Prometheus and Giuseppe sprinted through the city at absurd speeds, since Theo was on a time limit. The longer he stayed awake during the Unsafe Hours, the more likely that some monstrosity would appear to ruin his plans. The streets were completely empty and silent. It smelled weirdly nice, reminding Theo of mint.

Using his memories to find the base entrance, he arrived at his destination very quickly, stopping right before the door. Before he could decide on how to get inside, a massive wave of Influence moved from the center of the city and hit the two of them, too fast to be avoided. Another two identical waves appeared soon after. Theo felt Giuseppe drop to the ground, snoring loudly. Meanwhile, the shapeshifter had felt a portion of his mind shut off completely from the Influence.

Doesn’t matter. I can go on.

Grabbing Giuseppe with his mouth, he knocked on the door in the same sequence he had used last time. Nothing happened. Pushing it open did nothing, it barely even budged. Prometheus felt the Influence on the door, a complex web of energy that probably made the door harder to open and damage. I don’t want to use a Tribulation. If every Tribulation is much stronger than the last, I don’t know how much damage the next one will do. I need to find another way.

He shifted quickly into a mini-Goliath form and reared back a kick. Using as much Influence into a single [Enhancement] kick, his scaled leg flew forward, whipping both the air and the metal door in front of him. It dented inwards, but not enough to enter. He hit it again and again, and with another handful of kicks, the heavy door fell down, revealing the same entrance he had seen last time.

Prometheus sprinted down the stairs in his Goliath form, which was a scaled humanoid, with Giuseppe on his shoulder. The large chamber at the end of the hallway was almost identical to last time, except for the damage their raid had caused. The crater was still there, and many burns were still present on many surfaces around the area. Most cages had been removed, apparently, with only a handful remaining. The entertainment areas were untouched, to the dismay of Prometheus.

Before moving on to his assassinations, he moved to find any children to possibly rescue, as he didn’t want any collateral damage to hurt them in any way. Inside the cages were mostly adults, with few children, all sleeping. I wish I had the Enchantment-breaking skill. That would make this much easier. Ever since he had lost that skill, trying to break enchantments was incredibly difficult. They barely moved at all.

Still, a handful of well-placed kicks were enough to damage the doors to the cages and rescue the prisoners. Using a humanoid cheetah form, he was able to quickly transport all of the children he had found upstairs, into the streets of Golden Lake. He hoped that would be enough to make them safe, as he couldn’t bring them with him.

Once that was done, he started moving to the doors with the numbers on them, which he had assumed were the personal rooms of the members of this weird cult, so he started with the lowest, Number One-thousand. Inside was a tier three young man sleeping on a modern-looking bed, in a room that was minimally decorated, only having a wooden desk and a training dummy.

A blade to the neck with a hand to cover the dying man’s mouth was enough to end his life, so Prometheus continued onwards, moving towards the other rooms. Each kill took less than a minute, as the doors were using mundane locking mechanisms which he could easily bypass with a key-shaped limb for each lock. The kill itself took a couple of seconds for each target since the blade went through their neck cleanly.

Half an hour later, he began feeling a sensation that he had hoped he wouldn’t feel while on enemy territory.

The presence of an anomaly.

Quickly looking around himself, he tried to spot the source of the feeling of wrongness, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. It felt too vague, like trying to grab ink mixed in a glass of water. Then, he felt it. The sensation was right above his head, and it was accompanied by a feeling of cold on his skin. Shaking his head as quickly as possible, an object fell to the ground with a *thud*. A brick?

A red clay brick stood there, menacingly. It didn’t move, it didn’t emit any Influence, it was just there, on the ground. Even then, Theo knew that it was an anomaly, based on his Supernality sense, so he distanced himself from it. A moment later, it disappeared and reappeared a dozen meters to the side. Is it teleporting?

Prometheus continued studying the object, which teleported in short proximity at random intervals. It didn’t seem like it had any other unusual properties, so the shapeshifter decided to touch it, curiosity winning over cautiosness. Nothing happened. The brick continued teleporting around, randomly. That’s underwhelming.

His Soul spoke for the first time in a while, “What do you mean underwhelming?! That’s a brick that can teleport!”

Theo didn’t see anything special in that.

“So?”

“What do you mean ‘so’?! Go take it!”

“What? How? It will just teleport away anyway! Plus, it’s lame and boring.”

“Listen, I love that energy of weirdness that it has, you have to take it. If you don’t, I won’t let you use your Soul ability anymore. If you do, I’ll extend each ability duration from five minutes a day to six a day. Sound fair?”

Theo sighed internally and nodded, resulting in his Soul laughing wildly. The shapeshifter in the human-cheetah hybrid form moved to the brick and picked it up. It teleported out of his hand, away somewhere.

“See? I can’t take it with us. It will just teleport away. Plus, if I ask the General I’m sure he can get you something similar with Enchantments.”

“No, enchanted things are not the same as those things. I want it, no discussions allowed. Take it or leave it.”

