BXBX NOVEL Chapter 5 The Society’s Arrival
"Raisha!" Felix roared as he threw the axe in his hand, aiming at the Titan Aberrant's eye, intending to distract it. This way, he could do something about his sister.
Thump!
The axe pretty much ricocheted off when the Titan Aberrant flapped its eyebrows, not even sporting a scratch.
It then casually threw Raisha into its mouth, clamping its mouth shut.
"Nooo!" Felix scaled up the flight of stairs, arriving at the terrace as he leapt onto the Titan Aberrant, losing all sense of reason.
'Why? I thought I could protect them all this time! Then, why the fuck is this happening?' He roared mentally, his thoughts slowly coming to a halt as he observed the hideous grin of the Titan Aberrant coming closer and closer, 'Fuck this shitty world!'
Suddenly, the Titan Aberrant's expression felt off before seeming inhumane, unlike what the Titan Aberrants usually expressed.
Felix slammed into its head, seeing it burst like a bubble as he landed on its neck, noticing Raisha kneeling there in despair. But, she was perfectly sound, only suffering minor injuries.
He didn't understand what had happened but quickly reacted, grabbing hold of her as he leapt back onto the terrace, hurriedly moving towards the flight of stairs, intending to scale down when his heart thumped all of a sudden, making him feel pain.
"Brother!" Raisha recovered, asking him in concern as she checked to see if he had sustained any injuries.
Puchi!
Suddenly, a feather slammed into the neck of the Titan Aberrant. As Raisha wondered what it was, the feather drilled into its neck before exploding a part of it, disintegrating the bits in the process.
Immediately after that, there was a whistling sound as hundreds of feathers flew across the skies, branching out into multiple streams as they slammed into the Titan Aberrants one after another, shredding them into bits.
A youth wearing a rhino armour landed beside them, muttering in relief, "Thankfully, my Dust Wave was fast enough."
"You are…?" Felix muttered, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu.
"We'll talk later. Let's get you to safety first." Rhizen said, snapping his fingers to summon his whale, gazing at Felix and his family, "Get on board. It will take you to safety."
Felix only hesitated for a moment before he jumped off the terrace, landing on the Whale's back. He helped his sister and the rest get on board immediately. He could see the figures of countless Titan Aberrants approaching their vicinity, unable to comprehend the situation anymore.
As he didn't have enough power to do anything, he could only seek refuge from this mysterious individual before him.
Guooo!
The Whale unleashed a powerful shout that selectively targeted the Titan Aberrants, causing them to halt for a moment when it used the chance to rapidly gain altitude, flying towards the safe zone.
Rhizen flew beside it for safety, using his Homing Feathers to target the Titan Aberrants.
Individually, the Titan Aberrants weren't his opponent. But, such was not the case in the apocalypse where the enemy swarmed through everything.
And hence, if he didn't manage his Nacre expenditure well, he would become defenceless soon after.
The best option would be to fight defensive wars around the perimeter of the safety zone.
Kieee!
A bird's cry resounded as an eagle-like creature, now spanning a length of 10 metres took off to the sky. Its body showed signs of rotting, but the rotting resembled rust. Moreover, its feathers glistened with the texture of steel.
Upon seeing it, his eyes glinted as Rhizen erected a wall of Dust Wave in its flight path, frowning when he noticed it blasting through it without much trouble. It did suffer some damage, but the Blood Rain collected on the ground in the form of various puddles suddenly began to evaporate.
And this blood vapour swerved into the eagle-like Aberrant, causing its injuries to heal swiftly while its body continued to grow stronger in size.
Rhizen continued to erect walls of Dust Wave that only served to pause the eagle-like Aberrant for short durations. And in the meantime, he unleashed countless Homing Feathers that slammed into it, resulting in a round of explosions, wounding it.
But the blood mist continued to gush into it as the eagle-like Aberrant became more and more powerful.
"Tch!" Rhizen frowned, noticing that he was expending more Nacre than what was optimal, "Highly corrupted worlds are so troublesome. This world has already lost its natural resistance against Apocalypse."
When Apocalypse invaded a world, the home world would resist the invasion, just as how the human body reacted against harmful bacteria.
And in this way, the world would condense a suitable power to go against the Apocalypse, slightly affecting the corruption to leave a way out for the survival of its inhabitants.
In this world, this hope for survival was a gelatinous substance that formed in the hearts of the Aberrants. Consuming this substance strengthened the body, unlocking their genetic potential.
The gelatinous substance varied based on the type and power of the Aberrant, stimulating their genetic potential accordingly.
And the stronger the Aberrant, the greater the value of the gelatinous substance in their hearts. After all, it would strengthen them and stimulate their potential accordingly.
But, this only happened if they continued to win and accumulate more and more gelatinous substances. Judging by the state of the world, it was apparent that the resistance mechanism opted by it to go against Apocalypse wasn't efficient enough, apparent by how life was almost wiped out.
And with the corruption standing at 96.92 percent now, the world was no longer able to resist the Apocalypse. This resulted in the instructions of the Grade 3 System taking control of things, accelerating the production of the Aberrants, even going to the extent of forcefully fusing them to produce Aberrants that only appeared late into the apocalypse.
The eagle-like Aberrant resisted his attacks as Rhizen only focused on keeping it at bay, 'Thankfully, there's only one of them. As Apocalypse doesn't have full control yet, there's a delay in its actions.'
Thoughts clashed in his mind as Rhizen took advantage of this fact, causing the Whale to accelerate while he kept pace with it, launching thousands of Homing Feathers that formed a spiral in the air before slamming into the eagle-like Aberrant nonstop.
The eagle-like Aberrant had no other choice but to pause in place due to the constant barrage of attacks that were strong enough to cause multiple minor wounds on its terrifying steel-like physique.
