Chapter 141: Zig Zag Vs Shadow Teleport
Cold wind swept across the abandoned street. The cracked pavement was covered with fresh cuts from the battle that had already lasted several minutes.
Nobody stood silently, his head fixed on Jonathan. Small red lines covered his body where Jonathan’s knife had landed again and again. His health bar floated above him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP: 486 / 500
Minor Healing Applied
+14 HP
Current HP: 500 / 500
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The cuts disappeared almost instantly.
Jonathan watched the wounds close with an expressionless face. "...You’re annoying."
Nobody stretched his shoulders. "So are you."
Without another word....Jonathan disappeared.
Pixel.
His body broke apart into thousands of glowing cubes before reforming directly behind Nobody.
Slash!
The knife sliced across Nobody’s back. "Argh!" Nobody immediately spun around with a heavy punch.
BOOM!
Jonathan had already vanished.
The fist shattered the concrete wall instead. Chunks of stone flew through the air.
Nobody narrowed his invisible eyes. "Again..."
Pixel.
Jonathan appeared to the left.
Slash!
Another cut.
Pixel.
He vanished. Appeared above.
Slash!
Vanished.
Appeared behind.
Slash!
The attacks never stopped.
It wasn’t ordinary teleportation. Nobody had finally understood. "He isn’t moving...It’s almost like he’s deleting himself from one point and rebuilding somewhere else."
Jonathan smiled faintly. "You finally noticed something, huh? Close guess."
Nobody blocked another knife strike using his crowbar.
CLANG!
Sparks exploded.
Jonathan twisted the blade and kicked Nobody backward.
BOOM!
Nobody slid several meters across the road. His shoes carved long marks into the asphalt.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Minor Healing Applied
Current HP: 500 / 500
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jonathan frowned. "No matter how many times I stab you...You recover."
Nobody spun one crowbar around his hand. "You aren’t exactly doing much better."
Around Jonathan’s jacket were dozens of dents from crowbar impacts. His breathing had become noticeably heavier. But his eyes... They had changed. They looked colder and hungrier. Almost animal-like.
Jonathan slowly tilted his head. "...I like this. I’ve never hunted something that refuses to die."
Nobody remained silent. Jonathan suddenly rushed forward. His movements had become even faster than before.
Slash!
Nobody blocked.
Slash!
Blocked again.
Slash!
Another block. Then....
Pixel.
Jonathan vanished.
Nobody’s danger instinct screamed. Without hesitation he ducked.
WHOOSH!
The knife passed only centimeters above where his head had been.
Jonathan landed behind him. Before Jonathan could attack again, Nobody swung both crowbars.
"Infinite Crowbar Swingers!"
Dozens of glowing crowbars appeared around him. They rotated like a storm.
Jonathan clicked his tongue.
Pixel.
Pixel.
Pixel.
He vanished repeatedly. Every crowbar missed.
Nobody chased him relentlessly.
One teleport.
Another.
Another.
Blue lightning burst beneath Nobody’s feet.
Zig...
Zag...
Zig...
Zag...
His body shot across the battlefield in unpredictable angles.
Jonathan barely managed to evade each strike.
CRASH!
A crowbar smashed into an abandoned bus.
BOOM!
The vehicle rolled across the street before crashing into a building.
Jonathan appeared on top of a traffic light. "...Interesting."
Nobody instantly looked upward.
Zap.
Nobody appeared directly beneath him. Jonathan’s eyes widened. Nobody’s fist rocketed upward.
BOOOM!!
Jonathan crossed both arms. The punch launched him high into the night sky. He spun several times before pixelating once again.
Nobody watched carefully. "...Where?"
Silence remains. Only the distant sound of wind.
Jonathan hadn’t reappeared.
Nobody didn’t lower his guard. He slowly turned around. Still nothing.
Five seconds...
Ten...
Twenty...
The city became eerily quiet.
Then...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Skill Activated
Mind Reader
Scanning Nearby Consciousness...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Several thoughts flowed into Nobody’s mind.
"...I’m late for work..."
"...Should buy some milk tomorrow..."
"...That movie was amazing... I liked the girl going mad after the ’wishing willow wish’ of the boy."
Ordinary citizens. Nothing unusual.
Jonathan’s thoughts...Were gone.
Nobody frowned. "He left? No. Something feels off."
Jonathan wouldn’t retreat. Not after becoming like this.
Nobody expanded the scan further. Still nothing. It was as if Jonathan had completely vanished from existence. "...What are you planning?"
Far away...
Several shopping districts remained lively despite the late hour. Bright neon lights illuminated the streets. Families laughed together. Teenagers wandered between restaurants. Music echoed from nearby stores.
Inside one of the largest malls....
Toma walked out carrying several shopping bags. She smiled faintly. "Finally...I bought everything." She checked her phone. "...It’s already this late?"
The streets were still crowded. She wasn’t worried. She started walking toward the parking area.
At the same time...
High above a nearby rooftop....
Tiny glowing pixels slowly gathered together.
