Chapter 18: The path to become severers

The alien wore a white cloth coiled around his body. His head was covered by a sleek, white helmet with a tribal 3D design, and a black eyeshield in the front.

As soon as he appeared on the television, he immediately said, “What’s the meaning of this? Why have seventy percent of humans returned to Earth instead of striving to become Severers? Why are they talking about equipment, tools, and skills that bring them a lot of benefit?”

The table in front of him shattered without being touched.

Meanwhile, the alien behind it remained still, maintaining his arrogant posture.

“Hahaha, you do understand that if ten warriors aren’t born, your lives won’t exist, right? Don’t kid with me and make me laugh, humans! Use all those resources and focus on creating the ten Severers! We—and all of you—likely won’t survive if ten warriors aren’t born. Do you understand that? Even if we don’t spell it out explicitly, even knowing there’s a chance the ten warriors might never appear, just look at how many resources we’ve poured into you."

The alien removed his hand from his cheek and stood.

"I guess we have no choice. We've already decided that a special event will be held immediately after this broadcast. Good luck!" the alien added, turning his body away. The TV returned to normal.

A heated discussion broke out among the people inside the restaurant.

Suddenly, shining, snowflake-like powder began raining down through the ceiling.

"Hey, look up!" shouted a man.

Everyone looked up at once. The moment the glowing flakes entered their line of sight, they bolted in panic. They knew something abnormal had occurred — and after the alien broadcast, they understood this irregularity was dangerous.

After all, every one of them had experienced the alien stages — and many were veteran fighters.

In less than a minute, the restaurant had emptied, and those who fled outside looked around, searching for an explanation.

Above them, just like inside, snowflake-like powder fell, glowing white without dimming under the afternoon sun.

Behind them, the restaurant slumped like a block of squishy tofu being pressed in the center. Nearby buildings also began to sway like rice plants in the wind — but unlike the plants, each building swayed in a different direction. Depending on how the weight was distributed inside each structure, they would tilt differently.

Even the skyscraper had swayed and spat out the people inside through its torn glass windows—not shattered, but torn, as the material had turned rubber-like. Some people fell to the ground, while others landed painfully on sharp debris. All of them were dead.

Nova and Cyre witnessed all of it, along with the additional sight of people dangling from the swaying skyscraper, clutching the elastic walls as they slid down.

As the people's attention stayed locked on the swaying skyscrapers, the shimmering snowflakes finally reached the ground beneath their feet.

In an instant, their line of sight dropped, and a shiver ran down their bodies as they felt a sudden free fall. Shouts and screams erupted. Their footholds had sunk into the ground, pulled down by their own weight, leaving only their upper bodies on the surface.

It was at this moment that a random guy shouted, “Look in that direction! There are no snowflakes over there!” He pointed toward the west, where no swaying buildings could be seen.

All of these chaotic events had happened in the span of less than ten seconds. One after another, massive events had unfolded in quick succession. As a result, Nova and Cyre only regained their senses after hearing the man’s shout.

Without hesitation, both of them released bursts of wind upward, forcing themselves to sink deeper and deeper... and then launched themselves upward, toward the north, toward the dangling people on the skyscrapper.

Meanwhile, the others channeled more power into their legs, increasing their weight, and launched themselves westward.

Because of the difference in directions, a discordant bump rippled through the otherwise neat line of people marching west.

However, even though all of them were survivors of the alien stages, not all of them were warriors. Some had support roles, others were magicians, and a few had no skills at all, surviving only with the help of others.

These people broke the neat march, crashing into others from bad bounces, bouncing themselves off walls like pinballs, and so on. In the end, they were helped by those nearby, who reached out to them through the chaos.

…

As Nova and Cyre bounced away from the marching crowd, using their many skills to propel themselves forward, they arrived beneath the grand yet terrifying sight of the dangling upper part of the skyscraper.

At that moment, some people had fallen from above. Without hesitation, Nova and Cyre unleashed their wind skills, surging powerful gusts upward with controlled force to reduce the impact of the falling people, guiding them westward.

While the wind couldn’t stop their fall entirely, it slowed them enough so they landed safely, bouncing multiple times across the ground toward the west.

“Bounce to the west! The ground is safe there!” Nova and Cyre shouted in unison. A chorus of cries and thanks erupted in response. Knowing the dangling people were safe, they looked around for others to rescue. But instead, they saw a massive march of rolling, curling brown worms on the ground, as large as anacondas but shorter, coming from the east.

