Investing In My Three Crippled Wives Get 10,000x Times Return

Chapter 306 | Attack!?

"Can you make it face you?"

Cole’s eyes flicked toward the gap, then back to Dexter. "For how long?"

"Two breaths."

Cole smiled thinly. "You got it!"

He stepped into the center lane, plasma flaring around his arm. The attack struck the wyvern across its snout, and its head jerked toward him.

"Bulwark!"

The tank drove into the creature’s leg. Gridlock raised a barrier behind its other foot, obstructing the movement as it tried to turn.

Bullet Spear Man struck the wing joint, and Blitz flashed past its eyes.

"Rooooooar!!!"

The wyvern roared and Dexter moved as lightning flickered around his boots as he crossed the broken street, stepped onto a fallen block of stone, and launched himself beneath the raised wing.

His saber entered the exposed gap, and he twisted and drove through. A brilliant line appeared across the creature’s body.

The wyvern froze, then burst into thousands of fragments. Light scattered over the entire street as the remaining smaller creatures dissolved.

"Ding!"

[SIMULATION COMPLETE]

[All Hostile Targets Eliminated]

[Extraction Route Secured]

[Three Injured-Party Markers Preserved]

For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Blitz fell backward onto a low wall. "I have decided," he announced, "that I dislike flying reptiles."

Bulwark looked at him. "You said that after the second wave."

"My position has strengthened."

Cole laughed, and Dexter lowered his saber and looked around at the others.

They were breathing hard, sweating, more tired than any of them would have admitted when they entered.

But the difference between their first attempt and the last was impossible to miss. They had begun by competing with one another’s instincts. By the end, those instincts had started working together.

Dexter glanced at the place where the wyvern had disappeared. No system notification followed.

Of course not—light and formation energy did not count as a living enemy. The two kills he needed would have to wait.

They remained in the arena long enough to review their performance. Cole replayed the final exchange, Gridlock identified a point where he had wasted mana protecting empty space, Dexter acknowledged that he had moved too early during one of the flank changes, and Bullet Spear Man admitted, with visible reluctance, that his first attack on the larger wyvern’s wing had been poorly angled.

Blitz claimed his only mistake had been arriving without a meal, and that complaint eventually became persuasive.

By the time they returned the training equipment, everyone was hungry.

"There’s a restaurant near the rest courtyard," Cole said. "Still inside the facility. The food is decent."

Dexter checked the time. He had enough room for a meal before heading home, so he sent a short message to his wives: ’Training is finished. Eating with the team, then coming home.’

Lyra replied almost immediately. ’Is the food better than yours?’

Dexter smiled. ’I haven’t tasted it yet.’

’I don’t think it would be’

He shook his head and put the phone away.

The restaurant stood beside a broad courtyard within the Titan complex.

Glass doors faced an open seating area beneath a row of shade trees, and heroes occupied most of the tables, some still wearing training equipment.

The Facility staff moved between buildings with tablets and supply carts, and a group of younger trainees sat near the fountain, arguing over the results of their own session. Everything looked ordinary and busy.

They chose a long table near the windows. Bulwark sat first, and the chair creaked. He looked down at it with faint suspicion, and Blitz immediately moved his own chair a little farther away. Dexter sat between Cole and Gridlock, while Bullet Spear Man rested his weapon against the wall where he could reach it.

A server came to take their orders. Bulwark ordered enough food to make the young man check whether he had misheard.

"Yes," the tank said.

"All of those?"

"Yes."

Blitz leaned toward the server. "He’s feeding a building."

Bulwark ignored him.

The food arrived gradually. Dexter tasted the broth first. It was perfectly respectable—a little heavy on salt, and the meat could have been cooked longer at a lower temperature. He was examining the texture when Cole noticed his expression.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You’re evaluating it."

Gridlock lifted his bowl. "He is evaluating it."

Blitz pointed his spoon at Dexter. "Next time, you cook."

Dexter looked at him. "You haven’t even tasted my food."

"We’ve seen the way you look at this one. Either you’re very good, or very bad."

"Both are possible," Gridlock said.

Dexter laughed and the conversation drifted back to the training—who should handle scouting, how much range they could maintain without losing mutual support, whether they needed to purchase shared equipment before accepting a gate mission.

"Whoooom!"

The sunlight disappeared.

He looked up, thinking at first that a cloud had crossed the sun.

But the change was too sudden. The bright courtyard outside darkened as though someone had lowered a curtain over it.

The fountain lights flickered on automatically, and a server stopped beside their table and looked toward the windows. Across the restaurant, conversations faltered.

"What happened to the sky?" someone asked.

Dexter slowly put down his spoon. Outside, darkness spread from one end of the facility to the other, flowing above the buildings in thick, overlapping waves.

Within seconds, the blue sky had vanished.

Chairs scraped across the floor as people stood. The courtyard filled with upturned faces. A broad dome of shadow had enclosed the entire Titan Training Center, its surface uneven and rippling with currents that moved against one another like black water.

The late-afternoon sun was gone, and so was the view of the city beyond the compound. Even the towers outside the facility walls had disappeared behind the darkness.

Cole rose. "Stay together."

Dexter was already on his feet. His first thought was his wives.

His second was the barrier. He took out his phone, but the message he sent did not deliver—the signal icon had disappeared. Around the restaurant, other people were checking their devices and reaching the same conclusion.

"What is this?"

"Some kind of facility test?"

"Nobody announced a test!"

A sharp alarm sounded from the central administration building, and the loudspeakers crackled. "Attention. All visitors and registered heroes—" The announcement cut off, replaced by a distorted hiss, and then silence.

Dexter’s expression hardened. "That’s not a test."

Near the main gate, several guards had already reached the shadowy boundary. One pressed a glowing access device against it—nothing happened. Another drew his weapon and struck. Dark ripples spread across the surface, and the guard was thrown backward. He hit the ground and rolled. Shouts erupted.