Chapter 94 - Truths Unbecoming

Chapter 94

Truths Unbecoming

Ethan sat alone, in silence, pondering.

His thoughts swam through time and space, trying to figure out who it could possibly have been. He’d already spent days surfing the internet, trying to look for even the smallest of grains that would implicate someone… but there was nothing. He simply had no means of figuring out who it was that cleared the Tunnel in Australia.

He hadn’t felt helpless in a long while, yet, today, he truly was at his wit’s end. All he could do was keep an eye out and hope that the other party revealed themselves.

Others, likely having sensed that he wasn’t in the best of moods, largely left him alone. Layla occasionally came by to chat about what she and Tian found in the forest, though the two’s adventures decreased on account of the increasingly colder weather.

It was on the fifth day since his return from the Australian Outback that another shocking event transpired that shook the world: a new emergency quest appeared out of nowhere, for everyone, and in such perfection as though it was answering Ethan’s prayers.

[Emergency Quest!]

[A traitor has appeared in the ranks of Humans, plotting to overcome the world and sacrifice it for selfish reasons. The traitor’s name is Zaya Lowlik, and her appearance is depicted below. She is currently Level 44, Shadowfiend Class. Find the list of her abilities and items down below. Her plot is to allow the ‘Noble’s Last Roar’ Tunnel to open and for the Terror within to be unleashed, while she uses [Destabilising Stone] to manufacture a crack in the temporal barrier between the worlds.]

[You must unite to hunt her down! Rewards will be calculated on the basis of contribution]

[Possible Rewards: Levels, Items (of at least Epic Rank), and Relics]

[Whenever she is spotted by any Awakened, all will receive her precise location immediately]

[Good Luck!]

Ethan stared at the quest screen in disbelief–another anomaly.

Not only had there never been something like this before, Ethan was becoming all but certain that all of this was just a big chess game between some ethereal creatures, and one side wanted to help Ethan and others, while the other wanted to help the woman. None of it made any sense otherwise as the ‘system’ was always coldly impartial. It was steadfast within its own rules, never deliberately targeting someone, no matter whether they were ‘traitors’ or not. After all, there was no shortage of people willing to sell out humanity for some power. They came and went in droves for over twenty years. And yet, now, the ‘system’ was pitting one against the entire world.

The woman in question was rather beautiful–she had long hair and a pair of distrustful eyes. Her expression was cold and distant, but Ethan was certain of one thing–he’d never seen her before, which meant that she wasn’t one of the overpowering figures in the past life. It wasn’t strange–after all, Ethan himself wasn’t exactly remarkable. Chances were that very, very, very few people would be able to recognise him even if all of them had come back to the past like him.

However, that didn’t dispel his doubts–if anything, it marinated them.

The woman came out of nowhere, like a blazing wind, reaching Level 44 within less than six months of the post-Descent world. That was, to Ethan’s knowledge, physically impossible. Even if he went around from the day of post-Descent, killing every wanderer, closing every Tunnel, and hunting down every Relic, he still wouldn’t have been able to reach Level 44. Forgetting that, without having cleared so many waves inside the Sacrosanct Warp, he wouldn’t have even reached Level 30, let alone anything beyond that.

Ethan, however, had to admit that his knowledge of the early days post-Descent world was extremely limited. For all he knew, there were actually countless opportunities to level up, and someone with the knowledge of all of them might have been able to raise their level speedily. 44, still, however, seemed far too out of reach. It was far too close to the First Law, and it was far too early for that.

“Ethan–”

“I’ve seen it,” others quickly found him, equally terrified. They knew well enough all the things Ethan had done to barely reach Level 30, yet there was someone who was Level 44 roaming about, interfering with their plans to close the Tunnel.

“Is she… like you, too?” Ronald asked cautiously.

“Probably,” Ethan replied, sighing.

“Do we have to kill her?” Elijah asked. “We can just ask her–”

“The rest of you shouldn’t worry about this,” Ethan quickly interrupted. “If anyone stands a remote chance of fighting her, it’s me. And even I’m not confident. For now, I have a different plan for you. Mingzhu and Ronald, you two should take Delilah to Brazil, to a smallish town called Patos. A Tunnel should appear soon somewhere in the Espinharas River valley. When you find it, go in and clear it. It shouldn’t be much trouble. While you do, Delilah, you should create a new portal and connect it to the one here. When you clear the Tunnel, come back through the portal, but don’t destroy it. It’s gonna become one of our exit routes.”

“...” nobody asked what he meant for they all knew–however, it was a last resort. Nobody was willing to abandon everything they knew, after all.

“Elijah, you’ll stay here and help Sarah sift through the information bundle that Michael will be serving you,” he added. “Report twice a day with the latest known location of that woman.”

Silence fell and everyone soon dispersed.

