Explosion

As David was quietly reading about the history of this world, he suddenly felt a pang of alarm. He looked at the translucent shadow beside him, which was invisible to others. The feeling had come from the shadow.

Somehow, he understood what the translucent shadow was trying to tell him: danger—extreme danger.

He had felt this way in his previous life when he saw a runaway truck. The despair and helplessness, the terror of having his life snatched away without mercy—every hair on David's body stood on end.

Abbott was speeding through the sky in his personal flight shuttle, pushing it to its top speed. Though the shuttle was capable of short-distance travel in space, it couldn't reach especially high speeds within an atmosphere.

But he didn't even need to consult a map. The Scanning Device aboard the shuttle showed him Peilan City clearly below.

"Find the most densely populated spot in Peilan City!" Abbott ordered urgently.

The shuttle's auxiliary AI quickly identified the outdoor location with the largest concentration of people, based on the scan results.

The shuttle adjusted its course slightly toward the location. When Abbott saw nearly a hundred people gathered beside a building on the ground, a victorious smile spread across his face.

Meanwhile, on the other end of Skynet, Major Bisfam, the commanding officer, was watching the information sent back by the Interceptor Drone, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

Based on the information from the Interceptor Drone—especially the fact that the brazen Abbott hadn't even bothered to disguise himself—Skynet had identified him.

Displayed before Major Bisfam was Abbott's file, along with a stack of wanted posters, including one offering a huge reward.

Capturing or killing Abbott would earn him a tremendous commendation. It could help him attain a rank that most officers never managed to reach, making him a lieutenant colonel, as well as earn him a fortune from the reward.

Of course, only a portion of the huge reward would go to him, but that was more than enough to leave him thrilled.

"Carry out the elimination!" Major Bisfam steadied himself and gave the order in a low voice.

The four Interceptor Drones that received the order activated their Rapid-fire Cannons at once and pursued the personal flight shuttle.

"Major, there are a lot of civilians below!" the staff member monitoring the feed shouted just as Major Bisfam turned back to Abbott's file.

The staff member was in a difficult position. He had seen the city and the increasingly conspicuous crowd, but the order had come from Major Bisfam. He had no authority to cancel it; all he could do was alert the major and let him rescind it.

As Major Bisfam looked up, the Rapid-fire Cannons on all four Interceptor Drones struck Abbott's personal flight shuttle.

A personal flight shuttle was merely a civilian aircraft, with no weapons or defenses. Once hit by four Interceptor Drones, its destruction was all but certain.

Until the moment he died, Abbott never imagined that the Interceptor Drones would disregard the crowd of civilians and attack him anyway.

Major Bisfam, who had given the order, felt much the same as Abbott.

"Cease fire! Stop firing immediately!" he bellowed.

But it was too late. If he hadn't just gotten distracted by the file in his hands, fantasizing about his promotion, the tragedy might still have been avoided.

Of course, if Abbott hadn't been diving toward the ground and had instead dodged through the sky at the shuttle's previous speed, he might have held out a little longer.

But now it was all too late. As Abbott seethed with resentment, several shells struck his personal flight shuttle.

As a wanted mercenary who had lived in comfort, he had been a capable fighter. But in this situation, he couldn't even fight back before being shot down.

The shuttle's wings and horizontal stabilizers were shattered, and several holes tore through its fuselage. Two of them were in the cockpit, where Abbott sat.

With only twenty meters between him and the ground, Abbott suffered devastating injuries. His right leg had been completely blown away, but that was a minor wound compared with the gaping hole through his abdomen, which was fatal.

If Abbott had possessed a conscience, his piloting skills would have allowed him to try to control the shuttle and reduce the harm to the people below.

Instead, in his final moments, he did something even more deranged. Summoning all his strength, he steered the shuttle straight toward the densest part of the crowd. At the very end, a cruel smile appeared on his face.

At the same time, on the other end of Skynet, Major Bisfam watched in horror as the personal flight shuttle crashed into the crowd. Then a blaze of fire lit up the area and engulfed it completely.

"It's over!" Major Bisfam slumped into the chair behind him, with only that thought remaining in his mind.

The extreme sense of danger coming from the invisible, translucent shadow sent chills down David's spine. Almost instinctively, he looked toward the glass curtain wall by the entrance. He didn't see anything, but he still followed his panicked instincts and searched for somewhere to hide.

He didn't shout. He had no idea whether the sense of danger was real or not. The only thing he could do was find a relatively safe place at once.

He soon spotted the restroom nearby. Perhaps in keeping with the building's unusual emphasis on sturdiness, even the restroom door was made of metal.

David hurried over, pushed the restroom door open, and went inside.

Just as he entered the restroom and shut the metal door, a tremendous crash sounded outside the bookstore, followed by an even more violent explosion. The enormous impact force shoved the metal door straight across the room, carrying David with it.

As the metal door flew, David's body pressed tightly against it. He instinctively wrapped his arms around his head to protect it from injury.

He didn't want to die in another collision just after transmigrating, before he'd even had a chance to learn about this world.

His powerful muscles came to his aid. The metal door shoved his body across the room, and when he slammed into the restroom partition, his muscles protected him.

The wooden partition was smashed through two sections in a row, yet, surprisingly, David wasn't badly hurt. At most, he felt that the skin on his back had been injured; his hands, feet, and head seemed unharmed.

The metal door in front of him blocked the fiery shock wave from the explosion. The worst injury he suffered was a slight burn on the unprotected hand he had pressed against the door.

His advance warning had allowed him to prepare in time. He held his breath as the fiery shock wave hit, keeping his insides from being burned. His hair and body hair, however, had been singed off in places.

David couldn't worry about any of that now. No matter how hot the metal door was, he didn't dare let go. The sound of rubble striking the metal continued to ring out.

Fortunately, this was a restroom. The impact had burst many of the water pipes, filling the room with mist and easing the scorching heat in the air. The metal door cooled down quickly.

David's instant decision had been the right one. Aside from the blast wave shattering the metal door and part of the wall, most of the restroom remained intact. That was why he had escaped the explosion with only minor injuries.

A personal flight shuttle was a short-range spacecraft powered by Krypton Crystal, an incredibly stable and immensely powerful energy source.

An impact like this couldn't set Krypton Crystal off. The explosion had mostly come from the small reserve energy supply aboard the shuttle.

It was fortunate that was all. If the ample supply of newly replaced Krypton Crystal aboard Abbott's shuttle had exploded, there wouldn't have been a living soul within a kilometer.

David waited a little longer. When the sense of danger had completely vanished, he shook his dizzy head and pushed the metal door off himself.

Only then did he realize how strong this body was—far stronger than he'd imagined. The metal door must have weighed at least a hundred kilograms, yet it hadn't felt all that heavy to him.

But he had no time to study his body. In his perception, the invisible, translucent shadow was moving away from him on its own, flying outside.