LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 35: Absolute Dominance
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"I have two rules. Rule one: I'm always right. Rule two: If I'm wrong, refer to rule one…"
- L, (Death Note)
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<(Atem POV)>
"You three, take care of the girl. The boy is mine." Romulus barked orders to his subordinates behind him who seemed to be busy at their computers with something.
'Boy? Well, I guess I do look young.' I muttered sarcastically to myself in my mind.
"But what about the missiles? The launch is scheduled in fifteen minutes..." The only male among the three tried to complain weakly but he almost immediately shut up after Romulus gave him an angry look with his bloodshot red eyes.
On the other hand, the females just slowly nodded at the order like in a daze and prepared to attack Domino who was behind me.
"Three vs one? That doesn't sound fair, does it? Maybe I should balance things out a little. How about one lucky girl vs three limbless wolves sound?" I uttered confidently while my cape fluttered a little like an angry dog.
"Please don't. I want to have an all-out serious battle for once. Almost all my enemies somehow screw themselves up due to my power which results in me not ever being able to have an actual serious fight. So let me have this exciting battle all to myself. I mean my luck won't be able to affect all three of them... right?" Domino looked at me, her starry eyes pleading with me to not end her fight for her before it even began.
"... Fine. Go knock yourself out." I sighed as I fixed my attention back on Romulus who I had been ignoring.
"Whoever you are, I will skin you alive. I'll make you regret ever coming here. I'll even find your family after this and make them my loyal dogs." Romulus growled as he made the most menacing threat he could come up with.
"That, I would like to see you try," I chuckled at his threat with a bored face as he leaped at me, his sharp metallic claws gleaming like a bunch of butcher's knives.
I didn't bother to move and instead mentally commanded my cape to block his attack which it did quite effectively by immediately binding his wrists.
"You think my claws are my only weapons?" Romulus spat out as he suddenly kicked the cape with his legs, legs which had five very sharp claws on their toes.
One kick from Romulus' clawed toes was all it took to cause a rip in my cape.
"Hey, that cape was brand new," I said in annoyance as I felt some of my divine energy instantly being absorbed by my cape to repair itself.
"Okay, I seriously need a dress like that," Domino enviously shouted from the side while she was keeping the three lupine mutants at bay by shooting plasma bolts at them with a pair of blaster guns in her hands.
I wonder where she even got that gun from. I don't remember the X-Men having that in their armory.
"It's a limited edition," I said with a huff as I again directed my cape to wrap around Romulus, this time while carefully avoiding his claws and toenails.
But I didn't just stop there. I continued slowly squeezing him with my cape prolonging the pain he felt as much as possible while making sure that he would not be able to move his limbs even a little bit.
Romulus might be the strongest feral gene-possessing mutant alive with powers far above guys like Wolverine, Beast, and Sabretooth but he was nowhere near an omega-level mutant. Yes, he did have a slight edge against me with his magical metal coating that could even penetrate my skin but that would only be useful against me if he would actually be able to physically slash me with his claws.
But realistically speaking, except for the first time when I basically allowed him to nick me because I wanted to check the effectiveness of his unique metal claws, he would never be able to even come close to me again if I didn't allow it myself. I was just way too much more powerful when compared to him. Not just my speed through which I could easily dodge his physical attacks but also my various other special abilities which made destroying his entire existence from a distance very easy.
"It seems telepathic abilities do not work on you. That's quite interesting. Do you have some sort of natural protection against telepathy or is this another perk of the metal" I wondered aloud as I felt my immense psychic might fail to even feel his mind all the while Romulus was struggling to escape the death grip of my cape.
'But still, this feeling... The metal in him somehow feels familiar, like I have a weird connection to it or something.' I thought inwardly with a frown as I felt the urge to rip apart the metal from his body and keep it for myself.
I also tried a few magical spells to scan or transmute the metal but even that failed as magic yielded no result on the strange metal that Romulus had inside him.
"Now let's test out how durable this metal is exactly," I spoke up trying to ignore the sound of explosions and the walls of the castle collapsing in the background as collateral of the battle between Domino and the three wolf-type mutants.
As I exerted more and more pressure on Romulus using my cape, I could feel his muscles, tendons, and nerves getting squashed into a paste, his organs coming out of the various holes in his body like toothpaste but still his bones remained intact. Even under the force of my omega-level telekinesis, I could not cause a single crack in the metal coating. It was like they were indestructible.
But I did find out about one thing, it wasn't exactly a metal, it was more of an element that had the properties of a metal. It was probably the most unique material I had ever seen and me trying to understand it alone was almost impossible.
"Quite curious... Tell me Romulus, where did you find such an amazing element from?" I asked curiously as I studied the texture of his claws and a good portion of my various abilities like my divine energy blasts just bouncing off of it, while ignoring the pained expression on Romulus' face as he regenerated his crushed body parts.
