Chapter 183 He wants Ethan

Chapter 183: Chapter 183 He wants Ethan

More screams erupted from Luna’s companions as the invisible force pressed harder against their skulls. It felt like an enormous weight was crushing their heads, threatening to shatter their bones and render them incapable of thinking.

The pressure was unbearable.

Luna clenched her teeth, fighting against the pain that threatened to overwhelm her. Every attempt to move seemed to make things worse, and the mysterious beam beneath their feet showed no sign of releasing them.

What the hell was this thing?

Kai struggled to adjust his balance, but his movements were sluggish, as though his body no longer belonged to him. Even the simplest action required more strength than he could summon. He tried to shift his feet, only to discover that they felt firmly attached to the glowing surface.

Then his eyes landed on the man standing before them.

The stranger’s lips stretched into a wide, chilling smile.

It was fucking terrifying.

There was something so eerie about his expression that Kai couldn’t help thinking of creatures from the depths of hell. His face was unnaturally pale, almost devoid of life, and the strands of white hair falling around it only made him look stranger.

Ethan had silver hair, but this man’s appearance was entirely different. His whiteness seemed unnatural, as though he had come from somewhere that had nothing to do with the world they knew.

Kai’s instincts screamed that they were dealing with someone dangerous.

He attempted to move again, but his efforts were useless. His limbs felt heavy and unresponsive, and he could barely coordinate his movements. Even if he wanted to attack, he doubted he could take a single step without collapsing.

His gaze shifted toward Ethan.

That was when he noticed something disturbing.

The stranger wasn’t looking at Luna anymore.

His attention was fixed almost entirely on Ethan Hale.

In his hands was a strange device resembling a lamp. It emitted a peculiar glow, and he was pointing it directly at Ethan as though he were examining an object inside a laboratory.

The man’s smile widened.

"Oh, my, my!"

His voice carried an excitement that made Luna’s skin crawl.

"You’re the one! Not her, but you! The guy with God-tier powers who could help me accomplish my goals." He practically bounced on his feet, his pale face lighting up with delight. "You have absolutely no idea how long I’ve wanted to capture you. You’re truly a special specimen."

"Mr. Davis, look at this!"

A woman standing beside him spoke excitedly.

Linda had a notepad in her hands, and she was scribbling furiously as she observed the group. Her attention moved between the glowing device, Ethan, and the information appearing on another screen nearby.

She seemed far more interested in recording her observations than in acknowledging the pain her captives were experiencing.

Luna’s anger intensified.

Of all the people this bastard could have chosen to target, he had decided to focus on Ethan.

Her Ethan.

The man had the audacity to look at one of her companions as though he were some experimental animal waiting to be dissected.

"Don’t you dare touch him!" Luna snarled.

Her voice rang through the enormous chamber despite the pain crushing her head.

She struggled against the beam, her face twisting into a grimace as another wave of agony swept through her skull. Nevertheless, she refused to lower her head.

"Unless you want to spend the rest of your miserable existence wishing you had never been born, keep your filthy hands away from what’s mine. Consider this your only warning!"

Mr. Davis slowly turned toward her.

Luna glared at him, imagining all the different ways she would make him regret ever crossing her path.

How dare he?

Who the hell did he think he was, treating her man like some laboratory experiment?

If this bastard thought she would stand by and watch him drag Ethan away, then he was about to discover just how badly he had underestimated her.

Unfortunately, the pressure pressing against her body made it difficult to do anything beyond glare at him.

Mr. Davis seemed thoroughly entertained by her anger.

"Oh, I know people like you."

He strolled closer, his steps unhurried and strangely confident. The way he carried himself was infuriating, as though the entire world belonged to him and everyone else existed merely to satisfy his whims.

"You’re the kind of person who thinks the whole world revolves around you. You believe everyone should be grateful for whatever scraps you throw their way, and you assume nobody has the right to touch what’s yours."

He clicked his tongue.

"Well, sweetheart, you’ve got that horribly wrong."

Luna’s expression darkened at the way he addressed her.

"And honestly, I don’t understand why you need four men. Four!" He turned toward Linda, spreading his arms as though presenting her with the most outrageous discovery of the century. "Look at this, Linda. We’ve got a greedy motherfucker right here!"

He burst into laughter.

The sound echoed through the chamber, making the already unsettling atmosphere even worse.

Luna wanted nothing more than to wipe that ridiculous smile off his face.

