Chapter 66: Meteorite
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The two-meter tall and brawny chap stood before the trio. He was dark and taut; his strong muscles seemed ready to burst out from his skin. He was wearing a black T-shirt but it looked too small to hide his muscular upper body. His rough face, big eyes and bushy eyebrows could not help but give off a villainous impression. Frankly, he looked as badass as one could ever look on this planet.
Y’zaks was eye-catching in its human form. However, Hao Ren found an inconvenient truth: he still had to look up when talking with Y’zaks. It was stressful enough just thinking about bringing the demon home—in a best-case scenario, the bald and burly fellow would cause a whole police department to scramble for backup just by standing in front of a police station...
On the bright side, this looked miles better than the volcano form.
"Okay, let’s move." Hao Ren sighed. He still had a lot to ask him but it was not the best time and place. The light show upon the demon’s arrival could have already attracted eyeballs from the town. The fire department too could have possibly arrived too by then. "Wait till we get home. There are a lot more things I need to ask... Oh, something just crossed my mind!"
Hao Ren smacked his forehead as he suddenly recalled the time Angus admitted to his deception. The sighting of fire in the castle did not make sense. The fire which occurred at the very beginning of the haunting incident was not the doing of Angus.
"Was that your doing?" Hao Ren related the haunting incident once again. "So, you arrived at that time?" he asked Y’zaks.
"Yes, it was me. I’m sorry for that." Y’zaks apologized as he staggered out from the lava pool and stamped his feet to shake off the slag. His smile was as scary as ever no matter how anyone described it. "I was riding the Space Administration’s immigration space vessel towards this planet. I flew myself during entry into the atmosphere but I got lost. I was supposed to land at a designated landing zone which would attract less attention. Instead, I landed here. And the landing itself was quite a scene. However, instead of making a fuss out of it, the local residents appeared to be happy. So I didn’t come out to apologize as I was told not to blow my cover."
Hao Ren had been in a cold sweat but at least, he finally figured out the truth about the ‘giant fireball’ Angus mentioned. With the sea of fire in the sky, Y’zaks’ moment of arrival was indeed as grand as the eye could see. It was visible dozens of kilometers away.
Hao Ren took the lead as they were leaving. However, just as they were about to leave, something came to Vivian’s mind. "Wait a second. Don’t you think we need to clean up the scene?"
Vivian spoke while she pointed at a pile of rubble on the hill. The castle ruins became a complete mess after Lily dug out most of the stones from the wall and smashed the rest. Not only that, Y’zaks’ landing site was strewn with slowly, cooling lava. Soon, larsenite would form everywhere. When Nangong woke up, he would have definitely blown a huge hole, straight down to the crypt. Plus, there were tunnel exits everywhere, which had been left open by the wraith guards. Hundreds of ancient armor laid beneath the rubble; the Letta runes on the wraith guards were already defaced by the demon’s power so, theoretically they would not have been walking anymore. Yet, there was no guarantee that the knights would not be alive and kicking. Obviously, leaving the mess to common people was not a good idea.
Hao Ren wanted to wash his hands of the matter but in an argument between his brain and heart, the idea of cleaning up the mess won him over.
"How do we go about this? Call for air support and blow the hell out of it?" Hao Ren shrugged and said, "I think we’ve got few options. How do we clean up this pile of mess with our bare hands in a short time? And mind you, I just saw some vehicles coming our way from afar. They’re most likely from the town coming for the party."
Y’zaks looked on but could not understand Vivian and Hao Ren’s conversation. Nevertheless, he had a rough guess. Y’zaks guffawed as he scratched his shining, bald head. He then said, "Leave it to me. You guys may want to take cover somewhere."
Sensing the demon’s intention, Hao Ren could not wait to hurry Lily and Vivian up. They scrambled to a nearby hummock, leaving Y’zaks behind in the castle ruins. Before they could set their feet on the hummock, a thunderous was heard coming from the castle. "Keep going! The farther the better!"
Hao Ren was in terror. "What’s he going to do? Is he planning to level the whole damn place?"
He nudged Lily. "Hurry up! That dude’s going to make headlines. Oh ya, Vivian, please get Nangong and the old monk. I think they should be awake by now."
Hao Ren estimated that the ghostbusters’ camp site where Nangong and the Indian monk were, was within striking distance. So he sent Vivian to get the two poor guys. Fortunately for them, Hao Ren was more thorough-minded than the two inattentive ladies—they would have been killed if left at the camp site.
They moved swiftly to a hummock farther away. At the same time, Vivian found Nangong and the Indian monk still unconscious. Hao Ren’s blow on them seemed really hard.
Of course, the MDT’s build was unquestionably hard.
Just after Hao Ren set his foot on another hummock, he waited for action to occur in the castle. A flash of red light then illuminated the sky.
The trio spontaneously looked up and saw the object. It was a meteorite!
A freaking real meteorite!
The massive meteorite was burning, leaving a long trail of fire as it entered the atmosphere. It was falling towards the castle with the accuracy of a guided missile. Hao Ren had only seen such a scene on TV or in video games like the ‘Magic of Meteorite’. However, this was the first time he witnessed such ‘special effects’ in person.
Lily was in awe and expressed a long "wooooooow." Before she could finished wowing, the burning meteorite struck the castle with pinpoint accuracy!
A loud bang accompanied the impact. The force was so powerful that Hao Ren could feel his skull quaking. Seconds later, a mushroom cloud of dust rose from the site of the . They could feel the earth trembling beneath their feet even though they were far from the impact point. A shock wave expanded outwards and towards them, carrying a strong smell of sulfur and dust. Things could have been terrible, much like the end of the world if they were nearer to the landing site.
A real meteorite was so much more fun than the one in video games, Hao Ren thought.
When everything settled down and went back to normal, the sky appeared to be torn in half. The shock wave had blown a clear opening in the sky—the clouds were cleared away. When the first ray of the morning sun shone across the land, the castle was completely gone.
The rock, the hill and the crypt; everything that stood there a moment ago had vanished. A burning crater had taken their place. Surrounding the crater were cracked lines in the earth created by the impact.
While Hao Ren stood still in awe, a little whirlwind appeared and Y’zaks emerged from it right beside him. The demon then spoke with an awkward expression on his face, "Was it a little too loud? The meteorite, I brought it from the Kuiper belt. You know, I didn’t have time to find a smaller one. I thought this one would be just fine not knowing that it contained manganese nodules. I thought it was an ice rock. An ice rock would have been less powerful. By the way, your Solar System is one hell of a place, a perfect place for meteorite fireworks."
Hao Ren remained silent.
Hao Ren shook his head helplessly. "The can of worms is gone. We’ll leave the meteorite to the English astrophysicists to explain. Let’s go guys, hurry up!"
By then, Nangong, who was lying on the ground had finally woken up—possibly awakened by the meteorite’s impact. The half-baked demon-hunter rose to his feet before reaching for the back of his head with his hand and uttered, "O-o-oy." He then sensed a burning smell in the air. "*cough*, what happened to me?"
The abbreviated piece of nothing could not have woken up at a better moment!