Chapter 124: Midnight Cultivation & Midnight Hunters
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The penthouse hummed with power. Not the electricity that powered Shanghai's neon skyline below, but something older, more primal. The energy of life.
Charmcaster moved around the suite, her fingers tracing patterns in the air that left trails of purple light hanging like frozen lightning. She was placing wards. They pulsed once before settling into invisibility, but my recently growing senses could still feel them. A subtle pressure against my skin, like standing too close to a storm that hadn't broken yet.
"You know," I said, watching her work from my position near the windows, "for someone who claims to hate teamwork, you're surprisingly good at this protective barrier stuff."
She shot me a look over her shoulder, silver hair catching the city lights. "Is it really surprising? Think about it. Protective barriers keep people out, Ben. Very different from letting them in."
"Deep. Should I write that down?"
"Shut the hell up and let me concentrate." But her lips twitched, fighting a smile.
I leaned against the glass, feeling the cool surface against my back. The Omnitrix felt heavier than usual on my wrist, though I knew that was psychological. The device didn't change weight. My awareness of it did.
My eyes flicked to where Psylocke was sitting. The pill seemed to be shining from within her. Interesting how something so small can draw so much attention. Fifty million dollars, three hostile sects, and half of Shanghai's supernatural community now knows there's a kid with a weird watch wandering around their territory.
Not my smartest play, admittedly. But who the fuck cared?
The last ward snapped into place with an audible crack. Suddenly the air tasted like ozone and copper. Charmcaster stepped back, examining her handiwork with critical eyes.
"Nice. That should hold against most intrusions," she said, rolling her shoulders. "Not all, but most."
"Most is better than none."
"Is it?" She moved to stand beside me at the window, close enough that I caught the scent of her magic clinging to her clothes. Lavender and something darker, like smoke from a fire that had burned strange wood. "Sometimes 'most' just means you've given yourself false security before the real threat shows up."
"You're in a cheerful mood tonight."
"I'm in a realistic mood." Her reflection in the glass showed those unusual eyes studying the city below. "You spent the White Queen's million dollars like water, made enemies of people who've perfected assassination into an art form, and gave away the kind of power that cultivators spend lifetimes pursuing. All in one afternoon."
"When you put it that way, I'm actually being pretty restrained."
She laughed, eyeing me with a strange attachment in her eyes. "Yeah, and I love that about you… I'm glad you chose to come here with me, Ben. I really am."
I held her by the waist. "Let's not get too lovey-dovey, there's another person here."
Behind us, Kwannon's breathing had shifted slightly. Slower now, deeper, the kind of controlled respiration that spoke of years mastering her own body. The Dragon's Breath Pill floated within her, spinning slowly like a miniature golden sun.
Its light painted the room in warm amber tones, making Charmcaster's silver hair look like spun gold and turning the shadows into living things that danced at the edges of my vision.
"She's about to reach a threshold," Charmcaster murmured.
Golden light erupted from Kwannon's body in waves that made the air itself shimmer. The temperature spiked, sweat beading on my forehead despite the air conditioning that should have been keeping the suite comfortable. Her aura expanded outward in concentric rings of pure energy that I could feel pressing against my chest like physical weight.
"Holy shit, look at that," I muttered.
Charmcaster's hand found mine, squeezing tight. "Pretty crazy. That's twenty years of cultivation compressed into moments. Her meridians are being forcibly expanded and reinforced. The pain must be..."
She didn't finish, but she didn't need to. Kwannon's face remained serene, locked in meditation, but small tremors ran through her body. Sweat soaked through her clothes. Every breath she took seemed to cost her something.
"Is this normal?" I asked.
"For a pill of that caliber? Probably. For someone experiencing it?" Charmcaster shook her head. "I can't imagine."
Minutes crawled past. The golden light grew brighter, forcing me to squint. Kwannon had become the sun at the center of our small solar system, and we orbited at a respectful distance.
Then Charmcaster's wards screamed.
I frowned. The sound wasn't audible in the traditional sense. It bypassed my ears entirely, stabbing directly into my brain with the sensation of nails dragging across chalkboard while someone whispered wrong numbers into my skull. Every ward Charmcaster had placed flared brilliant purple, visible now, pulsing in warning.
Then they shattered.
The magical barriers didn't just break. They disintegrated, unraveling into threads of purple light that dissolved like sugar in rain. One moment they existed, the next they were memory.
"Well," Charmcaster said with surprising calm, "that's not good."
Simultaneously, every electronic device in the suite went dark. The lights, the air conditioning, Emma's high-tech security systems, all of it died without so much as a flicker of warning. The only illumination came from Kwannon's golden aura and the neon glow of Shanghai bleeding through the windows.
Professional. This is very professional.
