Chapter 8.5 - Holding Your Hand
After smashing his fist towards the robust black man, Su originally planned to use his pistol to kill the two machine gun users. Even though weapons like the heavy machine guns didn’t pose him any threat, Su was still worried about Madeline beside him. Surprisingly, under the tremendous shock, when everyone looked towards Su, their eyes were all filled with overwhelming shock and fear. These soldiers that had clearly had their share of slaughter not only didn’t have any intention of retaliating, they even slowly backed off, even tilting their weapons to the side or to the ground out of fear of provoking Su’s suspicions and disgust.
What was going on? Towards everyone’s reactions, Su truly was a bit shocked.
Could it be that these people clearly understood the uselessness of gunpowder weapons against high level ability users? This didn’t seem too likely. Midnight City was extremely prosperous, but its overall level of technology was still too far from Dragon City’s. The levels and number of the ability users here even more so couldn’t be compared to the Black Dragonriders. After spending an entire half day here, Su didn’t see a single fourth level ability user. Jack only had a few second level abilities, while the robust black man had three levels of power and defense. These were also the most commonly seen and ordinary ability combinations with no speed or technique to compliment them, which also meant that they were just a bit tougher. With just a few single level weapon mastery ability users using machine guns, people like them would be easily wiped out. However, this kind of fella looked like he had quite a good position in Sinking Blade, indicating that Sinking Blade didn’t have that many high level ability users. It was definitely not like Dragon City where one might encounter a few dragonriders just by walking along the main streets.
The greater the disparity in abilities, the smaller the difference between conventional and unconventional weapons’ power would become. Even a weapon like the electromagnetic rifle with its terrifying power, if placed in the hands of an ordinary person, it wouldn’t be able to threaten Su at all, let alone the fact that its tremendous recoil and inherent weight made it so that anyone without three levels of power and defense couldn’t even use it. Even in Su’s hands, when using it to deal with Claudia, it still felt extremely strenuous. If he didn’t have the panoramic view, as well as his brain’s terrifying calculation speed to support it, the electromagnetic rifle wouldn’t have even produced half the power it previously displayed.
The most convenient and fast means of communication and large amounts of information was only grasped by the hands of the few at the top of the food chain. Among the ordinary people that occupied the absolute majority, the propagation of knowledge was an extremely slow process. If they didn’t personally see it or directly experience it, Su didn’t believe that these ordinary people would have such a clear and deeply engraved fear towards high level ability users. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gotten into the habit of using killing as intimidation ever since he was in the wilderness.
Of course, even if they were low level Perception Domain ability users, they could still only rely on general knowledge and what they observed to deduce other people’s abilities. Meanwhile, high level ability users could determine other people’s level of ability through perception or energy. Su’s panoramic view could even more accurately deduced other people’s ability domains and concrete ability levels. As for the most commonly seen lower level abilities, he could even precisely determine what those abilities themselves were.
When he realized that these people who originally bore malice understood fear and thus backed off, Su didn’t plan to commit needless slaughter either. However, this strange scene made him develop a bit of interest towards Sinking Blade’s five member committee. Midnight City’s level of science and technology were ordinary, and their number of ability users were even more lacking. The city’s infrastructure and military equipment were also an entire generation behind the Black Dragonriders, but the ordinary people here were definitely not ignorant. From Jack’s description, the five membered committee’s members were all ability users with around seven levels of ability. To rule over Sinking Blade’s vast land and population equipped with indoor farms and a nuclear power plant as its core power source, this kind of military strength was far from enough.
The war philosophy of the Black Dragonriders was always abilities above all else, and that powerful elites were king. If Sinking Blade bordered the Black Dragonriders, then they wouldn’t even have to send out any generals; just a few higher ranked officers would be enough to sweep through Midnight City. For this place to have only this much military force and still not fall meant that Sinking Blade likely had some other strength in the shadows, and the rulers had enough intelligence.
Su and Madeline walked about leisurely. They continuously observed their surroundings and secretly assessed Sinking Blade’s strength. Several hours passed quietly just like that. Su already walked through most of Midnight City. When night began to fall, Su and Madeline began to head back.
The entire journey was exceptionally peaceful.
Sinking Blade didn’t trouble Su because of the death of one of their members. This was also somewhat unexpected for Su. He didn’t fear Sinking Blade’s retaliation, because from his perspective, an organization that couldn’t control their own troops and allowed them to casually provoke foreign powerful individuals without additional screening wasn’t too far off from complete destruction. As such, Su didn’t mind giving this process a little push. Even when he was still in the wilderness, he already dared to slaughter his way into Pendulum City alone to challenge Roxland. Now that his strength had increased substantially and his equipment’s level of technology was enough to suppress the other party, Su didn’t mind going to war against Sinking Blade if necessary.
Only ability users could deal with ability users; this was a famous saying among the Black Dragonriders, as well as the summary of many years of blood and flames. Precisely because of their firm belief in this saying, as well as the loose alliance of bloodline families did the Black Dragonriders develop its current unique system. When he first joined the Black Dragonriders, Su didn’t completely understand how unique and powerful it was. The life and death experiences he encountered again and again made Su gradually understand the strength of the enemies around him, but only when he fled this far and saw the Alloy Brotherhood, as well as the Sinking Blade on the other side of the uninhabited region, did Su truly understand the Black Dragonriders’ strength.
However, the more he realized how powerful the Black Dragonriders were, the more pressure Su felt. Just how powerful was the Blood Parliament above the Black Dragonriders then? What about Bevulas and Spider Empress who jointly controlled the Blood Parliament? What about Persephone who stayed behind in the Black Dragonriders? How was she doing?