Blind Box World - SSS-Rank Eye of Truth

Xue Ji’s ship continued southeast, gliding over barren ridges that stretched all the way to the horizon.

After leaving the dead city, Ethan remained standing by the railing, silently watching the land below. The wind tugged at his cloak, already torn in many places, carrying the scent of dry earth and wild grass, a sensation so ordinary it felt foreign after such a long stretch inside the challenge space.

But Ethan wasn’t truly relaxed.

Since returning to this world, he had been sensing a very faint Void fluctuation behind them. At first, the energy source sat off to the west. When the ship changed heading, it slowly adjusted as well. The distance between them was still great, but the trajectory was clear enough for Ethan to rule out coincidence.

Ryan wasn’t searching for a location.

He was tracking Ethan.

Ethan’s gaze darkened.

If they stayed on this course, sooner or later Ryan would trace them back to where he actually wanted to return.

Spring Village surfaced in his mind. The low houses, the abandoned Partners living packed together in a valley few people knew about. Vesna had given him and Laira a place to rest when they were nearly drained of everything. They owed Ethan nothing; if anything, they had given him far too much.

He would not lead someone being consumed by the Void to their doorstep.

Ethan left the railing and walked toward the bow.

Xue Ji was standing near the controls. Hearing footsteps, she tilted her head to look at him, her expression mildly questioning.

"Something wrong? Want to change course?"

"Let us off up ahead." Ethan glanced at the rocky range to the right, his tone very even. "Pick an open spot, a bit off the current route. That’s enough."

Xue Ji frowned slightly. She looked past Ethan, then glanced toward Laira and Ruo Yan resting at the stern. All three had just escaped a prolonged battle and were still covered in wounds, so the decision to voluntarily leave a safe transport now clearly didn’t look like a choice made for rest.

Still, she only asked, "Trouble following you?"

Ethan looked at her for a moment, then gave a slight nod. "Personal matter."

Those two words were enough.

Xue Ji didn’t press. She looked down at the terrain below and quickly spotted an abandoned industrial complex nestled between two low mountain ranges. The surroundings were fairly open with no signs of inhabitants, and the large factory buildings provided enough cover to block the line of sight from a distance.

"That spot work?"

"Yes."

Xue Ji immediately signaled the pilot to descend.

Laira also walked over. She looked at the terrain below, then shifted her gaze to Ethan, her orange-red eyes narrowing slightly. "Ryan?"

Ethan nodded. "He’s been adjusting course to match ours. If we keep going, we’ll only drag this to a place it shouldn’t reach."

Laira understood immediately where he meant. She didn’t object. Only a chill gradually crept into her eyes. "Then we settle him here."

Ruo Yan arrived a few steps behind them. She caught the tail end of the sentence, studied Ethan for a moment, and guessed the reason on her own. The cool expression on her face softened slightly, but her words were as calm as ever. "You changed course deliberately because you don’t want him tracing us back?"

Ethan stepped to the edge of the ship and looked at the factory buildings rapidly growing larger below. "The people there once saved me and Laira. I haven’t sunk low enough to repay them by leading disaster to their door."

Ruo Yan fell silent.

After a while, she answered quietly. "Then clean it up before we go back."

The ship touched down in the middle of a courtyard overrun with weeds.

Ethan, Laira, and Ruo Yan stepped off one by one. The Necromancer went last, its massive frame making the gangplank between deck and ground shudder with every step.

Xue Ji remained on the ship. She looked at the three below, her gaze lingering on Ethan’s unhealed wounds before she shook her head.

"You just barely survived a place that nearly buried all of you. I don’t know who’s coming, but if you can avoid it, avoid it. Dying right after picking up a pile of treasures is a pretty stupid way to go."

Ethan let out a quiet laugh. "I’ll keep that in mind."

Xue Ji looked at his expression, clearly not trusting that answer very much. She didn’t say more, only waving for the ship to rise. "Then stay alive. Next time we meet, I still want to know what exactly you lot got up to these past few days."

"We’ll figure that out then."

The ship quickly climbed, turned, and disappeared behind the mountain ranges.

Only when the sound of engines had faded completely did Ethan turn to face the industrial complex before him.

The place had once been large. Most of the factory buildings had crumbled, but three remained relatively intact. Rusted steel columns propped up roofs riddled with holes, several massive storage tanks lay tilted in the yard, and behind everything ran a transport tunnel burrowing deep into the mountainside.

Ethan walked a circuit around the area.

He didn’t force the Eye of Truth to display detailed information panels the way he had before. His eyes only brightened faintly, enough to make the energy flows and structural details around him clearer than normal. He could see how far the steel columns had corroded, sense where the ground was hollow underneath, and identify the wind direction along with a few positions suitable for weathering an energy burst.

That was enough.

In the end, Ethan chose the largest factory building at the center.

Ruo Yan brought the Necromancer into the shadows at the rear, letting it recover whatever soul energy it had left. Laira sat down on a concrete block and took out energy crystals to absorb, though her gaze still drifted now and then toward the direction Ryan would appear from.

Ethan also sat down.

No one spoke further.

They simply waited.

Over an hour later, Ethan suddenly opened his eyes.

The familiar sensation of cold had entered the range where he could perceive it clearly.

Laira raised her head at almost the same instant. The Solar Flame Seal inside her body reacted to the Void Flame, faint red lines surfacing on her skin before quickly fading.

Ruo Yan stood up, the Soul Threads humming softly between her fingers.

Ethan stepped out of the factory building.

"He’s here."

At the end of the weed-choked road, a figure gradually came into view.

