Belladoll and Crux's eyes both opened wide. They were expecting a lot of things, but even after all these years of downloaded experience with Zarek, he still managed to surprise them.
There was no way Zarek could survive such a drop with his current stats. He was practically committing suicide.
They considered the possibility that Zarek was running to the next building, but this was a main street of a major metropolitan area. The streets were easily over 25 to 30 meters wide, carrying four to five lanes in both directions. That might be a distance Zarek could leap if one accounted for the fact he was falling to a lower height and would have time to clear it. But…
With all the momentum he would lose shattering these thick windows designed to withstand harsh winds at altitude, there was no way he'd have enough strength to make it.
They both rushed forward with the greatest possible speed. But they knew they would be too late. They were standing at complete opposite sides of the long hallway. A drop, even from this height, would take a couple seconds at most.
Zarek would be dead by the time they got to the window.
What they were questioning was how he knew they wanted to capture him. Had he just decided to kill himself on purpose?
They barely skirted to a stop outside the shattered window opening, winds blowing their hair back.
Down below, a corpse lay on the pavement. Its body sprawled, blood flowing out from its head slowly.
"Shit." Crux cursed, flames sparking around his eyes again.
"Angel won't be happy." Belladoll said slowly.
"Well, what the hell were we supposed to do about this?"
"Isn't he supposed to be on his last life already? We didn't even consider that this was a possibility."
"Boss broke the rules, who's to say that he can't? If anyone is going to take the blame this time, it's you. You said too much."
"Are you an idiot? He realized immediately that we remembered too much even though we aren't Rebirthers."
"There's a difference between him thinking we remembered one life versus them all, can't you see that?!" Crux raised his voice.
"Don't raise your voice at me! There's no difference at all. You're talking out of your ass!"
"You've never been rational when it comes to him. I don't know what spell he cast on you, but I swear if you ruin this for us, I'll put a bullet between your brows."
"How fucking dare you? Do you think I would ruin my life for a man who only knows how to chase one skirt? You think I can't tell the difference between a man that loves me and a man that lusts after me? Do you think I'm a fucking child, you misogynistic piece of shit? You can see a piece of ass you like and gawk at it, but suddenly I can't control myself because I do the same? Who do you think you are?"
There was a flare-up in Belladoll's aura and her Godsfall accumulated in her umbrella. Tendrils of a pink aura pooled out of her, and it seemed like she might truly attack any moment now.
The two faced off against one another, clashing memories of previous lives and this one rebounding in their minds.
**
Zarek dashed forward, his eyes calm, cold, and calculating.
All of this was out of his expectations, completely out of his expectations. He didn't know what Jiade had managed to do, but he knew that his situation here was far more precarious than he thought.
Somehow, he had managed to give his Heralds the ability to recall their past lives as well.
No… that was inaccurate. They had no past lives to relive. What should have happened was that Jiade had allowed them to see streams of time they didn't have access to, parallel universes where they had lived along a different path allowed to them by Rebirthers twisting around them.
If Zarek's read on the situation was accurate…
This was huge.
It would also explain how Jiade had managed to bring more than one of his Heralds around. If he could just remind them of what they had accomplished together before, and download their previous loyalty into them, it wouldn't matter how little repertoire they had with one another in this life. They would definitely follow him.
That meant that there was likely not just three here, but there might even be more.
However…
BANG!
Old Grizz's eyes widened as Zarek burst into the room, doors flying off their hinges and nearly splitting him in two.
"You…"
Old Grizz couldn't believe what he was seeing. How was Zarek here?
"You think you all are the only ones with new abilities?" Zarek said coldly, dashing across the room.
The moment he had jumped out of the window, he had a plan.
There were many ways he had tested his Temp Duplicate ability. Something like forming a dead body wasn't possible; he could only replicate inorganic material. But, there were many other things he could do…
Like create a blob of matter heavy enough for him to push off and return to the building.
While it looked like Zarek had leapt with all his might, he had caught the very same ledge he jumped from mere seconds later. Then he shattered the window beneath, slipping into the floor beneath and tossing out one of the many corpses he had left scattered across their floors.
By the time the large blob of matter hit the ground itself, because its durability was so low, it simply vanished, leaving no traces at all.
He knew that by now, Old Grizz was running out of Godsfall after using his Talent so continuously and for so long. When he confirmed that he had been cornered by Belladoll and Crux, he would definitely take his own foot off the gas.
At that point, Zarek could finally lock onto his position.
Old Grizz thought that Zarek couldn't find him because until now, Zarek had been clearing floor by floor, one by one. He looked like a man who didn't know exactly where he was going.
All the while, Old Grizz had been on the basement floor while Zarek was climbing higher and higher. It was no wonder Old Grizz thought he was safe.
Until it was too late.
"You tell me." Zarek said calmly. "Which of the two of us is more tired right now?"
The walkie-talkie in Old Grizz's palm trembled as he tightened his grip around it, trying to slowly raise it to his mouth as though Zarek wouldn't notice.
"Wrong answer." Zarek said coldly.
The two unholstered their guns at lightning speed in unison.