The giant tree-man raised his arms high and roared. The surrounding crowd echoed his voice with roars of their own, fueling their maddened courage before rushing forward.
The police force was on the brink of annihilation, and some of its members were already deserting. But who could blame them? They were already at their limit, forced to face an impossibly large mob, but then monsters started showing in their rank.
Dante stood in his place for a moment, stunned, but then he was pushed forward and forced to join the advance. Coming back to his senses, he quickly sharpened his mind and took in the situation once more.
’That guy... he took Catalyst just now, didn’t he?’ He asked internally.
[That seems to be the case.] Volcan replied.
’...Volcan, show me where the stalkers are right now.’
As he asked the question, Dante stopped resisting and allowed himself to be swept into the flow of the crowd as it advanced toward the city hall.
A map appeared and the location of the spies was revealed. As expected, although they had followed him to the city center, the wizards chose to keep their distance. The yellow dots representing them weren’t anywhere near the road and the crowd filling it. Instead, they were currently on one of the buildings on the side, likely watching from the roof.
’Fucking bastards...’ Dante pressed his lips together. ’The hell are you spying on from that distance?’
The whole event just took the most unexpected turn, and as he revised his plan based on the new circumstances, a vicious grin slowly spread across Dante’s face. Shifting his gaze to the east, his eyes landed on one of the tallest buildings in the city and the flaming shield hanging on it.
His plan has just received an unexpected upgrade.
Disaster struck the barricades and the officers guarding them, its form changing depending on which direction one looks. The easiest to spot was a woman hovering in the air, her entire body surrounded by tendrils of blue electricity. She swung her arm, and a bolt of lightning flashed, striking at the center of the police formation. Thunder crackled, and the road exploded, sending the charred cops flying along with shattered stone.
A short distance to the left, a dozen cops rose into the air as if gravity had lost its hold on them. Some were caught by their comrades who helped anchor them, but the rest weren’t so lucky. They kept rising higher and higher, and once they reached a height humans couldn’t possibly survive falling from, the power that caused them to float suddenly vanished, and they plummeted down.
Not a second after the bodies hit the ground, more cops began to rise into the air. Those who had witnessed what happened tried to catch them, but that turned out to be a trap. As if they were a bunch of human-shaped balloons, the floating cops pulled those trying to weigh them down instead of the other way around. It didn’t matter how many held on; if they weren’t grasping something connected to the ground, the entire group would continue to rise at the same pace.
Whoever wielded that insidious power kept their presence well hidden, unlike the berserker who attacked the tanks in the back, or the flying abomination who blew gales of wind with every flap of his massive bat-like wings. Then there was the massive humanoid tree that was still growing, having already reached beyond the four-meter point, its green crown visible from anywhere in the crowd.
The barricades broke and the trucks reinforcing the blockade were overturned. In less than a minute, the dam that had blocked the advancing tide broke and the protesters streamed toward the large white building a short distance away, uncaring about the monsters that had appeared in their midst.
Enhanced Individuals, five of them, each one wielding the powers of a Genome. The moment they appeared, the incident was no longer something the police force could handle. Normally, their presence would have drawn too much attention, causing the crowd to halt its advance, but instead it only fueled the rebellious flames inside the protesters, prompting them to do things they never had the courage to do before.
"DO NOT FALTER! DO NOT YIELD!" A voice echoed from behind. "BRING THIS SYSTEM TO ITS KNEES!!!"
As if responding to it, the crowd let out another demented roar. Lowering his megaphone, the chant leader watched the protesters stream into the city hall from atop one of the toppled trucks. He turned his sight to the genomes going around dealing with the remaining law enforcement, and as he watched another four-legged tank get toppled over, a smile quickly formed on his face.
"Level 3." He muttered as he looked at the woman raining lightning on everything with a police emblem.
He then turned his gaze to the officers still floating.
The ground quaked, drawing his attention to the half-naked man demolishing one of the ivory pillars surrounding the city hall.
Looking up, he saw a different weirdo. This one sat on top of the city hall, doing nothing but posing with his massive bat-like wings.
A little disappointed, the chant leader turned to the last monster on the battlefield. As he saw the five-meter humanoid tree, his smile grew wider, the boundless malice contained within it slowly leaking.
Though it had only just started, the first field experiment was already showing promising results. The chant leader continued to observe, and after a short while, he looked down at the megaphone in his hand, his smile faltering as he whispered to himself,
The Threat Index was a decent scale, but there had always been a glaring problem with it. Since it’s based on the amount of damage one can directly inflict, abilities that aren’t necessarily combat-oriented are given far lower ratings than most.
For example, a Genome whose only ability is to subtly influence people’s mental state and enhance their emotions would receive a Level 1 designation. Such an ability can’t deal any direct damage, but that wasn’t to say the threat it posed was insignificant.
Under the right circumstances, such an ability could instigate a crowd of millions into storming one of the most important government facilities in the city.
"Now, let’s see what you can do..."
Muttering that to himself, the chant leader shifted his sight back to the other Genomes wrecking havoc on the government dogs. He watched as the humanoid tree took hold of a four-legged tank, brushing off the countless rounds of machinegun fire striking its body as it lifted the whole thing over its head with ease.
As it prepared to toss the steel monstrosity at the few cops still standing, something flashed through the air and pierced one of its log-like arms. It appeared to be an arrow made from a glowing pale green material, but before anyone could question what it was or from where it came, a giant flower bloomed from the giant tree’s arm, its petals formed from incinerating emerald green flame.