RB Chapter 182 A Legend Is Born!

Since there was no device for sound capture on the drone, the people in the theater of operations only saw the vines above bulging to their limits, like they had become overstuffed with something, before exploding into pieces which started raining down onto the drones. The AI took over and manuevred the drones out of the falling vines, but the people at the theater were shocked about the unexpected development. This turn of events had been unexpected!

"What happened?" Cleo stood up, her heart palpitating in excitement! There is no way the vines would have exploded on their own! Someone must be inside, still fighting! That thought alone was enough to cause excitement to ripple through her body. That meant that there was someone still hanging on!

The drones sped up after passing through the vine pieces, reaching the area where the explosion had taken place. The view was shocking! It was a scene like no other, as if some gigantic behemoth of a monster had taken a bite out of the vines!

"Motherfucker!" Someone cursed loudly unable to hold back his excitement upon seeing the scene.

Steam wafted, obscuring most of the view, but charred remains could be seen here and there. Many people even subconsciously felt like recoiling upon imagining the temperature of the place. It was raining heavily, but each drop that fell on the vines at the edges evaporated, adding to the steam and the mystery of the scene.

"Who managed to make this big of a mess? Is it that team of yours? What kind of bomb were they carrying around?" Someone among the city lords asked. The question brought about plenty of suspicions. Most of the people directed accusatory glances at Cleo. What they were insinuating could escalate into something large enough to have her removed as the overall commander of this war operation!

"Miss, none of the team members were carrying around any explosives." The secretary whispered into Cleo's ears, causing her to breathe out a sigh of relief. The woman was competent enough to gain the intelligence needed to calm her nerves...Cleo felt that she needed a reward after this.

"Don't look at me like that. None of the people were carrying explosives on themselves." She clarified.

'The only people who could cause this must be those two. Their ability to manipulate electricity has plenty of potential.' She thought, regaining her stoic expression. These people here were looking for ways lower her rising reputation. She had to be vigilant at all times! 

The drones were still lingering at the explosion site, of course, none entered as the place was dangerous. The temperature might cause some of the inner components to rebel, something none here wanted to see.

"The force of the explosion would have been devastating if the explosive had been detonated in an open area." One of the biologists observed, stroking his beard.

"Oh! How did you cone to such a conclusion? Are you an explosion expert?" Someone asked...someone among the city lords. It was an attempt at diminishing the biologists. They were invited here from Cairo itself, meaning that they were affiliated with Cleo. Cleo felt an urge to laugh at that shot in the dark.

"No, the thickness and moisture of the vines absorbed most of the force of the explosion. I observed the vines and came to such a conclusion. Don't lump me in with those crazy lunatics." The biologist scoffed, shutting up the city lord.

Cleo was happy with the outcome.

'I hope they manage to survive.' She thought. She also noticed that the vines had become sluggish after the explosion.

-----

'What happened?" Chloe asked herself upon seeing that the vines had stopped attacking her. They had drooped, as if they had lost a lot of energy.

Chloe brushed away one which had fallen on her shoulder, picking it to see that it wasn't an illusion.

"Chloe! We have to leave the vines! Eric is the one who ordered it! He said by any means necessary!" Leah's voice cane through the earpiece.

"Did you manage to contact him? Why are the vines sluggish?" Chloe asked. The explosion had been major, but since she had been trapped by the vines, she had failed to capture the sound.

"Eric did something. He gave us five minutes!" Leah's voice contained some urgency. Chloe could feel it. She was hiding something that she didn't want to reveal...something probably related to Eric.

"Did you tell the others?" Chloe asked. She really wanted to know about what she was hiding, hut kept her curiosity to herself.

"Yes! They are all still alive. They are making their way outside, probably about to jump away from the vines."

"This high up!?" Chloe raised her voice in shock.

"Eric might be preparing a very powerful attack. He probably is certain that if we are still entangled in the vines, we will most certainly die!" Leah answered.

"Okay." Chloe answered calmly after which her body lit up with sparks of electricity which ultimately turned into snakes.

"Time to see whether I can temporarily become a god." She said, electric light giving a glimpse of the crazy grin tugging at her lips.

She was scared of many things her death after what she was going to do and Eric's unknown status. She had trued contacting him but, the earpiece had been damaged. The tracker was even no longer functioning so now she couldn't see where he located in this massive tower of vines.

Boom!

Air abruptly exploded as she accelerated from zero to sonic speed in practically under a second! Some of the scales on her combat SYMOr tore off at the abrupt speed but she didn't stop! Vines splinted as her body simply tore a way out. She had decided to take a gamble.

Due to her fast speed, she tore a hole through the vines in practically an instant! She didn't hesitate the moment her body made it out. Using air as solid ground, she turned into a bolt of lightning which made for the ground diagonally.

She wasn't the only one as all the others used various methods to escape from the vine tower, with hers being the flashiest.

-----

Eric, who had healed most of his wounds except for his missing legs was still embedded inside the vines. He spread his domain in his surroundings. He felt the ions in the air through the waves they were releasing.

'Hehehehe...if there's someone capturing this, I am probably going to become a legend.' He had that random thought pass through his mind as he stimulated the ions to vibrate in a certain pattern. All around himself, electricity started flashing, eventually becoming snakes which swam around in the air. They destroyed every vine in the domain even those that had been trapping him, turning them into ashes. His body floated in the air without anything holding it up, snakes made up of electricity flashing in the domain.

