Chapter 98: I Love Her More Than My Life.
This was going to be a lot more difficult than I thought, wasn’t it?
With that thought, I jumped back into the tunnel, Kosetsu gripped tightly in my hand as I refused to give those cells another chance to act.
Two of them were still on the ceiling.
I reinforced the vectors towards the top, shifting my body’s gravity upward. They reacted immediately, attempting to absorb themselves back into the walls.
But before they could, I shot towards them and kicked one of them squarely in the head, bursting it like a watermelon.
I immediately swung my sword at the second one, slicing through its half-absorbed body.
My senses tingled once again as the three cells that had been waiting on the floor suddenly appeared beside me.
Two of them grabbed my foot while the third simply lunged towards me but right on cue, I released all the reinforced vectors.
Gravity returned, pulling me back towards the floor as I reinforced my weight downward, dragging the two cells holding my foot down with me.
Before they could react to the fall, I sliced through their heads with my sword, killing them instantly.
The last one stared at me for an instant as I threw Kosetsu at it.
It dodged effortlessly.
But that was exactly what I wanted.
I immediately activated Kosetsu’s Spatial Shift, appearing mid-air behind the cell where the sword had been before swinging my fist straight into its head.
With that... All of them were down.
Or so I thought...
Because as soon as I killed them all, their bodies turned into a completely white liquid before merging into the walls of the tunnel.
I had a bad feeling about the whole thing.
And true to my suspicions, new cells emerged from the places where that white liquid had merged with the walls.
They looked identical to the ones I had just killed but somehow, they looked even more prepared than before.
Only then did I understand what I had to do.
A serious expression appeared on my face as I channeled all my mana through my body before concentrating it into my legs.
The moment the first one lunged towards me, I shot forward with even greater speed but before it could touch me, I swished past it like the wind.
These fuckers were never meant to be fought...
They were meant to be outrun.
"So long, suckers."
With that wisdom, I sprinted like my life depended on it.
Because it actually did.
My mana was limited, unlike their seemingly endless ability to spawn and like hell was I going to waste it fighting them when I could simply use it to outrun them.
***
Only after running through the tunnels did I realize how big of a mistake that had been.
I shouldn’t have done that.
Because when I looked behind me, there were twenty more added to the already ridiculously long line of humanoid octopuses.
All of them were chasing after me like mad.
Hell, a few of them even ran along the ceiling, while others appeared directly in front of me, pinning my legs down so the rest could attack.
But relying on my Vectors and sheer speed, I somehow hadn’t been caught yet but I seriously didn’t know how much longer I could keep this up.
My weak body was already creaking under the strain of the reinforcement I was using.
Just then, one of the white octopus bastards appeared directly in front of me. I immediately shifted my weight to the side, running effortlessly along the wall of the tunnel.
Seven more appeared there so I switched back to the floor.
This was consuming far too much mana,
mana I would have loved to save, but I could only hope this would end once I reached the core.
Because from everything I had seen, these cells didn’t seem capable of leaving the tunnel.
And even if they somehow followed me to the core, I could at least be assured that they wouldn’t be able to spawn from every direction like they could in this damned tunnel.
Soon enough, I saw the end of the tunnel, and beyond it was a vast open space.
The core.
But as if my luck had decided to bail on me at the exact moment I needed it most, dozens of those creatures appeared on both the ceiling and the floor at once, leaving only a tiny gap between them.
I didn’t want to use it at this point with my meager mana reserves but these bastards had left me with no other choice.
I jumped slightly and, instead of reinforcing the vectors upward and turning my own gravity upside down, I shifted them towards the front.
All the momentum in my body was pulled in that direction as if it were the ground.
The white monsters realized what I was planning almost immediately and elongated their arms into various weapons.
But their bodies couldn’t keep up with me without mana reinforcement. I shot through the gap at full speed, crashing straight through the tunnel’s exit and into a completely new space.
As soon as I exited the tunnel, I cut off all the reinforcements and felt my mana drop to near rock bottom. Thankfully the many white octopus cells hadn’t followed me in and were crowding the exit of tunnels as if waiting for me to come back.
I immediately pulled a mana accelerant from my treasury and gulped it down. Almost instantly, I could feel the flow of mana through my body increasing.
