adbindia Chapter 201: Spark
Chapter 201: Spark
Yesterday, after Veronica left Kyle’s house, she didn’t return to the base. She didn’t have much work to do anyway.
So, she decided to head home and relax, something that also happened to align with Kyle’s advice.
She...definitely wasn’t going home because he told her to. It was entirely her own decision.
Regardless, she went home, got a good night’s sleep, and when she finally woke up, it was already close to eight.
She panicked.
Today was Kyle’s solo expedition. She had planned to call him in the morning, meet him if possible, and keep a close eye on the entire operation.
But because she had relaxed a little too much the previous night, she ended up oversleeping.
Without wasting a second, she reached for her phone, intending to call Kyle and ask whether he had already arrived at the location.
However, the moment she picked it up, she realized she was already receiving a call.
It was Vice-Commander Timothy.
She answered immediately. "Yeah?"
{Good morning, ma’am. Sorry to disturb you, but the situation on Kyle’s side has become a little strange.}
Veronica was already moving toward the door.
"Tell me everything."
She slipped on her jacket while walking and pulled the door open.
{He reached the location safely. He located the rift and performed a scan. We have footage up to that point. I even spoke with him directly. However, the signal suddenly got cut off.}
Veronica clicked her tongue.
"Don’t you have surveillance around the site?"
{We do, ma’am. And considering his past records, I stationed two CPV officers nearby as well. But...}
"But?" Veronica asked impatiently.
{They couldn’t reach the house. They said they could see it, but it was as if some kind of barrier surrounded the building. No matter what they did, they couldn’t get any closer.}
His voice was tense.
Veronica’s frustration grew.
If the rift had truly been showing stable readings, then how...? Was it actually inevitable for Kyle to be targeted by something anomalous?
{Commander, I’ve already assigned additional officers. They’re on their way.}
"No. Send a clean-up crew instead." Veronica’s eyes turned cold, her body tense. "I’m going there."
The moment those words left her mouth, she blurred into motion.
Normally, Nightwalkers weren’t allowed to display their supernatural abilities in public unless it was a genuine emergency.
But Veronica didn’t stop to consider whether this qualified as one under the law.
In her eyes, this was the biggest emergency possible.
....
*Crumble*
And that brings Veronica here, inside the house, facing the man who clearly was here to hurt Kyle.
Veronica glanced at the fallen pieces of human chunks.
Considering the blood in Kyle’s hand and his current condition, she knew that he fought that man and fortunately, didn’t sustain too many injuries.
She identified that lantern hovering his head...it was the same that stabilized his condition against Ava.
That’s why, she knew she didn’t need to instantly take him to safety.
As such, "You..." She could focus on the man.
"My, my. What kind of big shot is that guy for the Commander of PSC to arrive herself here?" The man taunted, somehow a little too confident for someone who was on the verge of flight and fight state just a moment ago.
Veronica narrowed her eyes at the black dog tag hung down the man’s neck.
"You are from the League."
The man was surprised, "You know about us? I am honoured."
"For someone to hire a man from the League...your client must be someone in a strong position." Veronica muttered and the man grinned in response.
"You can say that. Though I still can’t wrap my head around why you are here."
Veronica ignored his question. "I need you alive. So make sure you don’t die-" her words were stretched, no, it zoomed in for the man because in less than a blink of an eye, she was standing before him
*Thunk*
Her fist struck even before he could bring his hand down, causing he man to stumble back.
Veronica sneered, "A barrier, huh?" She muttered and raised her hand to see the smoke rising from her knuckles.
The man was too stunned to speak a word. The only reason he confidently stood against Veronica was because of the barrier...but her punch was strong enough to send him skidding back even with that.
’The rumors surrounding her were true. I need to leave this place soon.’ The man wasn’t delusional to think he could defeat this woman and finish the operation.
The man recovered fast, his reflexes and battle awareness playing a big part in it.
He rolled his shoulder back, planted his feet, and came at her with his right forearm raised like a battering ram, the barrier thickening around it as he swung.
She stepped into it.
The impact cracked against her collarbone. She didn’t move. She grabbed his forearm with both hands, twisted at the waist, and drove her elbow into the barrier over his ribs hard enough that the air in the room shuddered.
"Gh..." He grunted and broke away, putting distance between them.
"Fast and strong," he said, breathing harder now. "You really are the real thing."
Veronica didn’t respond. She was already reading him. The barrier wasn’t uniform. It thickened where he expected impact and thinned at the joints, at the places the body needed to bend.
He was good enough to compensate instinctively, but instinct had lag.
He came again, low this time, leading with his shoulder. She sidestepped and caught him across the jaw with an open palm.
The barrier held, but his head still snapped sideways. He staggered two steps. She could see the shock in the way he caught himself on the wall.
"That’s not possible," he muttered.
She hit him again in the same spot before he finished the sentence.
He wised up quickly. She would give him that. He stopped trying to overpower her and pulled the blade instead, a short, curved thing that caught the dim light with a chemical gleam along its edge.
Venom. She recognized the color of the coating before she recognized the design.
He moved with it properly, not like a man showing off a weapon but like one who had used it for years.
The first slash came diagonally across her forearm where her guard was high. She pulled back but not fully, and the blade caught skin.
The burn was immediate. A slow, deep heat spreading from the cut up toward her elbow.
She looked at it once.
Then she looked at him.
His expression faltered.
Veronica crossed the distance in two steps and drove her fist straight into the center of the barrier over his sternum.
The visible surface fractured like glass catching light, hairline breaks spreading and sealing, and the man’s face went white because she hadn’t punched through it.
She had punched into it, and the force had passed through anyway. His chest cavity felt it. His ribs felt it. She saw it in the way his exhale came out wrong, compressed and involuntary.
He slashed again, catching her across the back of the hand this time. She let it happen. The venom crawled up the new cut the same way it had on her arm, that same deep burn, and she watched his eyes track to the wound expecting something.
Nothing changed in her face.
She hit him again in the same spot on his sternum. Same place. Deliberate. The shockwave had nowhere to distribute this time because the muscle memory of the last blow was still sitting in his body, and the second one stacked directly onto it. He coughed. His knees bent slightly before he caught himself.
She grabbed the wrist holding the blade, not to disarm him but to hold him still, and struck the barrier over his shoulder joint with the heel of her palm.
She heard something shift that wasn’t the barrier.
He dropped the blade.
Veronica kicked it away without looking at it and released his wrist, letting him fold against the wall. He was still conscious. Barely making the decision to be.
She stood over him, smoke still curling faintly from her knuckles, the venom burns dark against her skin.
"You have two options," she said. Her voice had not changed once during the entire exchange. "You talk, or I find a less comfortable way to make that happen."
The man laughed. He pressed the back of his head against the wall and looked up at her.
"Who are you fooling...?" He looked into her eyes before snarling, "...with all that bloodlust, I know you want to murder me."
Veronica wouldn’t deny it.
Her body, mind and soul was in alignment with a single decision.
Pluck of his head and spit on his corpse.
Cornering Kyle...her Kyle demanded punishment that leaves no second chances.
But then, something unexpected happened.
Kyle’s eyes widened as the man raised his hand and raw Genesis began to expand.
Spark.
He was a damn Special-grade.
°°°°°°°°°
A/N:- You know what time it is?
Ryoiki Tenkai.
Done and dusted