Novel Full Chapter 1712: Who are you?
Chapter 1712: Who are you?
Jonathan clenched his fist as he stared at the skull-headed monster with a deep frown.
The creature stood directly in front of the portal like an executioner guarding the only exit from a death row.
Things had just become a lot more difficult.
If they wanted to reach the portal, they had to get past that monster first. Even with his mech-suit, Jonathan had barely managed to scratch its surface.
Now that the suit was gone, he was little more than a sheep waiting to be butchered.
Biting his lip, he turned towards his only friend.
"Can you... solo it?"
After all, Aether had moved faster than anything Jonathan had ever seen. The young man had even managed to save him from that monster earlier. If someone had a chance of fighting it head-on, it would probably be him.
At least that was what Jonathan hoped.
"Bro, I barely saved your ass with a couple of tricks, and now look at that thing," Young Aether replied while pointing towards the monster.
"It’s practically standing there screaming, ’Come closer and die.’ If I fight it directly, I’m not surviving that encounter."
His voice carried obvious frustration. As much as he wanted to help, he simply didn’t have the strength to kill something like that.
Running away was already pushing his fucked up luck!
Facing it head-on was practically volunteering for death.
’Well, even if I die, everything should still work out in the end,’ Young Aether muttered inwardly.
Jonathan rubbed his forehead and leaned against the remains of a crashed vehicle. Its anti-gravity stabilisers sparked occasionally, releasing brief flashes of blue light from the shattered chassis.
"What do we do now?" he asked while staring at the distant portal. "The Hell’s Gate has already shrunk noticeably. The spatial field is becoming unstable. At this rate, it could collapse at any moment."
His fist tightened against the grassy ground.
"And once it closes, we’re dead. No backup plan. No second chance!"
Young Aether silently nodded before turning his attention back towards the monster.
’Maybe... should I bring that thing here?’
His thoughts drifted towards the gigantic monster that had nearly caught them earlier. If he could somehow lure it here and force both creatures into a fight, they might gain enough time to escape.
The idea wasn’t impossible.
The problem was time.
Even if he managed to find the creature and bring it back, the portal might close before it arrived. Worse, if things went wrong, he could end up trapped between two monsters instead of one.
That outcome sounded significantly worse!
As he desperately searched for another solution, something suddenly caught his attention. Small blue sparks flickered from one of the destroyed vehicles nearby. Beneath the damaged chassis, glowing blue particles continued to pulse weakly.
Young Aether narrowed his eyes.
"Say... can we use these?"
"Huh?"
Jonathan blinked before following Aether’s finger towards the wrecked vehicles.
"No, these models can’t fly," he explained. "They’re civilian transportation units. They only levitate two to four inches above specially designed roads. Without the proper magnetic infrastructure, their anti-gravity systems are useless. Even if we repair them, the engines would fai—"
"Wait, wait," Aether interrupted while waving his hand. "I think you’re misunderstanding me. I wasn’t asking if they could fly."
He pointed at the glowing particles before making an exploding gesture with both hands.
"I was thinking more along the lines of... You know... boom and soff~"
As if Jonathan could understand what he was mentioning.
Jonathan stared for several seconds.
Then his eyes widened.
"Hold on... that’s actually possible."
His expression immediately shifted into one of concentration.
"If we reroute the stabiliser circuits and force the containment regulators offline, the anti-gravity core would overload. The energy release would be massive." He quickly knelt beside the nearest vehicle as calculations raced through his mind. "With enough thrust, we could use the explosion to launch ourselves directly towards the portal."
Jonathan’s gaze repeatedly shifted between the portal, the vehicles, and the terrain as he mentally assembled a plan.
"However, we’d need to position the vehicle correctly. If the angle is wrong, we’ll get launched straight into the sky instead of towards the portal. The timing also has to be perfect..." he muttered while analysing the area.
"Hmm... yeah... that could actually work."
After a few moments, he looked up at Young Aether.
"How long can you keep that thing occupied?"
After all, Aether had only said he couldn’t kill the monster.
