NOVEL WEB Chapter 187: MEMORIES
For a moment, the battlefield was frozen.
No one moved. No one breathed.
Even the monsters stood still, claws half-raised, their eyes darting between Logan and the human-faced creature as if deciding whether to charge forward or not. Cause all that awaited them seemed to be death.
Dust hung in the air like a thick shroud, lit only by flickers of lightning still dancing through the cracks in the ground.
Logan's each punches were powerful, devastating. They rained down on the creature.
He was ready to tear apart anything that dared to even move.
And then…
Roooaaaar!
The horde of monsters finally decided and charged forward. As if some silent command had been given. They surged all at once.
Numbers of snarling goblins, scaled dire wolves, and even the battered orc, blood streaming from its temple. It roared and raised its massive hammer again, joining the rush.
Logan's eyes narrowed. His hands sparked with lightning, the air around him bending under the force of his aura.
"So all of you want to die first." He leaped back from the crater.
The ground shook as the wave of bodies crashed toward him. The first line didn't even get close… a sweep of his arm unleashed several wind blades that cut through flesh like paper. The second wave was met with fire, a roaring wall that consumed them in screams. Claws scraped his clothes, teeth snapped at his arms, but every touch was answered with a counter, too devastating to swallow.
Even Gideon's party could barely keep track of his movements now. He wasn't fighting like a hunter. He was fighting like a force of nature.
But while Logan carved his way through the swarm, the human-faced creature did not join the fray.
It came out of the crater with much difficulty, its elongated fingers curling slowly. It was in real bad shape, like the chest was caved in.
It looked around. The battle that had erupted, the spraying of blood, and the terror caused by a single being. Its inhuman eyes gleamed with a strange awareness. It already knew.
It knew what fate had in store for it if it stayed.
With a sudden, sharp motion, it reached out and grabbed the wounded orc by the neck, who was skidded back with a kick and was about to lunge again.
The massive beast snarled in protest, but soon noticed who it was.
Then the creature released the orc's neck and brought out the orb again. And with a circling motion of its right hand, the space distorted. Soon a rift started to form. Just like before but this time the location inside looked different.
Logan caught sight of this.
The rift grew clear. It looked more like a door now, mana buzzing at its surface.
Logan's eyes narrowed with rage. "You must be dreaming if you think you can just leave like that."
Without a second thought, he blasted through the line of monsters in front of him, bodies flung aside like broken dolls. His boots dug furrows in the ground as he closed the distance, fire gathering in his right hand.
The creature began to step through.
"You are not going anywhere without settling our old scores," Logan muttered under his breath. His voice felt like steel. He was hell bent on punishing the creature.
But before he could leap, Gideon's voice cut through the battlefield.
"Aiden, don't!"
Logan didn't slow down even a bit.
"Aiden!" Gideon's shout cracked like a whip. "You are definitely strong but we don't know what's on the other side of that rift!"
But Logan didn't stop. For some reason, rage had colluded with his sanity.
The air between Logan and the rift felt heavy, distorted. Whatever lay beyond, it wasn't just another dungeon or another battlefield.
He moved like a blur.
His speed was unreal. In the blink of an eye, he crossed the last stretch, the wind howling in his ears, his hand stretching forward to seize the creature before it could vanish. Mana flared in his veins, every muscle in his body screaming for him to grab it and drag it back.
But…
He was a few seconds too late.
His fingers closed on nothing but air as the creature's form blurred, dissolving into the swirling black. The orc disappeared with it, its roar cut off halfway through. The rift folded inward on itself, the distortion collapsing like a bubble popping in silence.
No one spoke.
The ground was littered with corpses, the air reeking of blood and burnt flesh, yet the only thing Logan heard was the faint rush of mana fading from where the rift had been.
He stood still, breathing slowly. His hand remained raised for a moment longer before curling into a fist.
Gideon stepped up beside him, his tone firm but quieter now. "Whatever that thing is, we'll find it again. But we do it smart. No blind charges."
He was in poor shape, barely standing. He didn't know what actually happened with Logan that he was dead set on killing it but still tried to console him.
Logan didn't answer. His eyes stayed locked on the space where the rift had been. Something was gnawing at him, not just the fact that it escaped, but…
The fact that it even existed.
Memories started to flash before his eyes. A person's face flickered in all those flashes. A face he had tried to forget but couldn't. A face which should have been burried
—————-
A few moments back…..
No one else seemed to notice, but just as the creature's body was fading, its glowing, eerie black eyes had flickered. Only for the briefest moment, but they sure did.
They had turned… human.
Not warm or kind, but undeniably human…deep, pained, almost pleading.
It was the exact moment when Gideon had shouted "Aiden."
And then, as quickly as it appeared, that flicker was gone. The darkness swallowed it, turning those eyes black and lifeless again before they vanished.
To be continued….