"Hah! I didn't want to trigger this!" He said as if in lament.

"Leah, Chloe, everyone, I hope you have all made it out." He said out loud, raising his gaze, which gave the feeling that it had surpassed the multitude of vines blocking its view to fall onto the thunder clouds above.

As he floated there staring up into the sky, he waited for the minutes to pass. He could calculate them mentally. When the time elapsed, his body spasmed. The semicircular scales covering it morphed into a diamond like pattern. His thighs which had been missing the limbs below started to grow new ones. Activating the form embedded into his genes always fixed his body when it was injured.

His eyes stayed violet, but now they became vertical slitted. His black hair turned blue and elongated down reaching his waist. Protrusions poked out of his skull, elongating until they turned into horns. This time, he was aware. He felt as if his entire body was filled with energy. The electric snakes that had been swimming within his domain had doubled in number. Every form of wave that made contact with his body...he could feel it.

"This...is amazing! But wow! Its guzzling up way too much energy!" He spoke after withdrawing the scales that had covered up his face.

"Hmph! If this form didn't consume too much energy, I would have obliterated you." He scoffed upon sensing something. The two shoots were growing, rising up at such speed that it would be unbelievable. But in this form, he was invincible. That's the feeling he was getting.

"Mother, I wonder when I will be able to meet you." He said while looking at the black diamond shaped scales coating his palm.

"I can only last for a minute...now forty seconds and counting." He said, his head whipping upwards.

'Time to go.' 

Zzzzzzzt!

Electricity flashed, and like a bullet, he was launched upwards. This time it was more enjoyable compared to previously. His legs had already regenerated, something which was a marvel. He knew that in his heart, there was something like an organ which siphoned a bit of energy from his blood stream with every circulation, depositing it into itself. The energy to maintain this form came from that organ. He had only discovered it when he had broken through intk the spectrum level.

A tunnel opened up through the vines as each was disintegrated upon contact with his domain. His eyes were flashing with electricity as he considered his plan once again.

In under a second, his body broke through the vines, reaching a few meters above the vines where he proceeded to reach his peak and then start descending. He couldn't fly, his movement from before depended on the concept of magnetic repulsion.

'Drones. So someone was monitoring us, who? The city lord? Or those others?' Thoughts passed through his mind at lightning speed but he didn't care too much about them. He looked towards the camera and the he didn't care about them anymore, instead moving his gaze to the sky, where lightning was flashing constantly.

'Time to execute the plan. I hope I can pull it off.' He said before closing his eyes. He controlled his domain, stimulating it and projecting it upwards until he felt a bunch of ions, too many to count. They were charged up with electricity.

Within his senses, the clouds were an ion ocean, simply waiting to be tapped.

Lighting worked on the principle of static electricity. Something which made the ions impossible to mobilise together, so he instead made the ones in his domain vibrate unnaturally, producing electricity by rubbing against each other, no matter the charge that they contained. As he vibrated them, he also pushed them outwards, mostly above, causing them to interact with the others. It paid off as gigantic lightning strikes began to slither within the clouds. Thunder rumbled nonstop as if multiple bombs were going off every second. He didn't stop the activity, instead speeding it up by pushing more and more of the vibrating ions outwards, causing more lightning to appear.

'This is terrifying! I hope I am not struck accidentally!' He thought. He had taken countermeasures, like constructing a spectrum wave Faraday cage, but you never know...after all this was the first time he was even attempting this.

Electricity slithered around the two horns on his head as he looked upwards. Seeing that the accumulation was enough, he raised his right arm. This was a pointless gesture since everything was being managed by his domain.

After raising his arm, he let it down, consciously shaping his domain like a cylinder, connecting the heavens to to the vines!

The scales at the nape of his neck stood up as he felt the unprecedented danger, that the lightning boded, but he didn't shrink back or pause his plans.

As the domain connected with the top of the green tower made of vines, a pillar of lighting so bright, it temporarily blinded everyone that was looking, speed downwards in the fraction of a second, using the vines as an earth conduit.

Zzzzzzzt!

It was so fast that even the initiator himself failed to capture its movement. In a fraction of a second, everything became white before the color faded as abruptly as it had come. The thunderous sound alone caused Eric's eardrums to burst as he started to fall down, his body a charred mess. The so-called Faraday cage had only lasted a very short period, before it was blasted into by the lightning. If it hadn't been for his special constitution, he would have died!

The previously dark green lush vines had turned to charcoal, becoming a tower of black that stood lonely in the rain as it battered it. The roots too hadn't survived, but he couldn't see, only speculating. His eyeballs had melted in their sockets at the intense heat!

As he fell, Eric slipped into unconsciousness, this time with no chance of waking up. His charred body crashed into the carbonised vines breaking a few into bits. The moisture content in the vines had been so high that even that powerful pillar of lightning had failed to turn them into ashes. Instead they had been carbonised into charcoal.

After a multitude of tumbles, a solid piece of charcoal finally managed to capture the charred body that was Eric.

Even though the life of the lifeforms had ended, a legend had been born, those who witnessed the epic feat wouldn't argue to the contrary!