Dance with the Nightingale-Chapter 75 - 74: Upheaval II
It was a race against time.
And no matter how I saw it, the whole situation smelled of a scheme.
I mean, no one would plant forty-five bombs across a district without a reason.
But what can I do about that now? I can’t really stop going for the bombs, only to find the one behind this mess.
So, I just activated [Parallel Mind] and spared some of my brain power on the only thing that could help me – What is the objective behind all this?
-Swoosh!!
Speeding through the air, I observed the mana vortexes near the bombs and quickly updated Syrus and my new subordinates about their locations, along with their expected detonation time.
Whether they use this information to keep themselves safe or to help the civilians there to evacuate, it was their choice.
With that out of the window, I moved forward.
Quickly discarding the possibility to disarm first three bombs with shortest detonation time, I closed in on a bomb that still had a little while before it exploded.
-Thud
Landing on the roof of the building, I first scanned it for survivors, and to my relief I found none. So, I got to work next and looked for the bomb.
The building was a two-storied one, and right now, it was empty. Its upper floor was most likely used as a storage room, cause it was full of boxes filled with clothes, new clothes to be exact, making me believe that it was a cloth shop.
I activated [Mana Reading] again, tricolored petals blooming in my eyes, as I moved in the same direction as ambient mana. And soon, I found myself climbing down the stairs, entering the actual shop that had loads clothes hanging on display, a counter and a couple of mannequins wearing clothes.
The shop was in shambles. The mannequins toppled on floor, clothes haphazardly thrown around and the counter looted.
As I looked at dilapidated the shop, a thought suddenly sprang up in my mind.
’Humans just need an outlet to unleash their inner wild self.’, making me wonder if it’s worth saving them.
But of course, I didn’t have time for such thoughts. I walked around the shop, moving towards the counter where I found some boxes lying around it. And thanks to my skill, I saw mana being sucked into one of the boxes.
’The bomb is in there.’, I thought calmly.
Slowly, I picked up the box and opened it. Finding the bomb beneath a few layers of clothes. It wasn’t that big, metallic grey in colour, and very different from earth’s bombs.
There were no circuit boards, nor was there was a mess of wires connected to volatiles. Just a few capsule shaped containers connected together, to form a raft like shape.
The bomb had a timer on it, which was slowly counting down, currently displaying [00:03:21] on it.
Okay, I still have time. – I sighed in relief.
Although, the intensity of mana vortex gave me a rough estimate about the detonation time, it wasn’t an exact number.
And an exact number gave me the confidence to do things I was about to do.
Placing my bare hand on the bomb, I slowly casted my spell, [Enchantment Reading].
Mana leaked from my hand and slithered into the bomb, a very dangerous thing as it would have normally caused the bomb to explode.
Normally.
Cause thanks to my attribute and the spell I devised, the bomb didn’t explode. Rather its structure, its enchantments, its working, its everything becoming bare in front of me.
’Just as expected.’
I had already tested that I could do this with normal artefacts, back in the Ellsworth estate. But not on a bomb. Even for a Young Master it wasn’t reasonable to get a bomb just to test a spell. Not that I thought about getting one in the first place...
Unlike the time when I used the molding array, this time the runes did detach themselves from the artefact, in this case the bomb. Rather that wasn’t what the spell was for. The spell was simply meant to make the runes visible, readable.
And that it did. I could see them; I could read them; I could understand them, so I did.
I saw them, I read them, and I understood them.
I understood how the bomb worked, I understood why it worked the way it did, and I also found what to do to stop it from working the way it did.
The bomb before me was a simple one, with three capsule shaped chambers.
Two of its chambers held two volatile magical chemicals. One of them having, Yakasviba, a chemical that had the property of storing dark element, while the other contained Chiedza, another chemical that could charge itself with light element using ambient mana.
The last cylinder though was split in two. One side of it was empty, while the other held something else. It held a small array that was the control center of the bomb, mainly though, it increased the ambient mana density and absorbed it, creating a mana vortex invisible to naked eyes.