She had encountered countless monsters since the apocalypse began. Some were mindless beasts driven by hunger, while others possessed enough intelligence to plan ambushes and manipulate their prey.

But this man?

He was something else entirely.

His arrogance wasn’t the kind that came from possessing overwhelming strength alone. It was the confidence of someone who had spent so long believing himself superior to everyone else that he no longer considered the possibility of being defeated.

And the worst part was that he seemed to have the means to support that confidence.

Luna finally took a moment to examine their surroundings properly.

The place was immaculate.

Every surface was polished, every instrument carefully arranged, and even the enormous tables appeared to have been cleaned until they gleamed. There wasn’t a single obvious sign of disorder.

Under different circumstances, she might have admired such meticulous organization.

Unfortunately, the things displayed around the room made that impossible.

Various instruments hung along the walls, many of them unfamiliar to her. Some resembled surgical equipment, while others looked like devices designed for experiments she didn’t even want to imagine.

Then there were the body parts.

Bloody limbs had been arranged carefully on a table as though they were precious treasures. Dried skulls hung from the walls like trophies, their empty eye sockets staring into the room.

Luna’s stomach tightened.

She had seen enough horrifying things during the apocalypse to know that death could be ugly. She had witnessed monsters tear people apart, watched survivors fight over food, and seen human beings commit atrocities simply because they believed they could get away with them.

But this place was different.

Everything was arranged with such deliberate care that it was impossible to dismiss the gruesome displays as the aftermath of a battle.

Someone had put them there intentionally.

Someone had looked at those severed limbs and skulls and decided they deserved to be displayed.

Only a psychopath could be so obsessed with cleanliness while treating human remains like decorations.

And judging by Mr. Davis’s behavior, he certainly wasn’t beating the allegations.

Luna’s gaze moved toward the surrounding walls, studying their unusual structure.

The interior was so enormous that it resembled a mansion, yet the strange equipment and unfamiliar design suggested that they weren’t inside an ordinary building.

In fact, the more she looked, the more she suspected that they were inside some kind of gigantic vehicle.

If the Titanic had been transformed into a mobile laboratory, this place might have looked something like it.

Except this was far worse.

A mansion could contain rooms, corridors, and laboratories, but this place seemed to combine all three on an entirely different scale. Its construction was unlike anything she had encountered before.

And that raised another terrifying question.

What kind of person possessed the resources to build something like this?

Luna’s eyes narrowed.

"So, you’re a beast?"

The question made Mr. Davis pause.

He looked at her for a moment, apparently considering whether he should take offense. Then he shrugged as though the distinction meant absolutely nothing to him.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, baby."

Luna nearly bit her tongue.

Baby?

Did this bastard seriously think he could call her that and get away with it?

She shook with fury and attempted to force herself out of the beam’s restraints.

The response was immediate.

A violent headache exploded inside her skull, followed by another wave of pain that struck even harder than the previous one. Her vision blurred, and her knees nearly buckled beneath her.

She gasped, barely managing to remain upright.

"Damn it!"

"Luna, stop!"

Adrian’s voice cut through her anger.

He was watching the glowing structure beneath their feet with intense concentration, his expression growing more serious by the second.

"Don’t keep fighting against the light," he whispered. "The beam is what’s causing this. Every time you try to move, it reacts and makes the pain worse."

Luna turned toward him, struggling to focus.

Adrian continued speaking as quietly as possible.

"I don’t know how this technology works, but I can tell it’s affecting our bodies directly. The more we resist, the weaker we become. I’ve only ever seen something like this in movies, and even then, it wasn’t anything this insane."

Luna’s eyes widened.

The light.

She looked down at the beam, trying to understand what Adrian had noticed.

So their movements were triggering the pain?

That explained why she felt progressively weaker every time she attempted to break free.

But how could something like this even exist?

Then a memory suddenly surfaced in her mind.

Astrid.

He had once spoken about someone whose knowledge was so advanced that it frightened even him. Someone who possessed the ability to develop things far beyond the understanding of ordinary people.

Astrid had feared that this individual might possess an advantage similar to hers.

A system.

A spatial ability.

Or perhaps something that could imitate the functions of either.

At the time, Luna hadn’t been certain what to make of his concerns. There were plenty of powerful people in the apocalypse, and not every unusual ability was necessarily connected to a system or spatial space.

But now?

As she examined the strange beam, the unfamiliar equipment, and the technology capable of capturing their aircraft, a dreadful possibility began to take shape.

