* * *
The heavy steel masses, each clearly weighing several tons, might’ve originally been construction materials, but now they were nothing more than devastating weapons with destructive power equal to cannonballs.
Once they lost their targets, they floated back into the air, spinning as they searched for a new one.
The long steel pipes scratched walls and smashed nearby sinks, bursting water pipes that sent streams of water spraying everywhere.
But despite the surrounding chaos, the target was clear.
“You’re slow to catch on.”
Bang—! Bang—!
The sound of steel colliding and tearing through the space drowned out the man’s low voice.
But only for a moment—the man’s silhouette vanished and reappeared instantly in front of Roilnia.
“Just because a dog learns a new trick, doesn’t mean it stops being a dog.”
“Acceleration…!”
Roilnia cursed under her breath, biting her lip.
The moment her body vanished, so did the space she had occupied.
The wall behind her, struck by a strange attack, was punctured as if by a vertical shot, creating a cylindrical hole.
It wasn’t wide, only just enough to send her torso flying—but the floor sliced apart in layers, like the exposed cross-section of a neatly cut cake.
This place was no longer a building—it was a ruin, moments away from collapse.
The shockwave left the ceiling and floor half-destroyed, with nothing intact.
From afar, the screams of people echoed.
The situation was spiraling into greater chaos than when Irina Sheril had caused her commotion.
Roilnia, leaning against a partially collapsed pillar, briefly glanced down at the view now fully visible all the way to the first floor, then exhaled deeply.
Acceleration, followed by spatial erasure.
She had seen it so many times in the past that she thought she was used to it, but facing it again in person proved how unreliable memory could be.
Still, it was within expectations—perhaps even less impressive than anticipated.
Though he might’ve grown weaker compared to the past, he certainly hadn’t become stronger.
Realizing that settled Roilnia’s usual anxiety that surfaced whenever she saw the man.
Haimar Eilec still couldn’t breach her domain of space manipulation.
His movement was merely rapid—not true teleportation.
It only appeared instantaneous because of his speed.
That was what made Roilnia herself special—a vital fact that set her apart.
“A lot of people died… You used to wipe everything clean, just like that. What, are you too withered to manage even that much now?”
“That ability of yours… Perfect for running away. I assumed you’d fled already.”
“My, how rude.”
With that snide remark, Roilnia lifted the steel debris and shattered pieces of the building’s exterior, suspending them in midair.
The steel frames that remained from the cut-out space were nearly snapped in half, some reduced to unrecognizable shards.
Roilnia sharpened their edges.
Boom—! Boom—! Boom—!
The debris, disguised as wreckage, turned into a vicious barrage from the sky.
Haimar stepped lightly to the side, evading them, and used a flying chunk of wall as a foothold to leap upward.
Shaaah—!
Water gushed from the burst pipes, blending with the sleet from outside, spreading into a misty veil.
The artificially high water stream briefly clouded the view, but only for a moment.
The droplets quickly condensed in the air and froze solid.
“What the—?”
The freezing streams seized the airborne debris.
Waterlines stretched from the broken pipes, curling around the steel fragments and wreckage, binding them in ice.
It was like an eerie painting suspended in the air.
The spiral-shaped frozen strands served as an unexpected defense and a sculpture in their own right.
“Such tricks…!”
But to Roilnia, anything created by Haimar, no matter how beautiful, was simply a target to destroy.
Reacting to her furious voice, the debris trapped in ice trembled, trying to shatter the icy binds.
“Annoying woman.”
That was Haimar’s short evaluation of the red-haired woman before him, watching the debris break free and descend chaotically.
Roilnia raised her hand toward the ceiling in response to Haimar’s remark.
Cracks formed in the already-damaged ceiling, opening a circular space from which all kinds of debris rained down like a downpour.
“Ahahaha!”
Her shrill laughter echoed alongside the collapsing ruins.
Bang! Crash—!
Unfazed, Haimar avoided the falling debris with minimal movement, occasionally using his abilities to neutralize anything too dangerous.
Anyone else would’ve been buried in seconds, but he handled it with such ease that it was almost absurd.
