Chapter 405: _Six Against One

Outside Blue Diamond

"Come on, kids. Outside!"

"What’s happening?"

"Stay together and head this way!"

Augustus was the first Phoenix Flight member to appear, quickly warning the principal about the situation at Ambrose’s office.

Students and teachers were being promptly evacuated as high-ranking Hunters surrounded the building.

Guild Master Magnus descended, the flames rocketing out of his boots dying. He regarded the students being brought out of the school with a satisfied nod.

"Good job, Augustus."

The road was quickly blocked; civilians were advised to use other routes. Officials from the Federation and IHC flooded the streets around the school, pulling out weapons and barking orders.

"Phew." Irina’s frost wings unfurled as she arrived from the skies, landing beside Magnus. "What’s the situation right now?"

"Ramona Richards is reportedly in Hunter Ambrose’s office," the old man said, pointing at a window Augustus showed him. "And from the look of things... so are Devon, Viktor and Hunter Valentine and Gabriel."

An assistant rushed up to him just then. "Guild master, President Josiah is on the way."

Magnus took a glance around.

He couldn’t see them. He couldn’t recognise them from the crowd of Hunters, civilians being evacuated or even from the shadows.

But he had a feeling the Pantheon themselves were close as well.

All these Hunters... still some part of him screamed that it wasn’t even enough.

"I just hope they know what they’re doing up there."

★★★★★

"Would you look at that?" Ramona looked over her shoulder, an amused smirk touching her lips. "Your people have me surrounded. And so do you..." She turned to Ambrose and the others. "... Isn’t that a bit dramatic?"

Loki snorted. "If you ask me, it’s the right amount of caution for you." Their grip on their daggers tightened. "You’ve spent all these days roaming between cities. Terrorising humanity—"

"Terrorising?" She arched her brow. "You and I seem to have different meanings of that word."

"You killed people."

"People who annoyed me. The very filth of your civilization—a murderer. A predator. Scum."

"That’s just the thing." Ambrose moved past Gabriel. "Who exactly made you and your kind judges of our universe? Of the multiverse? From the way it rejects your very existence, I doubt you created it."

Spatial awareness pulsed just then.

He tipped his head towards Gabriel.

The space god’s eyes glinted for a millisecond, that time enough for him to manipulate the space around Ramona.

Ramona smirked. "The Archons didn’t create this multiverse. But look around..." She gestured vaguely as if there was anything to see. "The decay is gradually ripping through everything. The Rifts. Do you really think this points to a creator who’s present?"

No one answered any of that.

Her gaze lingered on Gabriel for the first time since he’d entered the office.

The faint amusement on her face deepened ever so slightly.

"So..." she murmured, lifting one elegant hand. "You’re the one manipulating the surrounding space."

Gabriel said nothing.

His iridescent eyes remained fixed on her while invisible layers of compressed space folded over one another, each one reinforcing the next until the section of the office surrounding Ramona had been completely isolated from the rest of reality.

A subtle distortion shimmered through the air.

Anyone else would’ve mistaken it for heat haze.

Ramona slowly glanced around herself, then back at Gabriel.

"I almost didn’t notice," she admitted, genuine appreciation creeping into her voice. "You’ve localised it to such a precise degree that even I failed to register the transition immediately." Her head tilted with open curiosity. "Remarkable. Your understanding of space is... unexpectedly refined."

A bead of sweat rolled down Gabriel’s temple.

She wasn’t struggling or testing the prison.

She merely observed it.

"I suppose," Ramona continued, raising a single finger toward the invisible distortion surrounding her, "this is your attempt at preventing me from leaving."

Her fingertip lightly tapped empty air.

The faint shimmer surrounding her quietly disappeared.

Gabriel’s breathing caught.

He hadn’t felt his ability being overpowered. He hadn’t even felt it being unravelled.

The portion of space he had painstakingly rewritten simply... ceased to exist, as though the universe had collectively decided it had never been manipulated in the first place.

"Impossible," he whispered.

Before anyone could process what had just happened—the office door opened.

"Daddy?"

Every head turned.

Orion stood frozen in the doorway, his little brows knitted together with worry.

The evacuation alarms echoing throughout the academy had clearly frightened him, and somehow, despite the chaos outside, he’d managed to find his way to Ambrose’s office.

The colour drained from Ambrose’s face.

"Orion!"

Ramona’s blue eyes drifted toward the child.

Nothing more.

She merely looked at him.

Yet that single glance was all it took.

"DON’T YOU DARE!" Devon’s roar shook the office.

A torrent of yellow flames erupted from both his hands, surging across the room like a hungry tidal wave determined to consume everything in its path. The temperature climbed so violently that the windows rattled within their frames.

Viktor reacted at almost the same moment.

An ocean of frost exploded outward, jagged pillars of ice racing beneath the flames while frozen mist swallowed the office, each crystalline spike aimed directly toward the woman standing at its centre.

Gabriel clenched both fists.

The space beneath Ramona distorted before gravity multiplied several dozen times over, the tiled floor splintering apart beneath the impossible pressure as the entire office groaned in protest.

Valentine moved.

One heartbeat later, he reappeared behind Ramona, his weapon already descending toward the back of her neck with flawless precision.

Loki flicked both daggers forward in the same instant, the aether blades curving through the smoke like silver comets, cutting off every obvious escape route.

Ambrose never joined the assault.

The moment Orion appeared, every offensive instinct inside him disappeared beneath one overwhelming priority.

Protect him.

He crossed the distance in a blur, wrapping one arm around Orion before twisting his own body between the child and the battlefield.

"Don’t look!" He shouted, pulling the boy tightly against his chest.

The shockwave blasted every remaining window out of the office while splintered wood, shattered concrete and broken furniture exploded in every direction. Dust engulfed the room so completely that even Ambrose temporarily lost sight of the others.

For several agonising seconds, nothing existed beyond smoke and ringing ears.

Then the dust slowly began to settle.

Devon’s flames died down. Viktor lowered his hand.

Gabriel’s eyes darted wildly through the ruined office.

Ambrose slowly turned back toward the place she’d been standing.

Ramona Richards was gone.

Only the faint imprint of a pair of footprints remained where she’d been standing moments earlier.