Nope. (Verdi POV)

Anger. That was all Verdi could feel as he saw Eren standing before him. He didn't understand why he felt such animosity towards the hero, but he couldn’t ignore how his blood boiled at the sight of him. Everyone he had met since waking up had told him of Eren’s nobility and heroics, that he was an incorruptible hero of legend with unwavering resolve, and he was the true hero of this very world. He trusted in everyone’s opinions, yet their words were nothing more than white noise when he saw the hero face to face. The more he studied, the worse his emotions became as he realized the ugly truth of the hero: Eren was not human.

On the outside Eren looked normal, his appearance identical to the portraits Verdi had seen of him. A strong jaw, steely gaze, and chiseled body that looked to be handcrafted by a god with short brown hair. Even a close study of the hero would arouse no suspicions on the surface, seeing only muscle cladding his body. Only an entity that detected through touch like Verdi could see through the deception, gazing into his very organs. He’d seen the insides of countless monsters, humans, and even genetic abnormalities like Evangeline, yet Eren was fundamentally different from anything in this world.

His bone density was all wrong and didn’t consist of calcium, his blood had some sort of strange microscopic things swimming around inside of it that pretended to be red blood cells that twitched and moved at their own whim, and his skin was made of some unknown material that was far too resilient to be of natural make. His organs were abstract and misshapen with various sharp angles, each one a geometric anomaly that would astound even a genetic monstrosity like Evangeline. Everything about him was wrong. The body parts looked vaguely familiar, yet he couldn't say where he had seen it.

He was so engrossed in trying to make sense of Eren’s body and resist his violent urges that he almost missed the strange metal remote Eren was holding in his hand or the leather glove he was wearing. The glove he recognized instantly as the Glove of Purification Tristiana smuggled in, but the remote was what drew most of his attention. The seams for the remote were flawless down to the micron using hyper conductive alloys far beyond anything Ruyanei had access to. It seemed to be powered by nothing, electricity flowing out from some strange box that even he couldn't make sense of. He didn’t even have time to mull over its mechanism of action as Eren pressed the button on the remote just as Citrinas and Fenri descended the stairs to join everyone, the pair freezing the second they saw the remote in Eren’s hand.

One second passed.

Two seconds.

Five seconds, and nothing happened as everyone in the room stiffened, the mere sight of the remote petrifying them. Fenri looked startled then bared her canines like a wild animal while Evangeline looked like she was ready to kill or puke. Bell, Varrick, Daria, and Belsach were startled, all of them gawking at the sight as though they couldn’t believe their eyes. Verdi tensed up as Citrinas grabbed his hand, tugging him backwards as though the remote was some kind of threat to them. Only Verdi was grinning, sadistic joy welling up for reasons he couldn’t properly articulate at first. It took a full second for him to realize why he was so amused by Eren’s remote.

“That thing’s useless.” Verdi thought with a smirk, releasing Citrinas’ hand as he charged Eren, the hero continuing to fiddle with his remote as though it would yield a different result. Of course, it was a useless endeavor. No matter how many times he pressed the button, it was nothing more than a hunk of metal in this city.

Raising his right hand, Verdi bit into the flesh and threw his head back, tearing off his skin like paper as blood poured from his exposed flesh. Wasting no time, he froze the blood and sent 9 ice spikes at the hero, each one harder than steel yet thin as a hair. Eren jumped backwards, still pressing the button as though it would save him from Verdi’s grasp. In a glance Verdi could tell the hero was fast, but Fenri was leagues ahead of him in agility, his movements sluggish compared to her as his frozen blood spikes stabbed at the hero’s joints. He wasn’t getting away.

CRUNCH

“Tch.” Verdi clicked his tongue, still unable to get used to seeing his ice shatter upon striking someone. Even with all 8 of his monster cores bolstering his abilities, his offensive power was still lacking. Just when he was ready to go for another attack, he detected several high speed objects flying at him.

The first thing to reach him was Bell's stake, the iron spike punching straight through his left foot and impaling it to the ground. Frost coated the spike as Verdi froze the area around it, his foot shattering like glass as he continued single mindedly charging Eren. The next attack was a blast of compressed air from Daria, the sheer **** vaporizing his right leg at the knee as he lost his balance. As his limb flopped away lifelessly, blood shot from his stump and froze into the shape of a foot, her attack doing nothing to stop him. The next to strike him was Varrick, the paladin lowering his arm and shoulder bashing him, the **** of his impact like a cannon as Verdi was sent flying across the room only to come to an abrupt stop as he hit the wall.

