Chapter 231: Farewell

At least, Cain hoped that was the case.

The enormous purple eye behind the World Gate Core proved that there were beings capable of looking across dimensional connections, but that did not mean every powerful faction in the Universe knew Cain’s appearance.

“Don’t connect my real name or appearance to Heavenly Dragon unless there’s no choice.”

Viktor nodded seriously.

“Understood.”

Aurelia agreed without hesitation. “I’ll make sure the people in my group know not to spread it either.”

Mo Xuanye remained quiet for a moment before looking at Cain more carefully.

“Keeping us silent is simple enough, but there were plenty of people inside the Corridor who saw you fight.”

“And let’s be real… You truly can’t control what all of them say once we return, right?”

“I know.”

Cain had already considered that problem, but what mattered was preventing that information from spreading any farther than necessary.

“I don’t expect the secret to last forever,” Cain continued. “I just don’t want to make it easy for anyone looking for Heavenly Dragon. From now on, I’ll avoid using the abilities most obviously connected to that title whenever I’m around people I don’t trust.”

Aurelia raised an eyebrow slightly.

“You plan to stop using your Dragon abilities?”

“Not completely.”

Cain shook his head.

“If I actually need them, I’ll use them. I’m not going to get myself killed just to protect a secret. But there’s no reason to show everything I have when I can win without it.”

That distinction made much more sense.

Cain possessed more than enough alternatives now.

Purgatory Flame alone gave him an entire combat system unrelated to the Primordial Chaos Dragon, and his physical strength was already absurd even without publicly displaying Dragon abilities.

There would inevitably be situations where hiding his abilities became impossible, but until those moments arrived, Cain had no intention of advertising the identity that had already attracted attention throughout the Universe.

Cain looked between them.

“As you already know, the less attention that title brings toward the people around me, the better.”

The others naturally understood.

Cain was no longer worried only about himself.

If some powerful force eventually decided to search for Heavenly Dragon, anyone publicly connected to that identity could become a target.

Cain looked toward them.

“Thanks.”

Aurelia smiled faintly.

“You don’t need to thank us for something like that.”

Cain was about to respond when the familiar sound of the System echoed throughout the Central Base.

[Ding!]

[Transportation to the Original World will begin in 00:01:00.]

An immediate reaction swept through the ruined fortress.

People who had still been searching buildings abandoned whatever remained and began returning toward their respective groups. Others hurried to finish carrying the last boxes of resources toward the central plaza as voices spread throughout the area.

Cain looked toward the countdown before shifting his attention to the enormous piles nearby.

“Alright. We have one minute, so let’s finish dividing everything.”

Fortunately, most of the resources had already been separated according to type while Cain purified them, which meant they did not need to start sorting everything from the beginning.

The remaining purified Cores were divided first, followed by the purified Blood Crystals.

There was no longer enough time to count every individual resource, so Cain and the other leaders handled the division according to approximate quantity and quality.

The unpurified Blood Crystals were much easier to deal with.

None of the other groups could safely absorb them in their current state, while Cain could purify them later whenever he had enough time.

Because of that, he took a larger portion of the contaminated Blood Crystals as part of his group’s share and allowed the other three groups to receive more of the resources that had already been purified.

His Inventory began filling far more quickly than expected.

Cain frowned when he noticed how little space remained.

Then he remembered something occupying a considerable portion of it.

With a thought, bundles of reinforced metal rods appeared beside him before crashing onto the broken ground.

Clang!

Clang!

Several people nearby looked over at the sudden pile.

Cain had collected the rods much earlier in the Apocalypse and used them repeatedly as throwing weapons whenever he needed something disposable.

At the time, Piercing Momentum had made even ordinary pieces of reinforced metal extremely useful.

But things were different now.

Ron looked toward the pile.

“You’re finally getting rid of those?”

Cain glanced at the rods before shrugging.

“They’re useless to the current me anyway. I’d rather use the space for something valuable.”

“Fair enough.”

Ron did not bother saying anything else and returned to helping their group organize the resources.

Cain resumed storing Blood Crystals.

With the additional space available, large quantities disappeared into his Inventory one after another.

