Free Web NovelChapter 103: The Storm Part 8
Silence swallowed the battlefield, not just at their position but across the entire capitol. All eyes were on her.
Francis stared upward.
For the first time since arriving here, the grin on his face disappeared completely.
His claws flexed slowly.
Every instinct inside him screamed.
The pressure pouring from the sky was overwhelming.
His skin crawled violently as if every nerve in his body already understood one terrifying truth.
She could reach him whenever she wanted.
Distance meant nothing.
CRACK!
The lightning around Aris intensified.
KRRRRRRKKK—
Entire sections of cloud vaporized around her descent. White arcs lashed across the sky like living creatures before snapping back toward her wings.
Each flap distorted the air itself.
Francis narrowed his eyes.
"...Interesting."
But his voice no longer carried the same confidence as before.
Below him, chunks of broken concrete slowly lifted off the ground.
The pressure field surrounding Aris kept growing stronger the closer she descended.
At the capitol building.
Aris landed.
The ground below her gave way on impact. A wide section of road collapsed and split, throwing dust and broken concrete into the air.
Lightning crawled across the cracks like it was searching for something to burn.
Her wings stayed open for a moment before folding slowly behind her back.
Across the her stood the one she came for.
A man in full power armor.
Twin swords rested in his hands, angled slightly downward. His helmet looked like a lion’s head, heavy and closed, with no visible face inside.
Only a dark slit where eyes should have been.
He tilted his head once, not showing any sign of fear despite her overwhelming aura.
She stepped forward.
Lightning cracked under her feet again.
The man finally moved.
He rushed in without warning.
Fast, but not careless.
Both swords came from different angles. One aimed for her shoulder. The other aimed for her ribs.
Aris shifted her body slightly to the side.
Steel passed close enough to cut through air beside her face.
She raised one clawed hand.
CLANG!
Metal met feathered armor.
The impact pushed her arm back, but not enough to break her stance.
The man followed instantly.
He twisted his body and brought the second blade up.
Aris blocked again.
CLANG!
The force spread through her arm and into the ground. Stone cracked beneath her feet.
Her eyes narrowed. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
He was adjusting too quickly.
No wasted motion.
The masked man stepped in closer. His sword work became tighter. Short cuts followed one after another, aimed at joints and weak points in her wing structure.
Aris shifted backward. Lightning gathered along her arm, then condensed into a single strike.
No warning.
Just execution.
She swung.
A bolt of blue light came with it, sharp enough to melt steel before contact.
The masked agent reacted instantly.
Both swords crossed in front of him.
CLANG!
The sound was wrong for what it blocked.
Metal met lightning.
The blades did not melt.
They held.
For a fraction of a second, the swords turned white-hot, edges glowing under extreme heat.
The armor behind them absorbed the force through layered structure, spreading the impact down into the ground.
The street under him fractured outward.
But he stayed standing.
Aris’s eyes narrowed slightly.
That was not normal resistance.
The agent slid one foot back, then rotated his body.
His next motion was no ordinary strike. He swung one blade in a wide arc.
No visible energy at first.
Just movement.
Then the air changed.
A compressed wall of force formed along the path of the sword.
It tore forward like a blade made of pressure itself.
The wind hit Aris’s lightning mid-air.
For a split moment, her energy resisted.
Blue light pushed against invisible force.
Then it split.
The wind shear carved through the lightning, breaking its shape apart and scattering it into wild arcs that lost direction.
Aris moved immediately.
The pressure wave passed where her torso had been and tore through the ground behind her, slicing clean through concrete and steel frames like paper.
Her wings flared once.
Electricity snapped outward in response, but even that was disrupted by the unstable air left behind.
The agent did not follow up right away.
He reset his stance.
Both swords lowered again.
Aris did not dare to be complacent.
Her focus stayed on the masked agent.
She opened her mouth. "So the rumors are right. The Lion’s Pride is in this city."
"Tell me," she continued. "Why are you here instead of protecting the capital? Did your bastard master send you?"
