Chapter 404: Awake

It was all silent...

His mind...

His thoughts... 𝖋𝘳ℯ

His sense of self all gone, forced into a state of null, where his consciousness couldn’t even access the flow of time.

Seth’s mind was left in a state that can only be described as a limbo...

And then it all ended, suddenly almost like something snapped, every neuron in his newly reconstructed brain lit up with activity all at once.

His heart skipped a beat as his eyes cracked open wide, his lips parting, his pupils quivering from the intensity of his situation...

His mind raveling back into existence yet lagging a few steps behind.

He jerked forward, his arms lurching for the air, his face still twisted with terror as he gasped and wheezed short of breath, a stinging ache flooding his nerves.

Seth’s thoughts scrambled, his chest heaving, to him he was still at his exact dying moment, his memories gave him no sense of reprieve, flooding in all at once, images, details, pain, exhaustion...

"Arrghhh!" he groaned in pain, clutching his skull tight, eyes squeezed shut...

The monster, that formless beast, its influence, its power, it was all still fresh in Seth’s mind, the feel of his mind crumbling piece by piece.

His cells being vaporized one after another, his energy nodes deforming...

To him that moment never ended...

Seth bit his lips so tight that a well of blood pooled, dense drops leaking and forming streaks, as he shook his head, his mind plagued by the intense traumatic experience, unable to perceive the world around him.

At the same time, two figures quickly rushed into the medic center, the doctor and his assistant, not daring to step closer seeing the state Seth was in.

He was clearly out of it, and proceeding through this situation loosely could cause any of them to be carelessly slapped to death!

This was a real possibility especially when their patient was one of humanity’s greatest soldiers...

"Quick! Alert the president! Alert his teammates! He’ll alert all who are keeping tabs on him!" the doctor ordered hurriedly.

He needed someone strong enough to keep Seth in check so he could make a proper diagnosis on this guy.

But without that assurance of someone strong, the doctor dared not take another step forward.

"Yes sir!" The assistant was quick to respond, dashing out of the room.

Standing a good distance away from Seth, the doctor adjusted his glasses beneath the flickering lights of the swinging lamps above.

The doctor studied Seth with a suspicious frown.

"Strange..." he muttered, stroking his chin. "An evolver of his level causing such a degree of commotion should evoke a greater amount of reaction, no?"

The doctor’s eyes shifted to the bed Seth lay curled on, then scanned the entire room... yet nothing.

No heaven-shaking rattle, no stormy clouds gathering, heck the bed holding his frame didn’t so much as make a squeak.

The doctor frowned, "Strange..."

A few minutes ago Uriel had awakened, yet the commotion he evoked was no joke.

Seth had to be at least on the same level as that guy, from the small hints of information he had gathered here and there on his patients.

Yet...

The doctor took a step forward, his heart racing, yet he wore a tight, stern expression, his gaze fixed on Seth’s writhing figure.

He walked closer... closer than he should have been able to, compared to Uriel Mormont.

The air was still cool and breathable, the atmosphere remaining bare of any overpowering presence and will...

The doctor’s heartbeat rose, thumping against his chest, his hair standing on end as he got close to Seth... too close... 𝐟𝒓ℯⅇ

Stealing his nerves, the doctor reached out and suddenly grabbed Seth by the arm, his eyes closing tight, expecting the worst, almost as though he knew this guy could react blindly and punch him to his death.

"..."

The doctor opened his eyes and stared at his grip wrapped tight around Seth’s wrist, he didn’t just grab it, he had pulled it his way and the arm moved.

The doctor’s breath caught as he realized his suspicions were on point!

The doctor himself was a newly awakened evolver, with stats barely above 200, yet he was able to move what was meant to be unmovable.

’Could it be?’ the doctor’s grip tightened, ’No, there’s no other explanation... this lad has grown inexplicably weaker!’

Meanwhile, on Seth’s end, the physical contact initiated by the doctor was enough to snap him out of his delirious state...

The pain, the agony and, more importantly, the presence of the zone boss, it all dissipated all of a sudden.

His senses snapping back into the wavelength of the present.

To him who seemed to have been experiencing chaos all at once, everything suddenly seemed to go silent.

Left there in a room fully lit with electric lamps, the beeps from the cardiac monitor meeting his ears.

The cold touch of corruption fading, and the fractures tearing through his psyche vanishing...

Seth blinked rapidly, his blurry vision snapping back to clarity...

He found himself on a bed, one hand on his chest, the other raised... no, not raised, held onto.

Meeting the gaze of the doctor holding his hand, Seth’s brows furrowed, he went against every instinct and remained calm, despite the questions swarming his mind...

To him one moment he was still in the process of dying, being ripped apart both mentally and physically by the combined efforts of the zone boss, the Will Manifestation Ring’s backlash and the divine weapon spirit, and the next moment he was suddenly here.

He didn’t even realize he had been saved, let alone the fact that he was back home.

"Who are you?" he asked, suddenly startling the doctor who didn’t have any idea that he had regained lucidity.

The doctor blinked, putting on a faint smile as he quickly introduced himself, "Well, I am the doctor placed in charge of your well-being, you can call me Dr Collins Nell."

Recalling something, he loosened his grip, shifting it into a handshake, as he smiled at Seth, "Oh, and welcome back to the realm of the living."

Seth wasn’t dumb, the introduction from the doctor alone was enough for him to deduce his current situation.

Seth shot upright, "We... we escaped?!" he gasped.

Wondering how the others were even able to rescue him. He did recall sensing Brandon and Uriel’s presence towards the end, after all.

He willed for his status page on instinct... and the details that unraveled before him were unlike anything he anticipated...

"What the fuck?!"