“Miles, dodge!” Coin’s voice reverberated in Miles's mind. “Stay out of its way, Miles!”

But Miles wasn’t hearing it. He could only see the approaching flying shuttle, speeding towards the entrance of the hospital. If left alone, many people would die.

Miles was not a hero. He wasn’t. but he wasn’t a heartless person to ignore when he could prevent many people’s death.

At will, a dark brownish red liquid surrounded his body. The hood that was covering his face was removed by it. A maroon armor engulfed him.

He dashed towards the entrance just in time. His arms reached out as he clashed himself with the shuttle. The collision made his muscles swell and his feet rooted to the ground.

He screamed at impact.

“AHHHH!”

His arm started to bleed and had washed the armor from maroon to crimson. His ribs got broken, and his spine cracked. But he didn’t let the shuttle pass through. With a strong swing, he sent it flying away from the hospital.

Miles collapsed on the ground and ached in pain. The momentum of the shuttle forced him to draw out his limits, causing him internal damage. The load he bore wasn’t something his still humanly spine could take on.

In the distance, three men came out of the flying shuttle with machine guns in hand. The impact shook them for a moment. But because they were ready to barge into the hospital, they were prepared for the impact.

However, it did not happen. Miles’s little stunt didn’t shake them much. They found their footing not long after as their notorious gazes were eying the figure who stopped them from blowing up the hospital.

They approached the building and ignored the man lying on the ground in blood.

With every power remaining in his body, Miles rose to his feet, and blocked their way. He had to. He couldn’t let them succeed after doing his best to stop the shuttle. At least until the law enforcement arrived.

“Let’s bring this piece of shit down first.” The one at the lead said to the other two.

Their white outfit had red markings on their chests in the shape of a snake. It stood in the form of the letter S. The symbol reminded a staff.

Miles clicked his tongue when he recognized the group. “Starve Cleric!” They were the biggest criminal organization on Earth.

Because they were wearing masks and had no wristwatches, Coin couldn’t do face recognition on them or hack into their wristwatches to find their identities and powers.

“Miles, run away! You already stopped them and got injured. Run!” Coin warned him.

“Don’t worry buddy. The armor is strong enough to protect me against those bullets.” Miles said and stood against the trio.

The three men turned to fire at Miles.

Miles opened his arm to cover more area lest a stray bullet hurt someone behind him. The armor shielded him against the bullets. Not a single dent appeared even when the whole three magazines fired at him.

“His armor is too hard. Take out the weapons!” The leader of the group ordered, and all of them took out orbs from their pockets. After that, they all pulled out strange devices in the shape of batteries and put them against the orbs. Batteries discharged a great amount of electricity, but the orbs absorbed all.

“What the hell is this?” Miles looked dumbfounded.

“They must have found another way to activate orbs. Because they don’t use AIs, they can only use this way. Looking at the amount of electricity they had used, the orbs must be Grunt-Rank pinnacle-tier, be careful.”

The orbs melted quickly and took shape. The man at the forefront used a spear; the other one, a greatsword; and the last one, with an assault rod. All of them were carrying earth elements, which was advantageous to electricity.

Miles took out the only weapon he had, and Coin charged it. The azure blue orb melted, turning into a sword.

He held it in both hands as he waited for them to attack. He could only defend for the time being.

The spearman took the first attack with a stab.

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Miles dodged a step to the side, and then took a step back while the others were trying to circle him. He didn’t let them, however.

He kept his distance, keeping all three in front of him by all means.

The one with the rod pounced on Miles, aiming for his head.

He dodged a hair’s thread. But was quick to react, grabbing the weapon with his left hand while on his shoulder. He wanted to overthrow the wielder by applying a great force..

However, that wasn't the case.

As he made contact with the rod, a force weighed him down. The weapon unexpectedly weighed more than a ton. It was like a bus crashing him down.

He gritted his teeth as the force weighed heavily on his shoulder.

Miles’s knees were about to buckle with the weight.