The masked agent twitched. "Don’t mention my father’s name."
Aris tilted her head slightly.
"Father?" She scoffed. "You still call him that? You’re just another science project he built and threw into armor—"
SWOOOSH!
He appeared in front of her in a single step.
The ground cracked where he launched from.
Both swords swung at once.
CLANG!
Aris raised her clawed arm in time. Metal met lightning-hardened armor. The impact sent a shock through her body.
She slid back half a step.
The agent followed immediately.
Left blade came down.
Right blade twisted upward.
CLANG! CLANG!
Aris blocked both, but the force kept building. Each strike carried more pressure than the last.
Aris’s wings flared once as lightning surged along her arm, trying to push him back.
But he stayed close.
Too close.
His rhythm changed again.
One diagonal strike slipped through her timing.
She twisted her body, but the blade still caught her side plating. Metal cracked and sparks sprayed out as she exhaled sharply through her teeth.
The agent stepped in at the same time, trying to widen the opening.
Aris caught his wrist mid-motion.
"My turn."
Lightning exploded at point-blank range between them.
For a fraction of a second, his armor locked up under the surge.
That was all she needed.
But before she could follow through, the agent tore his arm free with brute force and drove his shoulder straight into her chest.
BOOM!
Aris was thrown back, boots dragging hard across broken stone until she regained balance.
Dust rolled between them like a curtain.
The agent reset instantly, both swords lowered again as if nothing had changed.
Waiting.
Aris straightened slowly. A thin line of blood ran along her side.
She wiped it away and lowered her hand, never breaking eye contact.
The masked agent did not move.
For a brief moment, the battlefield was quite.
Then his presence changed.
It wasn’t an explosion of power. It was a release, controlled, like something being unsealed under pressure.
The air around him grew heavier. Dust stopped drifting. Even distant debris seemed to hesitate mid-fall.
Aris felt it press against her skin.
Her wings tightened slightly.
"Thought I’d join the party," Francis landed beside her. His eyes stayed on the masked agent.
In his right hand, he held Lyrica’s body. Well some of it.
"Here. A gift."
He tossed the corpse forward.
It spun through the air, heading straight toward the agent.
The moment it crossed the midpoint, it broke apart into pieces before it even got close enough to land.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked.
"Well," he said, rolling his shoulder once, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
His gaze drifted toward the other party.
"That guy looks tough. All that reflection, all that wind tricks." He let out a short laugh. "So let’s work together and end him."
The masked agent did not react to the words.
He only raised one sword slightly.
The air around him shifted again.
Pressure deepened.
Even the dust stopped moving.
Aris finally spoke. "I’ll take this as you want to ally with us?"
Francis gave a small shrug. "If it helps kill him, sure."
In reality, he was interested in obtaining the agent’s body. There was no denying that it was superior in quality compared to Lex.
So far, the only people he had fought on Lex’s level were Vance and Lyrica, but their strength was not far above Lex’s, so he never took the chance to infect it.
However, the person before him was on an entirely different level.
He was able to casually tank the lightning attack that could hurt him, showing just how durable his armor was.
Even so, it also meant that the user of it was equally powerful.
"I have a plan, but you have to follow me," Francis spoke.
Aris kept her eyes on the masked agent. Her wings stayed half-open, lightning still crawling in thin lines across them.
"What is it?" she asked.
Francis didn’t look away from the target.
"Let’s attack together."
She moved first.
A flash of lightning tore across the air as Aris vanished from her position. The air cracked in her wake, and she reappeared directly in front of the enemy.
Her claws came down without hesitation.
Francis was supposed to be a few seconds behind. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
That was her estimate of his speed.
But something was wrong the moment her attack landed.
Francis was already there.
One second behind her movement, not several.
His claw swung in from her blind side, cutting through the space she just crossed.
The attack forced the masked agent to react instantly.
He twisted his body and brought both swords up in defense.
CLANG!
