Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 68: The Hunt is on

Chapter 68: The Hunt is on

Despite his earlier zeal, finding a single woman whose very nature made her hard to track down in a city of nearly six-hundred-thousand people proved to be rather difficult. Isaac and his minders stumbled into the police station tired and worn out at four pm, with precisely nothing to show for it.

In the end, they’d been ordered to return there and regroup.

“Ah, there you are.” a young man bustled over, handing each of them a plastic keycard “We’ve gotten everyone here from other cities rooms in the hotel two houses over, here are the keys, room numbers are written on them. Food is available in the precinct’s cafeteria, or you can eat in the hotel’s restaurant and put it on the room’s tab, which the department will be picking up …”

All in all, the department was basically trying to make sure that they had everything they needed.

“Also, Mr. Thoma, there is a sales contract for the Aspects available for you to sign, as well as one that marks you as a temporary consultant, so you can get paid for that as well.” the young man said, addressing Isaac directly.

“That’s good to hear. But would it be possible to get some clothes? I got picked up on the supermarket parking lot and I didn’t really get a chance to pack anything. Also, for later, pajamas, toothbrush, stuff like that …” Isaac trailed off, not in a mood to list off the everything a human adult spending the night in a foreign city would need because those requirements were pretty much universal.

“Yeah, follow me please for the contracts, I’ll have those for you later.”

And another five minutes later, Isaac was dejectedly sitting in the corner of the meeting room, waiting on the rather depressing recap of the incredibly messy situation.

“Good afternoon, everyone.” Schmied greeted the group, sounding utterly exhausted. Most of the people who’d been outside looked sweaty and worn out, but the boss seemed to simply be worn down. Really, he looked like he’d aged a decade in the mere handful of hours since Isaac had first met the man.

“Two hours ago, the body of the first confirmed victim of the ‘monster killer’ in this city was located. If the pattern holds, we expect to see several more murders in this city before the suspect moves on. We’ll be issuing a general warning in half an hour, telling summoners to stay home. All abductions to date have been from public places, possibly that is even where the suspect chooses her victims. Now, Dr. Sarai has some new insights to share.” Schmied stepped backwards and sat down in the first row of seats. He looked … defeated. Poor bastard, having something like this occur while he was put in charge of preventing it had to be wearing on him, nevermind all the crap that had to be raining down from his superiors.

“Thank you.” Sarai stepped up next to the projected image, flipping it over to a photo of the crime scene, as well as a second picture of an empty hallway in a schoolhouse. The victim had summoned within two blocks of a school, so he’d been killed in one, though thankfully, everyone had already left by then.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t still bad. Isaac’s predictions based on the state of the body had been correct, she’d torn that hole out of his chest piece by bloody piece, scattering it all over the area. Small strips of flesh clinging to children’s artwork, crimson spots on the walls where bits of the victim had struck and fallen to the ground, leaving behind bloody smears.

People’s reactions made it abundantly clear who had or hadn’t seen the pictures before. Mouths drawn in grim lines, frowns, other stony faced reactions from the people who’d known what to expect, people going green or looking away when they hadn’t.

While sitting here, Isaac had heard several comments about just how bad it was. Even the police weren’t used to crap like this.

Then Dr. Sarai began to give a proper explanation, so Isaac switched his focus over to that.

“This latest murder has displayed a marked level escalation. The method used was vastly more brutal than anything we have seen to date, and has kept the victim alive for far longer during the execution than ever before.

“We do have a likely explanation for this, though. We have managed to get a positive ID on the perpetrator, which let us identify her first victim.”

The screen changed to show an screenshot of someone’s Instagram account, showing your stereotypical ‘dudebro’ pointing excitedly at a crudely drawn but still functional Tier 1 summoning circle on the ground, with several other people also visible in the background.

“This event ended with the death of every person in this picture, as well as 37 people in the adjoining apartments, including our suspect’s husband. Three days later, when it had been discovered that Ghosts were vulnerable to mana based attacks, a friend of the young man in this picture decided to ‘summon and kill a ghost in honor of the dead’ and publicly announced this on social media. He was later found dead with a broken skull.

“Eventually, we received an anonymous tip that someone saw our suspect carrying away the body, but we’ve thus far been unable to verify this.

“In summation, it seems that Mr. Herbig was very similar to the original target of her rage, thus, she went after him with extreme prejudice.

“At this point, there is a very real risk of her growing bolder and more ruthless, especially now that we’ve identified her.”

