Chapter 50

Three Directions

The man in black had black eyes and long, black hair, much like Juan, but the two couldn’t have felt more different.

There was no warmth to be felt.

Ped watched his every move without blinking. Each time he flung out flames, Ped quickly summoned plants to intercept. He had already used up all the Komila flowers, then moved on to Mandrake vines, and when those were gone, he summoned Kaka fruits and Brincai.

Magic had its limits, at least for him at that moment.

Ped understood that his plant magic wasn’t some trick to create things out of nothing, but rather a form of “creation.” By channeling spells, he could harness the environment’s molecules, arrange them into a genetic structure, forming seeds that, with air, soil, and water, would grow into complete plants.

Different spells corresponded to different molecules, allowing him to summon various plants.

But the environment’s molecules were finite, so the number of plants he could summon was also limited.

Soon, he only had Julian Grass left, which burned even faster. Was he trying to help the flames spread?

Hearing the suppressed roars from the zombies, Ped almost burst into tears.

Unaware that he was already crying, he desperately tried to shield Juan.

During their battle, the man’s flames occasionally splattered onto the zombies, quickly consuming them in black fire.

To others, he was simply burning zombies, but to Ped, he was burning Juan!

Ped felt as if the man was toying with him, standing motionless, simply pointing and igniting fires, as if testing how many plants Ped could summon.

He hated this. But for now, the plants were his only defense!

The roars from the zombies grew weaker, not because Juan’s pain was lessening but because it was so intense that he could barely react! Ped couldn’t imagine the agony Juan was enduring, with the fire bypassing physical barriers to burn his very soul.

If only he still had his powers! Even if they were destructive, if he had them, he could defeat this man and stop him from hurting Juan further!

For the first time, Ped sincerely wished to regain his powers.

Tears streamed down his face, yet his eyes blazed with fury.

With a murderous glare at the man in black, Ped summoned his last Kaka fruit. He watched as the man grabbed it, and with a light squeeze, it exploded—

Die! At the moment of the explosion, Ped felt a familiar sensation, as if he’d returned to the days when he had his powers. He channeled his ability into the fruit, and—

What did he see?

He truly saw his powers in action!

Before his eyes, the fruit burst, creating a tiny black hole that absorbed the pulp, then bit down with a sharp, voracious pull, taking a chunk out of the man’s finger!

A mist of blood burst into the air, and the man’s finger was left with a gap.

His powers were back—

Ped’s eyes went wide!

Realizing this, his spirit surged as he steadied himself, feeling the familiar energy fill him, even stronger than before. Clenching his fist, Ped immediately called upon his powers—

His ability could tear small rifts in the air—tiny as pinholes or as large as a human head—either as black voids or dark fissures. Each shape served slightly different functions, but all of them were deadly. Just as the researcher named 16 from Eden had once described, it was a power for “harm and killing.”

Yet in that moment, Ped felt that no power could suit him better than this one!

With a thought, various sizes of black holes instantly appeared around the man in black, absorbing his black flames, while narrow, fissure-like rifts sliced through his clothing. Although the man swiftly leapt out of the black hole’s reach—

A mist of blood—

Ped’s eyes widened as blood burst from where the man had stood.

He’d wounded him!

Finally, he had forced his opponent to move from his position!

Standing guard in front of the retreating zombies, Ped grinned fiercely.

“Not only plant-based powers but spatial abilities too?” The man in black raised an eyebrow, glancing at his injured finger and then at his black pants. Though the tear wasn’t obvious due to the color, the wound was long, even if shallow.

After saying this, he turned back to Ped.

“From what I remember, spatial abilities are usually weak, mostly just useful for transport. This is the first I’ve seen one with such deadly force,” he commented.

Ped laughed. “Underestimating spatial abilities, are you? Be careful; you just might die by one.”

Without finishing his sentence, he summoned more black holes!

Various black holes shielded the zombies from the man, and then he created black rifts around the man, forming a cylindrical barrier around him!

But the man wasn’t one to sit idly by. Not only was his power formidable, but he was also physically agile, leaping through the rift barriers and retreating, launching two black flames at Ped as he did so.

Knowing how dangerous the black flames were, Ped quickly summoned a rift to swallow them. However, the energy from the flames seemed to overwhelm the rift, and they exploded in a burst of red.

Ped hastily created another black hole to absorb the explosion and dodged to the side.

Though he wasn’t as skilled as his opponent in hand-to-hand combat, he wasn’t losing when it came to abilities!

He was strong!

With a slight smile on his lips, Ped felt a profound clarity as he launched another attack.

“Strength is not a crime”—the words floated into his mind.

These were words Juan had said to him before leaving.

Back then, Ped had thought Juan was speaking about himself.

