novelraw Chapter 38: Escape From Death
Chapter 38: Escape From Death
Within 0.1 seconds, Mo Wen executed 1,200 slashes.
The cuts divided everything around him.
The steel-chewing, flesh-regenerating, ever-growing beast that seemed undying had its life severed.
Its already unstable genes rapidly deteriorated, losing the ability to replicate. Yet because death came too swiftly, it mistakenly believed itself still alive, struggling futilely.
Bull heads, deer antlers, snake pupils, eagle eyes, horse tails... countless animal traits manifested across its disintegrating form.
Ultimately, it became nothing more than finely diced meat chunks, unable to maintain cohesion as they scattered across the ground.
The fortress bore a slender slash mark one meter above ground level, cutting through every structure and living being on its surface.
Mo Wen never located the gravity-manipulating device or individual, but he trusted that sufficient destruction would incidentally eliminate the threat.
Everything above one meter connected to the ground was cleanly severed.
Those attempting movement puzzled over their sliding upper bodies while their lower halves inexplicously went numb.Some buildings remained perfectly intact, their surgical cuts so precise they appeared undisturbed. Others exploded violently, scattering in fiery chain reactions.
The fortress's power sources were similarly annihilated.
The energy sustaining its aerial suspension and shield generation failed completely. Within moments, the collapsing systems would consume the entire structure.
A Corporation psychic of Energy Level 5 arrived to eliminate Mo Wen, yet before executing his ultimate technique, found himself bifurcated vertically. He desperately tried reuniting his separated halves, but failed.
His power wasn't insignificant - boasting numerous victories against others, he'd have stood decent odds even against an unarmed Mo Wen.
Now his life ended, all struggles futile against his divided state.
Yet he remained slightly luckier than others.
One victim's skull split down the middle, his energy core destroyed, stripping all cognitive and survival capacities. The impending explosion would consume his remains, his flawless defenses breached by two insignificant gaps.
Even attackers operating thousands of kilometers away weren't spared. Sharper psychic energy transcended space, erasing their minds across the distance.
No living beings remained near Mo Wen.
Had he survived?
The premonition of death persisted, yet psychic detection revealed nothing.
Mo Wen hypothesized that enemy reinforcements would arrive before he escaped.
Then escape he must.
No longer did he fear being too distant from danger to resist effectively.
Mo Wen carved a vertical tunnel through the fortress and leaped downward.
Now he needed to vanish - to maintain or replace his Dream Creator, repair his augmentations, acquire spacecraft or modify himself for planetary escape, ultimately achieving absolute safety.
For one instant, Mo Wen relaxed.
In that instant, he sensed the entity utterly incompatible with his existence.
It had arrived.
Beneath the collapsing fortress, amidst raining steel, scattered flesh, and explosive flames, a radiant humanoid figure materialized directly before Mo Wen.
Power. Terrifying, incomprehensible power that eroded his psyche just by existing there. Every previous adversary and technology had followed logical principles - experimental tech combined with psychic energy surpassing current standards. But this... this surpassed all human psychic research on Avel.
Energy Level 6? Higher?
More horrifying, Mo Wen sensed infinite benevolence from it - love, courage to change the present, prayers for justice, compassion for the weak, aspirations for the future - as if humanity's finest qualities forged its being.
Merely observing it made Mo Wen's conscience burn, compelling him to repent for slaughtering possibly deceived innocents who posed no real threat.
Its subsequent actions betrayed no such benevolence.
Extreme danger forced Mo Wen to risk self-destruction, pushing his psychic energy back to Level 5 and beyond.
Time seemed frozen. Gravity ceased affecting him. Only the entity moved freely, pausing momentarily before releasing a photon blast.
Facing its radiance, Mo Wen finally understood the war satellite's energy source.
This entity's output dwarfed those attacks exponentially.
If this was the sun, the satellites had emitted mere fireflies.
Across the planet, day and night alike became blinding - as if some deity maxed out brightness and exposure before tossing flashbangs. No structure blocked the invasive light.
Every upward glance resulted in instant blindness, regardless of whether they saw the source.
Blindness became irrelevant as psychic aftershocks vaporized their bodies.
Over three billion lives vanished instantly. Dozens of cities became necropolises. Empty clothing fluttered to the ground, survivors nearly nonexistent.
Naturally, Mo Wen left no corpse.
The superluminal psychic beam, over 2,000km in radius, continued past Avel's moon after erasing Mo Wen, traversing cosmic vacuum.
Perhaps someday a black hole would consume it, or some exotic planet intercept it. Until then, Avel's inhabitants could observe the ever-lengthening scar across the cosmos.
"That's what the Corporation wanted to hide? This is human research? A human-created weapon?" The Dragonblade Ninja's worldview shattered. Fighting excruciating headaches and his burning cybernetic eye, he turned to ask Ren Sisi if this was illusion.
Psychic probing revealed empty space - she'd vanished.
Their recently replenished three-member squad lost two today, leaving him alone.
"Well, this..."
Words failed the Dragonblade Ninja. Silently adjusting his descent, he aimed for headquarters.
Death might have been preferable.
...
Amidst yellow sand, Phantom... Mo Wen opened his eyes, staring blankly at the sky.
He hadn't returned to the Revival Point. Instead, unfamiliar psychic applications and Phantom's voice echoed through his mind.
"Survive. Accomplish something. You matter more than I did."