Prometheus growled quietly and moved to the brick once again, this time putting it into his inventory. For a moment, everything seemed fine. Then, he felt something shake his Soul slightly. The sensation came from the inventory. The brick is probably trying to teleport away, but it can’t. Good.

His Soul clapped mentally in joy, increasing Theo’s Soul ability’s duration by a minute.

Returning to his objective, he continued killing the weird priests one by one, but no System notifications came, disappointingly. The targets were getting increasingly tougher to kill, with the blade sometimes not passing through the neck as easily, but that didn’t hinder the shapeshifter. He noticed that not all of the rooms were occupied. The ones that died last time aren’t here anymore. I guess they don’t replace their members, not quickly at least.

Many murders later, he arrived at the double-digits, which once again didn’t have the numbers that died last time. Moving to number Ninety-nine, his blade got stuck halfway through the neck, resulting in the young woman waking up tiredly at first, panicking when she saw she was being killed. Not letting her make any noise, he hit her throat with a rotating kick, breaking her neck, and making her drop to the ground.

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The other kills went similarly well, with a couple of them giving him some Stats from the System.

Body +2

Mind +1

Soul +1

Then, he arrived at the Numbers below twenty-one, and those were another thing entirely. The jump from Number twenty-one, who died to a bony blade with [Enhancement], to Number twenty, was staggering. His blade had bounced off of the man’s neck like it had hit a metallic surface. That’s Influence. I guess that’s a technique to have a passive armor around your body? It looks like a specialized [Enhancement] but with a very strong and multi-layered configuration.

The sound had awakened the man, without the mask obviously, who now stood in front of Theo in the spacious bedroom. The rooms had gotten larger and more decorated the lower the numbers became.

I’ll take this opportunity to test my ‘Climate activist’ Tile. I’ve never seen it do anything, honestly. What even counts as ‘actions for the benefit of Eventum’? Would that be like, getting rid of invasive species? Inventing helpful technologies? These people capture Earth people, who would otherwise live on and possibly help develop technology. So, in a way, these priests are slowing the development of technology down.

The man in front of him had a buzz cut and a shaved face. He was moving to the back of the bed, where a yellow button stood on the wall. Theo obviously wouldn’t let him press that. Moving with a blurry flash, he found himself between the bed and the priest, who looked at the shapeshifter with wide-open eyes. The young man retreated backward and lowered himself into a combat stance, gesturing with his hands in weird ways. It did look ridiculous, but Influence was swerving around the tier-five priest with worrying intensity.

This is the right moment to use my Soul ability.

His Soul shouted, “Yes! Use it!”

With a mental thought, a small USB stick appeared in his right hand, with the plastic casing having playing cards drawn over it. The shapeshifter moved it to the back of his neck, where some cells moved apart to reveal a USB opening. The stick went inside on the third try. A rush of Influence spread around Theo’s body, and a timer appeared on the top right of his vision, counting down from six minutes.

His opponent had almost finished his weird dance, where plates of golden armor were appearing out of nowhere and attaching themselves to the man’s body part. Prometheus didn’t focus much on his opponent, instead conjuring a deck of playing cards in his hand. The action came effortlessly like he had been practicing it for years.

The shapeshifter smiled and used his [Cellular Surge] technique to speed up his transformation into a two-meter-tall Goliath form. It was his go-to combat form, as it was quite versatile and potent. He flicked his hand into the air, a single card rotating gracefully.

Come on, be something good!

A drawing of a man with a pained expression was present on the card. The drawing was holding his right leg, which had a red cross over it. Theo’s right leg broke instantly, and all of the bones in it shattered into fragments. Thankfully, repairing broken bones was easy for him, so he drew another card. His opponent had finished summoning his glowing red armor and began charging at him.

This one had the drawing of a blue hourglass covered by fire. At once, time slowed down by four times. So, my time perception is four times faster? He tried moving his body, and it didn’t move in slow motion. Oh, I am four times faster. Much better. He moved to the side of his opponent, who barely had a chance to understand what had happened, and hit him with a kick to the neck, unprotected by the armor. The priest flew off a dozen meters in the air, hitting the wall. Should I try to get his ability?

His Soul chimed in, “Remember, you only have three ability slots in total, two available! Tier up if you want more.”

Theo sighed. That was one of the conditions he’d had to accept for the creation of an ability-stealing ability, alongside others. Is this ability good enough to take? It took him like fifteen seconds to summon that armor, but it seems pretty durable.

Not letting the man get up, he ran up to him and shifted his forearms into deadly blades, which continued striking the man’s skin. Only small cuts were appearing, as the barrier over the skin technique was still present.

I’ll continue hitting him until he’s dead.

The armored warrior raised his hands to block Theo’s strikes, but with time slowed down, the shapeshifter was massively faster. Until a minute later, when the time-warping effect ran out, and Prometheus became four times slower. Let’s see, three minutes remaining on the ability. It's enough.

