Chapter 23 - Leader

"Dolian?" They shouted in unison upon realizing who the boy in the middle was.

Without even turning to look back, Dolian shouted with a raspy voice, "You all fine to have a little battle right now?"

In the next moment, their eyes rolled to the back of their heads as vague flashes of scenes and memories appeared. Within an instant, they grasped the details pertaining to this fight and what kind of enemy they were facing.

The enemy, the leader of Kryptos, a powerful villain who holds the quirk that gives him the ability to manipulate gravity. Not only that, but he can also influence the fabrics of space-time giving him a level of versatility that pushes him to the upper echelons of this world.

Even if the four were to group up and give it their all, they would barely be equal to the man in front of them. But that analysis doesn't include Leader's experience, wit, and intelligence.

One could tell with a glance alone that Leader is a man with high intelligence. To run a human trafficking organization and remain running up to this day for so long without being tracked is a testament to his mind.

After grasping all the key info, the four instantly took action.

Pindle threw a glass vial that held green liquid within it toward Dolian. Without even looking, he extended out his hand, grabbed the glass vial, and downed the liquid while Pindle promptly threw more of the green liquid toward the other two cloaked figures that appeared through the portal with Dolian.

"Am I glad to have a portable healing potion machine right now." Two downed the potion and dropped the glass vial to the ground. He wiped his mouth and felt the wounds all around his body heal and regenerate.

Just as he felt his wounds heal, the trio instantly felt the gravity shift, and their internal organs felt like they were about to be flattened into pancakes It felt as if a huge boulder was pressing directly on every single fiber of their being. Their veins squeezed, their throats tightened up, their muscles screamed in pain, and their brain rang with the extreme gravitational pull; the terrifying power of gravity was exerted on their feeble bodies of flesh and blood.

Many may scoff at the media's portrayal of gravity manipulation. Many may think it's just flying up or pressing others down with an invisible palm, but it's more than that. Gravity affects all, including a person's organs, their brains, every single cell, and the way their blood flows; one could instantly die with enough gravitation pull exerted on their body.

Imagine having the weight of an entire boulder press down directly on your brain. It's not hard to visualize what kind of bloody end that would bring.

Within a split second, Two responded to Leader's attack and waved his arm. After fighting Leader for quite some time now, he has already adapted to his quirk and has created some countermeasures to basic attacks like this.

A series of portals opened up below them. Although they were unstable due to the force exerted by the strong gravity that messed with the fabrics of space-time, Two still managed to make the portal solid enough for them to escape.

Popping through the portal, the trio rolled onto the ground and landed right beside the four. Dolian coughed and his golden scales were coated in dust and earth. "Be careful of his gravity. If you're not fast, your brain can turn into mush in just a second."

Witnessing his power firsthand and the memories Dolian transferred over to them, they nodded their heads gravely to show that they heeded his warning carefully.

Taking that slight breather, the trio's wounds fully healed with Pindle's potion's potent healing effect. Heaving a sigh of relief, the two villains wiped the trickle of blood flowing out of their mouths and stared back at the cloud of dust and smoke ahead of them.

Before long, that breather was broken as Leader appeared right in front of them. His piercing blue eyes that gleamed behind his black mask stared at them with immense killing intent that sent shivers down their spines.

Leader took a step forward, and through his precise and meticulous control over gravity and space-time, he appeared right in front of them, achieving instantaneous movement that traversed tens of meters with just a step.

Dolian quickly responded to Leader's sudden intrusion. Tensing up his muscles and solidifying his golden scales, the muscle memory and experience cultivated through countless hours of training took full effect, and he punched forward with a devastating blow.

Every single muscle on his body screamed with boundless vigor. His heart pumped to send that potent life force through his veins. His entire being was fully focused on dealing one single punch that would kill Leader.

Leader instinctively waved his arm and bent the space in front of him to send the attack away, but his developed instinct screamed in the next second as he felt something was wrong. Before he could fully understand what was going on, he felt the bones and organs around the periphery of his chest break.