“Do we know for sure she knows?” someone called out.

“No. But she is clearly a very high Level individual and likely has a high degree of supernatural senses. The chances of her not having overheard anything from anyone on the streets are practically nil.” Sarai answered immediately.

“So, in other words, we need to find her, now?” a different person called out.

“I’d say that that applies to all serial killers, wouldn’t you?” Sarai replied sourly “People are dying, and the person responsible for this needs to be stopped. Like Polizeirat Schmied said, we’re about to tell people to stay inside if they fit into her victim pool, but that will under no circumstances be enough to prevent all deaths.”

Then Schmied stepped back up to the front of the room “Each of you will be given separate assignments, we’re going to be doing everything in our power to locate her, we’ll pass along any newly gained information along directly into the units in the field.”

There were a few more bits of information shared, but nothing that helped Isaac right now.

And then came word of another body, another person killed mere hours after first.

Panicked calls were coming in, asking for ways to protect themselves, summoners showed up at the various precincts all around the city, even people who’d only thought about summoning.

People were scared and it seemed like the police was unable to do anything.

Sadly, that was partially true. Sure, they’d identified the killer, her name and face were known to the world, but finding her was still impossibly difficult. Facial recognition finally been able to recognize her, but only after spreading out the process to a massively higher degree than Isaac had suggested earlier. It wasn’t something that could be automated, however, so all they could do was confirm a sighting after the fact, not actively search through all the video footage they had.

They still needed to manually find her in the videos, and that was a Sisyphean task.

Isaac swore internally and tried to find a way up to the roof, and nearly made it, only to be stopped by a metal door with a sign that said ‘roof access restricted’. Isaac sighed and phased through it, stepping out onto the rain slick gravel that covered the ground.

It had started pouring a while ago, and now streams of water were pounding down at him, but he didn’t care. All of this fucking sucked!

Isaac glared out across the city, cold fury bubbling up inside of him, though he wasn’t sure who he was mad at.

This insane world filled with both monsters and humans who were monsters in all but name?

This woman who was running around, brutally murdering anyone she perceived as being a danger, even if they were perfectly benign summoners?

Or maybe himself, for feeling that she, just maybe, had a point? That those people were monsters who’d end up killing the world because they couldn’t leave well enough alone?

There were some notoriously reckless summoners he knew, but their true reigns of terror were still years into the future. He was and would continue to check up on them via the internet and if it seemed like they would turn out the same way they had in the other timeline, there would be hell to pay. But he wouldn’t run around murdering people over what they might do.

And as for the idiots she found over social media, well, he despised them as well. But his weapon against them would be something a little less fatal than brutal torture. He was already working on it. Tearing down their reputation, ensuring that everyone knew how dangerous what they were doing was and how to do it safely, he’d been working on this from the very beginning.

But even so, the simple, obvious solution of raw violence sang its siren song, tempting him. It would fix things, for the moment, if every summoner in the world dropped dead, but this was a systemic problem. You couldn’t fight the people responsible directly, because there would always be more. You needed to change the world that had lead to the situation in the first place.

There was one silver lining, though. Right now, the situation was relatively low stakes. A Stormheart Gestalt gorged on the power of a city of millions appeared apocalyptic to anyone there, and for them, it was the end of their world, but on a global scale, it was nothing.

Even for the stupidest, most reckless people who charged ahead with absolutely zero thoughts to the consequences, there was no way of summoning a threat that could end the word. Yet.

Right now, they could afford to make mistakes, to make sure summoning was conducted safely. As the old saying went, safety regulations were written in blood.

So even if there were things he could not stop, those tragedies would not be the end of the world.

Isaac swore internally, not wanting to scream out loud where people might overhear downstairs. Several officers had decent Perception scores, and he didn’t want it to look like he’d lost his marbles.

In the end, it didn’t matter whether or not Arianne Krebs had some kind of point with in her choice of target or not. She’d been in the wrong well before she’d gone off the rails.

He sighed deeply and walked back inside, right through the door, letting the water drop straight through him as well. Sure, he’d look a little rumpled, but he’d be dry.

After asking a few of the right questions, Isaac found himself in an area positively stuffed with screens, running into Dr. Sarai in the process.

“Going stir crazy as well?” Sarai asked upon seeing Isaac.

“Maybe. I haven’t been able to help anywhere else, so I figured I might be able to help go through the footage here.” Isaac sighed “You guys get anything?”