Indeed, to have seized so much control over the zombies from the red-haired man’s grasp, Juan had to be strong!

Only now did Ped realize that Juan’s words were meant for him, answering a conversation they’d had a long time ago—

“Is my power really gone?” Juan had asked him, his dark eyes fixed on Ped.

Watching Juan’s serious expression, Ped nodded.

“I don’t know if it’s because they maxed out the genetic toxin, but I survived, though my powers disappeared.”

“That old man once told me I was born rotten because my powers were only for harm and killing.”

After that, he must have said something about living a simple life, maybe farming.

He changed the subject.

But while he could avoid the conversation, he couldn’t escape his inner conflict.

Born with powers that could only harm and kill, he had come to believe he was inherently flawed—after hearing it so often from 16, he’d come to accept it.

Even after leaving Eden and living in the light, where few people even had abilities, he still felt a shadow over him.

As though, despite standing in the sunlight with others, he alone was cloaked in darkness.

But—

Strength is not a crime.

At that moment, Juan’s words struck him with sudden clarity—

Yes, so what if his power could only harm and kill? At least in this moment, that power allowed him to protect Juan!

And this filled him with such joy—

The shadow that had long weighed on the young man lifted.

Even in the heat of battle, Ped’s face broke into a fierce but clear smile.

It was the man in black who stopped first.

Leaping to a spot a hundred meters away, he saw the zombies continuing to move further from the Sunshine Base. Extinguishing his black flame, he spoke.

“I’m done. I don’t want to kill you.”

With that, he turned his back without so much as a glance at the Sunshine Base’s people, as if he intended to leave.

Ped wiped the blood from his face, and although he didn’t say something cocky like, “You can’t kill me anyway,” he knew he likely couldn’t have beaten the man yet.

They had fought to a draw, but only because the man hadn’t gone all out.

However, if it had been a life-or-death struggle, neither of them would have emerged unscathed. But—

Looking at the zombies dragging themselves eastward, Ped realized it had been a long time since he’d heard Juan’s voice, and he decided not to pursue the man further.

He wanted to live, to live well with Juan.

Unlike the man, he had people he cared about in this world.

With that thought, he lifted Juan’s former body from the ground and jogged into the zombie horde, blending into their ranks as he headed east.

Thus, the two, who had just been locked in a fierce battle, broke off abruptly and walked in opposite directions, one left, one right.

One wore black, standing alone; the other was clad in gray, carrying a corpse on his back and surrounded by a large horde of zombies.

After a brief encounter, they each went their separate ways.

The survivors of Sunshine Base, the only witnesses to this intense battle, remained thoroughly bewildered.

“Wasn’t that man in black supposed to be here to save us? Why did he leave?”

“Maybe because the aircraft crashed?”

“But what about that boy? And the other kid, An’an? They’re both from our base, right? The zombies suddenly stopped attacking us; was it because of those two? Specifically… because of An’an?”

“Did An’an save us?”

“I think I understand. That red-haired guy probably controlled these zombies, and An’an was stronger, so he took control of them from him.”

“If that’s the case, then didn’t the man in black make a mistake by trying to help? Was he actually attacking An’an?”

…

The survivors had countless questions.

Thankfully, with the zombies gone, they had plenty of time to think it over. Eventually, a group of hired abilities-users, who arrived late, provided them with some answers.

These were the true abilities-users hired by the base leader.

After both the man in black and Ped had left, these abilities-users finally descended in a large flying craft on the open ground outside Sunshine Base.

“…Actually, we set off quite a while ago, but we ran into *that* person on the way and didn’t dare follow him here.”

“That man isn’t one of the abilities-users you hired; he’d never accept anyone’s job. He just seems to have a particular hatred for zombies, and whenever he sees them, he comes down to wipe them out. This time, he must have seen the massive zombie crowd on your side from above…”

“Don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing! His power is immense, but it’s too strong. When he wipes out zombies, he eradicates everything—humans included. Your base is incredibly fortunate to still have so many survivors after he left. Really, incredibly fortunate…”

“His fire is terrifying! They say it can even burn souls clean away! By the way, who was that other boy? How could he fight him to a standstill?”

“Enough, let’s get going. Who knows how long that kid can control the zombies? If they turn back, it would be disastrous.”

…

After exchanging information with the outside abilities-users, the base leader finally understood that they had truly escaped death—surviving not only the zombies but also the number one, infamous abilities-user in the outside world.

Sighing deeply, he looked at Sunshine Base, the place he had protected his whole life, now in ruins. Then he looked toward the direction the two boys had left.

In the end, the old man waved his hand and led the remaining people onto the abilities-users’ flying craft.

They left as well.