Charmcaster and I exchanged glances. We didn't panic. Panic was for people who hadn't fought an enraged Hulk or reversed death on a national scale. This was just another Tuesday, albeit one with better city views.
Shadows moved in ways shadows shouldn't. Not stretching from light sources but emerging from them, birthing figures in dark combat gear who materialized like smoke given form. Some phased through walls as if solidity was optional. Others rose from the very darkness pooling in corners, their movements silent as held breath.
Phoenix Gate Sect assassins. Had to be.
I counted eight. Maybe nine. One was doing something that made my eyes slide off them, some kind of perceptual trick that was difficult to look at properly.
"Ben." Charmcaster's voice held no fear, just readiness.
"Yes, I see them." My hand was already on the Omnitrix, but I paused, counting heartbeats. "You know what the fun part about this is?"
"There's a fun part?"
"They went to all this trouble to disable your wards and Emma's tech, but they forgot something important." I grinned in the darkness, feeling the decision of transformation waiting at my fingertips. "I don't need either of those things."
The Omnitrix flared green, bathing the penthouse in emerald radiance that made the assassins freeze for a crucial half-second. That hesitation cost them their advantage.
The transformation swept through me like lightning. My body restructured itself, flesh becoming crystal, bones turning to diamond lattice, every cell reorganizing into a form designed for one purpose.
Being unbreakable.
When the light faded, I stood seven feet tall in Diamondhead's body, every facet of my crystalline form catching and refracting the golden glow from Kwannon's meditation. The assassins' reflections fractured across my surface, multiplied and distorted into a dozen versions of themselves.
"Evening, gentlemen," I said, my voice carrying harmonics that made the windows vibrate. "I'd offer you tea, but you seem to have broken all the cups."
The first assassin moved before I finished speaking. Fast. Probably enhanced with chi or some kind of movement martial art technique, because they crossed the room in a blur that would have made XLR8 raise an eyebrow in respect.
Their blade, coated in something that glowed sickly green, aimed for the gap where my neck met my shoulder. A killing blow delivered with precision born from hundreds of successful assassinations.
Except this wasn't an 'armor' I was wearing. There was no 'gap.'
The weapon shattered against my crystal hide, fragments scattering across the floor in a sound like breaking wind chimes. The assassin's eyes widened behind their mask, visible shock in that fraction of a second before I backhanded them across the room.
They hit the wall hard enough to crack expensive drywall, then slumped unconscious.
"One down," I announced cheerfully. "Who's next?"
My answer came in the form of five simultaneous attacks. They'd learned from their colleague's mistake. No more single approaches. They came at me from different angles, weapons glowing with various colors of chi-disruption poison or corrosive energy.
I slammed my fist into the floor.
The entire penthouse rang like a struck bell as massive emerald spikes erupted from every surface. Crystal formations exploded upward from the floor, downward from the ceiling, outward from the walls. In seconds, I'd transformed the open suite into a geometric maze of diamond barriers that separated the assassins from each other and, more importantly, from Kwannon.
Her meditation continued undisturbed at the center of a perfect geodesic dome I'd grown around her. Flawless translucent crystal that caught her golden light and scattered it into rainbow patterns across the room.
Protect first, disable second, and well try to kill never.
"You know what I love about this form?" I asked, addressing the assassins now scrambling to adapt to the new terrain. "My crystals are so hard."
"That's not funny."
I pressed my palm against the nearest wall and pushed with Chi. Not physically but conceptually, thereby commanding the silicon in the concrete, the trace minerals in the drywall, the microscopic quartz in the paint. All of it responded to my will, spreading crystalline transformation through the structure like beautiful infection.
New barriers erupted between the assassins, cutting off line of sight and forcing them to fight blind in a forest of my creation.
"This is actually kind of fun," Charmcaster called out from where she'd taken position near the windows. Purple energy crackled around her hands as she wove spells that complemented my crystalline maze. Shadow tendrils snaked through gaps in my barriers, tripping assassins or pulling weapons from grasping hands. "Like the world's deadliest game of hide and seek."
"Right?" I laughed, firing a spread of blunt crystal shards at an assassin trying to scale my constructs. The projectiles caught him in non-lethal zones, shoulders and thighs, sending him tumbling back to the floor with a pained grunt. "Though I think we're winning."
"Come on. Winning implies they had a chance."
An assassin burst through one of Charmcaster's shadow barriers, blade raised. She didn't flinch, just smiled and gestured. The floor beneath them turned to solidified shadow, sticky as tar, trapping their feet mid-step.
I encased them in a crystal cocoon before they could try anything desperate.
"You know," I said conversationally, dodging a thrown knife but it was too fast. It hit me and shattered harmlessly against my shoulder, "I was just thinking about dinner plans. There's this place Luna mentioned that does amazing xiaolongbao."
"The soup dumplings?" Charmcaster created a barrier of compressed mana that caught three more thrown weapons. "I'm listening."