“Other than a million panicked phone calls about a serial killer being in town, most of whom were people jumping at shadows, and the other set of panicked calls we’re getting as the magnitude of the casualties during the Event sink in … nope.” Sarai sighed.

“At this point, I’m half tempted to just go out there and run around, run all over town, on the off chance that I catch a glimpse of her stealth [Skill], just to feel like I’m doing something.” Isaac growled.

“Thankfully, you’re capable of recognizing that that would only serve to make yourself feel better, rather than being actually useful, so you came here instead.” Sarai replied “Pull up a chair, grab a laptop, we could use the help with anything we’re currently in the process of doing.”

Two more hours passed, one more body dropped. It was a horrific feeling to be sitting here, trying to do something, anything to try and catch a murderer, having people die while you did so, making it abundantly clear that they’d failed. A macabre reminder that a few more hours had passed without them reaching their goal.

In his mind, Isaac likened the experience to huddling in a bunker or foxhole, waiting while the artillery boomed in the distance, desperately praying that one wouldn’t get hit. Never able to relax, stretched taught like a rubber band microseconds from snapping, impotent and unable to affect anything in any meaningful way, until something occurred to change the situation.

He just sat there, watching a grand total of 48 videos spread out across 12 screens simultaneously, each playing at three times normal speed, nonetheless missing nothing thanks to his high Perception and experience in using it.

There were far fewer cameras in the city than needed to conduct a proper manhunt, given Leipzig was a somewhat sleepy town despite its size, but that was probably a good thing, given the whole ‘we have to go through everything manually’ issue.

“Found her.” Isaac finally said “That particular video is half an hour old, though.”

“Still, we know where she was.” a woman he didn’t know but assumed to be of decently high ranked based on how people were reacting to her presence nodded to him “Screenshot it, timestamp it and then send it out using the internal network. If you don’t know how, any of the people here will be able to show you how. Good work.”

And then she walked off to another section of the room and began a conversation about the ongoing efforts to work around the [Skill] fucking with facial recognition. The manually moving each stage of the program from computer to computer was simply not feasible.

The seconds continued to trickle past, each and every one laden with the possibility, nay, the fear, that the news of another dead body would come in. And it did, officially putting the number of victims at three, though how much longer it would remain at that remained to be seen.

Isaac caught two more glimpses of her on video, but neither of the clips were live, allowing her the chance to get away. And three other sightings were achieved by other people, but those didn’t go anywhere either.

But then, finally, another hour later, something finally worked out. An panicked eyewitness report from someone calling the emergency line, one of hundreds that had come in and were usually just people being paranoid, had coincided closely enough with a sighting and a call from young woman worried about her boyfriend, who was both a summoner and had failed to show up to a date … they might have finally gotten ahead of her. Might.

“In which direction is that?” Isaac asked the closest tech.

“Are you sure you want to go out there? The apprehension is normally left to the field officers.” Sarai chimed in.

“Yes. But if I can get just one good look at her, I’ll be able to tell you her Stat distribution and most of her [Skills], and maybe I can even get a good enough grasp on whatever’s messing with your facial recognition programs to figure out how to get around it?” Isaac suggested “I’ll stay out of any danger.”

Of course, that had been a bold faced lie. Isaac had no intention of sitting this out, because if his estimate of her strength was even remotely correct, there was no way those cops would be able to stop her. Besides if he saved a lot of people’s lives after showing up for perfectly non-violent reasons, well, they’d be hard pressed to actually get mad at him. And if they did, they’d look like ungrateful assholes.

“Good point.” Sarai conceded, then turned to an officer standing near the door “Could we get a car to drive us to the site of the raid?”

“Actually, I think I’ll get there faster on foot.” Isaac corrected “But I think someone should call ahead so no one panics when I arrive there like a bat out of hell. So, can someone who lives here show me where this place is on my phone?”

The officer pointed it out to him and Isaac was off. He didn’t need the precise location, just the general area was enough, he could figure out the rest on his own.

He simply kicked off the ground and used a combination of phasing and teleporting to place him just barely outside the building and kicked off the façade, flinging him onto the roof of a building on the opposite side of the street.

Chimneys, solid looking bits of roof, anything that looked solid enough for him to plant one of his feet on and push off without causing property damage, each of them was kicked only a single time before he was at the next building, blurring across the city. Normally, he’d have flown for something like this, but he was trying to save his mana for the actual fight.