He never said he couldn’t survive against it.
Young Aether’s lips curled into a confident smirk as he glanced towards Jonathan.
"Buddy, how much time do you need?"
Jonathan’s eyes moved repeatedly across the damaged vehicle while mentally calculating dozens of possibilities. The exposed circuitry, damaged anti-gravity modules, and partially functioning energy core all presented opportunities, but they would require precise adjustments to work.
"Well... if everything goes smoothly, maybe four to five minutes," Jonathan replied while continuing to examine the vehicle’s internal systems.
Young Aether nodded without hesitation.
"Then get ready."
After giving Jonathan a light pat on the shoulder, his figure instantly vanished from sight.
Step!
Jonathan blinked several times despite already witnessing similar displays numerous times before.
Even now, he still could not fully comprehend how Young Aether managed to move in such a manner.
There were no visible propulsion systems, no energy signatures, and no technological assistance supporting those movements. One moment he stood directly beside him, and the next moment he had already crossed dozens of meters as though space itself had simply forgotten where he was supposed to be.
How the heck was he even reborn?
Though he accepted him just like that... something was still confusing his mind.
"Reborn, huh...? He really is the main character, isn’t he?" Jonathan muttered with an amused chuckle before quickly shaking his head.
Regardless of how ridiculous Aether’s abilities were, now was not the time to think about them.
Jonathan immediately rushed towards the nearest destroyed vehicle and knelt beside the shattered chassis.
Meanwhile, the skull-headed monster remained stationed before the portal like an ancient guardian protecting forbidden territory.
The creature’s bone-white skull reflected the portal’s red glow. It had not moved from its position since the two escaped, seemingly confident that its prey would eventually be forced to return.
Then a black-haired young man suddenly appeared several dozen meters away.
"Oi, bone hea—"
Before Young Aether could even finish speaking, the surrounding space violently distorted.
The monster disappeared.
The distance separating them vanished instantly as the creature appeared directly before Young Aether and swung its enormous double-edged axe downward with terrifying force.
The weapon descended fast enough to create visible shockwaves within the surrounding air.
Fortunately, Young Aether reacted at the exact moment the attack began.
Step!
The instant before the axe connected with his skull, he stepped away and narrowly avoided the strike.
The massive blade smashed into the ground and created an explosive impact that sent dirt, broken ground, and fragments of stone flying in every direction. The resulting shockwave spread across the area and rattled several nearby vehicles.
"Damn, man... at least let me finish my sentence before trying to kil—"
The skull-headed monster once again distorted space around itself before appearing directly in front of him. Its axe swept horizontally through the air with enough force to cut through armoured vehicles like paper.
Step!
Young Aether narrowly avoided that strike as well.
Step!
Step!
Step!
Every time Young Aether took a step, the monster instantly appeared before him and attempted to cut off his escape route. Every time the axe came close enough to split his body apart, he somehow slipped away by the smallest possible margin.
The sequence repeated continuously as the two figures moved farther and farther away from the portal.
From Jonathan’s perspective, the entire scene looked absurd.
He could barely follow Young Aether’s movements at all. Most of the time, he only saw brief distortions in space accompanied by explosive impacts whenever the monster’s axe struck the ground.
Despite the overwhelming pressure exerted by the creature, Young Aether somehow continued dragging it farther away from the portal with every passing second.
"He really is something else," Jonathan muttered before returning his attention to the task at hand.
Without wasting any more time, he kicked the damaged front section of the vehicle.
The weakened plating immediately cracked under the impact and partially collapsed inward. Jonathan grabbed the damaged panel and pulled it away, exposing a dense network of advanced circuitry beneath the vehicle’s outer shell.
Blue indicator lights flickered sporadically throughout the damaged systems while electrical sparks occasionally jumped between fractured conductors. The sharp smell of burnt electronics and overheated components quickly filled the surrounding air.
Jonathan reached inside and began tearing components away one after another.
Damaged circuit boards, shattered regulators, melted wiring clusters, and destroyed control modules were quickly removed from their mounts. Beneath those layers rested another protective shell constructed from an unusually dense metallic alloy.
