AnnouAuthor's Note: Hello guys, like st year, I'm pnning to take a short break over the holidays. Three uploads' worth to be specific, so one and a half week from Dec 23 to Jan 3. So my schedule will look something like this:

  Dec 18: Chapter 168

  Dec 21: Chapter 169

  Dec 25: NO CHAPTER

  Dec 28: NO CHAPTER

  Jan 01: NO CHAPTER

  Jan 04: Chapter 170

  I kly where the jammer was; I felt each living being around me for hundreds of metres with pinpoint accuracy even with my aura loose and unfocused. Still, I acted like I didn’t. It was more fun that way.

  Never in my life would I have thought there would e a day when my cept of ‘fun’ included fighting a band of deluded lunatics armed with zealous idiod guns. As, my life was as far from what it had been just a few months ago as heaven was from earth.

  A brief lull followed the loud bark of ’s gun, a deathly stillhat only the crag of the smouldering wood broke. The main gunner of the cultist force outside wielding their autoon was dead, a k of his head evaporated as he tumbled into the vehicle.

  Then all hell broke loose, and I threw myself to the ground, only vaguely paying attention to diverting the few bullets that should have struck me or . They would have ked off of my skin iually, but was just a human, and as such getting new holes poked into him retty uhy for him.

  He reacted quickly, quicker than I had with my rea speed slowed artificially to an average human level. He waited, as did I, for both the guo die down and for another cultist to foolishly saunter into our line of fire.

  I felt five cultists still lingering outside, and three of those practically threw themselves at us, or where they thought we might be to be specific. That meant we had three idiots in flowy robes flying over our heads, screaming bloody murder and shing out with various sharp objects at any bit of smoke that looked at them funny.

  One of them was dead before he could even scamper bato his feet, having tracked his flight a loose a sbolt the moment he had the man in his sight. The sed pounced on him with a curved knife of some kind and I had my gun trained ohird.

  The woman saw me, her eyes bloodshot and pupils as wide as saucers from whatever acid she was sky-high on. She pounced, a pair of daggers held in her hands, aimed to gh my shoulders and likely disable my arms.

  I could see my slow, agonisih py out in her deluded eyes before they gave way to a bowline look of shock as a thunderous crack cut through the noise of ’s battle.

  She twisted mid-flight, the power of the bullet my gun spat out spinning her around after it went through her chest, Rolling out of the way, I let her limp, dead body sm into the ground.

  I snatched up the pair of daggers without hesitation, sliding them iween my belt and pants while finished off the sed cultist on his side. That left only two cultists out on the sidewalk, one of which I could hear screeg into a radio-like gadget for reinforts while the other was busy trying to extract his fellow cultist from the way to get to the autoon fixed atop the van.

  If was suspicious before, he was dht certain something with me as he looked over to see me stand over the corpse of yet another cultist. pletely unharmed, besides my carefully kept hair now falling into utter disarray and spots of blood and grime now dirtying my snow-white garments.

  I stared back, using a little trick that came to me in the spur of the moment. When people looked at something they thought they khey had certain expectations. Like how when looked at me, he had a mental image in his mind of what he expected me to look and act like.

  So I plucked that image right out of his mind as it floated up to the surface of his sciousness. From there, it was the easiest thing in the world to act out what he was expeg to see to dampen his suspis.

  Of course, what he had primarily been expeg was me ying dead on the ground, torn to bits by a deluded cultist. So I had to resort to going with a sedary image.

  I limped, a deep gash f on my hips and my shirt now sp a tear. The expressions though, those were what I he most help with. Despite being both ah and a telepath, still knew humans much better than I did and had a much more realistic expectation for how a regur human woman would react having just emerged victorious from a life ah duel.

  Harried, haunted and terrified with a hint of bitter resolve to survive no matter what shining through, was how I would have described the woman I was showing myself to be. seemed to buy it, though he was one paranoid man and I doubted it would do much beyond dampening his suspis.

