It happened in an instant.
Karman had not even let his guard down.
And yet…
“You must pay for your crime of tarnishing this gift from Lord Rimuru.”
By the time the chilly voice reached him, Beretta, who should have been held down by the five Powered Suits, had disappeared.
“What!?”
He frantically searched the area with his sensors, but Beretta was nowhere…no, he was there.
“…!!”
There was a scream and then one of his comrades fell.
It was hard to believe this was happening.
And in the next instant, Karman had to rethink everything.
The air seemed to twist as Beretta appeared.
In front of him, another of his–
“Jogg! Behind you!!”
“–Huh?”
Karman’s scream did not reach him.
Beretta moved faster than the speed of sound itself as his thin arms pierced and shredded the Powered Suit.
Numerous tentacles pulled Jogg out, and the empty Powered Suit crumbled to the ground.
What had happened to the first man?
He now understood.
“Im-impossible…”
“What the…he got two of us in a second…”
The two others whispered to each other. Karman felt the same.
However, unlike his men, who were merely shocked, Karman was thinking of a way out of this.
(How did he move like that just now? It was as if space had moved–could it be space teleportation!?)
Moving that fast should cause shock waves.
However, no such thing had occurred.
He had moved faster than sound without affecting the atmosphere–Karman had never heard of such a thing, not even as a rumor.
So then–it couldn’t have been movement, but teleportation.
And his thinking was close to the truth.
Beretta’s Ultimate Gift, ‘Deus Ex Machina’s’ ‘Space Manipulation,’ allowed him to change his own position.
It was limited to an area that he could see, but it was the same thing as teleportation.
“What?! Sto-stop!!”
A third man was caught by Beretta now.
Karman saw this and moved.
“Damn it. Don’t underestimate me!!”
He had readied his Neutron Launcher after the second man had fallen, and he now fired it without hesitation.
It was possible that he would hit his own men, but he had decided that it was a sacrifice he was willing to make in order to take down the monster that was Beretta.
The neutron beam turned into a missile that shot towards Beretta at the speed of light.
The effect would be the transfer of an immense amount of kinetic energy as a reaction of colliding with the target, turning the target into hot plasma.
–Or it should have.
“Wh-what the… IMPOOSSSIBBLEEE!!”
A phenomenon that was so unreal was occurring before Karman’s very eyes.
The neutron beam had changed course right before hitting Beretta and disappeared into the ceiling.
In Karman’s machine-assisted vision, he could see the afterglow of the neutron beam as it reacted with the atomic nucleus in the atmosphere and turned into plasma before disappearing into the ceiling.
There was enough information to assure him that this was no observation error.
Beretta was still standing there.
However, he wasn’t idle.
Crunch, Crack, Snap–the eerie sounds erupted as the tips of Beretta’s tentacles worked to destroy the Powered Suit it had removed.
This process seemed like a display of Beretta’s fury, and Karman could not help but feel a sense of dread.
“Wha-what…did you just do?”
He could no longer stand the sight, and so he asked the question.
He didn’t even expect an answer, but it came surprisingly quickly.
“It is simple. I determined the nature of the attack and I dealt with it accordingly. I suppose it is a weapon that gathers together particles and unleashes it at a tremendous speed. A frightful thing, however…”
Said Beretta, before continuing.
It seemed simple enough to alter the angle of space and send the beam off-course.
Because as long as the particles did not react to the atomic nucleus of the target, it was not a threat.
“Yo-you are saying you understood it after the first attack? But, how are you unharmed!? I saw you get hit…”
“Unharmed? You ruined the mask that Lord Rimuru gave to me. And you say ‘unharmed’!! And not only that, but this face that should be hidden…”
Beretta looked like he was trying to control his anger.
While the hole in his stomach seemed like it should have been the bigger problem, he was more preoccupied with the mask he held in his hands.
Beretta was terribly warped and this was making it harder for Karman to think clearly.
However, just then, the last of Karman’s men who had been waiting for such an opportunity, attacked Beretta from behind.
The hands of the Powered Suits had a number of barrels on them. And now one of them unleashed a rainbow of light.
It was thermal plasma.
It came from a thermonuclear reactor and was launched as a weapon.
“I did it!!”
He screamed. And the incredible heat assaulted Beretta—and yet, not a single hair from his beautiful silver locks was burnt.
Beretta stood completely unhurt amidst the assault of the colorful plasma.
It was a mystical sight. So much so that Karman stared at him in a state of awe.
And then–
Beretta chuckled softly.
The only reason Beretta had taken damage the first time the Neutron Launcher was used, was because it was an unknown attack.