Soon, he heard the low murmur of people preparing for a massive assault onto a fortified position. It wasn’t actually fortified or manned by more than a single person, but given the level of power they suspected she possessed, there was a good chance those precautions would be insufficient.

A mere moment after that, he first caught sight of them and began to carefully observe the surrounding buildings.

And there it was. He’d almost missed it, but there it was. A field that held in the sound, smells, and anything else that might give a hint at what was occurring inside, while also subtly diverting the attention of anyone outside away from it. But that effect was subtle, so if you were really intent on staring at the area under its aegis of protection, it wasn’t that effective. Besides, if there was a building you literally couldn’t look at, that would be a dead giveaway that something was wrong.

Still, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he knew exactly where to look, what to pay attention to, had a [Skill] for piercing just such an ability as well as one that protected his mind from mental effects, he would one-hundred-thousand percent have missed this.

Going by the murmuring going on down there, they weren’t entirely sure in which of the surrounding warehouses she was in, though.

Isaac began to slow down, his mad dash turning into something akin to parkour until he lightly dropped down next to an officer, scaring the hell out of the poor man in the process. It couldn’t really have been helped, though. There were people all over the place, trying to cover every exit of every building. Dropping down out of anyone’s sight would have put him a significant distance away from the people he was trying to reach and making his way over would have either required a lot of time or a level of speed that would have scared people anyway.

The hand already halfway towards the officer’s pistol stopped suddenly.

“You Thoma?” came a sour question.

“Yes.” Isaac told him.

“Why the … was that really necessary?”

“I needed to get here quickly and I called ahead for a reason.” Isaac shot back “Now, who’s in charge of here?”

“Polizeimeister Habicht.”

The man was still very clearly upset with Isaac, but that didn’t really matter right now. He’d apologize when all was said and done.

“Can you point me over there?”

The man did and Isaac hurried over at a still somewhat measured pace. He could have dropped in right there, but that would have run the risk of pissing off the people he needed to work with closely.

“Good afternoon.” he announced as he closed the group of four armored cars with well over a dozen people in full gear standing around. Well, standing around was making it sound like they were being lazy. All of them were doing something, but Isaac wasn’t entirely sure to what end. If he hung around this group a few more times, he’d probably figure it out.

“You’re the consultant?” a short man built like a brick shithouse asked, looking up from a tablet that showed a satellite feed of the surrounding area.

“Yeah.”

“You got here fast. So, I was told you can …”

“Shh.” Isaac said, then continued hastily as the man began to turn an alarming shade of purple “She can almost certainly hear us.”

“Explain.” Habicht said icily.

“I can clearly hear anything in a three block radius and a faintly hear things that are quite a bit further away than that. If you say your plans out loud, she’ll hear. I also figured out in which building she is, it’s that one.” Isaac said, choosing to point right at the one in question, rather than describing it.

“That one? Why? There’s no reason for her to choose that one?”

“Well, see …”

“Don’t look at the building while doing that, look anywhere else, the [Skill] has a mental effect that makes it seem less interesting.”

“This better not be a … GOTT VERDAMMT!” Habicht snapped, took a deep breath to steady himself and muttered a few more choice words under his breath.

Isaac winced in sympathy. Subtle mental effects like that tended to break if anyone under their influence noticed them, which usually required someone pointing them out and then making the effect obvious by making then figure out a reasoning for their actions … which they didn’t have, because they had been caused by the mental effect.

Of course, it would have likely eventually broken anyway when someone noticed that a single specific building hadn’t been searched for no clear reason, but she might have already left by then.

“Alright, gather around, everyone.” Habicht said and began to explain the plan half with words, half with hand gestures and pointing things out on the floor plan, which he’d pulled up on his tablet.

“And Mr. Thoma, stay behind us. We both know what you’re here for even if we shouldn’t clarify it here because it is likely going to be overheard, but stick to that.” Habicht told Isaac sternly, who nodded.

Seeing the SEK in action was pretty awe-inspiring. Isaac had managed to get part of the plan, but these people had understood everything and were moving in near perfect synchronicity as they headed inside. It was the kind of proper coordination Raid Groups would eventually reach, but that was basically all [Skills]. [Skills] to show what other people were going to do, [Skills] to prevent friendly fire, [Skills] to make plans understood to everyone and impossible to forget until the raid was over. This, however, was all training, and that was, well, damn impressive.

