Limitless: New Dawn (Book II Complete)

The command deck of the UFE Retribution, Admiral Zara Volantis's flagship, had fallen into an unnatural stillness.

Every officer, from tactical to comms, stared wide-eyed at the live feed now playing across the central holoscreen.

A single figure, an ECHO in matte black armor, was moving like a guided missile between streaks of plasma and the hulking Chimerian fleet. One moment he was barely a blip, the next he was driving his fist straight through a corvette's shield and ripping its core apart from the inside.

Admiral Zara stood with her arms still crossed, but her gaze had hardened into something unreadable. There was a flicker of shock in her eyes, which she quickly buried beneath an emotionless facade.

She snapped back into motion.

"Focus," she barked. "Tactical team, continue the barrage pattern. Hold formation, and don't let the Chimerians a moment of respite."

"Yes, Admiral!" several voices chorused at once.

Officers scrambled to their posts, hands racing across consoles, but none of them stopped glancing at the screen. How could they? Every second the live feed showed the ECHO performing feats that defied logic, reason, and physics. Tearing through metal as if it were paper, and dodging beams of energy that could shred apart the strongest of defence an ECHO could conjure.

Zara didn't blame them, even she could barely look away from the surreal sight.

She muttered under her breath, more to herself than anyone else, "How the hell did the UFE create such a monster?"

…

Meanwhile, aboard the Vanguard, the very ship Arthur and the rest of the ECHOs had arrived on, wCaptain Renford stood inside the bridge, mouth slightly ajar.

"…He actually punched through a corvette," he whispered.

The crew around him were in a similar state, some leaning in close to their monitors, others blinking like they weren't sure what they were seeing.

One of the navigators finally spoke. "Sir… should we… I mean… should we tell the others?"

Renford stood still for a beat, then nodded sharply.

"Yeah. Broadcast the feed to the waiting ECHOs. Let them see what their commander's capable of, might as well give them some motivation."

The crewman saluted, already opening the transmission relay.

A few seconds later, the video of Arthur hurtling toward the Chimerian battleships was pinged across the ship's internal network.

…

Inside one of the briefing halls, the atmosphere had been dull just moments ago, ECHOs running last-minute diagnostics on gear, checking comms, some seated in quiet meditation while others traded dry jokes to cut the tension.

Then the ping hit everyone's comms at once.

Elena raised an eyebrow and tapped on her wrist mount holopad.

Onscreen, Arthur was just finishing a brutal mid-air flip that sent a Chimerian strike fighter crashing into one of its own turrets. His momentum didn't even falter as he blasted forward and shattered the frontal shielding of another vessel.

Elena blinked in disbelief. "What the hell is Arthur doing on the battlefield?!"

Across from her, Leo shot up from his seat. "Wait… that's him? That's Arthur?"

Samir's mouth parted slightly. "It… it really is."

There was a pause as they watched Arthur barrel through another Chimerian corvette with a familiar golden glowing fist.

Then a short moment before…Leo broke into loud, boisterous laughter. "I knew he wouldn't just sit around and let the Chimerians keep punching holes in us!"

He slapped the shoulder of a nearby ECHO who nearly dropped his rifle in surprise. "Our commander's out there turning warships into scrap and we're just chilling with our gear. Man, this is peak Arthur."

Even Samir, usually the calmest of the trio, gave a small smirk. "I knew he was powerful, but this… this is out of my calculation."

Elena didn't say anything at first. Her eyes remained locked on the feed, on the golden glow of Chi flaring from Arthur's armor, the blurred silhouette cutting down ships that took entire squadrons to disable.

She exhaled slowly.

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"…He's doing this alone," she muttered.

Then a small grin curled on her lips. "That idiot."

All around them, the rest of the waiting ECHOs had risen to their feet, crowding around the projection, their chatter growing louder.

"Did you see that punch?!"

"He just split that cruiser with his bare hands!"

"Hells yeah, that's our commander!"

Each time Arthur cracked through a shield or sent a ship careening into debris, the cheers grew louder. The previously stoic ECHOs now had a different fire behind their eyes. Their pride swelled for their commander, and his capabilities. Adrenaline coursed through their bodies as they thought of one day reaching similar heights in strength like Arthur.

They weren't just watching a battlefield, they were watching their future. And they knew they were following the right person.

…

Back on the battlefield, Arthur's figure blasted through metallic wreckage. As he was blasted by a plasma cannon.

His Chi burned brightly around him, gold streaking through the blackness of space as it protected him from the blast.

