The Astral soul system-Chapter 170: Break through

Right now Neo couldn’t believe what he was seeing ,in fact, he couldn’t even explain what he was seeing. How was it that there’s was someone and no one here at the same time.

"Neo. What are you doing?!"

Neo had to open his eyes to look at Maximilian and he honestly didn’t know what to say. For confirmation he looked at the ones they had already killed and the bodies were gone somehow.

"I don’t think we’re fighting normal people. Their abilities are blocking my sight "

Maximilian gritted his teeth and looked towards Valerie.

"We have to le-"

His voice caught in his throat as he saw her facial expression. She had the exact same calm half smile that she had since the beginning, but looking into her eyes, he could tell she was practically grinning ear to ear in joy on the inside. She didn’t even seem to have broken a sweat either, she was as calm as always.

"Don’t worry,every formation has a weak point,if there’s a way out, we’ll take it, and if there isn’t, I’ll just have to break through... everything. Neo,are you sure there’s nothing... unusual you can see "

Neo closed his eyes again, his brows scrunched up as he focused as hard as he could and then he suddenly saw something. It was unlike all the other stardust he’d been seeing, instead it looked more like a crack in space. He focused harder and the shadow of a person appeared. The moment he saw that,it was like he’d pierced through a layer of membrane that was blocking his senses,he heard or rather "felt" the sound of something tearing. Multiple life signs suddenly appeared around the forest, but somehow they weren’t the ones shooting the arrows. The one doing that was...

Neo’s gaze suddenly landed on the crack in the air and the shadow of a person.

"There"

Neo exclaimed, pointing directly at the person hiding and the moment he did, Maximilian heard a gasp of shock amidst all the arrows.

Maximilian’s eyes glowed blue and he looked in that direction, his vision changed and he saw a translucent blue done.

"They have some sort of barrier. We’ll probably only get one shot"

"One shot is all i need"

Neo said, preparing to use his ability.

An invisible attack left his finger, but as it did, nothing happened,a few seconds passed yet still the arrows kept coming

"I’ll try again"

"No,let me"

Valerie suddenly spoke up,her breath starting to get ragged.

"What? Why? I can’t mi-"

"Just trust me"

That didn’t seem to inspire confidence in either of them but she was currently slicing dozens and dozens of arrows in mid-air so...

Maximilian groaned. He considered the possibility of this being a trap,of HER being a trap, but in all honesty it was the most stupid thought he had and he recognized that. And even if it was, he had a way to escape with his life.

"Just do it"

Hearing Maximilian give the order,Neo hesitantly agreed.

"What do you need?"

"One second"

Neo didn’t know about that but they were in too deep now.

He closed his eyes and his solar system came into view. It suddenly started spinning according to his will, absorbing the stardust at a ridiculous rate into his body. It even began to affect the real world as a miniature cyclone appeared surrounding him.

Neo kept taking in more and more until he felt himself about to burst.

"Duck!"

Valerie dropped to the ground,her blades down and so did Maximilian.

An invisible, intangible wave spread out around Neo as he released everything at once. It didn’t generate kinetic energy,it didn’t have force, didn’t rustle the wind, but it was still there, and when it collided with the arrows in the sky, they all paused for a second before disappearing like they’d been erased from existence.

Immediately, Valerie jumped,her blades bursting into flames.

Maximilian heard her mutter something under her breath and there was a large flash followed by the bang of an explosion.

Maximilian and Neo tensed for a few seconds, waiting. The arrows had stopped.

Valerie briskly stepped out from behind a few smoldering trees, looking fairly tired.

She gave a smile and a thumbs up,her breath still steady.

Neo sighed, immediately dropping to the ground in exhaustion, laying on his face. Maximilian joined him despite not doing much in the battle. The mental strain of it was still a lot.

"Sorry I dragged you into my assassination"

Maximilian said as Valerie approaches. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"No problem. I would have joined even if i wasn’t here when it happened. Big hero over here, remember?"

Neo chuckled his face still in the ground.

"What about the people?"

Valerie asked

"They ran away. I heard them all scatter..."

"Is something wrong? You look upset"

"That’s never happened before. I can hear the squeaking of mice ten feet under the ground. So how did they get so close?"

Valerie shrugged before putting her hand on his shoulder.

"Who knows. Your family’s ability is well known, and they came here with a plan in mind so they probably had an ability specifically to neutralize your senses,or maybe advanced technology. It would also explain why Neo’s attack didn’t work,they prepared for it"

"But how?"

Neo asked.

"Even i don’t know how my ability works,so how did some random guys know how to neutralize it"

Maximilian suddenly had a thoughtful expression as he began to think out loud.

"When you used your ability in that massive wave. I inspected it with my... mutation and I realized something. The arrows, your ability,it didn’t do any damage"

"What?"

"Your ability doesn’t do damage. It pulled apart the arrows molecule by molecule,atom by atom. It separates matter to it’s most basic form, thereby destroying it"

"..."

"..."

Maximilian groaned and explained it simply.

"You can destroy anything. Water,fire, even oxygen. And it’s permanent "

"Oooohhhhh"

Maximilian felt the urge to facepalm. This was the guy he allowed to copy off of him in tests.

And even worse, he’d been given objectively one of the most dangerous abilities in the world .

"Um... how do i do that exactly?"

A vein bulged on Maximilian’s forehead and he grabbed a random rock, throwing it out of anger.

"How should I know?!"

Valerie chuckled.

"You guys remind me of my friends-"

The smile on her face barely lasted for a second when she suddenly seemed to remember something. The smile on her face slowly drained away,replaced by a look that was equal parts nostalgia and sadness.

"Um... Vale-"

"Let’s get to the base. Those people might come back"

Maximilian nodded, not wanting to press the issue

"Get up,Neo. Let’s go"

"I can’t"

"What do you mean you-"

"I mean i literally can’t,Max!"

Neo said, his voice getting serious all of a sudden.

"Exhaustion. Whatever he did back there,it drained him"

Valerie said.

The two helped lift him, putting his limp arms around their shoulders.

"What did you see? The person you took down,is their corpse still there or did you..."

He looked at the still burning trees.

"Weird thing. There wasn’t a person there"

"What?!"

Neo suddenly nodded

"She’s right,it didn’t look like a normal person. It was different ,twisted"

"Whatever IT was,i cut it down but it just turned to smoke and everything just stopped. You can go check if you want "

Maximilian shook his head. He really couldn’t care less right now. The important thing was that they were safe

They started walking towards the base, silence dominating for a few minutes until Valerie suddenly reacted to the fact that Maximilian had been staring at her the whole way.

"What’s wrong?"

"Uh-"

"You didn’t suddenly get a crush on me,did you?"

She teased.

"What?! No I-"

"Good, because that would have been way too easy, would’ve taken the fun out of it"

She gave him a wink. Her sullen mood from earlier seemed to have disappeared completely.

Neo laughed, his voice slurring and sounding like he was a few minutes from passing out

Maximilian chuckled.

’I kind of wish it was just that’

"Don’t you want to find your friends? Try to get them back to safety?"

Maximilian knew he would regret asking that but he just couldn’t not when he’d decided to trust this girl... for now at least

"Oh...my friends. We aren’t really all together right now"

"The fight was that bad?"

Valerie smiled wryly,a nostalgic look in her eyes.

"You know... it all happened so fast. I still...i still don’t even really know what actually... happened "

"... Yeah, my friends seem pretty close but... everyday feels kinda like that, like it might just fall apart"

"I just hope you two and your friends end up better than I currently am with mine "

"You... you could meet our friends"

Neo said, looking like he was struggling to keep his eyes open.

Valerie smiled.

"No"

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