The handheld battering ram smashed in the metal door as if it were made of tissue paper, supported by the wielder’s significantly increased Strength stat. Isaac also recognized the person who actually went through the door. It was Wirt, now empowered by an Aspect of the Lesser Hydra and having gained a [Class] that felt like a solid, unstoppable wall. [Skills] triggered, turning his bulletproof vest impossibly durable, highlighting any potential booby traps, etc.

“Drop the knife, step away from him and put your hands on your head!”

A bellow rang out from ahead and a mere moment later, they reached the main area of the warehouse. It had the clean clutter look of a place in use, where there was crap all over the place but in an organized sort of way that left paths for everyone to walk and/or drive forklifts, and if you knew the organizational structure, you could find anything you wanted.

Oh, and there was a man with several bloody but not immediately fatal wounds on his torso lying strapped down on a table in the middle, with a woman taking a couple of steps backwards, looking perfectly comfortable despite all the guns pointed at her.

The victim, on the other hand, looked hopeful and relived … and then Isaac recognized him. He’d watched a handful of the first victim’s videos a while ago and this guy had been in them, often egging him on. This guy was even worse. He was responsible for nasty monsters being summoned, but he wasn’t even the one taking the risk, someone else was. At the very least, most idiot summoners had the decency to die the first time they overestimated their abilities. On the other hand … there could always be an unfortunate meeting in a dark alley, later. Right now, he had a serial killer to catch.

Isaac focused in on Arianne Krebs, drinking in any and all information that could be derived from her via visual means.

Her right hand opened, and a knife clattered to the ground. It was an odd-looking thing, covered in a floral pattern completely at odds with the blood, both old and new, that stained. Somehow, felt too … innocent to have been the implement that had taken so many people’s lives.

But that weird look was only skin deep, limited to the visual spectrum. [Hunter’s Gaze], on the other hand, told a different story. It was incredibly magical, a powerful soulbound weapon. That alone spoke of a decent level of power and marked her as wielding at least an epic [Class].

And then there was the scan he’d taken of her. She stank of blood, fear and death, emanating the feeling of someone looking down their nose at a person beneath them.

‘Judgement and murderous intent, what a lovely combination.’

Isaac sighed internally, then raised his voice and spoke out loud “That knife of hers is soulbound, she can teleport it back into her hand at will.”

Krebs suddenly zeroed in on him, glaring with a level of vitriol that was the very epitome of ‘if looks could kill, all there would be left was ash’. And her voice was no less dripping with anger, condescension and scorn.

“So, I’m guessing you’re a summoner, then? Someone they hired, or just someone who committed his crimes against humanity and common sense, then ran to the cops when things got hot?”

“Actually, I’m a researcher into the [System], I try to find out things that help make sure fewer people get hurt.” Isaac shrugged nonchalantly “But let me make a guess in turn, would you? So, I’m guessing you’re whatever comes after epic, then? What’s it called? Mythical? Legendary? Relict?”

She snapped her fingers at that.

“So that’s how I know you. You gave that interview yesterday, weren’t you?”

“Yes?”

“In that case, would you mind just turning around and leaving? I’d rather not kill you, given that you’re also working to prevent [System] related disasters and all?”

To everyone else, it must have looked like they’d both lost their minds. Casually chatting like this during a situation this serious?

But there was a method to both their madness. While they chatted, they were each analyzing the other, trying to find out as much as they could. With his [Hunter’s Gaze], Isaac could clearly see that she had an Agility build, but she was also peering into his very soul, or at least that was how it felt.

It was a different flavor of [Inspect] than he had, more focused on determining what the people she was looking at where like than their [Skills] or stats. She could see what someone had killed, be it monsters or people, all of which was feeding into an analysis [Skill] that was creating a psychologic model of him. While [Inspect] was solidly legendary, the psychological analysis [Skill] wasn’t, and unless Isaac was very far off base, it was self created, just like his [Blades]. Not something granted by spending a [Skill] point, but through intense practice and a desire to understand others.

Yet that wasn’t the only thing her knowledge of him was being used for. There was another [Skill], one that truly terrified him to his very core. Its name was likely something poetic, as it befitted a legendary [Class], but that didn’t matter. The important part was what it actually did, and what it did was a massive problem. It let her create a plan of action that chained together several motions or [Skill] uses, moving in a set pattern even if she would normally not have the precision to complete it normally. In other words, this was her execution [Skill], but it could also be used to put that knife of hers precisely where she needed it to be, including directly in the path of a strike she knew was coming, thanks to that godsdamned analysis [Skill].

