Chapter 263: Welcome Back To Earth
[EARTH - WELCOME BACK.]
WHOOSH!!!
A blinding beam of spatial light shot down from the fractured sky, striking the ash-covered shore with the force of a small meteorite. As the residual energy dissipated, Jessica walked out of the small crater, her black overcoat snapping in the polluted wind.
She blinked, her stoic expression faltering slightly as she stared at the sprawling expanse of water before her. It wasn’t clean; the familiar, murky grey of pre-apocalypse New York was gone. Instead, the water was a thick, sludgy crimson, completely filled with coagulated blood and floating debris. Looking ahead into the deeper waters, she could see the unnatural, churning currents shifting beneath the surface.
’There is something in the water.’ She thought, her combat instincts instantly flaring. She raised her left wrist and tapped the sleek surface of her Galaxy bracelet. With a soft hum, a highly detailed, holographic map projected into the air before her, casting a faint blue glow on her face.
"So this place is the East River, there is a Bay close by?" She muttered, her eyes tracing the ruined topography of the dead city. The skyscrapers in the distance were hollow, skeletal husks clawing at the smog. She lightly shook her head, a sudden, throbbing pain echoing in her temples.
’I am from Earth, New York City, but why can’t I remember anything? What really happened to me?’ She thought. It was a haunting paradox. She knew the names of the streets, the layout of the boroughs, but the personal connection—the life she supposedly lived here before Galaxy Fall—was a complete void.
She forced the distraction away, shifting her focus to the tactical display. The map was pinging rapidly. Green dots, representing her scattered teammates, were spread out across a ten-mile radius, with a few already moving toward her coordinates. However, what stunned her were the hundreds of glowing red skulls clustering all over the immediate area, some blinking aggressively right beneath her feet.
"What the?"
BOOOOM!!
She raised her eyebrow as the earth violently ruptured. A monstrous, five-meter-long annelid worm, its circular maw lined with hundreds of razor-sharp teeth, shot out from the blood-soaked sand directly before her.
"...?!"
GRAAAAAAAAA!!!
The creature lunged, a foul stench of decay washing over her. But before Jessica even needed to draw her weapon, a condensed, hyper-chilled ice arrow streaked out from the distance, piercing straight through the worm’s open mouth and out the back of its segmented head. Instantly, the beast dropped, dead and flash-frozen.
Jessica turned toward the ruined cityscape, seeing Nirvana gracefully flying toward her. The Cryomancer was literally creating and standing on a shifting pathway of ice mid-air to avoid the treacherous ground.
"Captain! Seems I arrived first." She said, lightly jumping down onto the sand, her black coat flourishing around her. She gave a small, confident smirk. "I apologize for taking your kill." She gestured to the dead worm.
"Not my concern." Jessica answered flatly. She didn’t care about the ego of her subordinates. She immediately turned her head back to the churning red river; whatever colossal entity was lurking inside had completely ignored their brief skirmish.
Nirvana rolled her eyes at the cold dismissal. She turned to the frozen worm and, with a sharp snap of her fingers. The massive carcass shattered into millions of pixelated light particles, condensing down until a glowing purple card floated in the air.
"Huh?! Only a medium class! It’s not even epic!!" She yelled in disbelief, snatching the card.
Jessica simply ignored her complaints. She was the only one whose Captain-tier authorization allowed her to see the exact monster distributions on the map, and the beach was a literal minefield of red skulls. Based on the Academy’s extensive bestiary classes, the System categorized threats clearly: green skulls denoted low-tier Lv1 to Lv19 monsters, while yellow skulls marked Lv20 to Lv49. Red skulls represented the lethal Lv49 to Lv99 bracket, which only yielded medium-class monster cards upon death. To gain High or Epic tier cards, a team had to actively hunt Bosses. Legendary cards required slaying World Bosses—a suicidal endeavor for most.
