“Mr. Matsuda!”

“You’re loud! What do you want!?”

“Please, look at this!”

What my junior Kinoshita showed me was a video of black battleships that had been uploaded to a site. The number of those ships was enough to darken the whole sky.

“A video from Mongolia?”

“Yes, the uploader is a civilian. There are also numerous other videos uploaded on other sites as well.”

This Media Centre was also supplied with videos by the government but the things we got were only just a small fraction. Other media complained about the lack of information as well.

“This is way better!”

“I know right! After all the news we get here comes late and is scarce. While by using the internet you can even have a live broadcast.”

“You stay here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going back to the company to put out a web article. If something happens send me an e-mail!”

“Mr. Matsuda wait!”

I rushed out of the Media Centre and stopped a taxi.

‘In this day and age it was impossible to restrict the flow of information. I’ll write an article about everything that’s happening.

It finally got interesting.’

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

“I’d like to confirm this, but do you have any weapons on you?”

[Weapons are of no need to me. Would like to confirm that for yourself?]

“Gladly!”

Wan buried the Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod into the ground and lengthened it in an instant. Using the momentum, she quickly got close to Gaia.

[Oh my, how fast.]

Gaia dodged Wan’s kick by a hair’s breadth away. Wan shrunk the Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod, found her footing and was just about to strike with it when…

Gaia raised his index finger.

“Wha!?”

Wan, that was just about to kick ground and get close to her opponent, couldn’t hide her shock. Her body had become light and was thrown high up into the air.

Her body was rolling around in mid-air and she couldn’t move properly.

“This, it can’t be…”

Using that chance that Gaia’s attention had been focused on Wan, Freya dashed in with frightening speed. She had used a Light Magic movement ability.

Just as Freya’s sword was about to reach Gaia lowered his index finger.

“Kyaa!!”

Freya hit the ground with intense force.

[What’s wrong? I still haven’t done anything but move my finger.]

“Damn it! Freya. This guy can control gravity.”

“Gravity?”

“Gojo showed it to me when we trained before. Either way we must get away from him, his skill should have a small range of effect.”

Wan and Freya quickly opened up close to a 50-meter distance between them and Gaia.

[Oh my… You immediately managed to figure out that I’m able to control gravity. How outstanding.] said Gaia in a joyful and relaxed manner. Wan and Freya tried attacking from a distance.

“Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod! Grow!!”

The Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod instantly grew and flew towards Gaia, however when Gaia moved his finger the rod fell to the ground, unable to reach its mark.“If physical attacks are a no go then… Light Magic Assemble Laser!”

The flash of light that Freya released shot straight for Gaia. However…

[It’s useless.]

The light curved right in front of Gaia and similar to Wan’s rod it fell to the ground.

“It can’t be…”

[Gravity itself is the distortion of time and space. Even light cannot escape the influence of gravity. My ability has no weaknesses.]

Even if ranged attacks didn’t work, then that meant that Wan and Freya could do nothing.

[Furthermore]

Gaia raised his hand and the gravity around the both of them increased.

“Urgh!?”

“What!”

Without being able to stay standing both of them fell on the ground.

“Why?”

[I don’t know why you thought that my ability’s range would be narrow. Just so you know ‘s range is around several kilometres.]

“Several kilometres!?”

Wan remembered the day when she had sparred with Gojo.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

“Damn! I can’t even hit you once. Haven’t you gotten even stronger!?”

“Your staff technique is amazing as well Wan. It helped me learn a lot of stuff.”

“Exactly what else can you do?”

“Hm… For example…”

Gojo raised his hand to which my body became light and began floating. He then controlled the wind around me and raised me to the air.

“Woaahhhh!!?”

Gojo proceeded to use Wind Magic to fly up alongside me. He was able to skilfully fly around, while I was just spinning.

When I got dizzy I landed on the ground.

“This is . It’s the skill that I’m best at.”

“A-amazing. Though I feel like puking…”

According to Gojo’s words he was able to make his target either lighter or heavier. Honestly I thought that it was a cheat ability.

“If you have this then you don’t even need to use Martial Arts right?”

“Hmm… still it does have its weaknesses.”

“What weakness?”

“For example its range. Using me as the centre it only works in a 50 meter radius and there’s also another fatal weakness as well.”

“What is it?”

“It’s…”

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

The heightened gravity weighted over me and Freya, while our bodies squeaked and me cracking sounds.

‘He can probably raise it even more.

Any more than this and we won’t be able to hold.’

[It’s useless to struggle. Gravity is an all-powerful ability that affects any material or substance. You have no choice but to give up.]

“I wonder about that… Aren’t you overestimating your ability way too much?”

[It’s admirable that you’re able to say that while gasping… Truly magnificent.] saying that the armored man increased gravity even more.

“Arghh!!”

I used the Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod to hold myself up but I couldn’t hold on any more. Freya was also lying on the ground using all of her strength to try and hold.

I made a final wager.

“Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod! Grow!!”

I pointed the Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod diagonally upwards and it grew. The rod’s growing and shrinking was a powerful ability that couldn’t be prevented that easily.

[Where in the world do you think you’re ai….]

The armored man noticed that the Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod was right over his head.

“Gravity is certainly a powerful ability, still it can only work in one direction at a time, either upwards or downwards.”

The now huge Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod shot down with tremendous speed as if being pulled by the earth itself. The man hurriedly tried to release his skill, however it was already too late.

[Gyaaaaaaa!!!]

The rod fell directly on the man’s shoulder. It broke his armor as well as his bones, burying itself deep into the man’s body.

Gravity returned to normal and our bodies became light.

“Freya!!”

“I know!”

Freya used movement skill and closed the distance with Gaia in no time. The sword in her hand shone with dazzling light and shot towards the Gaia, that was still trying to recover himself.

“Ascalon!!”

The single ray of light shot from Freya’s sword split Gaia in half. Without being able to respond Gaia lost his life.

“Ha…ha.. Wan we did it.”

“Yea, we somehow managed to win.”

‘The reason Gaia didn’t even move a single step must have been not just because he was able to afford it, but probably because he hated entering his skill’s range of effect…’

I stretched out my hand to Freya who was sitting on the ground.

“Let’s hurry. I’m worried about whether Leo and the others have reached the centre.”

“Yea!”

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

“You must be kidding me….”

The over 30 men that we originally had were now less than 15.

‘This beastman is way too strong.’

[Fuhahahah, what’s wrong? Is this all you’ve got?]

Even though we were surrounding him he didn’t seem to care at all.

“Mr. Carlo. Let’s retreat for now. We’ll only get wiped out like this.”

“Noah I’d like to do that as well but we can’t just leave our fallen companions. We must at least try and hold the bastard off here.”

While laughing, the giant standing in front of me was mowing us down with his physical strength. When he hit the ground it exploded and everyone that was in the surrounding was blasted off by the impact.

‘When it comes to just physical strength he’s probably even stronger than Gojo.’

Physical attacks didn’t work on this monster at all, even magic had almost no effect.

In the middle of this hard fight, we could see two transportation aircrafts getting closer to us from the East.

“Which country’s aircrafts are these?”

‘It’s dangerous for them to be here.’

“Luke, can you signal then with your explosive arrow? Tell them not to get close.”

“Got it. I’ll give it a shot.”

Luke got into position and was just about to shoot when…

“Please wait!” yelled out Noah, stopping Luke from firing.

“What is it Noah?”

“Those are Self-Defense Force Aircrafts.”

‘The Self-Defense Force? So they’re Japan’s Transportation Aircraft….’

When the two aircraft landed several tens of armed soldiers got off.

“We might be able to win now.” said Noah with a confident smile.