Count chuckled and obliged. He knows that the main reason why the old man wanted to use him is because Abel doesn't want to put himself in danger by tracking a dangerous murderer. But the Count doesn't mind the danger.
So he gave the old man his hand. Abel cut it with the edges of the dried petals of his staff. Then he let the blood from the palm fall onto the eye with three pupils at the top of the staff.
The Count's eyes began to glow red. He too became able to see the golden footprints all over the room.
He said to Abel, "Thank you, old friend."
Abel stopped him. "Don't thank me yet. The good news is that this person is not a null, obviously. So I can track them. The bad news is that they are very strong. It feels like I am tracking ten people, not one. So this technique won't last more than 30 minutes. You have to find them in that time, or we won't be able to find them again."
Count smiled and said, "This is more than good enough. I doubt Thorin would have been able to do better than this."
Abel was pleased with the compliment, but he didn't let it cloud his judgment. He gave him one last warning. "I have done my best. The rest is up to you now. If we lose this trail, there is no coming back from it because I am exhausting everything to give this much. So you better do your best and move as fast as you can."
Count nodded and took off at his fastest speed. He grabbed Rewind by the scruff of his neck and said to the others, "Prepare a strike team to back me up. I will send updates to you every minute."
The footsteps led him down the elevator, to the first floor, and out of the building. He followed it to a small house far away in the city. So he had to rush across the city with Rewind in his grip to find the location.
Rewind was having a good time of it. The boy was howling as the wind brushed against his face. But the fun had to end when they reached their destination.
This destination was a skyscraper like any other. It had many floors and many apartments on each floor.
The footsteps showed that the target had entered one of the rooms in the building. Unfortunately, the door to the apartment was locked.
He called to update the other heroes about his current locations. Then he made the decision to break in.
He could wait to get spare keys from the caretakers of the building or wait for a specialized hero to help him gain access to the apartment. But he was running out of time. So he decided to kick the door in.
He said to Rewind, "Stand back and watch my back."
The boy nodded and stepped back. Meanwhile, he too took some steps back. Then he rushed towards the door using all his strength and speed.
The door buckled instantly. It was metal, but it was already barely hanging on after just one collision.
Count rushed at it again and broke it down with the second collision. He rushed into the apartment to see the golden footprint stop at the center of the room.
There was no one there, but the golden footsteps stopped there. It meant this was the point where the target that killed the two women had stopped existing.
He was about to look around for clues when he was greeted by a great fiery explosion. The entire apartment was flooded by fire that engulfed him and expanded to the hallway beyond the open door.
The explosion was so powerful that it engulfed Rewind too. If not for the fact that the boy was watching carefully, he would have been seriously injured. But he was ready. So he appeared on the first floor before the explosion got him.
Even so, he had gained blisters on his face because of the heat. His eyebrows had also been singed.
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A voice came out of the com in his ear. "Are you okay, kid?"
He replied, "I'm fine, Geezer."
"Then get back up here. We have to put out the fire, or we will lose too much evidence."
His body flickered, and he was back in front of the broken door. He found Count there looking into the room. The old man had a few burns on his skin, but they were already healing.
As a B-rank super with more than 10 million total destiny, some explosion is not enough to kill him. In fact, an explosion is not enough to kill a D-rank super outright.
D-rank is when firearms and grenades lost most of their effectiveness. It is not that they can't be hurt by it. They can, but the injury would be shallow, not life-threatening.
As someone who is regarded to have passed the fifth mortal coil and possess an omega ability such as his, it won't be easy to kill him. Not that an A class will be able to kill him easily either.
So the Count was not worth Rewind's concern. He looked into the room where their price should have been. What he saw made his face fall.
The apartment looked like the insides of an incinerator. It was a burning inferno. Even the heat from where he was standing was making him step away.
He said, "This doesn't look good, geezer."
Count sighed. "No, it does not. I will eat my shoe if this turns out to be a coincidence. But I am willing to bet my heart that the shape-shifter did this. He or she must have prepared the explosion to cover their tracks and maybe to kill whoever came after them."
Rewind snickered and said, "I won't take that bait, old man. Who doesn't know that you can regrow your heart? This is a bet that I will lose."
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A/N: Why would tracking Kelvin feel like tracking ten people?