The Wings That Finally Took Flight
“Haa, huff...... cough! Damn, damn it!” Ohu’s eyes were bloodshot, inflamed by the stinging seawater.
‘Gotcha!’
Despite being slammed into the ocean, Ohu had used the power of Acceleration to fight against the violent current, swimming upward with frantic intensity. In that brief, critical moment, Eunbyul, cradled in his arms, had activated her Flight ability. By pushing upward even from beneath the surface, she had maintained their altitude, allowing them to miraculously grab hold of the tube’s surface once more.
“Ah...... ahh...... you’re, you’re alive......!” Triple Power looked down at the two, her eyes welling up with tears as if she couldn’t believe it.
Clinging to the edge of the tube, Ohu gasped for air, then screamed at the woman trapped inside the inflatable ring. “Hey, you human!!!”
Ohu’s roar cut through the sound of the crashing waves. “My ability, and Eunbyul’s ability! They can only shoot us upward or make us fly! We can’t move horizontally in mid-air! Do something about it!!!”
They could pierce through the water with Acceleration and float with Eunbyul’s Flight, but they lacked any propulsion or steering to reach the breakwater. At this rate, they were destined to run out of strength in the middle of the ocean and drown, still clinging to the tube.
At his desperate shout, Triple Power sobbed and yelled back. “You flew all the way here without a way to get back?! Are you out of your minds?! Are you guys actually crazy?!”
“And whose fault is that?!” Ohu spat out water, his eyes wide and fierce as he retorted. “Where would we find the time to calculate a way back when there’s a person about to die in front of my eyes?!”
“......!”
“Do something, damn it! You’re supposed to be an A-rank hero of South Korea—are you going to just sit there and become fish food with us?!!!”
Flash—! Rumble!
Back in those days, when she had run away to become a suit designer, her peers out in the field would always call her frantically through the communication devices embedded in the suits she built. “Hey! Michelin! How much longer can this suit hold up?! Can you save the people trapped inside?!”
The answer was always the same. ‘No. With the current suit functions, it’s impossible. That’s the limit. So please, just run away right now!’
But they never listened to the end. They would leave behind the same foolish, blindingly brilliant words Ohu had just shouted, and throw themselves into the flames and debris, losing their lives.
Their radiant, reckless final voices now overlapped with the young faces of Ohu and Eunbyul, who were clinging to her while braving the wind and rain.
‘Ah.......’
The wavering in Triple Power’s eyes ceased.
‘That’s right. I can no longer just hide behind Mr. Hoseop and tremble......’
The residue of inferiority that had remained in her heart, the sense of debt toward her academy peers, and the weak-mindedness of relying on the shelter of Triple Axel—it all shattered and fell away.
‘If the senior isn’t here, I have to do it from now on.’
“Mister, hold on tight!” Eunbyul gritted her teeth, pulling Ohu’s waist even tighter as she pushed the output of her Flight ability to the limit.
Thanks to Eunbyul’s power, the three of them—Ohu, who was gripping the edge of the tube, and Triple Power, trapped inside—began to slowly rise from the sea toward the open air.
‘I...... I have to take the lead now. I am.... I am....’
Whoosh—!
‘Because I’m a hero...!’
As they rose, bearing the weight of three people, the air was rapidly escaping from the tube through the hole Triple Power had bitten into it. As their altitude increased, the deflating tube lost the binding force that had been constricting her, becoming loose. Once more than half the air was gone, Triple Power’s body began to slide toward the bottom of the tube.
Slippery.
“No!”
Triple Power’s body slipped completely out of the tube Ohu was holding. Her naked form began to plummet toward the sea at a terrifying speed.
“Eek! Maaaaster!! Noooo!!!” Namiyang, watching from afar, screamed as she saw Triple Power fall from the tube into a freefall toward the ocean. Ayoung also turned pale, covering her mouth.
However, Triple Crown, standing like a giant at the end of the breakwater, simply placed his hands on his hips and offered a relaxed smile.
“Don’t make such a fuss.” Triple Crown’s massive voice boomed over the sound of the rain. “Our Sam-i might act like a gear-junkie hiding behind a suit, but if you strip all that away and look at her raw power, she’s a hero far stronger than I am.”
No sooner had he finished speaking—
Whoosh—!
The falling Triple Power twisted her body.
‘Gather it.’
The immense amount of Elasticity energy accumulated in her body while the tube was being battered by the violent waves. Added to that was the massive kinetic energy generated by her vertical freefall. She concentrated all of that internal and external mechanical energy into a single point: her right fist, pushing it to the absolute limit.
The air around her fist distorted and hummed. She was barely one meter above the water’s surface—a split second before she would have slammed into the sea.
“Hraaaah—!!!”
Triple Power struck the empty air just before her fist could touch the water.
Kaaaaa-boom—!!!!
Triple Power’s true ability: Elasticity. It was a cheat-tier physical manipulation ability that went beyond simply stretching her own body like rubber; it allowed her to temporarily imbue elasticity into external solids, liquids, and even the gas particles she struck.
The wall of air her fist hit instantly transformed into a platform with an elasticity coefficient, and she converted the energy she poured into it into a reverse-directional repulsive force, launching her body upward with violent intensity.
Pop—!!
The surface of the sea caved in, and Triple Power’s small frame shot into the air with terrifying speed.
“Whoa?!”
Triple Power soared upward, flying toward Ohu and Eunbyul, who were barely maintaining their altitude in the sky. She stretched out both arms, grabbing Ohu by the scruff of his neck and Eunbyul by her waist, pulling them both into a tight embrace.
“Sorry. I’m late.”
In the middle of the sky, cutting through the wind, Triple Power grinned at Ohu and Eunbyul. “From now on, I’ll lead the way.”
Triple Power looked down at Eunbyul in her arms and asked, “You said your name was Eunbyul, right? You said your ability was floating in the air?”
“Yes? Yes......! But it’s too slow.......”
“That’s fine. I’ll trust you and fly!”