That kind of [Skill] being in play should have made anything other than an immediate attack beyond foolish, but there was more to consider. In other words, he was gaining just as much information.

Besides, if he attacked first, he’d come out of this looking really fucking bad. No one was shooting her, not yet.

She was just standing there, unarmed, not threating the hostage or anyone else. Opening fire right now would just be an execution of someone not found guilty in a court of law.

Also, the fact that she’d stepped away from the hostage was making it seem like she was surrendering. And normally, that would have been a good thing, given that she was in no position to hurt the hostage and could easily be gunned down if she made a single wrong move. But that was in a normal, sane world.

This world was neither. Right here and now, this stance was a matter of her being under the impression she was untouchable, that no one here would be able to lay even a single finger on her.

Isaac grinned in response to her request. Step aside so she could kill her hostage and possibly everyone else here?

“Yeah, hard pass on that. I came here to help stop you, not be an accomplice through inaction.”

“Do you really think that saving scum like this makes you the hero?” she spat “These assholes summon and summon uncaring of what happens to everyone else, growing fat and bloated on the power they gained by putting everyone else in danger. And now I’m the bad guy?”

A vein began to throb over her right eye as she racked her glare across the crowd of policemen.

“HEY!” Habicht snaped, patience finally worn thin “Stand down, put your hands over your head, or we will shoot you!”

She moved. A normal person would not have even seen her properly, her form a blur, blade teleported back into her hand and aimed at Habicht’s neck.

‘Clang’

The ring of metal striking metal echoed through the warehouse, Old Reliable’s knife form meeting her implement of death and parrying it while Isaac manifested the Kriegsmesser in his left hand and lunged forwards, aiming for her gut. He might have been standing a few meters behind the man, but a simple teleport had put him in the right position.

For a brief moment, it looked like he’d pierce her body clean through and end this in a heartbeat … and then she dodged, flinging herself backwards.

Isaac lunged after her, activating [Starfang], wreathing the Kriegsmesser in venomous flame, and hurled it at her while projecting a [Far Strike] from the knife and trying to bisect her. Keyword being try.

She swayed out of the way, then flung the knife straight at his heart. For a brief moment, he considered phasing through it, but then realized it would have been a truly terrible idea. First of all, soulbound equipment was utterly soaked in mana and while he could probably ignore it if it was merely a normal piece of soulbound gear. But this was a weapon of slaughter, bathed in the blood of countless human beings, designed to murder people just like him. It would tear his immaterial flesh like tissue paper.

So he dodged, catching the merest hint of a [Skill] attached to the weapon, barely dodging in time as she appeared next to him, already aiming to take his head.

“She can teleport to her weapon, has a high Agility build and great analysis [Skills] that lets her pick apart movement patterns and then adapt to them, as well as a [Skill] that lets her create movement patterns using that information and weave through even a hail of bullets!” Isaac warned, his blades blurring as he attacked while she ducked and weaved.

Her Agility was higher than his, and that made hitting her a pain in the ass. One of his blades went flying, and he dodged backwards as she advanced, circling around until she was between him and his weapon. That nasty combat analysis and counterattack [Skill] combination on top of the fact that she was faster than him actually saw her winning, but only for now. Isaac had barely used any of his own [Skills] while she was already going at her maximum capability.

And then Isaac called back his knife. Unlike when he normally did this, he didn’t have to hold out his hand to call it into his palm, he merely activated the [Skill] without any intention of actually catching it.

When she noticed the weapon, it was rather apparent, the shocked expression on her face the first emotion she’d shown except anger. But it was slightly too late, the blade already tearing through her calf, and then it ignited to boot.

She screamed and flung herself to the side, hurling the blade the other way. Isaac chose to follow the weapon.

His combat knife had slapped back into his palm and he aimed it right at her weapon while projecting another [Far Strike] at her body. She, of course, vanished and grabbed her weapon, only for a yellow bolt, courtesy of the evolved [Piercing Strike], to tear through her shoulder. He continued to lash out, repeatedly lengthening his blades to turn attacks that would otherwise have been unable to reach her into lethal strikes. Well, potentially lethal. She just dodged, over and over again. Bloody cuts showed where she’d been a little too slow, but wounds were also accumulating on him, or they would be, if they weren’t healing as quickly as she could inflict them.

Leaning backwards caused his Kriegsmesser to whistle past and then her knife knocked his other weapon out of his left hand, but instead of calling his blade back, he seized her wrist and yanked.

