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*Crackle-humm* The subtle hum of electric motors and the sounds of rubber grinding against crete filled the of the car as we finally turned onto the main road.
But as we slowly began to speed up, a perfectly spherical void appeared in front of us before promptly dissipating to reveal a tall, blond man donning bright white and silver armor with a cloud-like fog emanating from his body and a bright golden halo over his head.
As the gate finished dissipating, he stood tall, firmly pointing his straight-bded sword at me while looking me in the eyes.
But by then, he had already swung his sword. *tink-crackle-CREEAAAKK* The car almost instantly split in half as if done so by a ser before my side was brought to a halt.
"H-Huh?!" tinuing forward without my half of the car, Dia out a started yell. "W-What the f-"
"Miss, please leave this pce immediately." The man spoke firmly, refusing to pull his eyes off me.
"H-huh? W..who are you?"
But she was quickly cut off by a wave of the man's hand, hurling her half of the car down the road trailing a plume of smoke and sparks. *WOOSH*
Watg her slowly getting farther and farther away, I could only sigh. "Haah... She retty useful, you know." Casually stepping out from uhe sliced, still partially molten edge of the car's roof, my eyes wandered. "Could you not have waited-"
"You o leave." He immediately cut me off with a hint of anger in his voice. "Beings of your css are not permitted in this world. If you are the System Cluster manager's avatar, I permit your entry to our system, but you must do sh official els. This p is off limits..." He gripped his sword tightly as he spoke.
But I just rolled my eyes. -To think I'd get mistaken as an avatar by an administrator...-
To put it simply, avatars were very simir to apostles in that they were people chosen to serve a god with their lives, uo refuse their orders even if it was to sacrifice themselves.
However, even beyond that, avatars were what was known as a 'proxy': a person a god could possess and use the body of however and whe wished, to temporarily desd into the world of mortals.
Of course, on the surface, there were many bes, granting the possessed body unparalleled strength, loy, and power. -But in turn, you are reduced to a tool with no free will...-
"Unfortunately, you're mistaken." I paused as I gave the boy a look of pity. "Unlike your little toy, I'd rather be a sve of the System than the sve of a being who 't even squash an ant without the help of supposedly inferior beings."
*Beep* Opening the avatar's local system panel as his expression turned sour, I quickly skimmed it.
(Possessed)System Name: Eve of DawnName: Jack RicoraStatus: Tense
Race: HumanAge: 64 years
[Titles]Heaven's Representative, Age Regression,
[Iances]Geional
Level612gel's AvatarGold2,781,218Spuide to the Beyond"This being is in an area protected by a Local System AdminKilling this entity will alert the Overseeing AdministratorIory and Stats Privatized by Local System
Notig I was looking at the panel, seemingly without alerting him, his expression darkened, and his stance lowered. "Are you perhaps.. a destroyer?" A quiver quickly intruded his voice.
"Destroyer?" Not fully uanding what he meant, I made a blind assumption. "If you meale, I got that many years ago." -Speaking of which, I haven't checked if my titles got wiped too...-
But that was when I had a realization and froze. -Wait a sed... Why is he asking who I am in the first pce..?-
As an administrator, he was supposed to be able to view every detail of whoever was ected to the local server he was the admin of, even showing specific data aails hidden from the users themselves, but for whatever reason, he was having to guess who or what I was.
Earlier, I had noticed Diana failing to tag me with a local system panel in a simir fashion, leading to her misuanding about my identity, but I simply chalked it up to a differen level, as some systems set restris on the visibility of system panels based on strength. -No admin would put that restri on themselves though...-
But that was the moment it suddenly clicked.
*Vwoom* Instantly opening my system panel with a wave, my eyes focused on a single line.
Local Server: Uo ect - ected to tral ServerI wasn't ected to their server at all. -Then...- It meant that, from the eyes of the local server, after I arrived and my system stopped trying to ect to it, I did.
Without realizing it, my lips started to curl. -That means not only the administrators not identify me, they 't set system restris on me, and...- "The server's security measures 't target me..." My biggest worries vanished in the blink of an eye.