Blood filled his mouth as he felt his ribs crack and organs liquefy, the sheer **** from Varrick’s tackle enough to kill a normal man. Stone and vertebrae cracked in a gruesome melody, the chorus of the twisted song being the sound of both snapping back into place in the same breath. He felt his heart thumping in his chest as a knife embedded itself in his stomach, Fenri’s sense of timing impeccable as ever as he gently grazed the piano wire tied to the knife

“Inventory!” She shouted, food spawning directly in his stomach as his torn legs regenerated. Next to her, Citrinas was whispering calculations under her breath while Daria was muttering a spell of her own. Bell had prepared a second stake while Evangeline was bulking up, the angel rapidly building muscle mass as her wings shifted to boney breathing tubes. Varrick and Belsach had readied their swords, the holy flames dancing across them causing Verdi’s skin to tingle. Behind them all was Eren, the hero looking at his skin with a raised eyebrow, tracing the areas Verdi had stabbed as though he had expected there to be more to the blow.

“Everyone calm down! We can talk about this!” Varrick exclaimed as Fenri shook her head and held up a knife, her green eyes practically glowing from anger.

“He used a fucking Gate Key on Verdi, and you want us to talk!?!” Fenri shouted as Verdi flinched, thinking back to the gods who spoke in his head. That was an Apollyon Gate Key? He looked at the thing in Eren’s hand, seeing it only as a handheld electronic remote rather than a divine artifact. As he tried to make sense of what he was seeing, everyone else continued talking.

“If that was a real key, he would have been sealed away by now.” Bell said as Evangeline scoffed.

“The real Eren would never make a joke like this.” The angel said coldly, looking at the hero as though he were a pile of feces. “And the real Eren wouldn’t ambush someone like a cowardly rat.” She spat, flesh sloughing off her body and migrating to every doorway like overgrown amoebas, coagulating the doorways to seal off Belsach’s minions, the goblins hacking away at the fleshy obstruction only to be assimilated by it.

“Gate Keys don't break or ****. If that was a real key, Champ would have been a goner.” Belsach said as Eren glared at Verdi, the sight of his growing frustration forcing a smile on Verdi’s face. Why did he hate Eren so much?

“It's a real key. He just found a way to disable it.” He said, venom filling his voice as everyone tensed up, the mere thought of neutralizing an Apollyon Gate Key alien to them. It was at that moment everything seemed to click together for everyone in the room. It was doubtful anybody but Citrinas and Verdi knew the mechanics of how he’d done it, but it didn't take a genius to see the superficial similarities between Verdi's prototype transmitters and an Apollyon Gate Key. That said, it wasn’t all that difficult to explain the mechanism either.

The spark gap generator.

It was never a transmitter to send messages.

It was a jammer to PREVENT messages from being transmitted.

The spark gap generator was an old, primitive transmitter with many flaws due to it being the first transmitter in history. It was simple to build, but its greatest flaw was that it had no ability to choose what frequency you used, so it would blindly spew nonsense across every frequency and drown out every other transmitter in the region. If you were to build a spark gap transmitter that was several tons in size, powered it with a sea of sulfuric acid batteries, and stationed it at the top of the Coliseum like Tristiana had done, you’d effectively silence an entire city. It was a crude, yet effective solution to solving a problem the world of Ruyanei had no concept of.

“Guys, listen. I was planning to take this guy down. He isn’t remotely human. You can’t trust him.” Verdi said quickly, buying time as he began calculating a variety of formulaic spells for the coming battle. Instinctive magic was too weak to hurt the hero, and he knew that every second he bought for himself was another spell he could use. As if not knowing or caring about the ploy, Eren focused on everyone else in the room, his eyes lingering on Varrick as he spoke.

“I've been in this world for more than 2 centuries and haven't aged a day. You know I’m not a normal human.” He said quickly, taking Verdi’s accusation head on before looking to the alchemist. “But this man, who is he? What is he planning? What has he told you?” He asked, his tone implicitly stating this was a rhetorical question. Despite that, they could hear Belsach mutter something under his breath.

“He didn’t say…” The hobgoblin whispered, thinking back to ast Verdi’s unwillingness to speak of his plan. Verdi felt his skin crawl as everyone looked at him, their eyes full of suspicion as Eren continued speaking. Throughout this entire charade, he continued calculating, refusing to waste even a second not calculating.

