OVERWHELMING POWER

"I hope you are heat resistant,"

With that, he fired two red beams from his eyes right into her chest.

Elena was caught off guard.She wasn't familiar with Cillian and didn't know that he could release his resonance from any part of his body. She made the mistake of underestimating her enemy, and was caught off guard. but there was no time to regret now.

With the beam so close to her, there was no time to move, and she unconsciously activated her resonance based on fighting instinct. An intense red aura covered her body, instantly blasting Cillian outward and embedding him in the wall behind him. Cillian groaned as he could feel all of his bones shatter and puncture his internal organs, causing massive internal bleeding. He was struggling to breathe and coughed up blood after each breath.

Elena's aura receded after a brief moment. Her upper garments were partially burned off, and her exposed skin was red as a tomato with two distinct burn marks that were healing rapidly. It was evident that her resonance didn't activate fast enough to protect her completely on top of that Cillian had put the highest energy output he could manage into that attack.

Elena stood silently, alternating her gaze between her healing wounds and Cillian embedded in the wall.

"I was careless! After all that talk, I underestimated my opponent and overreacted on top of that! Hopefully, he is fine, and Deputy Eren will let this slide," she prayed in her mind.

"Nope, you are not getting out of this like always," Deputy Eren's voice rang behind her as if he read her mind.

"Deputy Er... Sir, I didn't do it on purpose; it was an accident!" She protested.

"We can talk about that later. Looks like our new pioneer here needs some medical attention. Isn't that right, Administrator Elena?" The Deputy Director asked in a very normal way. But Elena picked up the intent behind his question and what he ment by 'new pioneer '.

"Of course, sir. There is no need for any further testing either. Mr. Z here is more than qualified to be a pioneer," Elena stated in an official tone.

"That's good to hear. Now let's help out our friend there," the Deputy said with a smile, pointing at Cillian, who barely managed to pull himself out of the wall and was now sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. The Deputy and Elena approached Cillian, who was struggling to move his body, which was most likely paralyzed from all the damage he received. He was perplexed by how much trouble he was having with the damage received and how much his body was struggling to repair the damage. Sure, he was suppressing his ability to exponentially regenerate by consuming energy, but his superhuman regeneration should've kicked in and started to heal him. However, he could feel that something was suppressing it.

The Deputy and Elena kneeled beside Cillian, who was struggling to breathe. Elena's upper body clothes were mostly gone, exposing her well-endowed assets. But she didn't mind it at all as this was almost a routine occurrence in her line of work, especially due to the nature of her resonance.

Cillian didn't think much off Elena's current outfit because it's not like clothes could hide anything from his eyes that can see in any spectrum of radiation if he wanted to. His poker mode seemed to also suppress that kind of emotion. So, for cillian such sights that may arouse particular emotions in most people didn't amount to much .

The Deputy reached out his hand and pressed on Cillian's chest. "You are probably wondering why your wounds are not healing, aren't you? See, when a pioneer attacks another pioneer with a resonance ability, a small amount of higher-dimensional energy unique to the resonance of the pioneer enters the body. This energy will try to suppress the resonance of the affected pioneer, causing them to weaken overall, decreasing their ability to fight and regenerate. This becomes obvious when fighting with pioneers with a higher grade than you, whose more superior resonance will suppress the weaker one to the extent of being almost useless. The higher the difference in power, the higher the suppression. This increases exponentially in rank, so much so that D and E rank pioneers will completely lose their ability to use resonances when in the presence of an A grade. The only way to bypass this is to have an innate law to heal or restore one's body or have a support type that can heal or restore with you just like this."

With that, a white halo appeared around Deputy Eren and spread outward, encompassing both Cillian and Elena. Cillian felt a cool sensation run through his body as he felt his regeneration kick into high gear and his stamina restore almost instantaneously. His wounds healed at a rapid pace, and his pale face regained its color. In just a minute, Cillian was fully healed and could stand up again.

' This is what a C Grade support type who is at the verge of ascending to B grade is capable of!' cillan thought inwardly as felt his fully revitalized body .

He knew who the Deputy was and what he was capable of he had done his research.

Eren Wilford, peak Grade C, Deputy Director of Borderlands DPMC branch, a support type pioneer with attribute buffing resonance.

In this age of information, with pioneers often being more like celebrities, it wasn't hard to gather information about pioneers, especially those who hold official positions like the deputy here. However, having this type of unconfirmed and outdated information will do more harm than good. Resonance abilities aren't stagnant; they can be improved and used in clever ways, like Cillian's own ability, which has limitless applications depending on how much effort Cillian puts in. The deputy was only one step away from becoming a B Grade, which would place him in a club of elites who can decide the outcome of an intergalactic war and are considered strategic assets. Cillian really admired Eren, and if not for his emotionless face, his expression would be brimming with excitement.

"Thanks for healing me. I thought I would be staying like that for a while," Cillian said sincerely.

"No problem at all. We should be apologizing to you for Elena's behavior, after all, she did say that you could go all out,"

Elena wanted to say something but kept her mouth shut. Cillian didn't mind the incident at all and half-expected it when he decided to put his all into that attack. So he waved his hands in refusal,

"No, I should be thanking Miss Elena here. She decided to go easy on me by not using her resonance from the start. If she had, I wouldn't have even scratched her with my attacks."

The deputy shook his head ,

"You don't have to be so modest about it. Even though she is only a low C, she is still a C grade. A low D like you forcing her to use her resonance is an achievement in itself."

"I basically got my ass handed to me. What part of that was an achievement?" Cillian said in a sarcastic tone.

The deputy smiled, and even Elena cracked a smile.

"You are undervaluing yourself. Let me put it this way, if you put a hundred average low Ds against Elena in a fight, she could end all of them in a minute."

Cillian was surprised by the deputy director's reply. He had rated Elena highly for her combat prowess, but it seemed that she was even stronger than his judgment. He couldn't help but look at Elena in a new light. Elena, who seemed to understand Cillian's thoughts, puffed up her chest in pride. Cillian didn't hide his admiration for Elena's power either,

"Miss Elena is amazing to have such a level of power at such a young age! The DPMC is an amazing place to have raised someone of her caliber in their ranks!"

The deputy director finally got the moment he was waiting for. He stepped forward,

" say, Are you interested in joining the DPMC?"