BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

Chapter 1179: Shadows in the Steel Room



"Three," Amber said into the radio, gripping her two daggers. One blade shimmered with frost, the other had flames enveloping it.

"Two." The Chimaeric Demons tensed.

"One." Mira prepared to shapeshift.

Space warped around them. The world blurred and reformed as Amber's brain crystal power transported them into the barrier masters' room.

They appeared in a semicircle surrounding their targets.

The group glimpsed at the room before the mayhem started. It was spacious but austere- mana-powered, metal-reinforced walls surrounded them, and scattered furniture was pushed to the sides. There were six targets inside that room.

Before the group warped in, they were all channeling mana to power up the barrier.

Amber and the others acted before the barrier masters could understand what was happening. The attack was going to leave them shocked and surprised, and hopefully, this would give them another advantage.

Or at least, that was their hope-though they knew well that even the element of surprise wouldn't guarantee an easy victory against these highly trained soldiers. They were still blackguards, after all.

Barrier masters had maybe the most powerful defensive brain crystal power on the planet. This didn't allow just creating a gigantic and almost indestructible barrier, but even smaller ones.

That was something Amber and the others had to consider-these barrier masters could create shields of any size in an instant, from tiny personal barriers to massive walls of force, making them unpredictable and dangerous opponents even in close combat.

A Chimaeric Demon plunged a mana flyssa through the first barrier master's chest, as if the bone underneath the flesh and the armor covering them were just a piece of paper. Like that, the first of the targets died before he could lower his arms. Blood sprayed in an arc as the clone withdrew his blade, already pivoting toward his next target.

But their opponents weren't weak, nor stupid. They had been trained since young and knew how to react when they got a surprise attack.

Two of them reacted, energy barriers springing to life in front of them. It wasn't going to be easy for them, though. They couldn't stop pumping mana into the Law Gate barrier, meaning that the smaller ones they just created weren't going to be very strong.

Yet it would still be much better than any other defensive power they faced until that point, meaning it wouldn't make a difference for Amber and her team. They were not going to shatter them.

The Barrier Masters pulled out their brain crystal-powered swords from their sheaths.

"We're under attack!" one of the barrier masters shouted, his voice echoing off the reinforced walls.

Amber vanished and reappeared behind one, her ice dagger aiming at his spine. The man spun, a small barrier appearing behind him, the strike blocked.

His sword moved soon after, traveling through the gap the man left open to attack, but Amber had already warped to another position.

Mira engaged a third barrier master. She kept changing her body between insect and human amidst the attacks, and that to evade and attack.

When she was in her human form, she shapeshifted again, creating natural armor and deadly claws, able to rip someone to shreds easily.

Whenever the Barrier Master was going to hit her, she shrank to insect size, slipping through his guard, avoiding sword strikes, before shifting again to deliver bone-crushing blows. There were more people in that room, though. Another barrier master raised multiple layers of defensive barriers and tried to head for the alarm. If he did so, they would receive reinforcements.

There were only three ways for someone to destroy a barrier. One was to use an overwhelming amount of mana, which wasn't even Erik's case.

The second was to act before the barrier fully formed, which was exactly what the Chimaeric Demons were trying to do.

The third was to kill the barrier master, which was also Amber's and her team's goal.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

One of the clones acted. Before the barriers could form, he rushed at their creator. The barrier master slashed at him, but the clone was too fast, and his fingers reached the man's throat.

The man's eyes widened in shock as the clone's iron grip crushed his windpipe. Blood vessels burst in his eyes from the pressure. His fingernails scraped desperately against the Chimaeric Demon's forearm, leaving red welts but failing to break the skin. His legs kicked uselessly in the air, finding no purchase.

The man then raised his free hand with desperate urgency, channeling mana to form a barrier between himself and his attacker.

He hoped to create at least enough space to break free. That worked, because if the clone didn't want his arm to be severed in half, he had to avoid being hit.

In those free moments, the barrier master grabbed his blade again and thrust toward the Chimaeric Demon.

The clone avoided the strike, used his starlight fireball brain crystal power, which failed to break the shield. However, that wasn't the reason he used it for. No.

The clone understood that while the fireball attack itself would be ineffective against the barrier, it would serve another purpose: the bright flash of light from the flames would temporarily blind and disorient his opponent.

As soon as the man was unable to see, the clone ran behind him. The clone got exactly where he wanted to be. Without wasting time, he created a mana blade and plunged it into the man's

nape.

The man's face contorted in pain, his skin flushing a deep crimson. It didn't last long, because then he paled to an ashen gray.

His eyes lost focus and turned glassy. Blood drained from his face as his body shook with violent spasms. His muscles twitched and jerked as they ran out of oxygen. With a final weak

gasp, he went completely still.

"Amber!"

She was still fighting against her opponent. She was not a Chimaeric Demon, and the Barrier master in front of him was well trained. The man pressed hard, knowing that as far as experience went, he had more than the woman in front of him. He slashed and hacked, and whenever he left an open spot, he conjured mana barriers to prevent Amber's lethal attacks from reaching him.

To Amber, the man's barriers appeared with perfect timing, forcing her to constantly warp to new places if she wanted to avoid getting killed.

Whenever she had a chance, she struck with both daggers.

Ice and fire erupted from her daggers with each strike, sending waves of extreme temperature through the room. The frost blade left trails of crystalline ice while the flame dagger scorched the air, creating a mix of hot and cold currents that made it difficult for everyone to maintain their footing and breathing rhythm.

She also generated fog, which reduced the visibility of everyone inside that room. However, Mira and the Chimaeric Demons relied not only on sight to find their opponents, so they didn't have particular problems. The only ones having them were Amber and the barrier

masters.

Now two of their opponents lay dead on the ground. The numerical advantage shifted in Amber and her team's favor, and the battle turned from six against five to four against five. With fewer enemies, the Chimaeric Demons could concentrate on more enemies at the same time, meaning it was just a matter of time before they would be done here. Mira's shapeshifting abilities grew more erratic and effective as she adapted to combat. This fight marked her first real battle, where failure meant death. She refused to let that happen. Her training with the Chimaeric Demons had been intense but controlled, never fatal. Her power let her copy any creature's natural abilities she encountered, mirroring the Chimaeric Demons' replication power that Erik had carefully tried to make again.

One key limitation was her inability to enhance these forms with mana, leaving her vulnerable against opponents who could amplify their attacks through the ethereal substance, which were most of them all, albeit not the barrier masters' case. This weakness explained why

Chimaeric Demons rarely used shapeshifting in combat.

Taking on thaid characteristics forced close combat-a dangerous affair even for experienced fighters. Mira was learning this lesson the hard way, and in a lethal combat.

Yet she wasn't stupid. Even if there were demerits in the replication ability, there were also a

lot of positive aspects.

One arm stretched into a whip-like appendage while her legs changed into muscular, feline- like limbs that let her sprint at blinding speeds.

Her core took the form of some creature that could bend and twist easily. That way, she

avoided many hits without turning into a bug.

Her hands switched between deadly claws and rock-hard fists in an instant.

Though the barrier master held his ground, the fight was not easy at all. His problem was that

he struggled to predict where Mira would be from one second to the other or where to hit, given the woman's weird body. But whenever Mira got too close or landed an attack, his barrier protected him.