Doomsday Beast

After they left the master control zone, the atmosphere became noticeably more relaxed.

The group followed a relatively intact passage toward the platform where the Astral Express was stationed. Dan Heng led the way, Himeko brought up the rear, and Bai Luoming was sandwiched between March 7th and Stelle, enjoying an escort fit for a VIP.

"Life on the Express is so much fun! Pom-Pom makes amazing snacks, and I have my very own room, full of all the precious photos I've collected!"

March 7th enthusiastically sang the praises of life aboard the Express, her pink hair bouncing as she gestured.

"And the Express goes to so, so many planets! You get to see all kinds of people and things. It's way more interesting than staying on the space station!"

Bai Luoming listened to March 7th's cheerful chatter, but his thoughts drifted elsewhere.

March 7th's strange behavior, the look in Asta's eyes, and Arlan being in impossibly good shape...

These deviations from the plot tangled tighter and tighter in his mind, like a knotted mess of thread.

The plot he knew was falling apart in unpredictable ways. The sense of losing control left him inexplicably irritated.

"Luo Ming? Bai Luoming?"

March 7th called his name twice. When he didn't respond, she waved a hand in front of his eyes.

"Huh?" Bai Luoming came back to his senses.

"What are you thinking about? You're so spaced out." March 7th leaned closer curiously, the tip of her nose almost touching his shoulder.

"I..." Bai Luoming opened his mouth. He couldn't very well say he was trying to figure out why each of them was acting stranger than the last, so he made something up. "I was thinking, we've been walking for a while. What should we eat later?"

March 7th: "..."

Stelle chimed in from the side, perfectly serious. "Yeah, what should we eat?"

Bai Luoming and March 7th turned to look at her at the same time.

Stelle pointed at her own nose, looking innocent. "Why are you looking at me? You can't expect someone with amnesia to recommend dishes, can you?"

The group soon reached the area connecting the supply zone to the platform.

The space opened up abruptly. A massive, curved transparent dome arched overhead, offering a clear view of the deep universe and the distant sea of stars. Countless stars lay scattered across the black velvet curtain like shattered diamonds.

Bai Luoming looked up instinctively, the magnificent sight leaving him momentarily dazed.

But only for a moment.

An indescribable sense that something was wrong welled up inside him.

He had a nagging feeling he'd forgotten something important.

For an instant, the starlight outside the dome seemed to dim.

It was as though something unimaginably enormous had swept past in the distance, briefly blocking the light.

Bai Luoming frowned, but before he could give it any more thought, Himeko suddenly stopped up ahead.

The smile vanished from her face as she looked in a particular direction beyond the dome.

Almost at the same time, Dan Heng tightened his grip on Cloud-Piercer and lowered his stance slightly, ready to strike at any moment.

Bai Luoming's heart gave a violent thump. He immediately followed their gazes and looked up again.

This time, he saw it clearly.

Beyond the dome, in the depths of space, a silhouette so vast it distorted his sense of scale was moving slowly.

It was a monstrous beast.

Its size was difficult to fathom; it was nearly as large as most of the supply zone.

Boom—!

A forgotten memory exploded in Bai Luoming's mind like a detonated bomb.

The Doomsday Beast, the first boss to appear in the game.

He'd been so preoccupied with the plot deviations he'd encountered that he'd actually forgotten about the Doomsday Beast.

Then again, the characters might be OOC, but how could the final boss not show up for work?

"Everyone, look out, above us! It's the Doomsday Beast!"

Bai Luoming roared with all his strength, his voice echoing through the open zone.

His warning made March 7th and Stelle pause at the same time, and both looked up at the giant beast overhead. Dan Heng had already put some distance between them, and Himeko had calmly assumed a fighting stance as well.

As if in response to Bai Luoming's warning, the Doomsday Beast outside the dome turned its disproportionately massive head. Its crimson eyes peered through the dome overhead and locked precisely onto their position.

Without the slightest hesitation, its immense body dove down from on high, radiating a crushing pressure!

Its form completely blotted out the starry sky.

But it didn't strike directly. Instead, it hovered hundreds of meters above the exterior of the zone.

The giant beast opened a maw large enough to swallow stars, and a ball of energy so dazzling that no one could look directly at it began to gather at a rapid pace.

The next second, a beam of destruction tore through the vacuum and blasted toward the platform!

"Rumble—!"

The energy cannon struck the edge of the platform with pinpoint accuracy. The violent shock wave sent the surrounding equipment and containers flying in all directions, leaving a charred trench more than ten meters long in the sturdy alloy floor.

Thanks to Bai Luoming's timely warning, no one was hurt.

But a new problem arose.

The Doomsday Beast was hovering high in the air, and most of the people present lacked the range to hit it at all.

They couldn't very well ask Dan Heng, who never went anywhere without Cloud-Piercer, to use it as a javelin.

"Damn it!" March 7th stomped her foot in anger. Looking up at the behemoth in the sky, she raised a finger and beckoned forcefully, taunting it.

"Hey! If you've got what it takes, come down here and fight! What kind of hero stays up there?"

She shouted with full force, her posture utterly flamboyant.

Watching from the side, Bai Luoming's mouth twitched.

Sure enough, even if the plot had fallen apart, the iconic scene hadn't failed to show up.

As soon as March 7th finished speaking, the Doomsday Beast really did swoop down.

It seemed utterly enraged by the provocation of this tiny ant, or perhaps it had intended to crush them at close range all along.

Its enormous body tore through the dome's energy barrier. Amid piercing alarms and the sound of shattering glass, it landed heavily in the open area in front of the platform.

