Lucian had a simple ambush plan and it was supposed to be perfect.

The enemies had the superior numbers, they had powerful Ascended in their ranks but power and abilities could be negated in the right circumstances and with the right engagement plan.

It was just like Rex, a mere F Rank Mechanist caused the death of Parasite, an E Rank Gene Augur though he also sacrificed his life for it.

In the world of Ascended, nothing was set in stone.

Lucian's ambush plan was entering its final stages. By now, he expected all the soldiers to either be dead, restrained, or sleeping but things don't always go according to plan.

One of the soldiers was singlehandedly ruining his perfect plan.

In a final barrage, the last of the javelins were shot from the compartments in the ceiling as the javelin phase of his ambush finally came to an end but the damage was already done.

Lieutenant Jones was already dead.

With more than a dozen javelins stabbing through his body in different spots, the E Rank Cyber Gladiator died while standing with his hands restrained with the thick black chains.

Unlike him, Lieutenant Levi collapsed to the ground in a pool of blood as soon as the barrage stopped.

He had 4 javelins jutting from different parts of his body, he was on his last breathe but he was still desperately clinging to life.

Nobody knew how long he would last.

As for Captain Ariande, Leon expected her to die first as he saw her condition through his omniscient vision but Ariande refused to die.

The moment that her heart was punctured, she improvised.

Neural Projection!

She turned into a psionic ghost and in so doing shed her physical form, turning a lethal attack that should have resulted in death to a manageable one.

In her psionic ghost form, she had no organs which meant the earlier damage was spread across all of her body instead of a single organ.

This was how she survived.

As for the 3 E Rank Gene Augurs, despite the fact that they had javelins puncturing through different parts of their bodies, they survived.

This was the sick nature of E Rank Gene Augurs.

Only Captain Ariande escaped her shackles by turning into a psionic ghost though, the 3 E Rank Gene Augurs despite surviving were still shackled and restricted by the thick black chain on their wrists, rendering them useless.

Leon didn't care about them though.

At this moment, all he focused on was himself and his own abilities and how he could take down the terrorists with him.

The barrage of Javelins stopped, but another barrage started.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

This time, it was a barrage of Leon's wealth, constructs, and power.

The terrorists dodged by diving into different corners of this subterranean chamber, ducking and rolling to escape the rampaging grenades and melee weapons that flew at them like bullets from a machine gun.

Unlike regular bullets though, these bullets were massive titanium weapons.

The terrorists were thrown into disarray, dodging for their lives as Leon watched with sadistic delight in his black eyes.

Seeing this, Lucian's dark green eyes gleamed and narrowed into slits. 'This cannot continue'.

His eyes focused on Thomas Riley, then he moved.

Whoosh!

Unlike his subordinates who dared not face the detonating grenades and barrage of weapons head-on, including the hefty terrorist who was an E Rank Gene Augur, Lucian charged forward and braved the grenades and weapons head-on!

BOOM!

The grenades detonated, the force slamming into him and tearing through his black paramilitary armor like paper, burning into his skin as he bled heavily but Lucian didn't die from the damage.

He didn't even slow down.

He ran right through the flames and the shockwaves as if he could not feel pain and as if the heavy damage was just surface wounds to him, showing incredible tenacity and vitality.

Seeing this, Leon was surprised at first but then he grinned like a mad man. "Heh, come on, come let's die together!"

Straining his left wrist against the black chain, he bent his body down and picked one of the gadgets that fell from his backpack that was still on the ground in front of him, a VX-09 Emberfist gauntlet.

He equipped it on his free right hand, then he grabbed his Terra Nova 71 Rifle again before leaning back up and aiming with one hand at the Demon of Ozempic.

Lucian didn't try to evade, he fearlessly charged right ahead.

And as he charged forward, the final step of his ambush plan finally came into effect.

FSHHHH!

Leon didn't look up but through the omniscient vision granted by his C-5 drones, he saw another compartment suddenly open up in the middle area of the ceiling of this chamber.

From that compartment, a muzzle came out and from the muzzle erupted a thick plume of green gas that started being pumped into this chamber.

Leon's eyes narrowed again. 'A chemical weapon!'

With his brain still working on overdrive, he instantly understood the final step of the terrorists' ambush plan.

Gene Augurs are extremely hard to kill but just like Captain Raveman, if killing them is so hard, you can always make them go to sleep.

His eyes constricted as he glared at Lucian. 'This bastard!'

But he wasn't out of cards to play.

In that moment, Leon stomped at the ground with his right leg as a gadget was flicked up by his stomp- a black half-face mask that he constructed a few days ago. He moved his face forward as the mask smoothly latched to his face.

Unlike him, Lucian didn't need to wear another mask against the chemical gas because from the beginning, he and his subordinates were already on either half or full-face masks.

Once again, Leon realized just how thorough the ambush plan against the elite squad was but he no longer cared.

He didn't have the luxury for further analysis right now.

What mattered was eliminating the terrorists.

Since Lucian took the initiative to charge at him so fearlessly, even if it was the last thing that he did with his life, Leon was determined to take the leader of the terrorist movement with him.

BZZZ!

His ADE pulsed.

Enhance!

The muzzle of the Terra Nova 71 Rifle glowed a violent red, then…

BAM!

A thick red plasma beam shot towards the Demon of Ozempic and knowing that he didn't have the speed to dodge, Lucian didn't even try to dodge.

His gold and white ADE simply erupted again just as the red plasma beam slammed into him right on his chest.

It burned a nasty hole on his chest but it didn't burn all the way through as beneath his skin, Lucian's flesh squirmed, already healing.

'What?!' Again, Leon was shocked. 'Is he an E Rank Gene Augur?'

Despite his shock he didn't overthink it; no matter what happened he was not stopping.

Enhance!

