Chapter 151 In Pieces

“…You’re really bold. Aren’t you going to kill me now that you have the chance?” Nadir speaks loudly, revealing his position to Zenith. Nemesis keeps him immobilized, smiling arrogantly.

“You won’t kill me. I have nothing to worry about. There are only four of you. For you to have even the slightest chance, you’d need seven veterans, including the two of you, and those rookies have no experience.” Nemesis exudes confidence.

“I know how to get you and Zenith out of this alive. This is a great opportunity. The two of you are valuable experimental subjects, but I can’t let humanity get its hands on you—” Zenith appears and punches Nemesis so hard in the chin that the impact dislocates her jaw and sends her crashing to the ground.

“That’s some nerve, trying to ride Nadir like that.” Zenith says to Nemesis, who gets back up with hatred in her eyes after taking the hit. Rouge uses her powers to clear all the dust from the air while Charlotte keeps her distance to focus on support.

She wishes she already knew how to use her powers flawlessly in combination with weapons, but since Charlotte still hasn’t mastered that technique, she prefers not to get in the others’ way.

“Sounds like jealousy talking. Are you so insecure that you’re afraid someone as physically monstrous as me could steal your man?” Nemesis taunts as she lunges forward.

Nadir dodges while Zenith prepares to evade, but Nemesis switches from a punch to a sweep. Just as Zenith is about to jump out of the way, Nemesis presses her hands and back against the ground, launching herself upward.

Zenith manages to defend herself with her hands, but she’s struck by a double kick that sends her flying dozens of meters into the air. Nemesis looks at Nadir, noticing how his gaze falters when Zenith is hit.

“She’ll die, you’ll die, everyone will die, Nadir. I’m invincible.” Rouge generates an immense concentration of air and fires it at Nemesis like a tornado. Nemesis walks through the powerful winds until she reaches Rouge and grabs her hand.

Seeing that Rouge is in danger of having her head crushed, Charlotte shoots Nemesis, who catches the bullet with her other hand. Nadir fires as well, and she tries to catch his bullet, but Charlotte opens a fissure, redirecting the shot elsewhere. The bullet strikes Nemesis in the torso, forcing her to release Rouge and take an unsteady step backward.

Blood trickles from the wound. In her entire life, Nemesis has rarely been seriously injured, especially in this form. Her eyes immediately take on a dangerous look.

She lunges at Charlotte, moving too fast for her to dodge, but Zenith appears and charges at Nemesis, striking her in the side of the abdomen and driving her into the ground. Zenith lands on top of her and thrusts her finger into the bullet hole, pushing it deeper to widen the wound and possibly inflict potentially dangerous damage on Nemesis.

“Urgh…”

“So even you groan in pain, Nemesis?” Zenith’s tail spins like a drill, trying to strike Nemesis, who grabs it and swings Zenith around before hurling her away as if she were a piece of paper. Nadir, Rouge, and Charlotte shoot at her, but she catches every bullet.

“This is really annoying.” Nemesis decides to stop playing around. She appears in front of Nadir before he can react and kicks him so violently that he is sent flying an incredible distance, rolling across the dirt when he hits the ground.

“Charlotte, teleport—” Before Rouge can say anything else, Nemesis grabs her by the throat and slams her into the ground. The attack knocks all the air out of Rouge, and she feels something break. Nemesis then throws her away.

“And you, the little girl who’s afraid of Daddy. Your father was right, Charlotte. You’re useless, a waste of oxygen. You should never have been born. The world would be a better place if you had never existed.” Using her powers, Nemesis can sense each person’s fears. She approaches Charlotte, speaking cruel words to her as Charlotte nervously looks around, isolated from everyone else.

“…” She tries to run, but Nemesis grabs her hand. When Charlotte attempts to shoot, Nemesis seizes her weapon and crushes it.

“Is it worth dying here? My only targets are Zenith and Nadir. I’ll give you a chance before I break your neck and rip your head off.” Charlotte’s fears are amplified to the extreme. Her cat ears droop, and her tail betrays her fear like a frightened feline’s.

“…” As soon as Nemesis releases her, Charlotte escapes through a fissure in space. She doesn’t want to abandon her allies, but her fears overwhelm her, and she lacks the experience and hasn’t overcome her past traumas enough to have any chance of fighting.

“Nice punch.” Nemesis says, catching one of Zenith’s punches. The blow creates a thunderous bang and even pushes Nemesis back slightly.

“You knew you couldn’t beat me, didn’t you? I’ve already been targeted by plenty of Kairas stronger than you, and they didn’t win…” Nemesis thrusts her fingers into the bullet hole and pulls out the bullet.

“That was a good team shot, nothing more. A lucky hit.”

“Are you really so arrogant that you think humanity will lose to you, Nemesis?” Nemesis looks at Nadir as he comes running toward her, then flashes an evil smile.