And due to the sheer quantity of attacks, its injuries accumulated. Moreover, they targeted its wings, preventing it from flapping them as soon after, multiple holes formed in it. This prevented it from flying any longer as the eagle-like Aberrant collapsed to the ground, resulting in a loud boom as it crashed through a house.
The remainder of the unleashed Homing Feathers continued to hound it, preventing it from getting up for the time being. And in the meantime, Rhizen had already arrived before the safe zone when he intentionally slowed down, acting like he was focusing on the Titan Aberrants that were approaching steadily.
Kieeee!
The eagle-like Aberrant erupted with a dense blood mist as its injuries healed rapidly, destroying all the Homing Feathers. It took off to the sky, shattering through multiple houses as it made a beeline towards Rhizen, or rather, Felix.
After all, it was through Felix that time for this world was rewound. And, he was the final survivor, the sole individual possessing his world's power to resist the Apocalypse.
It was apparent that the reason the world hadn't reached 100 percent corruption was due to him as he was the one containing most of his world's power.
So, killing him was the utmost priority, the reason every single Aberrant was swarming in their direction.
"D-Dammit! What the fuck is happening? I don't know anymore." Felix clenched his hand into a fist, seeing the large horde of Aberrants that filled the streets.
'Okay, now to enter the safe zone.' Rhizen thought, causing the Whale to approach the safe zone, almost about to make contact.
Upon seeing this, the eagle-like Aberrant screeched in anger, exploding with a terrifying power as it slammed into the Whale. But right before it had done so, Rhizen condensed an armguard and snapped his finger, smiling as he saw the running figures of all the Aberrants on the ground.
Apocalyptic Arts—Static Force(V)!
Immediately, all the kinetic energy of his immediate surroundings—the flow of wind, the motion of the Aberrants, the flow of water in the underground, and anything that moved—gushed into his arm guard in an instant before forming a transparent filament, thin in nature, behind the Whale.
For that moment, the entire region turned still like it had been trapped in time.
An instant later, the eagle-like Aberrant slammed into the thin filament when all the absorbed kinetic energy was expunged as a force directly into its body.
Boom!
The eagle-like Aberrant exploded, turning into mist due to the sheer force of the impact. Its own speed had become its undoing as the exploded mist was immediately sucked into the Whale's mouth, and turned into fuel.
It then entered the safe zone as Rhizen did the same, sighing in relief as he had expended a lot of Nacre, almost emptying his reserves.
He then noticed a steady stream flowing into him from two sources: one from the Whale, and the other from the Tower of Purification that was releasing Nacre into the air within the dome.
Rhizen slowly replenished his reserves, expending his Nacre at a rate slower than his replenishment.
He was constantly unleashing the Homing Feathers at the Titan Aberrants that were closing in on the safe zone.
He had no other choice but to do this. Otherwise, if they closed in, they would start bombarding the dome protecting the safe zone. This would cause the majority of power absorbed by the Tower of Purification to be spent on defence and repairing the barrier.
That would reduce their clean-up efficiency while the Apocalypse would continue to progress in strength. Eventually, it would overwhelm them.
Thirty minutes passed in such a fashion before Yulna said, "Saint! It's time! The others are also ready."
"Alright." Rhizen nodded, closing his eyes as he expended all his Nacre, activating another of his power.
Apocalyptic Arts—Thieving Heaven (VIII)!
Boom!
Immediately after, a mysterious connection formed as the silhouette of another world was visible for a moment before vanishing.
At the same time, hundreds of society Members arrived within each safe zone, beginning a counterattack against the Aberrants.
"Hahaha! Boss, I'm here!" The shout of a youth resounded as a shockwave sent a Titan Aberrant flying. He was twenty years old, no more, no less.
Actually, every single Society Member was exactly the same age.
"Don't rush out of the safe zone, Dwun." Rhizen warned the youth that sported a green crew cut, "This world's corruption is close to a hundred. We don't know what else might be in store for us."
"I'll be careful." The youth addressed as Dwun laughed in joy before rushing out of the safe zone, as if he hadn't heard Rhizen's warning. With every punch, his gauntlets shone, unleashing shockwaves that sent the Aberrants flying.
His Nacre formed an explosive element that shaved away the corruption of the place little by little as he formed a pile of corpses quickly.
Having expected him to behave like this, Rhizen sighed before gazing at the over two hundred Society Members that had arrived in his safe zone, commanding them, "Just as our drill, form teams of five and rescue any survivors. Bring them here as quickly as possible. I'll handle the defence of the safe zone until then. Hurry up!"
"Yes, Saint!" The Society Members thumped their chests as a show of respect before turning into pigeons. The difference between them and the regular pigeons was the rhino armour covering them, modified in such a way that it didn't hinder their flight.
Moreover, the pigeons reached a metre in height as they flew out, exiting the safe zone as they spread out in teams of five throughout the city.
In the meantime, Rhizen gazed at the figure of Felix that was sprawled on the back of the Whale, coughing out blood from time to time as the corruption in him was slowly purified.
The same was true for his family too as soon after, Nacre flowed into their bodies, healing their exhausted selves a little.
Soon after, once his body was rid of the corruption, Felix was able to move, hurriedly facing Rhizen as he observed the groups of giant pigeons flying away, "W-Who are you people?"
"You have my visiting card, you know." Rhizen said, retracting his rhino armour as he landed before Felix, "Extend your hand and think about it."
For some reason, Felix already had a thought in mind when he heard Rhizen's words, surprising him. And for some mysterious reason, the image of a black-rimmed card flashed in his mind when the Nacre around him swerved into his body, rapidly revitalising him.
Moreover, a dense stream of information gushed into his mind, causing him to clutch his head and scream, "What the heck is all this?"