Arthur didn't even get a moment of respite, he ducked and twisted as energy blasts streaked around him. The Chi around his body flared brighter now, golden streams trailing behind his every movement like comet tails. But even with his speed and enhanced reflexes, a few strikes managed to clip him.

A direct hit slammed into his right side, his armor flashed with hexagonal ripples as it absorbed the brunt of the impact, while his Chi barrier mitigated most of the impact. Another bolt scraped past his shoulder, melting a thin layer of plating before he twisted into a spin and kicked off a debris chunk to change trajectory.

He could've stopped it all. He could've hijacked the Chimerian weapons mid-fire, taken over the targeting systems with a thought.

'Technopathy would end this fight in seconds.' But Arthur wasn't interested in that.

'Where's the fun in that?' He thought.

He pressed forward instead, fists cracking against hulls, he used telekinesis to rip the mounted cannons free, slamming them back against their own ships and continued towards the main battleships. His movements were brutal and inhuman.

Just as he was maneuvering through the barrage of energy beams, a warning ping appeared on his HUD

<WARNING: HIGH-YIELD PROJECTILE INCOMING>

He looked to his left and saw a homing antimatter bomb hurling directly towards him.

It was too close to him, and using Technopathy would need a few seconds to deactivate the bomb, it would be too late by then.

So he snapped his arm forward.

A concentrated orb of golden Chi formed in an instant, hovering like a miniature sun in his palm. He launched it with a flick of his wrist, and it streaked through space like a sniper round.

And it collided with the antimatter bomb a split second before impact.

The explosion that followed was colossal. A shockwave erupted outward in a massive ring of burning white light, engulfing several Chimerian drones, loose debris, and the space around Arthur for a few kilometers radius. And before Arthur could move away the blast radius engulfed him.

The Chimerians employed a suicidal tactic to take out Arthur from the battlefield as he was causing too much damage.

…

The ECHOs watching from the Vanguard froze for a moment seeing Arthur engulfed by the blast.

Their screen turned white, as static crackled on it.

Elena's heart skipped a beat. "No…"

Leo clenched his hands, his voice cracking for the first time, "W..What…"

"Arthur…" Samir whispered.

The cheers that had filled the room died like a candle flame. Some of the younger ECHOs looked away from the screen entirely, as if not seeing it meant it wasn't real.

A few started murmuring.

"Did he get hit…?"

"He can't survive that…"

Elena clenched her fists. "Shut up…! Just wait."

She wasn't ready to accept it.

The three of them had seen Arthur shrug off wounds that would put anyone else in a coma. He was not the kind of man to be taken down by a single bomb, even if it was antimatter, at least they hoped so.

The screen was still static-laced when the feed returned.

As the blast cleared they finally saw a silhouette, still moving towards the Chimerian fleet.

The golden glow around Arthur flickered, dim at first. But then it surged again.

Elena exhaled sharply, letting the breath she'd been holding finally escape.

Samir gave a subtle nod and muttered, "That's our guy there..."

Leo laughed, a bit too loudly, thumping the table with both fists. "Son of a gun! He really is insane!"

The room roared back to life. The silence was broken, shattered into ecstatic yelling and disbelief as ECHOs began cheering louder than before, banging their gear, some even whooping and hollering like they were on the battlefield themselves.

…

A few seconds ago, inside the blast radius. Arthur was blasted back, engulfed by the aftermath of the explosion. He controlled his movements using telekinesis as he came to a halt.

Arthur could feel his armor failing to defend against the attack, and it reached even through his Chi armor and seared his skin, he could feel his blood boiling literally. Blood steamed out of his lip where he'd bitten down hard. But due to his passive skill Pain Tolerance, he was able to stay conscious and was able to adapt to the pain, thus increasing his threshold to the pain.

And he could feel it, his body adapting. His strength and durability increased constantly as his body was damaged.

The nanobots in his armor were frantically trying to repair the damage and were being continuously damaged. Some of them were already slag, their frames burnt out, but others worked frantically, replacing micro-layers, purging melted circuits, and replenishing the platings along the outer suit.

His visor flickered, recalibrating. Finally as the power of the explosion started to dissipate, he flared his chi as he felt his increased strength.

He grinned and muttered, "…Bring it on,"

He turned toward the nearest Chimerian battleship, an angular brute of black metal, brimming with plasma turrets and shield emitters, and kicked off the debris beneath his feet.

Chi flared around him once more, as he became a streak of light, tearing through the space at hypersonic speed.

***