He used Enhance on all the sword drones hovering around him above as Davis commanded them to descend in a barrage at the target- Lucian.

In response, Lucian's gold and white ADE flared again.

Temporal Echo!

Field Equilibrium!

Quantum Touch!

He activated 3 abilities instantaneously as some of the sword drones immediately veered off their original path at the last moment, but not all of them veered off their path as majority still slammed into Lucian's body.

They hit with devastating power and force, yet Lucian tanked them all!

Leon's eyes constricted at the sight.

Lucian's skin tore apart, blood flowed through his wounds like a river and yet he didn't stop, he simply staggered then he continued charging forward.

Taking advantage of that momentary stagger though, Leon kicked more grenades at him.

They detonated in mid-air.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Lucian was overwhelmed by the explosions!

They covered and buried him.

And yet, with his skin damaged, scorched and burnt off, leaving his body bare-bones with his red flesh underneath showing in a gory manner, Lucian didn't even show a grimace of pain as he continued charging towards Leon.

Seeing this, Leon felt his heart tighten. 'Is he a psychopath?'

'Even an E Rank Gene Augur is not like this, how is a Quantum Shaper this broken physically?'

He felt confused and unnerved but his confusion only made him angrier.

'I'd rather die than fear you!'

Leon stubbornly refused to give up.

Instead, he dug into his pride, his rage, and his ADE as he continued his onslaught on the Demon of Ozempic.

Talia couldn't help him because with his attention taken away from the other terrorists, the terrorist E Rank NetRunner became free to focus on her and stop her from helping him.

That also prevented the terrorist E Rank NetRunner from also attacking him.

But this freed the other terrorists as they started moving, encircling him but Leon showed no signs of fear as his grayish white ADE erupted.

He laughed. "Bring it on bastards!"

The terrorists abandoned the Gene Augurs left of the elite squad because sooner or later, the thick green chemical gas would take care of them.

As for Leon who wore a mask, he remained a threat.

In that moment as Lucian led the way, tanking his most devastating attacks while the other terrorists encircled him, Leon regretted not having extra hands to wield more of his weapons.

Still he didn't give up.

The moment Lucian finally closed the distance and entered close-range, Leon grinned and decisively threw the Terra Nova 71 Rifle to the side as he clenched his right fist with the VX-09 Emberfist gauntlet.

BZZZ!

His grayish white ADE flared again.

Enhance!

Overheat Drive!

Ember Burst!

Thick high-temperature flames erupted from the VX-09 Emberfist gauntlet as with doubled strength and with the amplification of Enhance, Leon punched Lucian on the face at point-blank range!

The sound of impact reverberated like thunder.

BAM!

Lucian's face caved in, his jaw fractured, his nose was broken, his face turning black and fleshy-red and yet the next moment they started regenerating!

At this moment, Lucian felt like a glitch in the matrix.

At the same time that Leon punched Lucian in the first, Lucian touched his opponent's hand in return as his gold and white ADE flared.

Quantum Trace!

Leon immediately felt an overwhelming sense of drowsiness hit him as he was almost knocked out instantly but he quickly reacted and bit his tongue and as blood flowed, the pain stimulating his brain, he stayed conscious.

Leon immediately realized that this was the same ability that knocked Captain Raveman out and he understood something.

'Raveman was knocked out immediately because he's a Gene Augur!'

INT was the main stat of the Mechanist Class, but ADE and WIL are the 2 secondary stats of Mechanists.

Leon realized that this Quantum Shaper ability targeted willpower, it was similar to a NetRunner's Data Lash but with different effects.

Only with high WIL can you endure it meaning the NetRunner and Mechanist Class were the Classes best equipped to face a Quantum Shaper.

Lucian didn't just attack Leon with a wave of drowsiness though.

A few milliseconds after Leon's punch connected, even as his face regenerated, Leon suddenly noticed that the Lucian before him no longer looked as real.

His eyes constricted. 'He already left?'

'An afterimage decoy!'

Through the footage of his C-5 drones, he quickly deciphered Lucian's new location- the terrorist leader was behind him!

Before he could react, the spike of Lucian's War Pick slammed into the back of his head but his R9 energy shield once again protected him.

By then, the other terrorists already arrived and without hesitation they attacked.

BAM!

The Cat DNA terrorist's katana stabbed at his ribs and was stopped by his energy shield, but the attack from the hefty terrorist wielding a pair of Falchions broke the shield.

CRKSH!

Immediately, another R9 energy shield took its place.

At the same time, the lean terrorist who cut Captain Raveman's head with his pair of Kukri knives arrived like a ghost, tackling Leon's right hand with the VX-09 Emberfist gauntlet in a bid to immobilize him completely since his left hand was already immobilized by the chain.

'They can't kill me, so they want to immobilize me?'

Leon grinned like a mad man then with a manic gleam in his black eyes, he stomped on the ground with his right foot.

He didn't just stomp though, he stomped down on a fragmentation grenade!

BOOM!

The terrorists didn't see it coming.

At point-blank range, the bomb detonated, the fragments tearing through the bodies of the terrorists whose energy shields were already overloaded with his earlier barrage of attacks.

While Leon's R9 shield protected him, they were vulnerable.

"Ugh…!" The lean terrorist who tried to tackle his hand and was closest to him coughed blood as he got the worst of the attack, reeling and staggering backward from the damage.

The terrorist with Cat DNA was also caught in the attack as the shockwave threw him backward.

The only 2 people who directly tanked it were the hefty terrorist wielding a pair of Falchion and Lucian, Lucian again!

Leon's black eyes gleamed with rage. 'This guy is an E Rank Gene Augur, just how is he so tenacious as an E Rank Quantum Shaper?'

Both terrorists attacked, Leon didn't defend.

He retaliated.

BOOM!

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