GLOBAL AWAKENING: My 10,000x Exp Multiplier-Chapter 67: []Speed vs Technology, The Phantom’s Pace

The pitch-black blade of the Soul-Bound Shadow dagger plunged deep into the glowing blue power core embedded in the Vultun Herald’s collar.

To any observer operating within the standard parameters of the Chronos Spire, the strike was a complete execution.

But Zarek of Vultun was not bound by the Spire’s medieval fantasy rules. He was a product of a Tier-2 civilization, and his armor possessed failsafes that defied simple kinetic damage.

The instant the blade breached the alien’s primary energy housing, a blinding concussive wave of raw electromagnetic force erupted from the suit. It wasn’t magic. It was a localized pulse of anti-gravity designed to violently repel foreign matter.

Vahn Ryker was thrown backward as his boots skidded across the ash-choked asphalt of Sovereign City. He dug his heels into the ruined street and used his monstrous base Strength to arrest his momentum after sliding exactly ten meters.

He lowered his arms while the cheap fabric of his academy jacket smoked slightly from the thermal friction.

"A structural ejection protocol," Vahn noted. His voice was entirely conversational as he rolled his shoulders.

His deep purple eyes analyzed the shifting data streams radiating from the alien.

Across the street, the Vultun Herald staggered. The smooth silver visor of his helmet flickered with angry red static. The glowing blue core at his neck was cracked and leaked a steady stream of volatile ionized gas.

"You dare," the alien’s synthesized voice buzzed. The arrogance was completely replaced by mechanical fury.

"You primitive glitch! You dare lay hands on a sovereign emissary of the Vultun Empire? My armor is forged from collapsed star-matter! I will wipe your entire existence from this timeline!"

"Commander! Ranged barrage incoming!" Sia Vance roared from the sidelines.

The silver-haired Vanguard didn’t hesitate. She lunged into the space between Vahn and the alien. Her massive obsidian kite shield was raised and ready to absorb whatever advanced weaponry the Herald was about to unleash.

"Stand your ground, Sia," Vahn commanded. His tone dropped into the terrifying cadence of the System Administrator.

"His targeting algorithms operate on sub-millisecond predictive modeling. If you try to block, he will simply curve the trajectory around your shield. "Leave him to me."

Zarek of Vultun raised both of his detached floating metallic gauntlets. The air around the gauntlets screamed as the alien diverted all remaining power from his cracked core into his weapon systems.

"Engaging Hunter-Killer Swarm. Target lock verified. Eradicate."

A hundred micro-missiles shot from the gauntlets. Each was no larger than a human finger. They didn’t fly in a straight line.

They moved like a swarm of angry hornets and left trails of burning blue plasma as they wove through the air. They fanned out to cover every conceivable escape route.

At the same time, the gauntlets fired a continuous sweeping grid of atomic disruption lasers. This created a cage of inescapable explosive death.

It was a flawless execution of superior technology. The alien’s onboard AI had already calculated Vahn’s maximum running speed, his jump height, and his evasive tendencies. The attack was mathematically impossible to dodge.

"Temporal Step," Vahn murmured.

The world didn’t just slow down. It shattered into agonizingly discrete frozen frames.

To Vahn, the terrifying swarm of micro-missiles hung suspended in mid-air and inched forward at the pace of a crawling snail. The sweeping grid of deadly blue lasers looked like glowing strings of yarn stretched across the ruined street.

The ambient noise of the battlefield faded into a dull distant vibration.

Vahn exhaled slowly and his breath escaped his lips in a visible cloud of white mist. His physical body moved with the terrifying weight of 9999 points of pure Agility. A number that was already terrifying!.

Combined with his ocular skill, his processing power vastly exceeded the alien’s Tier-2 hardware.

The Vultun AI was trying to predict where Vahn would be based on the laws of standard physics. It calculated acceleration, friction, and momentum.

Vahn simply didn’t use standard physics.

He took a step forward. He didn’t run. He walked.

He engaged his Phase Step as his boots found invisible unrendered geometric collision boxes hovering in the empty air.

He stepped over the first wave of micro-missiles and casually tilted his torso to the right to allow a sweeping laser beam to pass mere millimeters from his chest.

He moved with a fluid grace and was entirely unbothered by the apocalyptic light show surrounding him.

He ducked under a cluster of plasma trails, stepped off a hovering chunk of displaced asphalt, and bypassed the entire kill-box in exactly three seconds of compressed time.

He arrived directly behind the Vultun Herald.

Vahn deactivated Temporal Step. Time snapped back into its normal violent velocity with the sound of a breaking rubber band.

A hundred meters away, the swarm of micro-missiles converged on the empty space where Vahn had been standing a fraction of a millisecond prior. The resulting explosion vaporized the street and sent a massive shockwave of displaced ash and molten rock into the air.

Zarek of Vultun lowered his gauntlets as a cold mechanical laugh echoed from his helmet.

"Target eliminated. Threat neutralized."

"Your sensors," Vahn whispered directly into the alien’s audio receptors.

His voice sent a chilling vibration through the Herald’s spine. "Are tragically reliant on visual confirmation."

The alien froze. His internal warning alarms blared with sudden catastrophic urgency.

He tried to spin around and his floating gauntlets swiveled to engage the impossible threat behind him.

He was far too slow.

Vahn didn’t use his dagger. He engaged the passive effect of his mutated base Strength. The Force of the Void!

His right fist blurred and bypassed the physical plane of the alien’s protective shielding entirely. He drove a brutal punch directly into the back of the Herald’s left knee joint.

The impact sounded like a detonating artillery shell. The highly advanced nano-armor crumpled like wet tissue paper. The joint inverted with a sickening crunch of shattered metal and alien bone.

Zarek shrieked as his leg gave out. It was a profoundly organic sound of pure agony.

He crashed to the ruined asphalt and his perfectly engineered posture was completely broken.

Vahn stepped smoothly around the falling alien. His hands slipped casually back into his jacket pockets.

He looked down at the Herald with an expression of mild pity.

"You rely on an engine that calculates probability based on previous data," Vahn explained as his deep purple eyes glowed brightly in the smog. "But you are fighting the Architect. I don’t follow the data. I write it."

"Impossible!" Zarek roared. He frantically tried to push himself backward. "My AI performs ten trillion calculations per second! You cannot move faster than light!"

"I didn’t move faster than light," Vahn corrected gently. He offered a sharp predatory smile.

"I simply removed the space between us. Now, I suggest you surrender your remaining data before I decide to unwrite the rest of your joints."