Ryan walked in front.

Behind him was the creature stitched together from multiple corpses, its misshapen body standing nearly four meters tall. Dark purple Void Flame ran along the seams between patches of flesh, and every footstep left a faint scorch mark on the road.

Ryan saw Ethan.

His steps stopped.

For the first few seconds, neither spoke.

Ryan’s gaze traveled from Ethan’s face down to the Primordial Armor, pausing on the purple-silver lines of lightning flickering across the left arm, then shifting to Laira. The wing that had once been damaged was now whole, the Thunder-Iron Feathers interlaced with dragon scales making it all the more striking.

Finally, he looked at Ruo Yan.

A smile slowly spread across his pallid face.

"I’ve been looking for you this long, and you just keep picking up more good things."

Ryan spoke as he walked forward, the Void Flame around him brightening. "A Mythical Partner, that armor, and now a pair of wings and another woman. Ethan, why is it that every time I find you again, everything good is always right beside you?"

Ethan stood still and watched him.

The more Ryan spoke, the harder his emotions were to control. The smile on his face had already begun to twist. "You know what I hate most? I awakened two whole years before you. I have an S-rank ability. The family chose me. Everyone my age had to look up to me. But the moment you show up, every pair of eyes turns your way. First it was Laira, then the Heavenly Gate, then one thing after another. You got thrown out of the Safe Zone and you still won’t disappear."

Ethan listened to all of it.

Only after Ryan stopped did he let out a quiet laugh.

"You really think all of this was just handed to me?"

Ryan frowned.

Ethan stepped down from the concrete ledge, his expression still calm, but every word came out clearer than before. "When you turned eighteen, you awakened an S-rank ability. You had the family’s crystals, combat instructors, your mother behind you arranging everything. At the time, I was working warehouse shifts past midnight just to pay tuition. I had to wait two extra years before I could even stand in front of my first Blind Box."

He looked straight at Ryan, not a trace of self-pity in his voice. "After awakening, I got thrown into the Anomaly Coordinate. My left hand was burned off by Void Flame, my shoulder was shot through, my right hand was nearly shattered. Victor and Nolan wanted to kill me for resources. Mira saved me and saw everything with her own eyes. But when she came back and told the truth, you were the one who deleted the records and turned me into a criminal."

The smile on Ryan’s face vanished.

Ethan continued. "You knew I acted in self-defense. You knew Mira was telling the truth. But you still stood behind those people with guns, looking at me like I was the guilty one. After that I was hunted, forced out of the Safe Zone, and had to fight for my own life over and over again."

Small arcs of lightning ran across the Primordial Armor.

"Laira, the Thunder Wings, the strength I have now... none of it fell into my lap. I earned every piece in places where a single mistake would have killed me long ago."

Ryan was silent for a few seconds.

Then he suddenly burst out laughing.

The laughter climbed higher and higher until it turned into a hoarse roar.

"So what?! All of it was supposed to be mine! If you didn’t exist, I’d be the one everyone couldn’t take their eyes off. I have an S-rank ability. I’m the one the family chose. I was stronger than everyone my age. But as long as you’re around, everything I have gets compared. The better you do, the more I look like a joke!"

Void Flame erupted around Ryan.

Ethan looked at him. The last trace of disappointment finally disappeared, leaving only contempt.

"Even now you still don’t understand. You were born with more than I ever had, but you never learned what enough means. All you do is stare at what other people have and resent it for not being yours. Every time you fail, you find someone else to blame. Someone like you, no matter how high they’re lifted, will only ever live under someone else’s shadow."

He paused briefly, looking straight into the eyes that had turned red with fury.

"And the shadow that drives you the most insane just happens to be mine."

Boom!

The ground under Ryan’s feet exploded.

"SHUT UP!"

Void Flame stretched into a violent dark purple stream.

Ryan charged straight at Ethan.

Ethan lowered his center of gravity, his left hand sheathed in the Primordial Armor clenching tight.

This time he didn’t back away.

Ryan closed the gap of over a hundred meters in just seconds.

Void Flame coiled around his right arm, pulling the fire into a layer of dark purple armor. His fist drove straight at Ethan’s face, the force not yet arriving but already blasting the dust at their feet to either side.

Ethan tilted his body clear of the punch line.

The instant Ryan shot past, he pivoted his hips and drove his elbow hard into the side of Ryan’s temple.

Boom!

Ryan was knocked sideways, his feet carving a long trench through the ground before he crashed through the sheet metal of the nearest factory building.

Metal twisted. Dust billowed up at once.

Less than two breaths later, Void Flame tore through the cloud.

Ryan came hurtling back, both hands pulling a ring of dark purple fire that he slammed straight at Ethan. The Void energy carried not only devastating heat but also corroded everything around it; the concrete slabs it passed over quickly grayed and cracked apart.

The Thunder Wings opened behind Ethan’s back.

A clap of thunder rang out.

His body vanished from its position and reappeared to Ryan’s left. A lightning-wrapped fist drove into his ribs and doubled him over. Ethan didn’t give him time to recover. A knee drove into his stomach, then he seized Ryan’s collar, spun, and hurled him into the ground.

Crash!

The concrete floor shattered into a deep crater.

Behind them, the stitched corpse creature let out a vicious roar and charged forward. But it had barely taken a few steps before a green soul flame slammed into its chest.

The Necromancer appeared in front of it.

Ruo Yan stood further back, Soul Threads wound around her fingers. She glanced toward Ethan and said flatly, "I’ll hold this thing. The rest is yours."

Ethan didn’t turn around. "That’s enough."

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