Chapter 150 - Coldblooded Massacre

'Fuck!' Tom thought, his body twisting in an unnatural manner to avoid the attack. 

He managed to rein his autoguard previously, not by the sheer power of will, but by convincing himself that the attacks on the scale of simple bullets couldn't even be classified as attacks. 

But as a solid chunk of the iron ball with spikes all over it flashed past his body, he had no other option but to realize one slightly distressing truth. 

The online hub came prepared for the confrontation. 

'So the guns were just a distraction,' Tom thought, jumping away and sending two of the spears from his domain swarm as far away as he could. 

Looking to the side, he saw a thick, black metal chain that connected directly to the ball that almost punctured his body in several places only to smash it into pulp the very next moment. 

Following by the chain, Tom raised his eyes towards where it came from. 

'So it's you...' he thought, noticing the nonchalant look on Peter's face. 'It seems that the high-managers of the online hub didn't get their name for nothing,' he thought as Peter retracted his right arm to the back.

But he was slow. 

Rather than instantly moving the entirety of his weirdly-shaped morgenstern, he actually had to pull its back by its chain. 

'Do you seriously think I will allow that?' Tom thought, stupefied by the naivety of the man. 

Rather than just waiting for the man to retract the dangerous part of his weapon, Tom stepped on the chain instead. 

His autoguard attacked for the third time, allowing him to avoid a powerful burst of electricity that cracked over the entirety of the chain. 

'Woops,' Tom thought, jumping away from the dangerous entity. 'I guess I cannot make any more blunders like that,' he thought, watching powerlessly how Peter fully retracted his weapon. 

"Did you really think that you could just waltz into my domain and do as you wish?!" Peter shouted over from the vast distance. He showed no intention of getting anywhere closer, even though he could no longer hope for any lucky hits like the one that almost reached Tom's body before. 

"Are you sure you are not overestimating your ability?" Tom asked, shredding several of Peter's people into bits with his hail of spears. At the same time, he started to send his spears all over the place, aiming some of them to fly directly towards the man. 

"Weak!" Peter replied, slapping the two spears that flew towards him with the palm of his hand. He then raised his right arm only to throw it forward, allowing the chain that could somehow hide in the handle of the weapon to unveil.

'Is he seriously thinking that this will hit me?' Tom thought, watching at the approaching ball of deadly iron with disbelief. 

For Peter, this had to be a swift attack, one that only the best martial artists on earth could ever hope to dodge. 

But for Tom, it was a weird show of a spiked ball slowly making its way towards him. 

It wasn't swift at all. 

'If I were to compare, it's like someone leisurely walking towards me?' Tom thought, taking two steps to the side to get out of the line of Peter's attack.

The ball flew past him, burying itself deeply into the complicated electrical circuits laid at the bottom of the dome. 

Tom simply smiled, hoping to provoke Peter into closer combat. 

"UGH!" A moan of pain escaped through Tom's lips when a powerful attack squeezed his lungs from behind. 

'IT FUCKING HURTS!' he screamed out in his soul, only for a small smile to appear on his face a moment later. 'As if,' he added, reaching to his back with his hand and pulling the head of the Morgenstern from his back. 

There was no physical way for Peter to manipulate just the head of his weapon with how loose the chain was right now. And that means it had to be the work of his skill. 

'Quite a clever trick,' Tom admitted, staring at the blood-covered spikes, signifying that Peter's attack actually succeeded. 

But Tom wasn't worried. 

The pain that momentarily shook his body was already gone. He couldn't even feel any discomfort in his back, right where his arrogance ended up with Peter's attack hitting him. 

"What an idiot!" Peter shouted, gently shaking the handle of his weapon. The slight vibration caused by this move instantly turned into an electric current. 

This time, however, he kept his hold over the chain. 

'Do you wanna see who has more energy in them?' Tom thought, accepting the pain caused by the raging electric current blasting through his flesh. 

The feeling was akin to having his body paralyzed and burned with an open fire at the same time. 

But even after a few moments of voluntarily subjecting himself to this torture, no signs of permanent damage could be seen anywhere on Tom. 

'This resilience skill is far more powerful than I thought,' Tom thought, recalling one of the skills that he obtained while adventuring in the dungeon with Claudia. 

It was the simplest skill in the book. By using his very own mana, he could heal the damage to his body. As this was an active skill, he could choose whether or not to use it. That's was the one reason why the wound left by the dungeon boss turned into a scar on his face instead of turning it back into a perfect state. 

