NOVEL NEXT B2 Chapter 45
Angar sat in tense silence with the two hooded men as the tram hurtled toward the Terran sectors.
Most of the administrative district blurred by, just a maze of spires and holo-displays, before they transferred to a tram bound for the business district.
At their stop, the men led him a very tall building amid dozens of others just like it. In the building, they headed to a secluded lift, its entrance concealed by an 'Out of Order' sign.
Instead of hitting a button, one man punched in a special code, sending the platform lurching upward. Inside the cramped lift, as it slowly rose, a faint hiss filled the air.
The two men began coughing. Angar didn't wait. He held his breath, dropped the case, infused Energy into his maul, and bashed the lift door with a mighty two-handed swing. The hammer's head bounced off, leaving the door unscathed.
He tried phasing through. It nearly worked but failed each attempt, possibly because the lift was moving.
The men vomited blood as crimson streams began leaking from their eyes and noses.
Angar's senses dulled, even holding his breath, his vision swimming as more gas flooded the compartment. He hit the buttons on the console, to no effect.
He swung his maul again, this time at the side wall, but the impact rang hollow, leaving it unscratched and undented. He tried phasing through that wall, forcing it, but it failed to work again.
As he banged the wall, the men collapsed, their bodies convulsing as they crumpled to the lift's floor, now silent.
The opposite wall yielded no better, his hammer's infused strikes sparked uselessly against the lift's unyielding frame.
He activated his hacking module, the tendrils hovering near the floor-selection button-casing, but they entered nothing, and did nothing.
He deactivated them, trying his infused hammer and phase against the ceiling and floor, having no better results.
He spun into Tempest, his hammer banging against the four walls. He kept infusing his hammer, it kept clanging off the walls, the lightning, with no enemy to target, doing nothing.
As he spun, his limbs grew too heavy, and the world tilted. His hammer slipped from his gloved hands, clattering to the floor, ending the Ability.
He fell to his knees, the coppery taste of blood coating his tongue, his vision blurring like he was submerged in murky water.
Angar's pulse thundered, his will refusing to quit. A new idea flared in his mind.
He punched the floor-selection button-casing, hoping to smash it open, but it did nothing. He punched again, and again, until his strength faded, and he collapsed face-first against the door, the impact jarring his skull, the metal cold against his cheek.
The lift's slow ascent dragged on, each second an eternity as Angar's body betrayed him.
At some point, he had stopped holding his breath. He hadn't coughed yet, and that gave him hope, even as his body continued to shut down under the gas' relentless assault.
And on the lift slowly ascended, the cabin filling with more and more gas.
Later, the lift stilled. A faint ding pierced the haze, and the air hissed as the gas was sucked out. It seemed to take a while, then silence again.
Minutes later, the doors slid open, dropping Angar forward, his face smacking off the polished floor beyond.
He couldn't see much. Just an expensive throw rug of a waiting area off to the side, nice furniture surrounding it, and a small table upon it.
Two sets of footsteps approached, their shoes echoing off the sleek surface.
"Is he alive?" a sharp voice asked. "There's no way. He can't be, right?"
"I don't see how he could be," another sneered, malice dripping like venom. "Narsinun gas is deadly to even low-Saints, and he's just second Tier. But I hope he's still alive."
The venom-voiced man stepped on Angar's back. "Sir Duke Maximillian says hello."
A report cracked the air with a flash, and a slug tore into the back of Angar's head, causing pain to explode like a supernova.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
His consciousness waned, but he was still alive, clinging, his senses drowning. Another shot ripped into his face, then another, blood spraying as his head jerked and bounced as the rounds blasted into his jaw and eye implant.
The world drowned in a murky and muffled haze, sounds distorted as if underwater, his vision now a fractured blur of light and shadow.
"He definitely ain't now," the sharp-voiced one said, and both laughed.
They grabbed his arms, dragging his barely conscious form across the floor, leaving a slick trail of blood on the polished obsidian.
The office area beyond was pristine, filled with sleek and expensive-looking furniture.
A secretary sat at a wooden table in a tailored blouse tucked into a high-waisted skirt, form-fitting, with a subtle elegance of clean lines and muted colors. Her skirt fell just above the knee, revealing a daring amount of bare leg, uncovered by hose, and her shoes put her full ankles on display.
Her professional smile remained fixed, unruffled by the blood or Angar's broken form, but her eyes held sadness as she glanced up from the table.
Angar's world faded, clinging to life by the barest thread.
After hauling the other two bodies out, one of the men dragged Angar's hammer from the lift, its scorched head scraping the polished obsidian floor. "Holy Theosis, this thing weighs a ton," he grunted, straining against its bulk.