The mechanism for the exploding sequence was also simple and kinda obvious. The three cylinders just dumped their contents in the empty part of the third cylinder...
The rest was common sense that even normal people knew – don’t ever mix light and darkness.
Under high pressure, light and darkness collide, creating a big explosion.
That was all I could understand from runes, and while I couldn’t do anything about the magic chemicals, I could do something about that array.
Thus, I casted my next spell [Activate attribute].
It was a new spell and it costed a lot of my mental power to cast this.
What did the spell do?
The spell just increased the amount of [Enchanting] attribute in my mana. If before my mana was passively carrying my attribute, then now, I was having my mana to actively carry it.
I did this, because what I was gonna do next, could potentially cause the bomb to blow up in my face. I would obviously survive, maybe have a few broken bones, but that would be the extent of my damage.
’I don’t wear all these artefacts for show. I can’t die even if I want to.’
I smiled lightly. My thoughts giving me the strength, as my mana brimming with my attribute moved towards the runes.
The runes having the meaning [Gather] and [Absorb], to be exact. The runes were just like any other, geometrical shapes made of dots, lines, circles, and shapes. And right now, I had to erase these runes while keeping the flow of mana stable.
I started with the runes adjacent to it.
Since, I had to keep the mana flow stable I while erasing the rune, I used a rune that meant [connecting] to create a passage of mana between the two adjacent runes.
I kept the passage narrow at first while erasing the not important parts of the [Gather] rune. The more I erased the rune, the more I increased the passage’s width keeping the overall mana flow the same.
But I couldn’t completely erase the rune, as the mana circuit wouldn’t make sense then. So, I did something else.
I erased the [Gather] rune just enough so that I could turn it into [Do not Gather].
And as I did that, I kept on decreasing the now wide passage’s width to keep the mana flow the same.
Soon, I was done with [Gather] rune which in turn made the [Absorb] rune redundant as there wasn’t anything to absorb, hence making it much easier to edit it.
Following the same procedure, I modified the [Absorb] rune into [Disperse] rune which in turn dispersed all the mana in the array, making it harmless.
Meaning, I had successfully defused the bomb!
-Haaaah
I sighed in relief as the timer on the bomb stopped, fading away as there was no power to keep it active.
I still remembered the time it showed before fading though, [00:01:46].
Around one minute and half was the time it took me to defuse the bomb.
’Okay, I can do this.’
I immediately stored the defused bomb in my bracelet and walked out of the building. Calculating how many bombs I could defuse in my mind, as I did so. Factoring in that I could do atleast twenty seconds better the next time, as I knew what to do, I concluded that I could defuse around 26~27 bombs.
A number that Mark should be glad about.
So, without wasting a second I shot out. Creating a shockwave again as I headed toward one of the bombing sites.
One of the three bombing sites that I previously ignored, not the worst one of the three as I could already see the dust cloud rising on one site and a supremely unstable vortex on the other.
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Rather than wasting time on lost cases, I speeded towards the best case of the three locations...and guess what, I defused it.
Though it was a close call, where I only had nine seconds to spare, but I did it.
The success cheered me up a bit as I continued defusing bombs, one after another, riding on the wave of success.
Well, not a complete success as the two worst case scenarios had already exploded, but a success nonetheless.
It was after my 20th bomb.
I was moving over to my next location that was in the middle of a plaza, thinking that everything was going smoothly.
It was then that, a crossbow bolt was fired straight at me.
-Clang!!
I nearly didn’t have any time to react. Thankfully, I kept [Split Second] active while accelerating, just in case.
And that just in case, saved me from getting skewered then and there.
Sound of metal clashing metal, resounded through the surroundings while the shock of parrying the bolt reverberated through my bones.
And though, I came out unscathed from the collision, but the unexpected attack changed the course of my flight.
-Bang!!
With a loud bang, my body crashed into one of the buildings surrounding the plaza, recreating the scene of what just happened with Mark.
Somehow, the uncanny resemblance enraging me more than the crash.
’Fuck! is what I’m gonna do to the one who fired at me!’