“This man is a twisted zealot who will stop at nothing to fulfill his goals no matter the pain or suffering. Nearly every war in recorded history has had some tangential relation to his actions.” Eren said as Verdi looked over the room, his words causing the suspicion in their eyes to shift into full on caution. Despite the room turning against him, he was unfazed by their growing hostility, expecting it from the start. They knew Eren for years and had fought by his side. Verdi was a stranger. It was normal to trust Eren over him.

“He’s lying!” Verdi exclaimed, nearly done calculating his spells as Varrick looked at the ground, the declaration doing nothing to sway him to the alchemist’s side. Eren, seeing that the room was shifting against Verdi, spoke a single sentence, his words landing the final nail in the alchemist’s coffin.

“Are you going to trust me or him?” That was all he had to say. A simple question, and yet Verdi could see how everyone subtly shifted their weight to target him. He didn’t bother focusing on their expressions, his brain focused on monitoring their movement while his monster cores retained their calculated spells, preparing to fire them at will. He could detect Fenri tightening her grip on her knives. Bell was preparing to launch a stake at him. Varrick and Belsach shifted their weights to their front legs, the two preparing to dive forward in a pincer maneuver. He could feel Citrinas trembling as she bit her lip, hugging herself as though she’d been violated, her hands hidden within her coat. Next to her, Verdi could see that Fenri was looking at him, her eyes focused as both girls spoke at the same time.

“Shut up and die.” Citrinas spat, her voice filled with blind hatred while pulling out two glass bottles from her coat, both of them filled with pitch black powder. Verdi almost thought this was a completely different person. He’d thought he was angry at Eren, yet Citrinas’ fury was near terrifying. Giving nobody time to stop her, she threw the glass bottles in her hand forward before shooting a fire spell at both of them. A blast rang out as the room was blanketed in a cloud of white, the smoke bomb blinding everything that relied on sight.

“Hunt!” Fenri shouted with equal fury, divine magic grasping Verdi’s very soul as everyone targeting him visibly deflated, the Blessing stealing a third of their stats in one fell swoop for interfering in Fenri’s “duel” with him. Exploiting the room’s sudden bout of weakness and the blinding cloud, Fenri threw several knives at Eren, her sense of smell tracking him even through the smoke. Despite being blind, Varrick moved in front of Eren and blocked the attack, the paladin well acquainted with Fenri’s preferred targets. Bell prepared to cast a wind spell to disperse the smoke, only for Evangeline to grab the vampire’s hand and healed herself, her flesh engulfing Bell’s hammer. Seeing the angel slowly devouring her, Bell threw her arm back, slamming Evangline into the wall and flailing her about, the vampire exploiting her absurd strength to break Evangeline’s hold.

In the corner, steel clashed against steel as Fenri began fighting Belsach and Varrick, both sides ceding no ground to the other to advance. It was in this chaos that Eren made a beeline for Verdi, ignoring everyone else to take down his most hated enemy. Verdi merely planted his feet, waiting for Eren to come to him. Suddenly, Fenri twisted midair, dodging a slash from Belsach and leaping forward. She raised both hands, blocking a strike from Varrick while twisting to kick Belsach in the gut, sending him flying straight into Eren as the two collided.

Verdi prepared to detect Eren falling to the ground from the abrupt collision or at least slow down, yet, he detected no such sound waves. Instead, he found himself face to face with Eren, the hero mere feet away from him while Belsach landed on the ground, not even realizing he had touched Eren. Moments after seeing the hero appear before him, Verdis’ head throbbed as his sense of touch detected 8 pulses in the ground at nearly the same time, his brain creating a phantom Eren sprinting towards him, his eyes and his body telling him different messages.

“He’s going to hit us! He’s right in front of us!” His human side cried out, his eyes telling him the hero was standing right in front of him

“It’s an illusion! He’s… Backing away from us? His monster half screamed, the pulses in the ground telling him a vastly different story. Rather than let the two debate, Eren was kind enough to give Verdi the answer, squatting so low to the ground he looked ready to fall before throwing an uppercut.

“I can feel the wind from his fist. He’s actually here.” Verdi thought, his human senses winning out as he realized how doomed he was. There was no time to create a spell to block or parry the blow, and he knew he was too slow to dodge such a fast attack. A blow to the head with Eren’s strength would be enough to pop his head like a melon. Just when he felt the leather glove Eren was wearing graze his chin, Verdi realized he still had cards left to play. Eren's fist struck only air as Verdi disappeared from sight, the alchemist gone in the blink of an eye.