The Kriegsmesser was already overextended far towards his left, putting it out of position to easily stab her, but he didn’t need to. Instead, he lashed out with his elbow, growing a razor sharp bone plate out of it using [Tools of Terror], aiming to put it straight through her sternum.

… and then she vanished, reappearing close to his feet, but he was already lashing out, a [Power Strike] enhanced kick slamming into her midsection. He’d been holding her by the wrist and felt it when she’d dropped the blade without having to see it.

She skipped of the floor a couple of times before she got her feet under her, sliding along the floor with a loud squeal of tortured rubber.

Isaac cocked his head to the side, her pink eyesore of a combat knife flashing past his ear. He whirled, a flaming Kriegsmesser ready to bisect her if she decided to pull the ‘teleport behind and stab’ move her powerset oh so clearly lent itself to.

Sadly, she was smarter than that, appearing a couple of meters behind him and well clear of his attempted bisection and flicked her blade towards the ceiling. She might not have as big a mana pool as he did, but that was the blades ability, meaning it paid the cost instead of her.

Reappearing just below the roof, she kicked off it and flung herself downwards at insane speeds, aiming right for Habicht. At this point, she wouldn’t even have needed her blade, the impact alone would have been enough to kill him.

Isaac simply teleported to the wall just above Habicht and kicked off that to intercept her in midair. He couldn’t do that often because his teleport was fucking expensive, but this situation called for it.

The two of them collided and went spinning, him under her, about to meet the hard concrete below, spine first.

… Isaac simply phased a split second before impact. He hadn’t done so before due to the danger of that damn weapon, but in this particular setup, he’d simply fall into the ground.

Her, not so much. A hand holding onto his shirt slammed into the ground at a supremely unfortunate angle, prompting a yelp of pain, and then her knees hit. If he’d still been there, one would have dug into his stomach and second would have landed right on his unmentionables, but he wasn’t there, so her kneecaps smashed right into the unforgiving concrete floor. She was tough enough to survive that without breaking anything, but it still hurt like a bitch.

And then the fuselage of fire started. Isaac only heard it, currently being underground, but it was a good sign. They hadn’t fired to start with because there’d still been the expectation that she’d surrender, and by the time anyone had realized she’d actually attacked, Isaac had already been way to close for anyone to feel comfortable using their guns.

But now, she was alone, and wasn’t moving for a brief moment, stunned and in pain.

Using the ability to touch stuff without actually manifesting granted by [Poltergeist Shift], Isaac swam through the dirt and erupted two meters in front of her, already swinging. He’d also emerged straight into the line of fire, but he was still phased, allowing the lead projectiles to phase straight through him.

Several bullet wounds marred her outfit and body, but she seemed staggeringly unconcerned while the police stopped firing with Isaac’s reappearance. She’d started dodging again anyway.

She wasn’t quite fast enough to directly avoid the bullets themselves, and obviously neither was Isaac, but that wasn’t really needed. All one had to do was pay attention to where the barrel was pointing and avoid that, dodging the bullet before it was even fired, be it by actively avoiding standing in front of them or just running around and speeds too high to be accurately targeted.

Isaac’s hands blurred again, activating [Starfang] on both of them, and yelled “Shoot her with your sidearms, they won’t hurt me.”

Sadly, that was a bold-faced lie, and one of the more manipulative stunts he’d pulled today. Normally, he’d catch hell for it, but catching the most notorious serial killer of recent times coverd a multitude of sins.

He was incredibly durable, but not bulletproof, he was merely able to heal the wounds they hurt, which would be abundantly clear to the officers after a few seconds, at which point they’d stop firing.

But this stunt should also come to an utter surprise to his opponent as well, being outside the established pattern of fighting she was already weaving through with masterful ease.

The volley of gunfire came and went, both of them staggering under several more hits, but Isaac was the more durable to the two and was able to weather it a hell of a lot better.

Several more shallow cuts marred her body in addition to two new bullet wounds … but then nothing seemed to hit her. She’d achieved a truly insane degree of knowledge about both his and the cops fighting styles, behaviors, movement patterns … in other words, had this been a board game, she’d have not only been playing with loaded dice, she’d have known what his dice would say even before he did.

Isaac’s solution? Flip the damn table!

[Form of Horror] activated and his height doubled while his weapons vanished, absorbed into his body as fangs and claws. All the knowledge about her abilities and fighting style remained, while what she knew was pretty much useless now.

