Chapter 425: Highest Stakes |
The Animal Abyss—the periphery of this black hole—was a mysterious place where even B-Grades regularly perished. One’s perception was useless, while spacetime was so chaotically warped that finding one’s way through here was basically impossible. Even the Animal Kingdom, with its million years of history, had not managed to solve this enigma.
Additionally, Jack was a lamp without oil. His already lacking strength was deeply exhausted, he was injured all over, and generally in terrible shape. Wanting to survive this place would be difficult—let alone escape Eva Solvig afterward.
The boundary between normal space and the abyss was invisible. Black within, black without. The only indication it existed was a thin sheet of chaotic space far less orderly and far more powerful than the formations the Animal Kingdom had established.
Before anyone could stop him, Jack had dived into the Animal Abyss.
His world was toppled. Everything swam. Light no longer moved in straight lines, making his vision unreliable, while space was so deeply scrabbled that no matter how deep into its layers he searched, any sense of direction was missing. From the moment he entered, he was blind and deaf, oblivious to the world around him. All his mighty perception could illuminate was the space ten feet around him. That was nothing. He was basically face-to-face with the darkness.
As soon as he entered the abyss, Jack instantly came to a halt. Running around here was a surefire way to die. He didn’t even know whether his pursuers would follow, but he hoped they wouldn’t, because he still didn’t dare to move quickly.
Even if they did want to chase him, it wouldn’t be easy. The chaotic spacetime made it so that even if they entered from the same location, they wouldn’t necessarily arrive at the same place. They’d just be lost somewhere else in the abyss.
Jack waited a moment and didn’t sense anyone following him. That didn’t mean he could relax, however—this area was completely submerged in chaotic turbulences of spacetime. Ever-changing distortions barraged him from all sides, and resisting them took a toll on his already spent energy. He was forced to conjure a barrier of the Dao around him. If he let up, his body would be teleported to a dozen locations at once and he would die.
Jack gritted his teeth. He couldn’t do this forever. This was crisis after crisis, out of the frying pan and into the fire. He quickly calmed himself and investigated the spacetime around him, looking for patterns. He found some—altering his barrier in accordance, he dropped his energy expenditure to a level which could last him around an hour.
But it was also useless. While he stayed here, Eva Solvig could freely restore her power outside. She would pursue him as soon as he exited, and the disparity between them would only grow larger the longer he stayed inside.
“Damn!” Jack shouted, clenching his only remaining fist. The other arm had disintegrated from the shoulder down and was very slowly regenerating—at no lack of pain. But, he’d been through this before. He calmed his mind, shutting away the pain to think.
What can I do? he considered. Damn it all, what can I do?
At least two powerful B-Grades were waiting outside. Chaotic space storms existed inside—soon to tear him to shreds. Nobody was coming to help him.
Am I doomed?
The thought was bitter. If Jack was being honest with himself, he never expected to die here. He’d been through countless desperate situations before—he always found a way to turn the tables, turning certain death into an opportunity. Yet, no matter how he wrung his brain, there was no hope to be found this time. He couldn’t even imagine a scenario in which he lived.
His only possible salvation was the black hole at the center of the Animal Abyss. He suspected it was not an ordinary one, but as for what it was, he had no idea. The chances of it somehow helping him escape were astronomically low, so low that it could only serve as a suicidal final resort.
However, the abyss itself sometimes contained powerful treasures—perhaps he could discover a high-grade starship, or a treasure which could erupt with enough power to vanquish his pursuers.
But how could such powerful treasures be found just because he needed them?
I need to search, Jack concluded.
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Suddenly, a black whirlpool entered his perception range, only ten feet away. Jack sensed a powerful suction force. It was unbelievably intense—as if he’d ran into the actual maw of the black hole. His mind cried out in panic, and he pushed away from it with every bit of power he could command. His only saving grace was that the whirlpool was pulled along by the space currents at an extremely slow speed, like a stone thrown by a mortal. He just barely managed to escape its trajectory and avoid getting sucked inside. Cold sweat covered his body.
If he entered that thing, he would absolutely die.
What the hell was that? he wondered, batting his eyelids to push away the sweat. The black hole? Or…a spatial tunnel into it?
Unfortunately, the information he had about this place was very basic. He could only assume the black whirlpool was a spatial tunnel sucking things into the black hole—nothing else could possess such suction force in this place. His understandings into spacetime soon helped him arrive to a hypothesis.
