2202 - Human Questions
“……!” Blokan slowly retreated, not because he thought he could escape by stepping back, but as an automatic reaction.
A reaction driven by fear.
Blokan, who had believed he had forgotten this feeling forever, was trembling at this moment.
Waiting for The Nest to arrive and start fighting with the space beasts of the current Nest, then escaping in the chaos? What naive dreams.
Especially those twenty irrationally massive ones at the rear… their entire focus was on him; they paid no attention to anything else, not even the beasts of similar size circling around him!
At this moment, Blokan felt like a worm surrounded by thousands of starving chickens.
“Ooooh!!!”
One of the three adult space beasts let out a devastating roar, a warning cry telling the newcomers to leave, but of course, there was no reaction of retreat.
That beast let out another roar and charged toward the newcomers, and the other two also moved fiercely and directly.
That sight restored Blokan's hope in his original plan—those stupid beasts couldn't sense the vast difference in the balance of power and actually decided to attack… Blokan had already begun gathering any remaining energy in his body to charge toward The Gate the moment the collision started.
But—
Swoosh
Swoosh
Swoosh
Swoosh
Thousands of nascent space beasts and dozens of young space beasts rushed toward the three and pushed them away.
Blokan turned in that direction with his mouth hanging open… he could hear the sound of tearing and chewing, and indeed…
The three adult space beasts were finished in the blink of an eye—there was no chaos for him to exploit!
Then he slowly turned back to face forward… in that pitch-black darkness, he and the entity were still under the microscope; though it was infinitely small, it was also infinitely magnificent and strange to them.
"Heh~" Blokan abandoned his combat stance with a sigh, his face relaxing as if he had accepted the inevitable. "Lord Robin, are you still here?"
"Of course."
The space beasts were startled and began searching the surroundings when they heard a different voice, but they found nothing as well.
"I don't know how you manage to keep yourself hidden, but you have a chance to go back toward The Gate and close it..." Blokan stared ahead, "Even if they discover you while you're moving, I'll stall them, by any means necessary."
"I don't think they'll need much effort to stall me. Look at them—they're all standing there, staring at you in silence." Robin's voice echoed around, "In your opinion, when will one of them make a move?"
"I don't know..." Blokan replied calmly, "But when they do, I'll most likely not feel anything afterward."
"Hmm, thinking about it," Robin ignored Blokan's pessimistic words, "When you first opened The Gate, the old Nest just stared through it too, until Althera moved to try and destroy it. That's when they started moving to stop her."
"...I understand that these questions are what made you the Lord Robin," Blokan spoke with a sarcastic tone, "But do you think this is the right time for that? Are you going to go and close The Gate, or will you stay and bet on when they'll move to swallow me?"
"If a Space Beast attack isn't the right time to study the behavior of Space Beasts during an attack, then when is?!" Robin laughed, "Besides—" Robin paused, then continued, "Oh, please wait a moment—"
*Oom*
"....Aaaaah!"
At that moment, Althera, covered in black blood, appeared beside Blokan, raising her sword with eyes full of hatred and determination, preparing for her final attack.
A number of nascent and young space beasts from the new Nest had already arrived near her and begun preying on the beasts that were surrounding her. Their numbers and ferocity left no room for thought of escape.
So, driven by despair, she was preparing for one last suicidal attack… The next moment, she found herself beside Blokan!
“…Huh?” Althera, finding her surroundings suddenly changed, stopped her scream and withdrew the energy from her sword. “What just happened?”
“…..?!” Blokan flinched. “Impossible… What just happened? How?!”
“Look, look at the space beasts, hehe.” Robin ignored Blokan and Althera’s questions. “They’re staring at Althera in shock.”
“Of course they should be shocked!” Blokan raised his voice. “How did you move? Do you have an array that uses the Law of Space? But there’s no space here in the first place!”
"Just because the operating mechanism of the universe isn't present here doesn't mean we've stepped outside the circle of existence," Robin said irritably. "The Creator of the Universe is the one who made this place, and it's clear He used the same Eight Laws to do it. Does that answer your incessant questions?"
"The Eight Laws?" Blokan furrowed his brows deeply.
Could it be that he meant... the Master Laws?!
Is this his answer about how to move Althera? Doesn't that mean he...
"Althera," Robin ignored the overly inquisitive Blokan, "what do you think would happen if you moved now?"
"...They would attack me." Althera replied with a furrowed brow. She could indeed sense the bloodthirst and intense curiosity—if she moved, she would be immediately surrounded and toyed with until death!
She could now feel that some of them had begun to move very slowly... their curiosity was about to run out, and they would enter the exploration phase!
"Why do you think that?" Robin asked. "This isn't the first time we've seen a scene like this... astonishment, curiosity, caution, then a gradual rise in bloodthirst."
"I don't think studying the monsters' reactions will do us much good today..." Blokan didn't want to listen to chatter in the final moments of his life.
"Of course it will help!" Robin raised his voice in irritation. "Look, if my deduction is correct, you are about to witness the most impressive scene you have ever seen."
Hmm.
The moment after that sentence, Robin's body appeared not far from Blokan and Althera, his arms calmly folded, looking confidently toward the massive swarm of monsters, his eyes glowing with a golden light that illuminated the area.
Chaos.
As soon as Robin appeared, the front ranks of the space beasts, which had begun to advance, became disordered and retreated, and their bloodlust almost completely vanished.
The millions of planet-sized space beasts seemed to be afraid of the human who had just appeared!