Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 104: Always Been Ready

Half a minute after Stanley and Sheila ran away from the front of the mansion, Raven arrived like Death himself, rushing in swiftly as if she were not walking at all.

The hallway was dark with barely anything visible in it at all.

Perfect for her to travel in.

Her body flickered through the darkness, stopping momentarily to look at the dead bodies to check who they belonged to. A moment later, she arrived by the open door and walked into the bright hallway that had a sword, an active shield, and a few gun marks around them.

"Wren! Wren!" she shouted as she ran in.

"Sister!" the old man cried when he heard her voice. "Sister, you’re here."

Raven walked into the room, the shield lowering as she did so. "What happened?" she asked as she grabbed the mayor’s body in worry. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"No, I’m fine. They couldn’t get past the shield," the mayor said.

"Who did this? Who was her—"Her words stopped in her mouth when her eyes fell on the body on the table next to the mayor.

She looked at the screen to the side and saw that he had died. "What... what is he doing here?" she asked.

"You... you tried to kill him, didn’t you?" the mayor asked.

The girl moved away from the mayor and went around the table to check on the body. "Was he... alive?" she asked.

"Yes, his brother brought him in here in a half-dead state," the mayor said. "This was your doing, was it not?"

Raven stayed silent for a while before taking a deep sigh. "Yes, I killed him," she said. "Or well, I at least tried to do so. I didn’t realize I had left him alive."

The mayor frowned a bit. "How come?" he asked.

"There were so many people dying near the veil and I fought him in the forest. I must have felt one of those people die and thought it was him," she said. "Well, I was too engrossed in enjoying the deaths at the time to realize that I had left him alive."

She looked back at the mayor. "Are you angry?" she asked.

"No," the mayor said. "You must’ve done it for us."

Raven nodded. "So, who was here? Who attacked you?" she asked.

"Oh, right. His brother did," the mayor pointed over to Bradley’s body. "That young man I was treating a month ago; him and the boss."

"Huh? They worked together?" she asked.

The mayor nodded. "I don’t know how they got together, but they were here with each other. Had I not been in this room, the boss would’ve killed me."

Raven frowned. "I can’t imagine why they are working together," she said.

"Oh, and we have another big problem," the mayor said as he quickly went to the screen and showed something.

"What am I looking at?" she asked. There was nothing on the screen as far as she could tell.

"The images from the tower. There’s nothing now," he said. "It’s been destroyed by the boss from what I can tell."

"Why is that a problem? Can we not replace the cameras?" she asked.

"No, the cameras aren’t the problem," he said. "It’s the signal jammer. Now satellites and other systems will easily find us. What should we do, sister?"

Raven’s eyes went wide. "We can’t stay here for much longer then," she said. "How long will it take you to gather everything?"

"It shouldn’t take me so long," the mayor said. "It is in fact your job that will take some time. Are you ready for it?"

Raven nodded. "I’ve always been ready," she said. "I’ll go by the veil then."

"Make sure the hallways are safe for me, please. The boss could be hiding anywhere," the mayor said.

Raven nodded. "I’ll take care of it, don’t worry," she said. "You take care of the things here and absolutely do not leave the mansion. I have never used my powers to such a scale before, so I do not know what I’m capable of just yet."

The mayor nodded. "I won’t leave the mansion," he said.

Raven left the room and walked along the hallway slashing at everything in sight, cutting up the corpses into a dozen different pieces as she did so.

Whether it was the wall, the furniture, or the corpses, nothing survived her purge of the hallways as she did her best to make it safe for her little brother.

She left the mansion, making her way down the town towards the veil. At the same time, the Defenders made their way up to the mansion.

The mayor was out by then.

"Mayor, what’s the emergency?"

"Are you alright?"

"What’s going on?"

Many people started questioning as soon as they arrived.

"There has been an attempt on my life, and the next mayor in line has been killed. I want you all to find the culprit and kill him for it," the mayor said.

The people suddenly felt their blood boil when they heard that.

"Who was that?"

"Give us a name!"

"We will capture that bastard for sure."

The mayor smiled when he heard those words. "It was Stanley, Bradley’s brother," he said. "Kill him."

The Defenders paused for a moment as their anger turned to confusion.

"Stanley?" one of them asked. "Are you sure, mayor?"

"I’m absolutely certain," the mayor said. "Are you doubting me?"

"N-no, but... Stanley is a good man," one of them said. "He saved the town today by killing 5 different Crawlers."

"Wasn’t it 6?"

The mayor’s eyes narrowed in surprise. Something like that had happened?

"Are you sure you are certain, mayor? This doesn’t sound right." The many Defenders spoke about how nothing made sense at all.

The mayor frowned and looked toward the young man to his side. With a single nod, the young man went to work.

Gallan’s eyes shined slightly as he held his breath and looked at everyone in the crowd. His powers dulled the minds of those that he looked at, making them susceptible to words.

"Find Stanley," the mayor said. "And bring him to me for justice."

The Defenders, now more receptive to those words immediately nodded.

"We’ll do as you command."