"Yosef wants to see you two," the secretary said in a clipped and professional voice, betraying no hint of the blood pooling beneath Angar.
A door buzzed open. The two men's boots clacked across the floor, passing the secretary's table, one man leaving the case on it, before entering the inner office.
The door stayed open, but Angar's senses, dulled to a murky haze, caught only muffled murmurs, like submerged voices.
He could feel the round that entered his Infernus Oculus. It was lodged in his sinuses. As he twitched his nose, his ears popped, and he could hear a little better. He focused, straining to make out the words.
A new voice, which had to be Yosef's, cut through the haze. "I trust I needn't remind you – not a whisper of this escapes. Not one little hint of that elevator, or anything else. Anything at all. If Froemmigkeit, Nail, the boss, or the Syndicate learn we contacted Sir Duke Maximillian after they rejected his offer, we're void-dust. This gets pinned on the Frost family."
The reply garbled, beyond Angar's understanding.
"I mean it," Yosef snapped. "No word to your crews, your lovers, or even in confession. Spend your credits discreetly. Don't throw them around and cause questions to be asked. Change nothing about your daily schedules, routines, and spending. Understood?"
"Yeah, we got you," replied the sharp-voiced thug. "We still making the shipment, or you want us here to help with the bodies? My nephew can take my place if you want us here. He's a good kid. Hard worker. Tough too."
Yosef's voice hardened. "What did I just say? If you two don't start listening, we're all dead. The schedule holds, every move as always. Nothing changes. This day goes exactly as always, and we do exactly as always. Now, you fools, walk me through what I just said, how you'll behave, and how the rest of this day shall go."
The voices went back underwater, unintelligible, just a garble.
Despite his dimming mind, Angar couldn't help staring at the secretary's crossed legs. He wished he didn't find them so appealing. They weren't as twiggy as Spirit's, only as twiggy as the imperial-female ideal.
He wanted to touch them. He had a strong urge to crawl over and reach out, see what caressing the skin felt like, to feel their warmth.
The secretary was pretty. Too old though, to him, by at least a decade. Still, very pretty. In the imperial way, very different than the stout women of Sulfuron 9.
Thoughts of the women of his world shifted to his plans for it, his legacy. He had so much he needed to do. He couldn't die yet. He hadn't even started. He was going to fix everything.
Death by gassing in a lift. It was an inglorious end, one of the most inglorious ways to die, and a disgrace to his ancestors.
He couldn't die like this, like some common thug.
Hot anger blossomed in his chest, a Divine ember flaring against the haze.
He couldn't have this. This wouldn't be his end, just wasting away on a criminal's floor. He'd die on his feet, hammer swinging. Or claws tearing. Nothing less.
He offered up a silent prayer. My last breath a tithe to you, my Lord.
With a grunt, he forced his bloodied head to slide across the ground, angling until he glimpsed the open door past the secretary's table.
"Uh, guys!" she called out, her voice filled with fright.
"What's wrong, Lace?" The sharp-voiced thug poked his head from the inner office.
Angar didn't wait. He summoned Ground Current, the Ability surging through his body. Lightning crackled, and he materialized inside the office, on his feet, the electric discharge ripping downward, searing into all three men, forking, forking again.
They convulsed and burned, their screams cut short by the voltage's stun.
These men weren't strong. Ground Current alone nearly killed them all.
His legs trembled, threatening to buckle, but Angar lashed out at the venom-voiced thug. His claws, piercing through his gloves, tore out the man's throat, sending blood spraying in a crimson arc across the room's walls.
A grim satisfaction flared. He'd taken at least one down, though he thought Ground Current's bolt and the forks killed the man before the claw struck.
Adrenaline, or something, was keeping Angar upright. He twisted, seizing the sharp-voiced thug's head, crushing it in his hand with a sickening crunch, bone and flesh pulping under his grip. He really loved killing people that way.
Yosef, a burly man in a tailored, flashy outfit, recovered from the stun and leapt from his chair, shouting, "Holy Theosis! La…"
Angar dove over the desk with claws slashing. Yosef's throat tore open. Blood fountained as he collapsed, his cry silenced.
The secretary's shrill and piercing screams continued erupting from the outer office.
Angar staggered out, each step a battle to stay upright, a battle against his fading body, dulled senses, and dimmed mind. The world remained underwater, his mind sluggish as molasses, but his body obeyed, driven by wrath and duty.
The secretary cowered behind her table, her pillbox hat askew, still screaming, bolting away as Angar emerged from the room.
He lunged, his cybernetic leg propelling him forward, and grabbed the back of her head.
He wanted to question her, to demand answers, but her hysterical shrieks wouldn't stop. He drove her face into his knee, caving her head in, silencing her with a crunch, the body slumping to the floor.