Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 227: Finishing

The people around Stanley looked at him with fear and shock in their eyes. The girl he had just saved didn’t even reach for her hand and simply sat there as the blood of the man cut up beneath her marred the floor in red.

Her eyes moved to Stanley and then to the body and then back to Stanley, looking at the giant sword he held and the not-so-fierce face he held.

When she had been told to follow them, she hadn’t thought anything about him at all.

Nova was the boss, Sol was big, and Fred looked... creepy like he had been around gangs a lot. But Stanley didn’t look like that to her. He looked like someone who wasn’t used to fighting in the clothes he was in.

How could she have known that in a single attack, he was going to kill the leader of the Glitchers?

That was who the man that had come out of the ground was for sure. Not only did she know the man’s powers, but she also knew his face and his looks. Even when he was cut down in half, she recognized him.

They all recognized him.

"That... that was Glitchers leader," someone said.

"Leader..." another man who had been cuffed couldn’t help but say.

"Did that kid just... did he just kill our leader?"

"He cut him down in one swing. Was he not wearing a shield?" someone else asked.

Fred came up to Stanley and looked at him with a weird look on his face. "Are you... alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, I’m fine," Stanley said. "Perfectly fine."

Fred nodded but didn’t let go of the look on his face. He ignored the corpse next to his leg and asked, "How did you know he was going to come up there?"

Stanley panicked for a moment but quickly found his calm and answered. "I saw it from the corner of my eye," he said. That was all he could come up with at the moment.

He could probably have said that he heard him come up, but that would cause different kinds of problems down the line.

"Really?" Fred said with a weird look. "I thought I was the one with the better sight in the group."

"Anyway, we don’t have time to chat," Stanley said. "We need to take care of the situation. He’s dead, but I’m sure there are more alive in there. I need to find that woman too who shot at us before."

"I know where she is," Fred said.

"You do?" Stanley was slightly taken aback. "Where is she? I’ll go take care of her."

"Sure," Fred said. "Just follow my lead."

Fred reached for the ground and grabbed onto a small piece of rock before tossing it into the air in the direction of where the woman was.

Stanley turned and looked at the curving stone as it flew into rubble. Without hesitating, he dashed at an incredible speed, leaving everyone to cover their ears at the sudden sonic boom he left behind.

He arrived where the stone fell and saw the woman hiding behind a large piece of rock. It wasn’t just her either. There were 5 people there along with her.

He decided to kill her first. He stabbed with his sword, but a shield blocked him. ’Shit!’ he thought. ’Not enough momentum.’

He landed on the rocks and held his sword tighter this time around. He put all the force he could gather in this slowed-down time and swung once more.

Due to the weight of the sword, he couldn’t slow down time as much as he wanted to. As a result the shield still flickered fast enough that he couldn’t just time the attack without waiting for a bit too long.

However, that did not matter to him as the force the sword generated while he moved it in slowed down time was monstrous. And given how weakened the shield already was, it was strong enough to break through the woman’s shield in one attack.

He cut down the shield and then cut down the woman. First were his prosthetic hands that crushed under the force of his sword. Then was the way her chest collapsed while the woman hadn’t even realized that she was attacked.

She was still in the process of flinching from the sound of his arrival.

The sword then arrived at the middle of her chest and he could even feel the vibrations of it hitting the boen flow up the sword ever so slightly.

Stanley couldn’t bring himself to watch the whole thing in slowed-down time. He also needed to breathe.

Time flowed back at a normal pace and Stanley was now standing on top of the dismembered body of the woman that was the leader of the Matrix Runners.

The spray of blood surprised them at first. Then when they saw that what they were sprayed was the remains of their former leader, the people panicked and turned to attack.

Stanley pulled out his gun and shot the first person in the head who he saw turn his hand into a giant spike that struck him in the stomach. It didn’t puncture him in the vision, but he didn’t wait to see how not being punctured by a spike would feel.

He swung his sword next, using the flat side of his blade to deflect an incoming gunshot. The deflected bullet hit another person in the knees, and Stanley took the opportunity to shoot the first person in the chest.

Of the other three remaining, one man turned into a furry humanoid beast that looked like he was half man and half... Stanley didn’t recognize the beast, but it did look like one of the beasts from the feline species.

The man jumped at him with massive claws and teeth that had overgrown canines.

Stanley let go of the gun and turned around in time to punch him in the face. The single punch was enough to break the man’s teeth and jaw and send him flying back to the rubble unconscious where he transformed back into a human.

It was a miracle that the man had even managed to survive being punched by Stanley.

Stanley turned around in time and lowered himself to catch the gun before it hit the floor. He stopped moving when he was facing the only two that were still alive.

One of them had been shot in the knees, so he was wounded but he still held a gun and pointed at Stanley.

The other person, a woman, pointed at him with two guns, both of which shook due to the fear she felt at the moment.

Stanley looked at the two and spoke finally. "Surrender and you can live," he said. "Both of your leaders have been killed by me, and I’m certain the last one died in the explosion."

"You have nothing to die for at the moment, but if you force me like the others I will kill you too," Stanley said. "But I suggest you give up."

The man and woman looked at each other for the briefest glance, trying to ascertain each other’s intentions. They looked back at Stanley and the man started speaking.

"I will give up, but onl—"

Stanley shot his gun without hesitation.

The man flinched in panic and screamed a bit. However, when he realized that he hadn’t been shot, he was confused. He looked at his chest and no pain was there. The only pain came from his knees and that pain was being overwhelmed by the fear and shock he felt at the moment.

He looked up at Stanley and at the direction the gun was pointing he followed it and looked toward the woman to the side. He was sure that she had been shot.

However, when he saw that the woman was completely fine as well, he was even more confused.

The woman was in the same state as the man. She was certain that she had been shot and was only wondering why she was alive. Had he missed? How did he miss at such a short range?

"Ah, did I cut you off?" Stanley said, turning toward the man who had stopped speaking. "Don’t worry, that bullet wasn’t for you. It was her."

The both of them turned around and watched as a body revealed itself. The body was halfway transparent when they turned around and fully showed in its entirety when the power of invisibility was gone.

"Sister Palm!" the woman couldn’t help but cry out when she saw the woman’s face.

"Oh, do you know this woman?" he asked the two.

"That’s... that’s sister Palm," the woman said. "The leader’s right-hand woman."

"From the Matrix Runners?" Stanley asked.

The woman nodded.

"Huh..." Stanley said. "Well, she shouldn’t have tried to shoot me. Very bad idea." He turned back to the two. "So I assume you’ll surrender now."

The two of them nodded at once. They needed no more persuasion than this. They gave up immediately.

"Then leave that way without your weapons and your hands in the air. They won’t kill you if you do that," he said.

The two of them nodded and slowly walked out of the rubble area with the woman helping the man.

Stanley stood there and watched the two leave the area while notifying to Fred that they were coming out. Once the two were gone he moved on to finding the rest of the people while making his way to the other side of the area get capture the others.

Before he could reach there, however, he heard a call from Nova.

"The cops are coming your way. Leave now!"