A gust of wind erupted from the hero’s fist, dispersing part of Citrinas’ smokescreen as Eren found Verdi had truly disappeared. He tensed up, glancing around the room searching for him only to find his line of sight blocked by the thick smoke. He glanced down hoping to see the alchemist, only furrow his eyebrow at what he saw. Rather than seeing his hated enemy somehow dodging his attack, he found himself staring at the single most grotesque dildo he had ever seen in his life.

He had only a millisecond to ponder what just happened before Verdi undid the Status Effect spell he had casted on himself, the alchemist’s body reforming in the blink of an eye as he sliced his hand open with his fingernails and threw an uppercut at Eren’s chin. Blood coagulated around his fist, surging upwards as a spear of ice straight to the heavens. Unlike the cheap, weak instinctive magic he used earlier which would shatter like glass, this was the same formulaic spell he had used to knock Bell out. With his blood amplifying the spell, it wouldn’t be shocking if the spear shot through his chin and out the top of his head.

CRUNCH

Looking down, Eren opened his mouth and caught the blood spear in his mouth, the spear cracking the second his teeth bit into it. Using his neck muscles alone, Eren slammed him into the ground, Verdi’s arm and ankles snapping like a twig. Before he could undo the spell, Eren tensed up, swinging the alchemist into the nearby wall rack holding dozens of barrels of booze. A choked whine of pain was all Verdi let out, feeling hundreds of wooden splinters enter his body as cheap hooch drenched his body. Spitting the blood spear out, Eren threw his foot up into the air before slamming it down in a flawless ax kick.

CRACK

Verdi’s ears rang as Eren’s boot struck against his ice, the booze freezing around him in a thick barrier a millisecond before the leather made contact with him. Cracks spiderwebbed around the frozen coffin, only to heal over as Verdi felt his eardrums rupture while coughing out blood, the shockwave alone enough to harm him. Instantly, Verdi **** the ice to repair itself, the cracks disappearing as Eren slid his foot to the side and pinned Verdi to the ground, straddling him while raising his fists.

One blow.

Two blows.

Three blows.

Ten blows.

Twenty blows.

One hundred blows.

A thousand blows.

He lost count as Eren’s arms became mere blurs, the sound of his attacks like thunderclaps as Verdi felt bile rise up in his throat. The blows weren’t even directly hitting him, yet each blow rattled his brain, his monster senses working to interpret shockwaves that had no logic or rhythm to them. Rather than being a stalemate, Verdi could see himself losing ground, Eren’s attacks slowly whittling away at his ice as his blows accelerated. Rather than fending off the blows of a man or even a beast, it was like he was resisting a storm. Yet, in this cacophony of ****, Verdi could only think of one thing.

“How did he move so fast earlier?” He thought to himself, his monster side and human side fighting each other to make sense of Eren seemingly teleporting forward. Eren had reached Verdi’s position before the soundwaves could reach him. His monster cores knew this to be true and shouted that Eren was an impossibly fast nightmare of a man. He saw with his own eyes Eren seemingly teleporting forward and could feel the soundwaves emanating from each step, the pulses like an afterimage. Yet, Verdi’s human half cried out that this was impossible and that Eren was using some kind of trick based on the laws of physics alone.

The speed of sound was variable based on its medium. In the air, it moved 750 miles per hour. In solids, it could go anywhere from 10 to 20 times faster depending on the medium. Assuming stone transferred sound waves 15 times faster, it meant Eren could move FASTER than 11,250 miles per hour. It was an impossible speed for any living creature and spat in the face of physics itself.

At those speeds he’d burst into flames from air friction, the **** from running at that speed would cause tremors in the ground, and decelerating to a stop out of the blue would send a shockwave that could outright kill a normal man. Furthermore, if he could move that fast, his punches would have killed Verdi before he could even react. The fact that there wasn’t a sonic boom meant that Eren wasn’t fast, there was some kind of trick.

“He was using some kind of trick earlier to trick our senses.” His human brain shouted.

“He’s using some kind of magic to distort light and send false signals.” His monster cores countered as another blow struck his shield, a knuckle piercing the shield and almost touching Verdi’s nose. At that moment, his monster and human senses halted their bickering to ask one question.

“How do I beat this monster?”

He had unbreakable skin and fists that could level entire buildings. He had some inhuman power to accelerate to mach 15 for short bursts and break the laws of physics itself. Then there was the fact that he had centuries of experience fighting while Verdi had a mere 2 years of memories. It was in this chaos that Verdi thought back to his past self’s advice.