Because Tom chose not to heal it. One reason was to have this scar serve him as a reminder that there were beings stronger than him, even after all the levels, skills, and statistics he gained from the dungeon. 

And secondly, for the very reason that Peter fell for. To feint his inability to heal the damage he sustained. 

"Anyway, I think it's time to wrap this up," Tom muttered silently to himself. Even with their senses boosted, only the closest survivors of the hail of his spears could hope to hear those words. 

Tom dropped the chain. Yet, before it could even fall to the ground, he activated another skill of his, one that he turned into the very foundation of his personal fighting style.

'Swap!' 

In an instant, Tom changed position. But he didn't go for the kill instantly, opting to jump to one of the many spears that he scattered all over the place. 

The second Tom moved, his domain followed. Rather than being pulled through the distance that he teleported away, it disappeared, only to reappear around him as soon as he materialized in his new spot. 

'Recall,' Tom thought, forcing all of the magical spears that freed from the influence of the domain were about to fall down to the ground back into the new position of his domain. 

Without as much as a single thought, another group of Online Hub personal turned into mincemeat under the onslaught of a horde of spears flying in all directions. 

"WHA..." Peter turned his head, attempting to follow Tom's movement....

'Swap,' Tom jumped again, clearing another area from the enemies. Before Peter could even locate him, he used it again. And again. And again. 

Soon, the entire dome turned silent. With a quick look, Tom realized that only Peter and the girl that he once saw in his company managed to survive. 

'Strange,' he thought, surprised by the survival of that girl. Given how she not only managed to escape from when he destroyed the high-caliber gun but also avoid the certain death of being stuck within his domain, she had to have some serious skills on her own. 

"The fuck did you do?!"  Peter scowled, only now realizing that the numerous army he brought to this place was reduced to a single person left alive. 

"Cleaned out some trash," Tom replied calmly. After two rounds through the dungeon and many years of hunting experience, he had no mental backlash after massacring scores of people just like that. 

He went through the experience of his first human kill back in the other world, freeing him from this burden on this side. 

'Cancel haste,' Tom thought. In an instant, the world reverted to its usual speed, allowing him to have a normal conversation instead of making out what Peter was saying from the funny sounds he made in the slowed-out perception of his. 

"You will die for that," Peter uttered through his teeth, readying his morning star for another attack. 

"Do you know why you are still alive?" Tom asked. 'Recall,' he thought, summoning his true weapon and resting his weight on it. 

"Enlighten me," Peter said, throwing Tom a murderous gaze.

"Because it will be a greater punishment to you to be left alive," Tom calmly replied before shaking his head. "Sadly, letting you live would endanger my family," he added with a vicious smile as soon as he noticed the sparks of hope appearing in Peter's eyes. 

'That's it,' Tom thought happily. Marvin's and Cleo's fathers paid with his limb for their attack. And now, Tom was going to crush that man's hopes in silly revenge. An act of revenge that would cleanse his soul from the burden of allowing anyone to hurt one of his own. 

'Swap,' Tom thought, finally using the spear that he formerly aimed at Peter. Appearing right behind the man's back, he simply thrust his real spear forward, pushing it through the man's body as if it was made out of paper. 

'It's done,' he thought, pulling his weapon out and shaking the blood off the precious weapon. He then looked towards the miraculously surviving woman, currently sitting on her bottom with her eyes opened wide in terror. 

'Swap,' he thought, unable to be bothered to walk towards her. 'Cleaning this place will be a pain,' he thought, taking aim for the girl's throat. 

Even if she only followed orders, she was still the one who shot the bullet that harmed his uncle. 

"Spare me..." the girl muttered through her rattling teeth. Her entire body was shaking from terror. "I beg you..." she pleaded with a tiny voice, unable to even pronounce her words correctly. 

"Tom!" Cleo suddenly called out, stopping her friend just as he was about to push the blade of his spear through the impressive chest of the woman. "We can get a load of information from her!" she shouted over from the entrance to the dome. 

"I will tell you everything you want!" Kira pushed her body forward, striking the floor with her forehead. "I will do whatever you want!" she continued to plead, barely able to even speak due to how petrified she was. 

"See?" Cleo said, crossing the distance from Tom in just a few jumps before kicking the woman to her back.. "She can still be of use for us," Tom's friend said as a vicious smile grew up on her lips. "And after we boom this place away, she won't have anywhere to return to either, would she?"