Second Genesis

"You know them?" Grey asked with a smile.

"Yes. They’re the Bryson Triplets." Brad said with a dark expression. "That’s not even their last name. One of them is called Bee, the second is called Rye, and the last is called Sone so they put their three brain cells together and combined it like some sort of carnival act."

Grey snorted out a laugh, but he felt that was actually pretty clever. Just unnecessarily lame. What was cool about the name Bryson?

Grey was much cooler.

"And the other three?" Grey asked.

"They’re probably just back up just in case. Can you describe them?" Brad asked.

"Um, all three of them have weird eyeliner on like they took inspiration from an Egyptian tomb. Two girls, one guy."

Grey suppressed his urge to make a two girls one cup joke the moment it slipped out of his mouth.

"They’re the Third and Second Ranker groups of one of the zones. Their First Ranker is one of the favorites for the leader of the alliance," Mauve explained.

"If they’re the favorites, why are they coming here?"

"Joaquin is a huge threat to them." Mauve continued. "They’re probably coming to scout out the situation."

"Oh." Grey laughed. "That guy’s dead."

Mauve blinked and Grey shrugged at them.

"He tried to kill me so I killed him first."

The trio looked toward one another and took a collective breath. It seemed they had made the right decision, then.

It was Mauve who had convinced them that Joaquin was only selected by the Great Udon as a dig at Grey, and that had clearly borne out.

"So what do you want to do with them?" Grey asked. "Kill them?"

Grey spoke about it all very casually. At this point, he really didn’t care.

While it was the case that he was trying to be a better person, he wasn’t going to tiptoe around the region.

These people were scheming against their own when all their enemies were actually out there. They were the sort that pissed him off the most.

But this was probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Mauve and the others hesitated.

The location of a city was well-protected information, and they didn’t give out detailed maps. They might know the general direction of a city, but the exact spot was unknown.

In truth, though the Bryson Triplets and the others had come here to scout, they knew there were good odds they wouldn’t find anything. If not for Grey’s senses, they may have walked right by one another without sensing anything.

"Oh, they’ve sensed us I think." Grey suddenly said.

So much for that.

"They’re discussing something, but I’m not a good lip reader. I can’t tell what they’re saying."

Unfortunately, right now Grey’s sixth sense only picked up visuals and aura information. Everything outside of that was a mystery to him.

It would likely become more detailed when he upgraded his Resonant Frame further.

"They’re setting up a trap now." Grey continued. "And now they’re splitting up. The Bryson Triplets are staying back along with one of the women with the weird eyeliner makeup. The second woman and the last man are trying to pincer us from the left and right. My guess is they want to funnel us toward the location of the trap.

"Now the last eyeliner woman is coming straight for us. They’re timing it so that her team will be in position by the time she arrives. I’m guessing they want to make us think it’s just them while the triplets are still waiting."

Grey talked casually about it like he was taking a stroll. Then he held out a hand and his fang dagger manifested. It felt like overkill to use a Vanguard Class weapon on these people. Though, using a Legendary item was probably also overkill.

Whatever. He was nice, but he wasn’t that nice.

"What do you want us to do?" Mauve asked. "I meant to tell you about our abilities, but I didn’t expect—."

Grey shrugged. "It’s fine. Don’t worry about it."

He took one step to his left, then oddly walked toward the right instead.

"Just don’t move from right where you are. Not an inch."

A male wearing wild eyeliner appeared with a howl of laughter as though he had truly been concealed until he burst out from the Fog of Chaos.

He met Grey’s blade instead.

Caught off guard, the man twisted through the air, narrowly dodging the strike that would have taken his neck, just as his companion burst out from the other side.

Unfortunately for him, the twist that saved his head ran his skull right into Grey’s knee.

BANG.

His head snapped back, his skull slightly deforming as his eyes rolled to white.

’Mm... that was more strength than I wanted to use.’ Grey thought with a flicker.

The woman was still charging at the group, pulling out a whip that slashed at Mauve’s head. Every instinct in Mauve’s body was screaming to move, but she clenched her tiny fists, her jaw setting tight.

Grey said not to move, so she wasn’t going to move. She was gambling with her life, but if she couldn’t do this, she wouldn’t make it very much further than this.

Still in the air from his first attack, it didn’t look like Grey would have any chance to close the distance in time.

But then he vanished.

Grey appeared in front of Mauve, the step he had taken to the left flickering with dancing shadows. His legs scissored in the air, swapping places as he brought the knee he had just used down and raised his other leg up high...

Cutting down an axe kick right onto the top of the woman’s skull.

BANG.

There was hardly a brief pause between the moment Grey’s kick landed and her nose smashing into the grassy ground. It practically sounded like a single blow.

Three attacks, two down, just that easy. In fact, it hadn’t even seemed like Grey’s first saber strike was meant to land at all.

The gap was too large.

But there was still a third coming straight to her death.