Yet Roilnia only grinned wider, her smile threatening to split her face.
“Be honest.”
Floating among the tangled debris, she grinned grotesquely.
“You can’t read my thoughts, can you? Even though I’m not bothering to hide them—it’s not surprising?”
“I’ve been through this once. Hard to be surprised again.”
Just as she said, Haimar Eilec couldn’t read Roilnia’s thoughts.
It had been that way ever since she entered the room, even now, at this close distance.
If he could’ve read her properly, predicting her moves would’ve been simple.
Usually, abilities like his worked when the user was on a higher level than the target—which is why hearing most people’s thoughts came naturally to him.
Only exceptionally trained individuals like Hoafilen Reziers could hide critical thoughts.
But for him to read absolutely nothing from Roilnia meant that their current ability levels were nearly equal.
Thus, he couldn’t hear her—not with his current strength.
“Are there others whose thoughts you can’t read? Someone as strong as me, on your level? Don’t lie.”
“Do I owe you an answer?”
“Hmph, whatever. You can’t even use telekinesis as well as I do now. How weak are you planning to get?”
Tch.
His icy blue eyes flickered as he clicked his tongue in response.
Indeed, she was a troublesome opponent for him at present.
Even in the past, she’d clung to him out of inferiority, but it seemed she’d made some serious preparations this time.
Moreover, if my memory serves me right, that woman definitely had…
SCREEEECH—!
The sound of twisting metal cut off my train of thought.
As the wreckage piled up around me, the floor, unable to withstand the repeated destruction, began to collapse.
It tilted dangerously, and the massive container plummeted downward.
Thud! Crash!
The impact marked the beginning of the collapse, triggering a chain reaction as debris tumbled to the ground, fueling further destruction.
As the floor completely gave way, Haimar was pulled down mercilessly by gravity, while Roilnia leapt across the collapsing space, clinging precariously to a building, her heel resting on the exposed steel frame.
Acceleration like that is only possible with somewhere to push off from.
The woman let out a faint sneer, but she wasn’t careless.
She already knew the man could leap even off unstable wreckage.
Tap-!
As expected.
She listened carefully to the footsteps mixed with the noise.
If the man hadn’t appeared in her field of vision yet, there was only one place he could be approaching from.
Behind her.
A faint distortion appeared near where her hand hovered.
Without hesitation, she reached into the space and pulled out a long machine gun.
It took less than a second for Roilnia to grab the weapon with one hand and spin around towards her back.
Her neural response speed, far surpassing human limits, was almost instantaneous.
But—
RATATATATATA!!!
BOOM———-!!
Unfortunately for her, it was Haimar who reached her first, grabbing the back of her neck with movement faster than even that.
Not that Roilnia did nothing in response.
Even as his hand closed around her neck, her ominously glowing red eyes stayed fixed on her target, the gun barrel steady.
It was the smartest move; if she hadn’t done that, he would’ve snapped her neck without hesitation.
As a result, though she was thrown back and slammed into the ground, hitting a tree beyond the collapsed building, she could still fight.
As mentioned, despite everything, Roilnia still held the advantage.
“Tch!”
Roilnia kicked aside the tree branch that had broken under her weight and spat blood from her mouth.
She tried to speak triumphantly as she stood, but only rough breaths escaped.
Annoyed, she pulled a familiar tin case from her tattered coat pocket.
Only then did she realize—though she was still breathing, her vocal cords and other inner components had been damaged during the fall, rendering her mute.
What she pulled out wasn’t her usual pill, but a short, 5-centimeter portable syringe.
The cylinder inside sloshed with a crimson liquid, as red as blood.
Without hesitation, Roilnia stabbed it into the skin beneath her ear.
“Ah, so you’ve just become a junkie?”
Pssssss—
Her damaged throat emitted white smoke as it rapidly healed, her structure restoring itself.
Amidst the chaos of falling snow and distant screams, Haimar’s smooth voice drifted through, as Roilnia gently ran a hand over her now fully-healed throat.
His question wasn’t important.
What caught Roilnia’s eye was Haimar’s face, far in the distance.
More precisely—the control device attached to his ear.
* * *