The structure immediately caught Jonathan’s attention.
"Thank goodness it wasn’t crushed!"
Unlike every other component inside the vehicle, this particular section had been designed to withstand catastrophic damage. The alloy walls were several times thicker than the surrounding framework, suggesting that whatever was stored inside possessed enormous value.
Jonathan wrapped both hands around the containment unit and pulled.
Nothing happened.
"Argh!"
His muscles strained as he increased his effort.
"Shit... this thing is way heavier than it looks."
The container slowly shifted from its housing while metal scraped loudly against metal. Despite his complaints, Jonathan continued pulling until the entire containment unit finally slid free from the vehicle.
His arms trembled from the weight as he carefully lowered the massive container onto the ground.
After catching his breath, Jonathan examined the structure more closely and quickly located several emergency release levers attached to its side.
"Please don’t explode, Buddy!"
Grabbing the largest lever, he pulled it downward.
A series of mechanical sounds echoed from within the container as multiple locking mechanisms disengaged simultaneously. Cold vapour escaped through hidden vents while segmented sections of plating slowly separated from one another.
The containment chamber gradually opened.
Then Jonathan finally saw what had been hidden inside.
Resting within the chamber was a massive translucent crystal nearly the size of an adult human torso. Streams of luminous blue energy flowed continuously throughout its interior.
The crystal emitted a faint glow that illuminated everything around it, and even the surrounding air seemed distorted by the sheer amount of energy contained within.
For several moments, Jonathan simply stared at it.
Even without specialised equipment or advanced scanners, he could immediately tell that the crystal contained an absurd amount of power.
"Hmm... the Origin Core Crystal is still intact. Good."
Jonathan muttered to himself while running his hand across the crystal’s cold, smooth surface. Fortunately, there were no visible cracks or structural damage.
The translucent crystal continued to pulse with streams of blue energy beneath its surface, indicating that the containment layers had successfully protected it from the crash.
Satisfied with its condition, Jonathan immediately moved away from the crystal and began gathering additional components from the surrounding wreckage.
Damaged regulators, intact power conduits, magnetic stabilisers, and several emergency control modules were quickly piled together beside the vehicle.
Every second mattered now.
Meanwhile, Young Aether continued running across the area in an unpredictable zig-zag pattern.
In truth, there was no strategy behind his movements anymore. He wasn’t calculating routes or planning evasive manoeuvres. He was simply running wherever his instincts told him to run and trusting his legs to keep him alive.
Surprisingly, it was working.
The skull-headed monster appeared directly above him once again, its massive double-edged axe descending with enough force to split a building in half.
"Fight me! Why are you running?!"
The monster’s furious roar echoed across the area as the weapon carved through the air.
Young Aether immediately veered left without slowing down.
"Why the hell are you following me?" he shouted back with an annoyed expression.
"Fight you? How about you throw away that oversized axe and fight me like a man?"
"GRRRAAAHHHH!"
The monster’s hollow eye sockets erupted with rainbow-colored light as its rage intensified.
The double-edged axe slashed horizontally before immediately transitioning into a vertical strike, creating a deadly cross-shaped attack pattern. The surrounding air distorted under the force of the swings as shockwaves tore through the grassy field.
Young Aether threw himself sideways and rolled across the ground. Dirt and shattered stones scraped against his clothes as he quickly regained his footing.
Unfortunately, the monster was already waiting for him.
The enormous axe appeared directly before his face.
Step!
Young Aether vanished an instant before impact.
BOOOOM!!!
The ground exploded beneath the strike.
Massive cracks spread outward while chunks of earth were launched into the air. The skull-headed monster slowly turned its head toward Young Aether, who was now standing several dozen meters away with an almost casual expression.
The rainbow-colored light within its hollow sockets flickered strangely.
"You..." the monster muttered.
Its voice carried something unusual this time.
Confusion?
"You look familiar. You feel familiar. Even your voice sounds familiar." The monster narrowed its glowing eyes while studying him carefully.
"Who are you?"