"STOP!" Lucian screamed.

Ramirez heard him and paused in confusion as his own danger instincts finally tingled, but he couldn't react.

It was too late.

KABOOM!

A jury-rigged bomb!

The world rocked, the ground vibrated!

Ramirez was right at the very edge of the explosion as it detonated, and instinctively he curled his body up to protect his head and his vital organs even as his orange ADE flared, forming a cocoon shape around him.

He hardened his skin instinctively, but this was not enough to protect him completely from the extremely high temperature of the surging flames.

Afterall, this was what pushed Parasite to the brink of death, a bonafide E Rank Gene Augur just like Ramirez though it was also because Parasite was right at the heart of the flames.

Besides, it was not just flames, the jury-rigged bomb was a combination of both an incendiary bomb and a fragmentation bomb.

Deadly metallic fragments flew out of the flames, smashing and dicing everything in the vicinity with devastating force.

Then the flames engulfed Ramirez!

The tongue of flames torched Lucian and Xena despite being outside its range, the sheer heat from it scorching their skin as this gave them a demo of just how hot being engulfed by the flames was.

A few fragments tore through the skin of the duo as they watched with shocked expression on their faces.

Jake and Blake screeched to a halt mid-run as their eyes widened in shock.

"Ramirez!" Blake stared into the sea of flames and called in a pained voice.

The explosion burned hot for over 10 seconds before finally dying out.

At the end, the ground caved in and formed a crater, blackened at some parts and red-hot at other parts like molten steel.

Ramirez was right at the edge of the crater, but at the end he looked like a human torch.

His whole body glowed black and red. He was filled with burns and cuts, his braided hair was gone, leaving only a charred bald head that was sizzling with flesh and blood.

He staggered unsteadily, this was because his left leg from the knee down suffered the brunt of the explosion.

It didn't just burn, the force of the explosion dislocated the leg!

It was not a mere dislocation though.

As the other terrorists watched with complex emotions in their eyes, with an unnerving snapping sound, Ramirez's left leg disengaged from his body and collapsed to the ground!

"Ugh!" The E Rank Gene Augur gritted his teeth and groaned in pain as his ADE flared.

He activated a barrage of abilities instantly to regenerate.

So long a Gene Augur was still alive, he would survive but there was no recovering from this immediately.

The damage was just too much.

Even with Cell Repair and Metabolic Overdrive, Ramirez's body regenerated extremely slowly even as the other terrorists quickly encircled him to protect him, warily observing their surroundings.

Xena Rousey also entered the middle, protected by Lucian and the 2 Cyber Gladiators because just like Ramirez, she was heavily injured.

And unlike him, she couldn't heal herself!

Throughout as this happened, Leon didn't even try to pursue them as he stood at the same spot with his Doom Rover v0.1 robot, looking at them with a taunting look in his eyes.

Then he burst into laughter, cackling loudly like a maniac.

Hearing him laugh, the terrorists grimaced in anger, glaring at him in rage but it only made Leon cackle louder.

He glared at them, Lucian especially. "You know," he said in a taunting voice. "2 can play the game".

"My niggas," he snickered. "Have I told you that just like those guys who you deceived to blow themselves up, I can also be a suicide bomber?"

"I'm a big suicide bomber," he grinned. "Heck, I'm the greatest suicide bomber alive!"

"What do you think?" He smirked. "How do you appreciate my work?"

The terrorists realized that this was once again his attempt to waste time, so they didn't bother to answer him as they all looked at Lucian for instructions.

Lucian kept quiet.

With a golden glow in his eyes, the terrorist leader swiftly observed his surroundings around the grand square, trying to find a weakness but everywhere he looked, his Danger Premonition spiked with danger.

Noting this reaction from his racial trait, Lucian revealed a grimace whose sight filled Leon with joy before looking at him.

He gritted his teeth. "You rigged everywhere with bombs?"

"Oops," Leon chuckled. "You caught me again".

"How did you get the…?"

