《The Crawford's Multiverse of Madness》Chapter 273 - Testing Before Cooperation
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"Do you really want to do this?" Zeel asked threateningly, the air around him growing heavier by the second.
Henry did not immediately answer, instead, he walked behind the bar counter and began to mix two drinks for Zeel and himself.
Seeing that Zeel was still looking for a fight, Henry gestured with his hands.
"Test them and then we can talk," Henry said unconcerned.
There was no need for further discussion.
*Pww*
*Pww*
*Pww*
*Pww*
Several gold-bullets were instantly shot in Zeel's direction.
Zeel knew that he was dealing with an organization knowledgeable about supernatural Beings.
Gold Essence was amongst the few things that could harm a Good-Alignment Supernatural Beings.
Zeel was not a good person, but the Laws Of The World could be considered a 'good alignment organization'.
Zeel entered a different time-zone and carefully avoided the bullets.
The next moment, he appeared next to one of the gunmen, and with a chop behind the neck, the gunman slumped down unconscious.
Zeel tilted his head to the left as a bullet flew past, and disappeared once more, but just as he was about to reach for the next gunman, he felt something slice through his shoulder.
Zeel came to an abrupt stop, staring at his shoulder, he saw a thin thread lined with gold essence that had sliced into his body.
Using this opportunity, several gunmen fired their bullets in Zeel's direction once more. Not wanting to risk running into more threads, the air distorted and formed warps around Zeel.
However, the bullets directly tore through the warps in the air and impacted Zeel's body. Luckily, Zeel altered the speed of the bullets the moment they came into contact with his skin.
What should have pierced into his body, now only felt like a slightly painful sting.
Zeel swatted away the majority of the incoming bullets, but the burns apparent on his hands showed that he did not remain unscathed.
Knowing that the threads were limiting his movements, Zeel's hands vibrated as lightning gathered in his palm.
The next moment, Zeel clapped both hands together onto the gold-essence-laced thread. Like a chain reaction, the transparent lightning traveled from one strand of thread and spread to all threads throughout the room.
The threads turned black as they fell apart completely. Zeel was free to move without hindrance once more.
Zeel warped from his position and appeared within a group of gunmen, but before he could attack, his intuition warned him of impending danger.
However, Zeel did not have time to warp away, the next moment, the bodies of the gunmen pulsed with golden-light as the vest on their bodies exploded into golden-dust.
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The explosion tossed Zeel away, but the gunmen didn't suffer any major injuries. After all, gold-essence was toxic to gods but not humans, at most, they would have difficulty breathing for a while.
The instant Zeel touched the ground, time slowed and codes flickered across his pupil. A 4th Dimensional Image of the battle was projected within Zeel's mind.
'One, Two, Three… Fifteen,' Zeel counted inside his mind, identifying every gunman still standing.
Five people only had guns, five more had exploding vests, and the last five had something hidden away that pulsed with a strange energy.
After identifying all those he needed to dispatch, time returned to normal and Zeel rolled onto his feet.
Zeel created several warps around his body to cancel out the bullets shot in his direction. He then raised both hands above his head and slammed them into the ground with all his Divine strength.
Below the floor of the building was desert sand, so Zeel's smack directly created a crater that shook the entire building.
The mini-quake shook the remaining gunmen unbalanced, Zeel disappeared from his location and the next moment, ten of the remaining fifteen men were knocked out.
Feeling that further use of his divinity would result in repercussions, Zeel refrained from creating warps or entering any time-zones.
Even if it looked like he could use his divinities freely, Zeel knew that such wasn't the case. Excessive use of his divinities would force him into a slumber, and that was only if he didn't die first.
He was only at the peak of the Divine Actualization realm, using his divinities for about ten minutes was his current limit.
Still, he was a Homo-Superior first and a God second. He didn't need his divinity at all, Zeel just wanted to stretch a muscle he didn't previously possess.
Seeing that ten of their comrades had fallen, the remaining five gunmen retrieved staffs from within their vests.
Zeel didn't feel a threat from the staff, but he didn't just dismiss them. Five daggers materialized in Zeel's hands, they were created from the nanites inside his body.
With a flick of his wrists, all daggers sped forward, faster than the speed of sound.
The Quicksliver-Xth adding an extra oomph to the Nanite-Generated-Constructs ever since it was integrated back in Herme's Dimension.
