LONE: The Journey Beyond-Chapter 31: Hidden Umbra.

Both Reven and his opponent took their respective stances and got ready to fight.

"Whoever manages to bring the other to his knees will be declared as the winner. The winner side will get to decide the fate of these people. START!" The Oni ordered.

GROWL!

The monster ran towards Reven with a club as he got the signal.

'[Mysteries of Ardor: First Mystery- Vector Expansion]'

Reven from the get go activated his best technique as his speed increased by multiple folds. The [Vector Expansion] allowed him to dodged the moves of the monster and at the same time it allowed him to analyse the fighting style of the monster.

Reven continued to dodged when suddenly…

'Chance.'

He saw an opening. As the monster drew his club to smash apart Reven into pieces. Reven pushed his [Vector Expansion] to its limits and at the same time he activated his final trump card -the Nano-Suit: Hidden Umbra.

'Now Empress.'

[Initiating Umbra Mode.]

As soon as Reven gave his command to the 'Empress' to activate [Hidden Umbra] a blackish-grey matter started to wriggle all around Reven's body starting from his Wrist-Band and covered his whole body including his head and face.

There were streaks of white threads around the Nano-Suit making ribbon-like patterns across the armour. There was an energy reactor at the chest area which glowed sliver and used Ardor as fuel. He looked like the Ironman from the early 21st century movies but much more cool and with a different colour tone.

Reven reinforced his sword with [Transmutation] and slashed with everything he had, as the sword and the club finally met.

The reinforced sword utterly destroyed the club into pieces leaving almost everyone who looked at the battle bewildered but he ignored all of this and changed his position with the help of the thrusters attached to the [Hidden Umbra] and vanished from his spot.

This happened in an instant and Reven appeared behind his opponent's back. Then swiftly, Reven raised the back of his sword and hit the monster on his neck with every ounce of Ardor he could gather.

This caused the monster to lose his consciousness and fall down.

[Nano-Suit activation terminated.]

[Reverting back to Hidden Mode.]

As 'Empress' spoke in Reven's mind the Nano-Suit started to wriggle again and reverted back to the Wrist-Band form.

Silence Ensued.

Nobody could believe what they saw. Everyone was shocked with the sheer pace of the battle. It hadn't even been 5 minutes but the battle ended and that too in such an overwhelming way.

HUFF! HUFF! Huff!

Reven took deep breaths to calm his nerves and then looked at the Oni as he smiled and said "I win. So I will be taking them back with me."

GRRRDDD!!!

"You win this time human. But not the next time."

With that the Oni ordered his subordinates to move back and got up to leave. Reven also turned around and started to move towards his group.

"What is you name human?" Suddenly the Oni asked without turning back.

"Greh… Reven Greh! What is yours?"

Grrrddd!

"This one is known as Graada."

With that the monster named Graada left. Reven also reached back to his group who were watching Reven fight. Although they couldn't understand what Reven talked with the monster but nonetheless they couldn't be more surprised as Reven come back and the monsters left.

-----

"Captain…Captain what the fu*k just happened?" As always it was Ronny, who excitedly moved towards Reven and asked.

"Well… We are saved guys!!!" Reven said happily.

"That means we will be able to leave here alive. How the hell did ya do that pal?" Luke asked.

"You can say my luck is damn good this time. The monsters took us as amusements and nothing else. I just used this chance and challenged one of them and ended up winning and thus he decided to leave us this time." Reven replied.

"What the hell are they building anyways?" Aleena asked.

"Oh… It's a communicator. They are making it so that they can communicate and transport things from their home planet." Reven lied through his teeth. What else could he do? He like everyone else was scared sh*tless in front of them. And he knew he would have to sacrifice something to get that information out of them which might as well be his life.

So he didn't enquire about it. But he had a guess that this was indeed some kind of communicator cum transporter after his conversation with the Oni. As for the reason he and the HAF were not fighting to destroy it. It was because the moment they stepped in De Aar canyon they realized that it was all worthless. They would simply die if they even think of attacking the monsters.