His regeneration power was on the same level as Wolverine which made him very difficult to kill but very easy to torture. You could do almost anything to him and he would always recover but of course, he still felt all that pain.
"Do you think I will cooperate, you fucking bastard? You will never break me. I AM A KING. THE KING OF WOLVES." Romulus roared out, looking like he wasn't just puking his organs out a few minutes ago.
"Fine, as you wish. The hard way it is. I guess I have no choice but to use that skill on you. Just make sure not to get mind broken or something." I groaned as I lightly touched his exposed face with a single finger and activated my Absolute Dominance ability on him at full power.
Immediately his face contorted into a painful contortion as he tried to stop himself from yelling while feeling pain like he had never felt before but a few seconds was all it took for him to give up and cry like a little boy.
It was funny seeing a huge muscular grownup crying like that and even funnier as I saw his eyes rolling up while he looked like he was going to puke from the immense pain.
"Stop, please just stop. I will tell you everything. Just stop for god's sake." He said while choking on his own tears and saliva after only about half a minute of the torture. Even his mouth was bleeding due to him having bitten his tongue to endure that pain.
"Oh, you are done already, I thought from the way you were speaking earlier, you would be able to last at least a few full minutes. Huh, what a disappointment." I snarled as I withdrew my finger.
'I guess my ability is the ultra version of Crucio from Harry Potter.' I thought to myself, teeming in pride.
"I-I received it from a business partner. He wanted to use my resources and connections to do some forbidden research on genes and cells. All I had to do was give him access to my resources and he would use them to further increase the progress of the research. He even gave the metal to me because he wanted to see how effective it was. It's supposedly something called Mysterium." Romulus revealed.
'Mysterium, huh? That explains everything. No wonder it's this amazing. After all, as much as I remember the lore from Marvel, that metal is supposedly somehow directly connected to my mother, aka, the Phoenix force itself, and has a lot of her characteristics although I don't exactly remember the details.'
"What was the name of this business partner?"
"He never gave his full name or any other details. He just went by Mr. Phisto." Romulus answered.
'... That red devil surely lacks imagination. Or, maybe he finds this funny. But, whatever it is, it might be concerning because he has been involving himself in the mortal realm way too much in the last decade.'
"And, how much do you have of this mysterium?" I further questioned.
"N-not much. Most of the metal I received from him was used to coat my entire skeleton, much like Logan. And the rest of it I used to form a thin wire that encircles this entire castle to protect it from any mystical or supernatural threats." He quickly told the truth in a bid to not displease me. He seemed to have grown really afraid of that pain.
'So, that's the reason why I couldn't use magic to sense his location or use Boomtube to portal inside here. That mysterium is some really useful stuff... which means it will probably be better if I take it off his hands... literally since I can make better and more responsible use of it.' I thought inwardly as I kept a straight face outwards.
"Hey Zoya, scan the entire castle and find out the location of all the mysterium, the same material that this guy has in his body. Also, try to come up with the most efficient way to umm..., pluck it from inside him. Don't worry, the process doesn't have to be clean. It can be messy." I ordered the mother box floating above us which was recording everything happening as I disregarded the crestfallen and terrified expression on Romulus' face.
"Task received. And what should I do with the missiles that I just took control of? They are quite dangerous pieces of bioweapons that can do a lot of damage if fired. It has the capacity to spread and turn about 99.9997 percent of the entire human population into mindless feral beasts." Zoya warned.
"Deactivate them and have them prepared to be moved into our strongholds. They are useless as weapons but maybe Ms. Sinister can find some practical use for them." I replied back.
"Atem, I think I overdid this a little." A voice suddenly interrupted my conversation with Zoya at which I turned around to see Domino standing perplexed amid a clutter of mess.
The male mutant had a goddamn pillar impaled through his stomach. One of the females was lying with a huge hunting knife piercing her head and a... banana peel near her feet while the other one was missing but if one were to notice the huge hole in one of the walls of the castle through which the outside could be seen, it could be imagined what happened to her.
"Before you say anything, I defeated them just purely using my combat skills. Only the crazy psycho bitch who apparently killed both of her younger siblings according to her own backstory, might have tripped on that banana peel due to a tiny bit of my luck." Domino revealed as she rubbed her messy hair like she was embarrassed.
"Okay, maybe luck IS the best power in the world," I admitted in a whisper.
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(A/N: If anybody is wondering then yeah, Domino really is that strong in the comics due to her luck powers. She even has a near-super soldier-level physique due to the experiments done on her as well. She doesn't fight any important character too often but when she does, it is never really that hard of a fight for her, unless of course..., plot.)
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