The Mark

Chapter 43

Chapter 43

"Shut up, you idiots! How can you think we won’t have parachutes? Now stop talking nonsense and take these," Flourance told everyone as he started bringing out the parachutes.

He threw them to everyone. "We have enough of these here. Take these and jump out. None of you shall die in my watch!" He commanded.

Tears of gratitude appeared in the eyes of some members as they took the parachutes. They had never been as grateful to Flourance as they were now.

"Thank you." They all thanked Flourance as they wore the parachutes and jumped outside one after another.

...

The first guy jumped out with the parachute, thinking that he was saved.

"Thank you, god, for saving my life. I promise I will never stop believing in you," he said as he smiled gently.

His face soon turned pale as he saw a black lightning bolt coming towards him.

"You useless god! You only helped me so I could die even more painfully?" He yelled, enraged.

"Aaah!" A pained scream left his lips as he was hit by the lightning bolt. He died instantly as the light in his eyes disappeared. His bleeding lifeless body continued falling down.

In their gratefulness of finding a way to survive the crash, the variants had forgotten that the real enemy was still outside, waiting to kill them like they were his hunt and he was the hunter.

Lucifer was flying, emotionless, as he saw the Variants jumping out of the helicopter one after another. It was more like an aim practice for him since he did have long-range attacks that could kill the enemies instantly.

The third helicopter has already turned back and left for search since Flourance has commanded an independent search. They didn’t know what was happening behind them.

Only Caen had stayed behind, watching Lucifer toying with the Delta Squad.

There was a fascinated look on his face as he watched everything before him. He was amazed at the events that had transpired. It was as if Lucifer was actually playing with the powerful Delta Squad.

Only one word came out of his lips, "Amazing."

- : Seperation

- : Seperation

- : Seperation

Caen was amazed as he saw Lucifer hunting the Delta Squad members. He found it a bit clever. He was attacking them mid-air when they had no way out.

’I thought he was just a brainless kid with brute strength. It looks like he does have some brain after all.’ He thought.

"The kid is still too naive, though," he muttered as he sighed. "Fortunately, the team in the third helicopter has left, or things would be troublesome when he would be targeted by them."

"He is lucky this time."

....

The third helicopter was flying towards Erygas, where they had caught Lucifer previously.

"Why are we going back without searching?" one of the Variants asked a red-haired muscular guy, not understanding why they hadn’t begun searching yet.

The red-haired guy was the one to whom Flourance personally told the plan. He was the one leading their team now, while Flourance led the main team. He was known as Kenrik Kubal, who happened to be an A-Rank Sorcerer.

"It is simple. We don’t know where and when the guy escaped. We only know that it was between the place where we took off and the place where we found out. So we have two points. We’ll come searching from the starting point, and the vice-captain will come searching from the end," Kenrik answered.

"Wouldn’t it be better if we both came searching from the start since we can cover more area faster?"

Kenrik heard the concern of his teammate and shook his head as he clarified, "Not really. If we came searching from the end, the guy could simply run away towards Erygas. We will need to go slower if we come searching so he can run away easily."

"Instead of that, we would go straight to Erygas. If we happened to pass by the kid on the route, he would be under the misconception that we didn’t see him and he was safe. That would make him more complacent, and he would have no path to escape after the two teams come from both sides," he continued, smiling.

"Ah, clever plan. As expected from the plan of the Vice-Captain. I was worrying unnecessarily."

With Kenrik’s explanation, his team members calmed down. They all understood the plan better and sat down as they started waiting for their destination, Erygas.

They were entirely unaware of what was happening to the main team now.

....

Back in the headquarters of the APF, the leader of the Beta Squad, Ayn, was sitting in her chamber. She was going through the details of the mission that was given to her by the Alpha Squad Head Varant.

Varant was the undisputed authority in the APF. His Alpha Squad was the elite of the elites, which consisted only of S-Rank Variants. He was also someone that even the Hunter Guild thought about twice before offending.

His powers were very scary, after all.

If he wasn’t keeping such a low profile in public, he could easily be called one of the top warlocks in the country by the general population.

The only person he was supposedly wary of was the strongest warlock of his time, Zale Azarel. With Zale’s death, there was no one Varant was wary of. He could readily fight even the current strongest warlock, who he believed to be weaker than Zale Azarel ever was.

Varant’s words were the law of the land, which the APF followed unconditionally. It was apparent how serious the mission of Ayn was since Varant himself gave her the secret mission after he called her to his office.