However, Zeel's intuition blared the moment the daggers left his hands. The remaining gunmen quickly placed the staffs in front of their bodies, and the staff lit up with an unknown rune.
Zeel was not familiar with the particular rune, but he knew it was Egyptian in origin. It would take him some time to decipher which rune it was exactly, but there was no need for Zeel to wait.
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The moment his daggers touched the staff, they turned around and shot at Zeel with twice the speed.
The Runes were obviously 'Reflect'.
Knowing he could not dodge, Zeel directly extended his hands as the speeding daggers liquefied mid-air and were re-absorbed into his body, once again becoming a part of the nanites.
Still, re-absorbing the daggers was like a human drinking hot coffee without pause, the action caused some minor internal burns.
Feeling that he had proven his point, Henry raised his hands and the remaining five gunmen stopped their actions, and instead, went to help their injured comrades. Nobody was dead, but some people were slightly injured.
Zeel only participated in the battle to test the strength of Henry's organization. After all, he was not willing to work with someone weak.
Luckily, the earlier battle also made Zeel realize that his current strength was not infallible.
Well-equipment, knowledgeable, humans were still an obstacle at his current strength. Given, he didn't go all out, but he could also tell that Henry didn't reveal all his cards either.
In the end, Zeel found it hard to accept the fact that he was but a weak God that required the protection of The World's Laws.
Zeel walked over to the bar and slouched onto a chair. He picked up the drink that Henry had mixed earlier and gulped it down in one go.
"Ready to discuss?" Henry asked also gulping his drink behind the counter.
Zeel nodded in response since he was indeed convinced by the strength Henry's organization showed.
Yet, something still confused Zeel, something that made him more curious than anything.
"How did you find me? How did you know what was needed to put up a fight? And how did you know I wouldn't just kill you all?" Zeel asked curiously.
Gods were fickle Beings, and it was never known if a 'good' God was truly good or not. Henry had to have some sort of guarantee before he confronted Zeel.
After all, a mortal who killed a God would not live long unless he became a God-Slayer, and Zeel was no pushover.
Still, Henry clearly didn't know that Zeel was a God since he would bring not just Gold-Essence.
Gold-essence could harm a God, but not kill them.
Henry adjusted his glasses and answered all of Zeel's inquiries with a single action.
*Bam*
A massive book was slammed onto the counter, but Henry did not have the chance to open his mouth, because lightning flickered and Zeel was already ten meters away from the book.
Zeel had no expression on his face, but the shaking of the building showed that the book irritated him to no end.
Henry expected this reaction from Zeel, so he didn't immediately answer, knowing that Zeel already knew the answer.
"A rudimentary copy of The Books Of Fates?" Zeel asked to be certain.
"Rudimentary Copy?" Henry asked in surprise, clearly unaware that what he possessed was a copy and not the real thing.
Seeing the genuine look of surprise on Henry's face, Zeel breathe a sigh of relief and sat down once more.
"Yes, it's just a copy of the real thing. That's obvious because the 'Book Of Fates' isn't a book at all…" Zeel said and then looked at Henry "Are you the one bonded to the book?"
Henry nodded as he removed an injection from his pocket and pierced it into his own leg. The veins that had begun to appear near his eyes slowly disappeared and Henry breathe a sigh of relief.
In an instant, Zeel understood the cause and effect of the matter.
"You were inflicted with a curse that ruined your life. Seeking a cure for the curse, you looked everywhere for answers. One day, you heard whisperings of a book that held all the answers in the Universe.
You searched and searched until you found the book, and got the answers you sought. But The Book Of Fates allows only one question.
And you… asked more than one question.
You probably asked for the 'cure' to your curse, but what you should have asked for was the 'treatments' to the ailments that afflict you," Zeel said, highlighting the basics of Henry's story.
Henry nodded in realization since he now had confirmation about where he messed up.
As Henry discovered after asking a question of the book, his main issue was not the curse, but the effects caused by the curse.
The curse he received simply made sure that evil would follow everywhere he ventured.
However, after a while, the effects of the curse mutated him into a Being with a split personality, one personality of which was entirely evil.
The situation forced him to do something he never should have done. The first question from The Book Of Fates was always free, but the second question costs servitude for life.
And that's how Henry became a slave to the book. Not that it was a bad position since Henry never had to do anything that went against his morals.
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