The battle within the Dead Zone reached a fever pitch. Janie, now piloting the titan's mountain-sized body, unleashed a relentless barrage of martial arts. Her movements were fluid and precise, a terrifying contrast to the usual clumsy destruction of a titan. Rei was barely hanging on; he dodged by hair-breadths, but the sheer air pressure from Janie's strikes battered his ribs and tore at his clothes.
High above, Researcher Wells grew impatient. "That black smoke... I need to see what it is." Black, leathery wings erupted from his back, and he dove toward the fray like a predatory bird.
On the ground, Dell was flagging. His bloodline tattoos were fading as his stamina reached its limit. Seeing an opening, Wells extended his claws to strike at Rei's back while Janie swung a massive fist from the front. Rei didn't panic. He used a concentrated whirlwind to rocket himself into the sky, firing lightning spears at Wells. The researcher conjured a shield of hardened skin, but it acted as a conductor, sending the current surging through his body.
The momentary distraction was all Rei needed. He channeled a massive lightning strike into the titan's forehead. Because Janie's nervous system was fused with the beast, the feedback was catastrophic.
"AHHHH!" she shrieked, forcibly ejecting herself from the titan's chest. Her robotic voice glitched: "Error... lungs, brain, and liver damaged. Cause: unknown."
Wells realized the truth in a flash of horror. "What's with such catastrophic damage, wait the silver air... it's consuming her!" The unstable matter Rei had created was feeding on Janie's artificial components to stabilize itself. "Janie, retreat now!"
But Dell was already in the air. "You're not going anywhere!" He slammed his crystal-embedded gauntlet into Janie's failing body. The force was so immense that her form shattered into fragments before hitting the ground.
Wells stared, not in grief, but in manic fascination. "A new stable matter that amplifies force... incredible. It's a discovery of a new matter out of this world."
"Run, Wells," Rei warned, his voice low and dangerous. "You won't survive this."
"I know you, Rei. You don't have the stomach for murder, let me make things easier for you," Wells laughed. He pulled a red tablet from his pocket and swallowed it. His skin turned a deep crimson, and his veins glowed with a sickly yellow light. "This gives me god-like power for three hours, and then it kills me. Let's see you survive my final masterpiece!"
In a blur of speed, Wells vanished, reappearing behind Rei. "Let me see that black wind!"
Before Wells could touch him, the black smoke from the Chaos Scepter solidified into a defensive crystal wall and black crystal spikes started coming out of it. Wells circled with high-speed strikes, but the crystal spikes moved with its own consciousness and Wells fall back and appeared in front of Rei and said "Don't be so stingy i just want a sample"
Rei was surprised and thought "why did the wind behave like that?" Wells saw Rei's surprised face and said "what? you don't know what happened either?"
Suddenly, the smoke expanded, manifesting the figure of a girl with snow-white hair and pale skin. She looked at the chaos with an irritated, almost bored expression.
"Who are you?" Rei gasped, feeling the shift in the air.
Wells was furious. "I thought Janie was the perfect being, yet he created a massless entity that has its own thoughts?" The girl's eyes softened as she looked at Rei. The black wind swirled around him, completely obscuring his form. When the smoke cleared, Rei had transformed. His hair was stark white, and his sightless eyes were twin pools of pure white light. The Chaos Scepter had shifted into a wicked, black-crystal scythe. The dark black winds wrapped his cloak making him look like a god of death.
"my senses... its enhanced, I can sense multiple things at once" Rei whispered.
Wells charged with his enhanced speed, but Rei stepped aside with a minimal, graceful movement. Wells was faster, but Rei's reaction speed and precognition had reached a level where speed no longer mattered. With a single, fluid sweep of the scythe, Rei severed Wells' hands.
Wells coughed up blood, his limbs regenerating instantly. "You've become a monster! What is this form?"
"Go home, Wells. Don't make me kill you."
"I'll kill you first!" Wells screamed, lunging again.
Rei sighed. He dodged the strike, reached out, and grabbed Wells' head. Despite the searing heat radiating from the researcher's skin, Rei held on. He channeled a specialized lightning pulse into Wells' brain, short-circuiting his regeneration and paralyzing his motor functions.
"Dell," Rei called out, throwing the paralyzed researcher to the ground. "Finish it."
"With pleasure," Dell said, bringing his gauntlet down in a final, crushing blow. Meanwhile, Rei turned to the remaining titans, firing a series of Thunder Lances that silenced the giants forever.
In a secret laboratory miles away, the real Researcher Wells gasped as he was ejected from a life-support pod. "Now that was unexpected, with my current powers i am still susceptible to people hacking my brains or even removing regeneration plus his powers just increase his senses the ability to dodge me with few movements was his own skills, i can't just brute force my way everywhere I need to download skills on the same level as him, not to mention the rage tablets were strong but they still kill me after 3 hours not an efficient tablet, And that girl... Janie was my masterpiece, but his creation was immortal. I have to surpass him."
Kaiser and his group walked through the streets, looking for a place to rest.
"Not a bad city," Adriel remarked.
A man suddenly collided with Kaiser, stumbling in a blind panic before running off.
"What was his problem?" Adriel growled.
"He dropped something," Sentry noted, picking up a crumpled scroll.
Kaiser opened it and read aloud: "Master Fan... I have found that the 'Dragon's Den' festival is a front. The nobles are feeding people to a monster through religious ritual to strengthen it for a fight against the Imperial Rhino. My cover is blown... help us. — Zane." There was a thumbprint in blood at the bottom.
"This is sensitive," Kaiser said, his face darkening. "We can't just ignore this."
"We'll drop it off at the nearby mansion of the man mentioned here," Sentry suggested. "It's on our way."
Behind them, the dark-skinned beggar they had met earlier watched them walk away. He tilted his straw hat up, a small smile playing on his lips.
"Interesting," he muttered.