So to them it was more of a tactical retreat than some novelkiss's power of love and humanity sh*t. They didn't have anything like that and had to fight with themselves. So they didn't want to fight a hopeless battle. The power difference was way too much to even put a stand against their enemies.

This made the HAF feel despair at the same time made them feel urgent need of strength. They clenched their hands and swore that one day they will fight these monsters on equal terms no they will become stronger than them.

"Oh… Also were they not angry that we killed so many of them?" Geena asked not so surprisingly.

'This girl. Why the hell she has so many questions?' Reven was practically crying in his mind.

"Well he said that most of them were just cannon fodders who didn't have much intelligence so…" Reven gave an ambiguous reply but everyone felt it was reasonable especially after witnessing the pressure the monsters here were releasing.

"Let's leave here ASAP! I don't wanna stay here for even a minute anymore." Ivanski said.

"Right! Let's go."

"Yes let's leave. I wanna sleep in bed now."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

The group gave a hearty laugh and left De Aar.

The return journey was not a hectic one as they have mostly cleared everything in their vicinity. So they were able to make it back to the place where they had parked their jets in just 5 days.

The HAF forces returned to their base in Elpis and after dropping the MHS there they left for their respective countries.

-----

After arriving at Elpis base the first thing that Reven did was…

'Empress show me the current situation of the capital.'

[Please enable your authority.]

"Oh yes. I have the President's powers. Use Authority Code- PR09003121SHMES."

[Checking Authority.]

[You have the authority rights of the President and equal.]

[Overriding the system of entire ISC.]

[Empress shall recognise you as the President from now on until you pass the authority.]

'For now hide my authority. I don't want any records of it anywhere.'

[Understood.]

[Initiating camouflage protocol.]

[Completed.]

[Now your authority is not visible to anyone.]

'Good. Now show me.'

With Reven's command everything that happened in Maya and other parts of ISC came to Reven's view.

After seeing everything Reven smiled satisfyingly as he murmured "The old man is really awesome. He played those council bit*hes good."

'Hey old man you there.' Reven mentally messaged Aarav via the [Hive Mind].

'Yo kid do you like what I did here? I mean I don't want to sound overly gloating but I literally played the fuc*ing Council.'

'HAHAHAHA! Old man you are awesome. Just as I expected asking help from family is the best rather than try and pulling heroic shits like in those edgy novels'

'You got that right kiddo!'

'Now then old man it seems the Council is yet to realize everything. So tell me what have you planned here?'

Aaarav then proceeded to tell how he planned to use the guilds to create chaos and since the President will vanished into thin air, all the pressure would fall on the Council. He then decided to tell Reven about the next phase of their plan.

The Phase 5 -Operation Demise!

After hearing about the Phase 5 Reven couldn't help but marvel at the old man's genius.

'If everything goes as you have planned then we will not only be able to kill all the snakes but will also be able to have a huge amount of profit. Plus, the other noticeable gains are there too. But for all that to happen we have to make sure that they become busy which I think they definitely will.'

After that Reven and Aarav discussed some other important things and then cut the mind link. Then Reven went to meet his group -the MHS, there he explained the plan that the old man had created.

"Alright I have explained everything to you guys. Now we should all take a bit of rest so that we can calm out body and mind. I know all of you are exhausted mentally but this is more important as this involves the future of ISC. And I am sure you guys don't want to live in a chaotic place.

So just few more days and then we will all go for a fuc*ing picnic to relax without doing any work." Reven said seriously.

"Hell yeah… Picnic!!! We have to strive for the picnic guys." Ronny shouted.

"We will go the beach." Aleena said without giving anyone a chance.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Hearing this everyone laughed.

"Ok…Okayyy… we will go to beach but for now let's focus on getting rest. So go and sleep."

With that Reven switched off the lights and told everyone to sleep.

…..