Chapter 519 Thieves Hunt, Part 1

Lee Seng flicked through his skill pages as they walked. For the most part, he kept his ears as his first line of being alert to anything that might come their way as his eyes somewhat went in and out of focus on the road. The thieves had caught them off guard and now he was wondering what else they had in store for them.

'None of my skills really gained experience…' Lee Seng frowned. 'My Double Harvest skill only gives me the ability to double XP on Soul harvests… That means killing a whole bunch of things will just give me levels to my next tail… What am I gonna do if I hit that so quickly?'

"My injuries are really gone…" Lisa whispered to David. She pulled her shirt up and tried to show David the dried blood. David's looked at it and then looked at his bloodied spots.

"Did he?" David whispered. They both looked at Lee Seng as he quietly mumbled to himself.

"Dunno." Lisa shrugged. She pulled her shirt down and leaned into David. "Why does he flick his finger like that?"

"I dunno." David shrugged. "Maybe it's just one of his ways of processing thought?"

'I can't use any Light manipulation abilities. I'm not even sure if Fox-Fires would do well. They're augmented to Light… Ugh, this is so annoying. I might be able to get away with using an Echo to switch places with them and confuse people…' Lee Seng continued to think. After a while of thinking, Lee Seng came to a good conclusion. 'AI, do you have a general idea of what the Cosmos upgrade is?'

[…]

[Answer: Cosmos is an Expert Mutation branch of Gravity. You can create and control the cosmos to your will. Bending the natures of earth and heated stars to your will. Reference: Eleven's 'Gravitum: Meteor Rush' created a huge Area of Effect that summoned meteors. Just like that, Cosmos uses the warping reality of space to deal massive AoE damage.]

'So it's all about space then.' Lee Seng nodded. 'Does that mean I could eventually teleport?' There was a natural pause as Lee Seng waited for the AI to say something.

Click.

[A possibility. It's hard to know without trying. I've taken Eleven's experiences and notated them for future reference but I haven't seen Eleven do such a thing. There's an odd… Error occurring with this question, though.]

'An odd error?'

"Hey, Lee Seng." David called out. Lee Seng snapped out of his thoughts and stopped.

"Hm?" Lee Seng answered.

"Where are we going? We've just been bee lining it around and I swear I've seen that building before." David pointed up at one of the skyscraper buildings. Lee Seng looked at it and for a moment, he felt like there were eyes on them.

"I don't know where we're going." Lee Seng told them. "I thought I would've gotten something but I've only gotten something now."

"What do you mean?" Lisa asked.

"The skyscraper David pointed out." Lee Seng turned to look at them. He intentionally put his back towards it like he wanted to test if what he saw was right or not. David and Lisa began to look when Lee Seng added, "Don't look. It'll only make them know we've spotted them."

"What do we do then?" Lisa asked. "What if they have traps waiting for us?"

"I'm good in closed off areas." David told them. "I work better in tight and closed off spaces."

"Is those the scouts noticed earlier?" A woman asked, staring down at street with her magnifying glasses on.

"Yes, ma'am." A man answered. His ear piece pinged and he turned away. After a moment, he looked at the woman. "Reports are coming in from the others… And it's not good."

"What is it?" The woman looked at the man.

"The tall Asian man seems to have a deadly ability to manipulate stars and space. He literally destroyed the building the snipers were in."

The woman turned and looked back down. Lee Seng's back was to them like he had no clue they were there. They seemed to be talking about something and agreeing on something.

"You know who they're with?" The woman asked.

"We haven't figured that out yet." The man replied.

"What was the last biggest problem we had?"

"Well… the first one that comes up to my mind isn't really a problem…"

"Spit it out."

The man gulped and replied, "the Hell horse rancher." The woman nodded and wrapped her hand around her gun.

"We'll need to separate them and hold them in cells. We'll have to use more firepower for the dangerous one, too." The woman ordered.

"Yes, ma'am." The man turned and walked out of the room.