He did have a plan to stop this freak.

“How do I get out of here?” He thought to himself, moving onto more pressing matters as he detected Fenri, Citrinas, and Evangeline slowly losing ground. Fenri was unable to harm Varrick due to his thick armor while Belsach constantly ambushed her from the smoke, the hobgoblin adapting and exploiting the smoke for his own gains to land small nicks and cuts on her. Citrinas was starting to lose against Daria’s magic, the vampire steadily forcing the smoke to disperse with a wind spell. Even Evangeline seemed to be in trouble, Belsach’s minions breaking through her flesh barricades while Bell had finally ripped the angel’s arm off and had gained enough space to begin casting spells.

Everything had gone to hell.

Verdi could feel his skin heat up as he felt himself growing wet with sweat. No, it wasn't sweat. He looked up to see his barrier was beginning to melt, liquid dribbling down on him with each blow from Eren. He’d gotten arrogant. He had thought he could win, and now everyone was going to get killed with him. He cursed himself, wondering how he could even screw up a basic instinctive spell and let his ice melt. As he cursed himself, he noticed something, eyeing the barrels around the room as he touched a water droplet, his fingers warming up despite the frigid temperature around him. That’s it. That was how he could get them off him.

“He’s planning something!” Eren shouted, seemingly reading Verdi’s mind as his punches grew heavier, the ice barrier now crumbling against his renewed onslaught. Acting quickly, Verdi sent out 7 ice tendrils, thinning his barrier while slitting his wrist to reinforce it with his own blood. The 7 tendrils began stabbing at the nearby barrels full of booze decorating the walls, the wood cracking as liquid poured out, thickening his ice to buy him more time. In the blink of an eye, he’d frozen every barrel on the wall, their contents spilling out onto the ground as he prepared the next phase of his plan.

CLANG

Verdi cursed as holy white flames struck his barrier, his blood crackling as Varrick’s sword lacerated the ice tendrils and burnt away the blood mixed into his barrier. At the same time, Verdi felt his entire body grow numb as an iron stake punched through his barrier, his tongue tasting iron for a microscend before his sense of taste disappearing entirely. Rather than take out his brain, her stake rammed into his mouth and shattered his jaw, severing his head from his spine as he was rendered nothing more than an upper jaw and a skull.

He felt nothing and could only move his eyes, yet Verdi refused to give up, continuing to repair his ice barrier as tubes of ice shot from his head and attached to his body, his dazed brain focusing as he felt oxygenated blood pump into his brain. He **** his lungs and heart to continue working, his magic supplementing the job of his spinal cord to control them. All he had to do to heal was pull the stake out, but there was no room for him to do so, his ice barrier denying him even a millimeter of room to maneuver himself.

“Running out of time... Cold… I have to… I can… What do I do…?” Verdi thought to himself, his blood rapidly cooling from the ice as he felt his mind slow down, the tactic keeping him alive also killing him in the process. He had no way to warm himself, and even if he could, he’d have no way to get out of this situation.

He’d frozen every barrel of beer in the bar, but he couldn’t reshape the ice with Varrick constantly shattering his ice tendrils, and he couldn’t move with Bell and Eren beating down on him. He was slowly freezing to **** with the ice tube connecting his head to the rest of his body, and he couldn’t reattach his body since Eren and Bell kept hitting him. He was dying and he had no answers. Yet, at that moment, as if hearing his mental screams of desperation, a miracle happened.

The human eye could not perceive it, but Verdi could detect the shift in the air itself. 70% of the air molecules near the barrels were **** back, creating a vacuum. With everyone focused on beating on Verdi, nobody even noticed the spell being cast, the only proof of its existence being a slight bubbling of liquid hidden by the thick smoke cloud.

“She really is a genius.” Verdi thought, silently complimenting the arch-imago for catching onto his plan in a single glance. The only hint she had was that he had a plan and that he was near the barrels of liquor, yet she knew how to help him as she casted a wind spell. It was a botched, crude wind spell she casted in a mere 4 seconds while fighting Daria, but it was enough.

She’d saved him.

“Fenri! Here! Water me and Evangeline!” Citrinas shouted as Fenri leapt to the arch-imago from within the smoke could before throwing a knife covered in piano wire at Evangeline, the hero’s sense of smell just as sharp as ever. The blade landed dead on the angel’s left shoulder, embedding to her skin as Verdi felt hope rise in him. He didn’t need to continue trying to freeze the barrels, meaning that he had 2 monster cores freed up.

