Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 580: Black Skull. (Part Twelve)

Time was a peculiar thing. Ever since he had his Overmind implants installed, Dante had experienced many instances where the time flow halted, causing the world around him to appear frozen.

Everything stops moving, remaining in the same position until he brings his perception back to normal levels. One can’t help but feel that they have power over time itself after going through it regularly. Nevertheless, slowing time matters little if the effect includes you as well. If you aren’t fast enough, you would be frozen as well, forced to watch as things unbound by your power move, mocking your pathetic attempt to cause change.

Light was beyond human perception, and so was the darkness that inevitably followed. By the time he heard the ringing in his ears, Dante realized that he had blacked out for who knows how long.

His eyes snapped open, and his perception accelerated. His vision was a blurry mess, but his eyes quickly adjusted, and the sight before him cleared before long. If he hadn’t been disoriented at that moment, Dante would have realized that he could see just fine through his Absolute Awareness and that what awaited him would be the source of a strong wish to go blind.

A tower of smoke rose to the sky, the buildings surrounding it like the walls of a great chimney. At its base, a sea of crimson spilled out of the hearth, swallowing everything in its path, melting both steel and stone.

Rising from the hole he had been buried in, Dante watched as the rivers of hell flowed into the old streets. His legs moved, and he took a step forward. The source seemed too far, but a thought brought him to it.

At the heart of the furnace, only the vague silhouette of a building awaited him, outlined on a crimson canvas. Its walls, those that still retained their form, crumbled a little at a time. Light seemed through the windows and every other gap it could find, banishing the shadows and anything that might be able to make one.

In his enhanced perception, the burning sight looked like a magnificent painting, one that inspired nothing but hopelessness and despair. Faced with it, Dante’s mind cracked like a frail glass sculpture the moment it recovered from the earlier shock. Cold logic held it together, delaying the inevitable collapse for a few moments.

A command shattered the dark blue suit he wore into countless threads of light, and from his chest, more poured out, quickly weaving the form of a different armor. This one was unlike anything he had worn before, and this was his first time bringing it out into the world. Its form was entirely beastial, its size large enough to block an entire highway. Crawling on all fours, it kept close to the ground like a cold-blooded reptile. The sharp spikes jutting from its back continued all the way to the tip of its tail, and on the other side, they joined a pair of golden horns to form a terrifying yet majestic crown. Though entirely mechanical in nature, the creature looked nothing if not alive. Its jaws spread, and so did the wings on its back. As they stretched to their utmost, a wave of cold rolled out.

Everything lost the will to move as if commanded by a force that bent the laws of nature. Every molecule. Every particle. They all lost the fuel that enabled their movement. All movement came to a halt, and for a moment there, Blue Moon street seemed to be truly frozen in time.

The beast syphoned heat from everything in its surroundings. It drew the flames that flooded out like a tide, turning them into ribbons that gathered at the entrance to its maw. An orb quickly formed, growing in size as the flames continued to pour into it, and before long, not a single wisp remained away from the miniature sun.

From the perspective of an outsider, the flames had disappeared in the blink of an eye, deleted from existence altogether. The presence of the beast instantly banished that idea. Anyone who sees it would think it was preparing to unleash its fiery wrath, and that’s exactly what it did.

Dragon Might was Type 1’s Level 6 ability. It commands all thermal in the targeted location, gathering it for different uses. The gathered energy is usually converted and used to refill the armor’s reserves, but once those reserves are filled, the energy has to go somewhere.

The gigantic metal beast cranked its neck and raised its head to the sky. As its control over the miniature sun waned, it lined the orb with the space between the oppressive skyscrapers. With a rumbling roar, the orb left the bounds of the will commanding it and took off to the sky, barely holding on to its form before plunging into the clouds above.

Though it had been the middle of the night, warm golden rays shone down on Neo-Vatra, bringing with them a dawn that lasted only several seconds.

Even as the clouds parted above it, the winged beast didn’t seem like it could care any less. Its crimson scales once again disintegrated into countless threads on light, and as they vanished into a single point, the dark blue armor returned, the glass of its round helmet reflecting the scene before it.

The fire was gone, but the devastation it caused remained. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

As he stared at it, Dante could barely hold on. His psyche threatened collapse, but he refused to let it.

Amplified by 8-6’s sensors, the range of his Absolute Awareness expanded, covering the ruins that had once been a housing complex. He wanted to move, to go in and see with his own eyes, but his cowardice blocked the path, and he was left to search from a distance.

Faces flashed in his mind. Innocent smiles, tearful eyes. Vacant looks shifted as freedom injected them with life. Dante had only seen them a couple of times, but his mind remembered each and every one of them, and their names came to him without him having to try.

As he searched for a heartbeat, for anything that could be called a sign of life, the cracks continued to spread through his mind. The frail glass sculpture could no longer hold its shape, and as it shattered into a million pieces, the darkness it once contained spilled out into the world.