“I’ll never lose, girl. Besides, do you think I didn’t notice your trump card? That thing hidden in your clothes. It’s a bomb, isn’t it? I don’t know what it does, but I know how to recognize dangerous things when I see them.” Nemesis grabs the bomb hidden on Zenith and throws it to the ground.

“!!!” Zenith tries to react with her tail, only for Nemesis to drive her fist straight through her abdomen.

“Oops, I think I went a little too far. Sometimes I forget how fragile the human body is.” Her arm passes all the way through Zenith’s body, from one side to the other. Blood spills out, staining the desert sand. Zenith falls silent, her eyes wide open. The pain hasn’t even registered yet because of the shock.

“…” Nemesis slowly pulls out her hand, letting Zenith’s body fall to the ground. Nadir, who failed to arrive in time, sees Zenith lying there, her chest rising and falling erratically as she coughs up blood. Zenith still tries to crawl toward something to cover the hole, but it’s far too large for a military adhesive patch to handle.

“YOU BITCH!!” Enraged, Nadir charges at Nemesis, who easily blocks his punches. He tries to shoot her, but Nemesis catches and crushes his weapon with her leg before kicking him in the face. The kick leaves only a slight cut because she’s holding back.

“I really didn’t want to kill her just yet. She seemed tougher than most. I guess I mistook the durability of her prosthetics for the durability of her fragile flesh, but now that it’s happened, there’s no going back.”

“I told you she’d die. Honestly, it’s ridiculous that you ever thought you had a chance of beating me.” The bullet wound in Nemesis’s flesh closes completely, as though she’d never been injured in the first place.

“I’ve killed countless Kairas and monsters. If not one of them could kill me, why would four humans with weak weapons be able to?”

Nemesis looks at Zenith and senses space shifting.

“Hahaha, I thought so…” She stomps on Zenith’s abdomen, making her cough up a large amount of blood. Nadir screams at her and tries to attack, but his blows don’t even move Nemesis from her spot.

“Looks like you’re sharing power. Makes sense. She’s dying, and the two of you were originally a single being. As she’s dying, you’re gaining her powers, and—” Nemesis is struck by a punch so powerful that her jaw is torn off and she’s sent flying forward.

“…” She stares at Nadir’s fist, which is covered in blood, with fractured bones exposed.

“Clever. You’re distorting the space around your fist and amplifying kinetic energy. Nothing vector-based… Strong enough to hurt me, even kill me. Zenith didn’t know how to do that, did she?” Nemesis grows excited, her jaw reappearing as if it were made of interchangeable metal parts.

“Zenith should survive for another five minutes or so. I can save her, if you accept my offer.” Blinded by rage, Nadir doesn’t even hear what Nemesis has to say. He simply charges at her.

“…” Nemesis is more cautious now. She dodges Nadir’s attacks and counterattacks, but he manages to evade her, using Zenith’s [Spatial Perception] to predict the exact trajectories of Nemesis’s blows.

“Good, very good. You could become a monster with tremendous potential. Many people are afraid of space itself.” She punches Nadir in the stomach. He uses space like a piece of fabric to block most of the damage as he’s thrown backward.

He rolls across the ground and gets back up, dodging one of Nemesis’s punches and counterattacking. She catches his fist before it can build up momentum, but he uses her thigh as a platform to launch himself upward and drive his knee into her face, followed by jamming his fingers into her eyes.

“GAAAHH!!” Nemesis screams in pain as her eyes are pierced. Nadir takes advantage of her bringing her hands to her eyes and punches her in the stomach repeatedly, but each punch deforms his hands even further.

It took Zenith years to learn how to use her spatial powers with even a minimum level of safety, and there were still risks. With zero experience, Nadir can’t do the same. This has nothing to do with talent or instinct; it depends entirely on practice and experience.

“Urgh…” Nadir stops, staggering backward. His punches have opened a small hole in Nemesis’s abdomen, but what’s inside isn’t made of organs. It’s nothing but pitch-black darkness.

“…” Blood runs from Nadir’s nose, eyes, and ears as his chip is overloaded by Zenith’s powers.

“You PIECE OF SHIT!” Nemesis snaps and kicks Nadir, who collapses to the ground, struggling to breathe from the impact to his chest. Blinded, Nemesis tries to orient herself by sound, forced to wait for her regeneration.

“I should’ve RIPPED OFF that bitch’s head, the one you love so much, you piece of shit, for refusing my offer. I think you’ve forgotten who I am. The fact that you had even the slightest hope of beating me is truly pathetic. I’m humanity’s greatest enemy, the strongest monster in existence, and I won’t be defeated by a pathetic little group like yours.” Her eyes regenerate completely as she looks at the two of them and flashes a cruel smile.