"According to her, they're made by a chef who infuses them with minor chi during the cooking process. It's not enough to cultivate, just enough to make them taste incredible." I grabbed an assassin who'd gotten too close and gently – relatively speaking – tossed them into a crystal cage I'd prepared. "Thought we could try it after this."
"After defeating deadly assassins, you want dumplings."
"I want dumplings because of the deadly assassins. Fighting makes me hungry."
She laughed, the sound bright and unexpected in the midst of violence. "You're taking me on a date while we're being attacked? Well, you're late. I was expecting a date weeks ago."
"Best time for it. Very memorable." I created a series of crystal pillars that forced the remaining assassins into a tighter group, making them easier targets. "Plus I figure if we're going to die horribly, might as well plan something nice first."
"Huh? We're not going to die."
"Exactly. So dumplings it is."
The fight continued in this surreal pattern. Assassins would attack with deadly intent, employing techniques that represented decades of martial training and mystical study. Charmcaster and I would counter with teamwork that flowed like we'd been doing this for years, all while discussing dinner plans and arguing about whether the restaurant should be near West Lake or closer to the Bund.
It was almost too easy. These weren't amateurs. Every move they made spoke of elite training, perfect coordination, and techniques designed to kill enhanced individuals. But between my alien biology and Charmcaster's magical expertise, we operated on a different level entirely.
Soon enough, only one remained.
The leader. I could tell by the way they moved, slightly different from the others. More confident. More skilled. Their blade glowed with an energy that made my crystal form itch uncomfortably, some kind of corrosive technique specifically designed to bypass exotic defenses.
They looked at their captured companions, then at Kwannon's dome, then back at us.
"You're persistent," I acknowledged. "I respect that."
They didn't respond. Instead, they moved.
Not toward me. Toward Kwannon.
They'd recognized the real target. Disable the protectors, strike the vulnerable one. Smart thinking. Would have worked against most defenders.
Their blade was inches from the crystal dome when golden light erupted from inside.
Not breaking outward. Not shattering. The dome simply... ceased to be. One moment it existed, the next it had disintegrated into harmless glittering particles that floated through the air like luminous snow.
That's scary.
Kwannon stood where she'd been kneeling, except now she radiated power that made the room's temperature spike another ten degrees. Her eyes glowed with inner gold, and her aura had solidified into something visible even to normal sight. Waves of chi rippled outward in geometric patterns.
The assassin froze mid-strike.
Kwannon looked at them. Then she flicked her wrist.
A bolt of shuriken concentrated with pink chi struck the assassin dead center. There was no fancy technique here, no elaborate martial form. Just raw power directed with absolute precision. The attacker convulsed once, every muscle seizing simultaneously, then collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
The golden light in Kwannon's eyes faded to something more manageable, though I could still feel the power radiating from her in waves that made my crystalline form resonate in sympathy.
"Well," I said into the sudden silence. "That was impressive."
She met my eyes, and for the first time, she showed the brightest smile. It was so bright that it transformed her entire face.
"Thank you," she said simply. Two words that carried the weight of everything unsaid.
I transformed back to human form, surveying the wreckage. Eight assassins in various states of unconsciousness or crystal imprisonment. Charmcaster's destroyed wards. My crystal constructs turning the penthouse into something between an art installation and a disaster zone.
"We should probably question them," I said, approaching the leader's unconscious form.
Charmcaster waved her hand, and tendrils of shadow pulled three of the captured assassins together in front of us. They were awakening now, groggy but alert enough to recognize their situation.
I knelt before the leader, keeping my voice friendly. "Evening. Long night, huh? I have some questions. Who sent you? Was it the Phoenix Gate Sect? Someone else? And why attack now specifically?"
The leader's eyes focused on me, and I saw the exact moment recognition and calculation flickered across their features. Then they smiled.
Not fear. Not regret. Just fanatical certainty.
They spat a single word in Mandarin. The Omnitrix translated it instantly.
"Heretic."
"Right." I stood up, my pleasant expression fading. "We tried it the easy way."
I looked at Charmcaster and Kwannon, both watching with varying degrees of anticipation and concern. Then back at the captives who stared at me with the zealous gleam of true believers who'd die before betraying their masters.
A slow, predatory grin spread across my face.
"Guess we're doing it the hard way then."
I activated the Omnitrix, but this time I didn't choose power or strength. I chose fear.
The green light faded, and the temperature in the room plummeted. Not gradually but instantly, like someone had opened a door to winter itself. Frost began forming on the windows despite Shanghai's summer heat.
Ghostfreak materialized, my consciousness spreading thin across dimensions that normal biology couldn't comprehend. That single, cyclopean eye fixed on the bound assassins, and I watched their fanaticism crack.
"Ghostfreak…!"
Because some things transcend training. Some fears are primal.
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