Spatial Manipulation System

Chapter 11 -First Real Battle

Hei Yu hurriedly followed after him, but by now, the battle had already begun.

Rolling out of the car, Dave utilized his arm strength to push the door back close and, at the same time, roll a little further. He felt something swipe through the air above him as he rolled, distancing himself from the car and the creature.

Now a few feet away, he hurried to stand and his gaze fell on the front limbs of the creature. Something that had not been noticed from within the car was its astonishingly long claws.

"Must be a decent nine inches," he muttered a joke to himself.

A frown soon appeared on his face, this creature was different from all others. It wasn't rushing to attack but instead observed him as he observed it. It had no fur or rotten flesh just grey skin of pure muscle, each muscle group compact and highlighted with precise definition.

"Certainly high defense speed and a full range of motion" Dave muttered to himself. Being muscular often means strength but such definition means more than just raw strength.

As if it had seen enough, the glow in the creature's eyes brightened slightly, and it rushed forward towards Dave with speed that sent chills down his spine.

Performing another roll, Dave avoided a second slash and sent a spatial blade back at the creature before standing.

The blade shot forward, cutting through space itself as it went, but the creature leaned down slightly, barely avoiding it.

There was another short pause but this time, Dave moved first. He aches all over, and every movement felt like a chore; as time passed, he felt his breathing and heartbeat become worse and worse. . . he could not afford to delay.

Forming a large Spatial Blade in both hands, Dave swung it as he leaped into the air, intending to cut right through the creature, but the massive beast sidestepped so fluidly it seemed uncanny with it on all fours.

At this moment, a bullet arrived, hitting it from the side, but the bullet bounced right off!

However, while uninjured, the creature did seem to feel pain as reflected by the deep guttural groan it let out. It glanced briefly at Hei Yu but quickly returned its attention to Dave, dodging and avoiding his every strike and slash with utmost precision.

But Dave's movements were starting to slow; his body could no longer move as his mind commanded, and even his thoughts turned sluggish.

Suddenly, the creature stood on all fours, almost standing erect like it was always an upright beast, and delivered a kick right toward Dave's midsection.

Dave's eyes flashed red for a moment, and his body suddenly disappeared, only to reappear behind the creature with a slash at Its only leg still on the ground.

While still performing the kick, the creature sensed Dave and leaned down, placing a hand on the ground, it lifted itself up in an impeccable handstand avoiding Dave's slash but Dave disappeared again, this time appearing in front of the creature, his slash still coming forward towards it's left hand on the ground and once again the creature pushed till it was airborne.

Twisting mid-air like a cat, it was about to land on all fours when Dave arrived mid-air in front of it, his slash still going on, but this time with so little distance, his sword immediately reached the creature, leaving it no time to evade.

In an amazing acrobatics fit, it shrunk its upper body backward, but its front limbs were now on the path of Dave's spatial sword. It pulled its hands to itself even further as much as it could.

It was too late!

The sword flashed through but there was no blood.

The creature dropped from the air, landing on its hind legs like a man, its elbows tilted backward in a slant from its shoulders by both sides as it stood like a king fu martial artist.

But its long claws were gone, cut evenly by the Spatial Blade so dangerously close to its fingers.

The creature squinted as it watched Dave's body fall to the ground like a tossed doll, he rolled a few meters towards it but stopped short just three feet away.

Were it not for his odd teleportation ability, the creature would have attacked but it held itself back.

Three feet was a short distance; it could cover it in just a second, but to someone who played with the fabric of space itself, even an inch was enough distance for a reaction. Somehow, the creature was intelligent enough to know that.

With calculating eyes, it watched Dave slowly stand and flash a cunning grin at it.

Its red eyes dimmed, and it suddenly dropped down to all fours again.

"You've got to be kidding me" Dave tensed, his eyes fixed on the creature with such intense fierceness that they reddened slightly.

But what he dreaded most did not happen. The creature simply turned around and walked away, leaving Dave and Hei Yu in the distance dumbfounded.

Dave stood on alert, watching it go, and as soon as he confirmed it was out of sight, he collapsed, his body twitching intensely like a fish out of water.

"Shit! He's seizing!" Hei Yu exclaimed to herself and rushed towards him. Quickly, she took a spoon from her backpack and placed it under his tongue before turning him onto his left side and holding him there.

The bunker door suddenly opened and Dave's mother from the photo in their house rushed out of it with a stretcher. Beside her were two men armed with military-grade rifles.

They carefully lifted Dave to the stretcher, and Hei Yu held him in place while he seized. Together they all rushed into the bunker.

As soon as they entered, Hei Yu noticed several figures with guns waiting by the entrance. They strained to push the metal door shut and quickly secured it before following the group deeper through a metal tunnel.

