Solo Cultivating in Superhero Academy
Chapter 141: Fast one

Chapter 141: Fast one

As the decision was made—to trap Elius, to close the rift and find another dimensional fold to open—Zhark raised his bracer, and Fraven began the incantation to activate the cube network.

Keith exhaled slowly, looking at the crackling gate one last time, eyes hard with finality.

Then—

SSHHHHOOOOOOMMM!!!

A sonic scream ripped across the horizon.

The earth shook.

The atmosphere bent. Not in tremors. Not in warps. But in raw, absolute velocity.

A shadow. A blur. No—less than a blur. A black thunderbolt, sheathed in heat haze and mist, howling louder than screaming missiles.

It came from the distant sky—from the dungeon.

From the very bottom.

In an instant, the world itself stopped breathing.

KRKA-KRRAAA-BOOOOOOOM!!!

The sound came after the figure landed.

A crater bloomed in the center of the plaza. Stone tiles shattered. Shockwaves flung dust and debris outward in rings, like a meteor had struck. And then—silence.

A heavy, suffocating silence.

Smoke billowed outwards, thick and choking, covering everything in a rolling mist so dense it turned the city gate into a scene torn from a nightmare.

The smoke didn’t rise like normal—it clung, swirling at ankle height, coiling upward in unnatural spirals.

Something was wrong with the physics.

Something was wrong with the air.

The particles shimmered with spiritual energy, radiant but cold. Very cold.

Zhark staggered back instinctively, his body crackling with lightning, sensors going haywire.

Fraven choked on his breath, his telekinetic feelers failing to penetrate the dense fog.

Shania unsheathed her dagger. Her illusions tried to form—only to fail instantly, shattered by the pressure alone.

And Keith—Keith took a step back.

His eyes wide.

His lips parted in disbelief.

"No..." he whispered.

He waited. He planned. He buried Elius at the bottom of that boss dungeon. There were layers. Boss encounters. Time folds. He left hours ago.

He shouldn’t be here yet.

And yet—

Here he was.

Within the smoke, a shape stood. A figure—motionless. Not a word spoken. Not a gesture made.

Just presence.

And that presence... was suffocating.

The ground beneath the smoke cracked in a spiderweb pattern. Whispers began to crawl through the air—not voices, but something older. The silent weeping of space that knew it was about to be cut.

Fraven trembled. "That... that can’t be..."

"Elius..." Keith said under his breath. His heart pounded against his ribs like a war drum. "You were supposed to be buried in there..."

Zhark’s voice was high. "This pressure—this pressure is making my bio-circuitry lock up!"

Shania backed away, daggers raised. "I can’t see through this mist...! I can’t even feel the mana threads!"

Keith’s fists clenched.

"Doesn’t matter," he barked. "This is our only chance. Don’t let him stabilize. Attack now! Everything you’ve got! Make sure to defeat him we won’t be able to leave this place!"

Before the command even ended—

They struck.

Keith moved first—vanishing into the mist with a thunderous BOOM of his own step.

His fists were surrounded by flickering auric energy, his movements precise, explosive.

He aimed for the center of the figure, leading with a five-strike combo that would crack even a vibranium plate.

Zhark unleashed a storm burst—dozens of chained micro-lightning strikes in all directions within a ten-meter radius, calibrated to electrocute anything faster than the eye could track.

Fraven hurled an avalanche of metal debris—blades, rods, jagged shards of gear from the cubes themselves, all orbiting him before accelerating to terminal velocity mid-air like telekinetic railguns.

Shania flooded the smoke with illusions—hundreds of copies of herself and her team flashing in and out like flickering ghosts, each one capable of redirecting a strike, each one laced with phantom pain effects to disrupt senses.

It was a masterclass of synergy. The kind of teamwork honed through years of high-stakes missions.

The kind of coordination that had brought down SS-Class villains.

But—

None of it mattered.

The smoke twisted.

The air split.

And from the swirling mist...

Five. Flying. Swords.

They moved not like weapons, but like predators. They didn’t slice—they slithered. Curved. Weaved. Chose their own trajectories. Intelligent. Aware. Perfect.

The first sword danced through Keith’s strikes—ping! ping! ping!—redirecting each one with fractional, godlike parries.

One punch was nudged just enough to break his own elbow against a redirect.

Another jab was spun into an off-balance spiral, launching him backward.

The second sword turned Zhark’s lightning against him. It spun in a wild vortex, pulling the electrical arcs into a cyclone and flinging them right back.

Zhark screamed as his own Storm Circuit overloaded, the feedback frying his skin with blue burns.

The third sword sang through Fraven’s telekinetic barrage, weaving between metal debris with millimeter precision, never touching any—but slicing the space between them, breaking his psychic tether.

The floating metal crashed to the ground. A second later, the sword stopped in front of Fraven’s throat. It didn’t move. Just hovered.

Daring him to flinch.

The fourth and fifth swords moved as one.

Shania’s illusions vanished.

One flash of silver—every single clone evaporated.

One swipe of heatless light—her armor cracked at the seam. Her breath caught in her throat, as her vision blurred with dizziness.

A non-lethal stroke. But one that told her: If he wanted to... you’d be dead.

And still—

Still.

None of them could see the figure’s face.

That thick mist remained. Now boiling. Whirling. A living storm.

The swords did all the speaking.

They hovered around the figure, calm and motionless, but humming with hidden intent. Like wolves resting under moonlight—until someone moved too fast.

Keith was on one knee now, blood trailing from his mouth. His shoulder dislocated. He had barely lasted five seconds.

Zhark lay sprawled against a pillar, lightning fizzing around him in sputters. His armor had been peeled off, chunk by chunk, mid-air.

Fraven, sweating, pale, had both arms disarmed—his control snapped by pressure alone.

Shania sat on the ground, both knees trembling. Her illusion sensors fried. Her eyes refused to blink.

And then—

The mist parted.

Not much.

Not enough to see a face.

Just enough to glimpse five glowing points. A hand. A wrist. A robe that fluttered without wind.

And still, not a word.

Not a breath.

Not a reason.

Only flying swords, still orbiting their master like the moons of a silent, uncaring god.

They hovered, then realigned, as if to say:

"I didn’t need to be here."

"You forced me to be."

Keith swallowed, coughing blood, and muttered: "This should be impossible..."

And then—

The scene ended.

All four of them—Keith, Zhark, Fraven, Shania—lay sprawled across the plaza.

Defeated.

By a man they never touched.

A brother they tried to bury.