northern sweep

Following the tense meeting with James, Aditya finally collapsed into a heavy, dreamless sleep at the hotel. The grueling exhaustion of the past four to five days had taken its toll, and his body desperately needed the rest.

At exactly 7:00 AM, a sharp ping broke the morning silence.

It was a notification. James had secured vital intel: the exact location of another high-ranking syndicate member. Aditya immediately checked his phone. A text from James flashed across the screen:

"Target located. Hotel Heaven. Proceed with extreme caution—he is a confirmed A-Tier threat with absolute control over Northern New York."

Aditya stared at the screen for a moment, his expression cold. He typed back a swift response:

"Ok. Stay there. I’m coming."

Before heading straight to the coordinates, Aditya made a calculated detour. He slipped into a local weapon shop and purchased a standard steel sword. He didn't want to rely solely on his supernatural abilities yet; against an A-Tier faction, saving every drop of his Flux energy for the final fight was a tactical necessity.

Moments later, Aditya arrived at the drop point. James was already waiting in the shadows, checking his equipment.

"Finally, you're here," James muttered, checking his watch. "Where were you? We're wasting time."

"I don't waste time," Aditya replied evenly, tapping the hilt of his newly purchased blade. "I had to purchase a weapon. Let's get straight to the main topic."

James gestured toward a sleek handheld monitor. "I just ran a scan using my drone. The perimeter is crawling with syndicates. There are easily 100 to 120 armed men inside."

A thin smile tugged at Aditya's lips. "Good. Then it's action time."

Aditya slipped toward the main entrance like a ghost. Two elite guards stood watch at the heavy doors. Moving with blinding speed, Aditya lunged forward, executing a silent, lethal strike on the right guard before the man could even gasp. As the left guard turned his head in shock, Aditya was already behind him, wrapping a heavy rope around his neck, choking out his breath before a single alarm could be raised.

With the threshold cleared, Aditya kicked open the doors to the main building.

Inside, the grand hall opened up to reveal a literal army. Over a hundred syndicate soldiers snapped their weapons into position, staring at the lone intruder.

Aditya blinked, surveying the crowd. "What the fuck..." he muttered.

Then, he breathed out. His focus sharpened, and a radiant, calm blue aura erupted around his body, humming with concentrated energy. He raised his hand, channeling a mere fraction of his strength.

"Water Slices," he whispered.

Crescent blades of pressurized fluid tore through the air. The attack was so fast and precise that almost twenty men were instantly cut down in a single sweep—and Aditya was only utilizing 10% of his maximum output. Before the remaining forces could panic, Aditya spun on his heel, throwing his hands outward.

"Water Cyclone!"

A raging vortex of water violently swept through the hall. Chaos erupted as bodies were tossed like ragdolls against the marble walls. Drawing his physical steel sword, Aditya moved through the remnants of the army like a tempest, weaving through gunfire without a single bullet touching his skin.

Leaving a trail of destruction behind him, Aditya smashed through the doors of the final executive suite.

Inside, an illegal meeting was taking place. Syndicate bosses sat around a mahogany table, right in the middle of a transaction to sell their first kidnapped human experiment kid. The room froze in absolute shock. Seizing the momentary confusion, Aditya raised a specialized dart gun, firing a swift sleeping injection into the child's neck.

"Step aside, kid," he muttered as the child slumped safely to the floor, out of harm's way.

At the head of the table sat the A-Tier boss of the north: Dustin.

Dustin sneered, his eyes narrowing. "Who are you?"

"I'm the one who came to destroy the NVA," Aditya stated, his voice flat, completely devoid of fear.

Dustin laughed, a booming, arrogant sound that echoed off the concrete walls. "Are you sure about that?"

But the laughter quickly died in his throat. Dustin suddenly froze as a heavy, suffocating pressure filled the room. The ambient Flux radiating from Aditya was impossibly high, turning the very air into a crushing weight.

Realizing the extreme danger, Dustin didn't hesitate for a single second. He raised his hand, and right beneath his palm, a brilliant, crimson Red Square mark flared to life.

This wasn't a standard syndicate trick. This was the mark of the 20 Elite—a legendary, incredibly rare power possessed by only twenty chosen members left within the entire global network of the NVA Syndicate. As the Red Square activated, the atmosphere in the room shattered. A strange, distorted aura wrapped around Dustin’s body, twisting the physics of the space right next to him.

Aditya’s eyes locked onto the glowing square. His tactical mind instantly registered the threat level shifting from a standard encounter to an absolute survival battle. He tightly gripped the hilt of his steel sword, bracing his feet against the floor as Dustin’s newly awakened, rare power began to tear the room apart.

Instantly, Dustin's aura flared into a toxic green color. "Zomdo Attack!" Dustin roared.

The ground shattered as massive, twisted tree roots erupted from the floorboards, rapidly growing and stretching out to absorb any organic energy in the room. Aditya didn't flinch. He unleashed a barrage of rapid Water Slices, cleaving through the monstrous, energy-absorbing trees as if they were butter.

Dustin staggered back, his face turning pale. "Impossible..."

What followed was pure, unadulterated brutality. For five continuous hours, Aditya and Dustin locked blades in a savage, animalistic fight. The sheer kinetic shockwaves of their clashing Flux tore the executive suite apart, slowly reducing the entire building to a hollow shell of concrete and steel. Outside, James watched the structure buckle and shake, feeling the terrifying, oppressive waves of two monstrous Flux signatures colliding over and over again.

Desperate and bleeding, Dustin pushed his green aura to its absolute limit. "Life Absorber!" he screamed.

It was a forbidden, catastrophic technique. The attack forced an opponent to release every single drop of their Flux, leaving them with less than a 1% chance of survival. Driven by the technique, Dustin launched forward with ten times his original power. For ten agonizing minutes, Aditya couldn't even touch him. Drained of his energy and battered by the enhanced blows, Aditya fell to his knees, hovering on the absolute brink of death.