I Evolve 10,000 Times Faster

The living room went quiet when Holden stepped out of his bedroom.

He looked exactly the same as he was two hours ago. But something about him had changed, something all four of them could feel even without knowing what they were sensing.

Lyra was the first to react. Her breath caught as her eyes widened, and she took an involuntary step backward. It wasn’t fear exactly. Her body had simply recognized something her mind hadn’t caught up with yet. The person standing in front of her might have looked like the same Holden, but the pressure coming off him was completely different.

Emric’s glasses fogged over. He took them off, wiped them with his shirt, put them back on, and stared at Holden again. His mouth opened, but for several seconds, nothing came out.

Renna simply pointed at him. "Holden. Holden, something is... you feel... what did you do?"

Maeve set her tablet down without saying a word. She studied her brother with those observant eyes, and then a slow smile spread across her face.

Holden let them feel it for exactly three seconds.

The raw pressure of a Rank 3 aura filled the room, pressing against their senses. It wasn’t aggressive or threatening, but it was impossible to ignore. Every instinct in their bodies was telling them that Holden had crossed a line he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near.

Then he pulled the Void Mantle over his shoulders.

The pressure vanished.

In an instant, the overwhelming presence folded in on itself, disappearing behind the legendary artifact until all that remained was the familiar energy signature of a Rank 1 student.

"Better," Holden said, adjusting the cloak. "Now nobody gets suspicious."

"You..." Emric cleared his throat and tried again. "You broke through. To Rank 3. That’s the only explanation for the energy density I just felt, but that would require a Rank 3 catalytic gem, which are almost impossible to obtain, and the breakthrough failure rate is..."

"Emric." Holden raised a hand. "Breathe."

Emric took a breath.

"I’ll explain everything later. Right now, we’re going for a walk."

Lyra stared at him. "A walk? You just became Rank 3 and you want to go for a walk?"

"To the palace."

The room went still again.

"The Emperor just ordered our execution," Lyra said carefully. "The city is under Martial Law, the streets are full of Royal Guards, and you want to walk to the palace."

"I know."

"Why?"

"It’s not that far."

Renna raised her hand. "I have a question. Are we walking to the palace to apologize? Because that sounds like a bad idea. Are we surrendering? Also a bad idea. Or are we walking there to fight the entire Royal Guard and possibly the Emperor himself? That’s definitely the worst idea, but it also sounds exactly like something you’d do, so I’m guessing that’s the plan."

"That’s the plan."

"Great. Cool. Loved that. I just wanted to make sure we were doing the worst possible thing."

Holden moved toward the door. "The Void Mantle hides my rank from everyone. As far as the guards are concerned, I’m still a Rank 1 student wearing a fancy cloak. They’ll try to arrest us, and you three can handle the street-level soldiers. I’ll deal with anything heavier."

"And if there’s something really heavy?" Lyra asked.

Holden smiled. "There won’t be."

They stepped out of the hotel and into chaos.

The street had become a war zone. Royal Guards had barricaded both ends of the block, shock-batons drawn and faces hidden behind riot helmets. Farther down the road, more soldiers stood between them and the palace, forming a solid wall of black armor and red insignias.

A captain spotted them almost immediately.

"There they are! Vanguard students! Under the Emperor’s Martial Law decree, you are under arrest! Surrender peacefully or we will use force!"

Holden kept walking.

"Squad One, move in!"

Twelve guards rushed in from the left barricade while another eight advanced from the right, closing around them in a coordinated pincer formation. Their batons were raised as they charged across the street.

"Shield wall!" Emric shouted.

He slammed his shield into the ground as Lyra moved to his side, her spear humming with cold. Renna nocked an arrow and dropped into position behind them.

The first guard crashed into Emric’s shield and bounced backward as though he’d hit a stone wall. The 10x buff had turned Emric’s defensive technique into something almost mechanical, allowing him to absorb the impact and redirect the man’s momentum into the guard beside him.

Lyra thrust her spear over Emric’s shoulder. A burst of frost struck two guards in the chest, freezing their armor and slowing them before they could reach the formation.

"Left flank, thirty degrees!" Emric shouted.

Renna released her arrow. It struck the guard trying to circle around them, dropping him before he could reach their blind spot.

"Frost Lancer formation, advance!"

