Chapter 274

274 Retribution

A car was blown away, and as the flames spread in all directions, the time froze. The time froze for everyone except for the small group of people who were running toward the overturned car at an unbelievable speed.

Baaaangggg

They tried to attack the scapers, but their attacks either stopped or deflected, hitting somewhere else.

The situation lasted only for a brief second, but that was still enough for the group of people to run past the soldiers and escape being surrounded.

“After them!”

Someone yelled as soon as the time went back to being normal.

“They can’t run away anyway!”

“Capture them alive!”

“Yes, sir.”

.....

The agents and soldiers rushed to capture the people who were still running away at a fast speed.

“What now?”

Darren asked while glancing at the nearby cars that were all destroyed. Their original plan was to steal one of these and run away as far as they could, but now that they were discovered, there was neither time nor the leisure to do that. The soldiers had also blown up most of the cars so they couldn’t use them.

“We will hide.”

“What?”

The whole team, still running away, turned their heads to the team leader.

“We are going to hide inside the watchtower that you destroyed and find a way out.”

“Hey, team leader! Is That really your plan?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of... They will capture us!!”

“Do you have any better plans?”

The glare that team leader Dains sent toward Serria made her shudder. She retorted her gaze and added more mana to her spells.

“Haaah!”

She shuddered once again after hearing the man’s sigh. The girl was starting to regret all her life decisions.

“Headquarters. Headquarters!”

The team leader shouted to a communication device. The device had stopped working long ago, but he still checked if it worked from time to time.

“I’ll have to try contacting the headquarters once we get into the watchtower.”

The man mumbled. There had to be some kind of devices inside that destroyed building for communicating. It wasn’t mostly possible to contact another country using a communication system that didn’t belong to that country, especially in wartime, but they still had to try. There was nothing else they could do at the moment.

Banggggg

Something exploded behind them.

“I can’t hold them all at the same time.”

Alan commented. Elsie also chimmed in.

“My shield won’t last for long.”

They had almost arrived at their destination by now. The tower was crumbled, the upper half of it was now on the ground, shattered, and some parts of it were burning on fire.

There were a few soldiers who were roaming around the structure. They all rushed towards the group as soon as they spotted them, only to get beaten up by Darren and Carlson.

“Head inside!”

And they all jumped into the building, closing the entrance with the magic behind them.

“What if they blow up the whole thing?”

Elsie asked, plopping down to the ground. She looked more than exhausted with her face pale from overusing her mana and wet with sweat from running around too much with the weak body of a mage.

“They won’t. They want us alive.”

“They can just sneak inside!”

“We’ll have to do something before then.”

Team leader Dains glanced around at the building. Contrary to the outside, the inside of the building was in a much better state. Some of the stairs leading to the upper floors were destroyed, the things inside were broken, and there were a few holes in the ceiling of the first floor, but nothing more.

“Where is the control room?”

Team leader Dains asked while looking at nobody in general, but Reyan, who had sneaked inside this place not even half an hour ago, answered him immediately.

“The second floor on the right end of the hallway.”

The team leader nodded his head and turned to his subordinates again.

“I will go up-”

I will go up and check if I can call for backup, you guys stay here and stop the intruders, was what he wanted to say, but didn’t manage to utter more than a few words.

B-BAAAAAANGGG

It was because the whole building started to shake as soon as he opened his mouth.

“Surrender!”

They heard the same voice as before.

BANGGGGGGG

The building shook again.

“We don’t want you dead, but injuring you all a little bit won’t kill you.”

Something huge was banging against the building walls. They knew that it was either a huge military car or a magic spell.

“Move out and surrender if you don’t want to get hurt.”

BANGGGG

“Ack!”

“Cough cough.”

Some of the unit members fell to their knees and the others started to cough as dust rose into the air and found its way inside the building through the broken windows.

“This is my last warning!”

BANGGGGG

“Tsk!”

Team leader Dains clicked his tongue. He felt like a fly stuck in a spider web. Whatever he did, he wouldn’t be able to get out of this situation. He knew as a fact that neither he nor his team, were mere flies and he also knew that these pests weren’t spiders, not stronger than them, but the situation had caused them to be in such a situation.

Losing their weapons, exhaustion, not being able to contact the headquarters, not knowing about the place they were in, and also not having all of their members with them had made the team fall into such a miserable situation.

It was truly miserable. He felt as helpless. He was frustrated. He was also scared. Scared of what was going to happen next to his team, to him. He was their leader but he kept failing them again and again. He had to be able to come up with a new plan if their original one failed, but he couldn’t.

He was too weak, too powerless to protect the children that saw him as their leader and followed him around. He had always known that and always feared the day that his incompetence would lead to those kids losing their lives. Despite his struggles all this time, despite being the leader of the top team for years, he was now too helpless to do anything. Actually, it had been a while since he was unable to do much. Since the day his actions led to that kid getting beaten up in the Frozen Ocean. Since that day he couldn’t even cover the same kid from his own superior. He had been incompetent for too long already.

Maybe he was right. That man. He was right. They were always helpless, not capable of doing anything. He said he pitied them. He was right. They were pitiful after all.

BOOOOOMMMM

The building shook once again. Each time this happened, more debris fell to the ground from the hole in the ceiling. Dust was covering everywhere already. It was obvious that the building was crumbling.

They wouldn’t die. He knew that they wouldn’t die even if the building was to get blown up. He wouldn’t lead his unit here if there was such a danger. But he knew for a fact that they wouldn’t be able to run away anymore if this building was to crumble down.

“Damn it!”

He cursed under his lips, turning towards the entrance of the building and starting to approach it.

“Fidel, wait!”

“Sir!”

“Team leader, what are you doing?”

“Team leader!”

His unit members were calling out for him who was grabbing the door handle which was still intact thanks to magic.

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t even think of surrendering!”

.....

“Step back, that’s dangerous!”

BOOMMMM

They rushed at him to pull him away from the door when they were forced to stop due to another shaking.

‘I don’t know either.’

He actually didn’t know what he was doing, but he had to do something. He couldn’t just let these kids get captured and killed like this. He had to try anything he could. That was why he didn’t let go of the door handle nor fell to the ground after the last shaking. He took a deep breath before opening the door.

B-BAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGGGGGGG

The man soon stumbled, having to grab the door frame to keep himself upright.

BAAAAANGGGGG

BOOOOOOOOMM

BANGGGGGGG

It was because the ground continued to shake so intensely that even the enemy agents who were pointing their weapons at him fell to the floor one by one.

“Huh?”

Team leader Dains, who had closed his eye due to the dust, opened them back up to peek outside, only to freeze on his spot with a stupid found face.

BOOOMMMMM

Something was rising from the ground. Something huge was moving up right before his eyes. It looked like a wall. A huge, tall, and thick wall of stone. A huge stone barrier was covering them all around.

And it wasn’t just one. Numerous stone walls were rising up from the ground like a flower blooming. A flower made out of stone.

And there, right on top of the farthest and tallest stone wall, stood one man. A man with his long black cloak fluttering in the air.

The man then spread his arms.

“...”

And stood like that for a moment. He stood on top of a moving, growing stone wall with his arms spread out and looking at the sky like some kind of a prophet sent from God, before turning his head to his side and soon looking back at the sky.

“Ret-”

He said something but cut his own words out.

“Retribution!!!!”