Esper Harem in the Apocalypse

Chapter 1146: Cold And Hot

Rudy stared at the seven glowing red dots scattered across the holographic map. If they attacked the strongholds sequentially, the digital parasite would instantly realize the plan. It would either relocate the compressed souls or detonate the payload to wipe out the continent before Rudy could reach the correct node.

"We strike them all at the exact same millisecond," Rudy declared, his dark eyes locking onto the holographic projection.

Kim raised an eyebrow, looking across the obsidian table. "Seven highly secured, underground black sites scattered across a continent. Even with your teleportation, hitting all of them simultaneously requires splitting our forces incredibly thin."

"You only need to worry about your assigned target," Rudy replied calmly. He reached out, pointing his finger at the digital terrain. He highlighted two of the red dots located in the eastern sectors. "Kim, you are taking node four. Lu Bela, you will take node five. Deploy your Under Blades to nodes six and seven. I will personally handle the remaining three."

Lu Bela’s optical sensors flared with a bright, galaxy-swirling light as she instantly processed the commands.

"Under Blades units activated," Lu Bela reported. Her voice echoed softly off the dark stone walls. "Four elite strike teams are currently arming themselves in the lower armory. I am linking their visual data arrays to your direct feed, my Lord."

"Wait," Kim interrupted, glancing between the map and Rudy. "You are taking three separate black sites by yourself? How do you plan to be in three different geographical locations at the exact same time?"

A dark, amused smirk spread across Rudy’s face. The crimson mana ignited around his shoulders, humming with raw, god-tier power.

He accessed his profound Spatio-Temporal abilities, directly tapping into the concept of his Clipboard Conjuring. Instead of duplicating a weapon or an object, he turned the power inward. He copied his own absolute physical and spiritual data, pasting it seamlessly into reality.

The air next to the table violently warped. Two perfect, identical copies of Rudy stepped out of the spatial distortion. They wore the exact same tailored black suits, their dark eyes shining with the identical, lethal intent of the Overlord.

Kim let out a soft breath, shaking her head. As an elite assassin, she was used to impossible scenarios, but watching her leader casually clone his own godhood was entirely beyond conventional logic.

"Alright," Kim conceded, picking up her sleek datapad. "Three Overlords. I suppose that covers it."

The Original Rudy stepped back from the map. He engaged his telepathy, casting his voice seamlessly into the minds of Kim, Lu Bela, and the newly awakened Under Blades gathering in the courtyard below.

"We are bypassing their external defenses entirely," Rudy projected through the psychic link. "I am going to break us down on an atomic level and teleport every single strike team directly inside the subterranean core rooms. Whatever you find guarding those nodes, eradicate it immediately. Leave no survivors."

The three versions of Rudy raised their hands simultaneously. A massive surge of dark, crimson lightning fractured the air inside the war room. Three spatial rifts tore open, revealing the absolute blackness of the void acting as their highway across the continent.

Kim drew a pair of high-tech, glowing daggers from her waist. Lu Bela’s white coat flared around her sleek combat suit as she stepped up to the edge of her designated rift.

"Initiating the harvest," Rudy smiled.

One of the Rudy clones materialized deep underground, reassembling his molecular structure inside the primary containment chamber of Node One.

The subterranean black site was a massive, sterile cavern built entirely from reinforced steel and heavy mana-shielding. High-voltage cables snaked across the floor, all converging on a towering, cylindrical vault in the dead center of the room.

A dozen elite HWSD super-soldiers guarded the perimeter. They wore bulky, hyper-advanced mechanized suits designed to withstand catastrophic magical threats. The moment Rudy rendered into existence, their proximity alarms shrieked.

"Intruder in the core room!" the squad leader roared, raising a heavy plasma cannon. "Eradicate him!"

A relentless barrage of high-yield plasma bolts and armor-piercing kinetic rounds tore across the room. Rudy stood completely still, his hands resting casually in the pockets of his tailored black suit. The devastating projectiles struck him dead-on. They shattered instantly upon impact, harmlessly deflecting off his absolute invulnerability. The super-heated plasma washed over his clothes without singeing a single thread.

Rudy sighed, entirely bored by the welcoming party.

He accessed his Cryokinesis, instantly dropping the ambient temperature of the cavern to absolute zero. A blinding flash of blue frost swept across the steel floor. The heavily armored soldiers locked up mid-stride as the extreme cold instantly flash-froze their mechanized suits, snapping their internal hydraulics and rendering their weapons completely useless.

"You are in my way," Rudy stated smoothly.

He opened his mouth and exhaled a concentrated stream of white-hot, dragon-like fire. The roaring Pyrokinesis hit the frozen soldiers, the violent extreme temperature shift causing their armor and bodies to violently shatter. The flames incinerated the remaining fragments to fine ash in less than a second, clearing the room of all opposition.

Rudy casually walked through the settling ash toward the towering cylindrical vault.

He reached out and effortlessly tore the heavy steel doors off their hinges with raw super strength, tossing the massive slabs aside.

However, the chamber inside did not hold the condensed souls of twenty-two thousand heroes.

"I knew I wouldn’t be so lucky to find it on the first try."

A colossal, pulsing sphere of highly unstable, compressed mana sat on a rigged pedestal. Glowing red numbers flashed rapidly on a digital display bolted to the casing. The digital parasite had anticipated a raid. Node One was a highly sophisticated, continent-cracking trap.

Then, the timer hit zero.

"Nice." Rudy raised his head a bit and closed his eyes.

A blinding, apocalyptic light erupted from the core. The massive mana-bomb detonated, unleashing a shockwave of expanding, world-ending energy meant to vaporize the entire black site and the surrounding landscape.

Rudy’s eyes flashed with absolute supremacy. He tapped into his Spatio-Temporal abilities and forcefully grabbed the fabric of reality.

"Stop," Rudy commanded.

He brought the flow of time within the cavern to a complete, immediate halt. The catastrophic explosion froze dead in its tracks. The expanding wave of lethal energy hung perfectly suspended in the air, a beautiful, deadly star captured completely motionless just inches from Rudy’s face. The harsh lighting of the room remained locked in absolute stillness.

Rudy stepped closer to the frozen explosion. He raised his hand, accessing his Restoration ability. He aimed his focus directly at the core of the blast and reversed the temporal state of the object.

The expanding shockwave rapidly collapsed inward. The blinding light swallowed itself, pulling the volatile energy backwards until the massive mana-bomb reassembled perfectly on the pedestal. The digital timer ticked backwards from zero to a safe ten seconds, permanently locked in its dormant state by the frozen time.

Rudy placed a hand on the dormant bomb, breaking it down on an atomic level and completely erasing the threat from existence.

He stood alone in the silent, frozen cavern. The parasite’s deadliest trap had been dismantled with the casual ease of swiping a bug off a table.

Rudy tapped his earpiece, reopening the psychic link to Kim and Lu Bela. "Node One is a decoy. Check your targets and report back."