Chapter 28: Phase Shuttle
There was no incantation.
No gesture.
No spell model.
A strange pulse spread from Hodell's fingertips. The energy in his palm compressed so violently that the surrounding air gave a sharp whine. Then it burst outward in a single, invisible impact.
Phantom had only just begun to sink into the metal pillar behind him when the shock slammed into his body.
"Gh!"
His half phased body was forcibly knocked back into reality. He shot across the workshop like a kicked rag doll and crashed into the wall with a heavy bang. Rust shook loose from the old iron beams overhead and rained down around him.
Hodell felt a rush of satisfaction he could not quite suppress.
So this was the real way to use an Esper Ability.
Magic was a recipe. The runes, the gestures, the incantations, the staff, the enchantments, all of them were part of the dish. Change the process, and the result changed with it. Everything had a structure.
[Energy Simulation] was different.
It did not care about recipes.
As long as he understood the essence of the effect, he could shape it directly with will.
Phantom coughed and pushed himself off the wall, one hand braced against the cracked surface behind him. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. The look in his eyes had changed completely.
"How…" His voice shook. "How can you cast like that…?"
Hodell did not waste time answering.
He stepped in at once, his movement so fast that Phantom's expression twisted again.
This time, Hodell's right hand was not wrapped in a conventional spell. Dense energy condensed around his fingers, spinning at terrifying speed until it formed a thin, vibrating edge. It gave off no light, only a faint tearing hum that made the skin crawl.
A hand blade.
Pure force.
Pure cutting intent.
"It's over," Hodell said.
He struck straight into Phantom's chest before the man could reenter a phase state.
The energy edge punched through layers of defense and sent the force deep into flesh and bone. Phantom spat a mouthful of blood and flew backward again, smashing hard into a rusted machine before collapsing to the floor. His short blade spun away and clattered into the dark.
He tried to rise, failed, then raised his head with visible effort.
The approaching figure in front of him did not look like a mage anymore.
He looked like something colder.
"Who…" Phantom coughed again, blood staining his teeth red. "Who the hell are you…?"
Hodell ignored the question. He crouched beside Phantom and reached into the man's coat.
His fingers closed around a cold metal plate.
It was only palm sized, matte black, with a dull crystal set into the center.
The moment he touched it, the panel reacted.
[You have obtained an unknown item.]
[Hand it over to a special target for a high reward, or seek an appraisal.]
Hodell turned the metal plate over in his hand and looked down at Phantom. "What is it?"
Phantom's eyes flickered. He looked at the object in Hodell's hand with instinctive reluctance.
Then he looked back at Hodell.
The wound in his chest was too deep. The fear in his body was too real. He no longer had the luxury of pretending.
"It's… a key…"
His breathing grew ragged, each word scraping out of his throat.
"The old riverbed sewage outlet. Three kilometers east of the Black Bone manor. There's a lab under it. This opens the way in…"
Hodell's gaze sharpened.
An Erhai School laboratory hidden under a public drainage structure, close enough to Black Bone to watch it, far enough to remain independent.
That fit their style far too well.
"What does the lab do?"
Phantom laughed weakly, then coughed blood again.
"Souls. Hybrid souls. They strip them, refine them, grind them down into something purer. Stronger Soul Dust… maybe more than that. Maybe they're trying to make a vessel for whatever they think is hiding inside."
He squeezed his eyes shut, then forced them open again.
"They've been using Black Bone the whole time. Using their research, their failures, their bodies, their energy signatures. Black Bone thought it was building its own future. It was just feeding someone else's."
Hodell asked the next question immediately.
"What is inside the lab now?"
"I don't know." Phantom's face twisted. "I was never that deep in. I run things. Move goods. Keep watch. Clean up. That's all."
Hodell lifted the metal key a little.
"Just a runner, yet they trust you with this?"
That landed exactly where he intended.
Phantom's expression cracked with bitterness.
"Trust?" he rasped. "They needed a dog. A disposable one."
He laughed again, this time sounding almost hysterical.
"Watch Black Bone. Deliver contraband. Pass messages. Step into the dirt first and die first if anything goes wrong. That's what I was for. The key wasn't trust. It was a leash."
He glared at the plate in Hodell's hand, eyes full of resentment.
"As long as that thing stayed on me, they had someone to send ahead in emergencies. Someone worthless enough to lose."
Hodell understood.
The key holder was not a core member. The key holder was expendable.
Which meant one more thing.
If Phantom had become a loose end, then the most efficient way to clean up after him was for someone else to kill him and take the key back.
Hodell looked at him in silence for a moment.
In a different place, under different circumstances, perhaps he might have said something. But tonight there was no room for pity that changed nothing.
He raised his hand.
Phantom saw it and finally understood.
His eyes widened.
A brief flash of panic, anger, and sudden clarity passed through them all at once.
So that was it.
That was why this man knew about Erhai School tactics.
A white flash lit the workshop.
When it faded, Phantom no longer moved.
[You killed Phantom, Lv.39. Gained 23,000 EXP.]
[Killed a target 19 levels higher than yourself. Additional bonus EXP: 520%.]
[Total gained EXP: 119,600.]
[Personal contribution rate: 83%.]
[Bonus gained: 99,268 EXP.]
Hodell exhaled slowly and looked back down at the metal key.
Then, on impulse, he tried something.
He let his perception sink into the object and pressed [Energy Simulation] toward the crystal embedded in it.
The panel reacted instantly.
