Chapter 303 - Choice

While the crash site was approximately about a kilometre away from the edge of the town that I was currently, it took them only a few seconds to appear here.

As soon as I saw the faces of the two newcomers, I could feel my blood boiling out in my veins, as the outburst of negative emotions almost managed to wash my self-control.

"Don't make such a face! It's not like I came here to fight you."

With a smirk plastered all over his face, the protector raised his hands in a common gesture of surrender.

Even if I expected him to survive, the fact that Veriel was standing right next to him, was something I definitely didn't account for.

"I'm gonna kill you, even if its the last thing I will ever do, you know this?"

With the appearance of the real powerhouse, all of the experts ceased their offensive and just observed the standoff. While I didn't pay them any attention, I still noticed that at the very least, some of them rushed to the injured and tried to tend to their wounds.

"Why such hate? Don't tell me you can't get over as single chick! Professionals have standards, you know?"

Despite obviously perceiving my hate that was constantly oozing out of me and leaking into my aura, this damned guy didn't ready up any defences, as if he believed I was unable to harm him.

Well, that was probably true.

While I managed to level up a few times, I didn't receive any notification about Bonger being ready to evolve. With that in mind, it didn't matter how many levels did I got, since my statistics would still be capped right where they were before.

"Do you have anything to say before we will resume killing each other?"

There was no point in continuing any small talk with him. Even if it wouldn't change much, every second that I wasted on him, was one second more than those experts got to regroup and prepare for the fight.

Even with this damned protector out of the account, it was a tough quest to hold all of those powerful cultivators back. I could only bank on the fact that his stats that I observed in this short moment when the decorations of the system were online, showed that in our fight back then, he didn't use even a half of his strength.

I knew there was some limitations on him steeming from the simple fact that he was too powerful to even be here, but since I could only guess how it worked and to what extent did it limit his choices, I had to tread very carefully.

"Oh, I think you are mistaken! I didn't come here to fight with you! We wouldn't like to trouble your backer, after all! I just wonder, don't you want to at least save your father?"

This damned bastard! What was his point bringing the dead to our talk?! It was obvious that Veriel got rid of him long ago!

"Oh, I see I git the jackpot! Let me present you with your choices then."

Seeing the minute changes in my disposition, this fucker managed to read me like an open book despite all the effort I put into keeping a straight face.

I guess I was still too emotionally attached to those close to me.

It was no wonder just his presence was enough to put me at the edge of losing to my hate, with how he was responsible for injuring and almost killing Eve. What was his damned point of bringing my father into the picture now? Did he want me to force Bonger into using the emergency reasons again?

"You can ignore everything that I said, and put up a resistance against my underlings and their allies. I watched your fight, and I couldn't help but notice how novel your means are. Even with that, for how long do you think you can hold on? Are you really soo conceited to believe you can outlast three hundred people?"

Three hundred? This fucker has to be lying!

So far, I faced at most, less than one hundred experts. If there was twice as much waiting in hiding, they would most surely join the fray earlier! I wouldn't believe that those lofty people would just watch their colleagues get massacred without taking any action! Even if their death meant lesser competition for the resources and influence, if a word about how I defied the current order of the things came out of this place, they would lose far more than they stand to gain!

"Your second option is to use those strange means that you have at your disposal to fight them and me at the same time, but then all I need to do is to release a seal on my strength. While I will get hit by the rebound from the arena seal, the enforcers would love to pay me back for letting them catch a foreigner! Oh, does this word ring a bell? Did you really think that I wouldn't interrogate this idiot properly? There is no way that someone as you could reach so far just because of luck!"

Seeing how I was stuck to the ground as he continued to smack me with the face with one revelation after another, the protector's smile only widened, showing how he enjoyed himself at this moment.

"And you have the third option. Call your master or backer once again, but then, the enforcers would be easily able to track him down and deal with the intruders. As such, I don't think that any help would ever come to you."

