The sound of the air collapsing was barely audible, but the force of the impact was enough to yank the gun sharply downward, preventing Kael from firing a single shot.
Lohan didn’t test the man’s reaction time; using the weight of his fall and the rigidity of the Obsidian Exoskeleton that had sprung up over the skin of his knees, he slammed Kenny against the metal floor of the corridor with an impact that knocked all the air out of the man’s lungs.
The second man twisted his body, trying to aim his gun at the black figure who had just neutralized his partner.
However, Lohan was already operating through the Parallel Processing Core at that moment. Before the mercenary could focus, Lohan fired three strands of Magic Weaving from his left fingers without even looking.
The neon-blue threads, nearly invisible in the smoke, wrapped around the opponent’s wrist and the gun’s trigger.
With a tug reinforced by his enhanced strength, Lohan deflected the gun’s sight toward the ceiling as he advanced in an explosive sprint enhanced by Viscous Flow.
The mercenary tried to drop the gun and draw a vibro-knife, but Lohan was faster.
Taking advantage of his superior strength and agility, before the man could react, Lohan delivered a straight punch to the man’s solar plexus, imbuing the impact with the vibration of Shockwaves.
BAM!
The impact didn’t sound like flesh hitting flesh; it sounded like a hydraulic sledgehammer striking a plate of armor.
The man was hurled backward, crashing into the hallway wall with such force that the concrete cracked behind him. He collapsed unconscious before his gun even hit the floor, landing silently in the mist.
Lohan was panting slightly, but not from exhaustion.
The adrenaline and purified Mana coursing through his veins made him feel like he could take on an entire army. He looked at the two unconscious bodies. In the silent hallway of the building, he had just taken out two professionals without triggering a single Federation sensor.
With the thud they’d made against the walls, no curious neighbor would stick their head out anytime soon, but human curiosity knew no bounds, so Lohan knew it was only a matter of time before someone looked out.
So he had to get these men out of sight as quickly as possible.
"Right... now I have two more pieces of trash to deal with..." Lohan muttered, dragging the two men into his apartment as if he were carrying two simple sacks of potatoes.
As he closed the door and locked it, Lohan surveyed his room.
The place was in shambles, but the satisfaction in his chest was immense. He approached the first bodyguard and reached out, activating Efficient Digestion.
Biological filaments began sprouting from his palm again, piercing the man’s neck.
Instantly, Memory Resonance activated again, flooding Lohan’s mind with images similar to those he’d seen in the other men’s minds, but new images of clandestine laboratories, human trafficking contracts, and most importantly, confirmation that Oscar was also selling Lohan’s location to corporate agents seeking "Potentials" in the Lower Zone.
Lohan felt the Mana in his body boil as he digested the essence of those men.
Although they were poor in biomass, Lohan was shocked to realize new knowledge emerging in his mind!
Unlike in Elysium, where notification screens would pop up in front of him, in the real world Lohan didn’t have that convenience, but his habit of acquiring new abilities made assimilating that knowledge so easy that the screens became unnecessary.
Lohan felt his human body vibrate.
As the mana filaments finished converting the remaining scout’s brain, a flood of data and sensations inundated Lohan’s mind.
He opened his eyes, which glowed for an instant with a blood-red hue, and looked at the floor of the ransacked apartment, where he saw one of the kinetic pistols the men had brought.
Slowly, he bent down and picked up the gun.
The shock of recognition was instantaneous and even a little thrilling.
The moment his fingers wrapped around the grip and the weight of the gun settled in his palm, Lohan felt an incredible familiarity with that object.
He didn’t need to look at the manual or fumble with the tech buttons on the device; his fingers moved on their own, releasing the safety catch and checking the compression battery charge as if he’d been using it for years.
He realized he had just "stolen" [Firearms Proficiency] directly from the mercenaries’ memories through Memory Resonance.
Every recoil pattern, the correct shooting stance, and the logic of weapon maintenance were now part of his very consciousness, as if he had spent years on the battlefield, just as when he had learned the mastery of [Heavy Weapons Proficiency] from one of the humans he had killed in Elysium.
Lohan spun the gun easily in his hands and looked again at what remained of the corpses on the ground, resisting the urge to practice shooting at them.
Fortunately, his sadistic side hadn’t progressed that far, so he simply collected the weapons from these men, including the machine guns, and decided to keep that spoils as new toys, keeping at least one pistol with him as he headed out into the Lower Zone as a useful form of protection that wouldn’t expose his Elysium powers.
"Oscar... you really crossed the line," Lohan said to the empty room, his voice cold. "You thought I was just easy prey even when I gave you a peaceful way out, even paying the rent for you guys..."
He picked up his cell phone and saw Lisa’s message still open.
Then he smiled at it. With Monday’s dawn breaking timidly through the polluted clouds, Lohan packed up everything of value he had, hid the helmet in the best spot he could find, and left the apartment.
It broke his heart to leave home and leave that behind, but this would be the last time he’d leave that apartment with any intention of returning, the next time he left there, it would be for good.