The Rising Of The Anomaly - Chapter 144

Seriously, what the hell is going on here!? Why am I in so much pain? As I began to reach up to rub my head in order to ease the ringing in my ears, I froze as I felt nothing. My left hand…it’s gone. Wh-what is this?

I stifled a cry of pain as my breathing grew sharp and ragged, blood pouring out of the stump of my hand. I…I need to calm down, right now…otherwise, I’ll lose too much blood before I can compose myself. Panicked screams and cries of pain were ringing out all around me, but it was too dark to see anything..

I then winced as someone bumped into my shoulder, sending waves of pain throughout my body. I did my best to ignore the pain, before I gritted my teeth and took off my belt, firmly wrapping it around the bleeding stump and tightening it, letting out a sharp gasp as a blinding pain shot through my body, nearly knocking me out.

Suddenly, as another person bumped onto me as they ran around in a panic, I winced in agony, biting my lower lip to keep the pain from overwhelming me, my vision blurring as I nearly passed out.

My right hand is still intact…I reached up and tapped on the side of the frame of my glasses, activating the night vision feature, stiffening as I got a more visible look at my surroundings…blood everywhere, crushed limbs and organs, plenty dead…

I then glanced around my more immediate surroundings…I could see Mitchell and Kiran, both unconscious, but otherwise seemed to be okay. Some of the others were either panicking or in total shock.

I froze as I then saw Katie, her eyelids weakly fluttering open as some sparks burst out…her right leg was gone, crushed underneath a huge chunk of rubble, she was trying to close the wound and stop the bleeding using her lightning. And as I looked around, I saw that she wasn’t the only one with a crushed limb, or in some cases, limbs.

I could feel a strange rumbling, getting stronger and stronger…what’s going on? An earthquake? Is it the same one that I felt when I first lived through today? No, something’s wrong…I don’t think this rumbling is an earthquake. It feels…familiar, somehow.

I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled…alright, stay calm. What I need to do now is find out what caused this mess and then go back to my earliest Save point and prevent it…somehow, I doubt that this is simply a natural disaster.

I stood up shakily, stumbling a bit as I got on my feet…tch, I think I’ve got several fractures and bruises all over, twinges of pain were bursting throughout my entire body, overwhelming my senses.

“K-Kilzachs? Where are you going…?” Suddenly inquired a weak voice below me, as I felt a hand clutch my trouser.

I glanced down, to see Suri, both her legs were visibly broken, but she hadn’t suffered any fatal injuries…good, that means that if I fix this, she’ll be just fine, she won’t die from this.

“Hey…don’t worry, I’m going to make it so that this never happened, alright?” I replied with a smile, doing my best to stay calm…seeing her and my other classmates so badly injured, it was definitely affecting me.

I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone I don’t dislike was dead right now not, and it making me a bit anxious…

“H-huh? What do you mean?” She responded weakly.

I can’t stick around to talk…I’m feeling dizzy and light-headed from the blood loss I’ve suffered, and the rest of my injuries, minor though they were, aren’t helping matters.

“I don’t have time to explain, but…just trust me, okay?”

“I-…okay.”

As she let go of my trouser, I headed out the cafeteria, ignoring the pain as best I could. Damn it, the pain from my missing hand is unbearable, and from what I saw from the stump, it looked like my hand must have gotten crushed under a chunk of the ceiling or a pillar.

That means my I-Watch was destroyed too…well, not that it matters, it’d be offline in this situation anyway, so I wouldn’t be able to use it to contact anyone. Okay, I can feel the rumbling more clearly now, I was right by the entrance to the Academy.

Some of the walls have been smashed in, and so had the ceiling…something had struck the collapsed sections from the outside, that much was obvious. And whatever caused it, did so with incredible force.

I gulped, before slowly pushing the doors open and walking out of the Academy, starting to head down the stairs, when I suddenly froze in shock, as the sight in the distance…there was a huge hole in the ground, about fifty meters ahead of where I was standing.

And further in the distance, the dim glow of XFE attacks…aimed at a massive figure, towering over sixty meters. A crocodile-like head and claws, an enormous snake-like body, and wings on its back…you’ve got to be kidding me, it’s…it’s the Crocsnek, the Ace Mutant that showed up during the attack on the Wight base camp.