  “Two more,” he said, keeping low to the ground where the air was still mostly breathable. Thankfully, the worst of the smoke was esg through the broken windows. “Theake their vehicle and run. I’m sure the reinforts will meet us halfway.”

  I gave a jerky nod, then we crept forward and moved through the smoke. In just a few more steps, we would have left behind the obfusg safety of the cafe, making ourselves easy targets for any cultist alert enough to keep a lookout for us.

  As, I knew her of the two were all that bright, or cohesive. No one was watg the smoke.

  Still, I acted like I didn’t and moved with slow, stealthy steps as I held my gun at the ready. gave a serious nod, he himself skulking forward at a quicker pace. Likely, he had caught parts of the frantic cultist’s call for reinforts and that had lit a fire under his butt.

  Despite feeling not a hint of the Emperor’s ‘light’ in his soul — which was just above average in strength by the way — I was starting to doubt my senses. rushed forth, a power in each move that belied his age.

  Before I was even out of the smoke, he was already pointing his spistol at the cultist squatting behind the radio. I just caught the fsh in its barrel before the man’s face disied and his frantic voice id-sentenbsp;

  That had the st of the ts, the orying to pry its fellow out of the harness attached to the autoon’s mount, go absolutely rabid. He had been moving hurriedly before, ung holsters and moving his fellow cultist’s body with some care, but he lost all that.

  He grabbed a bayo from a holster at the small of his back, and started to cut through everything standiween him and the autoohey seatbelts, holsters, or his buddy’s corpse.

  I had my gun poi where his head would emerge, if he was dumb enough to actually poke his head out instead of just spraying with the heavy-duty energy eanwhile, was trying to break into the vehicle to finish the man off, his effrowing more and more frenzied as the doors refused to give way. He started bsting holes into the offending doors a few seds in, but I knew he wouldn’t be fast enough.

  The cultist’s hands csped down ooon’s grip and I practically felt his malicious glee radiate out of him. He was so very pleased with himself, I just couldn’t help but want to quash it and break his fragile hint of hope of getting out of this alive.

  Humans were so very fragile.

  A single light tug in the wrong dire, a telekiic force barely strong enough to lift a single brick. That was all it took to break the finger reag to pull the trigger in half a dozen pces, almost pulverising the fiip into a gory mess.

  The moment finally mao tear the rge side-door of the van off its hinges, an agonised howl of pain tore through the air. Theone shifted, along with the feelings emanating from the man inside. Where there was torturous pain a moment ago, the man now only felt bliss as his voice turned into a repulsive moan.

  ’s spistol spitting out a final bolt cut that short, sileng the man ond for all and sending his soul slipping into the waiting arms of his demonic patron.

  I heard some crashing sounds, another few rounds of a spistol discharging its deadly payload into something vaguely metallic before poked his head back out of the van with a frown on his face.

  “Everything’s safe in here,” he said. “For now. We o get going, do you know how to drive this thing?”

  “Maybe?” I said, making it sound like I didn’t know what setup this van was using as I hesitantly took a gnside. Meanwhile, I was browsing through the cultist’s head who was driving another van of the same kind right towards us, only a few minutes away from our current location. “Yeah. I … probably manage.”

  The windshield was busted, the whole steering wheel and all other kniacks behind it were covered in gore and there was a steaming corpse sitting on the passenger seat. Still, the van had simple enough trols, simple enough that I only mildly fried the brain of the cultist who had served as the soury sedhand driving experience.

  I gingerly ed my hands around the steering wheel as I lowered myself into the driver’s seat. The disgust came naturally as I felt ks of gore not only under my fingers, but under my butt, I didn't even have to fake a thing. With some effort, I mao hide the fact I was moments away from burning the whole van with psychic fmes for dirtying my pristine clothes.

  spent about ten seds dumping all the corpses on the sidewalk before he slid in behind the autoouop the van. He swung it about and fired, causing the other van that had just rouhe er to swerve off to the side.