Although my core existed within my soul world and my natural recovery was already faster than normal, forcing my body to channel mana faster allowed me to accelerate that recovery even further.
I didn’t like relying on mana accelerants too much since they damaged my already fragile mana pathways, but I didn’t have much of a choice.
I immediately looked around and a vast space greeted my eyes. It was roughly the size of a football field with a massive crystal heart at its centre.
And half-submerged within that crystal heart was Lily’s body.
Something like this had happened many times in my previous life, so Lily had once told me how to wake herself up in such situations.
But I still wasn’t completely confident because...
I wasn’t sure if it would work the same way as it had in my last life.
Still, I didn’t rush in immediately.
I was certain that tentacle bitch, Octina, was somewhere nearby.
"I know you are somewhere here."
I said lightly.
The space rippled once before a soft laugh echoed throughout the chamber.
"You sure are as amusing as they said."
With those words, a beautiful woman wearing dark blue clothes stepped out from within the crystal. Strange tentacles grew from her hair, swaying gently behind her.
"I didn’t realize I was that famous." I was surprised but I didn’t let it show on my face. "Was I the reason you resorted to using your own contractor as a medium? And who exactly are they?"
"Quite curious, huh?"
She smiled.
"They are the spirits who have already started talking about an anomaly that shouldn’t exist. If that idiotic Rwar hadn’t been lying around in the mortal world for so long, she should have known about you as well and made sure to keep our contractors away from someone like you."
Her smile widened.
"But it seems that dumb bitch couldn’t even handle such a simple task."
She continued in the same casual tone.
"So naturally, I had to come. Especially after my contractor called on me to keep an eye on what you and that princess were talking about."
She chuckled as she slowly stepped towards me.
"I truly don’t want to meddle in the affairs of fate by killing you, so how about you simply sign a Spirit Contract promising that you will never talk to or appear near my contractor again?"
She paused before continuing.
"In return, I will personally send you to an even more advanced continent where you can learn even more." Her smile disappeared. "Not to mention, this isn’t a negotiation. It’s simply the only way you can keep your life for now."
Hmm... What is she talking about?
Nothing like this had happened in my previous life.
Although all of Lily’s summons had been slightly hostile towards me in the beginning, they had never threatened me this blatantly.
Which meant this had to be connected to the mess I had created in this life...
...or perhaps even my regression itself.
Not to mention, the Spirit Contract she was talking about didn’t merely bind my soul. That was something I could have removed or resisted using my Celestial Singularity Art.
Instead, it bound me to the will of something even the current Gods feared— The Spirit King.
A mysterious entity that had existed since the beginning of time.
And if I dared to break that contract, that guy would obliterate my entire existence without leaving even a trace behind.
I had only seen such a contract once before and the last time I saw it, that guy killed a God with a single attack.
"I don’t understand. Why am I such an anomaly? And why are you trying to pull me away from Lily?"
I asked.
Octina, seemingly trying her hardest to send me away peacefully rather than kill me, replied.
"We do not know the details ourselves. But since the King has declared you an anomaly, we do not want your misfortune anywhere near our chosen one."
I looked straight into Octina’s deep blue eyes.
"But I love her."
As soon as I said those words, Octina’s eyes widened.
But she quickly calmed down.
"That gives us even more reason for you to leave her alone. If you go away, she will be happier, won’t she?"
I wish that were true.
I wish simply leaving Lily alone could make her happier.
But I knew how much of a dream that was, especially after seeing her status window through my Eye of Usurper.
Lily was never meant to have a happy ending.
She was a catastrophe, something even I knew almost nothing about but even that name alone was enough to tell me that her life was never going to be normal.
So, my eyes hardened as I pulled out my sword.
Octina was strong, sure but her strength was limited.
This was going to be difficult, but I wasn’t about to back down because if the choice was between leaving Lily forever and choosing death, I would choose the later without hesitation.
What kind of husband would I have been if I had abandoned her the moment loving her became dangerous?
Not to mention, defeating Octina wasn’t even my intention.
An incredible amount of bloodlust erupted from me, locking onto Octina so intensely that even her body froze for a moment.
"Fine."
Her expression hardened as well.
"Since you have chosen for yourself, I will make sure to send you away as peacefully as possible because even if it was only for a short time, you did make my contractor slightly happy."
With those words, she moved.