Chapter Thirty-Six: Nuclear Explosion

"Are you certain it's here?"
The slight figure of Kungu asked Carlos.
Carlos nodded. "Based on Arthur's intel, it's highly likely."
"Damn it, where’s Arthur, that lunatic? Why isn’t he here?"
"They were ambushed earlier by a Pulsebearer. Took heavy losses. Calling them in now would just slow us down."
Kungu’s nerves frayed. "But this is Leviathan. Just studying it cost at least fifty researchers and eighteen Espers their lives. We..."
Carlos replied, "Our only chance lies with the safety lock. If we can force Livida to unleash her full power, the lock will trigger, and then we can capture her."
"But—"
"Shh. Something’s moving."
A midnight street, utterly ordinary, stretched before them, silent and deserted.
A gaunt man walked forward, step by step, each stride measured precisely. Though his pace was not quick, he seemed to arrive suddenly, as if he’d slipped into their midst.
Carlos startled. "Pulsebearer! Damn it, did they spot us the moment we arrived?"
"Why is a Pulsebearer here? Where’s Leviathan?"
Carlos growled, "Doesn’t matter. We take him out first. Twenty Terminators and five Espers—no way we can't bring down one Pulsebearer."
Pulsebearers—the nightmare no Amesthian could forget.
Fifty years ago, during the world war, Pulsebearers, driven by rage and chaos, poured onto the battlefields, slaughtering nearly every commander. The war devolved into chaos; thousands of armies lost their leaders and ground to a halt, as if a child had upended the chessboard in a tantrum, forcing an awkward end to hostilities.
Since then, Amesth has poured resources into technology and Espers, making Pulsebearers their greatest imagined enemy for half a century, clashing with them overtly and covertly hundreds of times.
Pulsebearers were formidable, but with careful preparation and overwhelming force, defeating one was not impossible.
Chen Tu walked the cold street, head bowed, seemingly indifferent to everything around him, nothing like a warrior courting danger.
This only made Carlos more anxious.
Pulsebearers possessed physical abilities and senses beyond human comprehension. The best could, even blindfolded and deafened, sense an enemy’s position from the breeze and strike with lightning precision.
This Pulsebearer’s confidence could only mean he was supremely skilled.
"Open fire."

From every corner—residential houses, shops, street corners, grassy patches—killers lay in wait, poised to strike.
The first sound was a barrage of gunfire, bullets striking the pavement around Chen Tu, sending up chips of stone. Yet he continued his leisurely stroll, impossibly calm amid the hail of bullets.
His steps carried a strange rhythm, as though synced with the breathing of those watching, or the pulse of their hearts. Even the Terminators, stripped of emotion, felt a fleeting sense of confusion; aiming at Chen Tu proved impossible.
He drifted like a specter toward a firing point.
A flick of his hand, a flash of wire—behind a bush, blood splattered, and an arm still clutching a submachine gun fell to the ground.
As his fingers plucked like a musician’s, not just arms but chunks of bloody flesh and metal tumbled, revealing cybernetic limbs.
Chen Tu paused in surprise at the metal prosthetics, then, with renewed force, his silver threads became merciless blades, shredding the powerful bionic limbs.
Blood-Hand Thousand Nets Chen Tu, once more revealed.
As if a signal had been given, sparks erupted from a third-story window, a grenade launcher fired directly at Chen Tu. The explosion swallowed his figure, lighting up half the street.
Yet, before the heat and chaos dissipated, Chen Tu appeared instantly at the window. A metallic fist, strong enough to kill a bull, swung at him, but he dodged with ease, grabbed the attacker, and five silver threads sliced the Terminator and his weapon into eight pieces.
Before others could aim, Chen Tu vanished again, reappearing at another ambush site to tear apart the next attacker.
"God, does he have teleportation?"
Carlos drew a deep breath. "Not teleportation—it’s a fusion of speed and technique. Just as two sounds of the same frequency can mask each other, he synchronizes his body’s frequency with our visual perception."
Over the radio, Anil snapped, "I didn’t come for a science lesson! How do we stop him?"
"Use your night-vision goggles. They have special infrared targeting."
Yet even the most advanced tech often failed against the Pulsebearers’ superhuman skills, unable to produce the desired effect.
The Terminators, elite warriors by Amesthian standards, were mercilessly cut down by Chen Tu; if not for their lack of all emotion, the ambush would have collapsed in panic.
Just as Chen Tu had dispatched half their number, the wall beside him erupted with a massive hole. A fist the size of a cooking pot smashed toward Chen Tu.
During battle, his senses were restricted, and he failed to notice the ambusher until the punch landed, sending him crashing through the wall into another room.
Rolling to his feet, he saw two walls shattered as a gigantic shadow charged in, wild as a rutting elephant.
Faced with a two-and-a-half-meter tall, equally broad monstrous giant, Chen Tu made only a token resistance, and was sent flying again, smashing through another wall and landing on the street, battered and ragged.
He spat blood and grinned, "Years since I fought—I'm out of practice."
The giant roared, the force of his voice shattering nearby windows. With a leap, he came crashing down toward Chen Tu like a mountain.
Two blows from the giant would leave even a real elephant concussed for hours, yet Chen Tu stood unfazed, his expression growing wild. "I was born a demon; the iron tree buries all life!"

