Chapter 147: The River of Fate

Boom.

Heaven Gate opened.

The gold light that had covered every carved line on the frame flared at once, but this time the feeling was nothing like when the gate had still been Epic rank. The old energy paths snapped one after another and rearranged themselves, stacking into layers of far more intricate pattern. Even the space behind the door was no longer only a vague field of light.

Ethan saw depth.

It was as if a road truly existed beyond Heaven Gate, stretching toward a place ordinary eyes could not reach.

Right after that, a colossal surge of energy poured out of the doorway.

Boom.

Ethan’s body locked.

Laira stepped in at once. Rou Yan tightened the Soul Thread by reflex. Mumu, standing beside them, went soft all over and puffed up in fright.

"Mumu?"

"It’s fine."

Ethan got only that far before the entire tide of energy slammed into him.

Gold rank 9.

The limit that had forced him to burn through a great many Energy Crystals just to take one more step shuddered violently.

Crack.

A sound like something breaking deep inside his body rang out.

Gold rank 10.

Heaven Gate still did not stop.

Energy kept pouring in. It did not merely increase the power already there. It forced every current in Ethan’s body to grow purer and denser. He could feel the foundation that had been reinforced on the eighteenth floor spreading farther, like a building that already had an extremely deep foundation and was finally adding an entirely new story.

At the same time, the bond between Ethan and his three Partners trembled.

Laira’s eyes went wide. Rou Yan looked down at her own hands. Mumu cheerfully raised both short arms.

"Mumu!"

Gold light spilled out of Ethan’s body.

The boundary between Gold and Platinum appeared in his senses. It was not a hard wall. It was more like an extremely thick membrane holding all that energy back from changing further.

Ethan set his teeth.

Heaven Gate behind him shook.

Boom.

The membrane tore through.

A completely new sensation spread through his body at once.

Platinum rank 1.

Ethan let the breath out very slowly.

He had not yet had time to feel the new power carefully when the whole hall went suddenly still.

This was not ordinary quiet.

Stone dust hanging in the air stopped. A fragment of bone that had just rolled off a pile of corpses froze on the floor at an unnatural tilt. The last thread of Thunder Fire on Laira’s fingertip locked into a motionless spark, and Rou Yan’s Soul Thread halted in midair.

Even Mumu, who had been about to leap up and hug Ethan, stiffened in the middle of the motion.

Space began to warp.

Ethan lifted his head slowly.

He knew what had come.

The ceiling of the hall vanished.

It was not destroyed. It was simply replaced by an endless black. At the center of that darkness a colossal fissure opened little by little, and then an eye appeared, looking down coldly.

Violet-black.

It was so huge that the pupil alone was like a bottomless abyss.

The Void Eye.

The first time he had seen it, this pressure alone would have been enough to freeze him in place. Now he only stood where he was. He did not step back. He did not dodge. There was even a trace of indifference in his gaze.

"You again."

The eye made no sound, but the darkness around it shuddered at once.

At the same time Ethan’s left arm burned hot.

Boom.

Violet-black Void Fire erupted along the surface of the Primordial Armor. Lines of flame forced their way out through the joints, running from the stump up toward the elbow, shaking hard as if they had just met their true master.

Ethan looked down. He watched the fire for a few seconds, then brushed the surface of the Primordial Armor twice with his right hand.

As if he were flicking off a few specks of dust.

The motion made the Void Eye above him pause for a beat.

Void Fire was of course not dust. But under the aura of the Legendary Heaven Gate that had just finished evolving, the flame that had once hurt Ethan almost to the point of losing consciousness could no longer climb.

It shook hard several times, and in the end the Primordial Armor and the new source of energy forced it back around the stump.

Ethan looked at the fire shrinking.

The corner of his mouth curved slightly.

"Is that all?"

The darkness in the sky boiled at once.

The pressure came down harder, but Ethan still stood straight. He looked up at the colossal eye above him, his voice calm enough to be almost a provocation.

"If you want to kill me, come yourself."

Space trembled.

Ethan laughed.

"Stop throwing garbage like Ryan at me to test my patience."

This time the Void Eye’s reaction was clearer.

The violet-black pupil contracted. Cracks spread across the black sky. Ethan could feel the creature’s fury, even though from beginning to end it had not spoken a single word.

That only made him calmer.

Through the earlier encounters Ethan had gradually understood something.

The Void Eye was strong, far stronger than he was now. Even so, it still could not step directly in front of him.

It needed Ryan.

It needed Void Fire.

It needed the cracks.

It needed to borrow the hands of things that already existed in this world.

If it could truly drop a single finger and crush him at will, Ethan would not have lived until today.

"I am waiting."

Ethan said it.

The Void Eye looked at him a few seconds longer.

Right after that the scene around him changed.

The darkness drew aside to both sides, revealing beneath the Void Eye a colossal river.

There was no water in it.

What flowed were countless points of light, flickering images, white threads, and billions of fragments of scenes appearing and vanishing without pause. Ethan watched for only a moment before his head grew heavy, because every light seemed to stand for a choice, a life, or a result that had never come to pass.

