The stage was set.
As the clock ticked to midnight, the doors on the van opened, and the vanguard left one by one, with Freddy standing at the very front.
"You got this, big guy," the red-armored woman, Lara, said as she tapped him on his shoulder. "Remember the protocol."
Freddy nodded.
The voice of a scout sounded through the comms, and all the groups got into position.
The vanguard was composed of most of the melee fighters there. There was another, smaller unit headed by an assassin. They would break through the top floor and make their way down.
Last but not least, Thor, who was accompanied by Travis and Jeffrey, would move in through the back while the guards were distracted to secure the prisoners and prevent the guards from trying to hold them hostage.
As for the vanguard—they were going in through the front.
They all stood around 250 meters away from the entrance. There was only an empty road between them and their target.
"On my mark," one of the ranged casters said through the comms. Then, he started counting down from ten.
Freddy got into position to start running. His leg muscles flexed, and his back straightened. He leaned forward, pressing his feet firmly into the ground and locking his eyes on the target.
"Go!" the ranger signaled.
The asphalt beneath Freddy's feet fractured as he instantly activated Hydraulic Flex and charged forward.
At first, he was immediately overtaken by the rest of the vanguard, who slowed down slightly to let him catch up, but as he kept running, he kept accelerating.
The distance between them and the building rapidly vanished.
200 meters.
150 meters.
100 meters.
80. 50—
With a flash of piercing light, a fiery projectile flew from one of the nearby buildings and impacted the entrance doors. The explosion rattled the whole building, but the metal doors remained standing despite the detonation. However, their hinges had loosened, and they had slightly caved in.
40 meters. 30, 20, 10—
Freddy activated Flowing Strike, timing it to offload all of his momentum into the metal door. With an intense sound of screeching metal, fractures spreading through the nearby walls, and a large cloud of kicked-up dust, the entrance burst apart, opening the path into the hallway.
"Intruders!" a guard shouted, and the voices of numerous men came cursing from deeper within the building. An alarm sounded through the whole building.
Without pause, Freddy ran inside.
"Stop! What do you think you're—" the guard shouted as he raised a sword to strike Freddy, but his words were cut off as Freddy literally ran through him, using nothing but the momentum of his body to throw the man aside like a broken ragdoll.
Doors opened deeper in the hallway, and guards rushed out, filling the entire space before him. Freddy spread his arms apart and conjured Gore Knuckles.
He struck the first guard—the man's stone-like skin shattered beneath the impact as the spikes tore into his chest. Freddy threw him aside, slamming him into the wall hard enough to spread cracks around the man's body, and kept running forward.
There was no mercy in his strikes. With every swing, he aimed for where it would hurt the most—and with 1% Lifesteal's feedback, he knew exactly where that was. He didn't pause to take care of every guard—there was a mob of angry warriors marching right behind him to take care of stragglers. Freddy's job was to keep pushing deeper.
The sounds of shouting and blades tearing through armor, flesh, and bone echoed behind him as he broke through, moved past the weaker henchmen, and turned into a hallway with fewer people present. He could tell their two-star gathering apart immediately.
Before he could react or dodge, an arrow impacted Freddy's helmet, leaving deep cracks through it. "Ugh!" Freddy groaned as he felt a sharp piece of metal cut the surface of his skin.
He saw one of the men put his hands against the floor, and in the next moment, the walls and floor shifted, blocking Freddy's path forward.
Without hesitation, Freddy cast a Flowing Strike and punched the wall. The force of the impact immediately shattered the barricade, creating a space for him to move through. The man who made the barrier looked momentarily surprised, but he immediately regained his composure and cast another ability, this time making the nearby walls form a thick growth of sharp spikes.
Freddy raised his leg. Both stars ignited in his soul. Flowing Strike slurped up almost 23% essence. His foot came down.
With a deafening shockwave that shook the entire building, the floor was split apart, and the spikes were blown away like sand in the wind.
Freddy ran forward immediately, activating Hydraulic Flex with both stars to accelerate toward the men before they could regain their bearing.
Suddenly, from behind the cloud of dust, he spotted a bright yellow light.
"Keep him where you found him; we'll be there soon. Over and out," Thor responded.
Freddy finally slumped against a wall, feeling unfathomably exhausted. His body had recovered quite a bit due to all the damage he did, but it was far from perfectly healed. His hands shook profusely from the still-festering burn wounds, and aching exhaustion permeated his bones.
