The six remaining thieves were sent flying in disarray, but their combat instincts forced their bodies to twist midair before landing with heavy thuds atop the warehouse's metal roof. Their breaths came in ragged gasps as they stared at the shattered concrete wall across from them, where their comrade had been embedded unconscious.
The tall man, who appeared to be the team's leader, stared at Kiko with trembling pupils. The dark purple aura radiating from the boy's body made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. This pressure... this was not ordinary Stellar energy.
"Absolute gravitational pressure..." the tall man whispered, his voice caught in his throat. "This kid... he's a Special Realm!"
"What?! A Special Realm?!" shouted the third thief, the shadow manipulator, hysterically. He instinctively took a step backward. "You're joking, Boss! How could a high-tier monster from Noxward be in the outskirts of a city like this?!"
Instant fear spread among them like a plague. Facing a Special Realm at the very beginning of their mission was no different from handing their lives over to the Grim Reaper. Cold sweat poured beneath their black hoods.
"Calm down, idiots! Don't back away!" the tall man barked, snapping his comrades back to their senses. He growled, his eyes reddening with desperation and reckless determination. "Remember why we're here! If we fail to bring back that corpse, we'll never earn our freedom. We'll rot in that hell forever! The choices are simple—die here, or return home as free men!"
Those words were like gasoline poured onto a dying flame. The fear in the eyes of the other five thieves slowly faded, replaced by burning anger and desperation.
"For freedom!" shouted the fourth thief.
"Form up! Don't give him room to breathe!" ordered the tall man.
In an instant, all six moved simultaneously. Their positions shifted with astonishing precision, surrounding Kiko from six different directions. The air around him suddenly creaked violently. The first thief slammed his hand downward, compressing the space around Kiko until it became as hard as steel, locking down his physical movements.
At the same moment, a distortion of spatial orientation struck from the left, while black shadow tendrils rose from beneath the metal roof, rapidly slithering toward Kiko's legs. It did not stop there. The remaining thieves released a net of crimson plasma threads that glowed ominously, shrinking Kiko's movement space to almost nothing.
Kiko merely stood there, watching the coordinated assault with a calm expression. His cute face showed not the slightest trace of panic.
"Not bad teamwork," Kiko muttered.
Whoosh!
Just before the plasma net and shadow tendrils could tear him apart, Kiko flicked a finger, reducing his body's gravity until he was as light as a feather. He shot straight upward, escaping the hardened spatial lock. However, the thieves had already anticipated it.
"Just as I thought!" The tall man appeared above Kiko, releasing an abstract shockwave from his hand that directly assaulted Kiko's consciousness.
Kiko felt a slight throb in his head, disrupting his gravitational focus for a fraction of a second. These high-level Stellar users were truly troublesome when attacking together. Kiko was forced to abandon his counterattack and instead spun through the air, using his Stellar power to reverse local gravity and dodge in zigzag patterns between the plasma nets pursuing him.
Slice! Slice! Boom!
The warehouse roof was torn apart by their own attacks that failed to hit Kiko. The boy continued weaving through the air, focusing solely on evasion. His movements were as graceful as the wind, yet he was unable to launch even a single counterattack due to the relentless relay combo executed by the six thieves.
Elara, still sitting weakly in a corner of the rooftop, watched the battle with wide eyes. She could see Kiko being pressured, yet at the same time, she realized he was not truly fighting back. It was as if Kiko was deliberately stalling.
Crack.
A small sound came from inside Kiko's mouth. The spicy mint candy he had been sucking on had finally dissolved completely, leaving behind the last traces of sweetness to be absorbed into his bloodstream. His glucose intake had reached its optimal point. His brain capacity was now operating at one hundred percent.
The playful look in his eyes faded, leaving behind a pair of cold and empty violet pupils.
"My blood sugar is where it needs to be," Kiko said, his voice echoing low through the air. "My turn."
Boom!
The formation of the six thieves instantly faltered. The gravitational pressure in the area suddenly multiplied, not pulling upward or downward, but dragging their bodies in opposing directions. The thief manipulating hardened space abruptly lost focus as his body was violently pulled to the right, while his shadow-controlling companion was hurled to the left.
Their perfect formation shattered within a single second. One by one, they lost coordination, panicking as the laws of physics around them were rewritten without logic.
Kiko moved.
His speed surpassed the limits of sight.
Bang! Bang!
Two punches cloaked in crushing gravitational pressure slammed into the chests of the third and fourth thieves, sending them crashing through the metal roof and into the warehouse below.
