In a penthouse suite in one of the tallest buildings that overlooked the Boston skyline...
Standing by the full-length window in one of the rooms that offered a full view of the city of Boston, Constantine looked down and the sleeping city that was completely unrecognizable to him.
Constantine was shirtless, and he wore only slim shorts on his body. The room was dark and the air conditioner was turned on and blowing at full intensity, making the room very cold. But despite how cold it was in the room, Constantine, who was shirtless, did not feel the cold at all. Instead, he felt like his body was on fire.
There was a steady flow of electricity running along Constantine's veins, providing him with constant heat and keeping his vitals active.
It had been three days since Constantine had woken up in the hospital following the attack of the doom. In these three days, Constantine had gone through a number of tests to make sure he was okay. Through the tests, Constantine was found to be in perfect health, much to the surprise of the doctors who had attended to him.
Normally, for a coma patient, the best you could hope for when they woke up was that there would not be any brain damage. As for other problems like atrophied muscles and nerves due to a long time in disuse, they were the least of a coma patient's worries. with dedicated recovery therapy, these problems could be treated given time.
But in Constantine's case, not to talk about suffering brain damage, there was not even a sign of muscle damage. His body was as healthy as if he had not been laying on the bed for a year but had instead been keeping up a stable exercise routine.
If this was before the space rift to the other world opened one year ago, Constantine's case would have been seen as a miracle in the medical world and countless research would have been conducted on Constantine to know the specific reason for this. But now when bizarre and extraordinary cases had become commonplace in the world, Constantine's case only drew a few raised eyebrows from the doctors.
Normally, when something like this happened, the hospital was expected to contact the united government and report the case, and Constantine would still be detained in the hospital to undergo further testing. But because Constantine's family was very influential in Boston and they had a lot of power even in the current world, Constantine was able to be discharged after only a day in the hospital.
For the rest of the time, since Constantine woke up, he had stayed inside the penthouse without going out at all. Except for his sister Fan, who came occasionally to check up on him, Constantine had been on his own.
Speaking of Fan, she was the Asian girl who had been present when Constantine had woken up. Obviously, the two of them were not biologically related, and Fan had been adopted by Constantine's parents when she was nine years old.
Currently, Fan was fourteen. While she and Constantine's relationship could not be said to be all that great like real siblings, the two of them were not at odds with each other. At least from her reaction in the hospital when Constantine woke up, it was clear that Fan truly loved Constantine and acknowledged him as her big brother.
During the two days that Constantine was home alone, Fan had been his only company. His parents had not had the time to be with Constantine because they were busy taking care of the possible aftermaths of Constantine's unusual awakening.
During these two days, Fan was no longer as cheerful as when Constantine had woken up and she now behaved like a typical brooding teenage girl. Constantine was used to Fan being this way, as this was usually how she was with him. But through Fan, Constantine had learned about everything that had happened during his one-year-long coma.
Through Fan, Constantine learned about the opening of the space rift and the invasion of the dooms. He also learned of the mutations that had occurred to every creature on earth. most importantly, Constantine learned about Baron's disappearance.
Strangely enough, Constantine was not affected much by all the things he learned and the changes on earth. Perhaps it was because of the long dream he had experienced during his coma. Those magnificent scenes of a strange and beautiful new world far away from earth dulled whatever surprise Constantine was supposed to have about the changes on Earth.
Although everything felt like a dream to Constantine and he could not remember every detail of that dream, Constantine knew that what he saw was actually the memories of someone else and that the world he saw in the dream was actually real. With this knowledge, what was happening on earth seemed more mundane in comparison.
Constantine did not care about the changes on earth at all... to be accurate, Constantine cared more about something else. That was the disappearance of his best friend Baron.
For an entire year, Baron had been missing and there had not been any signs of him anywhere on earth. With the changes happening on earth, it was even harder to locate him. But Constantine had a guess as to what became of Baron.
According to the dream, Constantine had, the lightning that had struck the two of them was actually the manifestation of the souls of the powerful evolvers who had wanted to possess them both. That means that just like Constantine, Baron's body had been hijacked by another person.
Constantine did not know if the person who had attempted to possess baron had succeeded but based on the fact that he was nowhere to be found, Constantine suspected the worst and believed that baron's body was possessed by another being who had later disappeared with his body which was why he was nowhere to be found.
As for why the person who had attempted to possess Constantine had not succeeded but had instead gotten his soul assimilated with Constantine's and his memories devoured by him... Constantine was not sure himself. The only thing he could say was that he was glad this was the case since it meant he could keep his life.
As to whether Constantine could still remain himself or not with the soul of another person inside him, he didn't know. But he was willing to find out.