He drew another card. A red x crossed over a man’s eyes with a devious smile. A shout erupted into the room, his opponent moving his hands to his eyes, which were bleeding profusely.

Nice, it can affect enemies as well.

He took the opportunity to decide whether the armor-summoning ability was worth it, deciding in the end not to take it. His body was already durable enough, and it would only become more resilient with time and tier-ups.

A final strike to the neck ended the battle, just as his ability ran out. The USB stick on the back of his neck emitted electric sparks and disappeared. He had used the Cards ability for the day, and it wouldn’t be available until the next morning.

Body +1

Before he walked out of the room, his Soul spoke in his mind once again, “Aren’t you forgetting something? I know you’re dumb but don’t disappoint me this much!”

“What are you talking about?

“He was a tier five, the first we found here. Take his Core! Anything lower than a five would take too long to tier us up.”

Oh, right. Humans also have Cores.

Digging into the corpse, he found a small, but perfectly circular Core, colored a deep red. He pocketed it, saving it for the future.

If it takes me this long for each one, they’ll wake up. Actually, how didn’t all the fighting and sounds awake anyone yet?

Moving to Number Nineteen’s room, he decided on a different approach. He took out one of the Mustard gas spheres and put it near the priest’s sleeping face. He created a leather material from his cells that wouldn’t let any gasses pass through, so he slowly wrapped it around Number Nineteen’s face, putting the glass sphere inside. Before his target noticed the lack of oxygen, he broke the glass sphere with a punch, which both sent glass shards to the man’s face, but also released all of the concentrated and pure Mustard gas directly into his airways. Theo used all his strength to keep the leather wrapped around the man’s face, who began squirming with intense ferocity, coughs escaping his mouth.

Nineteen tried kicking and punching Prometheus, but the shapeshifter easily evaded the dying man’s attacks, who died five minutes later. Maybe I should have discovered his ability first. Shit. Whatever, next time I’ll prepare better.

For Number Eighteen, he closed the door and took out the yellow button that the other priest had so desperately moved to press. Probably an alarm of some kind. He slapped the woman awake, who was a short, blonde tier-six. She began blabbering in her sleep, saying, “John, let me sleep a little, more, please. Ah, I don’t…want to wake up, uff.” When she opened her eyes and saw the serpentine head looking directly down at her, she jumped up in surprise, running towards the alarm button. She yelped in shock when she noticed it had been taken out of the wall and crushed.

Prometheus silently observed what she would do, hoping she would reveal her ability. She took a grape-sized object from her pocket and threw it at Prometheus, who dodged it with ease. Is that all? I mean, the throw was pretty strong as she’s tier six, but that can’t be the extent of it. A moment later, she disappeared. Out of thin air. What? He turned around and heard the door opening. The woman was escaping and shouting into the air, “Assassin! Assassin!”

He ran out of the room as well, but she wasn’t anywhere to be found. Oh no, I fucked up. She did scream loudly, so he could trace her location that way. Thankfully, no one seemed to wake up. He ran after her screams, finding her knocking on each door of her fellow priests. Unfortunately, she was knocking on the Numbers directly below her, who died minutes ago. Before he could reach her, the high ceiling shook tremendously, and a hole opened up, allowing a large figure to fall through. It hit the ground with a crater appearing under it.

Prometheus studied the new arrival, which was most definitely a Golem or Construct of some type, judging by its fake Soul.

Low-rank Supernality sense leveled up to lvl 4!

Additionally, judging based on the amount of Influence inside of it, it was as strong as the General, if not more. The woman’s eyes flew to the light-blue golem, simple in design. It looked like a featureless, smooth humanoid. Her mouth opened up slightly, and she whispered, “A-A sleep golem?”

She checked her wrist, where a cube was attached to it with a strap, like a watch. She screamed in horror at seeing it, and dropped on the ground, snoring loudly. Is she sleeping on the ground like that? Why?

The golem walked towards her in a slow march, each step leaving behind cracks on the floor. When it was right on top of the woman, it lifted a leg above her head.

“No, wait, I was sleeping, plea-“ Her screams of desperation were cut off as the construct stepped down on her head, crushed like a watermelon. Unfortunately, it moved its sights to the shapeshifter next. Is it coming for me? To congratulate me for killing these people?

“Are you pretending to be this dumb? Please tell me you are.” His Soul said.

“Since you’re so smart, tell me what that golem is doing.” Said Prometheus as he crossed his arms.

“Theo, it literally killed that woman, who pretended to be asleep, desperately. And she called it a sleep golem. Don’t you think that's enough of a hint?”

“Nope. Still don’t understand.”

His Soul sighed, continuing, “It’s probably targeting everything that’s not sleeping. If I had to guess, it’s to prevent anomalies from appearing. The wave of Influence earlier that made Giuseppe sleep and almost took you out is proof of that.”

“Ah, that makes sense.”

The golem blurred through the air, aiming a fist at the shapeshifter.

“Thankfully, I know what to do.”

Theo shut off his mind.