Chen Tu dug his feet into the fractured ground, arms wide as he unleashed a storm of silver threads, chest bared to the descending shadow.
The giant’s full mass—two or three tons—struck with the force to trigger a minor earthquake, but Chen Tu braced and held with his shoulders.
Dense silver wires wrapped around the giant and the surrounding buildings, absorbing some of the impact. Yet the remaining force was still as fierce as a speeding car; Chen Tu, feet sunk deep, endured it.
Chen Tu, barely one-point-eight meters tall, holding back the giant, was surreal—ordinary soldiers would have dropped their jaws in shock.
The giant’s roar was muffled, blood pooling at his feet, unable to move forward, his entire body shredded by the wires. The intense impact drove the threads into his bones, severed muscle no longer fueling him.
He wore armor as tough as a tank, but the silver threads penetrated every gap, turning this charging behemoth into a lamb for slaughter.
Yet the giant was both Esper and cyborg, titanium bones beneath powerful muscles, and Chen Tu could not cut them immediately.
But regardless of hardness, bones exposed as targets would eventually succumb. As Chen Tu prepared to dismember the giant, another gunshot rang out.
Chen Tu grunted, his right shoulder grazed by a 12.7mm sniper bullet; even for him, the force numbed his arm.
The silver threads slackened, and the giant—supposedly paralyzed—moved his muscles in a desperate, writhing effort, barely healing and exploding with new strength.
Chen Tu snorted, yanking with his left hand—one of the giant’s arms tore off at the joint, exposing a yellowing metal skeleton.
Another shot fired; Chen Tu dodged wildly, but was still grazed on his right arm, flesh and blood torn away, bone exposed.
"Esper with bullet control..."
Chen Tu immediately recognized the trick in the two attacks, frowning as he ducked into a corner.
The standoff began, only the dying giant hanging in the street, breathing heavily through the wires.
Kungu stared, dumbfounded. "This is a Pulsebearer? We’re getting crushed, all of us..."
Carlos lowered his gun with a long breath. "Yes, this is a Pulsebearer—the uncrowned king of the Underworld."
"How can such power exist? Compared to them, Espers are just..."
"Ignorant chicks," Carlos said, self-mockingly. "That's the Pulsebearer—so strong. Instead of complaining, think about how to defeat them."
Carlos’s Esper ability was guaranteed-hit bullets, able to force any projectile smaller than his palm to hit within range.
But aiming at Chen Tu, he found he was targeting a flickering spot of light, exhausted from the effort. Only after tremendous strain had he managed the two shots, and all he’d accomplished was disabling one arm.