"How did I get the money?" Leon interrupted him with a smirk. "While you bastards were busy soothing your psychopathic egos and haunting this city, I was busy making money so yes, I'm a filthy rich gambler!" He grinned.

Lucian's eyes flickered.

By now, he already realized Leon's plan completely.

By rigging everywhere with bombs, it would take extreme care, time, and caution to decipher the location of the bombs to either disarm them or bypass them but with Leon present, he was not going to let them find the bombs at leisure.

He was going to attack them if they ever tried to escape again.

This was like running through a mine field blindfolded.

In essence, the Mechanist was literally telling him that 'sorry bro, no medication for you unless you can kill me!'

The moment all these realizations went through Lucian's mind, his eyelids twitched in genuine annoyance for the first time in a long time.

The only way to go get more medication was to find the bombs and disarm them, and the only way to find the bombs without interference was to kill Leon.

Lucian stared at Leon with a cold look on his face. "You're leaving me no choice".

Leon laughed. "You think you ever had a choice in this?"

Lucian closed his eyes and exhaled, quietly calculating how long he could last without his medication in battle. Also, unlike his Holy Champions, he didn't come with his main weapons for his sermon in Kendall District.

This meant for this battle, he could only fight with his spare daggers.

He thought of Leon's seemingly endless reserves of energy shields and how much energy he'd require to shatter reach one, he thought of the towering robot that was powerful enough to pose a threat to his life.

All these thoughts flowed through Lucian's head like a rift tide, illuminating his consciousness with what he was going to do next.

For the first time in a long time, the odds of victory in a battle didn't look pretty in his favor and for the first time in forever, he didn't have a choice to decide the stakes of the battle.

For the first time in forever, in the endless game of chess that he was playing, his enemy outsmarted him, putting his King in check.

To survive, he had to fight on his enemy's terms.

Lucian finally opened his eyes and they gleamed with a ruthless light.

When he opened his eyes, even without him saying a single word, his Holy Champions were able to instantly tell what was going through his mind.

The moment he opened his eyes, gold and white ADE detonated around him.

BZZZ!

Temporal Echo!

Lucian's eyes glowed golden even as he tore his white priest robes apart, revealing his stacked shirtless body with lean abs.

His abs were lean and prominent like they were sculpted with war tools.

His body was filled with scars- drill scars, blade scars, burn scars, even bite scars, and together, they made him look less like a Geneform and more like a humanoid Neon Beast- a Monster.

Combined with the scars on his face, Lucian looked truly fearsome as unsheathing his daggers, he glared at Leon then he charged towards him.

Seeing him charge forward, Leon showed no fear.

Instead, his eyes lit up in excitement, thrill, and expectation for a battle that he'd been envisioning since his first encounter with the terrorists.

"Muahahahaha!" Leon laughed loudly like a maniac. "Now you're talking! Bring it on cowards!"

"Come on, let's fight to the death like real men!"

BZZZ!

His grayish white ADE flared.

Leon didn't sustain Drone Control Matrix as Davis took over control of the Doom Rover v0.1 robot again, but this time Xena didn't try to invade the digital space of the robot.

She was wary of Leon's earlier maneuver, that assault that almost took her life already gave her more PTSD concerning the robot.

As Lucian charged forward, Blake and Jake also charged after him, flanking him on both sides as they menacingly advanced towards Leon even as Xena cautiously stayed behind while Ramirez continued healing his injuries.

Having received instructions from him already, Davis aimed the primary weapons of the Doom Rover v0.1- the Air Gun Rifles on both of its armored hands at the 3 terrorists, then it pulled the trigger.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

The world shook, the air twisted!

The world turned upside down as the Doom Rover v0.1 unleashed hell on Lucian, Blake, and Jake!

The trio of terrorists reacted in different ways to the attacks.

With Temporal Echo accelerating his perception by a factor of 2, Lucian perceived the world in 4K as he charged towards Leon and the robot.

