Pause System: Harem In The Apocalypse

*Clunk* *Clunk* *Clunk* 

The sound of gears running echoed across the large hollow room. 

Every few seconds, steam would be projected out into the room crashing against Gray's face as he progressed forward. 

He was drenched in sweat and the sounds of his pants being overlapped by the creaking of the gears every few seconds. 

Gray had finally made it in, he was at the lowest floor of the ship. The management floor. 

Currently he stood at the most important part of the ship, the part which kept everything together and balanced. 

At the middle of the room, a glowing orb radiated a pale green light. 

That was the core of the ship. 

It was encased in a spherical barrier-like forcefield with weird symbols engraved on to it. 

It was most likely adjusted in a way to set off an alarm while also preventing anyone from getting close to it hence why Gray had avoided it for the time being. 

After confirming that there was no one else on the floor but just engines, he looked over to the shut doors at the end of the room, before glancing back over at the ship's core. 

He placed his hand beneath his chin contemplating on what to do before reaching a conclusion. 

"Crashing the ship it is..." 

As he made his way to the core on the centre of the ship, he heard the gears around the door grinding. The door was slowly opening. 

{Pause Step.] 

His figure vanished. 

*Kachunk* 

The doors opened, and two figures emerged. 

One was a man with long dark brown hair, pointy ears and crystal red eyes. He wore the same uniform as all the Kessho's Gray had seen up to this point. He had a spear on his back and a sharp glare in his eyes. 

"I can't believe we got put on guard duty... Fucking boring." He said. 

The other was a man with short moss green hair and crystal red eyes. He wore glasses and had two dagger sheathes on his waist. He too wore the uniform. 

"..." 

He didn't say anything and simply walked over to where their destination. 

"It's always so fucking hot in here..." The dark brown-haired man complained as he loosed his uniform slightly. 

"..." 

"Say something will you!?" 

"Don't speak to me." The green haired guy finally spoke up. 

His first words carried a lot of bloodlust, a simple yet direct warning. Despite that the brown-haired man didn't feel threatened at all. 

The brown haired man continued trying to engage in a conversation, whilst laughing off any threats. 

"You're cold..." He muttered before glancing over at the core. "Still, despite how shitty this entire room is, I don't think I'll ever get bored of looking at that." 

The ship's core, it was truly a sight to see especially with how it lit up most of the dark room on it's own. 

"Do we even need to keep it safe? There's an alarm on it, and the barrier is impossible to break with or without abilities. Even we wouldn't be able to do anything to it." He continued. 

"I don't know, don't ask me." The green haired man responded, he was visibly annoyed. 

With his hands paused on the roof keeping him a suspended in the air, Gray quietly watched them, making sure not to make a single sound. 

'They don't look like they're going to be moving out of here anytime soon... Guess I'll kill them.' 

The accumulated sweat on Gray's upper half, slowly flowed down his face before slipping off the edge. 

Gray watched as the droplet of sweat, slowly fell through the air before landing cleanly on the green haired Kessho's head. 

*Drip* 

The green haired Kessho looked up, and his eyes widened. 

There Gray was, plummeting towards him with his Katana thrust down. 

The green haired Kessho leapt away, to avoid the thrust, but as for the other. 

"We're not going to be doing anything here so let's just-" 

*Stab!* 

He was interrupted as a sword pierced it's way through the top of it's head, down through it's jaw. 

A split second after, a figure crashed onto his back, causing them both to fall on the ground. 

The green haired Kessho watched with widened eyes as the eyes of his companion bulged out and his body twitched repeatedly on the floor. 

The twitching stopped. 

[You have killed a Kessho.] 

[You have gained 110 XP.] 

He instantly pulled out his daggers before leaping at Gray who was struggling to pull out his katana. It was stuck. 

*Swoosh!* 

The Kessho appeared before Gray in seconds, swinging both daggers simultaneously at him in an X cross manner. 

*Clang!* 

The daggers were repelled back as they came into contact with a paused horizontal line in the air in front of Gray. 

Following that, He stepped to the side and kicked at Gray's head. 

With his head hung down, Gray raised his arm, aiming to block the kick with a grin on his face. 

Seeing the Grin, the Kessho instantly cancelled his kick and retreated a few steps back. 

Cold sweat could be seen pouring down his face as he stared at Gray. 

'I don't know why... But I felt like if I had kicked him, the fight would have been over...' 

'This guy is a monster, do I retreat and call for back up?' 

He gripped his daggers tightly, as vein bulged out of his forehead. 

"No... I am a captain. My duty is to keep this room sa-" 

He was interrupted as Gray's figure suddenly vanished out of his field of view. 

He ducked down, effortlessly avoiding a kick which from his blind spot before, leaping forward. 

[Pause Field.] 

He took another leap upon landing, just barely avoiding getting caught up within a barely visible field which had expanded from out of Gray. 

Gray retracted the field and leapt forward once more. 

The blades of the Kessho who saw this began to glow brightly as he swung them towards Gray. 

But before the swing could even be completed- 

[Fast-Forward[ 

*BAM!* 

His pupils dilated as his head cocked back. Gray who had been a few meters away, covered the distance in an instant, spontaneously kneeing him in the process. 

'When did he get here!?' 

He gripped tightly on his weapon before continuing his swing, even if Gray was fast, as long as he could exchange a blow... That's all that mattered. 

Or so he thought. 

His heart sunk in surprise as he finally realised it. 

[Pause.] 

He couldn't move. 

His figure was suspended in the air from the knee, and it showed no signs of getting knocked back despite it. 

While frozen in such a state, his attacker, Gray was already winding up for another attack. 

It was then that he realised... 

'I fucked up...' 

- 

- 

- 

[You have killed a Kessho.] 

[You have earned 120 XP.] 

With blood pouring down beneath his feet, Gray dragged over the bodies, hiding them away beside an engine before glancing at the core. 

Gray was surprised, this Kessho's instincts were pretty good. Captains were truly no joke. 

Unfortunately, he didn't get to see what his ability was made of. 

  Gray grabbed their keycards before looking over at the ship's doors which they had come from. 

"Oh well, there'll be plenty more opportunities." 

Gray smiled slightly and began walking towards the door. 

"Guess I'll be able to get another level up." 

Upon reaching it, he swiped the card and just like he had expected, the gears began to creak and the door opened. 

His expression grew colder with each step that he took from that point on. He had successfully infiltrated the ship. 

His plan wasn't to convince them to change their ways. 

He was fully resolved to kill each and every one of them. 

"Pause Step." He muttered before vanishing. 

- 

- 

- 

Delta could be seen, running through the outskirts of the city, occasionally glancing back to make sure the shadowy figure was no longer on her tail. 

Fortunately for her, it seemed to have lost her trail. 

She slowed down, and came to a stop before looking over at the city. 

Chaos every, flying ships were fighting in the sky, reptilian beasts were roaming around fighting the zombies and explosions and beams of energy were being thrown left and right. 

The city had gone through so much you couldn't even call it a city at this point, it was quite literally just ruins. 

Delta snapped her fingers, creating a bird of dark flames which she proceeded to leap onto. 

The bird took off with Delta on top and rushed over to the other hidden bases the opposition had. 

They were few making it easy to narrow down to which the closest and easiest one for the people to have been transported to be, however she was stuck between two, each on opposite locations. 

A 50/50 chance. 

On the off chance that she got the wrong one, time would have been wasted, and that was the one thing she wanted to avoid. 

With her hair swaying back as the wind brushed against it, her figure and dark flame bird soared off into the distance.