The three moved forward as one. Emric absorbed everything coming from the front while Lyra controlled the space around him, covering the gaps with walls of ice whenever anyone got too close. Renna stayed behind them, picking off stragglers and anyone who tried to circle around.

"Push through the center!" Emric ordered.

They broke through.

The guards tried to regroup, but Team Soup gave them no room to breathe. Every time one of them found an opening, Emric’s shield was already there. Every time another tried to rush past him, Lyra’s frost caught their legs, and whenever someone tried to flank the group, Renna’s arrows sent them crashing to the ground.

"This is really fun!" Renna shouted between shots. "It’s like a dance, except there’s more ice and arrows and people falling over!"

Less than two minutes later, the street was clear.

Unconscious guards lay scattered across the street, some trapped in patches of ice while others had been dropped by Renna’s shock-arrows. Team Soup stood in the middle of it all without a scratch.

Holden hadn’t lifted a finger.

He simply walked past them toward the palace.

The palace gates soon came into view.

Massive golden doors stood thirty feet tall, set into a wall of white marble surrounding the royal compound. Twelve figures waited in front of them, blocking the path.

The Emperor’s personal bodyguards.

They were enormous, each standing more than six and a half feet tall and wearing silver full-plate armor covered in Royal enchantment sigils. They were holding these massive greatswords, blades almost as tall as Renna herself, giving off a creepy blue glow.

Rank 2, 9-Star.

All twelve of them.

Their captain stepped forward, his visor raised enough to reveal a scarred face and a sneer.

"Holden Voss. The slum rat who thinks he can challenge the Crown." He drew his greatsword with a ringing scrape. "We are the Royal Aegis, the Emperor’s personal knights. We’ve been waiting for you."

The twelve knights spread out across the steps, raising their weapons until a wall of silver armor and blue light stood between Holden and the palace.

"You’re Rank 1, boy," the captain continued. "Maybe 9-Star if you’ve been hiding something, but we’re all 9-Star too. And there are twelve of us. You’re going to die on these steps, and we’ll use your corpse as a doormat."

Holden stopped about twenty feet away.

"Twelve against one," he said. "That’s not fair."

The captain grinned. "Finally, some sense. Surrender and..."

"For you."

The grin disappeared.

"What?"

Holden moved.

There was no fire, no sword, no flashy technique.

Just speed.

Gale-Step had never been meant to move like this. At Rank 2, it had been a quick burst that allowed him to cover short distances almost instantly. At Rank 3, with an Aether-Steel body and an energy pool that made his old strength look like nothing, the whole move evolved into something completely different.

Holden disappeared.

The captain saw movement in the corner of his eye and immediately swung his greatsword, but the blade cut through empty air. Holden was already behind him, moving through the formation before the knights had even realized he’d crossed the distance.

His hands moved with precise accuracy. Two fingers struck the neck of the first knight, a palm slammed into the nerve cluster beneath the skull of the second, and a sharp chop caught the pressure point behind the third knight’s ear.

Three bodies hit the ground before the first second had passed.

The remaining nine finally reacted. Greatswords swung in every direction, blue light carving through the air as the knights tried to catch the blur moving between them, but Holden was never where they expected him to be.

He slipped past one blade, ducked under another, and struck again.

Four more knights dropped.

Five seconds hadn’t even passed.

The last three turned toward him, their expressions changing as they finally realized what was happening. Whatever Holden Voss was, he was moving too fast for twelve Rank 2, 9-Star knights to even touch him.

Holden appeared in front of the captain.

The man’s expression hardened as he swung his greatsword with everything he had.

Holden caught the flat of the blade between two fingers.

The captain froze.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then Holden flicked his wrist.

The greatsword flew from the captain’s hands and clattered down the marble steps. Holden stepped forward and pressed two fingers against the man’s neck.

Thud.

The last three knights turned and ran.

Holden disappeared.

The sound of three more bodies hitting the stairs rang out.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Twelve Rank 2, 9-Star elite knights lay unconscious before him, none of them having managed to land a single hit.

Holden rolled his shoulders and looked down at the bodies.

"You guys have terrible reaction times."

He turned toward the palace doors.

The massive golden gates stood between him and the Emperor.

Holden raised his foot and kicked.

BOOM.

The doors didn’t simply open. They exploded inward, their hinges shattering as the wood splintered apart.

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