Cameraman Never Dies-Chapter 250: The length a grandpa must go for a cigar

"This whole place is pretty limiting, don’t you think?"

Gereon straightened himself after letting just a tiny bit of his will escape before retracting. The three figures, Luther, Quill, and May, seemed to have frozen by what he let out. Seemingly thinking about what kind of abomination they were fighting.

He slowly raised his hand, pointing to the sky above.

"Erase..."

He only uttered a single word, but the whole cathedral seemed to vanish under his command, not even disintegrating. Just that the walls and roof seemed to have stopped existing, as if they were never there to begin with.

Nothing but the open sky above, shattered foundations below. Gereon stood in the middle of it, sleeves rolled up (metaphorically) like he was about to fix a leaky pipe instead of being swarmed by three walking paradoxes.

"Alright," Gereon muttered. "Round two. Let’s make it stupid."

Quill flicked his coin so high it seemed to vanish into the stars. "Odds say you regret saying that."

The coin came down. Landed heads. The ground beneath Gereon instantly erupted in jagged spikes of stone, probability warping reality to give Quill’s threat a punchline.

Gereon raised one foot, tapped the nearest spike like he was testing the ripeness of a melon, and it shattered into gravel. He smirked. "Guess what, kid? I don’t believe in odds. Never liked math."

Luther blurred forward, unmaking space itself, until Gereon’s entire left side ceased to register. His arm vanished. His shoulder disappeared. For anyone else, that was death by omission.

But Gereon laughed, raised his invisible arm, and flexed it. "See that? Strongest non-existent bicep in the hemisphere." He swung the absent limb. The air cracked, and Luther staggered back as though hit by something that wasn’t supposed to exist.

Luther wiped blood from his lip, face impassive but eyes narrowing. "You should not be able to..."

"Buddy," Gereon interrupted, "I’ve been told my existence is a cosmic error more times than I can count. You’re just late to the party."

May stepped forward, robes flowing as though the night itself bent to make her grander. Her voice boomed: "Break."

The word rippled across reality. But it seemed to have affected May more than the others; she staggered as she held her head, supporting her weight with her sword.

Every bone in Gereon’s body snapped simultaneously. The sound was sickening. For a heartbeat, he looked like a marionette dropped from too great a height, limbs bent the wrong way.

Then Gereon straightened, bones knitting back with casual shrugs. "See, the thing is, lady, I’ve broken every bone in my body at least twice before breakfast. This is nostalgia, not pain."

May’s face betrayed the first flicker of doubt.

The three pressed harder, powers intertwining.

Quill made the stars above tilt, so meteors just happened to streak toward Gereon. Luther erased the space they crossed, so the fireballs blinked closer, faster, angling to incinerate him. May commanded: "Burn!" and the very air tried to combust around his skin.

Gereon inhaled deeply. Then exhaled. The meteors turned to fireflies midair and drifted harmlessly into the night. The flames coating his shoulders rolled off like warm rain. He reached up, caught one of the fireflies, and tucked it into his pocket.

"You three," he said, almost conversational, "are very creative. But creativity is my hobby, too."

He clapped his hands. The sound rang like a thunderclap. Out of nowhere, chairs appeared—five of them. Ornate, carved, velvet cushions. He sat down on the middle one.

"Here’s the game," Gereon announced. "Musical chairs. Only problem is, there’s no music. And every chair is me."

The three shuddered; their instincts told them something really unpleasant was going to happen if they missed the chairs, and they had better instincts than many.

Quill laughed despite himself. Then lunged forward, flipping his coin, probability trying to snatch a seat. The coin landed heads — he should’ve landed first. Instead, he went straight through the chair as though it were smoke.

Gereon waved. "Told you. Every chair’s me. You can’t sit in me. Consent issue."

Luther tried next, erasing the chair out of existence. The instant it vanished, another one appeared behind him. He spun, confused. Gereon leaned back, arms folded. "That’s the problem with unmaking things. I can just keep making more. Infinite furniture market catalog, baby."

May’s voice cracked: "Sit!"

All three chairs obeyed—slamming downward, pinning Luther and Quill onto invisible thrones of pressure. Gereon tilted his head. "Not bad. But you didn’t specify who sits." He stood up, dusted himself off, and the chairs imploded, sending both enemies sprawling.

Seems their instinct was wrong this time.

