Rebirth: The Shadow Of Greed

...His shoulders started to bob up and down as he started to tremble.

"You little shit, have you finally lost it? are you finally lost in despair? do you realise the futility of your situation? look up! let me have a look in your eyes as you meet your demise"

8 reached forward grabbing Z's chin as he lifted it up only to be greeted with blood-red eyes and a cold cruel smile. This shocked 8 greatly as Z's arm flashed across and a dagger sliced across 8's neck, 8 pulled his head back instantly barely avoiding it, leaving a slight cut across his throat. The shock made 8 lose his focus as he immediately let go of Z letting him land on the ground.

Z pointed the dagger downwards as he looked at 8's panicked expression and smiled. 8 immediately used a psychic blast, trying to knock Z flying, only to have it dissipate from the middle.

"What!? What are you! Why isn't this working!"

8 shouted as Z approached him slowly with his knife still in his hand. He tried to use his psychic grip to stop Z from progressing, but like the psychic blast, it dissipated into the air. 8 was in a state of shock, he would never have imagined that there was someone that could make his manifest powerless. He was 8, one of the numbers, one of the strongest and yet right here a kid was making him look like a child.

"You've never fully learnt to utilise your abilities, have you? Never fought someone with similar abilities as you?"

Z spoke, gradually raising his tone.

"Dissonance. It's the act of using one manifest to cancel the other out. You're still to green, too fresh. You have no idea how manifest works and yet here you are, number 8. Is the incubator lacking talents? Or did the previous batch all pass away suddenly letting you take over."

Z explained, as a matter of fact, when Z was fighting with 8 earlier, the minute 8 had grabbed onto Z's arm to block the icicle, was the time he signed his death warrant. Z had managed to successfully copy his ability and with his entire life-time experience of fighting fire with fire, Z was confident that he would never lose if it boiled down to a battle between manifests.

"You... How do you know about the numbers?"

8 was backing away, he was afraid, much more afraid now than he was ever before.

"I know many things, but what I don't know is why the numbers are after Odrunn, please share with me the information... You won't be around much longer to share anything else anyway."

"Hahaha, it seems like you're the winner this round, but I'd rather take my secret into my grave."

8 shouted as he bit down hard onto something. He convulsed violently for a few seconds before he died eyes wide open.

"Crap, I forgot about the poison in his teeth. Damn it, looks like I'll have to stick around Odrunn, If the numbers are dispatched to do him in, it definitely is no good news."

Z looted 8's corpse taking with him the items in his possession, a couple of nutrition bars and a pocket watch. He removed the mask and his robe as he tossed the corpse deep into the cave, keeping the mask in his satchel, he touched the soft black robe and smiled.

"What a find, such a nostalgic cloak. Weatherproof, tearproof, it really is the best cloak, I have to thank the incubator for giving me such a good present so quickly."

Z walked to the ice wall blocking the door as he blasted it away with his strength. It took him a few hits to crack the wall, but he managed to knock it away entirely. Z walked out of the cave as he started to look around, wondering where Odrunn and Soli went. He remembered that Odrunn had mentioned another cave in the vicinity of the Ox beast watering hole and decided to go there. After pacing around he managed to find the entrance of the cave and with caution, he trudged in silently.

His feet began to freeze as he couldn't move his feet away from the ground. He looked around and saw a huge fist, flying towards his face from the side. Immediately he ducked and shouted.

"Hey, guys! it's me. Check before you attack please!"

Soli instantly stopped short, her tears flowed from her eyes as she ran forward hugging Z as she planted her head into his c.h.e.s.t, sobbing. Odrunn ran up to both of them and hugged them as he lifted them both off the ground, breaking the ice that was trapping Zero's legs.

"Boss! How did you? We thought you were dead!? We wanted to go find you and help you, but you told us to run away and we didn't want to disobey your orders."

Z looked at them as he scratched his head.

"Well, it's a long story... but to put it simply, fighting with the masked guy, he had me trapped and used his manifest on me a few times, knocking me flying. After that, something in me triggered and I had awoken my manifest it's the same as the masked guy, but I reckon my manifest is at least C grade, I haven't tested it out fully yet. I took the opportunity to kill him when he was off guard, a lucky strike really."

Odrunn and Soli both started smiling from ear to ear.

"Zero! you did it! and you instantly awakened to a Tank level? that's amazing. I think the serum was still in your blood so this is a blessing in disguise! Are you okay? did you go berserk like last time? Also, why are you in his cloak, we almost thought he killed you!"

Soli asked while checking Z's body for any injury.

"I'm fine Soli, I think because it was my first kill, something deep inside me awoken but this time around, I'm fine."