BOOM!
Luke appeared hundreds of meters away with Shambles, but the exact moment his body materialized, a blue lightning bolt struck him.
Elliot had predicted his location after Luke had dodged so many times with Shambles. Although he didn’t have clairvoyance, he had great battle sense and experience.
Luke barely managed to raise a telekinetic shield before the impact hit him.
The shield lasted only a few seconds before shattering. Luckily, the lightning’s lethal force had dissipated, but the impact sent him flying backward, hurling through the air like a projectile.
His body spun violently before crashing into the ground, rolling several meters before coming to a stop.
A sharp pain spread through his back and arms. Scrapes, cuts, and bruises covered his body. Nothing serious yet, but the fatigue was building up.
‘His speed is a problem,’ Luke thought as he got to his feet, breathing erratically.
Even when using his clairvoyance and Shambles, he always dodged at the last second and barely had time to counterattack.
Moreover, the power of Elliot’s lightning was overwhelming. However, Luke had faced enemies with lethal and powerful attacks before, yet he could always predict their strikes and evade them.
Elliot kept up his relentless attacks, not stopping for even a second. They were getting farther and farther from the forest.
One out of every five attacks, Elliot managed to predict where Luke would teleport with Shambles and landed a hit, sending him flying several meters. But Luke gradually adapted, preparing to create a telekinetic dome, which significantly reduced the damage he took.
Another electrified strike came his way. Luke disappeared with Shambles before it could hit him, but Elliot was already on the move.
As Luke reappeared in a different position, he was ready for Elliot’s long-range attack, but his vision of the future made him frown.
This time, Elliot wasn’t going to attack from a distance. He was coming straight at him for close combat.
‘Shit!’ Luke cursed, knowing that a telekinetic shield alone wouldn’t be enough against Elliot’s fist.
He quickly raised the strongest telekinetic shield he could and also ripped two trees from the ground, placing them in front of him as additional barriers.
Elliot crashed into the first tree, his electrified fist piercing through it like paper. The wood exploded into splinters, but his punch didn’t stop.
The second tree met the same fate. Its thick bark was effortlessly torn apart, and the speed of Elliot’s electrified fist didn’t even slow down.
Then, it struck Luke’s barrier.
The force of the impact made the telekinetic shield vibrate like glass about to shatter. Luke gritted his teeth, struggling to hold it up.
But it only lasted a few seconds.
The shield shattered, and Elliot’s fist was now heading straight for Luke’s chest.
Luke’s eyes widened. He knew that if that electricity-coated fist hit him, he was dead. His body, though enhanced, wasn’t nearly as powerful as two trees and a ten-ton telekinetic barrier.
The moment the shield collapsed, he used his telekinesis on himself.
He didn’t try to push Elliot away because he knew that wouldn’t work. Instead, he channeled all his strength into a telekinetic burst to propel himself backward.
Luke catapulted himself away just as Elliot’s lightning-charged fist struck the space where his chest had been.
But he didn’t escape unscathed.
Even with his instant reaction, the crackling lightning from the punch grazed him, surging across his side and shoulder like burning whips.
A fierce pain shot through him. He felt his muscles spasm and his left arm go numb, but he had no time to assess the damage—Elliot’s strike, combined with his own momentum, had sent him flying at incredible speed.
Luke finally left the forest, soaring through the night sky toward Sunnyvale.
As he hurtled through the air, he saw Elliot transform into living lightning and start chasing after him.
‘Tsch, bastard,’ Luke thought, annoyed at being the only one getting beaten to a pulp.
He raised his hand, bringing his index and middle fingers together, condensing telekinetic waves to a critical point, gathering energy as fast as he could.
Then, he fired the orb straight at Elliot.
At the same time, he issued a mental command: ‘Stay still.’
For less than a second, Elliot halted. But he was already prepared to dodge the attack.
Luke had tried this before, and with his absurd speed, Elliot had evaded it effortlessly.
But Luke wasn’t an idiot—he wouldn’t waste energy on an attack that was doomed to fail.
The instant Elliot dodged the orb, Luke activated Shambles.
The telekinetic orb blinked out of place, swapping with a tiny grain of dirt—now floating just millimeters from Elliot.
‘Too close,’ Elliot thought, realizing there was no way to dodge this time.
BOOOOM!
The telekinetic sphere struck Elliot head-on, detonating against his lightning shield in a brutal explosion.
Blue sparks erupted in all directions as telekinetic pressure and electric energy clashed, shaking the air like thunder.
Luke smiled in satisfaction—but then he crashed into the asphalt.
The only thing he could do was create a circular barrier around himself to avoid breaking his bones upon landing.
The concrete shattered from the sheer speed of his descent and the force of his telekinetic shield, forming a massive crater in the streets of Sunnyvale.
Luke coughed up blood as he stood up. The landing had been a success—he hadn’t suffered damage from that. What had hurt him were Elliot’s lightning strikes, which managed to reach him after shattering his previous telekinetic barrier.
Luke glanced around. Car alarms blared, building lights flickered, and murmurs began to rise as people approached the crash site.
Sunnyvale wasn’t deserted. Even though it was nighttime, the football game had ended not long ago. Many people had gone to bars or restaurants to eat.
Now, the fight didn’t just involve them. The battle had reached the city.
The first to arrive at the street where Luke stood was Elliot, landing with a powerful crash just a few meters away.
His appearance was no longer as pristine as before. His hair was disheveled, his clothes were singed from the explosion, and a thin trail of blood ran near his mouth and nose.
“Now I see why my sons and Atlas had no chance against you,” Elliot said, speaking for the first time as he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
Luke’s expression darkened. His telekinetic orb hadn’t done as much damage as he had hoped—though that was partly because he hadn’t been able to condense enough telekinetic waves, having to do it so quickly.
