138 ANTI-META FIELD
Valtor Veyran stood amid the shattered highway, the night wind screaming through wreckage and flame.
Smoke billowed from overturned trucks and burning crates, but around him the air danced in restless motion—his only surviving ally was the wind.
His cloak snapped and tore as currents coiled close, honed into invisible blades poised to strike. This wind blade was the culmination of years of ruthless training and forbidden research—one of the strongest meta-abilities ever produced by the Veyran family.
"Come out, whoever you are!" he roared. "Don't hide like a coward!"
From the haze ahead, a figure emerged—tall, silent, and wrapped in a suffocating shroud of darkness.
"Coward?" a woman's voice replied calmly. "In a short while, you'll be the first to run."
She was Acyros, Rank-B Meta of Zetheris Industries.
Her eyes glowed faintly red beneath the veil, and with every step she took, the air grew heavier. The wind recoiled from her presence, shrinking away as the world dimmed—not into darkness, but into something worse.
Emptiness.
Valtor's lungs tightened, each breath suddenly thick, as if he were drowning on dry land. His aura flickered violently before collapsing under an unseen pressure.
"Anti-Meta Field."
"Brother!" Belgore shouted, panic ripping through his voice. "Our powers—something's wrong! We can't use them!"
Valtor felt it too. His control over the wind was gone, crushed and smothered as if strangled at the source.
Rage flooded his face, veins standing out as he glared at the woman.
Acyros regarded him without emotion.
"Valtor Veyran," she said, her voice cold and metallic. "You have violated the Accord of the Great Families."
She raised her hand slightly.
"The sentence is death."
Valtor's eyes burned with defiance. "If it's my life you want… then you'll have to claim my life yourself, parasite."
He pulled out a liquid-filled device and strapped it to his chest. A hiss escaped as metallic needles plunged into his flesh.
"AAARGH!" he roared.
The glass casing began to boil, and luminous fluid surged through the tubes into his veins.
"Meta particle charger."
Acyros tilted her head, a smirk curling beneath her visor.
"How amusing," she said. "You brought a power bank."
Acyros's Anti-Meta Field devoured all meta energy within its reach, smothering abilities at their source. Most metas would already be helpless.
But Valtor Veyran was prepared.
Hidden within his coat was an advance artifact—one capable of recharging his power even mid-combat, bypassing natural recovery limits.
"DIE!" Valtor bellowed.
Violent arcs of energy tore across his body as the artifact flared to life. He thrust out his hand, and the air answered.
Razor gales split the broken asphalt, spiraling into a maelstrom of compressed wind and matter—transforming into living blades screaming toward their target.
"Anemokinesis."
Before the storm could reach her, Acyros raised a single palm.
The wind collapsed.
The maelstrom imploded into absolute stillness, as if it had never existed.
"My Anti-Meta Field rejects even your power bank," Acyros said flatly. Then she laughed, hollow and cold.
A heartbeat later, Acyros vanished.
She reappeared in front of him and drove her fist into his chest.
"Usually, Umbros does the fighting," she said calmly as the blow landed. "But you forced my hand this time."
Bone cracked.
"I'm not a poor combatant myself," Acyros boasted.
Valtor was launched backward, skidding across shattered asphalt, breath ripped from his lungs. He slammed to a halt amid debris and flame.
Slowly—defiantly—he rose with blood dripping from his chin.
"You're still alive?" Acyros mocked.
Valtor was almost defeated. All his training and research in kinetic meta manipulation became useless in the face of this monster who could stop his powers at the source.
Valtor inhaled deeply.
"There must be something else that he could do?" Valtor thought.
The air answered again—but differently this time. It thickened, turning visible, spiraling around him in coiling streams like spectral serpents.
"You may suppress meta energy," he growled, "but not my power."
He clasped his hands together.
"I only have one strike left," he thought.
He slammed both palms to the ground. The earth rumbled. Hidden gusts churned beneath the surface, compressing, building pressure until the soil split apart.
Acyros charged towards him.
The ground erupted again.
A cyclone tore upward, engulfing them both in screaming wind and debris. Inside the storm, Valtor's voice echoed like thunder.
"You can suppress my meta energy, but you can't suppress my powers!"
He raised his arm skyward. The storm's core ignited in pale green light.
"Tornado Heart — Final Release."
The cyclone collapsed inward, then exploded outward in a blinding wave that stripped the battlefield bare.
When the storm finally subsided, silence reclaimed the ruined highway. Acyros knelt amid the debris, her armor split and smoking, her breath coming in ragged bursts.
"Damn it, Umbros—where are you?" she hissed, spitting blood onto the cracked asphalt. "You were supposed to fight, not me. I'm only good to sustain the Anti-Meta field."
There was a reason Acyros and Umbros always operated as a pair—their abilities were symbiotic.
Acyros blanketed the battlefield in her suppression field, nullifying enemy meta energy across a wide radius, while Umbros, immune to her suppression, struck from the shadows, spawning tendrils of living darkness to tear their targets apart.
But tonight, she was alone.
Against Valtor Veyran's tempestuous wind arts and endless power bank supplying him with energy, she had narrowly survived.
She hasn't lost yet…. But she had no way of knowing how much energy Valtor Veyran's device could continue to support him in the fight.
If she stayed, there was a possibility she could die.
Her crimson eyes flicked across the wreckage. Then she saw her chance.
It was a girl, Eryn Veyran, kneeling beside an overturned truck, her body trembling and unaware that danger was closing in.
Acyros moved.
The ground cracked under her sprint. In a blur, she reached Eryn and seized her by the arm.
"No! Stop!" Eryn cried, struggling in vain as Acyros dragged her away into the haze.
"Eryn!" Belgore shouted, running toward the fleeing figures. He turned to his brother. "Valtor! What should we do? Should we chase her?"
Valtor staggered, clutching his ribs. His breathing was shallow, his aura flickering like dying embers.
"And do what if we catch her?" he rasped. "I've got nothing left. The wind won't answer me anymore. We're lucky she doesn't know that …. otherwise, she'll finish all of us here."
Belgore clenched his fists, frustrated. "So, we just let her take Eryn?!"
Valtor exhaled shakily, staring into the distance where the storm had swallowed his daughter's captor.
In Valtor's mind he already knew who Acyros was working for. Noone else in Melrose city could employ such powerful meta heroes.
"They work for Garius Zetheris. He won't kill her—not yet. Eryn's a bargaining chip… leverage against me," he said.
He closed his eyes, the faint whisper of wind curling around him like a promise.
"But if he thinks I'll bow to him… he's mistaken. I'm not done yet."