Accompanying these creatures was a massive black sphere, as large as a two-story house, releasing the worms from within its body while flying alongside them from the east.

In front of the advancing creatures, people were bouncing, desperately trying to escape.

Perhaps sensing its prey trying to flee, the sphere let out an organic, deafening scream, like that of a living creature, echoing through the city.

Nova and Cyre ignored the scream but squinted as they noticed a mother carrying her daughter, bouncing awkwardly away from the creature’s march. Both of them bounced forward steadily, but their faces were pale and covered in sweat. Maybe it was just fear, but what if they barely had the ability to bounce without slipping or making a mistake? Nova and Cyre were deeply worried about this.

Without hesitation, both Nova and Cyre bounced toward the mother and daughter. They propelled themselves forward quickly, using a combination of wind, fire, and shell skills to gain speed.

As they had feared, the mother slipped, making an erratic bounce — still moving forward, but slightly skewed. At this point, Nova and Cyre were only about fifty meters away.

However, the rolling worm was already behind them. Releasing its coil, it swung its head back, attempting to slam down on them.

Nova shot his spherical slowing skill, a small marble-sized sphere that for now he called the "slow sphere," toward the mother and daughter, hoping it would trap both them and the worm. To Nova's surprise, the sphere could pass through them. It was the first time he knew it. As it passed the mother and daughter, he activated it, enlarging it to a diameter of two meters. The worm slowed as it hit the sphere, buying Nova enough time to reach the mother.

However, with Nova and Cyre still fifteen meters away from the mother and daughter, multiple worms began to approach them from all directions. Nova could use his Slow Sphere again to target the worms, but if he missed even one, the mother's life would be in danger. So, instead, he chose a more reliable approach.

Using his wind skill, he created a small tornado with a much faster rotation than the real one, pulling the mother toward him.

The mother, holding her daughter tightly in the center of her body, tumbled forward in a wild, uncontrolled roll across the soft elastic ground. They bounced and rolled from the pull of Nova’s tornado. The worms, also drawn in by the tornado’s force, were unable to get close to the mother and daughter as they lost control of their bodies due to the tornado’s pull.

In no time, the fifteen-meter distance was closed. Nova released his tornado just as the mother arrived behind him. He and Cyre then quickly slashed through all the worms that followed with a single, wide, and powerful strike of their wind cutter.

“Miss ple—” Nova cut off his words when he saw a shadow extend forward from his body. It was formed from blue light that suddenly appeared behind him. The shadow, which should have been behind him, now grew longer in front of him with each passing millisecond.

Nova and Cyre quickly turned their bodies and spotted a blue beam fired from the spherical creature. The mother and daughter couldn’t see anything, as Nova's body blocked their view.

In an instant, Nova pushed Cyre away and positioned himself in front of the mother and daughter, just as the beam was about to strike in less than a second. He thought that even if it pierced his belly—and even if he had only a small chance of surviving—it was better than having zero chance for the mother and daughter to survive.

In that split second, countless thoughts also flashed through Nova’s mind — using his slow sphere (which would shatter the moment it touched the beam), running away (impossible with less than a second to react), or gathering and compressing his energy to strike back at the beam.

But in the end, he chose to gather his energy and form a shield around his own body instead. It was faster to concentrate energy inward rather than outward, and more importantly, it would avoid creating a blast from the clash that could endanger the mother and daughter he was trying to protect.

The beam struck Nova square in the chest.

His body was engulfed in blue light — and then vanished.

The mother and daughter were safe, as the beam, still pouring out, was halted at the spot where Nova had stood.

A few seconds later, the beam subsided, and Nova’s body reappeared, standing still, unmoving.

"Big brother Nova!" Cyre screamed at the top of her lungs, tears flooding her eyes.

“He’s dead?” the mother shouted, tears swelling in her eyes. Her daughter was crying too.

"What?" Nova said, turning his head toward Cyre, his voice calm and confused.

The mother, the daughter, and Cyre all widened their eyes in disbelief.

Cyre immediately ran toward Nova and leapt into his arms, hugging him tightly. Meanwhile, the sadness on the mother and daughter’s faces melted into relieved smiles.

As Cyre hugged him, a faint green light flickered across Nova’s chest. The light came from an oval, grid-like pattern under his skin — the remnant of the insect swarm that had once made him sick.