But as a smile spread ay fad my gaze shifted up toward the administrator, his expression ed with horror, and he gripped his sword so hard the handle creaked, and his knuckles turned white.
"So," It was that expression of fear that made me feel like a lion standing before a fawn. "Mister administrator.. now would be the time to set down your-"
But he didn't let me talk. *FWOOSH* Instantly closing the distaween us, the tip of his sword smmed into my chest, and the ground turned blurry. *K-WHOOOM* The hing I knew, I smmed into the city's outer wall with a bang. *WHAM-CRRRACKLEE*
Cracks instantly ripped through the wall as it shattered, bending outward to try and catch me while a mix of metal and crete was ejected into the forest oher side, and I was surrounded by dust.
*CH* Casually ripping myself out of the mix of metal and roposing the wall, I gently massaged my neck before looking up toward the presence I felt h in the air. -So that's how it's gonna be...-
*Fwip* Instantly dug, a glowing line was drawn through the wall straight through where my neck was before the surrounding area melted and exploded. *CRRRUMBLE*
"You know, for an administrator, you're really bad at gauging people." Bending my knees slightly, I instantly vanished before the wall shattered, finally giving way, and I reappeared in front of the man. -Let's see if I use a bit of mana...- *VWOOM* A slight pressure instantly appeared in my abdomen before rag through my body and gathering in my fist.
Throwing every drop of my momentum into the punch, I instantly blew through the thick armor pting on his stomach as if it wasn't there before stopping my fist a hair's width from his skin.
But it wasn't because I cared about his life.
*CR-RRACK* As the armor over his abdomen was literally turo dust, the impact tinued into his body, redug his ans to a uniform mush and his spio a glomeration of dust before he simply disappeared, ripping through the sound barrier several times over as he was unched over the city.
As I slowly began to fall, I gently shook my hand bad forth to shake the tingliion while keeping my eyes on his limp body zipping through the sky before he plowed through a series of t gss buildings and disappeared into a cloud of debris at the base of the railgun.
-Hmm... That was quite a bit weaker than it would have been with the upgrades, yet my hand tingles more...- Looking down at my hand as I fell back to the ground, several ideas passed through my mind, but at the end of it, I chalked it up to me not knowing what I was doing. -At least I stopped my hand before it got coated with blood...-
*Thum-Crackkle* Eventually nding on the roof of a crete building not far from the wall, cracks quickly spread beh my feet.
But the owner of that building was quite lucky. *woooOOOSH-CHHHH* As a sudden gust of wind was blown past me, the buildings between the wall and me were ruthlessly smashed beh the massive upper se of the wall. -That wall is far more sturdy than I thought it'd be...-
Even after the beating it took, only a retively small se colpsed, and it still stood over a hundred meters tall at its lowest point. -It's a shame walls don't mean anything to creatures beyond a certain level, but I have to end whoever made it...-
Idly staring up the wall, my eyes eventually drifted toward the blinding sun directly overhead before I finally shifted gears. -In any case, I should try ao the airport...-
Although I was almost certain I couldn't make use of Diana anymore after she seemed the avatar and could see our exge from the street, my priority had shifted to simply blending in until I could figure out how to tame my aura. -Depending ohe evacuation is to, I might be able to go to the Tower where that researcher was... Even if they won't tell me any specifics, I'm sure they'll at least tell me the basics...-
But while those sarios idly floated through my mind, I had to get moving, hopping off the rooftop before making my the road, using my memories of Diana's GPS to guide me toward it. -She said she came from the airport, so all I have to do is backtrack the GPS...-
It was surprisingly simple, the only risk was that she lied about where she picked up the car from.
But she thankfully wasn't.
ing up on a field of vehicles, orderly lined up into several nes, I stood on a rooftop and overlooked hundreds, if not thousands of people.