  “GO!” He screamed, letting his finger off the trigger just long enough to let me hear it before he tinued on. He fired in short bursts, most of his bolts still going wide but a few smag into the van with some middling effect. They were armoured, because of course they were.

  I stepped on the gas, sending us into a … trudging crawl. Well, we were going at about 60 km/h, but my sense of speed was likely somewhat ed by this point. Being able to sprint around the circumference of a p in just a few hours did that to people.

  We sped dowreet, and I took a sharp turn to the left at the er, earning me some muffled curses from above.

  The fact that Saneshi cultists had horrendous aim became evident in just a few exges. Even as I sped dowreet, mao aim his short bursts of autoon bolts close enough to our pursuers to at least force them to evade, if he didn’t hit them ht.

  Meanwhile, the closest we’d e to being hit was a single bolt flying past our heads, about teres above. That made the chase rather rexed, though I still pushed the rickety vehicle to its limits. I was supposed to be panicked and all too eager to put as much distaween me and the crazy cultists as possible after all,

  The jammer was busted by now, and I’d almost fotten about it when the small -bead in ’s ear buzzed and I overheard a brief message.

  “We’ll be meeting with your vehicle in five minutes, Sir.”

  didn’t answer, but I could feel relief flood him as he sagged a little. While he was distracted, I reached back to the still-burning cafe with a tendril of my power and snuffed out the fmes. The three people inside were unscious and would have nasty headaches when they woke up from breathing in some smoke, but nothing perma.

  While I drove, taking a fe turns here and there to avoid either of the two vans catg up to us, I went over the state of my global cultist-culling’s progress.

  There were some casualties, but there were at least twice as many dead cultists than civilians, which I took as a win. Most of those casualties came from the capital, where these fuckers were hiding in wait by the thousands. I suspected they were getting ready for a total takeover uhe and of their precious Daemon Prince.

  Me erasing that bitch probably threw a bit of a wrento their pns.

  Half a minute before the promised five minutes, I saw a small voy of three armoured cars roll down a side street and take up protective positions around our humble van. By that point, had disabled one of the cultists’ vans, having blown its frht tyre to oblivion and pounded several deep dents into the other. Causing our lone pursuer te after us, fueled more by its driver’s need for vengeahan anything else.

  Whether he could have achieved that, we would never know. The armoured jeep pulling up behind us made sure of that, or rather, the man halfway hanging out of it with a shoulder-unched Krak rocket did.

  Where ’s new autoon only dehe armoured exterior of the cultists’ ride, the Krak rocket went through it like a hot khrough butter. O was lodged deep ihe van, its payload exploded with a thunderous boom, shattering gss windows across the street and tearing the pursuing van apart and sending its remains flying through the air as smouldering ks of scrap metal.

  The man responsible slipped bato the jeep, letting the now useless rocket uncher drop from his shoulder before smming the door shut behind him. A few seds ter, I heard ’s -bead buzz in his ear once more, airely nonplussed voice sounding out from it.

  “Pursuers handled, Sir.” The voice said, as if he was rep about the weather and not the explosive end of a group of degee cultists. Then it tinued with a hint of clear satisfa. “They won’t be b you anymore I think.”

  “Thank you, Jurgen.” said, practically melting out of his seat as his ay and nerves drained away. “Let’s get back to the safe-house now, if it hasn't been promised yet and pn our steps. Tell the Lieutenant to lead the way.”

  “Very good, Sir.” Jurgen’s voice sounded from the -bead one final time before it went silent. A few seds ter one of the vehicles pulled forward and came to drive just in front of me.

  “Follow that car, if you would.” said, though his voice made it apparent it wasn’t anything but an order. Clearly, he felt much more certain of his survival and that his words would be obeyed now that he had a few scores of battle-hardened soldiers riding with us. For now, I decided not to disprove his fwed uanding of our respective powers. I just nodded and hid a small grin.

  That Bnk riding in the jeep behind us owerful. Almost as powerful as the bed skull wielded by the Shadowkeeper had been. This is going to be iing.

  P3t1