’But the skull on the map, which is pointing at the sea, it’s a red skull with two swords crossed behind it... What level is the monster in this river?’ Jessica thought, staring intensely at the red water. The unique icon pulsed with an ominous, heavy rhythm on her holographic display.
"Wow... I haven’t seen a red river before! This is crazy!! Wait, is that blood?"
The two ladies turned toward the shoreline, seeing Andrew marching toward them. The brawler was casually walking through the apocalyptic wasteland, yelling non-stop like a tourist at a bizarre attraction.
BOOOOM!!
Triggered by his loud vibrations, five more mutated sand worms exploded from the ground in a shower of debris, instantly lunging at him from all sides.
"Huh? I just got here, and you’re already attacking me!" Andrew grinned fiercely. He didn’t retreat; instead, he shot forward, his aura flaring as he struck out a devastating, shockwave-inducing punch.
BOOOOM!!
Jessica ignored the thunderous battle. Her mind calculated the worms to be merely Lv60—good for points, but no real threat to Andrew. She was far more concerned with whether they should proactively attack the submerged anomaly or order an immediate tactical retreat into the urban ruins. Nirvana also completely ignored Andrew’s chaotic brawl, opting to safely absorb the purple monster card into her core.
BOOOOM!!!
Andrew’s relentless, explosive shockwaves finally crossed a threshold. The deep, heavy vibrations rippled out into the river, alerting the apex predator. The massive waves, which had been idly rolling sideways, abruptly shifted direction, surging violently toward the shore.
GRAAAAAAAAA!!
Sensing the overwhelming shift in the food chain, the remaining three worms attacking Andrew suddenly stopped. They let out a panicked squeal and plunged desperately back into the ground, burrowing away at maximum speed.
"Hey!" Andrew shouted, annoyed at his fleeing prey.
BAM!!
Without warning, an invisible, crushing pressure slammed down on the entire city. The air itself tasted of ozone and copper. Jessica, Nirvana, and Andrew froze completely in their tracks. They looked down at their trembling hands, their faces paling in absolute, unadulterated horror as their System interfaces flashed a critical warning.
’Why... Why... Why did my level drop by one?’ Andrew thought in horror, feeling a literal chunk of his hard-earned vitality and cosmic energy evaporate.
Jessica stared at the massive shadow rising beneath the bloody waves. On her forehead, her hidden trump card—her mythic Eye—violently forced itself open, glowing with a piercing, ethereal light. The moment her enhanced vision processed the astronomical density of the energy core inside the monster, her usual stoicism shattered.
"Retreat!! Run!!!"
Without waiting to see if they comprehended the order, she spun around and bolted toward the crumbling concrete of the city at top speed, abandoning all pretense of a slow, tactical advance.
".....?!"
Nirvana and Andrew were dumbfounded. This was the first time they had ever seen their cold, fearless Captain run from any opponent. The sheer terror in her voice broke their paralysis. Without waiting for even a second, the two activated their movement skills and joined her, scrambling off the lethal shore.
"Captain, what the hell is that?!" Andrew yelled as he ran, completely abandoning the two worms he had just killed, not even bothering to extract their monster cards.
"That is an electric eel, Its electric can deal damage that can wipe us out instantly, not to mention that thing is a Peak LVL 500 world Boss!! We must run, if our team gets to this shore, they will all die!" She said, as she led them toward the shattered skyline. The beach was the primary rally point for her scattered teammates; staying there meant welcoming an absolute massacre.
BOOOOM!!!
Behind them, the East River exploded. A terrifying, twenty-meter-tall eel rose from the bloody water, its body covered in impenetrable, jagged black scales that crackled with arcs of lethal blue lightning. And that was only half of its true length. The World Boss hovered above the water, moving its cold, dead gaze all over the ruined shore, then locked onto the three retreating humans. Deeming them insignificant ants, it lowered its massive, grotesque head, casually swallowed the two dead worms Andrew had left behind in a single gulp, and slowly sank back into the bloody depths, waiting for the rest of its prey to arrive.