‘Now he talks?’ Luke thought, raising an eyebrow. Either way, he welcomed the chance to catch his breath.
“They should’ve waited patiently until I graduated from Nevermore… Maybe your sons would still be alive,” Luke said with a mocking smile.
Elliot’s expression remained the same. Blank. Unchanged.
“My sons… died because they were weaker than you. There’s nothing that can be done about it,” Elliot remarked as if he were casually discussing the weather with a friend—and not with the murderer of his children and wife.
Luke was taken aback by Elliot’s monotony and coldness. Did he really care so little about his own children?
If Luke were standing before the killer of someone he cared about, he wouldn’t be able to control his rage and thirst for vengeance. Just thinking about someone seriously harming Wednesday would make him furious—he couldn’t even begin to imagine what he’d feel if it were murder.
It was true that Elliot had been one of the main culprits behind his parents’ deaths, but Luke had never met them, so he felt no personal hatred toward Elliot.
Besides, he had learned that his parents had been rather indifferent to his fate, leaving his survival entirely up to chance.
“Why didn’t they just let me continue my studies in peace? Like with my father. Is there some prophecy about how powerful I’ll become and how I’ll destroy you all?” Luke asked, trying his luck with a slightly arrogant smile.
“There actually is,” Elliot responded as if it were nothing.
“Seriously?” Luke murmured, confused by how freely Elliot was sharing information.
Maybe he believed his victory was set in stone—that he would kill Luke tonight, no matter what.
Luke had already theorized that the Spellmans possessed some prophecy about him, which was why they had targeted him since his first year at Nevermore, aiming to kill him.
Just as Luke was about to say something, he fell silent. For the first time, Elliot frowned, his eyes gleaming with disdain.
“Normies…” Elliot muttered, palpable disgust in his voice as he noticed normies arriving, drawn by the loud crash from Luke’s landing.
The murmurs among the normies grew louder as they took in the bizarre scene—a teenager standing in the middle of a crater in the street, facing off against an adult just a few meters away.
“What happened here?”
“Is that kid okay?”
“He doesn’t look like it. He seems pretty banged up,” a normie remarked, noticing Luke’s torn clothes and minor injuries—bruises, shallow cuts, and small burns from the lightning that had struck him.
“Do you know why the world is screwed, Luke?” Elliot asked, raising a hand that began crackling with electricity.
The normies who saw this gawked in shock. Some pulled out their phones to record, others to call the authorities.
“Because it’s full of them,” Elliot answered before Luke could say anything. A thunderclap echoed across the sky.
“Normies pollute the planet. They deplete its resources. They kill each other in pointless wars,” his voice grew colder, “Yet, they are the ones who rule.”
Luke narrowed his eyes. ‘Is this the villain speech?’ he wondered.
“They’re fragile. Ridiculously weak. They weren’t meant to rule this world. And yet, so many outcasts still want to coexist with them… like your family, who only held back my family’s plans,” Elliot added icily, turning his head toward the crowd, looking at them as if they were cattle.
Elliot raised his hand, and the lightning crackled, growing into a blinding glow. Then, he fired.
A bolt of blue lightning shot from his palm, heading straight for the terrified crowd.
Chaos erupted.
People screamed. Some ran, others stumbled, and the most unfortunate… didn’t even react in time.
Those caught by the lightning were killed instantly. Five bodies collapsed to the ground, their skin charred in an instant. The stench of burnt flesh filled the air.
‘This psychopath!’ Luke thought.
But Elliot wasn’t done. His expression remained stoic.
“Let’s make this more interesting,” he murmured as he raised his hand again, a new bolt of lightning forming in his palm.
He hurled it at another group of victims, but this time, the lightning moved slower. The electricity crackled calmly, as if giving its victims a chance to see their imminent death.
The normies instinctively turned at the feeling of danger behind them. Seeing the lightning coming their way, they ran even harder.
A mother carrying her daughter was the last in the group—the first who would be incinerated.
Just as the lightning was about to strike, Luke acted.
“Shambles,” he murmured.
In an instant, the ten people vanished. They reappeared a block away from Elliot.
“What happened?” one of the normies muttered in confusion.
“Are we safe from that psycho?”
“Since when can humans shoot lightning from their hands?!”
Elliot blinked in surprise as he saw the normies disappear from his sight, then turned to Luke.
“Well, well… I wasn’t expecting that,” he said.
“What did you expect?” Luke asked with a scowl.
“From what I’ve heard, you’re a cold-blooded killer. The state you left my sons in made that pretty clear,” Elliot said, tilting his head in confusion.
“Yeah, but only my enemies. Not weak, innocent people,” Luke replied.
“Oh… so you have principles,” Elliot said, a faint, cold smile forming on his face.
“I’m not a psychopath like you,” Luke murmured.
“Funny coming from you,” Elliot said, shaking his head.
His eyes swept over the destruction around them—the smoldering bodies, the people running like desperate ants.
“Let’s see if you can protect all these innocent, weak normies.”
Electric sparks danced between his fingers.
Luke didn’t respond. He simply made a throwing motion toward his enemy.
Elliot was puzzled—until he saw a telekinetic orb spinning with overwhelming force, hurtling toward him.
‘What the hell…?’ he thought, stepping back.
While Elliot had been reveling in his sadism, Luke had been working in silence, creating a telekinetic orb.
It had grown and grown, the telekinetic waves compressed to a critical level—a mass of pure, accumulated pressure.
Elliot hadn’t noticed.
That’s because Luke had used the opportunity to slip into his mind when they made eye contact. Subtly, he had altered his senses, inserting a simple yet effective illusion—making Elliot unable to see the orb.
“Let’s see if you have time for that,” Luke said with a faint smile as the orb closed in at a dangerously high speed.
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