Chapter 486

Chapter 486: "Twisting"

El stood atop the extraordinary beast, shouting loudly to direct the crowded people to evacuate. Unfortunately, no one responded to him amid the panic caused by the extraordinary beast.

At that moment, a Middle-aged Man in the crowd suddenly exclaimed in disbelief:

"Is that El?"

The young man turned to the voice and realized it was his former teacher from the class he had skipped to accept a mission.

As the Middle-aged Man recognized El, more familiar faces from school turned back to look at this somewhat mysterious truant student.

This place served as a school, housing both staff and students, and under their incredulous gazes, the crowd gradually began to retreat as the chaos caused by the extraordinary beasts entering the city slowly dissipated.

The attention of the people made El instinctively uncomfortable; he thought perhaps he needed a mask to cover his face to ease the awkwardness.

Unfortunately, this was not the time for such thoughts. After finishing the evacuation and witnessing that the remaining extraordinary beasts had been cornered by Fulan near the school by the city wall, El planned to switch places with the cat that was holding the line up above.

Just then, El suddenly heard another collective gasp, and he felt the surroundings becoming bright and warm.

He looked up to see a flaming extraordinary beast descending toward them; it was evident that the point of contact with the ground would be right where the recently evacuated crowd stood.

This extraordinary beast had no wings or wing-like structures and rolled through the air as if thrown by a giant hand over the city wall.

With such a massive extraordinary beast engulfed in flames, even El felt panic set in—

It would be easy for him to survive; he could simply shrink down toward the ground without issue.

But what about the others?

The beast falling would undoubtedly lead to gruesome fatalities, but could those struck by it survive? Moreover, the flames were still burning; it seemed a disaster was imminent.

The surrounding crowd once again fell into chaos, but this time, because of the school’s fences, they seemed unable to escape, thrashing about like headless flies without trampling anyone.

El wanted to move but felt his feet were bound to the ground. He couldn’t budge his legs at all.

He was astonished because the panic he felt was not unfounded—he had tried his best, but the tragedy before him might have already been sealed.

None of his current three abilities, whether Approximate Exchange or the Dimensional Shift that could avoid the majority of physical attacks, or even the short-distance teleportation he had recently acquired, could save these people.

So, why wasn’t he running away?

Clearly, there was no hope left…

No, it seemed there was still a chance!

He had successfully saved so many soldiers and Extinction Legion fighters thrown from the sky before; how could he be powerless now?

But… looking at the continuously burning extraordinary beast in the sky, El suddenly understood why he hadn’t thought of this possibility earlier—

He was afraid of fire!

To bring that extraordinary beast underground, he would have to make contact with it and subjectively accept it as part of himself.

But if that happened, the roaring flames would burn him as well, and he wouldn’t survive a few seconds.

In that moment, El was engulfed in despair.

Sounds of cannon fire and the scent of smoke wafted from above the city wall, where a group was fiercely fighting back.

Fulan, who was behind him, needed to block the gap in the wall and couldn’t rush over at that moment.

The people around him had collapsed into despair, exhibiting all kinds of behaviors in their final moments.

Only El, at this moment, felt like an outsider.

He was confused and in pain, not because he was helpless to save others, but precisely because he could do something, though the cost might be unimaginable.

He had no more than three seconds to make a decision.

El looked at the crowd around him and suddenly spotted a few familiar classmates.

These Young Men were on the brink of a mental breakdown; one sat on the ground staring at the sky, watching a "shooting star" fall—a sight most people see only once in a lifetime—lost in thought.

El did not know what the person was thinking, only that if making a wish truly worked, everyone witnessing this scene would wish for that thing in the sky to disappear.

Let them have their wish.

El thought this as he vanished above the corpse of the extraordinary beast on the ground.

In just an instant, he appeared several meters below the falling fire meteor.

Having learned some physics, El knew that the beast’s falling speed far exceeded his own, so he did not teleport to the same height but chose to prepare in advance, waiting for the beast to collide with him.

Despite this choice, El still felt a strong desire to survive.

This might be a common trait among people from the outer city—resilient like rats.

Even with a dead end ahead, El would not choose to sit and wait for death.

In the one second before the beast crashed into him, he thought of many things, and the only way for him to survive was through his superpowers.

When he swapped two objects, was he merely manipulating objects or was there something deeper?

What exactly changed when he moved through solid matter?

How did he perform short-distance Leap?

These questions combined into one—

What exactly was he manipulating when using his abilities?

Watching the approaching fire meteor, El murmured that word:

“Space—”

He stretched out his right hand toward the fire meteor, which was his greatest enemy at that moment.

At the same time, he looked east, toward the Sea, which was completely absent from his line of sight.

In that direction, El extended his left hand, feeling the air as if trying to find some kind of wrinkled grasp.

Time seemed to stretch indefinitely, long enough for El to even feel the burning sensation in his hand.

At the moment the burning extraordinary beast touched his right hand, his left hand finally grasped that nonexistent wrinkle.

“Twist!”

And thus, a miracle unfolded at this very moment.

The fiery sky suddenly darkened, and everyone looked up in confusion, realizing that both the boy directing the evacuation and the fire meteor that was about to wipe them from the ground had vanished.

Meanwhile, far beyond most of Hope City, near the tidal power generator by the eastern wall of the outer city, a head emerged from the water, spitting out a mouthful of water while keeping his body afloat.

Next to him, a floating corpse of an extraordinary beast was still burning with its last flames.

“Cough, cough, cough!”

El’s face was covered in ash from the flames, then he looked at the nearby city wall. The next moment, he appeared beside a city defense cannon.

“[Skydome], are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“How’s Fulan doing? Is anyone injured?”

“All twenty extraordinary beasts have been marked as friendly fire, no fatalities; three people have sprains and two have scratches, all caused by pushing.”

“What is my task now?”

“Return to the city wall; there’s a bigger creature that needs your attention.”