An endless river of possibilities.

’Fate?’

The thought had barely formed when the darkness around the Void Eye moved.

A violet-black tentacle slid out.

Then a second.

A third.

In the space of a blink, dozens of tentacles stabbed down into the river.

Boom.

The strands of light that had been drifting in different directions shuddered at once. Some were pulled off their paths. Some tangled together. A few points of light that had been very far from Ethan began, slowly, to turn toward the same direction.

Ethan frowned.

"What are you trying to do now?"

The eye did not answer.

In the next instant the whole world in front of him shattered.

Far from the Abyss Tower, an elderly Elf suddenly opened his eyes.

He was sitting in a wide stone room. Half of a face once burned by lightning still held clear scars. On the table in front of him was a recording crystal, and inside it the scene of Ethan standing before the World-Ending Thunder Gate in the Owin ruins was still stored.

The Elf had watched that recording many times.

Thunder Wings.

Crimson Dragon.

The gate of lightning.

Every time he watched it again, fear and greed mixed together in him.

This time a completely different image appeared in his mind without warning.

No cause.

No voice.

Only a scene so clear it felt like a memory of his own.

A vast abandoned aerospace center.

Cracked runways.

Launch towers.

Old airship hangars.

And a patch of space trembling in the middle of the square.

Ethan would go there.

The elderly Elf’s eyes went wide.

He did not understand why he knew, but the certainty in his chest was too strong to doubt.

The hand resting on the table slowly closed.

"Ethan Ashford..."

A moment later he stood.

In another region, several Beastmen who had survived the Owin ruins received similar dreams at the same time.

No one heard an order.

No one felt himself being controlled.

They only suddenly "remembered" that they had once heard of an ancient Trial Gate about to open in that place.

A chance.

A reward.

A road that could make them stronger.

And most important of all, Ethan would appear.

Reasons that had already lived in their hearts were magnified at once.

Fear.

Hatred.

Greed for the Thunder Wings.

The wish to kill Ethan before he finished growing.

Groups began to prepare to set out, and not one of them realized that behind the decision a hand had just been added.

In an abandoned industrial zone near Safe Zone Seven, Ryan was on his knees.

"Aaaaaa—!"

Violet-black Void Fire burned over his whole body.

It was nothing like the flame Ryan had once used of his own will.

This time the Void Fire burned from the inside.

It spread from his chest through his throat, then ran down both arms. Violet-black cracks kept appearing on his skin, and every time Ryan tried to force them down the fire flared harder.

"Stop!"

He slammed a hand into the concrete.

Boom.

The ground split.

"I said stop!"

No one answered.

Instead an image appeared in his mind.

The abandoned aerospace center.

Ancient ruins.

Ethan.

Ryan clenched his teeth.

"I know already!"

The Void Fire kept burning.

"Aaaa—!"

Ryan arched, both hands clawing into the ground.

"I WILL GO!"

At once the fire weakened.

Ryan gasped. Sweat and blood ran down his chin. He lifted his head. There was little sanity left in his eyes.

"I will go there."

Ryan’s voice was hoarse.

"Don’t burn me anymore."

The Void Fire slowly drew back into his body.

Ryan stayed kneeling for a long time.

Then he suddenly laughed.

The laugh grew louder and louder.

"Ethan..."

Ryan braced a hand on his knee and rose slowly.

"It’s you again."

The Abyss Tower.

Everything returned in a single beat.

The bone fragment hanging in the air fell to the floor.

Click.

Mumu finished the motion that had been left unfinished, jumped in, and wrapped itself around Ethan’s leg.

"Mumu!"

Laira and Rou Yan seemed not to notice that time had just been frozen. Only Laira looked at Ethan’s face and understood at once.

"It came again?"

Ethan looked at her.

"Yes."

Laira’s gaze went cold at once.

Ethan only shook his head.

"It’s fine."

Right then a new notification appeared in front of him.

[Heaven Gate has completed its evolution.]

[Current rank: Legendary.]

[Floor 27 milestone completed.]

[Milestone reward issued.]

[Legendary Mystery Box.]

[Lowest reward rarity: Legendary.]

Light appeared ahead of him, and then a dark gold box slowly condensed.

The fluctuation coming off it alone was far stronger than ordinary Mystery Boxes.

Laira looked over.

Rou Yan looked as well.

Mumu immediately reached out to touch it.

Ethan was faster. He pulled the box into the storage of the Primordial Armor at once.

"Mumu?"

"Not opening it."

Mumu tilted its head.

"Later."

"Mumu."

Ethan did not know whether it truly understood.

He looked at the door leading to the next floor, then at the remaining time limit. Part of the twenty-seventh floor’s allotted time had not yet run out.

Ethan sat down at once.

"Cultivate."

Laira understood immediately.

Rou Yan took out Energy Crystals as well.

Mumu watched the three of them for a few seconds, then finally plopped down beside Ethan.

"Mumu."

Ethan set the first crystal in his palm.

He did not know what the Void Eye had just done to that strange river.

Even if he had known, it would not have changed what he needed to do now.

Grow stronger.

That was all.