And...I'm surrounded again. There's really a lot of them, and they sure are persistent. However, while they are really strong, my combats skills were far better. My training schedule had been called excessive by many, but it sure was paying off now. Most people tend to work primarily on their XFE Manifestations and neglect their basic combat training, looks like that goes for Wights as well.

I evaded as one drove a red energy spear towards me and then countered with a downward swing of one of my blades, slashing through his left shoulder and into his heart. I then rapidly descended as another one swung a two meter long metal blade horizontally across from behind the one I killed, slicing through the corpse and nearly taking the top of my head off.

​​

I fired a shot up at him from my X-Blaster, which pierced into his chin and burst out through the back of his head. Two more sprang up on either side of me, I swiftly connected my blade handles to form the two-sided spear, I angled them so that they pierced both of them through their hearts the instant they formed, killing them before they could react.

Suddenly, another one sprang up right in front of me, with two massive XFE hammers raised...crap, I don't think I can't dodge those...! But it's not like I don't have another option...

"!"

Alright, he's just within the reach of my spear...I looked around to make sure no one was looking this way...he's the last of this current group that had surrounded me, and no one else is around, everyone had ended up spreading out a fair bit once the fighting started, not to mention that it was the middle of the night. Good, no witnesses.

I reached up and pierced his neck slowly...the way things work during Pause, if I push too hard then he'd just get pushed back, out of my reach. Alright, I've fully pierced his throat...I then twisted the blade a bit and pulled it down slowly, dragging him down towards me. I then grabbed his shoulder to keep him steady and swung the blade out, decapitating him. Then I moved his body and head below me, before...

"."

I glanced down as the corpse plummeted below me...looks like the Wight numbers were down to about three thousand, maybe...the Aces were doing really well, Kumar was easily the most effective, Kilella was killing them off pretty rapidly too, and the other Aces were progressing nicely as well. As for the rest, it looks like about two hundred X-Warriors have been killed, including a number of the aerial troops.

But it also looks like most of the Wights who had flown up were dead now, there looked to be less that thirty left. Suddenly, as I continued to survey the battlefield, Kumar's Primary Manifestation disappeared, and he began to plummet down, right as a Wight shot past him and zipped straight up towards...me? Huh? I don't like this...what does that Wight want with me...? Before he could hit the ground, Kumar swiftly reformed his Manifestation and continued stomping around.

Why's that Wight making a beeline towards me? Well, I guess it doesn't matter, I'll just have to kill him. I took aim and fired a barrage of black XFE bullets at him from my X-Blasters, and right as they reached him-...huh, what's going on!? My shots all disappeared the moment they got close to him...what just happened? Did he maybe counter with perfectly accurate XFE shots of his own? Seems unlikely, but not impossible...

He was holding a pair of metal hooked swords, and was flying using his wings, of which he had four on his back. Looks like he's unlikely to use any XFE attacks...I'll finish him off at close-range then. I combined my X-Blades to form the XFE into the long and wide energy blade form and shot down towards him as he rapidly approached me.

As I began to close in on him, I swung my blade straight down towards him...but the instant that it got within a meter of him, it dissipated immediately. What!? I swiftly ascended and backed away from him while firing a clip of XFE bullets at him, which all disappeared as they neared him...I see, he can negate XFE within about a radius of a meter.

How troublesome...but more importantly, that's not a Manifestation...which means that that nullification ability is likely...an Anomaly power. Interesting, so there are Anomalies among the Wights too...and that explains why he's here, Pause wouldn't have affected him, and he must have seen me moving in the air...now, then, how do I defeat him?

"Hey, you...were you the one who froze time earlier?" He inquired bluntly, a wary gleam in his eyes.

I have no reason to tell him anything.

"Hm? What are you talking about?" I inquired, putting on a confused expression.

"Don't play dumb with me...tch, that power can't be allowed to exist, I must kill you right here and now!" He declared, zipping towards me with his hooked swords raised.

I quickly flew away, keeping my distance from him...if I get within a meter of him, my drone-jetpack, which runs on XFE, would probably stop working...so, then, how do I kill him? Hm, wait, is killing him my best option? Maybe I should try capturing him instead, he is an Anomaly, after all...

Yeah, let's give it a shot. I put away my blade handles as I continued to stay out of his range and evade his slashes...let's see, how should I go about doing this? XFE weapons aren't going to work on him...maybe I could try to get him in a lock and then knock him out...no, that's gonna be hard to pull off, and if I fail, I'll be wide open for him to strike back.

I then noticed that he had a metal short-sword on his lower back...hm, what if I...yeah...that should work. I reached behind me and pulled out a couple of Dark Poison Smoke Bombs, running my XFE into them as I did. I then flung them both forward, to either side of the Wight, before firing at them with my X-Blasters...normally, these bombs need to make contact to explode, but since they probably won't detonate if they struck him directly, I'll detonate them this way instead...

The instant my shots connected, the bombs detonated, thick black smoke bursting out on either side of him. His ability might negate the poisonous effect of the smoke, but...I'm after the smoke screen, not the poison. I swiftly activated the heat vision feature in my glasses' lens, spotting his position inside the smoke...good, he's not moving, I better put my plan into action quickly.

I swiftly flew up and above the smoke cloud, till I was directly above the Wight...now! I turned off my drone-jetpack and let myself plummet straight down towards him, grabbing his shoulder with my right hand and drawing out his short-sword with my left. His grips on his swords tightened as he stiffened in alarm and began to react, but he was too slow.

With a swift flick of my wrist, I slashed off all four of his wings, eliciting an excruciating cry of pain from him, as dark red blood burst out from his back. Woah, so this is what it feels like to cut with a metal blade...compared to energy blades, it's more...satisfying. And just as I hoped, the instant I slashed off his wings, his nullification ability got, well, nullified.

