's point of view, it would be easy to condemn Nuiia's action and praise Kaya, but for Adam, all of that didn't matter. The fact that they were working for the enemy didn't change.
Unlike what Kaya expected, Adam had also darted forward. Swoosh!
"Kuh!" Kaya didn't know anything about Adam, and she so she could never defeat him. After all, Adam was almost invincible in close-range fights.
Adam's fist was buried deep inside Kaya's stomach, causing her to vomit blood.
Even though Adam was not at the peak of his condition, he was also not the person that stood in that coliseum a while ago.
The dagger that was planted in his chest was somehow pushed backward, then Adam's wound healed by itself.
He was a man who aimed at a higher goal, it was only natural that he would reduce the possibility of failure. After all, his body was certainly his biggest weakness. His flesh was fragile and could fail to withstand his power.
"Guh!" Kaya had almost passed out. She trained her body, and she was tougher than most gift users, but she looked like she wasn't used to enduring such kind of physical attack with her petite body.
"Kaya! Tch..." Cristoph saw that Kaya wasn't a match for Adam. The problem was that there was something about Adam that made it impossible for Cristoph to read him. He couldn't even guess what kind of gift Adam possessed, and so his instinct told him to not move despite what was happening. 'How is he still alive? Is he a monster?' he thought as he saw Adam not looking even fazed by his condition.
Cristoph looked at Gerrad and then communicated with only their eyes. However, it looked like they thought about the same thing. They needed to retreat.
In the first place, an aerial battle put them at disadvantage, and without Nuiia, it would be hard to win against Adam. From the look of it, Adam tried to fight them in a close-ranged battle which meant that he was confident about winning. If he used his ability to restrain them for a second, they would be vulnerable to his attack.
"Aaaaaaa!" Kaya continued to let out a painful cry as Adam used his power to control the particle of metals inside of her body. As such, she stiffened and begin to lift unnaturally in the air.
The problem was, however, that Adam didn't appear to proceed in attacking them. He instead continued to wait for them to attack as if he knew what they were thinking. This implied, that Adam was not also afraid of long ranged attacks, or so Cristoph thought.
Nonetheless, the other guardians didn't even think about trying to save Kaya or anything of the sort. Marina and Derige were out of the fight so things were not looking good, the best choice was to retreat for the time being.
"You three are really pieces of garbage," Adam muttered. "You should have run for your life while you still have the chance."
For some reason, their pride prevented them from actually running away. It was not that they didn't want to leave Kaya behind, but because they still believed that they could somehow neat Adam if they used their power.
Adam didn't kill Marina and Kaya out of pity, and he could regret that in the future, but it was his choice. He gave them a second chance. However, he wasn't so tolerant of the other three.
While looking at the three remaining guardians, as well as Farah, something odd happened to Adam's left arm. A black and ominous-looking arm grow from what was left after it was cut.
It was not completely an exact copy of his arm, but it was also close to the real thing despite its color.
"Die!" Adam muttered as he reached this black arm at the three guardians.
A black circle appeared in from of Nuiia, and behind Cristoph and Gerrard. It was fairly bigger than what Adam used against Derige.
When she realized what happening, Nuiia tried to run but it was too late. The gravitational force that pulled everything at the center of the black circle was too strong.
Gerrard used his ability, and so did Cristoph, but because of their arrogance, they couldn't even use their ability during the fight.
Their body twisted like pasta and they continued to cry in pain. They must have thought about the cries of the people they tortured at that moment but Adam didn't believe that they would change that easily even if they were given a second chance.
After that, now he was left with three women. Farah who he saved used his cape to pull her away. Then, there were Kaya and Marina who passed out due to the pain. Adam used his ability to create a flat circle made by manipulating regular iron particles with the Darkmatter to prevent them from falling straight to the ground. Then he also used the same thing for Farah and his cape returned to his back.
Sarah was in a state of confusion. She was extremely scared, sad, and frustrated, almost as if her spirit was about to break. It was certainly because of Adam, but he didn't feel any responsibility for what happened.
Adam brought the women safely to the ground and left them there. He didn't say anything and just left.
*****
As he made his way towards the territory of the Fenrirus clan, flying at an insane speed, he had also begun to reorganize his thoughts because he would certainly not have the time to do that anymore.
First about the black circle, or more precisely the authority of Destruction. Activating the full power of this authority wasn't easy, and even so, Adam could only control an insignificant fraction of it.
It was true that the wall that prevented Adam's power to go out of control was necessary. However, it was not like he couldn't access this vast amount of power. He just needed to understand his actual limit.
The question was, was it really impossible for Adam to use his power? At first, he concluded that the was at the boundary of the silver desert was what prevented the amount of power contained beyond and within this realm from overflowing out.
Then, Adam continued to think, about why was able to activate the power of the Creation authority during his fight against Rudeus. Was it really because he didn't feel any fear at that moment?
No, even so, something was missing. How could Adam control the two primordial authorities in the first place? It was true that they were somehow placed, and existed somewhere inside of his body, but would such authority activate just because Adam wanted to?
Adam had somehow resolved the puzzle behind the authority of Creation & Destruction. By using the dark matter, not to convert atoms into new atoms that he could control, he used it to disintegrate the atoms themselves after they were converted, returning them to their primordial form which was nothingness. The appearance of a black hole was just something that occurred during the process, which Adam used as a way of attacking.
Still, it was very dangerous, because he couldn't yet determine the effect of bringing nothingness into this dimension, so he couldn't use this authority often. The two authorities were dependent on each other for a reason.
This brought Adam to think that the activation of his power didn't have anything to do with what was beyond the silver wall. In other words, what's beyond it was just a vast amount of energy capable of creating something for the Big Bang and not the Authority themselves.
In that case what exactly was the nature of these authorities? And how were they activated? Adam couldn't tell yet, but for the time being, he had to think about how he would solve the situation at hand.
He needed to retrieve at least two tree fragments, and from the look of it, the one who was pulling the strings from the shadow was preparing something big using these fragments. Adam didn't know if it has something to do with the 'Villainess' thing, but he could avoid confrontation with this mastermind either way.
Anyway, the answer was there somewhere. The reason why he was able to create his astral body. Was that a new power, or was he already using the authority of creation all of this time, like the authority of Destruction but at a weaker level?
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om