Chapter 96: Open Sky

Inside the Survival Space, a crystal floated in the corner, its surface glowing with a soft, milky-white light. The extraterrestrial life crystal. Ethan Carter stood several feet away and watched the change happening around him.

For a moment he forgot about the things waiting outside. The ceiling was gone. In its place stretched an endless blue sky, scattered with soft white clouds. A red sun hung high, and warm light moved across the ground. The clouds drifted. The light shifted the way real sunlight did. There was no artificial glow, no invisible ceiling, no sense of being shut in a box. It looked like the real world.

He tilted his head back and looked for the place where the sky ended. He found nothing. The Space had been capped at ten meters before. Even after the last expansion it had felt like a large underground room with a patch of land. Now the line between the Space and the world outside had almost disappeared. The soil under his feet was dark and fertile. A gentle breeze moved across the open ground and carried the faint scent of earth after rain. Everything felt alive.

Previously the system had only changed the soil so it could support plants. This had gone further. A notification appeared.

[Ding! Extraterrestrial Life Crystal detected. Initial evolution of the Survival Space is complete.]

[The Survival Space no longer has a fixed height limit. Current area: 10,000 square meters.]

[The Extraterrestrial Life Crystal contains an immense reserve of Life Energy. As the host’s Space Ability improves, the Survival Space will gradually absorb this energy and continue evolving.]

[Long-term evolution may eventually transform the Survival Space into an independent world indistinguishable from a natural planet.]

[Warning: Oxygen reserves remaining: 10 hours.]

[Absorb external air or cultivate sufficient greenery to establish a sustainable oxygen cycle.]

His eyes stayed on the last line, then went back. An independent world. The words were enough to set his mind running. If the Space could become a world of its own, he would not have to keep hunting for a secure place to live. Crops. Animals. Houses. A settlement beyond the reach of the things outside. Even a King-rank mutant might have trouble reaching him there.

The warning pulled him back. Ten hours of oxygen. The new sky looked real. Appearances meant nothing if the people inside suffocated. He needed Rose as soon as he could get her. Her Plant Growth ability could push vegetation hard. If he brought her in and grew enough trees and green, he might lock in a natural oxygen cycle. That would solve one of the biggest holes.

He walked to the crystal. Up close it was stranger. The surface looked like polished white stone, but faint currents of light moved under it, as if something was flowing inside. He reached out and brushed his fingertips against it. Warmth spread through his fingers. Not the ordinary warmth of a sunlit rock. The energy seemed to pass straight through his skin, into his body, through his veins. His depleted Space Ability stirred. The familiar fluctuations around his fingertips strengthened, steadier, more responsive.

He pulled his hand back and flexed his fingers. The improvement was small. He could feel it. So this thing is helping my Space Ability recover. He looked at the crystal again and wondered how much power was in it. He did not have time to find out. Daisy Miller was waiting at Wealth Building. He had no idea what had happened to her and the others while the Snake King and the Tyrannosaurus Rex tore the city. They might already have left Silvermont. Or they might have met something else that did not care about plans.

He was not going to learn that by standing under his new sky. He transferred everyone in the Space to the hidden air-raid shelter under the library. Before he left he made sure they had enough food and water to last until he came back.

"Stay here," he said. "Don’t go outside unless there’s no other choice. The shelter is well hidden, and I don’t want anyone drawing eyes."

Debbie nodded, Nina against her. "We’ll wait. Just be careful."

The others gave the same assurances. He looked around once more, then activated teleportation. Space twisted. A heartbeat later he stood in a narrow alley near the library. The smell of damp concrete and rotting garbage hit him. The blue sky of the Space was gone. In its place was the gloomy red light hanging over Silvermont. Broken windows. Abandoned cars blocked parts of the road, bodies covered in dust and dried blood. Somewhere in the distance a zombie groaned.

He checked the alley before he stepped out. Wealth Building was roughly six kilometers away. On a normal day that was nothing. Now every street could hold a mutant, an evolved zombie, or a survivor desperate enough to kill for a bottle of water. Worse, the fight near the Museum was still going. Distant roars rolled through the city, sometimes with a tremor under his feet. He needed to avoid fights he did not have to take.

He kept close to the walls and moved through the deserted streets. Two intersections without incident. A row of abandoned shops. A few ordinary zombies wandered between the cars. He went around them. Then he reached a pedestrian street. A sharp whistle cut the air. His instincts screamed. He threw himself sideways. A bullet tore through the space where his head had been a fraction earlier. At the same time he raised his hand. A narrow black fissure opened in front of him. The second bullet vanished into it without a spark.

