Chapter 146
Chapter 146
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 146
Chapter Title: Trapped by the Colony Lord
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The second underground floor of Zone 1, where the Colony Lord ought to be.
Two kids were there.
One was Havel of the Banpellyon family.
The other was Kaal, known as Abraksas.
Staring at the empty space, Kaal wore a dazed expression.
It was only natural.
He had come all this way to slay the Colony Lord.
Yet an utterly barren plaza greeted him.
He couldn't help but feel bewildered.
Especially since humanity's arch-nemesis, the Colony Lord, had headed to the city.
For humankind, it was nothing short of the greatest crisis imaginable.
"...The humanoid dimensional beings were just decoys to buy time."
He muttered blankly to himself.
He had fully realized he'd been toyed with by the Colony Lord.
Freddy's message to the Zero-grade agents was proof of that.
By now, the Colony Lord was surely hunting down the ability users.
"This isn't the time to space out. If it's gone to the city, that means big trouble, right?"
Havel responded indifferently.
Having experienced the entire capital of Arhan being obliterated by the Demonic Palace,
he had grown numb to such things.
Perhaps because of that,
Kaal's expression returned somewhat to normal.
"...Yeah, you're right."
This wasn't the time to lose his mind.
They had to find the Colony Lord quickly.
"Let's get out first. I have an idea."
"You said spatial movement is restricted here."
"Right. Space and dimensions are all twisted up in this place."
That was why Kaal was about to suggest heading up quickly.
But when he met Havel's meaningful gaze, he tilted his head.
"Kaal, can you protect yourself with your spatial powers?"
"I do that to some extent all the time, but..."
Why was he asking that?
It hadn't been long since they met,
but Kaal had already gauged how reckless Havel could be.
An inexplicable unease began to creep in.
"What are you planning?"
"Hop on my back."
"Huh?"
While Kaal blinked in confusion, Havel turned his back to him.
Seeing that, Kaal looked stunned.
"I'll carry you to somewhere spatial movement works. Hop on."
But Havel's eyes were dead serious.
After a moment of silence, Kaal let out a breath.
"Fine. Who else am I gonna trust?"
Havel had come with him to take down the Colony Lord.
There was no reason for him to spout nonsense.
Kaal climbed onto Havel's back.
Both in childlike forms, the position was awkward, but he managed.
"Protected yourself?"
"Yeah."
"Then hold on tight."
The moment Havel said that,
the scenery before Kaal's eyes flipped completely.
At the same time, he felt a fierce wind battering his body.
"Whaaaat theee?!"
Dazed by the blurring vista, Kaal screamed instinctively.
The vertigo was worse than any spatial jump.
And in that instant, he realized.
If he let go of Havel now, he wouldn't survive.
On pure instinct, Kaal clung desperately.
He gritted his teeth hard.
Then, landscapes flashed by in his vision.
Havel was retracing the path at insane speed.
Nearby buildings crumbled partially from his wake.
Remaining windows shattered with crashes.
But they were past those spots before the sound even reached Kaal's ears.
This went on for a few seconds.
Boom!
Havel slammed his foot down and stopped abruptly.
Kaal barely held on, avoiding being flung off, and exhaled heavily.
His face was drenched in cold sweat from enduring just those few seconds.
It was an experience he never wanted to repeat.
"So, where are we heading?"
Havel didn't know Kaal's destination.
So he'd returned to the outskirts of Zone 1 first.
Dashing straight into downtown would cause chaos just from his running.
"Ugh, huff... sorry, let me down first."
Kaal stumbled off Havel's back.
His legs shook uncontrollably, but he forced himself to stand.
"...You have the communicator we took from White Sparrow, right?"
Havel rummaged in his pocket and pulled out the communicator.
Kaal snatched it immediately.
"I'm calling Freddy."
"You think the Colony Lord's with Freddy?"
"Yeah. He's the founder of the special dimensional species division."
Freddy was at the center of the agents.
The Colony Lord would surely target him first.
"Gonna call and ask his location?"
"No way they'd tell us. But just picking up is enough."
"I can track them through the call."
Some kind of spatial ability, huh.
Kaal spoke confidently and found the number.
He immediately dialed Freddy.
After some rings,
Click.