"Thud—!"

The entire space station shook violently, and everyone staggered before regaining their footing.

March 7th froze on the spot. Two seconds later, she stiffly turned to Bai Luoming, her expression saying, "I didn't think it would actually listen."

Bai Luoming's face was expressionless. "...Next time, could you not jinx us?"

The battle officially began!

"I'm going in!" Dan Heng shouted, his figure moving like lightning as his spear tip traced a silver afterimage and stabbed straight at a joint in the Doomsday Beast's forelimb.

"Cover him!" Himeko ordered.

March 7th immediately came to her senses and swiftly entered combat. Rather than attacking recklessly again, she took on the central defensive role. Thick ice walls rose one after another, precisely blocking the Doomsday Beast's ferocious attacks.

Stelle swung her baseball bat and charged in from the other flank, putting all her strength into every blow. Each strike landed on the Doomsday Beast's body with a dull thud.

Himeko stood at the rear, tapping lightly with her fingertips as shot after shot from an orbital cannon attacked the Doomsday Beast's sensory organs, restricting its vision.

The four worked together seamlessly, steadily whittling down the Doomsday Beast's health bar.

Bai Luoming, meanwhile, had been stationed behind a warped metal plate as far from the battlefield as possible.

He crouched on the ground and watched the battle through a gap in his cover.

Every swipe of the Doomsday Beast's claws and every lash of its tail carried the force to destroy heaven and earth. The residual energy whipped up a gale that stung his cheeks.

All he could do was hide.

All he could do was pray.

The feeling of helplessness was more vivid than ever. For the first time, he realized so clearly that if he could only ever hide behind others, his knowledge of the plot meant nothing.

In the game, this was just the final boss of a beginner dungeon, easily dealt with.

But here, on this real battlefield, he wasn't even qualified to stand up and face it.

Bai Luoming clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms and sending sharp stabs of pain through them.

At that moment, Bai Luoming yearned for power more than ever before.

The battle was gradually drawing to a close.

Under the four-person assault, the Doomsday Beast's movements had grown noticeably sluggish. Wounds covered its body, and even its core had begun to crack, on the verge of breaking apart.

Dan Heng stepped back half a pace and held his spear across his body, gathering strength for the final blow.

Victory was assured.

At the very moment everyone thought so—

Something unexpected happened!

The Doomsday Beast raised its head, and a dazzling light suddenly flared deep within its mouth.

The light wasn't aimed at Dan Heng, who was charging his attack directly in front of it, nor at March 7th on its flank.

It shifted with precision at an exceedingly bizarre angle, crossed the entire battlefield, and shot straight at Bai Luoming behind the distant cover!

Dan Heng and Himeko's expressions changed at the same time. They noticed something was wrong, but they were too far away to stop it!

"Look out!"

Stelle reacted the fastest.

The instant the beam fired, she gave a loud shout and shot in front of Bai Luoming like a cannonball, holding her baseball bat firmly across her chest as a final barrier.

The beam struck with a roar!

Stelle's feet carved two deep grooves in the alloy floor. The immense impact shook her entire body, yet she held firm without retreating half a step.

But the destructive residual energy still spilled past her sides and washed squarely over Bai Luoming.

Bai Luoming's face registered shock. He hadn't expected that, even after he'd hidden so far to the edge, the Doomsday Beast would still try to take him down with it.

"Whoa, it's coming for me?"

Are you kidding me? Do I have some kind of fox-preserving ambition or something? How did I still draw aggro?

That was what Bai Luoming thought before the beam engulfed him.

Bai Luoming felt as though he'd been hit head-on by a heavy truck traveling at high speed. His internal organs were knocked out of place, and his body flew uncontrollably into the air, hurtling backward.

As the world spun around him, his vision blurred.

He saw March 7th let out a terrified scream and run toward him without regard for anything else.

He also saw Dan Heng throw Cloud-Piercer, piercing straight through the Doomsday Beast's core.

And Stelle, who had taken the hit head-on in front of him, was somehow still planted firmly in place, without being sent flying.

Could it be because... the Stellaron has too much mass, so an attack at this level can't move her at all...?

Finally, he saw Asta arriving late, striding toward his position.

Then Bai Luoming felt his back collide with an unfamiliar embrace.

The person caught him securely.

But Bai Luoming couldn't feel any softness in that embrace. The bone structure was pronounced, and it felt like crashing into a hard steel plate, digging painfully into him.

With his consciousness fading, Bai Luoming instinctively made a remark.

"So hard..."

The person who had caught him didn't respond.

A curtain of smooth, long gray-brown hair fell down, its tips brushing lightly against his cheek.

He struggled to lift his eyelids and saw only a pair of eyes looking down at him, filled with scrutiny and intense interest.

She's so beautiful.

That was the last thought that flashed through Bai Luoming's mind. Then his consciousness began to plunge rapidly.

He fell into a dim space without end.

There was no light, no sound, only an endless sense of weightlessness, as though he were falling into an eternal abyss.

He tried to grab hold of something, but his fingers passed through nothingness.

Just then, the space "above" him lit up.

A golden, majestic... figure, so enormous that the entire starry sky trembled before it.

Bai Luoming struggled to raise his head and look at the giant standing amid the stars.

He merely... tilted His head slightly.

A pair of golden eyes, so cold they held no emotion whatsoever, lowered to rest on Bai Luoming.

The light soon faded, and the enormous figure vanished into the depths of the starry sky.

Bai Luoming's consciousness sank completely into darkness.