Chapter 79: System?

Activating his Advanced Ice-Make, Ethan at this moment seemed to have turned into an ice god.

From deep within his second circle, his mana churned violently, creating a giant ice hand that extended all the way to the bottom of the arena.

’Fortunately, I guessed something was going to happen, so I was already prepared.’

Muttering to himself, Ethan breathed a subtle sigh of relief.

As early as after the third fight ended, he had noticed that Lucian’s mental condition showed signs of total breakdown.

Because of that, he had already been preparing this spell in advance.

After all, in case anything happened, he had to at least extract as much information as possible and complete the system mission.

"Now, now, now... not so fast."

"I believe you mentioned something about Earth?"

Gripping Lucian with his ice hand, Ethan’s eyes shone with unbridled curiosity.

If his ears weren’t playing tricks on him, then the creature in front of him truly did come from another world, a world distinct from their Blue Star, called Earth.

"Haha, interesting. Could this Earth of yours have anything to do with the apocalypse?"

"Tell me about it. If you do, I promise to grant your request and kill you painlessly!"

Squeezing Lucian just enough to keep him pinned, Ethan made sure not to accidentally crush him.

For Lucian, who had lost all his limbs and was mentally broken, Ethan had to be as delicate as possible.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get an immediate verbal answer, as the creature in question, even though his external wounds were frozen shut, was undergoing violent internal convulsions.

’Damn it! Damn you, System! What are you doing to my body?!’

’How dare you do this to me?!’

Cursing furiously, blood began to pour through all of Lucian’s orifices.

Dark purple tears ran down his eyes, accompanied by similar bleeding from his nose, ears, and beak.

His veins bulged more and more, looking as though his entire body was on the verge of exploding.

’This is—!’

Activating his Mana Sight, Ethan couldn’t help but be stunned.

Before, when he analyzed Lucian, he noticed his body was composed of a strange, alien energy.

However, what he saw this time was completely different.

That energy had altered its nature; it was no longer docile like before when it helped him gain strength.

Instead, that foreign energy was aggressively counterattacking his host’s body.

Be it his bones, organs, or circulatory channels, his body was destroying itself from the inside out.

At this rate, Lucian was going to die within seconds.

"Oh no, you don’t!"

Bang!

Breaking off the ice hand he had summoned from his palm, Ethan jumped onto its descending structure, riding it straight down toward Lucian’s body.

"I already told you, if you want to die, you have to get my permission first!"

The moment he reached the ground, Ethan instantly slammed his palm onto the bleeding beast’s chest.

"Although I don’t know what this strange energy is..."

"Let’s see if it can withstand the full suppression of my mana!"

Ethan acted without hesitation.

Apart from the minimal amount of mana he left to sustain his Mana Sight and maintain the boundary of the illusion, he poured every single drop of his vast reserves directly into Lucian’s body, forcing down the violent energy that was rapidly destroying the beast.

"Argh!! Shit, it hurts! What are you doing inside me?!"

"Get out of me!"

Screaming in agony, Lucian was on the verge of total collapse.

Both his mind and body were at their absolute limits as Ethan’s raw mana and that strange energy clashed violently within his torso.

"Hold on! I’ve almost got it!"

"Aren’t you the King of Monsters?! Just hold on a bit longer! I’m almost there!"

Sweat dripping from his forehead, Ethan found that even against this alien energy, his mana reserves, which were countless times larger than those of normal 2nd-Circle mages were being pushed to their absolute limits.

However, for the vital information he sought, there was no way he was going to back down.

Motioning to the veterans up above to keep their positions, Ethan further accelerated the rate at which he channeled his mana.

No matter what, he was going to suppress this energy.

......

Time trickled by, and after nearly five grueling minutes, Lucian’s condition finally began to stabilize.

Under the continuous, overwhelming torrent of mana poured in by Ethan, that strange energy was forcibly locked down in place, unable to move an inch.

The only irreversible side effect was that Lucian’s physical body was now damaged beyond recovery; if nothing else intervened, he would die within the next two minutes.

However, for Ethan, two minutes was more than enough.

"Alright then, Lucian. As you can see, I’ve temporarily stopped that strange energy from tearing your body apart."

"So before you pass away, why don’t we continue our conversation about Earth?"

said Ethan, his palm still resting firmly on Lucian’s chest.

And Lucian, feeling the temporary calm within his ruined frame and fully aware that his death was imminent, let out a long, ragged sigh.

"Alright then... I never thought I’d say this to you after we first met, but... thank you."

"If it hadn’t been for you, that damn bastard would have obliterated me just to keep me from talking."

"Although I expected it to betray me eventually, who knew it would be this soon?"

"Damn, bastard!"

Cursing bitterly, Lucian’s hatred flared.

Even though he had suspected the System had safeguards against him, he never imagined its evolution energy itself would be turned into a self-destruct trigger.

Recalling how helpless he felt as that power tore through his organs, at this point he hated his own System far more than he hated Ethan.

With this thought in mind, before he took his last breath, he decided to spill everything he knew, if only to deal one final, spiteful blow to the entity that had used him.

"You asked me what Earth is. Well, that isn’t a hard question."

"Just as you guessed, it’s a whole other world, not just a different planet, but another complete universe."

"A world where powers like yours and mine don’t exist. A world where there is no apocalypse."

"That kind of world..." He paused.

However, his words left Ethan somewhat perplexed.

"Wait a minute. If that world of yours has no powers, then what about you? Why are you so strong? And what is that strange energy?" he pressed.

Hearing the mention of the strange energy, Lucian growled, exposing his blood-stained teeth beneath his blood-stained beak.

"This damn energy... to explain it,"

"I’ll have to ask you a question first."

"Have you ever heard of... a System?"

Listening to this, Ethan’s eyes dilated in sheer shock.

A System!