"He... he's floating in the air like a balloon."

  "Am I seeing things? He looks like he's standing in midair — is that something a person can actually do?"

  The Rebels stared at the figure suspended in the air and broke into a cmor of shocked cries.

  Kallen, too, was visibly shaken at the sight of the man above. "You... you're a Level 5 Refining Body Ultra-capable," she called out. "You can control your own gravitational field — alter the direction gravity pulls on your body and move freely through the air."

  "Ha, you know quite a lot." Jason smiled, his hands csped behind his back, spine perfectly straight, looking down at Kallen from above. He spoke in an unhurried tone:

  "My name is Jason. The Governor has entrusted me with overseeing today's execution of the Rebel prisoners — and with capturing the assassin who attacked him a few days ago. If you obediently hand over the assassin and then surrender, I can spare your lives."

  "Hmph. That's what I should be saying." Kallen looked up at Jason floating overhead. "Release our people right now, or I'll wipe out every st one of you Sanctuary bastards."

  "Bold words for someone so young. It seems I'll have to teach you a lesson." Jason's voice turned cold. With a sharp crack of dispced air, he shot downward toward Kallen at tremendous speed.

  Kallen swung her right fist straight at Jason. He shifted his body to the side, dodging her attack with effortless ease, and nded a flying kick squarely to her face. Kallen rocked backward, stumbled several steps, and fought to keep her bance. She fired two grappling hooks from her chest uncher — they screamed toward Jason at high speed.

  Jason slid sideways several meters, clearing the hooks, and appeared behind Kallen in an instant. His legs drove hard into the back of her left knee joint. Kallen's left leg buckled immediately; she lost her bance and crashed to the ground on her left side with a heavy impact.

  "Did you really think that armor would protect you from me?" Jason hovered three or four meters above the ground, gazing down at Kallen with open contempt. Throughout the entire exchange, his hands had remained csped behind his back, his posture perfectly upright — his body had barely moved at all, except when he attacked.

  "He's incredible — even Kallen can't handle him."

  "How is he doing that? Moving at that speed without touching the ground, without even shifting his body..."

  Enemy or not, the Rebels couldn't help but gasp in astonishment at Jason's skill. Seeing Kallen take a beating, Captain Guan shouted immediately, "Stop standing there gaping — attack him! Open fire!"

  The Rebels snapped to, raised their weapons, and opened fire on Jason where he hovered. Jason shot upward at extraordinary speed, evading the hail of bullets. His ascent was so fast that within four or five seconds he had climbed to nearly a hundred meters above the ground.

  At that distance, the Rebels' bullets had little hope of reaching him, and with no wings and no way to follow him into the sky, they could only stand rooted to the spot and watch Jason hang motionless in the air above them.

  "You lowly vermin — how dare you attack me. You've clearly grown tired of living." Jason let out a cold ugh. He reached into his coat and produced two gleaming silver daggers, then continued to ascend.

  Ten seconds ter, Jason was three to four hundred meters above the ground. A sharp shriek cut the air — he flipped upside down and dove headfirst toward the earth, accelerating constantly, carving a wide arc as he hurtled down toward the Rebels below.

  Jason's speed was staggering — approaching two hundred kilometers per hour at its peak. The Rebels on the ground had no time to track where he was coming from. They felt only a violent gust of wind sweep past, followed by a series of dull thuds — and several Rebel members fell dead, their throats sshed by the bdes.

  "Die, you insects." Jason's voice was cold and ft. Moving without ever touching the ground, he wove through the crowd at terrifying speed, sshing wildly with his bdes. Rebel after Rebel was cut down.

  The Rebels raised their weapons in a panic and opened fire on him, but Jason moved too fast for the bullets to connect. Worse, he was cutting through the middle of their own crowd — the shots meant for him hit their own comrades instead, dropping them to the ground.

  Kallen and the other armored soldiers did their best to intercept Jason, but his speed was simply beyond them. And with so many of their own people in the way, they didn't dare attack with full force for fear of friendly fire. All they could do was watch helplessly as the sughter continued.

  Within a few short minutes, a huge swath of the Rebels had fallen. Around fifty or sixty had been cut by Jason's bdes or struck by stray bullets and could not get up. Under his relentless assault, the Rebels screamed in terror and fled in chaos.

  "What do we do now?" Kallen felt at a complete loss. Her armor protected her from the bdes, but it also meant she was just as powerless to stop Jason.

  "Kallen, forget about Jason — focus on rescuing the prisoners. Once they're out, we retreat immediately." Captain Guan's voice crackled urgently over the communicator from a nearby vehicle where he had taken cover.

  The words jolted Kallen back to her senses. "Understood — everyone, follow me!" She immediately drove the red humanoid armored soldier at full speed toward the ptform in the center of the square. The other twenty grey humanoid armored soldiers fell in behind her and surged toward the heart of the square.

  The remaining twenty or so purple armored soldiers on the Sanctuary's side saw the Rebel armored soldiers closing in and moved to intercept them. The two forces cshed again in fierce combat.

  Kallen poured all her fury over her fallen comrades into the Sanctuary's humanoid armored soldiers. She attacked without mercy, holding nothing back — and in under a minute, three Sanctuary humanoid armored soldiers had been destroyed at her hands.