Chapter 133: You have Three Lives
Since the system had said that, the result wasn’t too hard to guess. Mark had obviously been blown to pieces when he stepped onto the minefield. The loud explosion only came out right when Mark ran down, and then everything immediately went completely silent.
Since the system had said to do it one more time, of course everything would return to its original state. Since it already knew Mark would die, the system had set an anchor point beforehand.
Everything was instantly reversed at this moment, just like time was being turned back. Of course, it wasn’t actually turning back time.
The soldiers were staring wide-eyed at the strange and illogical scene happening right before their eyes.
"What... what is this?"
"Turning back time. No, then why aren’t we affected?"
"Rearranging the positions of the atoms? This explanation doesn’t seem to make much sense either."
...
Everyone started discussing it. Military discipline about keeping silent and all that temporarily didn’t matter when they were seeing a scene they had never once imagined in their entire lives.
Even the captain who was knowledgeable and experienced had to break out in a cold sweat at the system’s performance.
As far as he knew, there was absolutely no high-level hunter in this world who possessed an ability this absurd. What was happening here was too terrifying. Perhaps a minor character like him shouldn’t know too much.
Now some people thought they should make a tactical retreat, but others thought retreating was meaningless. Mark had been blown to pieces and then reversed back to life, so if they ran away, the system only needed to reverse everything, and they would immediately return to their original positions.
"Ma... master, do I really have to run down that path?"
After coming back to life, Mark seemed to have lost the part of his memory when he was blown up, so he was still as clueless as before. Besides, the path had been completely restored by the system, so he didn’t suspect anything about the fact that he had just died.
[You useless mortal, you just died once. Do you think you have infinite lives? You should feel lucky that during this sudden test, the system took pity on you and gave you three lives. Now quickly go down the mountain for me.]
Before he could stay confused for long, the system shouted straight at Mark, startling him. Only then did Mark realize where that strange and unclear feeling in his heart was actually coming from.
Even though he hadn’t gone down yet, Mark felt like he had walked on that path before. This feeling was probably quite similar to déjà vu.
"This time, do you want to go by yourself, or should I kick you down there and let you roll down one more time?"
Nexus smiled ’kindly’ at his disciple. Even though he had seen it many times already, Mark still couldn’t understand why he always felt a chill whenever he saw Nexus smile.
Indeed, Nexus had a very good temper, without the slightest bit of aggression or brutality. But Nexus’s incomprehensible logic made Mark panic every time he witnessed it.
"Master, just trust me. How could your number one brave disciple let you go through the trouble of kicking me down the mountain?"
Mark patted his chest and acted like he was very confident, but his forehead was covered in beads of sweat. He was obviously scared, but he still couldn’t help but do it.
At least being careful gave him a chance to live a little longer. If he just rolled from here all the way to the foot of the mountain like that, he would definitely be blown to pieces.
There was no mandatory military service in America. Mark’s physical condition was also very poor, and he had never thought about joining the military, so of course he didn’t understand a damn thing about mines.
Facing a path filled with mines with terrifying destructive power, Mark could only swallow his saliva, look carefully, and avoid the places he suspected.
"What are you still standing there for? No matter how long you stare at it, the mines aren’t going to be disabled."
Under Nexus’s urging, Mark could only grit his teeth and carefully step forward. Mark had never felt that putting down a single step could be this difficult.
If there were a dangerous monster in front of him, Mark would know he was definitely going to die, but at least his brain could still think that everything happening was perfectly clear.
Now it felt like opening a blind box. Since he had no idea which box would ’explode’, the feeling of suspense kept appearing in Mark’s heart.
One step, two steps, three steps... Boom!
Mark was once again blown to pieces under the exasperated gazes of all the soldiers. Every one of them had a fairly high chance of making it through this path, but normally, only a crazy person would risk their life to do something this pointless.
Just like that, everything started over from the beginning once again. Mark still had that clueless attitude when looking at the system. It was just that this time, the system interfered a little, making Mark have a deeper impression of what he had experienced.
"I think I just died, right?"
Because he had a deeper feeling this time, Mark’s memory of this part also vaguely surfaced. It was just that once he reached the part where he was blown to pieces, everything started becoming unclear.
[You useless mortal, you just died once. Do you think you have infinite lives? You should feel lucky that during this sudden test, the system took pity on you and gave you three lives. Now quickly go down the mountain for me.]
The system’s extremely familiar words left both Mark and the soldiers confused. Mark couldn’t remember clearly, but the others remembered it extremely clearly.
Clearly, there was no limit of three lives here at all. The system only said that to scare Mark. If this continued, Mark would have to die at least dozens of times before making it to the foot of the mountain.
"Everyone retreat immediately. There is nothing dangerous here. There is no one suspicious."
At this point, the captain could only order his subordinates to retreat. Only an idiot would insist on staying near terrifying existences capable of manipulating the world like this.
Nexus didn’t stop them and didn’t care about them at all. Of course, his promise to make sure the path wasn’t damaged at all after Mark completed this ’small’ test would definitely be fulfilled.