While he was talking, I could feel a net of his energy slowly tightening around me, blocking my way towards the back, where the spatial barrier ended. Instead of trying to struggle, I simply continued to weave my entropy around my body, slowly infusing threads of it covered with my own mana into his own spell.

"So, what choice will you make? Fight with the local cultivators? Attempt to fight me? Or will you be smart, surrender and bank on my word that your father won't get hurt?"

Finally finishing his monologue, the protector extended his hand while the threads of his energy stopped expanding, and started coming closer all around me.

I gotta say, if not for the keylocks that I already implanted through his entire formation, I would be pretty fucked!

With no way to escape through the teleport window in this place, and unable to break through to the area not influenced by the spatial interference, I could only subject myself to fate!

"You said that I'm foreigner, would you mind explaining this bit?"

Pretending to not realise the move he already made on me, I raised a question to appear as if I was ready to play his game. No matter what I was going to do, the best way to take someone by surprise was to act in the middle of the word. Be it their or my own!

"As if you don't know that yourself… Or do you? That would make you quite an interesting case! But to make things simple for you, you are not going to claim that this guy here is your real cousin, don't you?

So that was what he meant? That I somehow killed the original owner of my body and somehow morphed my appearance to take his place?

Well, he wasn't that far off from the truth, yet he couldn't be more mistaken!

But that also spoke a lot about the circumstances of this world.

My unorthodox means made him believe I was foreigner, staying in this world probably for the sake of spying.

But if that was the truth, what I was supposed to spy on? And most importantly, where I was supposed to come from in the first place?

Nah, there is no way he would ever tell me that information if he learned that his first impression was wrong. On the other hand, this could only cause him to find the leads that could bring him to the truth about Bonger!

"Tell me one thing then… Since you believe that I'm not who I'm pretending to be, why should I care for the life of my fake father?"

Knowing what the consequences of those words could be, my heart ached in pain. But I had no other choice. My first priority was to save Eve, and to do that I had to stay alive! Additionally, if I manage to make this guy believe I didn't care about my father at all, this was my best bet at making him worthless in their eyes, at least securing his wellbeing for now!

Not willing to waste this moment when I was supposed to make a decision, I pulled back my mana that was surrounding the bits of entropy inside the protector's spell formation, instantly causing this intricate web of energy to degrade into nothingness.

Suddenly freed from the pressure that was growing so slowly that I didn't even realise it was there, I pushed the entropy that I kept around my body forward, to prevent any attacks from either the protector or the experts to achieve anything.

Dashing backwards like a madman, I broke through the spatial barrier as if I was emerging from the depths of a calm lake. Even if there was a moment when I felt a pressure on my body as if me pushing forward was only able to put a dent on the barrier instead of breaking through it, it was swiftly over.

Bonger, teleport me away, now!

"Blop!"

"Sure, no need to thank me, do this, do that, what am I, a fucking slave?"

Despite Bonger's unusual rant, I saw a black point forming nearby, just an arm's reach away.

But I was suddenly unable to reach it!

An overwhelming pressure erupted from behind my back, pinning me to the ground!

Even if it disappears just as quick as it appeared, I still turned back to see what was it caused by.

Bad move.

While the sight of the protector being all shiny as he was surrounded with the mana so dense that it started to affect the real world just by being soo condensed, I was able to see how the space was pushing back against this guy as if trying to squeeze him out of this place, unwilling to allow such a powerful person inside!

Before I even managed to turn back and reach back to the forming teleportation window, I saw the entire spatial barrier breaking down, as multiple teleportation windows just like mine appeared all around the protector!

With a smirk still on his face, he held his strength back, while extending his hand in my direction.

Fuck!

If he was so confident that those newly arriving people were able to subdue me, there was no reason for me to doubt his judgment!

While I was curious about what kind of people or force did those newcomers belong to, answering this question wasn't as important as securing my own ass!

Unwilling to risk anything anymore, I jumped back, finally feeling the familiar and almost pleasant sensation of the spatial rifts tearing my body apart.

At least I was finally safe.

Or so I thought.