Meanwhile, the other two took the chance and attacked him from behind.

"Behind you!" Coin even shouted.

But it was too late. Miles did not react in time to dodge with the rod weighing him down. He was down on one knee when a downward slash from the great sword made a tear on his shoulder. His armor couldn’t defend against the 20-ton sword slash. The spear also arrived right after, stabbing him from the back, out through his chest.

Miles spouted a mouthful of blood and fell onto his knees.

It was then that the spear wielder lifted his body into the air.

With a groan, he was tossed, crash landing on his front with heavy injuries.

"Miles! MILES!" Coin shouted his name.

Blood oozed out from his wounds as Coin called out to him. The tears in his body were too deep. He groaned in pain with his vision starting to blur as he could barely move in his fatal state. At any time, he could pass out and die.

Miles was not able to deflect for they were simply fast and too strong with just weapons in hand. The rod wielder crashed him down, the swordsman injured him, and the spear stabbed him as if it was a final blow. It was like orchestrated coordination without one telling the others what to do. They know how to face an impediment.

"MILES!" Coins shouted again.

With what remaining strength he had, he gathered it up to speak.

“Any match?” Miles asked.

"Miles, you're gravely injured." Coin was in panic and deeply concerned. The AI couldn't do anything as it watches its human companion drain his life against three enemies.

Miles ignored it and asked again, "Any match?"

If Coin was human, he would have a pleading, worried face with tears in his eyes. But Miles wouldn't care if he did. Instead, Coin answered him with what he wanted to hear. “No. Voice matches are too hard to search.” Coin said with pain in his tone as he watched Miles dying.

Miles had asked Coin earlier to run a search when he heard the leader's voice, but unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy.

‘They haven’t used their power yet, that is a good sign.’ Miles thought.

The trio surrounded him, raising their weapons to finish the job.

As they got close, Miles smiled with blood on his teeth.

‘Let’s try that.’ He said in his heart he willed the armor to charge.

A blue curtain started to rise from his body, covering 3-cubic-meter around him. It was sizzling when it crashed with air, but it wasn’t hurtful.

When Miles willed it, a great discharge left the armor, and anything in a 3-meter radius got electrocuted by it.

The assailants' weapons were earth-element based. They were resilient against Miles’s armor, but it didn’t mean their body was the same.

The electric discharge made three men convulse in pain. However, it was an ephemeral effect - it did not last long.

They rose to their feet after some time. Even though their limbs were convulsing and twitching uncontrollably, they were still able to fight.

“You little shit! I didn’t want to use this to increase the effect, but you are done now.” The leader said and turned to his friends. “Use your super powers.”

“We can’t. Boss wanted us to blow up the hospital, if we use our powers it will reduce the diameter tremendously.” One of them rejected him.

“Just do as I said, or we will not be able to do shit.” the leader said.

Meanwhile, flying cars one after another flew towards the hospital's location. They were late, nonetheless.

Miles tried to find his footing with bare energy left in him. He was panting heavily and his breathing ragged.

He sighed in relief when the three men were stunned for a moment, but his opponents weren’t intending to give up.

“We failed. Blow it up now.” The leader then said and pulled out a strange device. Three of them circled the weird object and discharged their superpowers. One of them had an electric-based power, one had fire-based power and the other had— a strange power.

“What are they doing?” Miles looked dumbfounded at the three assailants.

“Oh, no. He's condensing power.” Coin said. “Get up and run! Run as far as you can.”

“What do you mean condensing?” Miles asked as he picked the panic in Coin’s voice.

“It is something like your sister’s power. It will condense all the fire and electricity inside that object and they will then detonate it. The blast will be gigantic. Please, Miles. I beg you. Run as much as you can!” Coin said.

“I can’t. The hospital will explode if I do. And there are people inside for fuck’s sake!” Miles said painfully.

“You shouldn’t worry about that, someone will stop that explosion for sure, but you should get away from here. Now!”

With internal and external injuries, Miles did what he had to do.