Though he thought they had left his body, they had instead hidden within him, absorbing the energy he gathered and amplifying it inside themselves to create a green, flickering shield strong enough to withstand the beam.

When Nova checked again using his enhanced eyes, he still couldn’t find any trace of the insect energy.

Instead, where the flickering oval grid pattern appeared, it was his own energy — the energy he had previously thought was simply a natural extension of himself, which had significantly increased his body's energy capacity.

All this time, the insects had camouflaged themselves, blending perfectly into Nova’s energy.

…

After that, Nova saved the remaining people until no one was left near the boss and everyone had been safely evacuated.

Now, they were resting under the starry night sky, atop the roof of a skyscraper, watching from kilometers away as the Severers candidates who had just arrived this afternoon fought the unknown creature.

It seemed the spherical creature was one of the final boss in the trial to become a Severer. The proof of this was that even candidates with abilities close to Severer-level were struggling to land a fatal blow on it.

The candidates and other fighters, now called "Crafters" by the people after the government's advertisement went viral, surrounded the boss, bouncing off the walls of buildings. They attacked the boss with swords, hammers, magic, arrows — anything they had — doing their best to bring it down. The worms also bounced wildly, trying to attack the Crafters. The entire scene had devolved into a chaotic storm of people and creatures ricocheting around the levitating boss.

Some time later, amid the growing chaos, one of the Crafters was nearly crushed by multiple bouncing worms while trying to dodge the boss’s beam attack. However, multiple spherical energy fields, each about a meter in diameter, suddenly appeared between the Crafters and the worms, slowing the creatures’ advance.

"Wah, it must be tough battling like that all day until midnight," Nova said, drinking and eating while lying on a white hammock tied to poles usually used for drying clothes. From his fingers, a marble-sized energy shot forward every so often.

"Yeah, they’re so pitiful, big bro. Why don’t they take a break and eat something?" Cyre said with a cheerful tone. She swung herself back and forth in the swing, holding onto the poles with both hands to keep her balance, making sure not to fall off the hammock.

"So, it was you, sir, who helped our people since this afternoon. We finally find you. Actually, they’re fighting following our orders, the government's. The reason is that not many cities have recovered to this extent. Many are still covered in vines, or the buildings are still irreparably broken. If the boss hadn’t stopped here, many problems would have arisen," said a man in a black suit who suddenly appeared beside Nova and Cyre.

He closed his eyes as he explained, then opened them again, only to be surprised by the scene before him. The little girl, Cyre, was standing on top of Nova’s belly, swinging the hammock, playing and smiling cheerfully. His eyes widened, and his lips twitched slightly. But he quickly composed himself, flashing a friendly smile as his expression returned to normal, exuding professionalism.

“Woah, he just acted like he never made that weird face before, big bro,” said Cyre, still swinging on top of her brother’s belly.

“Well, people do that sometimes. Just put up with it, lil sis,” Nova replied, setting down his food and drink on the empty space of the hammock.

Suddenly, the man in the black suit spoke. “Actually, we've already gathered the real candidates and are just waiting for a few more to arrive. A 'real candidate' is someone who has an energy level similar to a Severer but hasn't yet fought the boss. Rather than tiring them out, we save them until everyone is gathered and ready to defeat the boss at once. Please join us. Your special inner skill has been very useful and has reduced many casualties. We will provide our full support and offer you a decent reward.”

“Woah, he did it again, big bro. He just ignored us this time. But somehow it feels natural—he has a talent for it. I guess he's kind of funny. I like him,” said Cyre, still swinging.

“You’re right, it becomes funny when he does it to this extent,” said Nova, turning his gaze toward the man. “I accept. In the first place, we already had a plan to help. But doing something like that…” Nova pointed toward the crafters who were fighting the boss right now. “…is a waste of time. After all, unbroken buildings mean nothing to us, who have been living in various alien stages all this time. But since you said you have some Severers, we will join you.”

Nova waved his hand, signaling for the man to come closer while Cyre continued to swing. The man stepped forward.

Nova rummaged through the food on top of the hammock near his chest. “Do you perhaps have a sniper Severer with high energy output and capacity?” Nova asked suddenly.

“Yes, but we still must wait for her to arrive,” the man answered.

Hearing the man’s answer, Nova extended his hands with the food and drink toward him. "You want some?"

"No, thank you," the man replied.