Chapter 5: Superpowers and the Price of Survival
"Ander, Maja and Priyanka are crucial; you must conquer them both psychologically and physically," Alexa said seriously.
Ander looked astonished and asked, "Are you serious?"
"Of course." Alexa replied with a serious expression.
"Hey, you guys forgot about Aria." Celine suddenly spoke up, "Don't underestimate her. The first time she impressed me was when Priyanka, Aria, and I went out alone and encountered five perverts who wanted to capture us as their objects of lust. Without saying a word, Aria directly launched a spike of earth that pierced through their feet. Those five guys jumped up in pain, but as soon as they landed, new spikes continued to stab through their soles, causing them to jump again. After a few rounds of this, their feet were all rotten. That was the first time I discovered the magic of superpowers; it turns out that what seems like an ordinary superpower can be used in such a way."
Celine paused for a moment before continuing, "Aria's abilities are not limited to that; she can make enemies unknowingly sink into quicksand or swamps. Since the area is large, their companions wouldn't dare to rescue them, forced to watch helplessly as they sink while we do nothing—Aria takes care of all the enemies by herself."
Then Celine revealed a mysterious smile, saying, "Did you think this was Aria's limit?" She raised her index finger, shaking it as she said, "No, no, no, Aria has an ultimate move, which is... she can turn her opponent to stone in an instant, and with a gentle tap, they shatter into pieces. Isn't that impressive?" She flashed her white teeth, smiling, "This kind of method is truly unpredictable. Even if I, Alexa, and Anllela faced Aria, the best result is that both sides are injured, but we might also end up game over. Aria's abilities are really terrifying!"
After hearing this, Marina felt a jolt of shock. She turned her slightly stiff neck and told Ander, "Add one more, Aria."
Ander: "…"
"After hearing Anllela and Celine introduce their superpowers, I feel like mine is rather mediocre," Alexa said with a helpless smile. "My superpowers include space blades, space sealing, and space devouring. The space blade is actually a kind of energy wave formed from the energy within my body, but since my space is composed of energy, I can also draw upon the energy of space, making my space blade more powerful and allowing me to use my superpower for a longer time. Space sealing allows me to place the opponent in a vacuum state, causing them to die from lack of oxygen. Finally, space devouring only works against other space-type superpowers; I can devour their space, along with everything in it. That's my superpower."
Celine, being very lively, jumped in eagerly after Alexa finished, saying, "Let me share! My superpower is the ability to stop time. When time is frozen, the enemies are in a state of stillness, and during that time, I can strike however I like. In other words, during that period, I am invincible. How about that? I'm pretty amazing, right?"
Celine's face showed an expression of anticipation for others' praise, and everyone, being polite, gave her a thumbs up and offered compliments.
Celine came from a strict family; her father was a stern general, and her mother was a university professor, so she craved praise and validation from others.
"Everyone, take a look at my superpower! I can set which people are not affected by the time stop. Now I will set all six of you as unaffected by time freeze, and then I will drop a pen; you watch..."
As time froze, the pen that fell truly stopped in mid-air, which amazed everyone.
Celine placed her hand in a chopping motion against Sandra's neck and said to the six, "Look, I can chop them, and they won't resist. Aren't I impressive?"
Receiving praise, Celine was very satisfied. She snapped her fingers and deactivated her superpower and continued, "During the time stop, you can also help cut down zombies."
"That's amazing!"
"Celine's superpower is really magical!"
Ander, Marina, and Hatala all realized that this girl, who was the same age as them, loved to show off and enjoyed being praised. Nonetheless, such people are easy to get along with; at least she is pure-hearted and not scheming, and she won't betray her companions.
Celine's personality is genuine and enthusiastic, and everyone likes her, so in the apocalypse, everyone protects her very well. Even after ten years of the apocalypse, she still retains her childlike heart.
Celine's personality is actually very similar to Blaire's, except Blaire is more optimistic and she won't take any difficulties to heart
Ander has taken care of these five girls since childhood, which has led to Blaire developing a sense of dependence on him. In her mind, Ander is her guardian deity; she firmly believes he can shield her from all storms, and this is the real reason for her optimistic personality.
"Thank you all for your praise! Next, let Anllela introduce her superpower."
As soon as Celine handed the floor to Anllela, unexpectedly, Anllela didn't bother with any greetings and directly unleashed her superpower. Alexa and the others were surprised but saw that it was only a small amount of energy, so they allowed it.
"Good evening, everyone! I'm Anllela Sagra. My superpowers are gravity and anti-gravity. Now, raise your hands or feet."
At that moment, Ander and the others realized they had to exert much more effort to lift their hands or feet.
Anllela snapped her fingers to make the superpower disappear and said, "I believe you have all discovered it; this is one of my superpowers—gravity. I am currently at level five. If I unleash my full gravity, I can crush ordinary people and level one zombies into pulp instantly."
Anllela walked over to the corner of the living room, talking as she walked: "Next, I will demonstrate anti-gravity." After she snapped her fingers, Ander and the others found themselves rising into the air, then slowly descending.
At this moment, Anllela had already reached the corner of the living room: "Everyone, watch closely. I will fly from here to the opposite corner."
At this moment, Anllela assumed a forward-leaning posture, then she forcefully pushed off the ground with her foot, shooting across the room like an arrow towards the opposite corner.