As he lunged forwards with vastly enhanced physical power, her blade stabbed straight towards his wrist, aiming to take his hand. In response, Isaac shifted his arm slightly, ensuring that all she’d catch was the shallow edge of his wrist, tearing through the veins on the inside of his arm and spraying blood all over her face. Blood he’d just shifted to match that of a fucking Hydra.

She stumbled backwards, desperately clawing at her face to try and clear her vision. Isaac grasped both her wrists, one in each hand, and headbutted her. Well, it wasn’t so much a headbutt as him yanking her towards his and just placing his skull into the path of hers. And again. And then for a third time.

Poisoned, shot and almost certainly severely concussed, she slumped to the ground as he let her go while he shifted his claws over into their Astral Piercer form. They weren’t the greatest in combat against beings that weren’t ephemeral, given that damaging someone’s mana network when you could stab them with a normal weapon and just kill your opponent, but right now, he had a chance to take her alive, so he took it. Wrecking her ability to use all her active [Skills] should make keeping her locked up a hell of a lot easier.

If she died, this chapter of history was closed, and she might even end up becoming a martyr.

If she survived, this could be spun in any way they wanted, he could try and make this carry his message. That summoning had stopped a horrible serial killer, but safe summoning. Unsafe summoning had created the threat in the first place. Unsafe summoning wrecked lives and got those that did it killed. There was a way to do it wrong, and there was a way to do it right and grow to great heights. He wanted to ensure there was a chance for elites to grow while making those who only might do something land solidly on the ‘not do the stupid thing’ side of the equation.

Isaac drove the claws on both hands into her gut just above her hips and ripped them upwards, fragmenting her spiritual body and ruining her ability to channel mana, at least for now.

Her mouth opened in a wordless scream, but she fainted before a sound came out. Isaac winced in sympathy. Spiritual injuries were incredibly painful.

And then the already long healed gash on his arm glowed a deep crimson, power from a [Skill] even he hadn’t noticed surging. With a yelp of surprise, Isaac jumped backwards and thrust his arm out to the side as a crimson disk of force nearly a meter in diameter erupted from the injury, shredding his wrist and blasting off his hand. If that limb had been close to his torso, he might have even been cut in half. A last-ditch vengeance [Skill].

Isaac growled in anger, frustration and pain as he pressed the stump into his shirt, stemming the tide of blood flowing from the badly injured limb while his regeneration focused on sealing off the largest blood vessels.

But the largest issue was that that had not been a first Evolution [Skill]. Rather, it had belonged to her secondEvolution, he just hadn’t realized she was at that Level because she hadn’t had an aura, which was normally the first thing one picked up at that point, the [System] even told you so.

There was just one more thing to do before shifting back to human. Well, two things. First, he removed the toxic quality from his blood, so the person who slapped cuffs on her didn’t end up dead.

He grasped her knife in his left hand, placing it in his palm and curled his fingers in to drive his claws into it. Venonous green light flowed from his fingers, slowly corroding the weapon until it crumbled like wet clay under the pressure of his claws.

“Hey, that was evidence!” Habicht snapped.

“Yeah.” Isaac replied, back in his human form “It was also something she’d have had access to anywhere, no matter what you do, and able to cut through solid steel like tissue paper.”

“Just … stay there, don’t move, the paramedics will come and we’ll see if we can reattach the hand.” Habicht sighed, sounding worn out “Can it even be attached if there’s already skin grown back over the injury?”

Isaac shrugged “I don’t know, but I can regrow limbs. It’ll be back no matter what I do.”

“Do you need a paramedic, at all?”

“No. The health status says that I’m perfectly healthy, except I’m down a hand. A change of clothes would be much appreciated, though.” Isaac replied and sat down on the ground right there.

“By the way, she’s unconscious and the description for that [Skill] says it damages someone’s ability to use mana. She won’t be able to do much until that heals.”

He was so damn tired, but he was still aware of his surroundings. People were staring in awe at him, at her, at the damage wreaked upon the building. Horror starting to creep onto their faces as they realized just how badly this would have gone if he hadn’t been here.

While she as getting cuffed, the first hushed and whispered conversations were starting up.

All he wanted to do was go to his hotel room and sleep for a week … actually, he wanted to call his mother first, because if she found out he’d been in mortal danger from the news for the second time in two days, he was a dead man.

But then, he wanted his fucking rest.

Yet he wouldn’t be getting it, because he needed to deal with the fallout from this mess. This goddamn fucking mess.