NOVEL NEXT Chapter 467: The Stranger in the Iron Shell
The grotesque creature clinging to the obsidian slab was finally revealed as the Blazing Qilin's corpse dissolved into nothing. Its body was twisted and demonic, as though shaped by some nightmare.
Red Snow coughed up a mouthful of blood, her face pale, and in that instant Ethan sensed something—deep inside the creature, a faint tremor suddenly ceased. Then, with a sound like a heart stuttering back to life, the tremor surged again, steady and rhythmic. A moment later, the supposedly lifeless corpse jolted violently.
Ethan didn't wait to see what would happen next. His muscles tensed, the shadows of his Panther Form surging over his frame as he poured three Shred techniques into his Twilight War Spear. In one swift, committed motion, he thrust—unleashing a crimson streak that hissed through the air like a blade tearing reality itself, driving it straight at the rising creature.
The thing had only just stirred, its movements sluggish, yet its instincts were keen. Its dark wings snapped open, wrapping around its compact frame in a defensive cocoon. Ethan's strike, potent enough to slice space itself, slammed against those wings—and stopped cold.
"Damn it… not even a scratch," he muttered, his grip tightening. The thing's presence was uncanny; it radiated no aura, yet it had shrugged off a killing blow with sheer physical resilience.
"Can you still fly?" he asked quickly, his eyes never leaving the target.
"Barely," Red Snow admitted, her voice tight with fear.
"Then go. I'll keep it busy."
Before she could argue, Ethan hurled her upward with a forceful wave of his arm. The creature's wings unfurled again, exposing its face for the first time—and Ethan almost wished they hadn't. Its massive, hairless head was marred with patches where rotting flesh had peeled away, leaving bone glistening in the dim light. In its hollow sockets burned two emerald flames, shifting like restless souls.
Ethan braced for the inevitable attack. Instead, the creature slowly folded its legs beneath it and sat.
"Human?" The voice came directly into his mind—no lips moved, yet the words were clear, resonating in a strange cadence.
Ethan froze, startled by the absence of hostility. There was something… wrong about its presence, as if it didn't belong to this reality at all, but it made no move to strike.
"… may I ask who you are?" Ethan kept his spear lowered but ready. If the other party didn't seem hostile, it was foolish to provoke it—especially when the Blazing Qilin, wielding the might of its clan's sacred relic, had only managed to drag this thing down into mutual destruction. Or perhaps not destruction at all. If the Qilin had been War God–class at the very least, what did that make this being?
"I… am not from your world," the creature replied.
Ethan blinked. "Neither am I," he said cautiously.
It gave a low, humorless laugh. "I'm not talking about this little pocket of space, or even your broader universe."
A clicking and whirring sound began emanating from its chest. Ethan tensed. The front of the creature split open with a faint hiss, releasing tendrils of white vapor. The gap widened slowly, almost deliberately, until Ethan's eyes widened in disbelief.
"You've got to be kidding me…" he breathed. "A mech?"
Inside the armored shell, slumped but very much alive, sat a human man about Ethan's age.
"A mech… You recognize it?" The man's voice was weak, but at the word, his head snapped up. "You… you're from Earth?"
The question hit Ethan like a hammer. "How do you know about Earth?" he demanded. A chill worked its way down his spine. The thought of this stranger setting foot there was unsettling—no, terrifying. If he possessed technology like this, Earth's defenses wouldn't even slow him down.
Sensing his thoughts, the man raised a hand in reassurance. "Relax. Earth is my home too. I have no intention of harming it—and I couldn't return even if I wanted to." He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, climbing down the steps that had folded out from the mech's chest.
"Then why?" Ethan asked, still wary. "Why go to Earth at all?"
The mech itself was a marvel, the kind of thing Ethan had only ever seen in sci-fi films. That meant its owner came from a civilization whose technology had reached unfathomable heights. And yet, this was a relic from a million years ago. Red Snow had said the Blazing Qilin who fought this mech's pilot had vanished that long ago. Which meant this man had been alive—somehow—for all that time. Perhaps the mech had preserved him in stasis until now.
"If I told you I was going there for help… would you believe me?" The man crouched, patting the slab beneath them. Ethan realized then it wasn't a slab at all—it was a sealed container, forged entirely from the same strange alloy. Whatever was inside, even his Soul Sense couldn't penetrate it.
"You expect me to believe you need our help?" Ethan asked, his tone skeptical. "You've got machines like this, and you're telling me you can't handle your own problems?"
The man gave a bitter smile. "Once, we thought we were invincible. Thought we could conquer the universe with our machines. But by the time we learned they were worthless against what we faced… it was too late." He glanced at the sleek watch strapped to his wrist, then fixed Ethan with a steady look. "I don't have much time. Listen."
What followed was a story that shook Ethan to his core. The man's people, he said, were descended from humans who had once lived on Earth. But when their civilization reached a certain point, the planet's energy was exhausted, its resources bled dry. The population plummeted to under a million. They were forced to abandon their home.
On the eve of their migration, they received a signal from beyond—a message claiming to come from a place called the ΩA001 Universe. The senders said they too had originated from Earth, suffered the same fate, and had also fled. They had calculated that after billions of years, Earth would recover enough to give rise to a new generation of humans. And when that time came, those humans would face the same doom and the same need to migrate.
Ethan's pulse quickened. If this man was right, Earth was already walking that path again. Was humanity just another cycle in a repeating pattern—a hatchery that birthed one generation, lay dormant for eons, then birthed another, over and over?