NOVEL NEXT Chapter 145: A Past Prodigy
As they walked toward the sixth floor's boss area, the cityscape changed.
Before them stood a massive structure, unlike the factories and wandering machines they had passed.
The building rose like a silent monument, its design cold and minimal.
A vast cube of polished black steel, smooth and seamless, with only faint glowing lines running across its surface.
There were no banners or even statues on it.... just a flat, imposing wall that seemed to reject unnecessary decoration.
Adam's gaze lingered on it, his thoughts turning heavy.
'Despite all their brilliance, they shackled themselves. This civilization poured everything into intelligence and knowledge, but abandoned the hunger to explore. They built walls instead of bridges. They turned their planet into a prison of perfection… and called it advancement.'
He narrowed his eyes.
'Knowledge without growth only leads to decay. That's why they're gone now.'
Just as a hidden seam in the wall began to slide open, a sharp rat-a-tat-tat sounded out from a side alley.
A child—a girl no older than twelve—was cornered.
Three mechanical enforcers fired round after round at her. But the bullets never hit.
Instead, they stopped.
Frozen in mid-air, a few inches from her face.
She wasn't even shielding herself...
Her hands hung loosely at her sides.
Her eyes were dry, hollow, and looked to be very tired.
But when Adam saw her, his breath caught.
'That's..'
Seeing the power the girl was activating, Adam could not help but rack his brains out towards a familiar figure in his past life...
He knew her.
In his past life, she had been famous.
The youngest prodigy to ever clear the Tower's lower floors.
They called her "The Unmovable Object."
Her power wasn't really about shields—
It was absolute stasis.
She could stop anything in its tracks!
A power that naturally fell under omnipresence...
Now he was seeing her...
Not as the legend she would become, but as a scared, exhausted kid, slowly being worn down.
Hm...
Indeed, his arrival back in time truly did spark lots of changes within the current world.
Raiden and Miya stared, conflict on their faces.
"We can't."
Raiden said quietly.
Miya's fists were clenched.
Such a young child... about to be left alone to die...
Just then, at the corner of her eye, she saw Adam walk forward towards the child.
"Ah? Adam!"
Adam didn't hesitate.
He stepped forward.
Not to attack the robots.
He walked right toward the girl, into the line of fire.
Bullets hung in the air around him like metallic rain.
He knelt so he was at her eye level.
Her gaze, empty and defeated, slowly focused on him.
"Do you want to be saved?"
...
The child stared blankly at Adam, not answering.
Adam also just blankly stared at her, waiting for her answer.
Just Adam was about to say something else, the child replied.
"Dad...?"
Adam flinched a bit in confusion.
"Did you come back for me... dad?"
Her voice was hoarse as though it had been days since she had last spoken.
Adam's eyes narrowed.
He immediately pulled out one of the items his viewers had given him.
[Information Panel]
▶ [User] Guin Asturo
➤ [Rank] Ember
➤ [Existence Attributes] Abused, Emotionally Neglected, Hopeful
➤ [Status] Weakened
➤ [Sponsor] The Eternal Day
◆ [Abilities]
├── Absolute Stasis (A) : Automatically halts the movement of those around her once it is viewed as a "threat".
└── Perception of Moments (C) : Can sense all movements coming toward her, even from ambushes, invisibility, or divination.
Adam stared at the information panel, his mind filled with confusion and questions.
Why is she still an Ember-rank?
That made no sense.
To even reach the sixth floor, a hunter needed to be at least Stone-rank.
Something was very wrong here...
Adam narrowed his eyes towards the sponsor on the panel— The Eternal Day.
Sponsorships this early were almost unheard of.
Aside from Adam, most people who got sponsorships were those who took climbing the tower very seriously and had sufficient power and experience to back it up.
There were only two ways to get one: wait until the fifth floor like everyone else, or have a viewer from the higher tiers spend a ridiculous amount of coins to force a connection early.
'Having a sponsor at such an age, and this early on to the tower means that I'm not mistaken about her identity...'
Adam thought, his suspicion hardening into certainty.
The Unmovable Object.
The prodigy in his last life!
But the girl in front of him...
With statuses like 'Abused' and 'Neglected'— was but a shadow of the legendary fighter he remembered...
His eyes darted to the robots still firing at her frozen barrier.
Normally, bullets couldn't kill a Stream Hunter this easily.
But these weren't normal.
Every shot glowed faintly, leaving burning trails in the air.
Each bullet carried a heavy force that pressed down on space itself.
They weren't simple weapons and seemed to be carrying the power of an Authority.
Adam narrowed his eyes.
'Hm. Which one is it? The Authority of Firepower? Impact? Or maybe even Suppression?'
He pushed the thought aside and focused on the girl.
His voice was firm, but not unkind.
"Don't call me dad."
In one smooth motion, he grabbed the back of her shirt and lifted her up.
The sudden movement broke her concentration.
Her eyes widened in shock and fear.
The stasis field holding back hundreds of bullets vanished instantly.
The air itself seemed to scream as the group of deadly projectiles surged toward them.
However, at this moment, Adam had already activated the [Authority of Invincibility]
The bullets slammed into both of them and bounced away as though hitting the hardest metal in existence. Sparks scattered across the ground.
[You have been marked as an enemy by the sixth floor]
[The entirety of the sixth floor will now be against your existence and will hunt you down]
Adam barely even glanced at the notifications.
His eyes turned toward Raiden and Miya.
With just a look, he motioned for them to go.
Miya opened her mouth.
"Adam, you—"
Raiden didn't let her finish.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her away.
The two of them ran toward the boss's area without looking back.
Adam exhaled slowly, tightening his grip on the girl.
His eyes glanced downwards...
He was looking at his own shadow.
From it, a massive puppet-like figure emerged—
Its body made of warped metal, its face featureless, and a long spear clenched in its hand...
Xel'Shaar.
The puppet lowered its head slightly, the weapon in its hand radiating a strange, unbreakable aura.
The [Weapon of Invincibility].
Inside it, Kareth Zul remained trapped.
Adam glanced at Xel'Shaar calmly.
The reason he had delayed on this floor wasn't just to review and recall his knowledge of the sixth floor's technology...
"Have you found any traces of him?"
Xel'Shaar's voice sounded hollow as he stepped forward from the shadows.
"Master, I have searched nearly every sector of the Sixth Floor. There are no signs of Cael. It is as if he vanished completely."
He paused, the glowing veins across his metal body flickering faintly.
"It is safe to say… he has disappeared."
Adam fell silent.
Cael...
During the fight on the Fifth Floor against the authority users of Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience… that bastard had slipped away.
Adam assumed that he must have used a trick to immediately transfer himself to the sixth floor.
However, seeing as to how he wasn't here, Adam was even more puzzled now...
Thinking of this, Adam couldn't help but think of Cael's title.
The Atrocious One.