Sensing powerful magic, Tatsuya spun around.
His job here was done. The third parasite was almost completely sealed away. More importantly, he needed to be on guard against the last remaining and most formidable parasite.
The fourth parasite’s magic wasn’t aimed at him. For some reason, the parasite threw his tomahawk into the airplane wall. It pierced clean through and vanished into the night sky.
Tatsuya wondered what the fourth parasite was trying to do, but he didn’t have time to track the tomahawk with Elemental Sight. Instead, he drew his combat knife just as the fourth parasite charged at him.
Tatsuya’s Elemental Sight revealed his opponent to be none other than Alexander Arcturus, the commander of Stars Team 3. Unlike Lina and Minoru, Tatsuya couldn’t disguise his information bodies. He simply intercepted Arcturus’s knife strike with a chop of the hand.
In addition to the CAD in his holster, Tatsuya’s Freed Suit was equipped with a fully thought-operated CAD. He cast Dismantle at hyper-close range and turned Arcturus’s knife into sand. Just then, an ordinary soldier came at him from behind.
Tatsuya pivoted, swapping positions with the soldier and shoving him toward Arcturus. The commander caught the soldier, and Tatsuya used the momentum to unleash a piercing shock wave at the soldier’s back. His technique was a mere imitation of a martial arts move enhanced with magic. Power-wise, however, they were exactly the same.
Arcturus’s towering six-foot frame staggered backward. Tatsuya grabbed the collar of the regular soldier with his right hand and thrust his left hand toward Arcturus for Piercing Psion Bullet.
Arcturus felt the projectile hit his body. Tatsuya drew out a fourth needlelike dagger and aimed for Arcturus’s collarbone, but Arcturus grabbed the blade before it could hit its mark.
The Piercing Psion Bullet was working, but Arcturus had not completely lost his ability to fight. He even had the strength to gather plasma in his right hand, preparing to unleash a lightning strike with ancient magic.
The way he was casting would ensure he was electrocuted first. But maybe he was relying on his parasite’s durability.
Before Arcturus could unleash the attack, Tatsuya struck his opponent’s lower stomach once again. Arcturus lurched backward, and the sparks vanished from his right hand.
Tatsuya knocked Arcturus’s left hand aside and thrust the needlelike blade into his chest before he could fight back. After confirming the sealing spell was activated, Tatsuya opened a hole in the floor and quickly made his exit.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Something’s coming!” Mikihiko shouted urgently.
Before Leo asked what it was, he activated his five senses.
His ears caught the sound of something slicing through the air at high speed. It wasn’t as fast as a bullet or a missile, but it was still traveling over two hundred kilometers per hour. Based on speeds he had experienced before, it was faster than a baseball pitch and maybe slightly faster than a high-speed tennis serve.
Leo’s eyes recognized the dangerous object before Mikihiko could fully comprehend it. It was a spinning tomahawk. He noticed a group of soldiers jump out from the shadows, but he didn’t wait for their help.
Leo instinctively stood in the tomahawk’s path with Mikihiko at his back. This wasn’t done out of survival instinct. It was fighting instinct.
“Siegfried!” Leo roared.
He thrust both hands forward, ready to stop the tomahawk—Alexander Arcturus’s Dancing Blades—in its tracks. Using the ancient magic spell Siegfried to fortify his body, Leo seized the weapon. His body, protected by the indestructibility spell, beat Arcturus’s trump card.
Once Leo had confirmed the tomahawk had come to a complete stop in his hands, he fell back hard onto the ground. All the while, he kept a firm grip on the upper part of the handle near the tomahawk’s blade.
Meanwhile, Mikihiko had no time to pay attention to Leo. He was much too focused on sealing the parasites. And he knew Leo would protect him.
The trifecta collaboration between Tatsuya, Mikihiko, and Leo managed to successfully seal Arcturus and the three parasites during their attempt to infiltrate Zama Base.
✦ ✦ ✦
Meanwhile, a USNA Navy aircraft carrier arrived at Yokosuka Naval Base. The evening entry was part of a night flight training exercise, which had been communicated to the Japanese military in advance.
However, not all the details had been disclosed. For instance, the carrier was equipped with the latest twin-seat VTOL fighter jets. The Japanese military was unaware that these aircrafts had launched from a super-massive submarine equipped with a flight deck. They also did not know that the three twin-seat fighter jets were carrying women who were neither radar intercept officers nor ordnance officers in their back seats.
The names of the women were Charlotte Vega, Zoey Spica, and Layla Deneb. These Stars officers had become parasites right after Lina left the USNA. On the night of Monday, July 1, 2097, the three of them infiltrated the Yokosuka Naval Base.