The call connected on the other end.
— White Sparrow?
It was definitely Freddy's voice.
The instant he heard it, Kaal reached for Havel.
Havel grabbed his hand firmly.
Their view shifted in a flash.
The new sight was Freddy's chairman office.
And inside that office,
Freddy, mid-call, stared at them.
His eyes slowly widened.
He yanked the communicator from his ear and shouted.
"Both of you, run now!"
The moment his yell echoed,
Havel's hand snapped to his sword grip.
Kaboom!
With the roar, ceiling, floor, and outer walls shattered simultaneously.
What emerged were blood-red tentacles.
They surged from all sides, trying to swallow Havel and Freddy whole.
But Havel's sword moved first.
Slash!
One sound rang out,
yet the tentacles filling the space around the two were shredded to bits.
However, beyond the sword's reach, more tentacles writhed.
So many that the surroundings were packed with dark crimson tendrils.
It was unmistakably a trap.
"Havel!"
In that scene, Kaal grabbed Havel and triggered spatial movement.
Ping!
Havel and Kaal vanished instantly.
"What?!"
But they reappeared in the exact same spot.
Shock leaked from Kaal's voice.
His eyes locked on the tentacle-filled space.
He didn't know how, but
the tentacle walls had blocked his spatial jump.
They'd been had.
Realizing they'd fallen perfectly into the trap, Kaal's face drained white.
The Colony Lord had been waiting for Kaal to walk in himself from the start.
And he'd taken the bait beautifully.
"Abraksas, Havel!"
Freddy shoved through the tentacles toward them.
His face was etched with dismay.
"Why'd you come here without asking anything? I even issued a wanted notice to hide you perfectly."
Havel shrugged.
There were too many complicated reasons to explain.
Kaal eyed Freddy suspiciously.
He'd assumed Freddy was under the Colony Lord's control.
"...Freddy, are you in your right mind?"
Spotting Kaal's doubt, Freddy caught on.
"It's about the dimensional parasites, I take it."
"Huh? You knew?"
Disbelief crossed Kaal's face.
He'd thought he was the only one aware until now.
Freddy knowing threw him off.
Seeing that, Freddy gave a wry smile.
"We haven't neglected our research either."
Just as Kaal had figured out the parasites,
others among the ability users had too.
The first to notice were none other than the Zero-grade agents.
The parasites granted only abilities.
Their innate senses were separate.
And through those senses, they'd detected the parasites.
"The Colony Lord doesn't monitor through every parasite."
Even the Colony Lord had limits.
So when its gaze was elsewhere,
the Zero-grade agents took a gamble.
They burned parts of their own bodies to purge some parasites.
They couldn't eliminate them completely,
but it stopped the blind worship of the Colony Lord like with Kaal.
At least they could harbor hostility now.
"Non-Zero-grades couldn't due to lacking physical prowess,
but all Zero-grade agents are free of the Colony Lord's control."
Kaal looked stunned.
He'd thought it was his burden alone.
But others had sought solutions the same way.
Inevitable communication failure.
Only Zero-grade agents and a few researchers knew.
Kaal, who'd been sealing portals solo, had no way to know.
"...I had no idea."
"No way you could."
But that didn't solve everything.
"Purging parasites doesn't let us oppose the Colony Lord."
They could feel hostility now,
but like Kaal, they couldn't attack it directly.
The parasites etched in their bodies forbade that.
"To attack the Colony Lord, you'd need to erase the seal on your heart."
And erasing it would destroy the heart too, bringing death.
Destroy your heart and resist for a few seconds?
Or fight without hostility at all?
Those were the only choices.
Proof: Kaal and Freddy couldn't act as tentacles closed in.
The helplessness carved into their bodies surfaced.
The Colony Lord's seal worked perfectly.
That's why, even with it nearby, Freddy followed part of its will.
Realizing it targeted Kaal,
he'd issued a fake wanted notice pretending to hunt him.
Of course, that was all for naught now.
"Havel."
Freddy turned to him.
"We can't do anything."
The tentacles writhed again, lunging at the three.
"This building's already been devoured by the Colony Lord. Please, help us escape."
Havel had already cloaked his sword in dawn light, aiming at the tentacles.
"That was the plan anyway."
Great escape time.