53 It Was ___ All Along

On a certain battlefield with a desert-like climate and dey landscape, one would expect the place to be filled with noises of fighting and battle. However, at this time, the entire area is completely silent, as though something had directly snuffed out the sound in the radius of several kilometers. Just when one would think that the entire place is frozen in time, a person darted out from the rubble of a collapsed building only to see such a scene.

Without speaking, he looked towards a certain direction and found his 10-story tall opponent completely frozen, with both his arms holding up his body as though he was lifting himself up after fallling down to the ground before suddenly stopping mid-way.

Even the debris that flew as a result of such a large commotion made from such a large moving object somehow stayed frozen in mid-air. Or at least, that's what the person saw. In reality, though, the debris is actually falling towards the ground but at such a slow speed that it only seemed to be frozen from the naked eye.

Not wasting his time, the young man immediately ran towards the mech, climbing up its body by propping itself up on top of the mech's ankle before running all the way up towards the back of the mech before finally arriving on its nape. It was at this time that one could see the sand dust currently in midair falling towards the ground at a noticbly faster and faster speed until it became too fast for the naked eye to see as it completed its journey back towards the ground.

Since his teammate is currently far away from him, the other was not able to see the blood currently pouring down from his own eyes and ears, while also sweating buckets of the same crimson liquid, letting it staing the mech red as well.

Fortunately, unlike what his teammate will experience less than a minute from now, the teenager managed to maintain his consciousness throughout the entire time and also activated the magnetic function on his boots before it was too late.

Not letting the nauseous feeling from affecting him, the teenager continued to drill down the nape of the mech while chastising for his teenager to do something to distract it. Finally, when the boy realized what his teammate was doing, he found himself being enclosed within a dust cloud as the artificial body he was standing on fell to the ground again, slamming against the floor with a loud 'bang!'.

Taking this fully to his advantage, the teenager continued to drill down the mech's nape slowly but surely, not even caring about the fact that he actually could not see anything through the dust cloud. Since his hand was stable the entire time, he knew that he was drillling onto the right place. Therefore, by the time the dust cloud finally disappeared, he looked in front of him and saw that the wires within the mech could already be seen visibly with his own eyes.

Although the person is quite familiar with mechanical engineering, he decided that it would be best to take the most direct and brutal route and sever all the wires in one go. Within an instant, the mech below him, who was still struggling from lifting his legs up, completely stopped. However, just when the boy thought he was done, a bright light flashed from directly behind him at what looked to be the core of the mech. Within an instant, the entire area flashed and a loud explosion could be heard from kilometers away.

How would one know this? Well, the boy who had previously been on top of the mech's neck suddenly appeared two kilometers away now carrying another person with his hands. Although the person being carried might get embarrassed for being the recipient of the famed princess-carry position, he is currently unconscious and would not be able to complain about it.

A second after hearing the explosion, the teenager suddenly placed the person he was carrying onto the ground as quickly as possible before turning around and vomiting a ridiculous amount of blood. However, instead of turning unconscious as a person would after such a huge amount of blood loss, he seemed to be fine except for his face looking slightly pale. However, even with that, after a few minutes, his facial complexion seemed to have returned to his youthful glow.

It was also at this time that the imagery of the battlefield before him suddenly collapsed within seconds. After giving a few more blinks, the boy saw that what was in front of him just now was simply an illusion. Now that he took a good look around him again, he saw a seemingly empty space that stretched as far as his eye could see in every single direction.

The ceilling located far above him is lit up with LED lights, while the ground itself is black in color, looking to be made out of carbon fiber or a similar material. Without standing for long, the teenager noticed a young man walking towards him leisurely from a certain direction. When the latter finally arrived before the teenager, he gave a rather cheeky smile and asked in a playful tone, "So, how was your training?"

"Although I know why you had me accompany the target and get him to participate in this training regiment, is there a reason for the regiment to be this dangerous?" The teenager asked. Even though he sounded like he was complaining, his voice was completely void of emotions and his facial expressions were the same.

"I couldn't help it." The young man shrugged. "I needed to make sure that Daniel here would actually use his abilities, or else the entire point of this exercise would be null. Also, as the rumored Agent 666, aren't you able to handle such a small task?"

"Of course," 666 nodded. "It would have been easy for me. However, it would be quite different for the target. What would happen if we were really unlucky enough for Minerva to directly send us to space? Or some other environment unsuited for an untrained individual such as Daniel? Even an 'awakened' would not be able to survive in those places without training, much less an 'unawakened' one."

"But none of these actually happened did it?" The young man shrugged again nonchalantly, as though the life and death of the person currently still unconscious in front of 666 doesn't matter to him. "You and I both know that this is the only way to force Daniel to reveal his abillities, since he really would have kept his abilities to himself as much as possible until he was forced to use them, and only a life or death situation would have enough force to do that."

"I would really appreciate it if you stopped handing out such annoying missions to me in the future, David." 666 narrowed his eyes and said as though the other is being a pain in the a*s. "You know that my main profession is 'assassin', not 'babysitter'. I only work alone. Having another person team up with me will only drag me down."

In response, David simply gave his subordinate a meaningful look before stating with seriousness, "Don't worry, since we have just confirmed that Daniel really is an 'awakened' person, ther is no need for us to engage in such activities in the near future. Though, there might be a need in the future if our target were to face a difficult mission assigned to him by the system."

666 nodded with satisfaction before adding. "It's quite ashame that it's impossible to know what missions one would have beforehand. We don't even know what type of system Daniel has, which would have narrowed the amount of missions it would be able to give."

"Speaking of which, after getting in contact with Daniel, you would have triggered a mission by now, right?" David asked with a hint of curiosity. "Don't you need to go and complete it as soon as possible?"

"Since my system has upgraded to the point of being mid-rank, I can delay my mission for up to a month." 666 replied. "However, it seems that the missions given to me are quite easy this time and I would be able to complete it quite easily, so there's no need for your concern."

"That's good." David replied. "Although the upper echelons haven't told me the details of how you 'awakened' people operate, I hope that we can cooperate smoothly in the future. It would be quite an annoyance if you were to create a disturbance just when our cooperation started."

"You can rest assured," 666 said while giving David a glare. "I always have a 100% completion rate when doing the tasks given to me by the Intelligence. There is no need for someone like you to be concerned about how I operate and conduct myself."