Transcendent Gene-Chapter 286: The Old Duke [2]

Whoosh!

Gio’s body melded in with the rubble as he used the falling chunks and platforms as steps. For a second, the Old Duke saw a flash of blue in the destruction.

The next time he saw it, it was aimed at his head.

Xiu!

Boom!

Gio’s body turned into a speeding comet as he pushed off the rubble and shot at the Old Duke. He threw his arm forward with a concentrated beam of virtual energy shooting from his fingertip.

Bang!

It struck the Old Duke’s head exactly where Gio aimed, but the man took the hit like it was nothing.

"A weakling who thinks he’s—" 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Gio didn’t let the opponent taunt him. As the beam made contact, he raised his other arm and manifested a massive energy cube that fell down with several tons of force.

Booooom!

It appeared and moved much faster than it did when he faced Raven. He was confident in turning it into a real meaningful projection within the month.

But that was beside the point.

When the Old Duke was swallowed by virtual energy, Gio used the man’s own chest as a plate and pushed himself backwards

He was just in time. He flipped to orient himself towards his enemy once more when the invisible wave passed under him.

Boooooooom!

His eyes narrowed as he heard the sound of another building being heavily damaged.

’Is it telekinesis?’

He had to find out the identity of that Sequence.

"You’re bold. I’ll give you that much."

Despite Gio’s best efforts to land a good opening move, the Old Duke’s voice didn’t show any signs of pain.

The virtual cube dissolved to prove the lack of injury.

"If I could be hurt by something like this, do you think I would have become who I am today?"

He spoke dismissively. Gio was nothing to him but another thug who wanted to be a hero. His entire existence was pathetic.

"You can call it noble or whatever else you want, but stop doing this. I don’t want to see more young people die for no reason."

"No reason?" Gio growled back, adopting his role to see if he could learn anything from their dialogue

"People are dying because you want to be a king. It’s nobody else’s fault."

"Maybe."

The Old Duke merely shrugged.

"But it’s still your fault, at the end of the day. You’re the one who isn’t strong enough to do anything about me. If you don’t have the strength, then just shut up and submit. Isn’t that obvious?"

He looked down at his watch with a shrug.

"Well, it was a pleasant talk, but I think this is enough stalling. I’m going down there whether you like it or not. Stay still if you want to live. Attack me one more time, and..."

[Siege Armament]

Intimidation only worked on the weak.

[Barrage]

The Old Duke didn’t get to complete his threat. A barrage of weapons and artillery in all shapes and sizes charged at him from all directions. They filled his vision with the color blue and his senses with the weight of Gio’s aura.

He gritted his teeth in annoyance.

"Stupid brat."

He was happy to have a pleasant interaction with a young djinn who wanted to be great, but it had all been ruined.

Now, he had no choice but to take another fifteen seconds to kill the child before moving on. It was the most convenient annoyance that could appear in the given circumstances.

"If that’s what you want, then who am I to disagree?"

He sighed lethargically and raised his arm.

"Since you want it so bad..."

The color of the energy was purple. It was the result of a different Sequence.

"...die."

BOOOOOOOOM!

The power had to be telekinesis. The sensation of two massive hands clamping down from both sides flooded Gio’s senses.

His base instinct was to go up, and that was exactly what he did.

Whoosh!

Bang!

The air exploded below him almost immediately. His judgement couldn’t have been better.

’So, a telekinesis power, a defensive power, and a potential perception power as well.’

That was always three Sequences. If one of them was his Original Gene and the other two were absorbed, then he’d already seen all the cards an ordinary person would have.

’But if it was only that, he wouldn’t be who he is’

His eyes narrowed. It wasn’t his job to fight until he learned what the Old Duke was hiding.

"This is for our cause!"

Gio yelled in the air, keeping up the illusion as he summoned virtual energy in droves

He had no plans to hold back in this moment.

Voom!