Wh-what the hell is it doing inside the Sanctuary!? The earthquake I felt when I lived out today before setting all the Save points…that must have been this thing, passing underneath or nearby the Sanctuary. But why didn’t it attack then? If I don’t know that, then I won’t know how to fix it.

This is bad…all the Aces and most of the top K-Ranks are all outside the Sanctuary at the moment, and with everything offline, they won’t be able to teleport back. And against a creature of this size, I simply don’t have the XFE to deal it any lethal damage…and if I can’t kill it, there’s no point trying to injure it, because I’ll definitely have to go back in time to undo all this, and when I do, any injuries I inflict will also be undone, only death will stick.

And like I said, I just don’t have the capability to kill it as I am now, even taking out an eye would probably cost me a good fifty percent of my XFE, and there’s no guarantee that that would be enough to kill it. Since I’m going to be heading back in time, I need to conserve my XFE.

Tch, but then, what do I-…hold that thought, because, uh, is it just me, or is the Crocsnek staring right at me? N-no way, it’s extremely dark in the Sanctuary right now, I’d barely be able to see a thing without my night vision…not to mention that it’s nearly two hundred meters away and I’m practically an ant in size comparison-…shit, it’s coming this way!

And…it’s really fast! It slithered towards me at a rapid pace, closing the distance in a matter of seconds, it’s eyes narrowing while fixated on me…does it, uh, remember me from last time? Because…that’s kinda terrifying.

It then let out a vicious hiss and swung its right arm towards me, extending its claws as it sliced through the air towards me…

“<Activate Anomaly, Tier Tw-…>…!” I began, before leaping out of the way in alarm, unable to finish the chant in time…as an excruciating pain burst out of my right shoulder, a hollow gasp escaping my lips as the pain was too overwhelming to even scream out loud.

I heard a splatter on the ground to my right…I looked down to see a growing puddle of blood, pouring out of my shoulder. My right arm…is completely gone. It was skewered on one of the claws of the Mutant, which raised its hand towards its nose, sniffing it while continuing to keep its gaze fixed on me, and all I could do was watch as it then proceeded to eat my arm.

I grimaced as the sound of my bones crunching echoed out of its jaws…heh, my arm is so small that it practically looks like a Cheeto inside the Mutant’s mouth. I am in so much pain right now that it feels like I’m tripping…while I still have my senses, I need to act. As the Mutant swallowed my chewed up arm, I made my move…

“Alright, you damned monster, I’ll admit, you really got me…damn, this hurts!” I chuckled, as my vision began to darken, “Let’s try this again, shall we? <Activate Anomaly, Tier One: Load Point 02>!”

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Okay, that’s so much better! Still a lot of pain, but not nearly as excruciating as it was before I used Load. I quickly stood up and began rushing out of the cafeteria, taking off my belt and wrapping it around my left arm to stop the bleeding.

There’s a reason why I returned to Save Point 02 instead of Save Point 01…because I still don’t know what caused this, what changed to result in the Crocsnek attacking the Sanctuary instead of going past it?

My best bet for an answer…is Director Silva. Please let her be alive, I’ll be in a lot of trouble otherwise. The Mutant wasn’t far from her office before it spotted me in the future that I just came back from, but it wasn’t that close either…hope that’s a good sign.

Another reason why I didn’t return to Save Point 01 is that there’s sure to be a bunch of people that end up in vegetative states, which could result in things spiraling further out of control. Huh, not to be narcissistic, but I’m proud of myself for being able to consider all that despite being in a near-delusional state thanks to all that blood loss.

Also, this time around…I’d like to avoid all that pain. As I reached the Academy entrance and dashed out, leaping over the stairs and landing on the ground outside, with a loud echo, instantly attracting the Crocsnek’s attention.

That thing’s senses are ridiculous, there’s no getting past it so easily…so, first, I’ll draw it in. Just like last time, it’s gaze locked onto me, before rapidly slithering towards me at a breakneck speed, a twinge of fear running down my spine…it’s okay, keep calm, I can do this.

“Bring it…I’m not afraid of you, you fucking monster!” I yelled, as it began to close in on me…

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