Constantine spent some more time by the window looking outside at the streets of Boston before finally moving away and heading to the bed in his room.
Right now, Constantine was the only one in the entire suite. His sister Fan had left for home earlier in the day and there was nobody with him.
Sitting on the bed, Constantine thought for a brief moment before closing his eyes as if he wanted to think deeper.
When Constantine closed his eyes, he suddenly heard a deep and vigorous voice sounding out in the depths of his mind speaking to him.
"So boy, are you finally willing to listen to me?"
Hearing the voice that sounded in his mind, Constantine was not surprised by it at all. This was not the first time he had heard this voice in his mind. In fact, if it weren't for this voice, Constantine would not have been able to wake up at all and he would still be sleeping peacefully. When Arran had first regained consciousness, it was because the owner of this voice had spoken to him at that moment when the doom had attacked him. Before Constantine had woken up, his consciousness was hazy, and it had been floating in a space filled with clouds. Those clouds flowed freely in the air, forming many bizarre shapes that looked were actually pieces of Constantine's and Ruger's memories. At that time, the voice had spoken to Constantine saying, "Hey kid, you've been sleeping for so long already, don't you think it's about time you woke up? If you don't, you will die, you know!" The voice had not been loud, but the words he had spoken had impacted Constantine's hazy consciousness, sen
"Heh!" Ruger Whitebrook scoffed when Constantine asked that question. Ruger looked at Constantine like he was looking at an idiot. In fact, he actually insulted Constantine straight to his face as he replied to him. "Idiot!" "What do you think this looks like?" "Obviously, when I was trying to destroy your soul in order to possess your body, something went wrong and I was the one who ended up with his soul almost destroyed and fused to yours. As for why this happened, don't ask me because I don't know. If I did, I would have definitely prevented it from happening and I wouldn't be in this mess." "Also, before you ask, I don't know how to resolve this issue. Like before, if I have a solution, I would have already resolved this issue, so I wouldn't have to put up with an ignorant mortal like you." Ruger's words were harsh and direct. He didn't feel guilty at all as he insulted Constantine and he even mentioned how he wanted to possess Constantine's body with a straight face. It wa
If Ruger was so powerful, why then did he not just strike Constantine dead instead of going through all this grandstanding? Constantine did not take Ruger as the kind of guy that would allow others to provoke him without retaliating at all. He got this much both from Ruger's memories that he had assimilated, and their current interaction. Through Ruger's memories, Constantine could be said to have gotten an impression of what Ruger was like and his character. Through this impression, Constantine knew that Ruger wasn't feigning his carefree attitude, as he really was carefree in reality. He also knew that although this was the case, Ruger was spiteful and can be petty at times... His previous words about how the weak should be beneath the strong were an honest representation of Ruger's views on this topic. But why then did someone like this not attack Constantine as soon as he offended him? Instead, he put on a grand display of power that, after further thought, was insubstantial and
Constantine stood on a patch of cloud in dumbfounded silence as he stared at Ruger, who had already assumed his carefree attitude once more. He could not recover in time from the sudden turn of events and before he came back to his senses, some time had already passed. Ruger watched Constantine make a fool of himself in silence and he did not say anything. When Constantine finally came to his senses, he quickly looked at Ruger warily, as if he could not believe what he was saying. "Is it really over just like that?" Constantine asked once more. "This is not a trick for me to let down my guard so that you can attack me unawares, right?" Constantine was still finding it hard to believe that Ruger was just going to let everything go like that without doing anything to him. Looking at Ruger right now, he had adopted his usual carefree expression, as if what had transpired before was nothing and he couldn't be bothered to care about it at all. Suddenly, Constantine felt like a clown..
