In front of the gym were about twelve nulls with levels ranging from five to nine. It seemed like being outside caused them to evolve a lot more.
The mass panic that was initially curbed started spreading once more. The sun would set any moment from now, so there was no time to find a new shelter, while their only available shelter was blocked by a group of nulls.
Tyrel just rolled his eyes. "Being with wimps annoys me a lot more than you can imagine," he said, making the group of boys shut up.
"Aiden, Lucas, come with us," Zayden said. "You're gonna do some fighting."
A nervous expression appeared on the face of Lucas, but there was no way he could refuse; after all, he was one of the relatively high-level people in their team.
Whereas Aiden had an expression of expectation on his face as if looking forward to the battle. When he saw the strength that Zayden and his team previously displayed, something woke up inside him, a desire, a desire to get stronger.
After all, he was a member of the student council; he was supposed to protect the rest of the student body, but now, he was the one being protected.
"Hey Tyrel, can I see your pistol for a moment?" Dare said
"Sure," Tyrel said, handing the pistol to him.
Dare held the pistol in his hand as his nanobots started covering the pistol like some kind of virus spreading into every part of the pistol, even the internal parts. The circuit pattern slowly appeared on his irises like a ring, giving him a magical feel.
The rest of the team looked at Dare with curiosity as he handed Tyrel back his pistol. Some of his nanobots separated from the rest, stretching and twisting, until they formed a replica of Tyrel's pistol.
"I've always wanted to do this," Dare said, holding the pistol in his hand while ignoring the looks that his teammates were giving him.
"Let's defeat all these nulls," Aiden said.
[Flux Coat Activated]
The oblivion flux seeped out of the palm of Zayden's hand before covering his hand, all the way to his elbow like spreading ink, forming some kind of elbow-length skin-tight glove.
The team of six charged at the nulls, whose attention was focused on the door of the gym, scraping and clawing, trying to get into the gym building. But of course, the sound of the footsteps of six people running was unable to escape their senses.
The twelve nulls slowly turned around to see six guys with hungry expressions on their faces. Zayden took on the two level nine nulls, but before they had the chance to do anything, Zayden's punch landed on the face of one of the nulls.
Since this null was pretty high levelled, it did not explode into a cloud of blood, but it was sent crashing into the metal door of the gym building, making it shake wildly, but it didn't break.
With that, Zayden turned his attention to the second null that he was facing. An uppercut was enough to send the null flying into the night sky, blood spraying out of its mouth.
Zayden jumped up, about two meters into the air, appearing in front of the null before punching it into the ground, forming a small crater. The null was not dead, but it definitely wasn't able to fight anymore.
Zayden walked up to the null that was sprawled against the door of the gym and proceeded to analyze the damage that he had caused to the null.
On the face of the null was a wound that seemed to be the corrosion of acid, showing the inner flesh and some parts of the bone of the null. But this wound was in the shape of a fist.
Zayden proceeded to study the wound for a few more seconds. He could feel residual oblivion flux on the face of the null. It was as if he had a connection with it and could control it at any point in time. And that was exactly what he did.
With a slight exertion of his will, the oblivion flux on the face of the null started spreading, as the wound became worse and worse. But there was one thing that Zayden noticed: the power of the oblivion flux on the face of the null started growing weaker and weaker, as the connection between him and the oblivion flux started waning.
Before long, the oblivion flux disappeared from the face of the null, but that wasn't until the null died.
Zayden nodded his head in understanding. What he didn't know was that underneath his clothes, the only glowing star on the constellation on his back glowed more brightly, as the path connecting it to the second star started glowing a silver color as well.
"It wasn't strong enough to handle the effects of the oblivion flux long enough," Zayden said.
The rest of the team was still fighting their nulls as Zayden walked towards the second null that he was fighting, in the small crater. With an exertion of his will, the oblivion flux on the body of the null killed it.
[Level Up]
A golden glow covered Zayden's body as he levelled up.
With nothing else to do, Zayden turned to the rest of his team, who were fighting against the nulls. Tyrel was pretty much bombarding the nulls with a lot of bullets from his energy pistol, without giving them any chance to fight back, and before long, the two nulls assigned to him were already killed off.
He walked towards Zayden as the two of them observed the rest of the team. "I don't like Lucas," Tyrel said.
Looking at Lucas, one could see him doing only the bare minimum against the nulls. That was hitting them with attacks, but not following up fast enough to kill them. It was like he could fight, but he didn't want to fight because of his fear of death.
"I can see what you mean, but we need him if we want to leave the college," Zayden said, "at least he can be useful as cannon fodder."
"Were we not planning to stay in the gym and wait for the military?" Tyrel said.
Zayden looked at him as if contemplating something before shaking his head. "I'll explain to you inside the gym."
Before long, the rest of the team was done with their nulls, and everybody headed to the locked-up gym door.
The oblivion flux in the hand of Zayden was some kind of sharp-edged dagger before silently cutting through the lock on the gym door.
With a slight creak, they opened the door to see a whole lot more students. Looking at their stance, one could see that some of them were already ready to fight, thinking that it was the nulls who found a way to get into the gym building.
Ignoring the expressions on their faces, Zayden walked into the gym building with the rest of the guys from the male dorm, walking together with him.
The fourteen boys from the male dorm mingled with the rest of the people in the gym, whereas Zayden, Tyrel, Darian, and Dare headed to a corner of the large gym hall, ignoring the looks that the rest of the people in the dorm gave them.
"I need to evolve now," Dare said, unable to hold in his excitement.
"You can go ahead, there's no need to hide it, cause everyone will have this chance sooner or later," Zayden said
Dare nodded his head and clicked yes on the system screen in front of him. A golden glow covered this body before spreading out and forming some kind of golden cocoon.
The attention of the people in the dorm was still on them, so of course, everyone was able to see what had just happened. Aiden had a look of expectation on his face as he saw that Lucas was already numb. He didn't know what to think, since he was unable to see the bigger picture, he missed his only chance to get stronger.
Zayden, Tyrel, and Darian ignored all the looks they were giving them and started discussing amongst themselves.
That was what they wanted to do until Aiden walked up to them with Lucas and three other females in tow.
"What happened to my brother?" one of the girls said in a cold tone. Zayden just turned his head to look at them, a slight look of amusement on his face.
The average levels of the group of five in front of him were six, with Aiden still being the highest ranked and the rest of them being at level six.
The girl who spoke to Dare a moment ago had peach hair held into a ponytail with the same color of eyes as Dare, hidden underneath a pair of thick rectangular glasses, looking closely enough, one could see the slight difference between her and Dare. She was Amara Solis, the secretary of the student council, at level six.
"No need to worry, he's just evolving," Tyrel said with a slight smile on his face. She sighed in relief before looking at them in confusion.
"What does that mean? Have the three of you evolved? What was your experience? How did it feel?" Amara asked
Zayden couldn't help but chuckle. This was what one could expect from the head of the newspaper club.
"No need to worry, once Dare is done, we'll have a meeting, and I'll explain everything to you guys there," Zayden said