Chapter 268: Force of nature

Words : 1766 Updated : Sep 29th, 2025

[Alert: Primordial Energy Detected] [Warning: Class-A energy present] He had no idea what any of that meant. However, his muscles tensed as he assessed his opponent. The figure stood motionless at the end of the maintenance shaft, red and white energy still crackling around their fingertips—a perfect mirror of Noah's own void bullet technique, but composed of something darker, more primal. 'This is different,' Noah thought, studying the figure's stance. Not like the guards at the facility. Not even like Micah. There was a confidence in the stillness, a predatory patience. "Kelvin," Noah whispered, "I'm facing resistance. Need intel." "Working on it," Kelvin replied, keys clicking rapidly in the background. "Signature readings are... wait, that can't be right." The figure took a single step forward, emerging more clearly into the dim tunnel light. Male, tall, dressed in formfitting black armor with an arrow insignia that had blood splatters on it. His face remained obscured by a half-mask that covered his eyes and forehead, but Noah could see a thin smile on his lips. "Noah Eclipse," the man said, his voice unnervingly calm. "I've been looking forward to meeting Academy twelve's mysterious fast rising student." Noah didn't respond, carefully measuring the distance between them, calculating angles, planning his attack sequence. "Noah, these readings..." Kelvin's voice crackled with urgency. "Whoever you're facing, they're giving off some kind of energy signature I've never seen before. This ...it's like that one time in Cannadah. They are approaching Harbinger levels." Noah's blood ran cold. [Quest Active - SURVIVE] The white targeting line appeared without warning—a luminous thread stretching from the man's clenched fist directly toward Noah's chest. Not an ability, not chi-based, just Noah's uncanny perception of lethal intent that had saved him countless times. Noah twisted sideways as the man lunged forward, crossing the distance between them with impossible speed. The punch missed Noah's heart by millimeters, the displaced air alone enough to sting his skin through his uniform. 'Fast,' Noah thought, ducking beneath a follow-up strike that shattered concrete from the tunnel wall. 'Too fast for a normal human.' Noah countered with a precise strike to the solar plexus, reinforced with chi of his own—a blow that should have incapacitated most opponent because unlike the actual arena fight, he wasn't holding back. His fist connected solidly, but the man merely grunted, absorbing the impact as though Noah had hit a reinforced wall. Dark chi. Noah knew what this was because he'd trained it —a corruption of normal chi energy, amplifying its effects while removing its natural limitations. But he'd never faced it directly in combat. Those guys on the submersible never had the chance to even begin with. Another white line flashed across Noah's vision. He threw himself into a backward roll as the man's leg scythed through the space his head had occupied a heartbeat earlier. The kick pulverized a support strut, sending tremors through the already unstable tunnel. Noah needed space. [Void Blink activated] The world shifted as Noah teleported ten meters back, materializing with void energy already gathering around his fist. [Null Strike activated] He drove his open palm forward, channeling the erasure energy, a technique capable of deleting anything it touched from existence. The man didn't dodge. Instead, he raised his own palm, dark chi swirling around it with potent red and white outline. Their hands connected. Noah felt the impact travel up his arm, the familiar sensation of Null Strike's erasure effect—but then something impossible happened. The dark chi didn't erase. It pushed back, creating a perfect stalemate as the energies clashed in a hissing standoff. [Error: Null Strike ineffective against Class A energy type. Target possesses fundamental force immunity] [Recommendation : Void absorption viable with sufficient energy reserves] Noah's eyes widened in shock, momentarily distracted by the system message. That distraction cost him. The man's other hand shot forward, gripping Noah's throat with crushing force, lifting him off his feet as though he weighed nothing. "Interesting," the man said, studying Noah as he struggled in the iron grip. "Your abilities are... unusual. Not chi-based at all." Noah kicked out, driving his heel into the man's ribs with enough force to crack concrete. The man didn't flinch. "Noah!" Kelvin's panicked voice came through the comm. "Your vitals are dropping! What's happening?" Noah couldn't respond, couldn't breathe. His own Chi energy inside him surged desperately, pushing against the man's grip. "Let's see what you're made of," the man said, pressing his palm against Noah's forehead. Pain erupted behind Noah's eyes as dark chi poured into him—invasive, corrosive, seeking something within him. It felt like molten metal being injected directly into his brain, searching, probing, trying to sever something fundamental. 