She was going through the details of the mission when her phone started ringing.

She picked up the call and responded, "Yeah, Xander. What’s up?"

...

Xander was sitting in the helicopter that was flying straight towards the base. He wasn’t aware of the commotion that had ensued with the team that was carrying Lucifer.

Flourance haven’t called him since he conveyed the information of Lucifer’s capture to him. Thus, he had no idea that Lucifer had already escaped.

"I just called to inform you that I have captured Lucifer Azarel," Xander told Ayn.

"Oh, good work. You already captured him," Ayn replied, smiling. She soon asked, "Did you call to confirm if the preparations are completed?"

"That’s right. Since we will soon be there, I wanted to know if the arrangements of his cell are completed," Xander affirmed. "We can’t let him escape the cells with the Decaying."

"Don’t worry. The cell has been completed. We have coated every place in the cell with Anti-Decaying matter. He can’t escape from there," Ayn replied as she started laughing. Her pearls of laughter echoed in the room.

Xander couldn’t help but wonder what it was that she found funny. He asked, "Why are you laughing?"

A smirk appeared on Ayn’s face as she explained the reason behind her laughter. "APF has spent a lot of resources to get the liquid just to safeguard one kid. You would need to give an explanation to Varant yourself."

Hearing the words of Ayn, Xander’s face twitched unwillingly.

"How did he know?" he asked. "I used the resources from the budget of the Delta squad."

"How should I know? He called me to give me a mission. That’s when he was asking questions about why your fund was being used for things like this," Ayn answered.

"Sigh, I didn’t want to involve him in this," Xander muttered as a sigh escaped his mouth. He seemed to be unhappy with this piece of information.

"Why didn’t you want him to know?" Ayn asked Xander, confused about his intentions.

"I didn’t tell him how dangerous Lucifer actually was, you know why?" Xander inquired, piquing Ayn’s curiosity.

Ayn was also wondering about this question. She asked, "Why?"

"Is it because you didn’t want to make it seem like you were intimidated by a kid? You thought he would take it as you exaggerating the danger, thus decreasing your reputation in his eyes?" she lamented.

"Not at all.

- : Xanders Intentions

- : Xanders Intentions

- : Xander's Intentions

"It is because I was concerned about Lucifer’s safety. No matter what, he is the son of Clarisse and Zale Azarel. Those two gave their lives to keep us and our country safe," Xander started explaining.

"It isn’t Lucifer’s fault that he was misguided. It was the government and the Facility that made him go through the terrifying experience, thus forming his dark personality," Xander said as he remembered the content of the clip that he had seen. In the clip, it was clear how Lucifer was tortured in the lab.

Unfortunately, his mission and his work kept him from doing the things he actually wanted to do with the clip.

"And what would have happened if you had told Varant?" Ayn asked. "How would that affect anything? It isn’t like he would have gone personally to catch a kid even if you had told him the truth."

"It’s not that. You know his powers, right? He can erase the powers of people. If he knew Lucifer was so dangerous, he might have asked me to stop all the spending on the cell and the anti-decaying liquid."

"Instead, he would have told me to bring Lucifer to him after capture so he could erase the powers of Lucifer," Xander explained.

After a short silence, he continued, "That’s why I under-reported the dangers of Lucifer to him, so he didn’t bother spending his powers on the kid."

"Well, wouldn’t that be good? Without his powers, Lucifer can live a normal life. We would have also saved plenty of resources," Ayn asked, finding no negatives in what he said might have happened.

Xander shook his head before he explained in detail. "I don’t want that. The kid is only misguided. We can bring him on the right path with proper guidance. He can even use his powers for the good of humankind."

" If we take away his powers, we would not only be taking something that he can use to redeem himself, but we would also be taking away his inheritance. His parents are already dead. The only thing he got from them was the powers. It’s not fair to take that from him based on some bad actions," he added.

"Sigh, sometimes I can’t understand your thought process at all. Why do you even care for this kid so much? Whatever, it’s your mission. I can’t interfere at all. I can only wish you luck and hope that you are successful in getting the results that you desire," Ayn said as a complicated look covered her face.

"Thanks," Xander thanked Ayn for her concern.

He was really glad to have someone like Ayn in whom he could confide. Even though she was kind of his senior in position, she was much more like his friend than someone from APF.

She even broke the rules a few times to help him, like last time when she helped him meet a convict in an APF cell so he could hack the government facility and get the video of Lucifer being tortured.