Free Web NovelChapter 112: Road to Power Part 2
"It’s time for humans to stand up and fight. Not just to survive, but to truly live!" Lucien announced.
The words hit the room like a splash.
One person started it — someone near the bar, a man who had been sitting alone and silent for the past ten minutes, just staring at nothing. He stood up, knocked his stool back, and screamed it at the television.
"KILL ALL THE BEASTS!"
It took less than two seconds for the rest of the room to follow.
"KILL ALL THE BEASTS!"
"KILL ALL THE BEASTS!"
"KILL ALL THE BEASTS!"
The noise that erupted was not like anything Francis had heard from a crowd before. Not sports. Not celebration. Not even panic.
This was something simpler than all of that — raw, collective fury from people who had been terrified for so long and had just been handed a direction to point it.
The walls of the pub seemed to compress under the sound.
Fists hit tables. Drinks toppled. A man climbed onto his chair without thinking about it, just needing to be taller, needing the extra height for the scream leaving his throat.
A woman near the window was crying and shouting at the same time, the two things happening simultaneously without contradiction.
On the television, Lucien Ark stood at the podium and let it happen. He did not speak over it.
He did not try to calm it. He just stood there and watched the auditorium behind him do the same thing the pub was doing, thousands of people on their feet, the camera picking up the sound as a wall of noise that the microphones struggled to process cleanly.
He planned for this reaction. That much was obvious.
Nathan leaned back against the wall. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes moved — tracking the faces, reading the crowd.
Aris did not move at all.
She sat with her hands still in her lap, watching the television, watching Lucien with disgust.
"Hey, mind your expression. You don’t want people to suspect us," Francis placed a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back slightly.
"Thank you," she nodded. "You’re really calm, aren’t you... when you’re not openly killing people."
Francis didn’t react right away. His hand dropped from her shoulder.
"I’m killing people not because I want to, but because I need to," Francis replied.
"Does this mean you have a hunger that can’t be quenched?" she spoke slower this time.
Francis went quiet.
His fingers curled for a moment before relaxing again.
"How about you? I heard from Nathan that you also used to eat humans."
"That’s right," she nodded. "But after I reach my full power, the need to consume humans will stop. Maybe the reason you keep devouring so much is because your limit is also bottomless."
"Maybe," he shrugged it off, no longer in the mood to explain himself.
The group got out and they quickly decided to hit the road again. However, before they could leave the outpost, a bunch of military men blocked their way.
"Stop. I need to check your identification again," a corporal spoke as he blocked their way, his subordinates moving in behind him.
Francis’s ears picked up the shift in sound. Metal turning. Heavy steps above.
He looked up slightly.
The turrets along the walls rotated at once, locking onto their vehicles.
Harlan stepped out of the vehicle and handed over the papers.
"We are refugees from Harlen City, and we are headed to Qinns."
His grip stayed firm on the documents as he faced the corporal.
The other party checked the documents, and Harlan quickly realized what was happening. He slipped money under the table without drawing attention.
The corporal glanced down for a moment, then nodded.
"Oh, your papers check out. Safe travels," he flashed a smile before signaling the guards to open the metal gate.
The convoy continued, leaving the city outpost behind. No one spoke much as the vehicles moved forward.
There was no need to make a big deal out of it. Corruption had always been part of life, no matter the world or the era.
Five hours passed quickly.
The city appeared on the horizon.
The skyline was the first clue, and even from several kilometers out, the damage was obvious.
Whole sections of the upper city were gone. Buildings that should have formed a clean line against the sky were broken off mid-height, some collapsed entirely, others standing but hollowed out, their windows dark and their upper floors caved inward.
The closer to the outer districts, the more it looked like a construction site. Cleared rubble piled into organized heaps waiting for removal.
Cranes repositioning beams. Temporary structures going up in the gaps where permanent ones used to be — prefabricated shelters, field medical stations, supply distribution points with lines of people that stretched around corners and down side streets.
When Francis saw the number of survivors, his face lost color. His skin went pale as he stepped off the truck and moved ahead of everyone.
SWOOOSH!
The checkpoint guards did not see him coming.
They heard something — a sound like air being displaced, a low pressure shift that made the nearest soldier turn his head on instinct — and then Francis was already there.
The first guard raised his weapon and managed to get his finger to the trigger before a spider limb punched through his chest from fifteen meters away, the extension so fast it registered as a sound before it registered as a movement.
The second and third guards fired.
The rounds hit Francis and did nothing meaningful. His skin in this form absorbed the impact without issue.
Currently, he was so durable that not even high-caliber guns could get through him, so dodging would be a waste of time.
He turned his head toward them and two limbs shot out simultaneously from over his shoulders, crossing mid-air before each one found its target.
It wasn’t over yet.
The gate behind them exploded inward as his tail swung through it.
His tail was different from the limbs. Thicker. Longer. It moved with its own kind of intelligence, independent from the rest of him, sweeping wide arcs that cleared space while his arms and the spider limbs handled the small fries.
As one guard scrambled away from the wreckage of the gate, the tail caught him around the midsection, lifted him, and Francis’s fingers were already moving — extracting what he needed from the man before discarding him to the side.
He did not stop.
Inside the checkpoint, an alarm was already screaming.
A full unit of soldiers poured from the barracks building on the right — twelve, fifteen, more behind them — moving in formation, spreading out to avoid clustering, bringing heavier weapons up from the rear.
Francis watched them organize and felt nothing in particular about it.
He rolled his shoulders once, and the spider limbs spread wide behind him like a crown.
Then he launched himself forward.
He came down in the center of them.
The impact alone threw the nearest four men off their feet. His limbs went to work immediately — each one moved to a separate target, extending and retracting in rapid sequence.
Stab. Retract. Pivot. Extend.
A soldier near the back of the formation leveled a heavy shoulder-mounted weapon.
A single limb extended at an angle that should not have been physically possible given where the others were positioned, threading between two of his own appendages and catching the soldier’s weapon arm before he could fire.
The weapon dropped. The man dropped with it.
More and more men began attacking from a distance, but it no longer mattered.
Even when the Defense Force arrived and the Special Categories joined the fight, they were taken down with little resistance.
Before the convoy reached the outer district, the damage was already escalating.
Aris and the others could only watch.
They had already warned the Covenant members in the city to stay away and regroup with them later.
"Are we really going to bet our future on him?" Harlan asked.
"We have no choice," Aris responded. "Right now, we can only hope that he becomes strong enough to destroy the NET and prevent the other Kings from dying."
"But isn’t he too dangerous?" Harlan added.
"He is. But at least with him, humanity can still continue to exist."
It was a necessary evil. To save humanity, they had to support a beast who was currently tearing humans apart.
It was about choice. Which outcome caused the least destruction, and which kind of evil they could afford to live with.
While they were talking, a series of explosions went off in the distance.
Francis started pushing harder.
He was moving through the city without slowing down, forcing his way forward as he doubled the intensity of his attacks. His goal was simple: reach the next Category as fast as possible and get out of the city.
The NET was still on his mind. freёwebnovel.com
Although the chance of them putting actual resources into locking onto him was pretty slim, the idea of a satellite watching over the world was making him more conscious.
