’Do they even know what my true power is now? The last time I fought against a Machina, I was still a TITAN Rank I, but now I’m a TITAN Rank II. No matter how brilliant they are, there are some things that even the most brilliant people cannot predict, and my speed of growth is one of those things. No one knows that I killed the Beast of the Apocalypse, and they don’t know about the skills I got from it and the fact that the beast is now my subordinate. But I can’t use the beast here, not when Gina and Stella are still around. I need to create a proper environment.’
Jason watched as the emissary tried to activate a magic artefact to try and escape from there, but everyone was shocked when Jason suddenly appeared right in between the Emissary and General Destro! The General turned around sharply with wide eyes, and he immediately lashed out with an attack, but Jason just swiped his hand to the side nonchalantly, and the entire world rumbled with power!
BOOM!
The general was sent flying back by a massive gale wind from Jason’s swipe, and he stumbled across the floor like a pinball before digging into the ground a far distance away! Jason lashed out and grabbed the Emissary by the neck, and the Emissary growled as Jason lifted him up slowly.
"Did you really think that I was just going to let you go after you threatened my family like that? You said you wanted to see me dragged through the streets like a criminal. Well, since you’re so eager to experience it, I’m sure you won’t mind having the exact same treatment."
The Emissary grinned down at Jason when he heard all this, and Jason narrowed his eyes as he heard something strange coming from the Emissary’s chest.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Jason’s brow furrowed as he wondered what that was, but it didn’t take long before he realised what was about to happen! Jason looked up at the emissary in shock, and the Emissary’s grin widened.
"Did you really think I would come here to see you with my real body? You fucking fool!"
Jason spun around and tossed the emissary up to the sky, and at the next moment, the entire world rumbled from a massive explosion!
KA-BOOOOMM!!
Jason frowned as he watched the fireball in the sky, and he clicked his tongue and turned away when he suddenly heard Gina calling out through their mental link.
’Babe, the other Machina is trying to do something.’
Jason scowled, and he activated [Eye of the King] to see through Gina’s eyes! General Destro was holding up a strange jeweled dagger in one hand, and a small cube in his other hand, and the man wasted no time as he plunged the dagger into his own palm to draw blood before he shattered the cube in his bloody hand! The entire world of Vratac suddenly pulsed with a bright yellow light from the cube, and Jason told Gina to quickly get away from the general! Gina followed the orders and left, but there was no use trying to escape at all.
The artefact that the General had just used was something called [Covenant Cube]. It was one of a very special brand of artefacts known as Adaptor Artefacts that couldn’t be found in Gates or by killing any Magical Beast. The only way to acquire an Adaptor Artefact was by creating it as an Artificial Artefact! The [Covenant Cube] was a defensive type Artefact that had the unique ability of creating a large cubic shield around anyone in a radius set by whoever was activating the artefact. But it was the [Covenant Cube]’s other feature that made it such a high-level artefact! Unlike other defensive artefacts that already had their properties and couldn’t be changed no matter what, the Covenant Cube derived its properties from two things!
The first thing was the identity of the person who had activated the artefact! The stronger the activator of the artefact was, the more powerful the shield created by the artefact would be. The second thing was something known as a [Contract]. The contract was a statement or condition placed on the cube by whoever was creating the shield, and the strength of the shield created depended greatly on the form of conditions set by the activator!
And as General Destro activated the shield, he set two very important conditions that would make the shield strong enough to hold someone as powerful as Jason! The first condition was that the shield would be inverted! So once the shield was created, rather than preventing those on the outside from being able to get inside the shield, it would prevent those on the inside from being able to get out. And the second condition was a sacrifice of life! By covering the cube in his blood before activating the shield, General Destro tied his life force to the shield and set a special condition that made sure that the shield could draw from his life force in order to constantly grow stronger!
These two conditions gave the shield such a massive boost in its base power that it went up from a mere SSS Rank shield that it would’ve been to something far beyond! A massive yellow cube that was more than ten football fields in size formed over the heads of everyone in the area, and it locked into place as an extremely powerful TITAN Rank II shield!
But Destro wasn’t done just yet, and he enjoyed the look of confusion on Jason’s face for a moment before he clicked a button in his palm and spoke.
"The conditions are set. Send them in."
[Understood.]
A static voice replied from the other side, and the sky over Vratac lit up in brilliant blue as hundreds of Dimensional circles began to burst open! There were so many dimensional circles that they literally painted the sky in blue, and they continued to increase in number until there were close to five hundred of them covering the sky! Large metallic cylinders appeared from within the Dimensional circles before they fell through and plummeted to the ground! The cylinders easily passed through the cubic shield since the shield was only preventing things from getting out, and they slammed into the ground with massive booms! Each cylinder was about fifteen feet tall and as wide as a car, and Jason could feel that same unease that had been worrying him coming back in full force once he saw them. What the hell were the Machina planning this time?
"You see, the problem with our previous attacks is that we’ve been trying to fight a criminal with soldiers who don’t understand how you think, and that is the reason why you’ve managed to get away every time. But if you think it’s so easy to go against the Machina, then I’d love to see how you survive against enemies that are also lowlifes just like you."
Destro spoke up with a nasty grin, and Jason narrowed his eyes at him as a loud hiss echoed through the region from all the cylinders! The cylinders began to release smoke, and then a door unlocked in front of each one and began to open. Inside the cylinder were people. Creatures from different worlds and races were standing perfectly still within each cylinder, and they were all being held down by metallic restraints around their arms and legs, as well as metal bands that wrapped around their mouths and necks to keep them in place. Once he saw them, Jason knew that every single person there was strong! Jason hadn’t been able to sense their power through the cylindrical prisons since the cylinders were made from a special metal that blocked their mana from escaping, but once the cylinders opened, their mana washed over Jason, and Jason could tell that there wasn’t a single person below SS Rank down there! Most of them were SSS Rank, and Jason could also feel some TITANs among them!
Clack! Clack! Clack!
The restraints holding the prisoners began to unlock, and Jason frowned as he watched them open their eyes and look around in confusion.