The ground shook. Quill had flipped again. "Odds say the earth swallows you!"

The cracked battlefield split wide, a canyon tearing open beneath Gereon’s boots. He tipped forward, seemed about to fall — then calmly pulled a fishing rod out of thin air, hooked it into nothing, and reeled himself back up.

"Did you just—" Quill sputtered.

"Fishing trip," Gereon said. "Caught myself."

Luther blinked. For a moment, his expression cracked into sheer disbelief.

May snarled. "Bleed."

Blood gushed from Gereon’s arms, chest, throat — red fountains spraying across the rubble. For a moment, he looked genuinely undone, scarlet pooling at his feet. Luther stepped forward to press the advantage.

Then Gereon calmly collected the blood into a sphere, spinning it on one finger like a basketball. "Finally. Hydration." He lobbed it at Quill, who ducked too late, drenched in his teammate’s attack.

"You’re revolting," Quill spat.

"I prefer resourceful," Gereon said, still smirking.

Now the trio was rattled. They regrouped, circling him, whispering strategies. Their powers flared — reality twisting, commands vibrating in the air, odds stacking heavily.

Gereon, meanwhile, crouched down, picked up a pebble, and flicked it skyward. "Catch."

The pebble arced high, then vanished. A heartbeat later, a meteor — no, a mountain — came plummeting back down from the heavens — an entire mountain, summoned from wherever Gereon had decided that pebble belonged.

The three enemies panicked. Luther erased chunks of the falling rock, Quill twisted probability so it shattered before hitting them, May screamed "Shatter!" and the mountain split into harmless gravel.

When the dust cleared, Gereon was lounging atop the pile like a man on a beach.

"Nice teamwork," he said. "But you’re sweating. That means I’m winning."

Luther vanished again, erasing his own presence until even the stars seemed to skip over him. He struck from behind, from above, from angles no one should notice. But Gereon started narrating.

"He’s on my left. No, my right. Behind me. Above. Below." Each word dragged Luther back into focus, pinned by the sheer absurdity of being noticed because Gereon said so.

"You can’t talk me into existence," Luther growled.

"I just did," Gereon said, punching him in the gut so hard the man flew backward, coughing blood.

Quill was next. He spun the coin so fast it blurred, probability layering over probability, stacking impossible outcomes until the entire world tilted. The sky rained knives, the ground liquefied, and Gereon’s footing should’ve been statistically impossible.

Instead, Gereon yawned, stretched, and stepped onto one of the falling knives as though it were a staircase. Each step took him higher, closer to Quill, until he stood directly in front of him.

"Odds of me smacking you right now?" Gereon asked. "One hundred percent."

Then he slapped him.

Not punched. Slapped. The sound echoed across the ruins like a cannon shot. Quill spun three times in midair before crashing into rubble.

That left May. She raised both hands, voice cracking reality itself. "Die."

The world obeyed. Shadows clamped down, stars blinked out, the rubble screamed as though alive. For a split second, the universe insisted Gereon should no longer exist.

And yet he stepped forward, entirely intact.

"You’ve got a hell of a voice," Gereon admitted. "But death and I are on a break."

She screamed louder. "Obey!"

"I already obey one woman," Gereon said. "My mother. And she’s scarier than you."

He gripped her throat gently — not enough to crush, just enough to silence. "Word of advice. Don’t use your indoor voice outdoors. Makes you sound desperate."

He dropped her, stepping back as all three regrouped, battered, furious, but alive.

The night sky thundered. Gereon dusted off his hands, glancing upward.

"You three are good," he said finally. "Better than most. But if you’re going to keep me entertained, you’ll need to stop playing by your own rules."

The three exchanged glances. They weren’t beaten yet. But they were shaken. Badly. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"Cut," May shuddered, her voice was starting to lose authority, but stern as if she figured something out.

Gereon got another cut on his chest, and even his ribs were cut, albeit not deeply. But that had already been proved ineffective.

He suddenly tensed, confused as to what the girl was planning, though barely visible behind his smirk.

May forced a smile as she uttered her next command, "Bleed true..."

Suddenly, the crimson blood dripping from Gereon’s already closing wound turned slightly amber, and then gold. He suddenly clutched his wound, groaning from pain.

He still forced his signature smirk, "I must congratulate you... May, you seem more capable than the inexperienced air you let out."