Just like all other Classes at D Rank, Cyber Gladiators have 3 Specializations at D Rank.

Unlike Gene Augurs who get to choose between Mutator, Beastframe, and Bioforger which roughly correlates to pure offensive, hybrid defense, and support Specializations of the Class, roughly the same for NetRunners but with stealth and infiltration for hybrid defense, Cyber Gladiators as the penultimate combat Class only get to choose between 3 different combat disciplines.

For Cyber Gladiators, the concept of a support type Specialization was alien.

The 3 Specializations for D Rank Cyber Gladiator Exo-Fighters are Exo Knight, Storm Striker, and Pulse Brawler.

Exo Knights focus on heavy defense and power, mostly relying on heavy exosuits for close-combat fights.

Pulse Brawlers are like their Specialization indicates- barehanded Pugilists who focus ADE through fists to fight and create devastating sonic attacks.

And then there's Storm Striker, the last and the most extreme Specialization of the Cyber Gladiator Class that focused on extreme speed, lightning-fast attacks, and adaptive propulsion.

They were the perfect depiction of 'attack is the best defense'.

When Major Agakin looked up, he saw the bald-haired Synth diving towards him from the enemy warship, he saw his long black spear, he also saw his violently fluctuating purple ADE, but nothing prepared him for the speed.

As a Major of the Geneforge Clans and with the Cyber Gladiator Class being one of the most common Classes in Neo-Tokara, he knew about the 3 Cyber Gladiator specializations, but still nothing prepared him for the speed.

He thought to react, he moved to react, he believed that he had enough time and enough distance still separating them to react, but it's just like car companies warn that objects in the side mirror are closer than you expect.

BAM!

Major Agakin saw stars as the black blade of the spear crashed into his face, cutting through his thick skin and his cheek, almost severing his head in two!

His raw defense and endurance saved him from being instantly beheaded on the first attack.

That first clash made his eyes widen in shock as he instantly realized the Specialization of his enemy, but he couldn't really do much about it.

A D Rank Cyber Gladiator of the Storm Striker specialization was just too fast.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

The enemy started a combo as the black spear of the Cyber Gladiator turned into a mirage around him.

Major Agakin's Chimera eyes couldn't even follow his opponent's speed not to talk of his entire body!

In his Chimera Beastframe form, he couldn't react at all as he felt like instead of a single spear, he was fighting against 10,000 different black spears.

That was how suffocating the combat style of a Storm Striker was.

The black spears were everywhere as with his Lightning Storm skill still active having crossed the distance instantaneously with Adaptive Propulsion, the D Rank Cyber Gladiator kept the Geneforge Major on the back foot.

The spear diced and cut holes through Major Agakin's thick skin, forcing him to bleed heavily but the Major was not in danger.

Though he couldn't react to land a single blow back on his opponent, Major Agakin remained completely safe simply due to the ridiculous survivability of a D Rank Gene Augur of the Beastframe Specialization.

The nasty cut on his face at the beginning already healed completely!

The thick scales and hair in his Chimera form absorbed most of the damage, resulting in minimal damage penetrating through his skin as his HP conveniently stayed at an optimum level.

Despite this, Major Agakin was frustrated.

He couldn't react.

It was while his frustration mounted that he suddenly felt a familiar ADE creeping behind him from the Cyber Gladiator's blind spot. 'Roshfield?'

Major Agakin didn't think, he didn't need to. He understood her intention immediately.

As the colleague that he's worked with and hated for decades, he knew her and her combat preferences like a book.

He reacted on instinct before the Cyber Gladiator could understand what was happening, making a suicidal move as he abandoned defense totally and recklessly lunged at the Cyber Gladiator, making himself open and allowing the Cyber Gladiator's spear to finally stab through the left side of his chest and crush his heart!

But losing a heart did not mean death for a D Rank Gene Augur, Agakin was more than willing to trade his heart just to keep his opponent in one place for a second because he knew that she was coming.

Before the enemy Synth could react, with his spear still stuck in Agakin's chest, the Gene Augur grabbed his hand with his sharp talons, his muscles straining to keep him in place just for a single second.

And then the Synth felt it.

Whoosh!

The Cyber Gladiator's eyes widened but it was too late.

He tried to react but Major Agakin didn't let him as opening his tall beak, he shrieked loudly.

SKRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

The sonic blast from that sound made the Cyber Gladiator freeze in a daze and that was all Major Roshfield needed.