The event horizon of this black hole has shattered!It has turned into countless small whirlpools roaming this place. That is why the abyss is such a chaotic and dangerous place—but how could an event horizon break?
A black hole’s event horizon was the boundary after which nothing could escape, not even light. It was the true edge of a black hole. However, it was nothing but a line in space—there was no reason for it to break into pieces.
Something was very, very wrong with this black hole.
Jack gulped. He could vaguely sense that the chaotic storms grew more intense the deeper he went into the abyss—would these whirlpools become more common? If they traveled just a little bit faster, he couldn’t necessarily avoid them.
Going deeper was dangerous. But not going meant certain death, and he was also rapidly running out of time. Jack grimaced, then resolved to search along the edges of the Animal Abyss. He had no idea what he expected to find, but he couldn’t just sit here. On the bright side, he had an hour to consider it—if Eva Solvig braved the risk to enter this space, he might find a way to one-up her.
In these chaotic space flows, finding one’s direction was challenging. Most people in Jack’s position might have headed deeper inside while thinking they were going out, or end up walking in circles and never escape. Jack could use his understandings of spacetime to just barely navigate—he slowly shifted himself to the very edge of the abyss, only a few feet away from normal space. He then turned his perception range into a needle and stuck it out, using it as a feeler to grasp the situation outside. He wanted to see what Eva Solvig and the other enemies had decided to do.
Of course, perceiving things like this was difficult. The image he got was blurry and vague. He could, however, see some things—and, as soon as he did, his blood turned cold. His eyes widened. For the first time since the Integration, or perhaps since he was born, he felt genuine, bone-deep horror.
No!
***
Artus Emberheart had been left behind. He couldn’t keep up with Eva Solvig or Jack Rust. He sped forth regardless, following them with just his eyes. They were in empty space, after all, and the clashes of those two were colorful.
Hmm? The Animal Abyss? he thought, watching them turn. His lips curved into a grin. Too bad, Jack Rust. You can never escape. He patted the sack hanging off his waist, still speeding after them. He was slower, but not by too much—their constant fighting slowed them down.
After Jack entered the Animal Abyss, it only took Artus a few minutes to catch up. The Elders of the Animal Kingdom were behind him—from start to now, he hadn’t spared them a single glance, and they hadn’t spoken to him either. They’d been like brothers and sisters once—but after his exile, they had nothing to talk about.
Artus bowed as soon as he arrived. “Ancestor Red Lion. Ancestor Heaven Lance,” he greeted the two B-Grades—the one who’d participated in the original trap had arrived here before him.
The two Ancestors did not reply. Only Red Lion, the patriarch of his Emberheart family, spared him a glance—this was the same person who’d exiled him once upon a time, but their statuses were similar now. How the world turns.
“Jack Rust entered the Animal Abyss,” Eva Solvig said, addressing Artus. “I’ve already been briefed on this place. The Animal Kingdom has understated its importance to the Hand of God—a matter we will certainly investigate later.”
“Just a misunderstanding,” said Ancestor Red Lion, taking the lead as the strongest person from the Animal Kingdom side. “What do you suggest we do, Envoy? With Jack Rust’s skills in the Space Dao, he can only remain in there for some minutes. I believe we should not pursue. If he doesn’t exit soon, he will perish inside.”
This Ancestor was afraid to chase Jack into the abyss. That was why he said what he said. However, how could Eva Solvig not see through him?
“I have no time to waste,” she replied calmly. “If Jack Rust does not exit soon, the two of you will go in to look for him. Since you safeguard the information around this Animal Abyss so intensely, surely you will be more familiar with it than him.”
The Ancestors bowed, both cursing inwardly. However, Eva Solvig was not done speaking.
“Fortunately for you, that might not be necessary. Artus?”
Artus Emberheart had been waiting five years for this moment. His lips spread so wide they almost cracked. A manic glint seeped into his gaze, and he roughly dug a hand into his pouch to retrieve an object.
On closer inspection, it was not an object, but a person. A small one. And Jack, who was watching from inside the abyss, knew exactly who it was. Even after a few years of not meeting each other, even though the other person had grown a lot, Jack could never mistake this aura.
This was Eric. His five-year-old son—alive, gagged, and shaking in fear.
“I know you’re watching, Jack Rust!” Artus shouted at the abyss. “An eye for an eye, blood for blood. You once killed my son; I will now kill yours before your very eyes! Hahahaha!”
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