However, they weren't humans. -Oh my...-
Among the crowd, only a small pertage were actually human, with the rest being at least partially dwarven, elven, demihuman, or even part druid. -Humans and druids breed?-
It would have been an uatement to say it was just eye-opening, but instead of being intimidated by the mountain of things I would have to learn about, I was oddly excited. -Earth really is a whole different world now...- Looking over the glomeration of tless races I had never known to live on the same ti as one another, like elves and dwarves, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of unbelievable advas Earth had made.
With the joining of so many races and the advanced sces of Earth, not even the sky was the limit.
But, the way than the perfebination of teology and iy came to bear its fruit was.. sometimes a little odd.
Eventually passing over the crowd and tinuing toward the airport, I came up to a series of unbelievably massive buildings nearly eight stories tall and lined with gss, and hopped onto the roof to look over a massive series of paved runways.
However, at the base of one of the lo runways I could see, my eyes settled on it... The monstrosity that I truly had to question the reasoning for.
It was a silver ship at least two hundred and fifty meters long with a massive, elongated ter fusege and twer width ses off-shooting from either side he back that thinned out all the way to an array of parably tiny thrusters.
It was clearly a ship meant for speed, with four wings: two small but wide ones he front and two much rger ohat were slightly raised and ran the length of the rear partments in the back.
But it didn't seem to be g in fort either, with the dozens of entrances as that were open exposing a warm yellow light ih a partially carpeted interior. -I guess it's some kind of luxury ship... I bet it was mostly designed by humans too.-
Not that I was pining.
-I wonder what the inside is like.- *tap-Wooosh* Jumping off the rooftop, I fell all the way to the tarmac before nding with a crack. *ch*
It instantly pulled the attention of everyone around, but my eyes were glued to one man in front of me. A tall brown-haired human with slightly green eyes like that of an elf. "Are you in charge of leading the evacuation effort?"
He immediately froze before looking me up and down. "W..What are you-"
*Riiing* A high pitch ring instantly echoed through the airport over a series of inters. "Attention everyone. We have received orders from the Uates Military to begin preparing for evacuations. The first evacuation will take p twenty minutes using a K5 tial Airship and will first be used to evacuate high-priority personnel, such as iional meraries, priority military personnel, and graded researchers. ID will be required and verified with the System in order to get on board. Everyone else, please rest easy; the military is already on their way, and there is currently no apparent threat.."
The moment he paused, a raring chatter erupted from the crowd ihe building.
"Unfortunately, unication in and out of the city is still troublesome, even through the system, so I will be reying orders from Washington D.C. as the evacuation unfolds. Those who are to board the first airship, please go to Iional Dock A3. Please remember, you will be ID'd. The more you give us trouble, the lo will take to get you all evacuated." *Click*
Silenstantly fell over the tarmac as the people hastily bringing things in and out of the airship paused their work with fused expressions.
But after a moment, a glow illumiheir faces and they all simultaneously looked down at their systems.
Including the man in front of me.
But as he looked up at me with a look of skepticism, I fidently gave him a carefree smile.
One would be surprised how far fidence could get you, especially when it was genuine. "C..Could you.. provide me with ID?"
I swiftly shook my head before looking him in the eyes. "If you want my identification, you may ask the Church for it."
He immediately tensed before l his gaze away from me. "I.. apologize. I don't know why I even asked."
-Perfect...- My smile slowly widened. -That girl's misuanding is really ing in handy...-
"Please head into the airship, I'll add you to the clearance list... What name would you like me to use?"
"Please use Lestir." Although it had been a while, I tried to speak in a slightly posh manner like a noble would.
It felt horrendously unnatural, especially sidering it was the first time I had to put on an a a few hundred years.
But thankfully, the skills acquired and refined over hundreds of years of iing into the societies of tless worlds didn't just disappear because you stopped for a while.
After the man nodded aually let me easily ast, I looked up into the sky, reminisg about the old days of having to sneak into different cities and kingdoms with the mission of destroying them.
-How long has it been since I o sneak into something..?- Taking a deep breath of the cool fresh air, I finally lowered my gaze to the airship and peared to be the entrance. -It's oddly refreshing...-
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