Chapter 353 - 349: Escape
Ryder stood in front of the third door, which he was sure to contain the bombs according to his intuition. He opened the door softly and inserted his head to peek inside.
His eyes fell on the five people standing on the side. It didn't go according to his plan, though, since the five just happened to be looking in his direction.
The situation turned a little awkward for Ryder as he was just trying to look inside, and he was already caught in the first second itself.
He also noticed the masked man that he had fought in the previous timeline, sitting comfortably, looking at him. There was also another man standing beside the masked man. He recognized that man was the second person who was arguing with the masked man in the last timeline. They seemed to hold similar positions. The black-cloaked men were most probably the underlings.
"Are you that Dixon who is supposed to sync the bomb?" the Thirteenth King asked Ryder, confusing him as Dixon, who the old man had gone to call.
'Are they confusing me with Dixon? He was supposed to sync the bombs, that I know, but how could it be that no one knows his face here?' Ryder wondered as he tried to make sense of the situation.
He didn't know that the people who were inside this room were the higher-ups of the Dark Uprising who hadn't seen Dixon. Only the scientists had seen Dixon, and they were already lying dead on the sixth floor.
"Are you Dixon or not?" the Thirteenth King asked again.
"I am Dixon. Sorry for being late," Ryder replied as he entered the room. "I'll sync the bombs. It'll be don't in the blink of an eye," Ryder said, repeating the same words that Dixon had told him when he thought that Ryder was sent to call him down.
"Get to it," the Thirteenth King replied casually before he shifted his focus to the twelfth king and continued arguing.
The five black-robed people also ignored Ryder and continued discussing how they were going to deal with the mysterious undying hero if he appeared in the evening at the blast locations.
Ryder heard their words and understood that they really didn't know it was him and not Dixon. He wasn't sure if it was the mask he was wearing, or they had actually never seen Dixon.
'Must be the mask. They think Dixon is behind the mask,' Ryder thought as a smile appeared on his face that was hidden by the mask. That makes it easier to deal with the bombs.
He glanced at the fourteen bombs. He was so close to his target, but he didn't walk towards the bombs; instead, he turned back to look towards the Thirteenth King since he seemed to be the leader. He had a plan in his mind, and he wasn't sure if it was going to work, but he wanted to try it.
" May I ask all of you to step outside for a brief second while I sync the bombs? There might be a dangerous electromagnetic wave leak when I'm syncing. I'm wearing safety measures to protect against that when it happens, but you don't. It's not safe for you," he told the two Kings very respectfully.
"Hmm? That wasn't something we were told before. That idiot Senia! How dare he not tell me this," The Thirteenth King let out in annoyance as he stood up.
"Where is Senia?" The Twelfth King asked Ryder as he also stood up.
'Who is this Senia?' Ryder wondered. He didn't know anything about any person like that, but he knew that he did need to answer something. The only thing he was sure of was that Senia was not in this room. Could he be the person he killed on this floor or someone he killed on higher floors? He wondered.
" He went upstairs to check the room," Ryder replied vaguely.
"Which room?" the Twelfth King asked suspiciously.
"I don't know. I met him on the stairs when I was coming down. He just said that he was going upstairs to check the room," Ryder replied calmly.
"Upstairs, huh? Fine. We'll wait outside. You prepare everything here," the Twelfth King said, walking towards the door.
"I'm in charge here. Stop interfering!" The Thirteenth King scolded the Twelfth King before he shifted his focus to Ryder and repeated the words of the Twelfth King. "We'll wait outside. You prepare everything here."
He also left the room, followed behind by the five subordinates.
All of them stood outside the room, leaving only Ryder inside the room.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Ryder walked towards the fourteen bombs.
"So you are the things that created so much trouble. You're coming with me," Ryder muttered as he opened the inventory and kept the fourteen bombs in his inventory. Now he held fifteen bombs in his inventory since he had kept the fourteen bombs in the previous timeline.
There was one problem though. The fourteenth bomb from the previous timeline was already synced with other Thirteen bombs. As he kept the fourteenth bomb in his inventory last time, the sync was broken, and the Thirteen bombs went off. The fourteenth bomb, however, didn't because it was paused in time inside his inventory.
As soon as he brought it out, it would be searching for the other bombs and not finding them; the bomb would blast in a few minutes. At most, it would take the same time as it took for the other bombs to blast in the previous timeline.
After keeping the bombs in his inventory, he turned back to leave.
Taking a deep breath and calming his heart, he walked towards the door. He didn't want to fight now that he didn't need to. Even after getting the Protection of Aria, he was not confident in killing the masked man since he only has one minute of protection of Aria.
While he had only one minute of invincibility, the masked man was really strong. From what Ryder had heard last time, that guy wasn't even using all his abilities last time because he didn't want to be seen as weak against a kid. Ryder still didn't know what those abilities were.
On the rare chance that he killed the masked man, there was still the second person who seemed to be in the same position as the masked man. That was going to be two formidable enemies, not even counting the five black-robed men that were going to join the fight.
Sixty seconds were definitely not enough for him, and he knew that.
Ryder decided to leave for now but do something else instead. He had already planned two steps ahead to make sure that he would be ahead of them for the second time.
He had already finished the preparation ahead of time. All he needed to do now was escape.
Releasing a mouthful of breath, he opened the door and stepped out.
"It's done," he told the people who were waiting outside.
"Good. Go and call Senia. We'll go after he checks things and assures us that everything is ready," the Thirteenth King told Ryder.
A smirk formed on Ryder's face as he heard the man's words. He needed a path to leave, and what better way but to go upstairs and leaving the same way he came. It was as if the Two Kings were telling him to escape themselves.
He nodded his head before he walked towards the stairs.
The Thirteenth King opened the door and entered the room to sit down, but his eyes fell on the location where the bombs were lying previously.
The entire place was empty. There was nothing there at all.
"The bombs? That bastard!" he thundered as he stepped out of the room.
"That bastard stole the bombs somehow! You check downstairs, and I'll see upstairs!" he informed the Twelfth King before he ran in the direction of the stairs.
The stairs were going in a circle, leaving a spot one-meter diameter in the center from which the top floor could be seen.
The Thirteenth King jumped to that spot and landed on the ground floor, leaving a deep crater on the concrete floor.
He raised his left leg a few centimeters above the ground and tapped his feet on the ground. Even though his foot tapped on the ground lightly, it was enough to create another crater. The force propelled his body upwards like lightning.
The man went from one floor to another in the blink of an eye. Soon, he reached the Seventeenth Floor. He caught the railing of the stairs and landed on the stairs.
He could see that the door to the roof was open.
Stepping on the roof, he found Ryder running towards the edge of the roof.
" Run, little guy. Let me see where you can run to now," the man laughed out loud as he looked at Ryder running like a thief he was.
Ryder heard the voice of the Thirteenth King and stopped at the edge of the roof