'He's trying to drain me of my power,' Noah realized through the haze of agony. He could feel the invasive force travelling rapidly the same way his void energy sought his Chi when he had void sickness. But the dark chi found nothing to sever. Where it sought connections to natural energy, it encountered only void—and the void consumed it. Noah's void energy flared violently, dark purple light erupting from his entire body as it absorbed and neutralized the invasive force. The man's eyes widened behind his mask, genuine surprise replacing confidence. "Impossible," he whispered. "Your power should be gone. What are you?" Noah answered with action. The surge of void energy provided momentary strength, enough to break the man's grip. Noah dropped to the floor, instantly spinning into a sweep kick that actually caught his opponent off guard, sending him staggering back a step. [Void Bullet activated] Noah fired three in rapid succession, each aimed at a different vital point. The man dodged the first two with inhuman reflexes, but the third caught him in the shoulder, carving a perfect spherical hole through his armor. But there was no blood, no cry of pain—just a momentary flicker of dark chi sealing the wound almost instantly. 'He is regenerating using chi?!! I mean, healing is one thing but this fast?! It's similar to what a one horn can do,' Noah's mind raced. "Finally," the man said, rolling his shoulder as though merely working out a minor cramp. "A worthy challenge." He moved again, faster than before, dark chi visibly enhancing his muscles, reinforcing his bones. Noah caught glimpses of white lines from every direction at once, hardly able to process the attacks before they came. A fist grazed Noah's ribs, the impact reverberating through his entire body despite only partial contact. He felt something crack. A kick followed, catching Noah's forearm as he blocked—the force still enough to send him sliding backward across the rough tunnel floor. 'Can't match him physically,' Noah realized, tasting blood. 'Need to outthink him.' The tunnel. Already unstable from the earlier detonations. Noah glanced upward, noting the stress fractures in the ceiling. As the man charged again, Noah blinked directly above him, reappearing for just long enough to fire a void bullet at a critical support junction. The effect was immediate—the ceiling collapsed in a controlled avalanche directly on top of his opponent. Noah blinked back to the floor, breathing heavily, watching the dust settle over tons of debris. For one moment, he thought it might have worked. Then the rubble exploded outward as dark chi erupted from beneath it. The man emerged unscathed, brushing concrete dust from his shoulders with casual contempt. "Clever," he acknowledged. "But I'd argue you need to do better than that," Noah's chest tightened with something he rarely experienced: genuine fear. The last time he'd felt this—this certainty that he faced something beyond his capabilities—had been on Cannadah, when he'd encountered the two-horned Harbinger that had slaughtered dozens of people. The system had given him the same quest then: SURVIVE. Not win. Not defeat. Just survive. And the scary thing that added to his worries was back then and now, he was a totally different person. He was stronger than he was then and still... The man raised both hands, dark chi swirling between them, condensing into a sphere of pure destructive energy that grew with each passing second. The air itself seemed to distort around it, temperature dropping as it consumed ambient energy. "Let's see if you can survive this," the man said, the sphere now the size of a human head and still growing, its surface rippling with barely contained power. Noah glanced at his reserves. [50/1100] His stomach dropped. Too low. He'd used too much power too quickly between the submarine raid and this fight. Below 50, he'd be in the danger zone—where void sickness would set in, potentially causing system failures or worse. The dark chi sphere continued growing, now pulsing with rhythmic flashes like a beating heart. Noah calculated his options rapidly. He could absorb the energy—he'd done it with chi attacks before—but this was different. The dark corruption in this energy felt wrong, unstable, like it would poison his system rather than replenish it. And in his current depleted state, attempting absorption would be like trying to redirect a flood through a straw. He needed a tactical retreat. Not running—repositioning. "Nowhere to run," the man observed calmly. Noah's eyes narrowed. "Not running. Just changing the battlefield." [Domain Link activated] The sphere launched forward as Noah felt his body dissolve, consciousness stretched across an impossible distance. The dark chi sphere passed through empty space, impacting the tunnel wall with catastrophic force. The last thing Noah saw before the link completed was the tunnel complex collapsing entirely, burying everything—including his opponent—under thousands of tons of reinforced concrete and earth. Then darkness. Then Sophie's blood-spattered quarters materializing around him as he crashed onto her floor. The link had worked, but something was wrong. His vision swam, darkness creeping at the edges. Through the haze, he registered Sophie's shocked expression, the crumpled form of something that looked disturbingly like Lila but wasn't, and his own blood pooling beneath him. "Noah?!" Sophie's voice sounded distant, underwater. He tried to respond, to warn her about the man with dark chi, about Lucas still trapped somewhere in the tunnels. But his body had reached its limit. As consciousness slipped away, the system message remained fixed in his vision: [Quest Status: SURVIVE - In Progress]

Chapter 268: Force of nature

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