Spreading her mutated brown wings, Major Roshfield descended on the Cyber Gladiator, her sharp talons aiming at his unprotected head!

But despite all the interferences and with Major Roshfield sneaking upo on him and catching him off-guard, at the last moment, even with Major Agakin still restraining him, the Cyber Gladiator's purple ADE flared.

Kinetic Shield!

A purple ADE shield emerged around his body at the last millisecond, pushing Major Agakin away from him just as Roshfield's massive talons wrapped around the shield, compressing it with titanic force.

CRACK!

The purple ADE shield showed cracks!

Without the shield, that attack would have definitely compressed his head and burst it in a blood shower like a watermelon.

But Major Roshfield didn't stop after her initial attack failed, she took it a step further within milliseconds.

Toxic Burst!

As soon as she activated the ability, her ADE turned into a violent corrosive cloud, corroding the remnants of the kinetic shield and causing it to rupture!

The Federation D Rank Cyber Gladiator was exposed.

Yet, still within milliseconds, this speed-oriented Cyber Gladiator with adrenaline coursing through his mechanical body still had instincts that were fast enough to activate another skill.

Adaptive Armor!

A thick dark purple kinetic armor suddenly appeared, covering the Cyber Gladiator from head to toe.

This was the only barrier that protected him and saved him from the fate of his head being squashed into bloody paste as Major Roshfield's talons finally closed around his armored head.

BAM!

Even with the adaptive armor, the Cyber Gladiator still fell into a daze from the concussive force of the talons smashing into his head and squeezing.

Major Roshfield applied the full force of a D Rank Gene Augur of the Mutator Specialization yet the armor didn't shatter immediately.

Seeing this, instead of joining to attack, Major Agakin quickly flapped his wings instead as he rapidly flew and ascended into the sky, soon disappearing amid the sea of war transports around.

When the Federation D Rank Cyber Gladiator finally recovered from his dazed state, he reacted, dodging Major Roshfield's follow-up attack even as he finally retreated, wary of the male Gene Augur's sudden sneak attack the same way that Roshfield attacked him.

He calmly looked around and yet Major Agakin was nowhere to be found; uncertainty showed in his eyes even as Roshfield charged at him again.

…

A few seconds later…

High up in the sky, extremely close to the violent red hot surface of the energy shield, Major Agakin in his Chimera form flew as high as possible to get enough distance for the move that he was about to pull.

Back in Physics Class, there's a simple definition of Force. Force is the result of Mass times Acceleration.

Major Agakin intended to use this simple Physics Class law, one of the few things he remembered from his school days to pull off his strongest move.

At the moment, he was in his strongest Genome form, his Chimera form combining his Vulture, Bald Eagle, and Peregrine Falcon forms.

He had the size of a Vulture, the strength of an Eagle, and the Speed of a Peregrine Falcon.

And of the 3 Beastframe forms, the Peregrine Falcon is known as the world's fastest animal.

At top speed during its hunting dive, mundane Peregrine Falcons reach incredible speeds of 390km/hour, but D Rank Peregrine Falcon Neon Beasts have been recorded to take it a step further, exceeding 3000km/hour!

This was about 3 times the speed of sound!

Major Agakin's thought process was simple. Storm Strikers are fast? If so, prove it and beat this!

Since the opponent was so fast that even with him and Roshfield combined they could barely lay a hand on him, he decided to catch him off-guard.

His plan was that while Roshfield kept him busy, he would go on a hunting dive from high in the sky to attack and catch his opponent off-guard.

With Metabolic Overdrive in his Chimera Beastframe form, he believed that he could exceed the maximum speed of a normal D Rank Peregrine Falcon.

He believed he could surpass 3000km/hour!

This was his plan to eliminate the D Rank Cyber Gladiator of the Omnicore Federation.

Peregrine Falcon's hunting technique was simple.

They soar to great heights, then fold their wings and dive at incredible speeds, striking prey with clenched talons and often killing prey on impact.

This was also Major Agakin's technique.

The moment he attained the highest height below the shimmering energy shield, he folded his wings and dove back down, his head facing the ground as he went on an obliterating hunting dive with his talons clenched!

He broke the sound barrier in less than a second.

BOOM!

…

The Federation D Rank Cyber Gladiator's eyes kept on darting around, trying to find where the male Gene Augur disappeared to.

With the sheer number of aerial transports around though, it was hard to find a single soldier in the form of a Chimera Beast.

As for Major Roshfield, she kept on attacking him but he easily kept her at bay with his ridiculous reaction speed as he stayed wary of another sneak attack.