By the time the division was finished, each of the four major groups possessed enormous amounts of purified Cores and Blood Crystals, along with their share of the other resources gathered throughout the Central Base.

The remaining unpurified Blood Crystals went into Cain’s Inventory.

The System countdown was already approaching its final seconds by the time everyone finished gathering with their respective groups.

[Transportation to the Original World: 00:00:10]

Cain stopped and looked around the ruined Central Base.

Mo Xuanye stood with Tang Ziyue and the people who had followed the Heavenly Demon through the Invasion Corridor.

Aurelia had returned to her own group farther away, while Viktor stood among the northern fighters. Beside him, Dmitri held the Heavenbreaker Divine Halberd they had obtained from Serath’s Red Orb, the massive weapon resting comfortably against his shoulder.

Cain eventually turned toward his own group.

Ron stood nearby with his spear in hand. Elara had gathered beside Evelyne and Sonya, while Nathan, Jack, Maya, and the others remained close behind them.

The sight felt strangely different now.

When they first entered the Invasion Corridor, many of the people standing throughout the Central Base had barely known one another. Some had been rivals, while others had come from regions so far apart that they probably would never have met under normal circumstances.

Yet all of them had fought toward the same objective.

The four Spatial Anchors were gone.

The World Gate Core had been destroyed.

Serath, the Youngest Prince of the Zombie Race, was dead.

Whatever happened after they returned to Earth, this part of their journey was finished.

Cain smiled as he raised his voice loud enough for the nearby groups to hear.

“It was good fighting beside all of you.”

Several people turned toward him.

“We don’t know what the Original World looks like after everything that happened while we were inside here, so take care of your people when you get back.”

His eyes moved across the familiar faces gathered throughout the plaza.

“We’ve already learned that Earth isn’t the only world out there, and sooner or later, we’re going to have to deal with the Main World ourselves. When that happens, I expect all of you to still be alive.”

The countdown reached five seconds.

Cain looked toward Mo Xuanye, Aurelia, and Viktor.

“So get stronger. The next time we meet, none of us should be the same people we are today.”

White light began rising around every human remaining inside the Central Base.

The ruined streets gradually filled with pale radiance as the transportation energy spread from their feet and climbed higher across their bodies.

Cain could no longer clearly distinguish some of the people farther away.

Still, he kept smiling.

“It was nice meeting all of you.”

The countdown dropped farther.

Cain looked across the people who had fought beside him until the white light reached his shoulders.

“I hope we meet again.”

The radiance swallowed his vision.

[Transportation commencing.]

When the countdown reached zero, every surviving human inside Invasion Corridor 73-A disappeared.

…

The white light surrounding Cain gradually weakened.

After spending so long beneath the fractured crimson sky of the Invasion Corridor, the first thing he noticed when his vision returned was the color above him.

An ordinary blue sky stretched overhead, with scattered clouds drifting beneath the afternoon sun.

Cain remained where he was for several seconds as his eyes adjusted to the natural light.

The difference was not limited to what he could see.

The air itself felt unfamiliar after everything he had experienced inside the Corridor.

There was no dimensional pressure constantly pressing against his senses, and the strange heaviness that had permeated nearly every region of that artificial world had completely disappeared.

For the first time in what felt much longer than it actually had been, Cain was breathing the air of the Original World again.

Around him, several remaining pillars of white light faded one after another as the members of his group materialized across a wide section of broken ground.

Ron appeared several meters away with his spear still resting against one shoulder, while Elara emerged nearby. Evelyne, Sonya, Nathan, Jack, and the others followed as the transportation light surrounding them gradually disappeared.

Cain looked upward once more at the familiar blue sky.

After everything that had happened inside the Invasion Corridor, they were finally back.

For several moments, nobody moved from their place as they simply looked around.

The place they had returned to was recognizable, but Cain quickly noticed the change as the trees in the park seemed to be cut down by people.

Though, he noticed some people’s presence at the edge of the park near the road.

Cain shifted his attention toward the presence he had detected near the edge of the park.

Cain was about to tell everyone to move toward them when a deep vibration spread through the air behind him.

Cain & Evelyne’s snu snu scenes are LIVE in the newest chapters