Thanks to Type 8-3 being the heavy piece of equipment it is, Dante couldn’t take a step without it causing a thunderous clang to echo through the empty corridor, and as if to make that worse, the cracks he left on the floor were clear tracks leading to his position.
One of the doors ahead opened and two rough-looking men stepped out to check. Both were startled by the armored figure running toward them, leaving them wide open for the iron-clad fists heading straight for their faces.
Though the stats said he had five times his usual strength, Dante didn’t really feel that way. The reason wasn’t that difficult to deduce. His human body was so weak that the time he could use each armor had to be limited to the extreme, and by consequence, he was incapable of drawing out the full potential of the boosts the armor grants.
He had enough strength to punch someone’s face in, at least, and that was more than enough for the time being. Well, as long as his opponents didn’t have bone enhancements or subdermal armor.
A set of stairs leading up was at the end of the corridor. As soon as he stepped on it, a sharp pang of pain coursed up Dante’s foot and traveled to his chest. Gritting his teeth, he noticed that the counter had reached the 28-second mark.
With less than half a minute remaining, the strain caused by Type 8-3 was starting to show its effects. Dante had ignored it for the one minute he had been inside the armor, but his joints were aching, and the strange force threatening to rip him apart was far stronger than it was when he wore Type 3-2.
As much as he liked the portal creating, people erasing armor, Dante didn’t know if he could wear it to the last second every time.
[Dante, I have finished compiling the gathered data into a holographic map.] Volcan spoke just as the counter hit 20. [Would you like me to display it on your OAM?]
A three-dimensional hologram appeared on the left side of Dante’s field of sight. Not contained in the borders of a screen, its opacity was set low enough for it to be visible without hindering him as he ran.
Skimming through it, he located the dot representing him and studied its surroundings. His eyes fell on one of the rooms on the floor right above him, and as the sharp pain coursed through his body once more, he prepared to activate Type 8-3’s first ability once more.
His OAM projected a circle on the wall at the top of the staircase. Once he adjusted its size and position, Dante gave a mental command and watched as a small black dot appeared at the center of the circle then slowly expanded until their borders overlapped.
Though he knew the black screen filling the circle was incorporeal, Dante wished he could see what was on the other side before deciding whether to walk through it or not.
It wasn’t as if he knew nothing about what awaited him on the other side—at the very least, there were no humans in the room he chose. Still, it would have been more reassuring if the holes he had to walk through were transparent instead of being filled with darkness.
Swallowing his hesitation, Dante stepped through the black screen and arrived at his chosen destination. The portal behind him shrank and disappeared as he took in the room’s interior, and once it was clear there was no danger in sight, he gave Volcan the signal to dismiss the armor.
The purpose of the room was unclear and Dante wasn’t interested in learning it—he simply picked a corner and sat down to catch his breath. The gangsters he killed in the last couple of minutes were clear evidence that he was still in the building. Soon enough, the danger level will rise dramatically as the enemy starts looking for him so he has only a short time to rest and figure out what to do next.
’How much till 8-3 is fully recharged?’
[About 550 seconds.] Volcan said.
A small notification appeared in the bottom left corner of Dante’s OAM. On it was a small battery icon with the numbers 8-3, a counter showing the remaining 075/100 energy, and a clock counting down from 00:09:16.
A nine minute wait doesn’t feel that long, usually, but not under these circumstances. Truthfully, as much as he liked it, Dante wasn’t looking forward to putting on the armor again so soon. His body was aching all over, and he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t snap the next time he tried to walk in that thing.
’How long can I use 8-2 for?’
[300 seconds. Five minutes, in other words.] Volcan said. [However, I have to inform you that Type 8-2 does not have the Rift Creation ability of Type 8-3.]
Hanging his head, Dante let out a sigh. It just went to show that he needed to test every armor and learn their abilities.
[While each armor Type has one specific domain it specializes in, each level has its own set of abilities as well.] Volcan explained. [Each level inherits the abilities of the ones that came before it and amplifies them. Spatial Severing and Rift creation were Type 8-3’s Main Abilities, but it is capable of using Spatial Awareness as well, which is one of Type 8-1’s Main Abilities.]
Dante guessed that the hologram displayed on his OAM was created using the Spatial Awareness ability the AI mentioned. It depicted the entire layout of the place they were currently inside, in addition to the position of all humans and objects.
Seeing how big it was erased all doubt that it was one of Caligo’s hideouts. From the looks of it, half of the place was underground, right below one of the buildings near the outer border of Factory Town. Somehow, it resembled one of those underground military bases one sees in movies sometimes.
The dots scattered here and there represented the people inside the underground lair. After observing them for a few seconds, Dante quickly learned that the yellow ones were the enemies he had yet to encounter, while the three red dots moving through a corridor on the lowest floor were Epsilon and his two guards.
The hologram had only one dot with the color green, and Dante could already guess who it represented. Staring at it for a while, he glanced at the blue dot representing him and sighed. Not only were they separated by several floors, but for some reason they also had to be on opposite sides of the map.