Chapter 384 Silent Torturer (1)
Chapter 384 Silent Torturer (1)
Sparks flew off in every direction when Balmond and Richard's bionic arm clashed. The latter was pushed back a bit as a result of the impact, while Ashton continued his relentless attacks. When Richard first saw Ashton he knew the kid had to be something special. If not, he wouldn't have survived in the brutal space for so long.
Yet, he did not expect Ashton to fight such fiercely. After all, a necromancer's strength was in their summons. The necromancer always stayed behind while letting his minions do the dirty work. But this necromancer was different.
He did not stand back or idle around. Instead, he led the charge against Richard and his group of thugs. The terrorists fought back ferociously but in vain. The two monsters supporting Ashton completely overwhelmed them.
To make matter worse, none of their weapons was working against the shadowy creatures. A few of them dared to challenge them in hand-to-hand combat, thinking physical attacks would work against them. While their guess was correct, it only led to a quicker demise for them.
Getting close to the monsters was impossible and dealing with them while maintaining a safe distance was utterly useless. There was nothing they could do.
At the same time, their leader was completely getting thrashed around. While being a half-android gave Richard extraordinary power output to his skills, at the same time it made him use a lot of energy to execute those attacks in the first place.
In other words, Richard wasn't used to having long drawn-out battles as it would make the robotic half of his body completely useless. Somehow, the kid who he had seen for the first time in his life, was aware of his crucial weakness and wasted no time exploiting it.
"Look, kid... it's not late for you to give up now. Our reinforcements would arrive at any possible moment and when they do, you won't look half as pretty as you are now."
Richard tried distracting Ashton while his energy core slowly recharged and repaired some of the damage. There was nothing else he could do. At the rate he was being forced to use his skills, sooner or later his energy core would run out of the residual amount of energy that was necessary to keep half of his body in an operational state.
With that gone, he would literally be paralysed and at the mercy of his enemy. Richard did not even have to think about what would happen if he got captured.
If the kid wasn't a fool, he would cash in bounty over his head and that would be the end of him. Or he would kill him and then cash in the reward. No matter what, Richard could not afford to pay that price all because of a stupid brat that got in his way. Not when he hadn't even gotten his revenge over those Meta-humans that betrayed him.
Sadly for him, his background and reasons for becoming a terrorist were of no importance to Ashton. The only thing he cared about was getting rid of the bastard. Richard saw the coldness in Ashton's eyes and decided enough was enough.
"Fuck off you piece of shit!" He yelled, pulling all of his strength into a single attack and launching it towards Ashton.
He was all in, either this attack would knock Ashton unconscious, or he will be the one to die. Unfortunately, his attack wasn't even strong enough to push back Ashton who effortlessly blocked his punch.
"Honestly, I was hoping for more. But I guess you weren't as strong as I thought." Ashton responded before crushing Richard's bionic arm, "Well, it's not the first time I have been wrong about these things."
A moment later, Richard's arm was gone for good. He slumped down on his knees... tired and defeated. He turned around and saw his crew had been slaughtered, his upgrades were destroyed.
All in all, what was supposed to be an easy capture and escape mission, turned into a nightmare that took everything away from him. All of it, because of one stupid kid. Richard wanted to curse the bastard in front of him, he wanted to yell he wanted to do a lot of things, but now he was powerless to even move.
"Get it over with..." Richard mumbled.
Ashton did not respond, but the following moment something rolled next to his feet. From the corner of his eyes, he saw it was a severed head... of one of Eula's bodyguards. Then came another and another.
He immediately perked up. Someone was there but he didn't know who. His senses were working on overdrive. Ashton heard a faint noise which got louder and louder until he realised someone was clapping in some distance.
Ashton immediately turned around, only to see Gokung was on her feet while Atlas was trapped in a makeshift prison cell that was seemingly made out of light. These gigantic creatures were immobilised and he did not notice a single thing.
'How the hell all of this happened without me noticing?'
[I didn't notice anything either... use Perception and see if you find something weird.]
Ashton did that long before Astaroth instructed him to, but there was no one anywhere close to him. But there had to be someone behind these actions.
"Look harder, weird human." A voice echoed through the empty corridors, "We have been watching you in action for a while now. We liked what you were doing to that other human."
That's when a different voice accompanied the first, "We share some of your qualities and couldn't help but admire your way of dealing with those thugs. Not to mention, you made things quite easy for us by killing our rivals."
Suddenly the room Ashton had been standing in turned into nothingness. Everything was gone. Richard, Atlas, Gokung, the severed heads... everything disappeared as if they were made of ice that melted in an instant. Before Ashton could think or do anything, he was stabbed right in the chest.
"Welcome to the house of pain... child." Both voices mumbled as Ashton fell to his knees, soaked in his blood.