They were supposed to watch the huge monster from a short distance, but they did not expect that a fming bird would make things worse. The monster’s attention was on Aleph, who leaped outside their cover.

  The monster, whose height is parable to two-storeys, was enough to intimidate someone like him. It was built simir to a caterpilr but standing with two arms.

  “You two… don’t make much of a noise.”

  Despite his increasi rate—enough to feel his pulse on his ear—Aleph’s voice remaieady.

  “I’ll go and lure this thing away. Head to the shelter first, and then I’ll follow.”

  Aleph lost his usual liveliness. What remained was the facade of a brave soldier heading towards a battlefield.

  Kevin stared at him for a while before ing to a decision. He o the ‘brave’ amnesiac friend that he has. Even though he wanted all three of them to reach the shelter safely, he khat Aleph’s decision was ungeable at this point.

  He is idealistic, yes, but he could still reize the general situation.

  Just like Kevin, Mei looked at him silently. A hint of surprise came out of those eyes. Then, it turned into one of uanding—as if she knew his personality.

  Seeing the two of them heed his words, Aleph sighed in relief.

  “We are the only ones here… coupled with few zombies.”

  If it was a few hours earlier, Aleph would have definitely felt lost. However, he had enough time to recover his memories—objective it may be—thus hanging on to the sense of identity that he had.

  Without internal dilemmas, he could hahe current situation with ease, as well as learn to ‘analyze’ the field.

  ‘Big but slow. It’s movements are also slow, but I have a bad feeling about—’

  His thoughts were interrupted when he saw that the huge monster ‘charged’ straight at him.

  “Damn it!”

  In this moment of desperation, the purple lines from before reappeared on his skin. Aleph could instantly feel the improvements that it brought—along with the sensation of gliding into the air.

  Two seds ter, he felt a strong soni on his back. He saw that the entire road that it passed through became rubbles. The signposts and cars that it bumped into flew into the air. Worse, the building it crashed into lit into two.

  ‘That’s how it moves! I know it ’t be this easy!’

  Aleph stared at the baseball bat grasped by his hand. He did not have an ounce of fideo signifitly damage that huge monster, more so actually killing it.

  He knows it is impossible.

  Yet…

  ‘This feeling of deja vu…’

  A blurry image appeared in his mind. Aleph was looking at a rge meical robot. Its figure cided with the rge beast who was out to kill him.

  ‘What should I do…’

  He scrolled through the rewards he got.

  [Reward: Random Box]

  [Reward: Unlimited Gun Magazine — M9]

  [Reward: Bnk Sephira Crystal Fragment]

  [Reward: Free Pass]

  Aside from the first ohe sed reward appeared when he killed the undead. The third one appeared when he killed the ‘bird’ for the first time while the fourth one appeared when the fming ‘bird’ crashed on them.

  The third and fourth one seemed useful, but in his current situation, only the sed one seemed the most reliable.

  [Free Pass: Unlock the most probable choice within the embryonic power system.]

  ‘Random box… If things get desperate, I might use it. For now…’

  He thought of the sed item before a silver crystal appeared on his palm.

  Crack-!

  The moment he crushed it, a new prompt appeared in his sight.

  [Undergoing awakening…]

  [Estimated Time: Five Minutes]

  ‘Five minutes..!’

  As he dodged atack, Aleph had no choice but to focus ohings at hand.

  For some time, all he did was to dodge its charged attacks. It wasn’t that difficult. As long as he keeps watch of his surroundings, he could avoid any other hazard along with the mobile charging monster.

  It wasn’t as ‘clumsy’ as it was when immobile. It could dash repeatedly to the dire it wahat made it hard to clear its trail. There were alsments of rod steel from the chaos it made.

  The fragile status quo was maintained until a group of flying bird monsters appeared on top of them.

  “Damn it..!”

  Aleph couldirely leave his back to the monster. If he could, he would’ve simply ran away. He doesn’t know the maximum limit of its charging. There are also the troublesome birds that gave him more trouble.

  Zoom-!

  Boom-!

  It chased after Aleph. Several streets were wrecked by its ‘charging’ as. Whehought that he outmaneuvered it through an alley, it would simply show up behind him, cutting down all the infrastructures behind him.

  Fag a speedster like that monster was more than enough to make him tense, iably…

  Zoom-!

  Psshk-!

  One of the seraph-css beasts made their mark on him. The sharp wing bdes could’ve been avoided by him earlier, but it became another matter when he was chased by a bigger honkai beast.

  Bright red blood flew out from his body along with the sensation of ‘heat’.

  ‘It hurts..!’

  The pain was more than enough to distract his thinking. His movements became slightly more clumsy as part of his attentioo his long back wound.

  Aleph could feel blood dripping on his back along with his sweat. It made his body slightly colder. Coupled with the cold night breeze, that single wound was enough to affect his entire momentum.

  It was the purple lines on his body that held him. Aleph was more thaain that his stamina would have bottomed out without it.

  However, he khat it would eventually bottom out. The purple lines were simir to the light he found on other beasts and undead.

  In a se was simir to a power tank.

  O runs out…

  A feeling of dread started to overtake Aleph.

  ‘Stay focused. Stay focused. Stay focused.’

  It has been minutes since he pyed tag with the huge monster. He was only wounded once, but his stamina was starting to bottom out. He accumuted smaller injuries due to his enviro.

  His tration began dwindling due to the extra dangers along the way. That included swatting those flying ‘birds’ and dodging their sharp attacks.

  It didn’t take long for him to sustain another major injury.

  Psshk-!

  This time, Aleph directly saw his arm being “grazed” by atack from the flying honkai beasts. He could see, feel, and smell the blood ing out of it. Small white shards peeked out from his bloodied arm.

  “I… I…”

  Aleph grasped his bleeding arm. He was able to dodge its subsequent attack, but the chills on his body became stronger. He suffered from twe wounds. The one on his back has been bleeding for several minutes already.

  He tried to run once more, only for his legs to fail him.

  ‘A few more minutes..! A fe…ore..!’

  Aleph’s sciousness became fuzzy. The words on his sight could no longer be read. A sense of powerlessness appeared on his body. It could no loolerate the damages doo it. Even if it was far strohan before, it could no loolerate the strain it ced into.

  At this moment, his cold breath was met with the huge beast’s emotionless eyes.

  It was then.

  The will to defy fate.

  It was an ironic situation. His instincts wao fight with it head-o Aleph chose to py a game of tag with it instead.

  It wasn’t wrong from a logical standpoint. Only…

  “Was it wrong to go against that huge wave?”

  As if he was halluating, he heard the man’s voice from before.

  “To keep fighting…”

  His words became broken again.

  “...evehe odds aren't in your favor.”

  Beep-!

  [Awakening plete.]

  At that moment, Aleph saw a glimpse of his past self.