Could this be the man Astrid had been talking about?

Mr. Davis?

Luna’s heart sank.

If her suspicion was correct, they were in far more trouble than she had initially realized.

She could deal with ordinary humans. She could outsmart greedy survivors, fight powerful awakened, and find ways to survive against monsters that would make most people lose their minds.

But someone who operated with an entirely different level of knowledge was another matter.

Especially someone who seemed capable of combining advanced technology with abilities that could suppress powerful awakened individuals.

What made the situation worse was that Luna’s own spatial space was still developing.

It wasn’t the fully established supermarket she had relied on before. She had been working to develop its functions and expand its capabilities, but she hadn’t yet reached the point where she could create a solution for every situation.

And lately, she had barely had the opportunity to focus on that development.

Between surviving the island, rescuing her companions, and escaping the disaster she had triggered by raiding that damn supermarket, she had been forced to prioritize immediate survival over everything else.

Now, she was paying the price.

Fuck!

Why had she even decided to leave in the first place?

If she had stayed closer to their base, perhaps she could have avoided this mess altogether.

But regretting her decision wouldn’t save them now.

She needed to think.

There had to be a way out.

"Aww, look at you."

Mr. Davis’s mocking voice dragged her attention back to him.

He was still standing a short distance away, examining the strange lamp-like device in his hands. Every so often, he adjusted something on its surface, apparently trying to correct a reading or improve its performance.

"Why the long face? Are you already feeling depressed? Defeated, perhaps?"

He tilted his head, feigning sympathy.

"My, my. And here I thought you were supposed to be a strong woman."

Luna glared at him.

He merely chuckled.

"Well, look on the bright side. I might decide to take him and leave the rest of you alone. All you have to do is sacrifice one of your men."

His gaze shifted toward Ethan.

"Surely, that’s not too difficult, is it? You still have three others to replace him."

The casual cruelty of his words made the atmosphere grow colder.

Kai’s eyes darkened.

Rowan clenched his fists, although the pressure prevented him from moving.

Adrian’s expression turned murderous.

None of them could bear the thought of Ethan being taken away, especially not by someone who intended to treat him as an experimental subject.

Yet they were helpless.

For the first time since escaping the island, they had found themselves trapped in a situation where their strength meant almost nothing.

Mr. Davis didn’t even seem particularly concerned about them.

He continued studying the device in his hands, as though capturing four powerful men and a woman who possessed a mysterious system was nothing more than an ordinary day’s work.

Ethan, meanwhile, had remained unusually silent.

He had listened to everything without interrupting, his gaze fixed on the floor beneath him. The pain was still evident in his expression, but something else had begun to settle behind his eyes.

A decision.

Finally, he raised his head and looked toward Luna.

"It’s okay."

His voice was quiet.

Luna immediately turned to him.

"Ethan?"

"You can leave," he said.

For a moment, she thought she had misunderstood him.

Ethan swallowed before continuing.

"I want you all to go. I don’t want anyone else getting hurt because of me."

His expression remained strangely calm, but there was something hollow in his voice, something that made the words feel heavier than they should have.

"Please, Luna. Just go."

The request seemed to drain the remaining strength from him.

He wasn’t asking them to save him.

He was asking them to abandon him.

Luna stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing.

After everything they had survived together, after fighting through countless disasters and risking their lives to protect one another, Ethan was seriously suggesting that she leave him behind?

As if he were expendable?

As if his life were something she could simply trade away to secure the others’ safety?

Her expression changed.

Then, despite the unbearable pain pressing against her skull, she lifted her chin and grinned.

It wasn’t a happy smile.

It was the kind of smile that appeared when Luna Hart had finally decided that someone had crossed a line they would never be allowed to uncross.

She turned her attention toward Mr. Davis.

"Listen carefully, you murderous asshole."

Her voice was sharp enough to cut through the chamber.

"It’s a good thing I don’t give up easily. Because if you think you’re going to take him away from me, then you’re going to have to go through me first."

For the first time, Mr. Davis stopped fiddling with his device.

He slowly raised his head.

His pale face remained perfectly still for a moment, and then his lips began to curl upward.

The smile that spread across his face was even more disturbing than before.

It was the expression of a man who had finally received the invitation he had been waiting for.

"Oh?"

He tilted his head, his eyes gleaming with anticipation.

"I thought you’d never ask."