He seemed to have awoken from the illusion and saw the trees flying past him as his back was about to slam against the trunk of a gargantuan tree. If that were to happen, then his death was a certain conclusion.

Ignoring the mind-numbing pain he felt, all it took was a simple thought and the gravity around his body shifted. He stopped flying through the air and stopped before he then took the next second to bend gravity further and influence the fabrics of space-time.

Like magic, the trail of blood that splattered on the ground and the chunks of flesh left behind him floated up into the air. They all started to attach to the gaping hole on the right side of his body where fractured bones and squashed organs can be seen.

"He'll be okay in three seconds!" Dolian watched the blood coating around his gleaming golden scales float up into the air and fly toward Leader's rapidly healing body.

'His time rewind's biggest flaw is that his memories also get rewinded, so he'll forget the cause of the damage and how it happened. So he doesn't know that I have the ability to create illusions.'

'Use this time to prepare!'

The corresponding words appeared in their minds in less than a second as they nodded their heads.

Alastor flew up into the air, but as he was about to conjure balls of lightning and blades of wind, he remembered one crucial piece of info that made him stop ahead of time. 'He can bend space!'

'Most forms of projectiles would be useless unless it's fast enough to catch him off guard!'

The others realized that too, and they swiftly changed their actions to better fit the situation.

Pindle was the first to react as she was the main support of the team. Pulling out the cork on one of her numerous vials, the faint gray liquid within it exploded out into a gaseous mist that covered them all. The mystical gray mist went into their pores and was inhaled, and a surge of energy coursed through their bodies.

Alastor was the next to give support. Waving his hands that roared with strength, the water vapor in the air gathered and formed blobs of swirling blue liquid.

Then, as if the swirling blobs of water were alive, they shot toward all of them, including One and Two. A thin sheath of water quickly formed around their bodies. Even though it was thin, they felt that it can even tank through a bullet with ease.

After doing so, Luke's blue retinas flashed as the hovering metallic balls around him morphed and transformed like living goo. As the metallic orbs twisted and turned, they expanded in size to swiftly form strange silver armors that were dyed orange by the setting sun through the dense trees.

By the time Leader regained his consciousness and revived himself from the dead, the group was already buffed to the extreme.

Pindle's potions, Alastor's water barrier, Luke's armor, and Dolian's placate. It brought about a qualitative change that gave them power, unlike anything they'd felt before.

In a way, they achieved this level of teamwork and coordination because of Dolian's missing presence that connected them through their anger, grief, and yearning for revenge. They need not utter a single word to transmit their intention to one another, albeit with Dolian's help, that wordless communication has been enhanced to the extreme.

Upon opening his piercing blue eyes, Leader saw a hand stretched out and a grand explosion boomed. Thick flames and dark smoke covered the entire scene, and within it, Leader remained unscathed as space around him warped to diverge the kinetic energy elsewhere.

With the thick smoke surrounding him, he found himself with limited vision, but with his plethora of experience as the big bad boss of a human trafficking organization that sells humans to the scums of the Earth, he was obviously able to deal with situations such as this with ease.

With a wave of his arm, the air around him wooshed as a formless force pushed them away from him so he could see clearly, clearing the smoke to open up his vision. And just like he expected, a bright blue spear of crackling electricity charged at him with a tyrannical aura.

He was about to wave his arm and bend space to divert the attack away from him, but in a split second, he felt something amiss and instinctively split his thoughts into two. One went on to bend space, while another went to rewind time.

Relying sheerly on his sense of incoming death, time once again rewinded as the bolt of electricity successfully pierced through his heart and electrified his body to death. And once again, his sizzling flesh and the wide-open hole in his chest swiftly started to regenerate under the tides of time.

Even with Dolian's ability to fool Leader's senses and show an illusion, Leader's instincts remained terrifying and he avoided the clutches of death for another instance.

Dolian then rushed forward and the others did the same.