[Energy Simulation · Unknown Energy, unactivated.]
[You are simulating the principles of an unknown energy.]
[Once completed, you can master this energy.]
[Current simulation progress: 0.1%]
A beat later, another line appeared.
[Consume 9,999 EXP to accelerate completion.]
Hodell's eyes narrowed.
So that was how it worked.
He had just started thinking about whether to spend the experience now or wait until he was somewhere safer when movement sounded near the entrance.
His team.
He suppressed the panel, slipped the key away, and let his expression settle into fatigue.
By the time Eileen, Kyle, Baron, Loyi, and Sasha rushed in, he was standing near Phantom's corpse with one hand braced against a rusted support beam, breathing a little harder than normal.
"Ryan!" Eileen was the first to reach him. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine." Hodell gave her a faint, tired smile. "He tried to make a last move. I finished it."
Baron stepped over the corpse and spat to one side. "Good. Bastard deserved worse."
Kyle's gaze moved from Phantom's body to the scorch marks on the floor, then to Hodell's face.
"You handled him alone."
"For the most part."
Loyi crouched to begin inspecting the corpse. His eyes flicked over the battlefield, taking in the residual energy traces.
"A pity," he murmured. "Too much direct damage. The cleaner phase energy patterns will be harder to isolate now."
"That can wait," Kyle said. "We withdraw. Now."
No one disagreed.
The trip back to the branch passed without incident, but Hodell's thoughts did not quiet. By the time they returned, he had already made another decision.
Before heading to his room, he stopped Loyi.
"Do you still have some living tissue fixative?"
Loyi blinked. "For what?"
"I need to preserve some unstable casting materials."
That was a reasonable enough excuse for a mage. Loyi did not question it further. He returned a few minutes later with a small sealed jar of pale blue gel.
Hodell thanked him and finally went back to his room.
The moment the door shut behind him, he moved.
First, he took out the metal key and placed it on the table.
Then he opened a hidden pocket in his clothing and removed several tiny frozen tissue samples. They had been sliced away and sealed with cold energy at the moment Phantom died, before the gene chain could collapse.
He pressed them carefully into the pale blue gel.
The fixative shimmered once, then settled.
The tissue remained stable.
Hodell looked down at the jar for a long moment.
He might not use it anytime soon.
But having the option and lacking the option were two very different things.
Especially with an ability like Phantom's.
At some point, the night had grown very quiet.
Then came the knock.
Knock. Knock, knock.
Hodell opened his eyes from where he was lying on the bed, already half expecting it.
He got up and crossed the room in silence, then opened the door.
Lamia stood outside in the corridor.
She wore the same oversized Logistics Department uniform as before, shoulders slightly hunched, hands clasped nervously in front of her. She looked timid enough to be blown away by a stronger draft.
"Spe… Specialist Ryan…"
This time Hodell did not even let her finish the performance.
He grabbed her wrist, pulled her inside, and shut the door behind her.
Lamia stumbled half a step, clearly not expecting that. For an instant the timid mask slipped, and genuine surprise flashed across her face.
In the dim room, Hodell walked straight to the table, took up the metal plate, and tossed it to her.
She caught it on reflex.
The slight look of confusion on her face vanished the moment she recognized what she was holding.
"So," Hodell said, turning toward the window instead of her, "Phantom's dead. The trail should be cut."
Lamia regained her composure quickly, though there was a faint trace of annoyance in her eyes now.
"It seems you adapted well."
Her voice had returned to its usual low, steady register.
"What happened to your opening lines?" Hodell asked idly.
She ignored that. "The organization received your application. It has decided to grant the reward."
Hodell finally turned back.
Lamia reached into the inner pocket of her uniform and took out a crystal no larger than a thumb joint. It was pitch black, but there was a faint inner glow moving inside it like liquid starlight.
She placed it on the table between them.
"Your payment."
Her tone remained even.
"Tier Two Gene Chain, Endurance Enhancement. It should be enough for you to digest for half a month."
The moment Hodell's fingers brushed it, the panel lit up.
[Esper System knowledge detected.]
[[Parallel Energy Circuit]]
[Consume 2 Potential Points to learn?]
His heartbeat skipped once.
Advanced knowledge.
Real advanced knowledge.
So Erhai School had indeed kept its promise, though naturally in the most indirect and manipulative way possible.
Lamia continued, "Take your medicine on time. Maintain a stable state. Stay sharp."
Hodell picked up the crystal and rolled it between his fingers. "And the key? What exactly does it open?"
For the first time that night, Lamia's eyes sharpened.
"That is not a question you need answered."
There it was.
The leash hidden under the kindness.
"You only need to do your part."
She placed a familiar small black bottle beside the crystal, then lowered her head again. In the span of a breath, the timid logistics clerk had returned.
"Sorry to disturb your rest, Specialist Ryan."
She turned, opened the door, and slipped back into the corridor without another word.
The door closed.
Hodell looked at the black crystal. Then at the medicine. Then at the empty doorway.
He laughed once, very softly.
"My part?"
The panel flashed.
[E rank mission [Phantom] completed.]
[Gained 20,000 EXP.]
[Hidden condition completed: Leave No Clues.]
[Additional reward acquired.]
[Character summon card: Phantom]
[Ability: [Phase Shuttle]]
[Effect: Enter a phased state for 60 seconds. Can pass through physical obstacles, but cannot pass through energy barriers. While phased, energy damage received +100%.]
[Uses: 1]
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