Free Web NovelChapter 113: Road to Power Part 3
"Sir." The young officer remained by the door, waiting.
Lucien looked up first. "What is it?"
"We’ve received reports from Quinn’s."
The officer held a tablet in both hands. There was something in the way he stood that caused others around the table to lift their eyes as well.
"A beast attack is currently underway."
Nobody reacted immediately.
Incidents of that sort arrived every day.
Most were intercepted at the front lines, where the Defense Forces managed to hold back the larger movements.
But others were already elsewhere, scattered across the continent and difficult to account for.
Some moved through the water, unseen until they surfaced. Others traveled beneath the ground, appearing only when they were already too close to be stopped.
However, the Defense Force and the Federation were usually more than enough to keep them at bay. Even when Rynik’s attack had caused widespread destruction, most of the Special Categories had survived.
So a report like this was unusual. It meant the local forces in Quinn’s were no longer able to contain the threat.
"What category?" someone asked.
"We’re still assessing it."
The officer glanced at the screen before adding, "Possibly Category Eight."
A chair shifted somewhere in the room.
Lucien set down his pen.
"Let’s see it. Authorize one of our satellites to check the city."
The request was simple enough.
A technician glanced down at his console before answering.
"The satellite is already on passive tracking, sir. We can view the feed, but repositioning for a full scan will require clearance from NET Command."
Lucien’s expression did not change.
He checked his tablet, then pressed his thumb against the biometric scanner.
A moment later, Orbital Platform Epsilon opened a bridge connection to the global satellite network.
Across the room, a few officers noticed the change in system status at the same time. Their screens updated almost silently, lines of authorization extending outward in ways that were not normally permitted at this level.
Under ordinary circumstances, access like this required multiple layers of government approval. Several agencies. Several points of confirmation. A chain of accountability designed to prevent exactly this kind of direct control.
The screen changed.
Unlike the footage from drones and aircraft, the image was steady.
Someone already switched over to satellite observation.
The city appeared beneath a thin layer of cloud. Streets cut through blocks of damaged districts. Smoke drifted between buildings.
There was no sound.
Only movement.
The image tightened slightly.
"There," the officer said.
A small marker appeared over one section of the city.
For a moment, Lucien struggled to identify the target.
The scale was deceptive from orbit.
Then he saw it.
A moving point. freewebnøvel.com
Military units converged from multiple directions.
Several officers leaned forward.
The satellite feed continued tracking.
Vehicles arrived.
Positions were established.
Then the formation simply ceased to exist.
The marker remained.
The soldiers did not.
No one said anything.
The feed switched between districts as the tracking systems attempted to predict the creature’s movement.
Each time the result seemed much the same.
Units arrived.
The target continued moving.
The city absorbed the damage.
After several minutes, the image shifted again.
Additional information appeared along the side of the screen.
Projected route.
Population density.
Military response estimates.
And beneath them, several lines of data .
One of the staff began reading the data the satellites had managed to capture.
"This beast is moving too fast. According to our estimate, it’s reaching a peak speed of over one thousand kilometers per hour. It’s humanoid in size, which makes it difficult to track once it starts using cover."
Lucien’s eyes shifted slightly.
The first thing he recalled was the Covenant members. The thought came quickly, then lingered for a moment longer than he liked.
But he let it go.
Whatever was moving through Quinn’s did not fit there pattern. Even at their worst, there was restraint—an order they did not easily abandon, even under pressure.
Lucien kept his eyes on the screen for a while longer, expecting the local Force to stabilize the situation.
Nothing changed.
The beast continued its killing spree, unhindered.
"Sir, should we move one of our sub-orbital cannons to handle this?" one of the members asked.
Lucien did not answer right away. Not because he hadn’t heard.
But because the decision was not that simple.
Sub-orbital assets were already assigned. Some were locked to other engagements. Others were in standby, but "standby" meant waiting for something worse to justify their movement.
Moving them meant opening another gap somewhere else.
"Call the capital. Have them send more Elite Teams to Quinn’s, and use an airship. We can’t afford to move our sub-orbital assets right now."
A few people around the table exchanged glances.
The officer nearest the communications console was already transmitting the request before Lucien had finished speaking.
"Sir," one of the members spoke carefully, "if the projections are accurate, the local forces may not be enough even with reinforcements."
"I know." Lucien watched the marker move across another section of the city in a blink of an eye.
"Another King is already on the move in the eastern front," he continued. "If we start pulling strategic assets away from their current assignments, we may solve one problem only to create a bigger one."
The room fell silent. Everyone present understood what a King’s movement meant.
Compared to that, a humanoid beast capable of extreme speed did not feel like the most urgent problem anymore.
Far from the conference room, the satellite feed struggled to keep up with what was happening on the ground.
In Quinn’s, Francis just finished dealing with the Defense Force unit that attempted to stop him.
At first, they arrived with confidence and numbers.
What as an attempt to contain him became something else entirely once they realized just how futile their strength was against him.
He did not stop. He spent the entire day moving through the city, killing without pause, until nearly ninety percent of the population had been wiped out. The rest were either in hiding or trying to escape.
"What’s your next plan?" Aris’s voice carried up from below the railings.
Francis didn’t look down immediately.
When he did, he saw them gathered in the ruined street.
The Covenant members.
There were far more of them now than before. Not dozens. Not even hundreds. Thousands, spread across the broken blocks.
They wore combat gear openly. Weapons were no longer hidden. The insignia that once seemed kept out of sight was now displayed without fear.
Aris stood slightly ahead of the group, along with new faces. They were the hybrid leaders in this city.
One by one, they knelt in his presence. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Francis did not look satisfied by it. If anything, his expression remained unchanged, as if the gesture belonged to a world slightly separate from his attention.
He had not asked for this.
He had not expected it either.
"I’ll head to the next city, and do the same thing. I need more human lives to grow stronger," he clenched his fist.
He already reached Category Nine.
His next goal remained fixed in his mind: fifty million.
Such a number meant he would need to destroy more cities to reach it.
Around him, the Covenant members did not react with surprise. If anything, the idea settled into them with a kind of acceptance, as though it confirmed what they already chosen to follow.
The city behind them continued to burn in scattered pockets. Most of the resistance had already faded into hiding or escape routes that were no longer being tracked in real time.
Francis lowered his hand slowly.
No one spoke immediately after.
Then, without needing further discussion, the group began to reorganize—preparing to move again, leaving behind what remained of Quinn’s for whatever came next.
Or so they thought.
They had been on the highway for only a few hours when they saw a military blockade on the horizon.
But that was not what drew attention first.
t was the airship.
Large enough to be seen even from a distance.
Someone in the convoy noticed it and said something into a radio, but the words were cut off before they finished.
"Stop!"
Francis spoke suddenly.
Before anyone could react, he was already moving.
He jumped from the truck without hesitation, landing on the asphalt with enough force to make the vehicles behind shift slightly off balance.
For a brief moment, he stood still.
Then he opened his mouth and roared.
"RAWWWWWWR!!!!"
The sound did not behave like a normal sound.
It carried forward in a concentrated wave, compressing the air in front of him. The helicopters in its path got destroyed immediately.
The shockwave continued outward, reaching the airship, but it was dispersed by the airship’s shield system.
In response, the airship launched hundreds of missiles toward them. Francis did not panic.
More mouths formed across his body, and they roared in unison, detonating the missiles before they could reach him.
’So they’re finally putting more resources into getting rid of me.’