Pindle smashed a glass vial down to the ground, and like the gray liquid from before, the hazy blue liquid inside expanded into a gaseous mass and covered the entire area around the regenerating mass of flesh in midair.

The reason as to why they haven't disrupted the time rewinding process yet and just kill him was because it was outright impossible. The messy and chaotic flow of time left them unable to push their attacks further and deal any damage, as their attacks would simply cease to exist under the clash of two different streams.

So, unable to kill him by direct means, they all followed Dolian's plan to end this in a roundabout way.

With his revival method's fatal flaw of being unable to remember the cause of death, they can continue to deceive him by using illusions to kill him over and over again. But that's not where it ends.

If they did that, then Leader could just keep rewinding time, living over and over again endlessly while they exhaust themselves and eventually get taken care of.

They need to find a way to permanently deal with Leader, and Dolian's illusion was the solution they found in the short span of time they were given to plan things out.

What they need is an illusion that could even deceive Leader's terrifying instincts, and that would need to happen in less than a second as any more and Leader would instantly rewind time by sensing the obvious danger.

Dolian, One, and Two already had this plan in mind before but were unable to execute it because there was no feasible way to put Leader in such a strong illusion in less than a second.

Fortunately, things were different now that they have Pindle's assistance.

Alastor raised his right hand high into the air, and the clouds above them gathered as they turned dark and ominous.

Aleksandra flew up into the sky as her golden eyes turned red and glowing.

Luke constructed numerous floating drones in a few seconds, and each drone had enough firepower to mow down a house with ease.

Pindle rebuffed the others and increased their power by a minor amount once again.

One prepped his cathartic explosion and pointed both of his hands forward as tiny sparks already appeared.

Lastly, Two opened up a portal behind them as a way out in case things go wrong.

In the middle of all these dangerous, life-threatening attacks, Leader regained consciousness and felt his perception of time slow down. His piercing blue eyes dilated behind his dark silver mask, but surprisingly, he remained calm even in this hopeless situation.

Within a second, he already knew that he was bound to die. Even if he held the ability to rewind time, he knew that this wouldn't happen unless they had a counter to his revival method, and the way they were prepared for one final blow was enough of a reason to make him believe so.

Unfortunately, life was logical, and there was no way a bunch of kids and villains could beat the big bad boss of a human trafficking organization that remained up and running for who knows how long in a world where gods roam.

With a twist of his wrist, time once again warped, but this time, it was much stranger and profound. As if a part of his brain was being extracted, his consciousness rose up and expanded out like a sea, before it then converged into a single point.

'The ability to send my consciousness back in time! A power I gained from the awakening of my quirk! This is the reason why Kyrptos remains powerful to this day!' Leader smirked as his body got destroyed amidst the colorful explosions and catastrophic attacks.

'Just you wait!'

As Leader's consciousness was about to break through the fabric of time, an illusory blob of light that even he didn't notice flashed and disappeared alongside him.

In the next second, a young boy with black hair and golden eyes woke up with five cloaked figures knocked unconscious beside him.

His eyes flashed with enlightenment as he slowly put on a twisted smile. Even with his extreme control over his emotions, Dolian was unable to hold back his joy from showing.

'Quirk awakening! They are real!' Dolian's smile slowly receded as he regained control of his emotions, 'Perhaps the path to godhood, and controlling fate is closer than I first thought.'

Turning to look back at the sleeping bodies around him, his eyes flashed with cruel coldness as he snapped his fingers, and a resounding snap echoed.

AN: This chapter has 2490 words.

DUN DUN DUN!

I must admit, this was all planned out from the start and it wasn't because of sheer coincidence that Leader has a gravity quirk. Okay, but for real, I kind of regret doing this because Dolian's story would go from linear to a diverging road with a big blank space in the middle. Sigh, maybe I'll explore more on that unknown history later on in the story if it works because I do have some ideas I want to explore.

(April 18, 2023 - 509th day of writing)