Even with his Thousand Wet Hells-tempered body, using a double-star Flowing Strike so many times in a row really took a toll on his body. His joints hurt like a bitch. His fingers felt like all the tissue in them had been turned to mush. His right shoulder, right elbow, and right knee all felt like there were loose pieces of something stuck in there, be it bone or shattered cartilage.
The more powerful it became, the more his Flowing Strike was turning into an ability that he simply couldn't use willy-nilly. The only way he could think to keep up with it was by using another ridiculously dangerous upgrade for Thousand Wet Hells, but even then, it would be a continuous race between the tempering and the escalating backlash.
As Lara watched him slump and breathe heavily, she groaned and slowly took her helmet off. "Send the medics to the northwestern corner of the first floor. Over and out," she said into the comms.
"Disregard. Over and out," Freddy interjected.
"Wha...!? What the hell do you think you're doing?" the woman shouted. "First of all, when you got injured, you should have followed protocol and—"
"Will you please shut the fuck up?" he spat angrily. "I know what I'm doing. I have a regeneration talent."
She snorted in disbelief. "That's not the point. With injuries like that, you were not in shape to continue fighting, especially like that. You're not immortal."
"You'd be surprised," he said as he slowly got up to his feet. "Anyway, don't worry about me. I'm going to be fine."
"Thor will hear of this," she said. "If you're going to fight this way, you won't have a place with us for long. We don't need suicidal maniacs."
Freddy froze and slowly turned to face her. "With all due respect, this suicidal maniac has managed to survive to the peak of the second star with all his limbs still attached. If you want to continue believing I'm a naive moron while being at the same level of power as I, I see no reason not to return the favor," he spat sharply. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go find Thor and see if I can help out with anything else."
He didn't wait for her to respond before pushing past her and making his way to the steps leading down into the basement.
While nobody was looking, he took out the spark of undeath and slammed it a few times, healing himself back up to a minimum of natural-quality healing. With that, he could function just fine, even if his joints still felt a bit cranky and the feeling in his fingers was a bit dull.
As he walked down into the basement, his steps momentarily paused. He heard the sound of weeping and sobbing. His heart clenched as he mentally prepared himself for what he was about to witness.
The room was something straight out of a nightmare.
The medic squad silently walked from person to person, providing treatment to anyone who needed it the most.
Men. Women. The elderly and the children.
All half-naked. All missing right about any part of their bodies that could be taken without outright killing them.
From their eyes to massive patches of skin to entire limbs.
Numerous scars denoted parts of their bodies where organs had been removed, and the pattern of scars was nearly identical from patient to patient.
It was a gruesome, petrifying sight. Whoever had planned this out couldn't even be called a human being.
An intense feeling of sickness flared up in Freddy's gut, and he subconsciously clenched his fists.
"Oh, it's you," Thor said dryly as he spotted him. The man eyed Freddy's body.
The trenchcoat was mostly fine. The material was very resistant to burning, even if it wasn't a great insulator towards fire essence. The minor self-repair rune had kept most of the damage away, but there was a small patch where the fabric had been frayed, right where the fireball hit him.
Freddy could feel the man's perception licking across his body and observing the wounds beneath. Thor briefly scowled at what he saw but didn't say anything about it. "Follow me." He walked past Freddy and up the stairs that took him back to the ground floor.
They were followed by Travis and a few other fighters as they slowly made their way up the stairs and to where the doctor was being kept.
The man was tied up right in the middle of the hallway, surrounded by the assassins. His face was severely bruised, and he looked like he was missing a few teeth.
"Please..." the doctor muttered. "Don't kill me! I didn't have a choice! They threatened my family! I can work for you! I have fifty years of experience! Just spare my life, please!"
Something about the man's voice tickled the back of Freddy's mind. He didn't recognize the man's bruised and mangled face, but as he heard the voice, he slowly put the pieces together.
This was the lead doctor who had taken Freddy's commission to heal Sophia.
As he realized that, all blood drained from Freddy's face.
If the lead doctor died, it was likely that Freddy would lose his appointment and would have to find another group to handle his request.
But the time was running out. The longer he waited, the greater the risk that Sophia wouldn't fully recover.
Thor walked up to the doctor and raised his axe. "We don't need healers like you."
Freddy's legs moved before he could think, and he leaped right in front of the descending weapon.