One cube.
Ten cubes.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Jonathan’s body reconstructed itself silently. His empty eyes overlooked the crowd below.
Then...
They stopped on Toma. "...There." His lips slowly curved upward. "Found you, my next target."
The way Nobody protected people, the way he instinctively stepped in whenever danger approached, these types of girls are the perfect targets to break him. Jonathan didn’t need Mind Reader.
He understood. "If I kill her...I’ll finally see your real face." He stepped off the rooftop.
Instead of falling....
Pixel. He vanished.
...
Toma hummed softly while walking through the parking lot. Rows of cars surrounded her. Streetlights cast long shadows across the ground.
She had no idea...Someone was already standing behind her.
Jonathan slowly materialized with no sound and no footsteps. Only thousands of fading pixels.
He gripped the knife tightly. "...Goodbye."
The blade rose into the air.
Just as it began descending....
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Danger Detected
Priority Target:
Toma
Emergency Response Recommended
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Miles away...
Nobody’s eyes widened. "Toma!"
Blue electricity erupted around his body.
BOOOOOOM!!
The ground beneath him exploded. Instead of teleporting in a straight line.....His body zigzagged across the city.
Left.
Right.
Forward.
Diagonal.
Building rooftops shattered beneath each step. Cars shook violently as a streak of blue lightning tore through the streets.
People looked upward. "What was that?!"
"A meteor?!"
"No...It looked like lightning!"
Nobody’s speed exceeded anything he had used before. Each teleport connected instantly into another.
Zap!
Zap!
Zap!
Zap!
Blue afterimages stretched across the entire skyline.
Meanwhile...
Jonathan’s knife descended toward Toma’s neck.
She finally sensed something. "...Hm?" She slowly turned around. Her eyes widened.
A man was holding a knife. Standing only inches away. Her body froze.
Jonathan smiled. The knife came down....
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
A deafening explosion blasted through the parking lot. The concrete beneath Jonathan shattered. A blue lightning bolt slammed directly between him and Toma.
Jonathan’s pupils shrank. "...Impossible."
Nobody had arrived. His body still crackled with electricity.
Without even looking back at Toma, He grabbed Jonathan by the face.
"Touch."
"My."
"Toma."
"I."
"Dare."
"You."
Then, with overwhelming force....
Nobody hurled Jonathan like a cannonball.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!
Jonathan shot through the night sky, smashing through buildings, billboards, and rooftops before disappearing into the distant darkness several miles away.
The entire parking lot fell silent. Only the fading sound of destruction echoed across Alkon City.
Nobody slowly turned toward the stunned Toma. "...Are you hurt?"
The parking lot was completely silent. Only the distant rumble of collapsing concrete echoed from somewhere far across Alkon City.
Toma stood frozen,her shopping bags scattered across the ground. Her breathing had become uneven. "What... What just happened...?"
She stared at the bunny helmeted Nobody standing between her and the place where Jonathan had been only seconds ago.
Blue electricity still danced across Nobody’s body. Tiny arcs crackled around his feet before gradually fading away.
He slowly lowered his arm. "...You’re safe."
Toma looked down at the cracked pavement.
A massive crater stretched several meters around Nobody. The force of his sudden arrival had shattered the concrete like glass.
She swallowed. "...You? Your that maniac from that time."
He gave a small nod. "Sorry, lady... My arrival was late.. I got here at the last second."
Toma shook her head repeatedly. "HUh??? What is going on here? Is that guy a serial killer? Should I call 611? Police can help."
Nobody laughed and said, "Naah. Let me do the honour of kicking this as*hole!"
She suddenly remembered the man with the knife. Her face turned pale. "So.. He...he was going to..."
Nobody looked toward the distant skyline. "I know." His voice had become colder than usual. With much colder voice Nobody said,"He came for you."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mind Reader
Target: Jonathan
Searching...
Searching...
Signal Acquired.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jonathan’s thoughts suddenly entered Nobody’s mind.
"...Interesting...So this girl really matters..."
"...Now I know how to make you suffer..."
Nobody clenched both fists. "So that’s your game."
A few seconds later....
BOOOOOOM!!
An enormous explosion erupted from several blocks away. Glass windows throughout the district rattled violently. People screamed. Cars began setting off their alarms.
Jonathan had landed. And judging from the sound...He was already moving again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Hostile Presence Detected
Distance:
3.9 Kilometers
Approaching Rapidly
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked toward the source of the explosion. "Toma."
She looked up.
Nobody said,"You need to leave."
"What about you?"
"I’m ending this. But....There isn’t time."
Another explosion interrupted them. This one was even closer.
BOOM!!
The ground trembled. A nearby billboard collapsed onto the road. People began running in every direction. Panic spread through the shopping district.
Someone shouted. "Run! Something’s destroying the buildings! It isn’t an earthquake!"
Toma instinctively grabbed Nobody’s sleeve. "You can’t fight him alone!"
Nobody remained silent. Then...He gently removed her hand.
"I’ve been alone from the beginning."