174.4] – [Earth (4)]

"RETREAT!!!"

"No you don't." His giant frame blurring, his boots landed just one meter away from a young woman. She was one of the youngest recruits of their team, and someone with incredible talent. But even her, facing this monster, could not find a path to victory.

However, she did not panic, seeing Alexander act slow for some reason.

Yet, even then, the smile on his ominous face was unnerving.

"Hyah!" Taking out a knife, she threw it at his chest before taking a step back, a pistol in hand. But before she could even pull the trigger, Alexander caught her knife with his bare fingers, crushing it to pieces. He then stepped forward, closing the distance in an instant.

As her index finger was a few millimeters away from pushing the trigger fully, a palm bigger than her own head rammed into her forehead, snapping her spine in half on impact. Given to the eyes of all present, they saw her neck be torn apart from the momentum, her head soon pushed far away, rolling on the ground.

Her eyes were still open in incomprehension, her forehead bent enough to make two other members vomit.

Ignoring her collapsing body, Alexander blurred again.

"S..Shit! Maya!! This can't be hap-" Interrupted, a young man had his mandible smashed to powder by a blurring white boot. He could not register what happened before this same boot vibrated. A shockwave escaped, turning his remaining face into a complete mess. One eye popped while another ended up falling into his throat, his skin and muscles melting somehow, fusing with one another in strange ways. His formerly short hair did the same, now dispersed inside these pieces of mixed flesh and skin. Remaining was a monster, a face worse than an alien's from horror movies. His hair had become like the spikes of a porcupine, rigid and at attention all over it.

As Alexander turned his head left, a loud sound echoed throughout the night.

Bang.

Frozen, all team members almost collapsed on their knees from the inconceivable outcome. Mayhem birthed and rampaging within them.

One of the snipers had taken action. A bullet enough to pierce through helmets. This same bullet now on the titan's forehead, crumpled up.

"W…ha…t…"

"I don't believe this…"

"Is this guy a fucking killer robot?! Are we in a damn movie right now!?? This has to be! This is all just a joke! Yes! Maya… leader… Jeanne… David… Dave… they are all fine! I knew it! It was too surreal!!" A brown haired young man standing up from one knee, he slowly advanced. He ignored the pleas from his colleagues.

His brain gave up. It was all just a dream.

It had to be!

Letting the show play out, Alexander watched as the man crouched in front of their former youngest's corpse. He had taken her head from afar, now kneeling to her body. Hugging the head, he then tried to reattach it. But, it was obviously futile.

This was no dream.

This was no fiction.

"You're a funny guy, you know that?" Raising his traumatized, hollow eyes, the youth of brown hair took off his helmet. He simply stared at Alexander, towering above him. He did not feel intimidated.

He felt empty.

"Are you broken already?" A metallic echo heard, they all saw the folded bullet fall from his forehead, onto Maya's own.

"Just do it alrea-" The tip of a white boot hitting his throat, the man was decapitated on the spot, his head rolling up Alexander's thick shin, causing it to explode from this second impact.

Blood rained.

Despair tormented.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Futility remained.

"Since the cat is out of the box, might as well go for it a bit faster." Pointing his index and middle fingers at a green mountain behind the mansion, his fingertips began to glow.

Watching the white light slowly grow through his scope, one of the snipers shivered. His instincts told him clearly.

Either you dodge, or you die. But realistically, not only from his position, but from the absurdity of it all, the sniper could only smile softly. He knew after all.

He could not dodge.

The darkness of the night blinded from such a powerful explosion of light, a laser beam of pure white shot out multiple times faster than the speed of light itself. How could a mortal dodge such a thing?

The night became day for this mansion, for this area. The laser was seen from across the city, aimed at the tall mountain behind. It immediately hit its target without a shred of delay, the sniper's body vaporized to oblivion.

"Next." Unfazed, the monster smiled even more, his fingers barely moving a few centimeters to the left. To this movement, the remaining sniper turned pale. Looking to his left, the sniper only saw blazes of white and light purple twinkle like the night sky, a giant yet perfectly round tunnel remaining where his brother previously was.