Various worries troubled Constantine as he thought about his current situation. But there was nothing he could do about this since even Ruger couldn't think of any solution to the problem. He could only deal with it as time went on.Since there was nothing to talk about anymore, Constantine was about to leave this space and get away from Ruger.Ruger also noticed Constantine's intention, but he did not try to stop him. He probably had other things to consider himself and couldn't be bothered by him.But just as Constantine was about to leave, he suddenly remembered something that Ruger had mentioned before. when Ruger had mentioned this, because Constantine had been worried about his future, he had not paid attention to it. But now, after calming down a little, Constantine finally recalled it.After coming to a stop, Constantine turned around and looked at Ruger.He asked, "Before you mentioned that, apart from your memories, I inherited other thin
Learning that he had inherited the Heavenly Constellation Lightning from Ruger, Constantine was on cloud nine. But then his mood suddenly plummeted as he hurriedly tried to calm himself down.Constantine did not lose his mind to euphoria, and he was still conscious enough to hear the rest of Ruger's words."You're blessed, but you're cursed too!"That was what Ruger said to Constantine, and hearing it gave him ominous feelings that all was not well.Looking at Ruger apprehensively, Constantine asked, "What did you mean when you said I was cursed? Did I inherit something else from you, apart from your powers?"This day was really set up to be a bad day for Constantine. it was not enough that he found out his soul was fused with another person's soul. But now he might have also inherited an unknown curse because of this.The joy that Constantine felt previously from inheriting the Heavenly Constellation Lightning was quickly dampened because o
It was in the dead of night and the streets of Boston were completely silent, with not a soul to be found. Right now, the night was a dangerous place to be in, with countless nonhuman entities prowling the streets and alleys looking for prey to feed on.Occasionally, one could make out the distant sounds of sirens ringing out in the night sky. Usually, sirens were used as a warning signal by the military to warn residents in the area to stay in their rooms and not come out because of a Doom or some other malevolent creature was found in the area.Constantine lay awake in his bed right now and he listened to the distant sounds of fighting that came from a long-distance away.Pricking up his ear, the sounds that a normal person wouldn't be able to make out from his location entered his ears clearly, as if he was present on the scene. This just proved that Constantine was no longer an ordinary human.It had been some time since Constantine spoke to Ruger. Af
Constantine found himself on a boundless plain, with nothing in sight around him. There was a blanket of gray fog everywhere around him, covering everything in sight and stretching far into the distance.The fog was very heavy...It was so thick that Constantine could not even see three feet away from himself into the distance."Hello!" Constantine called out into the fog."Anybody there?""Can anybody hear me? If you can answer me!"Over and over Constantine called, but he received no response. Even when he tried to move forward in the fog, there was nothing that came to sight apart from endless soil, earth, and fog.With the heavy fog blocking his vision, Constantine did not know where to go. He could not make any direction as he walked around blindly, hoping to find something or someone that could help him understand where he was.Constantine was confused... he didn't know how he had ended up in this place. The last thing he
With his forehead covered in a nervous sweat, the leader watched as the rift turned into a black dot in space before finally closing completely. As soon as the rift closed, the leader’s shoulders dropped heavily as he breathed a deep sigh of relief. He suddenly felt weak at this moment as the pressure he was feeling in his heart was liberated, making him feel like he would suddenly collapse on the floor. But his training prevented him from doing so. Without the heavy weight of the rift hanging over his head, the leader could finally relax and breathe easily. Taking a moment to regain his composure, the leader turned to captain Keith and reported. “Sir, the rift had finally been closed.”“Good,” captain Keith responded. He continued, “Station a few men to keep watch here and report anything that happens. We don’t want the rift being opened again from the other side. In a while, this place will be turned into a quarantined zone as we wait for the tech guys to arrive and give this p
The leader hurried to close the rift, which consisted of detonating a set of small special grenades in the small room.On opposite sides of the rift, there were two tall pillar-like objects emitting pulsing light that shine on the dark rift. These two objects were spatial anchors... a kind of stabilizer that was used to maintain an open rift to prevent it from closed prematurely. Like I said before, natural rifts were more stable and could remain open for a very long time without closing. Instead of worrying about keeping a natural rift open, one would worry instead about getting it too close. On the other hand, an artificial rift was difficult to maintain, so stabilizers were needed to keep it open. Human research on space was very slow, and they hadn’t reached the point where they could open and close rifts in other worlds easily. The spatial anchors were a product of genius that had accidentally blossomed to fruition. It was with this anchor technology that the humans were confid
With one last look at Constantine, the leader finally stepped through the rift. In as much as he was reluctant to leave, the leader knew that staying would not help at all. Instead, it would bring more trouble to Constantine.Who told him to be weak and that he couldn’t lend his strength to Constantine?For that matter, whose fault was it that Earth was too weak to fight against the doom? There was nobody to blame, and they could only blame themselves. In any case, it wasn’t like the leader’s troubles were over. Waiting on the other side of the rift was a whole other set of problems that the leader would have to deal with...As soon as the leader came face to face with his superior. This was a man with the body of a giant. Standing at more than two meters tall, with large burly arms like the barrel of a tank, shoulders as broad as vinyl, and a hulking frame that towered over everybody else, dwarfing them in his shadow. This person was the superior officer in charge of the rescue miss
