The machete connected with the drill-tipped shell.
For a split second, the blade actually bit into the metal, cutting a shallow groove.
And then the shell exploded.
"KABOOM!"
Shockwaves blasted everywhere like a boulder thrown into a still lake.
The detonation was massive, easily ten times more powerful than the grenades Jessica had used. This was military-grade shell designed to destroy armored vehicles and fortified positions. The explosion created a fireball that expanded outward in a perfect sphere, consuming everything within a twenty-meter radius.
Vogue was caught at the absolute center of the blast. His dragon wing took the brunt of the initial impact, the tough scales and bone structure resisting the heat and force for precious milliseconds. But it wasn’t enough to completely protect him.
He was sent flying backward like a cannonball fired from a gun. His body tumbled through the air completely out of control, spinning wildly as he traveled. He collided through the first car, his body punching through the driver’s side door and out the passenger side.
Then he hit a second car, this time going through the windshield and out the back window. The vehicle instantly shattered and compressed from the impact force.
Then he collided against the third car, flipping it completely over as he passed through.
Then a fourth, fifth, sixth, each one destroyed as his body carved a path of devastation through the parked vehicles lining the street.
Finally, his momentum carried him into the wall of a large building. The sign above the entrance read "Vogue Fashion Outlet".
Vogue’s body penetrated completely through the brick and concrete wall, creating a human-sized hole as he crashed into the building’s interior
The two other tank shells that had been frozen in mid-air by Time Stop were suddenly released by the explosion as they moved.
They entered through the hole he’d made and exploded inside the building.
"BOOM! BOOM!"
Two massive explosions rocked the structure, blowing out all the windows on the first floor and sending flames shooting through every opening. Smoke billowed out in thick black clouds.
Captain John’s eyes narrowed as he observed the destruction from his position in the tank’s hatch. His eyes suddenly changed, the pupils elongating vertically and turning bright yellow. Lizard eyes. He activated some kind of vision-enhancing ability and thermal imaging overlaid his normal sight.
He scanned the burning building, looking through the smoke and flames for any sign of heat signature that would indicate his target was still alive.
But the multiple explosions and resulting fires created too much thermal interference. Everything was glowing bright red and orange in his enhanced vision. He couldn’t distinguish a human body from the burning wreckage.
Captain John made a quick hand signal to his remaining troops. Three soldiers immediately broke formation and advanced toward the destroyed building. They moved in tactical formation, weapons raised, covering each other as they approached the smoke-filled entrance.
They entered the building cautiously, disappearing into the black smoke that poured from every opening.
Three seconds later, three heads rolled out of the building’s entrance and came to rest on the street outside. The bodies followed a moment later, collapsing in the doorway with their necks ending in ragged, torn stumps.
Captain John’s face turned serious for the first time. His stoic expression cracked, replaced by genuine wariness and tactical assessment. This target was far more dangerous than he’d anticipated. He made another hand signal.
Immediately, the three tanks rotated their turrets and fired once more, all aiming at the same building where the target had disappeared.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
But in that exact moment, seven identical figures burst from the smoke in different locations. They emerged from windows, from the destroyed entrance, from holes in the walls, spreading out in a coordinated pattern.
The tank shells passed between them, missing every target by mere inches, and exploded harmlessly against the building’s rear wall.
Those seven identical figures blurred into seven shadows as they activated Big Dipper Step simultaneously, moving away from the blast radius of the explosions. Their enhanced speed made them nearly impossible to track with the naked eye.
Their blades glowed from friction as they moved.
"Ratatatatata!"
The soldiers were experienced professionals with high reaction speeds and excellent training. They didn’t panic at the sight of seven enemies appearing from nowhere.
Vogue and his clones had barely emerged from the smoke, traveled perhaps five meters, when the soldiers immediately opened fire with their rifles. Their aim was incredible, compensating for the targets’ enhanced speed and predicting their movement patterns.