Mei exclaimed: "It's so fast!"
As Anllela was about to crash into the corner, her speed decreased, and she gently landed.
"This is my anti-gravity superpower. Aren't you all going to applaud?"
Applause erupted in the living room.
"Anllela, lift your shirt!" Celine shouted at her, and Anllela generously complied, immediately lifting her shirt.
"Wow! She has a vest line on her abdomen."
Marina touched her own abdomen, feeling that she needed to work harder.
"Anllela, you must work out a lot, right?" Lily asked.
"Yes, I love to work out," Anllela replied.
"Did you know? Anllela is a women's free-fighting champion, so she is both a manager and Alexa's bodyguard," Celine said.
"Anllela, Celine, I have a question for you, is that okay?" Mei said.
Anllela nodded and replied, "Of course."
Seeing Celine nod as well, Mei asked, "Celine, you can easily kill anyone while time is stopped. Anllela, your gravity can easily crush someone. But why did Celine say that you two would suffer mutual destruction against Aria?"
"You asked a great question, and I'll take the opportunity to share some knowledge," Anllela said as she walked back to the sofa. "First of all, in a duel between two people of the same level, if their energy is similar, they can't break through each other's defenses. It then depends on who has more energy. The more energy you have, the longer you can last, which increases your chances of winning. Secondly, both Aria and I have one-hit kills as our stunt, so the distribution of energy between defense and attack is crucial. If too much energy is used on defense, the attack will be too weak. If the opponent distributes more energy to their attack, I'm done for, and vice versa. However, if both parties focus solely on attack, they will both suffer mutual destruction, so Celine's statement is not incorrect."
"The energy distribution strategy for defense and attack is also very important." Marina murmured to herself again.
"I just described the duel of normal people, but if faced with Ander, and he calls upon spatial energy to attack without hesitation, then no one in this world can be his opponent. According to him, his space is about the size of three Earths, so I guess he only needs to call upon one-third of his energy to obliterate the Earth," Anllela explained. "So even if Ander's level is only level one, and he faces a top level 10,000 player, Ander can consume the opponent to death with just energy."
"Wow? Ander, it turns out you're that amazing!" Lily said jokingly.
Ander rolled his eyes and said, "That's for the future; right now, I don't even have any superpowers!"
"Ander, since everyone is here, could you create a spatial area for Anllela and Sandra?"
As soon as Alexa finished speaking, Hatala interjected, "Sandra hasn't introduced her superpower yet!"
Sandra waved her hand and said, "My superpower isn't anything special; it's time reversal. Yes, it's exactly what you understand as time reversal. I'm a time-type superpower user, and I can only use time reversal once I reach level three. When I finally reached level three, I was so eager to use my superpower to come back that my soul returned, but I exhausted all my energy, so now I can't even demonstrate my superpower."
"Why didn't you think about pulling time back to when you were a child?" Hatala asked.
Sandra replied, "The more energy I have, the longer I can reverse time. At that time, I was in a rush to come back, and the energy I had was only enough to return me ten years."
While Sandra was answering, Ander had already created the spatial area for Anllela.
"Sandra, look into my eyes."
Ander needed to look into someone's eyes to create a spatial area for them.
"This afternoon, I ran all over the place to gather all the supplies from the warehouse into your space. The larger pile is Sandra's supplies; please help me transfer them to Sandra's spatial area," Alexa said to Ander.
Transferring supplies is simple; since they are all in Ander's space, it's just a matter of transferring them from Alexa's area to Sandra's. With just a thought, Ander moved the supplies over.
"Great, from now on, we'll gather our own supplies," Alexa said to Sandra.
Sandra had an incredible amount of supplies, and they were all very diverse; anything you could think of, she had it here. But this was just 8 billion worth of supplies; she still had another 2 billion worth to store!
"Ander, do you need my channel to help with procurement?" Alexa asked Ander.
Ander shook his head and said, "I plan to divide all the money evenly among the five of them so they can buy what they want."
Ander's source of gold was unclear, so the money earned from selling gold couldn't be deposited into an account; otherwise, he wouldn't be able to explain where the gold came from. Therefore, the cash he got from selling gold could only be kept in his space for emergencies. He had just over 100 million dollars and transferred 20 million dollars to each of them into their spatial areas before informing them.
"Don't you feeling distressed if you give us all your money?" Hatala asked Ander.
"I love you all; in my heart, you're worth more than 20 million dollars," Ander said.
Hatala was so moved that she felt like crying; she hugged Ander's neck and gave him a passionate kiss.
"Alexa, I need your help," Marina said to Alexa.
"No problem, but you need to give me a shopping list," Alexa replied.
"Ander, help me transfer the 20 million dollars you just sent to Alexa's space," Marina told Ander.
"Aren't you planning to buy what you want yourself?" Ander asked.
Marina shook her head and said, "Having you is enough. Besides, I've already bought a lot of things before, and the main reason is that I still have to work and don't have time to shop."
Alexa exclaim, "The apocalypse is coming, and you still want to work?"
Marina said with a shrug, "Why not? I love my job; I will stick to my post until the last day,"
Ander nodded and said, "Everyone has their own choices; I respect your choice."
Marina gave him a kiss and said, "I knew you'd support me. Thank you, dear. Don't worry; I'll take good care of myself."