But the more time passed, the less calm he felt.

His instincts told him that the enemy wouldn't just abandon his companion to fight against him, he was definitely up to something.

He felt flustered.

Honestly, at D Rank, a Gene Augur was either the worst or the best matchup against a Cyber Gladiator of the Storm Striker Specialization. The speed difference was too much, and a D Rank Gene Augur simply could not be killed easily.

It was a matchup of an uncatchable flee vs an immovable wall.

So how could an immovable wall kill an uncatchable flee?

Suddenly he felt it.

Without hesitation, the Cyber Gladiator looked up only to see what seemed like a bright orange flash of light diving down towards him at an incredible speed that even his eyes couldn't track despite his reaction speed.

"…!" He froze.

To the Cyber Gladiator, time suddenly froze as he felt the shadow of death cling close to him.

In that moment, with the reality of death raw and imminent, adrenaline surged, his heartbeat accelerated and his perception heightened.

Even with the slowed down time in his perception, the bright orange flash of light diving towards him still moved at a speed that simply could not be comprehended.

He finally understood the male Gene Augur's plan.

He also realized. 'I have to move now or I'll die!'

No other Class could conceivably react to the descending shadow of death at such speeds, not even other Cyber Gladiators. Only a Cyber Gladiator of the Storm Striker Specialization had a tiny chance of surviving this.

This Synth clung tightly to that tiny chance as his violet ADE erupted as he instantly went all out.

He didn't try to defend because he knew that there was no defending this, the force generated from the Gene Augur moving at such an incredible velocity could directly turn him into meat paste with his shield and armor combined.

He gave up on defense and focused entirely on reacting as he activated 4 abilities instantaneously.

Overdrive Mode!

Servo Reflex!

Lightning Storm!

Adaptive Propulsion!

BZZZ!

The Synth Cyber Gladiator entered a state of Ultra Instinct!

He entered a state where all his nerves fired on overdrive, flowing like magma in a flow state and moving on pure instinct as he was covered from head to toe in violent bursts of purple ADE like lightning.

Then, he moved.

Just after he started moving though, something changed as Major Agakin's eyes gleamed while diving.

The D Rank Gene Augur of the Beastframe Specialization pivoted, suddenly changing direction in mid-air!

'Huh?' The Cyber Gladiator was stunned.

From the beginning, Major Agakin never put hopes in his ability to truly catch the Storm Striker Cyber Gladiator off-guard to kill him in one blow after being harassed by his speed earlier.

If it was an enemy from any other Class, he would be confident in his ultimate move but with this guy, the chances of success was not 100% and this was why he had other intentions from the beginning.

Him targeting the Cyber Gladiator was to simply make him waste his ADE and focus his abilities on dodging.

His true target was not him but the invading forces.

Afterall, in the end, this was not a D Rank battle royale where the intention was fighting to determine who the strongest and most skilled D Rank Ascended in the battlefield was.

In the end, this was an invasion currently ravaging through his city.

The priority was not on abandoning all else and focusing on taking down 1 Ascended, the priority was protecting the city and repelling the invading army.

The priority was making sure that Leviathan Quay lived to see another day.

This was why Major Agakin's targets were the warships all along.

Of the warships that invaded Leviathan Quay, 4 of them were concentrated here in Megabase 023 and now Major Agakin traced a trajectory through the sky that led him to collide with 3 of the 4 warships!

The warships were his target all along.

No other Class would try this because the resulting explosion from trying to take down warships in such an explosive manner could kill a D Rank Ascended too, but definitely not a D Rank Gene Augur.

The Cyber Gladiator's eyes widened but it was too late.

WHOOSH!

Major Agakin changed direction instantly, moving through a trajectory that connected all 3 warships!

Then he collided with the first one.

KABOOM!

Everything happened fast in a blur and immediately after the orange light passed the warship, its energy shield burst apart, then the warship shuddered as tiny minute explosions erupted, ravaging it apart from inside!

By then, Major Agakin was already onto the next.

KABOOM!

The same thing happened to the second warship as it started imploding from inside out, then…

KABOOM!

His last targeted warship imploded!

In a single second and in a single devastating attack, Major Agakin took down 3 warships of the Omnicore Federation!

...

[Special appreciation to Shadesworn, D4rkV1II4n, and Yametekudastop for the Golden Tickets.]

[Also, this is the longest chapter of the book, 2500+ words. What do you guys think? Is it too long? Should I cut long chapters like this into 2 chapters instead?]

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.