Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 524: Heavenly Bliss. (Part One)

'What is this?' Dante asked.

[Sorcery,] Volcan replied. [The threads originated from that woman. She seems to deploy a few from under her feet with every step she takes.]

'Another witch…' Dante sighed internally. 'I'm getting tired of their kind.'

Sorcerers were the most difficult to detect, since they can make it so they appear no different from normal humans until they start using their powers. The threads the hostess appeared to use were no different from spider silk. In fact, they might be just that. Through Absolute Awareness, Dante could sense both the material they were made of and a faint energy coursing through them. Seeing as they all seemed to be connected to the witch, Dante guessed that she would sense the instant any of them were severed.

'Damn, she got us…'

Suzuka's Invisibility Cloak made him completely undetectable, but only to a certain extent. People would still notice if he kicked them from behind, and the witch would definitely notice if he were to snap one of her threads.

When she spoke of the serial killers before, the hostess mentioned some that appeared to have been killed by an invisible man. Dante figured that she was referring to the Black Skull members who had been killed by Volcan's droids and understood why she was going out of her way to set this kind of trap.

Time was running out, and Dante had to decide whether to follow after those two or not. As the door began to close, Dante heaved a long sigh. Time stopped entirely, and he began to walk forward, arriving at the first set of threads. The largest gap was near the upper end of the door frame, making passing through it a significant risk since he would be falling directly into the second set. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Holding onto the door, which had been sliding automatically, Dante positioned himself and then pushed with his hand, slipping through a gap created by four threads from two different sets. Without stopping, he jumped through a different gap and bounced off the ceiling, landing a single step before James and Courtney.

Things didn't get any easier from there. The rest of the corridor seemed to be covered in spider silk that had been set beforehand. Instead of calculating his moves and straining his acrobatic skills, Dante simply waited for those to pass and followed closely behind the blond man. That required him to dodge any threads that shot out in his direction, which was much easier than what he did to get there.

The door at the end of the corridor opened soon after James and Courtney arrived, but when he saw what was on the other end, Dante couldn't help but curse his luck. It was an elevator, and there was no way around it.

Making a quick decision, he decided to stick to James, leaving barely an inch between them and mimicking the blond man's every move. That allowed him to evade the threads that were soon released inside the elevator, but with a single move potentially leading to his exposure, the amount of stress his mind was put through was unmatched.

The elevator seemed to go down for some time, stopping at forty meters below ground. That confused Dante a bit since he figured the illegal side of the business was being carried out on the building's upper floor, according to what he found using Spatial Awareness.

A strange sense of discomfort overcame Dante when the door opened. He watched as the hostess walked over to a nearby wall and grabbed something, handing it to James. It was a mask, one that covered the entire face. James put it on without asking any questions, and Courtney did the same with a different mast. The two then continued toward a large double door.

Dante noticed that the witch neglected to use her spider silk from that point onward, which made him even more suspicious. Was using it just on the higher floor really enough?

The thought was banished from his head when he saw the theater on the other side of the double door. The place was far from full. There were only ten people in total, and each seemed to be keeping their distance from the rest. They all wore masks as well, and going by the quality of their clothes, they seemed to come from high places. There wasn't a single person who seemed to be a guard, which told of the trust they must have for this place.

The seats were arranged in an arc around a circular stage. At the moment, nothing but a microphone was on that stage. Courtney whispered something into James's ear, then walked down the steps to the front of the theater, leaving him to find a seat.

Dante scanned the surroundings and then retreated to a corner. He was already planning the route he was going to take when it was time to kill all the people in this place, but for the time being, he decided to see for himself the reason they had all gathered there.

Courtney got on the stage and grabbed the mic, testing it a couple of times before addressing the audience.

"Welcome, welcome! Thank you, everyone, for joining us tonight! We're delighted to have you present for the long-awaited return of the Heavenly Bliss! The last few months had been suffocating, to say the least. The arrival of the world's strongest took us by surprise and led to the closure of many of our routes, but thanks to the efforts of our generous sponsor, many more have opened for us, and we can finally say that the show is back on the road!"

The theater was blasted with applause, but none of it came from the guests. Dante could tell that it had been added so the hostess's enthusiastic speech wouldn't feel awkward.

[Dante, we may have a problem.]

Upon hearing his AI's serious voice, Dante immediately tensed up. He noticed the red line washing over the nearest guest.