Chapter 109: One Week Later

The choice narrowed quickly.

Rapid and Mind Control, both E-rank, were never up for consideration. Neither was his D-rank Cultivation talent. Those were foundations. Removing any of them would be idiotic.

That left only two.

Poison F and Freeze F.

Adam paused.

The only reason he could even consider this was because he knew the truth, his overall power wouldn’t drop. Swapping one F-rank special talent for another wouldn’t weaken him. The only consequence would be a slight adjustment in how he fought.

A minor inconvenience.

If his strength were going to be reduced in any way, Adam wouldn’t hesitate, Dickson would stay petrified. He was a decent guy, sure, but Adam wasn’t a saint. He wouldn’t cripple himself for anyone.

But this?

This cost him nothing.

So he’d help.

Adam’s gaze hardened as he weighed the two talents.

Poison F lets me inflict pain and weaken enemies… but I have to apply it one target at a time.

His thoughts shifted.

Freeze was different.

The moment it activated, its effects spread. It fit his current fighting style far better, especially with wind techniques.

Poison had one edge over Freeze.

Torture.

Adam scoffed internally.

With Mind Control E, stacking Poison on top of it would push him into something ugly. A sadist.

And I’m ninety-nine point nine percent sure I’m not that.

The decision was settled.

Adam unequipped Poison F.

For a split second, something twisted in his chest.

Poison had been his second special talent, the second thing he equipped after his rebirth. Letting it go felt… solemn, in a way he hadn’t expected.

But sentiment didn’t win battles.

Adam reached out and equipped Petrification F.

A sharp, brief and intense burning sensation flared in his chest, then vanished as if it had never been there.

The slot stabilized.

Done.

In the next moment, Adam vanished from the spot.

****

Abigail and her group circled the petrified Dickson, voices low, movements careful.

Stone was unforgiving. One wrong shift, one careless angle, and they could shatter him. They argued quietly over leverage, over padding, over whether it was safer to wait for reinforcements.

None of them noticed Adam.

He appeared far from them, just outside casual perception, but with a perfect, unobstructed view of Dickson’s stone form. That was intentional.

He didn’t want witnesses.

He didn’t want anyone suspecting him for what was about to happen.

Adam focused and petrification F — Activated.

His gaze locked onto Dickson’s eyes.

They said the eyes were doors to the soul.

This wasn’t that.

Petrification didn’t freeze the soul, it commanded a specific cell in the eye to transmute into a specialized stone-like structure. Once formed, it propagated through the body, locking everything in place. Flesh. Bone. Even clothing.

Adam didn’t control the stone.

He controlled the cell.

And now, he had a grip on it.

Revert.

The command was clean and absolute.

The instant it was issued, Adam vanished.

A heartbeat later…

Crack!

The sound was sharp and unmistakable.

Abigail’s heart dropped, as the stone fractured.

In the next moment, Dickson’s petrified body broke apart, not violently, but cleanly. Sheets of stone peeled away and collapsed to the ground, shattering into fragments as dust billowed upward.

Abigail froze.

Then she looked again.

Dickson was standing there.

Alive.

Flesh and blood where stone had been.

Her remaining good eye widened, and she didn’t hesitate, she threw herself at him, arms wrapping tight around his torso. Dickson staggered back a step, still stunned, still processing the fact that he could move.

The others stared, their mouths open and their minds blank.

How?

Abigail pulled back just enough to look at him, a bright smile breaking through the grime and exhaustion.

“It’s good to have you back, Dickson.”

Dickson blinked, looking down at his hands, flexing his fingers. Then he met her gaze and smiled back, a little dazed, but genuine.

“It’s good to be back.”

****

After the battle on the wall had ended, the Mission Hall went straight to work.

Reorganization orders were issued, damage reports compiled, casualty lists finalized. The barrier still hung over the sector like a dim sky, its presence interfering with long-range communication. Vanessa had no choice but to wait, until it dropped, for now the higher-ups were effectively deaf to the happenings of their sector.

The heirs used the pause to recuperate.

The fight had been bloody.

Adam had been the decisive factor, yes, but without the heirs holding the wall, it wouldn’t have mattered. Some monsters would’ve slipped through. The acolytes alone couldn’t have handled that pressure. The heirs had bought time, space, and stability, long enough for Adam to finally act.

They earned their rest.

As for Adam…

He didn’t stay.

The other rifts scattered through the Wild Zone were already manageable again. The Mission Hall had reinstalled the pulse container, restoring control. But the Sirens’ Swamp was different.

It had mutated.

Warped beyond standard parameters.

Something the Mission Hall couldn’t handle anymore.

The decision was simple.

The action didn’t take long.

Less than two hours.

By the time Adam returned, the rift was gone, and whatever horrors inside it silenced permanently. He walked back through the Wild Zone with his scythe slung casually across his shoulder, boots crunching over dead brush and cracked earth as if he’d just finished a stroll.

After that, the sector fell into an uneasy calm.

Nothing significant happened.

Days passed.

Then a week.

Adam learned something useful in that time, a talent could only be last in a corpse for a week of death. After that, the essence decayed beyond recovery.

But that wasn’t the big change.

The real shift came when the sky finally began to clear.

The barrier, that had been silent, oppressive and ever-present, started to dissipate.

Adam stood in front of the Mission Hall beside the manager, both of them facing the sky as the barrier slowly unraveled overhead.

Layers of light peeled away like fading mist, fragments dissolving into nothing.

“It really took its time,” Adam said calmly.

Vanessa only responded with a quiet, “Hm.”

She didn’t look at him. It was obvious she was still upset about his rejection.

Adam didn’t mind.

Around them, the sector had come alive. Citizens gathered in the streets, pointing upward, faces lit with awe and relief. Cheers broke out in pockets as the oppressive presence that had loomed over them for days finally weakened.

Normalcy was coming back.

For the heirs, the feeling was different, it was restless rather than joyful, as they were already thinking about home and what awaited them once they left this sector behind.

The barrier thinned further.

Then…

It cleared.

For a heartbeat, silence reigned.

And before anyone could celebrate…

Something streaked across the sky.

A blazing line of light, fast and sharp, like a shooting star tearing through the heavens. It descended at an impossible speed, its trajectory unmistakable.

Straight toward the sector.

Straight toward the Mission Hall.

*****

A/N: I’ve been at the hospital since yesterday because my younger sister has a fever. I’m apologizing in advance for any mistakes, as I won’t have much time to edit these Chapters. If you spot any errors, please let me know and I’ll fix them immediately. Thanks for reading

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