Chapter 1231 (2/2)
Thankfully the blast was aimed higher n’ us by a fair bit.
Yet it wasn’t the people that concerned him the most. And to Hank’s great relief, the barrier held against the powerful blast. Some of the hexagonal energy barriers seemed to waver, but as more energy was drawn from other sides of the array, they stabilized. The six individuals directly opposite on the other side of the barrier were bloodless and pale, but they hadn’t buckled. The captain of the group hovered around like a nervous dragonfly, but couldn’t assist without interrupting the ritual.
Above, Alana’s Dragon Broodmother mount screamed as the duo accelerated toward the giant bloodbeast. Below, Hank nodded in satisfaction and turned away from the President’s near-death experience. Staying away from politicians made for a happy life and Hank had no reason to linger. Alana should distract the bastard for a bit. Give me time to-
But just as Hank was about to turn his full attention to how to ambush the main bloodbeast, he saw out of the corner of his eye that whatever residue remained from bloodbeast’s blast began to stir. A split second later, Hank’s palm was on the cool metal and kevlar butt of his repeater as he pivoted on one foot and brought the pistol to bear on the blood spawn.
Hank raised an eyebrow as he took aim; someone else moved before he pulled the trigger. The footless secretary thrust his palm forward and unleashed a basketball-sized arcane orb at the three figures that forced themselves up out of the rust-colored slag. The orb wasn’t the most powerful that Hank had ever seen, but it was clear that the secretary spent plenty of time increasing the Level of the Skill.
Still, Hank ignored the image-less attack and focused his will. After all, the murder wouldn’t have been so horrifying if normal Skills could slow him and his bloodbeasts down. A terrible image of lethality crawled its way into the heavy, handmade bullets that filled the repeater’s cartridge. It was a lethality of metal, smoke, and lonely justice that believed it had the right to judge even a god. He aimed calmly down the barrel.
Then Hank pulled the trigger four times.
The arcane orb blasted one of the oozy humanoid figures backward and it fell to its knees. But its eyes quickly began to glow blood red and it regained its footing. Just as its mouth began to yaw widely open in rage, one of Hank’s bullets pierced into the side of its cranium and instantly extinguished the blood-red light coming from its eyes. It collapsed as two of Hank’s other bullets found the heart and forehead of the second ooze and similarly finished it off immediately.
For the third ooze, Hank blew away an ooze’s back leg and it began to shift and lean backward. As it flailed its heavy arm and flung drops of molten metal around it, the ooze fell backward and pressed against the Orchard’s defense system. With its body sizzling, the ooze attempted to manipulate its ungainly limbs and push itself back to standing.
Satisfied that the blood ooze’s leg that he shot didn’t begin to reform, Hank fired another bullet and killed the third ooze. The pool of rust-colored slag began to harden into a jello-like substance somewhere between clotted blood and metal as the animating energy was put to rest. Looks like the trainin’ with Alana worked… Heh, let’s see how far this image of mine can go..
“How can you kill an ooze creature with a single bullet? What Skill did you use?” President Greyman asked sharply.
Hank shrugged lazily as he made his repeater dance across his fingers. He could practically smell the trail that he had been chasing for eight months, he wasn’t willing to waste time here talking to Greyman.
Besides, she wouldn’t believe the truth. Even he had been almost unconsciously influenced by Zone 1’s unwillingness to take images seriously. It was only after several months of fruitless pursuit of the murderer that Hank had seen the light. It was only after he had found the traces of Ezekiel and Ace’s fight against the murder that he had been willing to hone his particular image. “Uncanny Marksmanship, ma’am. Now if you will excuse me…”
Too bad that bugger of a secretary reacted fast enough to get off an attack… if he hadn’t so obviously failed to inflict damage, I could have just said they are mite weak…
“One more thing; what is the Red Revival?” The president asked as she walked calmly over toward Hank.
Hank pursed his lips. This was why he stayed away from politicians: they were already asking questions that should be obvious. Plus, Hank didn’t like to be the one to point fingers when it was hard to say how this bloodbeast was involved with the Red Revival. Yet he knew that the quickest way out of the situation would be to just answer her. He already heard the mournful cry of the ballad that his Soulskill would make of this day. Soon it would be his moment to strike.
As if to punctuate the importance of hurrying to join the battle, a plume of fire erupted across the battlefield. Alana’s golden flames cut through the worst of it, but many of the houses in the immediate area the clash began to slowly smolder. Ice blasted out of the dragon broodmother, but it was clear that the two weren’t the bloodbeast’s match.
Time for somethin’ a bit special, then.
Very purposefully, Hank holstered his repeater and pulled out his silver revolver. With a flick of the wrist, he slid out the cylinder and carefully slid a single bullet into one of the six slots. Then he flicked the edge of the cylinder and forced the mechanism to whir.
“The Red Revival. A group of extreme individuals who were initially suspected of being a cult, but then vanished from the spotlight several months ago. They grabbed attention by claiming they had a method to use a weird ritual to return to an Earth before the System.”
For a second she was confused, but then the President’s eyes widened. “The Group founded by Donnyton’s Decklan Hyde?”
Hank just smiled and tipped his hat toward the woman. Then he turned away and walked toward his date with destiny. Hank simply listened to the whir of the mechanism. When the time was right, he flicked his wrist again and snapped the cylinder into place.