"Can I fire?" A voice asked in her ear pierce.

"Are you all ready?" The woman asked, pulling her gun out. She loaded the gun and tapped the glass, watching the glass distort in front of her.

"Yes, ma'am!" Voices began to answer.

"Fire."

"And what about you, Lisa?" Lee Seng asked. "I know you have… That form thing but that seems like a last resort."

"Mmm, I'm not that strong nor fast… I've been struggling to gather the basics of my power down too… I'm kinda—" Loud shots rung in Lee Seng's ear as a clear barrier quickly appeared around them.

"What the fuck is happening?!?" David asked. Bullets suspended in the gravity barrier's hold, dropping to the ground as bullets continued to rain down on them.

"I figured this was going to happen." Lee Seng sighed. "There's some possibilities we have to factor in here. One, Lisa's berserk form. Two, them. Three, they will want to split us up."

"What do we do then?" David asked. "We can't just… Separate. What happens if—"

A louder gunshot echoed through the air, whipping Lee Seng's attention towards it as he threw his hand up. The bullet suspended in mid-air as Lee Seng pushed it back. The skyscraper seemingly bounced the bullet back.

'This building's different than other one I crushed.' Lee Seng observed.

"They want to separate us so we shouldn't, right?" Lisa asked.

"We need to look for the Hell horses, too." Lee Seng brought up. "You gave us all a piece of the Rancher for this purpose. If we use that to our advantage, along with fightin, individually, they'll probably send more troublesome people my way."

"What do you think?" Lisa looked at David. He seemed the most conflicted with this.

'I don't want to separate from Lisa…' David thought. 'What if… that happens again?' Memories flashed of a wild Lisa. Her scarlet eyes burned as her pale skin grew thicker with blood as she tore through friend and foe.

"I think we should split." Lisa told them. Her answer pulled David out of it.

"What? No!" David disagreed. "What if you go crazy again? What if you try to kill one of the Hell horses?!?"

"Whenever I do go berserk it's usually around monsters and humans." Lisa reminded David. "Creatures of Nature are usually left alone. I'll be fine. We have to split."

"You and I could stay together!" David protested. "Let Lee Seng leave. They'll want him anyways."

"But what if I have to use my power?"

"I can protect you!"

"I didn't ever ask for you to constantly do that."

David and Lisa seemed to freeze as they both looked at each other. Lisa's face had grown serious while David seemed more taken aback by what Lisa had just said to him. Lee Seng would've felt like a third-party (and he did), but the gunshots stopped and his senses were going crazy. His hand moved to his wrist and he started to scribble a message.

"We're going to split," he wrote to Cain. "Do I permission to use Light magic on my own? These thieves are going to try something on me."

"I don't care that you never asked." David told her. "I do it because I want to."

"You do it because you want something." Lisa retorted. There was a bitter taste in her mouth when she said that. "Have you ever thought about our relationship at all? Why you and I are always stuck at the bottom together? That maybe your domineering personality isn't really protecting me, but it's choking me out?"

"I—"

"Look, David. You'll have to forgive me for what I'm going to do, but…" Lisa's eyes glowed, pulling in David. "We're splitting for now. Do what you need to do and I'll do what I need to do for the mission. We'll meet each other, again, got it?" David's eyess misted over and he slowly nodded.

"Let's split." Lisa looked at Lee Seng. Her eyes pulsed bright like she was trying to charm him. Lee Seng's eyes pulsed back at her, telling her it hadn't worked and she snapped out of it. "I—"

"It's fine. Not a lot of mind control effects can work on me anyways. We're doing this?" Lee Seng asked looking up at the skyscraper building.

"Yes." Lisa nodded. She tried to sound like she was confidient to him but he could hear a hint of anxiety in her voice. Lee Seng looked over at David and smiled.

"And him?"

"Don't worry about him. I've done this to him multiple times."

"Alrighty." Lee Seng smiled. "I hope you can dodge bullets."