Incursion (VI)

A rain of splintered glass, twisted metal frames, and possible human body parts came drifting down in the aftermath. Victor, the man at the helm of the destruction, exhaled a deep breath in the wake of the devastation he'd wrought.

The large trench carved into the asphalt should have naturally signaled that the deed had been done. He glanced around, pacing himself with a few deep breaths, taking note of the men who had survived the encounter.

Several members of Cocytus remained, including Victor himself, but their current numbers amounted to steep drop from its original count. Nonetheless, they still had enough people to get the job done.

"Grcck!"

A grunt came from a short distance away. Victor glanced towards the source of the sound, only to see a Longinus agent, still clad in his special forces-esque gear coughing up blood through the mask covering his face. The man rolled over on his stomach despite the pain and began inching towards the rifle in his sights.

"Oh, still alive I see?" Victor scowled, the small signs of life coming from the agent had somehow managed to twist his expression into something even more unsavory. Wordlessly, he moved towards the lone survivor, abandoning his position within their preset formation. His right hand, which was arguably the most dangerous thing on the battlefield, was commanding a cluster of gales around his open palm.

As cruel as it was, even his own men understood what that meant instinctively—total annihilation of the enemy forces. Nothing else would satisfy him.

Victor stopped two paces short of the half-dead agent and took aim.

"Die."

"Wha-gacck!!!"

A shriek tore across the yard, cutting through the roar of the downpour and transmitting raw agony to everyone present. Victor's head snapped toward the sound, shock and disbelief twisting his expression. The gales coiling around his palm remained unreleased. Aside from the Longinus agents, there shouldn't have been anyone else here—no one who could stand against them.

That assumption shattered the moment the young man dropped onto the battlefield.

Still clad in a soaked school uniform, he stood with his blade already drawn—its mercury sheen marred by a fresh smear of blood from a recent decapitation. For a full second, the members of Cocytus froze, and by the time their instincts kicked in, it was already too late.

"K-Kill him!!" Victor's howl cracked through the rain, but the command came too slow.

Cyril was already halfway to his next target, splintering the asphalt from the sheer force of his dash.

"F-Fuck!" the terrorist in his sights squealed, the thick controller in his arms had prevented him from properly taking aim. He tossed it aside and hurriedly angled the muzzle before pulling the trigger, unleashing a merciless salvo at the young man.

It wasn't just him either, the spray of bullets homing in on Cyril were approaching from several angles, all aiming to penetrate his flesh and rip him to pieces. Cyril pressed on, fueling even more force into each step as he inched closer.

For him, every bullet being fired was deadly, one clean hit was dangerous enough to be called a death sentence—but that outcome seemed increasingly unlikely. The rounds streaking toward him missed by mere inches, unable to find their mark. Cyril's movements were razor-sharp, his body twisting and pivoting with inhuman precision, as if running on instinct alone.

Several factors were at play: subtle shifts in his joints, precise angling of his torso, and at times, full-body evasions that bordered on premonition.

He moved like a man who could see the exact location of every bullet fired at him—tracking their origin, reading their shifting trajectories, and knowing precisely where they'd land before they ever arrived.

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He was no stranger to being shot at, and after the first few times, he developed an uncanny knack for dodging the mithril projectiles. To him, it felt like nothing more than divine luck—sharpened by kinetic vision and experience—which is why he often dismissed it as simply honed skill. But that wasn't the case. The real truth lay in the utilization of the abilities he possessed, powers that were yet unknown to him.

He couldn't consciously access the dormant skills buried in his mind, but their passive nature meant they still operated to a degree—especially the extra skill, [Mobius].

At its core, [Mobius] allowed him to interpret the information recorded by nearby manites. But its utility extended far beyond simple analysis. Manites didn't just store magical data; they captured the parameters of everything they touched—light, temperature, vibration, motion vectors and countless other phenomena.

These were the very factors they manipulated to produce magic.

Cyril's body instinctively leveraged that fact, reading the embedded data to calculate bullet trajectories and prime his reflexes, enabling him to react with uncanny precision.

To an untrained observer, the entire sequence would seem instantaneous—nothing more than miraculous luck. But a more accurate term might be precognition.

The burst of speed brought Cyril within striking distance before the terrorist could blink twice. Cyril's expression remained taut, devoid of emotion—nothing to hinder his assault. What drove him forward were his cold, almost inhuman reflexes, and a mindset that had long since shifted from casual awareness to a cold, pragmatic assessment of the targets in his path—and the most efficient way to eliminate them.

Now, he was in range.

Cyril crouched down low, shifting his neck to the side to avoid the terrorist's frantic spray of gunfire. He ducked under the barrage of gunfire, fueling his momentum into a twist and using the buildup of force to cleave through the man's jugular.

"H-Hrrraa-ckkk!!"

The man's voice hitched in his throat, muffled by the blood beginning to pool there. His weapon—failing to notice that its owner had been neutralized — continued the futile salvo on behalf of his flailing body. The shots grew even more random, spraying in all directions, but Cyril didn't mind, he quickly swerved around the soon-to-be corpse and dashed for the towering machine training its weapons on him.

The onboard systems must have struggled to fire such destructive weapons with non-targets nearby. A brief delay—no more than five seconds—had passed when the mechanical whoosh of a cannon taking aim reached Cyril's ears. He glanced up at the source, noting the weapons now locked onto him.

An armed missile rack and a massive autocannon were aimed squarely at him—not to mention the relentless spray of bullets chasing him from behind. And yet, Cyril didn't flinch.

His mind had already settled on the first target he needed to disable.

That guy still needs more time to chant—now's my chance! I need to go for the Macewalker! I'm too close for it to use those missiles, which means…

Exactly as he'd predicted, the four-meter autocannon responded to his approach with a spray of MP rounds, each bullet packing enough force to leave divots in the ground. Still, he never faltered. Through quick pivots, twists, and turns, Cyril's seemingly haphazard trajectory was just unpredictable enough to keep him from getting riddled with holes.

With each step, he shifted his momentum and flung himself further into range, keeping his blade angled to strike at the very last moment.

Bang.

The cannon tracked his path with relentless fire. As he closed the distance, the muzzle flashed again—and this time, he wasn't able to dodge completely. Cyril kicked off the ground with a movement just shy of a somersault, enduring the heat of mithril shells as they grazed his skin.

With his body inverted, he angled the sword just enough to deflect the bullet hurtling toward his chest. Dark red spots began to seep through the white fabric of his dress shirt.

Even if his skills granted him a degree of precognition, it wasn't an absolute counter. It wasn't possible for him to perfectly dodge every round using a skill he wasn't even fully aware of—not when the shots came from several angles at once.

When his feet hit the asphalt again, he took advantage of the cannon's brief cooldown—a built-in precaution against overheating. He launched forward once more, this time swinging his sword overhead. Gritting his teeth, he soared across the narrowing gap and unleashed a ferocious strike with a roar. His blade, ignited by his aura, met the magical shield the Macewalker had projected to guard its leg.

The blade carved through the shield like wet paper—but it didn't stop there. Too much force had been channeled into the swing. Ascalon came down in a brilliant silver arc, cleaving straight through the support joint on the Macewalker's leg. The metal frame, bolts and all, slid out of alignment, and the machine collapsed sideways as if its structure had simply unraveled.

Before the inevitable crash, Cyril vaulted into the air, running up the side of the falling machine and springing over the insectoid cockpit. When it finally hit the ground, the torrent of gunfire ceased.

For a moment, silence.

No one could tell what the boy had done—until a few seconds passed.

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