About to turn his head back right, a second laser destroyed this chance, killing him on the spot.

Looking at the mountain, one would see two fairly big holes going through it in its entirety.

"So. The snipers are gone, your leader as well… Hum… but there are still some people remaining…"

"One, two…" Not given the time to continue playing dumb, he saw the remaining ones run away. They were not blind. From the very beginning, they knew.

Completing this mission was unworthy of their paycheck. It was not even a mission. It was slaughter house.

"You guys want to run away? Do you think I'll let you?" Already getting bored of their pathetic martial arts and battle prowess, Alexander flicked his wrist. From it, a familiar invisible blade shot out, passing through the entire area.

Be it the special forces' bones or the walls, all of it turned to powder.

"You will have to pay for this. And you'll also have to fix it yourselves." Turning around, Alexander's body shrank a bit. His eyes lost their red glow, his veins retreating.

He was now back inside, laying on the wooden floor.

"So, I was about to read… hum… this one!"

.

.

.

"This feels a bit weird to be honest." Reading a comic from a memory jade, Alexander puckered his lips, making weird noises while contemplating.

He was reading a comic about cultivation, martial arts and such. A xianxia in short. He read as the main character found a secret treasure and steadily grew from a peasant to a god.

The only thing was…

"Before, I would really find this cool and wished to get such an opportunity. I didn't care if it was luck or whatever, just something. I wanted something to happen. And when I read this…"

Sigh

It was not an exasperation. Since, clear to the empty house around him, he was smiling.

Now, he was someone better than all of this. This main character, even if portrayed with such exaggeration, would not hold a candle to him. Even if this main character was in front of him as detailed inside the comic. He would still be able to destroy this character like nothing.

He was already beyond the imagination of mortals. He was a being above the stories and fictions. Standing high up, well beyond the legends and even myths.

Be this comic, or the next. Or the one after that. Even when they became multidimensional gods… they still ended up weaker.

He was a man who stood above the Multiverses. And yet, it was still not the end. Though, he could faintly see it now. Ever since stepping into the Eleutherian Realm.

The horizon that prior only retreated whenever he walked forward. This same horizon was now immobile. His steps did not make it flee, because he cornered it.

The path of cultivation… its end was finally close to his reach. He still needed a lot of time, and there laid probably many more realms. But he could clearly sense the end to be much closer.

The Martial Dao could not escape any longer.

"So, next one~"

Still with a deserved smile, Alexander changed comic.

"Oh~"

"This one looks interesting." He was planning to finish the xianxia ones first. He was too curious to see. Would an author make one stronger than him? It was possible, but would they bother with it?

Scrolling through the elongated pages, he read in peace.

"Like the last one… why do they make the mc stop cultivating for no real reason? What do you mean he can't continue without some bullshit fire fruit? How did he cultivate before that then? How do others do then? What about survival?" Even if Alexander himself did not always cultivate full time, his recent events good examples of this, it was only because of other issues.

"The mc is what? Fifteen? And you tell me he is mentally scarred already? It took me dozens of years for actual, real cultivation to worsen my mental health. Well, when I think about it… Whatever. This is not up to date with the cultivation world. This author should research other Universes." Jokingly sighing at these stories, Alexander was not thinking seriously. He was not so stupid as to believe they would know about such places. Every single one of these stories were valid in theory.

"Maybe I'm the weird one. Can't say I didn't indeed see young children be mentally unstable. But come on! He only got his family killed, what's the… never mind. My perspective has changed too much. I mean, I literally killed my past self without batting an eye. That's much more difficult than killing others, even if family members."

"I became a bit insensitive. Which is good. But also bad. Hah~"

"In life, there is always too little and too much of anything. No matter what it is."

"…"

"……"

"What the fuck is this? How come he got that fire fruit like that?! Give me that luck too dammit!"