Hei Yu soon lost track of all the twists and turns they had taken. It was a solid three minutes before they arrived in an open space full of various objects resting on tables. They made their way through the large space, almost like an airplane hanger, and into a smaller room by the side of it.

"Only three people can come in with him." A young man in a surgeon's fit stopped them by the entrance, which was a reinforced glass door.

Hei Yu, Dave's mom, and another woman followed in, with Hei Yu now holding one end of the stretcher. Dave had long stopped seizing by now but they still acted with great care, transferring him cautiously from the stretcher to the bed.

The surgeon immediately reached for some metal binds but Hei Yu placed a hand on him to stop him.

"He's mutating, not turning," she said.

"What are you talking about? His eyes are the same as the beasts," the Doctor retorted, pushing her hand away and reaching for the straps again, but in fluid dexterity, Hei Yu lightly tapped his wrist, sending it away while her hand reached the straps and rested on it.

"I said he is not turning," she repeated, this time, her gaze dangerous as she glared coldly into the Doctor's eyes.

At this moment, a few figures appeared by the glass door with their guns at the ready, pointing downward, their eyes fixed on Hei Yu.

"Whoever dares point that thing at me gets a bullet through their skull before you can even think your next thought." Hei Yu only spared them a glance and soft-spoken words before returning her attention to the Doctor.

At this time, Dave's mom, whose attention was fully focused on her son, looked up to see the commotion in the room.

"Have you all gone mad? This is my son; get the f*ck out of here," she roared, and the armed men quickly dispersed, leaving the Doctor facing Hei Yu.

"Girl, are you sure he wasn't bitten?" she asked, clearly referring to Hei Yu.

"He was bitten over twenty-four hours ago. You can check the wound in his arm to confirm. If he was turning, he would have turned by now"

"She knows better; you best not restrain him," Dave's Mom instructed without even confirming Hei Yu's claim.

The Doctor hesitated.

"Tim, I said do not restrain him." The older woman's voice was low but stern this time as he eyes fixed on the Doctor. There was a certain calm to her that made her impossible to defy.

Tim, the doctor let out a small sigh. If there was anyone who could defy this woman, it was her husband. . . too bad.

"What else do you know about this mutation?" Tim asked, simultaneously taking a couple of steps backward to express his retreat.

"He needs a lot of mutant crystals to hasten it. The mutation was stable, but he absorbed a mutant crystal, which apparently is a catalyst; it sped up the mutation but at the same time destabilized his body such that the mutagens were overriding his original genes. He can only brute force through it with speed by absorbing more crystals, or we could stabilize his body and hope his original genes are dominant enough to win," Hei Yu explained in more detail than Dave had provided her with. Clearly, she had a better science base than he did.

The Doctor glanced at her in surprise but he said nothing.

"If human genes were so powerful to beat this virus, mutagen, whatever turns people into zombies, we would have more mutants than zombies. But given our estimates, mutants are among the 0.07 percent of infected that's not even a 1 in a million chance. That's certain death" Dave's Mom shook her head slightly.

She sighed and gently rose from her position beside Dave's bed.

"If he needed zombie crystals, I would have lost a son today, but mutant crystals, we have an uncountable number of." She smiled and turned to Hei Yu with a gentle gaze, but Hei Yu could sense a deep sadness within it.

"Is there no awakened among you who needs it?" Hei Yu asked with a frown. She felt it was impossible for there to not be even one awakened among them.

"Oh, we have plenty of them, but unfortunately, we learned through various unfortunate tries that absorbing too many crystals at a time can lead to contamination by the virus and, hence, have the same effect as being bitten. The optimal absorbing rate is around fifty crystals, but each person takes an indeterminate amount of time for their bodies to be rid of the virus so the time until they can consume another differs from person to person. Of course, that's for level one crystals, we don't have enough of other levels to do a test"

They talked some more as they left the room with Doctor Tim. Behind them, a few women entered after they exited and began to cautiously clean up Dave's body.

"I'm sorry, I've been a bit anxious; I never asked for your name," Dave's mother led Hei Yu to a chair in the middle of the open space.

A few square meters had been meticulously designed to resemble a living room.

"I'm Hei Yu Ma'am" Hei Yu replied with an instinctive cultural bow.

Dave's Mom smiled and gently shook her head; in this part of the world, a handshake was fine, but she appreciated the bow.

While Westerners were keen on equality or the illusion of it through a handshake, easterners, or some at least like in Hei Yu's culture, were keen on mutual humility reflected in bowing to each other.

"Can you tell me what system my son awakened? How could he teleport so freely?" she proceeded to ask.

This time, Hei Yu sank into a long period of thought because this touched on something she had developed some thoughts and ideas about since she saw Dave make a Spatial Shield back at his family home.