Kiko floated amidst the chaos, staring at the remaining thieves who had begun to tremble.
"Why do low-level criminals like you possess such powerful and abstract Stellar abilities?" he asked. "These aren't the kinds of powers one obtains through ordinary training."
The tall man, whose arm had already been broken by one-sided gravitational pressure, gasped for breath while wiping blood from his lips. He glared at Kiko with profound hatred.
"You don't need to know, brat!"
Kiko sighed before giving the coldest smile Elara had ever seen.
"Don't call me a brat..." he said softly. "Because after this, you're going to sleep for a very long time."
The battle continued, but it had now become a one-sided massacre.
Kiko moved like a ghost. Every time the remaining thieves attempted to unleash their abstract Stellar powers, Kiko immediately neutralized them by manipulating the center of gravity within their own bodies.
Boom! Crash!
In less than three minutes, every thief had fallen. The tall man was the last to go down, his body slammed violently against the metal roof, incapable of moving even a single finger.
Kiko had won.
The boy landed gracefully and smiled faintly at the results of his work.
"Finished. Not bad for a nighttime warm-up."
Kiko turned around, intending to approach Elara, who had finally begun to regain movement in her body. However, as he stepped past the tall man's prone figure, the black robe that had been torn during the battle exposed part of the man's upper back.
Kiko stopped instantly.
His eyes widened completely.
His heart began pounding unnaturally fast.
On the man's back was a pitch-black tattoo that emitted a faint magical aura. The tattoo took the shape of the letter L, drawn in an abstract style. At its center was a cracked skull, while a black dragon coiled around it to form a perfect circle.
"This... can't be...?!"
Kiko whispered, his voice trembling.
The composure he had maintained throughout the battle vanished without a trace.
He stood frozen, staring at the tattoo as his thoughts spiraled wildly. His mind immediately connected every strange detail from tonight. The abstract Stellar abilities that were far too powerful for low-level criminals. Their flawless formation...
"No wonder they possess such powerful and bizarre Stellar abilities," Kiko muttered, his face suddenly turning pale. "They were granted by that person."
Kiko slowly lifted his gaze toward the vast and dark night sky over Seroin.
His eyes were filled with deep anxiety.
"The world's number one international fugitive... the Absolute Beyond..."
Kiko clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.
"What move is he planning to make next?"
The silence of the night became even more oppressive.
Kiko let out a long breath, trying to calm the storm raging inside his chest.
"I just hope the world will be alright..."
Realizing it was no longer safe to linger, Kiko immediately approached Elara. Without saying much, he used his gravitational Stellar power to wrap her weakened body in a layer of warm air, gently lifting her from the metal roof.
"We're leaving, Pretty Big Sister. Our business here is done," Kiko said, putting on his cheerful smile once again, though this time it felt slightly forced.
Whoosh!
The two figures shot into the sky and disappeared into the darkness of the night, leaving behind the devastated complex.
Only five minutes after their departure, the shrill sound of sirens shattered the silence. Five tactical vehicles bearing the emblem of the Stellar Defense Corps (SDC) screeched to a halt in front of the warehouse. More than a dozen heavily armed agents immediately stormed the rooftop and warehouse interior in combat formation.
A sturdy man wearing a commander's uniform and a gray overcoat stepped onto the ruined rooftop.
He was a captain of SDC Division Four.
The captain stopped in his tracks and surveyed the area with a deeply furrowed brow. Instead of finding an intense firefight or fierce resistance, he found all seven fugitives they had been hunting already defeated and lying unconscious in miserable condition. Concrete walls had been destroyed, and the metal roof had been warped by extreme pressure.
"Someone dealt with them before we arrived?"
The captain was stunned.
He could hardly believe what he was seeing.
Who could have defeated these criminals in such a short amount of time?
As he examined the unconscious tall man, his eyes accidentally caught sight of the tear in the man's robe. The captain froze.
He knelt down and stared at the abstract L-shaped tattoo featuring the cracked skull and coiling dragon.
"What kind of tattoo is this?"
he wondered silently as he touched the marked skin.
A dense residue of cursed energy lingered there, causing his hand to feel cold.
An immediate sense of danger rang in his mind.
This was no ordinary criminal gang.
The captain quickly stood up, his face hardening with tension. Turning toward his subordinates, he shouted,
"Secure this entire area immediately! Bring all seven of them to SDC Headquarters right now! Use high-grade Stellar suppression restraints! Don't let any of them die before we interrogate them!"
"Yes, Captain!"