I've got you now...I swiftly reactivated my drone-jetpack, let go of the short-sword and ran XFE into my right glove, before driving it forward towards the back of his neck, slamming my fist onto it and electrocuting him with a powerful charge, as he let out an anguished scream of pain before losing consciousness. Alright, it worked, perfectly according to plan! I tapped my earpiece and remarked...

"I just knocked out and captured a Wight that appears to be an Anomaly...should I kill him or restrain him in one of the jets?" I inquired into the communicator.

After a few seconds passed, Kumar responded...

"An Anomaly? Are you sure?"

"Yeah, he's the one responsible for dissipating your Primary Manifestation earlier, he has the power to nullify XFE within a meter of himself. So, capture or kill?"

"Hm...since you've already knocked him out, go with capture, restrain him in one of the jets. Once you're done with that, go around and help anyone who needs it," He instructed after thinking it over for a moment.

"Got it."

I located one of the jets using my heat vision, since they were all hovering around with the cloaking barriers active, to prevent the Wights from easily finding and destroying them. I flew above it, the hatch was still open, so I swooped down into it. An X-Warrior was inside, piloting the jet.

I swiftly bound the Wight's limbs together, stopped the bleeding from where his wings used to be, and gagged him to prevent him from biting his tongue off, in case he was the type to commit suicide in order to prevent us from extracting his intel. I injected him with a tranquilizer to keep him asleep, since the jet might plummet if he activates his nullification power.

"Hey, if it looks like he's going to wake up, pump him with more tranquilizer," I instructed the pilot, as I headed for the hatch.

"Huh? Oh, uh...yes, understood."

Huh, a respectfully affirmative reply, didn't expect that. Guess not all the X-Warriors have it out for me. Well, whatever, time to wrap this up. I flew up through the hatch and used the zooming feature of my lens to rapidly scan the battlefield...some of the X-Warriors were being massacred by the Wights, but in the meantime, several Wights were being massacred by the Aces and other high ranking X-Warriors, at a much faster rate.

If it wasn't for the element of surprise, we'd have never stood a chance in this battle. The initial panic we set off through the Wight campsite was a huge factor, which we were able to capitalize on thanks to the Aces, especially Kumar. What worked in our favor was that the strongest Wights seemed to have been the first to respond once we launched the attack, and with them dead, the remaining Wights were all comparable to J and Q-Ranked X-Warriors, at best.

I then drew out my Square Blaster again, the cooldown time having already ticked over a while ago. I spotted several Wights gathered in one area, they had cornered a group of five X-Warriors, who were all looking in bad shape...well, now, what a convenient way to take out a ton of them in one go. I swiftly took aim and fired before they could finish off the X-Warriors, changing the trajectories of the blast so that the hundreds of streaks didn't converge onto one spot, instead raining down on the Wights in a wide barrage.

Their screams echoed out as my attack connected, a slight mist of blood mixed with a dust cloud rising up. That was easy. As I put away my Square Blaster, I scanned the area again...I then spotted Zarina, who was in the air, rapidly zipping around and firing at the remaining Wights in the air...looks like all the rest of our aerial troops had either descended to the ground or were killed...since they were all flying using their Manifestations, the ones that hadn't been killed likely descended in order to conserve XFE once the majority of the Wights' aerial troops were killed.

Zarina's Primary Manifestation consisted of a pair of blue XFE wings and a large bow, which let her fire upto five arrows at a time, which could be either blue XFE arrows or water arrows, the latter of which consumed more XFE. Anyway, she was flying around and firing her arrows at the remaining Wights, but it looks like she was rushing too much...

Some of her arrows failed to land fatal strikes, while some missed entirely...her arrows are powerful, and she has massive XFE reserves, but...her accuracy was said to be about eighty percent, but from what I was seeing, it looks more like seventy percent, seventy-five at best. And the Wights she failed to kill were now all chasing after her. Tch...I guess I should go help her, she's a bitch but she is an Ace, and therefore an useful asset.

If I can make it in time...they're gaining on her at a fairly quick rate, a rate at which they'd reach her before I could. They were almost upon her, panic on her face as they began to overwhelm her, barely five meters away from reaching her...yeah, I'm not gonna make it to her in time...I mean, I could use Pause and figure something out, but...I don't want to...oh, well, whatev-...

"You damned freaks...get away from me!" She exclaimed, forming a water arrow as a look of sheer desperation appeared on her face...when suddenly, her eyes widened and the look on her face calmed down, sending chills down my spine, as the water arrow she formed rapidly grew in size and spiraled violently..., "!"

Huh? What just...? In the blink of an eye, all the Wights that were on her tail, about thirty of them, were reduced to a pile of torn up limbs and body parts...she shredded them all to pieces in an instant, with a single attack. What did she just do? From the confused and baffled look on her face, she didn't know either...

Well, I'll worry about that later...looks like this battle will end soon, from what I could see, there were now less Wights alive than X-Warriors...something wasn't right here...sure, more than half the X-Warriors who'd come here had been killed, but...this seemed too easy. Something isn't right. The Wights here seemed to be almost...too weak.

Suddenly, the ground began to rumble ominously...what now? The rumbling was getting louder and louder, from right below...an earthquake, maybe? Or...could it be...? I gulped and activated my heat vision, a slight gasp escaping my lips as I spotted a massive heat signature rising up towards the surface at an alarming speed...

"Get out of the way, everyone, it's a-!" I began to yell into the communicator, but I was too late.

The ground burst open, the campsite caving in as a massive creature appeared from underground...screams rang out as both Wights and X-Warriors plummeted into the open ground, while several others got crushed to death by the creature, which let out a devastating, deafening roar that rattled my bones...

No fucking way...it's an Ace Mutant.

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