The leader’s face paled terribly when he saw the twenty-meter-tall doom still standing after taking that powerful lightning ball and coming out unfazed.He thought, ‘This is the end!’When the leader thought that he would be flattened, not meat paste in the next moment, his eyes opened wide in fear as he supported Constantine with his body.The leader's eyes were looking forward in a daze as he awaited his inevitable end. But after waiting for a few seconds, nothing happened. Shocked, the leader looked at the twenty-meter-tall doom in the distance, only to see that it was standing still without moving at all. Puzzled, the leader paid attention to it. That was when he noticed something he hadn’t done before. As the twenty-meter-tall doom stood silently in place, its dune-like body seemed to be loosening as sand flowed down to the desert continuously. Seeing this state, a single thought entered the leader’s mind...“It’s injured!”Once this thought entered his mind, the leader was ecs
The twenty-meter-tall doom finally revealed itself from underneath the sand. This was the first time the leader was seeing it and it was as shocking as he expected it to be. Figure-wise, the twenty-meter-tall doom was no different from the rest of the dooms. It still had the same dull red skin color that was like rust or dried blood and it possessed the same bloated body. All of these were common features of the creatures known as dooms. Still, compared to the other dooms, there were a few differences between them, the most obvious of which was the twenty-meter height that this menace stood. Another different feature was that, unlike the other dooms that possessed a perfect physical structure, the twenty-meter-tall doom seemed more like a mass of sand packed together in a single cluster. Its body was made up entirely of grains of sand that flowed constantly. The twenty-meter-tall doom was like a giant walking dune, with no fixed physical form except for the overall structure that
Bzzt! Bzzt!A powerful ball of lightning floated inches above Constantine’s head, giving off buzzing sounds of electricity as it hung suspended in the air. A layer of sweat covered Constantine’s face as exhaustion threatened to send him to his knees. Constantine’s arms were like lead, heavy, and it took all of his willpower to keep them upright to support the lightning ball. Hu!Resisting the urge to wipe the sweat from his eyes, Constantine stared dead ahead at the threat coming his way. The lightning ball above him had a diameter of five meters and it had taken almost all his power to condense it. Its power was naturally great, and it carried a shocking mite that was enough to scare a ten-meter-tall doom into retreating. But despite this, Constantine was clear that his lightning ball was not enough to stop the menace that was targeting him. A twenty-meter-tall doom!This should be the strongest doom that any human had ever encountered. Nothing was known about this doom. Probably
Run? The soldiers didn’t need Constantine to tell them before they did so. The sheer commotion from what was coming was greater than anything they had ever seen before. Rich experience from exploring the doom world for a year had thought these hardened soldiers that when faced with the unknown... the best decision was always to run. Just as Constantine’s voice fell, the leader ordered his men, “All soldiers fall back to the rift immediately. Abandon everything else and fall back!”Following the leader’s orders, the soldiers quickly turned their backs on the dooms they were confronting and ran back to the rift as fast as possible. Immediately, it was chaos all over the desert. Not only were the soldiers trying to escape, but the dooms were also in a mess as their formation completely collapsed and they ran all over the place in a panic. The soldiers were surprised to see that the dooms seemed to be more panicked than they were. Normally in situations where people abandoned all resis
After breaking through the blockade of the ten-meter-tall dooms, Constantine continued speeding his way towards the rift. Along the way, he also encountered more fierce resistance. But it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.Dooms below four meters in height could not stop Constantine at all and while it was tough to deal with four-meter and five-meter-tall dooms, it wasn't as hard as passing through a blockade of ten-meter-tall dooms so it was a piece of cake for Constantine.There were a few ten-meter-tall dooms that tried to stop him. But they did not form a blockade like the previous dooms. then the blockade was formed by not less than five ten-meter-tall dooms gathered together in a line. Due to their large size and the fact that Constantine didn't want to waste time by going around them, those dooms were able to block Constantine's way forward.Thankfully, apart from them, the other ten-meter tall dooms Constantine encountered was only in teams of two or three... nothing Constant
Ooouuu!Following a loud bellow, the ten-meter-tall dooms attacked. One of them shot its large hand forward like a boulder and slapped at Constantine, intending to crush him to bits.Bang!The blow came fast and suddenly and landed on the ground, causing a large explosion to erupt, blowing large clumps of sand everywhere like pellets of stray bullets.Although the dooms with their large and cumbersome bodies were not agile, they were able to instantaneously erupt with overwhelmingly crushing force in the blink of an eye. If one was not prepared, then they would be crushed to meat patty before they even knew it.Fortunately, Constantine was prepared. Before the doom could even land a hit on him, Constantine had already jumped out of harm's way, letting the doom's huge fist to land harmlessly on the ground.Constantine watched as the desert sand was split by the punch and a huge crater formed where he had previously been standing just a moment ago.Constantine's body chilled as he thoug