Bullets filled the air in a coordinated crossfire pattern designed to catch the targets no matter which direction they dodged.
Vogue and his six clones responded by bringing their blades up in defensive positions. They moved their weapons with incredible precision, using the flat of the blade to deflect bullets, the edge to slice incoming rounds in half mid-flight, and their enhanced reflexes to dodge shots aimed at non-vital areas.
Some of the clones didn’t even bother to dodge bullets aimed at their torsos or limbs, only blocking when rounds were aimed directly at their heads. They knew their regeneration would handle body shots, but head damage was still uncertain.
Three of the clones suddenly activated Dragon Might and Dragon Form simultaneously as they reached the edges of the soldier formation. Their bodies transformed mid-sprint, silver scales erupting across their right sides, wings bursting from their backs, horns growing from their heads.
Their speed tripled instantly.
"Whoosh!"
Blood splattered through the air in arterial sprays as the two enhanced clones ripped through the soldiers with their blades. One clone’s machete took off three heads in a single horizontal slash. Another clone drove its blade through a soldier’s chest and then spun, using the impaled body as a weapon to batter two more soldiers aside.
In half a second, six soldiers had died, their bodies falling apart in pieces.
"What kind of freak is this guy!" one of the remaining soldiers roared as he poured bullets toward Vogue’s position with intense focus. Sweat dripped down his face despite the cool morning air.
Vogue’s other clones immediately activated Dragon Might and Dragon Form as well, their transformations synchronized perfectly. All seven versions of Vogue were now operating at enhanced power levels.
Captain John’s face was grim as he raised his right hand and pointed it directly at one of Vogue’s clones attacking from the left side.
"Bang!"
The entire right side of that clone’s body suddenly shattered and ruptured like an invisible grenade had detonated inside its torso. Flesh exploded outward, bones fragmented into shards, organs burst and sprayed across the pavement.
The clone’s upper body remained connected to its lower body by just a thin chunk of skin and muscle on the left side. It collapsed immediately, regeneration struggling to repair such catastrophic damage.
"Telekinesis?" Vogue’s face changed dramatically as he recognized the ability.
Captain John had a mental-based talent that allowed him to manipulate physical objects with his mind. And judging by the power of that attack, he could generate incredible kinetic force. Enough to crush a human body from the inside out.
Vogue’s remaining clones immediately pushed their transformations even further. Their speed increased exponentially as they turned into living projectiles and slammed directly at the three tanks with devastating force.
Each clone positioned itself against one of the armored vehicles, pressing their bodies against the metal hull. Their eyes glowed with determination.
"Erupt!" Vogue’s roar rang through the entire street.
Four massive explosions detonated simultaneously. The three clones attached to the tanks activated Self Explosion, and the one that had been nearly destroyed by John’s telekinesis also detonated itself rather than waste time regenerating.
"KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM!"
The combined force of four exploding dragon-enhanced clones created a shockwave that blasted outward in all directions. Windows shattered for three blocks in every direction. Cars were flipped end over end. The asphalt cracked and buckled from the pressure.
The shockwave caught Vogue himself, even though he was the one who had triggered it. He was blasted backward by the force of his own technique. But he used the momentum intentionally, flipping backward through the air in a controlled motion.
As he spun, he severed six more fingers. The fingers flew off in various directions, already beginning their transformation into new clones even before they hit the ground.
Vogue himself landed twenty meters away on the side of the Vogue Fashion building. His fingers dug into the brick wall, claws extending from his dragon-transformed hand. He hung there on the vertical surface using nothing but his finger strength and nothing else, his body parallel to the ground far below.
With squinted eyes, he glanced at the center of the explosion. As the wind carried away the thick smoke, his gaze hardened when he saw the results.
Of the three tanks, only two had exploded completely. They were nothing but twisted metal and burning wreckage, completely destroyed. But the one which Captain John had been standing in hadn’t exploded at all.