And when the air projectiles started coming, he reacted first as he calmly made a pulling gesture at the void in front of him.

Quantum Touch!

BZZZ!

His fingers altered reality as the air projectiles veered off their path!

At the same time, Leon was hit with a sudden wave of drowsiness and laziness but with his high INT and WIL, it was nowhere enough to knock him out or even truly disorient him.

His eyes gleamed like torches in darkness.

Quantum Trace!

BZZZ!

A stronger wave of drowsiness hit Leon but he tanked it with his high INT and WIL, but Quantum Trace did more than Touch.

At the same time that a stronger wave of drowsiness hit Leon, Lucian left behind an afterimage decoy that tricked the Mechanist.

Before Leon could react, while the afterimage decoy was still in his vision, the real Lucian like a ghost already crossed the distance and arrived beside the towering 10-feet tall black humanoid robot!

Lucian didn't target Leon first as he was aware of his energy shields, he targeted the robot as the priority.

Standing just beside the robot, Leon reacted as he used Enhance on his gauntlets, eager to retaliate but then a pulse of heaviness erupted from Lucian's body, literally pressing into him like weights.

Gravity Pulse!

Leon couldn't react fast enough to retaliate as at the same time, with Pulse Dash, Blake and Jake closed the distance from different angles to attack the robot.

The trio struck together!

But just before their joint attacks could hit the metallic armor of the robot, a bluish white shield erupted to life around the robot.

BOOM!

CRKSH!

The attack of the 3 E Rank Ascended shattered the energy shield instantly, but almost instantaneously another shield pulsed to life, taking the place of the old one as the terrorists' eyes widened.

In that moment, they realized that Leon had so much money that the same way that he equipped himself with energy shields was the same way that he equipped the robot with overlapping energy shields.

In that moment, startled, one thought rang in Lucian's mind. 'How f*cking rich are you???'

For a moment after that first attack, despair set in but the terrorists didn't let it linger as Lucian instantly led them to change targets.

If the robot was just as protected as Leon with energy shields, then targeting it was useless since it was better if they could all direct their energy to Leon, exhaust his energy shields as fast as possible and kill him.

The only thing though was that the robot needed to be distracted or else the sheer offensive power it had alone could heavily injure them.

Once Ramirez recovered, he could try to keep the robot occupied alongside Xena but now, someone had to keep the robot occupied.

Jake stayed behind to keep the robot occupied.

With his Cat DNA and his insane reflexes, he had the speed to try and dodge anything that the robot threw at him so long he could predict it on time.

While Jake stayed with the robot, Lucian and Blake charged at Leon but then they saw a metallic gleam streak towards them from the side.

By perceiving the vibration patterns in the airspace with his unique Quantum Shaper senses, Lucian immediately realized what the metallic streak was… a sword drone!

Drone Control Matrix!

The sword drone almost cut Blake's throat as the Cyber Gladiator dodged just in time, but as the sword drone charged towards Leon unobstructed, having dodged out of the way already, Lucian paused as he suddenly had a premonition.

'NO!' He thought, trying to intercept the drone but it was too late.

Just as the sword drone flew past him, Leon jumped and landed on top the sword drone like an Olympic level skateboarder, effortlessly riding the drone into the sky!

"…!" Blake was stunned as he stared blankly.

Seeing the look on his face, Leon laughed and taunted. "Catch me if you can!"

Lucian immediately realized what Leon was doing. 'Time-wasting again! Dammit!'

Leon didn't engage Lucian and Blake in battle.

Instead, he ignored them completely as he flew above where Xena and the recovering Ramirez, then with a grin he dipped his left hand into his new backpack and brought out a few circular-shaped objects- grenades!

The 2 E Rank Ascended froze.

"RUN!" Ramirez screamed as he and Xena scattered to escape.

With one leg though, Ramirez was not fast enough.

Leon grinned. 'Like hell I'm going to let you regenerate!' He dropped over a dozen blast and fragmentation grenades on the Gene Augur's now bald head!

KABOOM!

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