Ethan took a deep breath and dismissed the window that suddenly informed him of the woman’s location–she was somewhere in London. Despite knowing this, he had no plans of immediately going after her. Not only did he not know what she was capable of, he’d also never heard of the Shadowfiend Class. Furthermore, she was 10 Levels above him, likely decked out with items that were either just as good or even better than his. And, unlike with the other Awakened, he didn’t have the advantage of experience. If he chased after her right now, the best case scenario was him failing, with the worst being his death.

There was still some time before the Tunnel would break out, and he was certain that the greed of heart would lead many to try and hunt her down. Even if she was strong, Level 44 didn’t denote supremacy–she would still tire, grow weaker, and slip. And Ethan would wait for that chance.

After all, his previous Class was an assassin in all but name–he was accustomed to waiting around for months, even years, for someone to drop their guard. Even if he wasn’t the woman’s match, she wasn’t invincible.

Taking a deep breath, he glanced to the side where he saw Tian fluttering, on the cusps of saying something yet still holding back. The little fairy seemed nervous before suddenly shifting his expression into one of determination, flying over to Ethan and landing on top of his head before speaking.

“I didn’t lie to you,” he said.

“Do you know who’s the woman?” Ethan asked.

“If I’m not wrong, she’s just an Avatar,” Tian’s words prompted a frown to develop between Ethan’s brows.

“An Avatar? Of what?”

“Of an entity.”

“... will you continue to be a vague bastard or do I have to beat the truth out of you?”

“This involves several secrets that I cannot share with you. Not because I don’t want to, but because even my memories of them are sealed. I am merely aware, rather than in the known.”

“...” Ethan waited patiently for the fairy to continue.

“The orb that foretold the coming of the Epoch of War is actually a prison,” Tian’s tone was rather serious and solemn. “I don’t know what’s inside of it–I’m not even sure it’s part of my sealed knowledge–but what I do know is that every world that the prison descends upon has a different prisoner. The woman is likely looking for a way to break open the prison and free whoever is in it.

“The [Destabilising Stone] that she’s taken is one of the ingredients in creating a scroll called ‘Scroll of Banishment’. It’s just one of the ingredients–here’s over a thousand of them. When I said that she’s likely an Avatar, I meant that it’s not her true body–every once in a while, whenever someone causes a Reversal, an entity or two sneak in their Avatars. Some do it just for entertainment, some because they are looking for prodigies, some to sow chaos, and some, like a woman, for a particular goal.

“That’s why you shouldn’t be depressed that she’s higher Level than you–just the fact that she’s only Level 44 indicates that she’s an extremely low-level Avatar. It’s not surprising, however. If she’d tried to sneak in a better one, it would have likely been noticed.”

“... alright,” Ethan took a deep breath, sealing the information in his mind to process it later as it was too mind-shattering. “I get all that. But I don’t think [Destabilising Stone] is particularly rare. I remember at least 4 instances of it appearing. Why is she hellbent on effectively destroying the world? Wouldn’t that mess up her plans to free whatever or whoever’s imprisoned?”

“No,” Tian shook his head, sighing. “If anything, it would help her.”

“...” Ethan waited for the explanation.

“The Prison can never leave whatever world it descends into. However, it also has a secondary function–the… ‘system’, as you know it, takes Vitality and life force from whomever is imprisoned to feed the rewards given out to the Awakened. Meaning that the more Awakened there are, and the longer the world goes on–”

“--the higher the chance of the prisoner dying. She’s trying to save as much of their vitality as possible.”

“Yes.”

“Shouldn’t her actions have alerted ‘someone’? Isn’t she messing with the natural order of things?” Ethan frowned.

“... this isn’t the natural order of things.”

“Oh.” Tian was right–after all, the first time around, this never happened. “If I stop her, wouldn’t she come to hunt my ass down?”

“No,” Tian shook his head. “Spatial Laws are absolute–and those capable of ignoring them are so few and distant it doesn’t even matter. Furthermore, there are countless New Laws that latch onto every new world inhabited by the prison. One of those laws is called ‘Memory Banishment’. Every dead person’s and entities are permanently erased. The true body of the Avatar would only know that the Avatar had died, not who killed it.”

“Do you know what’s with her Class? How come I have never heard of it?”

“It’s… it’s likely a Class retooled from much further down in the evolutionary chain,” Tian explained. “You have only experienced the awakenings of the Two Laws, but not the further ones. Chances are that her Class doesn’t exist as an option for beginners, but that it is a simplified version of something higher.”

“...” Ethan’s frown deepened further. Though he got his answers, they hardly diminished his fears and doubts. If anything, they marinated them further. He suddenly felt like a floating leaf abandoned at sea, left to the wills of the wild waves. And he was so tiny compared to it all–but he couldn’t simply let himself drift away. For better or for worse, the woman had to die–and he had to be the one to kill her.