He rolled behind an overturned delivery van and looked toward the opposite building. Crouched on top of a department store billboard was a large mutant monkey. Dark fur. Long arms ending in powerful hands wrapped around a rifle. Scarlet eyes with an intelligence that did not belong in an animal. A cruel grin spread across its face when it saw the first shot had missed. The Big Monkey. Mental Ability, and it had learned how to use a firearm. It tilted its head and studied him like the two of them were playing. Then it shrieked.

"Squeak! Squeak!"

Movement erupted from the shops on both sides. More than a dozen smaller monkeys scrambled out of broken windows and half-open doorways. Some carried iron rods. Others clutched chunks of concrete and jagged stones. They spread across the street and cut his easiest ways out. Another gunshot. The bullet struck the van beside his head and punched through the metal with a crack. He ducked.

"Damn it."

The Big Monkey was not shooting at random. It was watching his movements and trying to predict where he would go next. With its Mental Ability helping it read him, even a short dash across the street could put him in the bullet’s path. The smaller ones were there to finish the job if he slipped the rifle. A nasty combination. He tightened his grip on the sword.

The first monkey lunged with an iron rod. He stepped inside its reach and swung. The blade passed clean across its throat. Before the body hit the pavement he pivoted and drove the sword through the second monkey’s chest. He kicked the corpse aside and pushed forward, refusing to let the others surround him. Stones struck the van behind him. One of the smaller monkeys leaped onto his back, reaching for his neck. He dropped his shoulder, threw it over him, and brought the sword down before it could get its feet. He moved toward the department store, using the wreckage for cover.

Another shot cracked. The bullet struck the pavement directly in front of his foot. The Big Monkey had read his next step almost perfectly. He pulled back just in time, but the delay let three smaller monkeys close. One swung a metal rod at his head. He ducked under it and cut across its stomach. Another came from his blind side and forced him to turn and block with the flat of the sword. The impact jolted his arm. A third hurled a stone at his face. He twisted aside. The projectile grazed his cheek and smashed the wall.

He could not keep this up. Space Fissure could swallow the bullets, but every use cost energy. If he let the Big Monkey keep firing while the others wore him down, he would empty himself. He needed to kill the one controlling the fight. Now. He waited until another bullet came screaming toward him. A black fissure opened. The projectile vanished. At the same instant he activated teleportation. The world blurred. He reappeared on the department store’s rooftop, several meters from the billboard.

The Big Monkey’s grin disappeared. Surprise flickered across its face for the first time. Ethan did not give it time to recover. He rushed forward, sword raised. A crimson glow flashed in the creature’s eyes. An invisible pressure slammed into his mind. For an instant the rooftop seemed to tilt. A dull ache spread behind his eyes. The monkey’s figure blurred as its Mental Ability hit his perception. He had expected the move. He activated teleportation again. The mental assault struck empty air as he vanished from its line of sight and reappeared behind it. His sword descended toward the back of its skull.

The Big Monkey reacted with startling speed. It sprang upward, twisting in midair. Its long arms swung the rifle around, and the barrel flashed toward him. The gun fired. He jerked his head aside. The bullet grazed past his ear, close enough to hear the sharp hiss. The monkey rose nearly five meters above the rooftop before it began to fall. He had already read where it would land. He raised his hand. A black fissure opened across the projected landing point. The Big Monkey twisted violently, trying to change direction in midair. Too late. Its leg scraped the edge of the spatial rift. A terrible tearing sound. Fur and flesh split. It let out a shrill scream and crashed onto the rooftop. The rifle clattered away across the concrete.

Ethan stepped forward. "Got you." He activated Time Stop. The world seemed to freeze around the monkey. Its body locked halfway through an attempt to crawl. Scarlet eyes wide. Mouth open around a silent scream. He raised the sword. One clean strike split the skull. The body collapsed. A moment later the frozen instant ended, and there was only the dull sound of the corpse hitting the roof.

He crouched and retrieved a walnut-sized yellow Core from its brain. He looked at it briefly, then put it away. Below, the smaller monkeys had finally reached the rooftop entrance. The moment they saw their leader’s corpse, their confidence broke. One dropped its iron rod. Another screamed and scrambled for the stairs. Within seconds the whole group was fleeing in different directions. He ignored them. He collected a few peanut-sized Cores from the dead near the entrance and swallowed them one after another. The energy spread through him and eased some of the exhaustion from the fight. He had no intention of wasting these weaker Cores as gifts. Restoring his own energy mattered more right now.

After he checked his injuries, he left the rooftop and continued south. Roughly a kilometer later, a shadow swept across the road. He looked up. Two enormous shapes descended between the buildings, wings spreading wide enough to cast shadows over the abandoned cars. Mutant flying wolves. And they were already diving.