A wall of virtual flames charged at him and swallowed him whole. At the same time, sparks of electricity did the same, creating arcs that acted like ballista bolts.

Crack!

Booooom!

Gio landed as the Old Duke’s energy started to disperse and watched his own.

Bang!

However, he was moving in the next moment.

’Fast.’

His eyes widened as a blur left the cloud of energy he created and appeared in front of him in the blink of an eye.

The Old Duke was a large person in most aspects, but it didn’t encumber him as it should have. Rather, he was able to move like someone a fourth of his size.

Boom!

He stuck his palm out and tried to grab Gio’s face, only to be met with air that crumpled under the pressure of his energy.

Gio ducked down and slammed his fist into the other man’s stomach. Virtual energy pumped through his veins and into the Old Duke’s pores, turning itself into crystalline glass that pierced the smallest holes in his body.

"Tch!"

The Old Duke merely clicked his tongue, but it was the most reactive he’d been to pain since Gio first saw him.

’It won’t be easy. I need to bait him.’

Gio never needed to win this battle. He never needed to kill the Old Duke.

’I should do this as fast as possible. It’s better to make him think that he won this confrontation.’

A plan came together in Gio’s mind without much effort at all. It was a bit brutal, but it was also the most surefire way to see success.

The moment the thought was formed, he was already acting on it.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Virtual energy transformed several times to do its sacred duty, and it didn’t act alone. Without his party members nearby, Gio could display Hekat without worry too.

The earth became his tool and disrupted the Old Duke’s flow constantly, riling up his emotions. At the same time, he got far too used to the feeling of virtual energy on his face.

Boooom!

The Old Duke’s telekinesis worked like an extension of his body. Gio felt it viscerally in close combat. Those two invisible arms that could grab anything out of the world were trying to swallow him even as the Old Duke used his own physical skills to fight

It was overwhelming. It was as if Gio was facing three giants alongside the Old Duke, but he pushed through and continued to make smaller attacks to rile his opponent.

He didn’t cause much damage at all, but small scratches and bruises accumulated on certain parts of the opponent’s body.

His expression was also very clearly perturbed, expressing his desire to move on with his life as fast as possible.

’Nice.’

He could feel it coming. It wasn’t an exaggeration. When the Old Duke decided that the time had come, the air itself shifted under the weight of his energy.

Gio widened his eyes in an expression of faux surprise and fear as he rushed away as fast as possible, creating a great deal of distance between them.

Instead of giving chase, the Old Duke clasped his hands together in a praying motion and directed them towards Gio.

[Momentum]

That was all it was.

A wave of pure momentum rushed at Gio. An invisible wall with the hardness of diamond moved with such intensity that the air around it created a curtain highlighting its form.

In other words, it was made apparent for Gio to see.

And he faced it just as boldly as he planned.

"Hmph!"

With a sound of exertion, he summoned more energy than he could possibly ever need to create a virtual net as long as the wall.

Hekat read his mind and prepared, gluing his feet to the ground so he wouldn’t lose his balance.

’This is going to hurt a lot.’

He had a second to mentally prepare himself for impact.

’Our strength is suppressed to the same level. The Old Duke is stronger than most, but hypothetically...’

His mind couldn’t go further than that point before it struck.

WHOOOOOSH!

The mere auditory impact was almost enough to make Gio drop his energy, but he held onto it with all of his power.

"AAAAAARGH!"

He roared as he grabbed the virtual net with both hands and encompassed the invisible force of telekinesis.

He felt the Old Duke struggling against his control, but he wouldn’t allow it.

If it was a battle of willpower, he would lose to nobody.

He forced his fists together, binding the Old Duke’s force entirely. Without a single pause in his momentum, he spun the force back in the opposite direction.

He redirected the Old Duke’s own energy at him.

That was the first step of the plan.

However, it didn’t come without a cost. Such a massive wall of momentum couldn’t just be grabbed and redirected. There was at least a little bit of force that had to leak.

And leak it did.