Agent047
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729 - Time to Leave
🕑 Added 2024-09-17 09:37:11 +0000 UTCWithin just half an hour, the material blocking the invading soldiers had completely melted away. Without hesitation, the soldiers resumed their takeover, moving swiftly and methodically. The crew aboard the ship, caught off guard by the sudden breakthrough, scrambled to return fire in a desperate attempt to buy time and reseal the inner parts of the ship.
However, the invaders' speed and precision left them with little chance to mount an effective defense, as the gap between their positions rapidly closed. The situation was spiraling out of control, and panic was beginning to set in among the ship's defenders.
Xalthar, having just begun to rest, was abruptly awakened by the sense of chaos spreading through the ship. His AI quickly informed him that visual monitoring in the blocked-off area had been lost, with all feeds going dark at once, informing him that the breach had likely resumed.
He swiftly donned his armor, bracing for combat. "Power off the ship," he ordered his AI as he moved out of his quarters. His mind was already working on a plan, knowing that even if he lost the ship in the chaos, his primary objective was to escape.
As a result of that he didn’t even consider the consequences of powering off the whole ship, he knew the crew wouldn’t perish immediately. The lack of power would first manifest as reduced gravity, causing everyone to begin floating. The air supply would last for a while, but with no systems to maintain oxygen levels, carbon dioxide would gradually replace it. Suffocation would eventually be a threat, but Xalthar was fully aware that the enemy soldiers would likely kill them long before that.
As long as he could escape from this ship and stay on the move without being captured for two weeks, by the time he returned, the arriving fleets would likely have finished their battles with each other and discovered that the information he'd given them was false.
However, bound by the mana oath, they would be forced to wait until its agreed period ended before they could retaliate. Meanwhile, Xalthar would have the time to repair his ship and return to the Astral Conclave with little to no fear.
As Xalthar strode purposefully down the corridor toward the escape ship, his command to power down the vessel was finally executed. Thanks to his unrivaled authority aboard the ship, no one knew it was happening or even had the means to countermand it. Suddenly, the lights flickered out, plunging the ship into darkness. A heavy silence followed, but soon the crew began to feel the unsettling sensation of weightlessness as the artificial gravity faded. Caught off guard, they floated aimlessly, confusion and fear spreading through the ship like wildfire.
No one suspected that Xalthar was behind the power outage. The crew assumed it was the result of the enemy forces, and in their panic, they didn't have the time or ability to check the logs for proof. Believing the attackers caused the blackout, they realized with dread that they were now literally sitting ducks—helpless against an enemy who seemed to have caused the situation. This time, unlike before, they had no countermeasures. The enemy, if capable of initiating this, surely had the means to exploit it.
Xalthar, now floating with complete control and precision, maneuvered effortlessly through the corridors, unlike the crew members he encountered, who floated helplessly, as he used his telekinetic powers to push them aside with ease. He had no intention of wasting time on them or venting his anger; his focus was solely on reaching his escape ship.
But he came to an abrupt halt when a bullet, slowed by his telekinetic field acting like a viscous fluid, came to a stop mere centimeters from piercing his stomach as he looked at it in surpise.
The other side didn’t wait for Xalthar to regain his composure; they continued to fire at him, targeting different areas of his body except for his head.
Xaltharregaining his composure when a few more bullets punched through his telekinetic field before he got to work countering them. With each successive shot, he used his telekinetic control to halt them at increasing distances. By the time the eighteenth bullet arrived, it was stopped a full five meters away from him, showcasing that he was getting used to this kind of attack allowing him to intercept the bullets with a speed and accuracy far beyond what he did at the start which was from a mere instinct.
Pressed for time and wary of being overwhelmed by numbers, Xalthar wasted no time. He redirected the bullets, sending them back towards the soldiers who had fired them.
To his surprise, the soldiers deftly maneuvered out of the bullets' paths, narrowly avoiding them as the bullets embedded themselves into the ship’s walls. Equally astonishing was the fact that the soldiers moved with apparent ease in the zero-gravity environment. They seemed to maintain a localized gravity field for themselves, allowing them to move swiftly and dodge bullets as if gravity were still fully operational for them.
‘I need to move fast,’ Xalthar thought urgently. The enemies were far more formidable than he had anticipated, and even the six soldiers in front of him posed a significant threat. If he didn’t act quickly, they could thwart his escape plans before they even began.
Using the ship's wall anchors and his telekinetic power like elastic bands, he propelled himself forward, accelerating rapidly to close the half-kilometer gap. At the same time, he concentrated on halting the barrage of bullets fired by the soldiers, letting them drop harmlessly to the ground. Simultaneously, he attempted to pull the closest soldier toward him with his telekinetic powers, intending to use the enemy as a shield while launching his own attack.
However, he encountered unexpected resistance—an invisible force pushing back against his telekinetic grip. Undeterred, Xalthar pressed forward, combining his telekinetic power with raw physical strength. As he closed the distance, he felt the invisible barrier yield under his relentless force.
At last, Xalthar’s hand broke through the invisible force, but the soldier attempted to dodge at the last second, shifting their head to the side. Despite the soldier's speed, Xalthar, as a sage, had reflexes and perception far beyond normal humans. With only a slight adjustment to his hand’s trajectory, he managed to grasp the soldier’s headgear. His grip tightened with immense power, and in one swift, brutal motion, he crushed both the helmet and the skull inside, obliterating the soldier's head in a gruesome display of raw strength.
“The fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?” Xalthar exclaimed in shock as he looked at his hand, now holding the remains of the crushed soldier's head. The sudden distraction caused him to lose focus, leaving an opening for four bullets to penetrate his protective bubble. They struck his shoulder, stomach, chest, and neck, sending waves of excruciating pain through his body.
The intense agony overwhelmed him, and despite his efforts to fight it, Xalthar's consciousness began to slip away. He floated uncontrollably in the zero-gravity environment, his attempts to regain control futile as he succumbed to the darkness closing in on him.