“Inventory!” Fenri shouted while raising her hand, summoning a barrel’s worth of water above Evangeline and herself as Verdi used two monsters cores casting the same spell, freezing the water into perfect spheres and anchoring them in place with ice spikes just as Belsach and Daria arrived to support Eren. White light shined down on Verdi as Varrick and Belsach raised their swords, divine magic cloaking them while Bell readied another stake. Eren readied his fists while Daria chanted a fire spell, the 5 of them ready to shatter his ice barrier and kill him in one blow. Yet, Citrinas and Verdi were unfazed as Varrick swung his sword, the blade scraping the stone wall and producing a single spark.

It was that single spark that had doomed the 5 of them.

1 kilogram of ethanol yields 29 megajoules of energy. Some of the barrels held beer at a 5% ABV while others held distilled spirits at anywhere between 40 to 80% ABV, but for simplicity’s sake he’d assumed he froze beers that had 5% **** by volume. There were 40 barrels that each held 160 liters of liquid, translating to a minimum of 320 liters of ****. Since **** had a lower freezing point than ice, he could “distill” the **** out by freezing only the water while leaving the ethanol untouched. With Citrinas’ help reducing the air pressure, the **** evaporated, leaving the room saturated with ethanol vapors.

All in all, that calculated 9.3 gigajoules of energy that could be released. Add in the 200 kilograms of nitrocellulose camera film he left with Belsach that combusted at 5 megajoules per kilogram meant that they had an explosion of 10.3 gigajoules in **** in optimal conditions. AKA, 2.5 tons’ worth of TNT detonated in an airtight environment at a minimum. He prayed that they could handle a blast of this caliber at point blank range.

The blast was like the sun itself, blinding them all as the ethanol detonated, sending a shockwave through the bar. Varrick, Belsach, Daria, and Bell were sent flying into the wall while Eren was the most unlucky of them, the blast sending one of the frozen ice barrels into his gut as he was sent to the stairway. It was like watching a cannon at work from the inside as the shockwave was focused down the hallway like a gun barrel, launching Eren across the city at breakneck speeds. Verdi was by no means exempt from the blast either.

Half of his barrier shattered as the shockwave tore his body apart like a thousand knives hammers, pulping his body and making its way to his head. Thinking quickly he reshaped the coffin, abandoning his body and leaving him nothing more than a head in a frozen box of ice. He had to stay awake.

Evangeline would shrug off the blow, but Fenri and Citrinas weren’t specialized for taking hits. If he dared pass out, if he dared lose focus on their spell, they were dead. Time seemed to stretch for an eternity as his sight grew dim, his mind barely cogent as his decapitated head slowly lost consciousness. He fought on, forcing himself to remain conscious until the blast had subsided. As if to reward himself, he felt what remained of his eyelids grow heavy as he passed out.

“Wake up. Please wake up.” Citrinas said as Verdi took in a deep breath, flailing about in confusion as he found himself conscious once more. Citrinas, Fenri, and Evangeline were gathered around him, the trio on the verge of tears as he looked around. He was stark naked and in Belsach’s bar, or at least what remained of it. Most of the bar had been burnt up or destroyed, there were 4 torn up bodies scattered around the room that were barely breathing, and he could see a single body with a metal stack sticking out of its throat missing its head.

“Inventory.” Fenri said, spawning a fresh outfit for him as Verdi scanned everyone’s vitals. Citrinas, Fenri, and Evangeline were unharmed. Varrick had a concussion, a collapsed lung, a ruptured cornea, and a broken leg. Belsach had similar injuries while also having a wooden spike stuck in his pancreas. Daria and Bell both had concussions and were covered in light to severe burns, their undead nature leaving them susceptible to the heat of the explosion. Just when Verdi was ready to tell them his plan, his eyes went wide as he detected a figure flying across the city. Eren was still in the air.

Slamming into the city’s outer walls, Verdi detected entire sections of sandstone collapsing as the hero laid underneath the rubble for a moment, as if to process what happened. Returning to his feet, he dusted himself off and changed his outfit from a hooded robe to leather armor, the hero staring back at Verdi as though the pair weren’t separated by miles of sandstone and buildings. As Verdi took in the hero’s current state, he wanted to laugh.

He was launched several miles across the city.

He’d been burnt alive by the flames of the explosion

His organs were hit with a shockwave that left even Varrick’s lungs torn.

And he wasn’t harmed in the slightest.