The moment Noah confirmed his choice, a sensation of weightlessness took over him and he soon found himself falling as the world and the ground around him was seemingly digitized.
A black world with green 0’s and 1’s formed in different ways and shapes.
This continued for what seemed like hours, even though it might also have been only one minute, and finally, the world around him seemed to become more defined, getting the shapes and appearance of a large area with many trees.
“A forest?”
He looked around in confusion before immediately ducking as he felt the air being split by an incoming projectile.
This is the second fucking time. Is it too much to ask to at least let me observe the surroundings first before being jumped on?
Bang!
Only after ducking and avoiding the attack did he finally hear the sound of the gun. This gave him a good idea of actually how fast he was moving.
Where is this coming from?
He looked behind himself only to be met by a group of weird-looking humanoid creatures with deformed appearances.
Their eyes were vacant and their bellies were bulging. They had rather abnormal pale skins. All this made Noah simply uncomfortable as memories of the past surfaced.
Noah started to frown as his eyes scanned and observed them more deeply. He had a feeling that he could recognize these monsters. No, more than the monsters themselves he could also recognize the uniform those people were wearing. They had motifs very close to that of soldiers from Earth.
“Hello…”
Many guns were immediately on him and Noah made a very smart move this time.
He starting running away.
—I thought you didn’t run away from enemies?
I am not running away. This is just a strategic retreat.
Noah could have simply jumped and massacred everything there. The weapons they held were too old but he did not.
[Mission: Survive! The colony is being attacked. Flee until the end of time. Do not fight, your chances of winning are near zero.]
[Warning! In case you are about to get captured, a word of advice…Kill yourself. You do not want to be alive and in their hands.]
Noah did not take those warnings lightly nor did he dare to dismiss them. The warnings themselves were a kind of clue and as disbelieving as he was, Noah was starting to grasp just where he was.
This should not be possible but…He already understood that in this place — Nothing was truly impossible.
Rather than moaning about this, he accelerated further, creating a small shockwave as he went beyond his usual speed and broke through the forest. Behind him, a group of more than sixty monsters were attacking as they continued shooting at him.
The back of his armor extended and changed into a large three-layered shield, protecting his body from incoming attacks. He was also keeping his senses spread wide to avoid something along the idea of an assassin or a sniper.
How long do I have to survive?
[Time remaining: 71H:50M:20S]
Well, at least it was very pretty helpful. It had been a long time since he had an exact time frame.
Truly he was coming back to civilization.
Noah grinned as he jumped to the right and avoided a literal cannonball shot at super speed.
There was one reason he did not bother killing any of them. If his speculation were right then the moment he did so, his importance in their mind would be increased tremendously and would make the situation even harder for him.
He needed to assess their numbers and how powerful the technology they had at hand was. He also needed to see if this was a personal test or if all the others were also present. If so, he would have cannon fodder he could use as bait to throw at those monsters.
The frantic course seemed ready to continue for all eternity but soon, Noah was able to see the tree around him gradually thinning.
It was then —
[Warning! Change in mission!]
[New Mission: As the highest difficulty had been chosen. The goal had been changed from survival to elimination. As the highest difficulty was chosen, the weapons held by the enemies were updated. Their numbers increased and so did their toughness, physical abilities, and their ability to react.]
[Warning! In search of fairness, the highest level has been adjusted based on your Dark Matter level.]
Noah was baffled as he felt the presence of the monstrosity behind him increase slightly. They were completely at a different level from the ones a few moments ago.
If he had the confidence to beat all of them easily, now he would have to wonder just how much he would have to sacrifice to do so.
—So you are still going to destroy them either way?
Either I crush them or they crush me. No brainer.
Of course, this wasn’t a question of wanting but actually being able to. Noah was not deterred by the new mission. In fact, he liked it more. After all, fleeing was truly something he did not like doing.
Finally leaving the forest, Noah stopped and looked at the fortress in front of him. His eyes moved all around, grasping everything and searching deep down in his memories.
Watching the slightly broken flags flying in the winds at the top, he took a deep shaky breath before releasing it.
Now that his memories were coming back, he did not need any more confirmation as he finally had all the pieces of the puzzle in his mind.
“Hah…”
The reason he was confused was simple. He had actually never seen this place himself. He had only seen the traces of ruins left taken by a powerful space laboratory.
This planet was not some unknown place in this void.
This was —
“Mars colony.”
And obviously, the ones chasing him were none other than?`
—They are Parasites
Just what the fuck was going on again?
***
Planet Mars.
Alongside Venus, it was one of the planets that had been slowly developed enough to be terraformed by humans to form an inhabitable planet as they were both planets with very high potential of housing life. In fact, they all had the right elements to form natural life on the planet and would have surely produced sparks of life if certain unfavorable conditions weren’t produced. For example, Venus did not find its rotation speed weakened after an accident during its creation.
Thanks to the insistence of a man from the previous era who had been one of the richest men alive at the time, humanity heavily focused on terraforming Mars to its full potential first rather than developing and exploring the Earth of all of its secrets so that they would be able to control all the available resources of the planet they originated on.
In hindsight, and now knowing how the system worked in general, Noah understood that focusing on terraforming other planets first had been a mistake by humanity. After all, due to this venture, they ended up becoming a Civilization that had not been able to reach even Type I even though they had some of the inklings of a post-Type I civilization like planetary expeditions and solar system-wide space travel.
While the enthusiastic man had, good intentions in mind in terraforming Mars, as he wished for humanity to have a second home in case of an extinction class event taking place in the coming future.
It was clear he could have never guessed that they would be attacked by aliens and what followed the attack was perhaps the most devastating defeat that humanity had ever faced.
Many historians and tacticians even went on to form opinions that, had humans not been so devastated and separated due to the many wars that followed, the following fights against the aliens would have been far less difficult for them.
Mars, which had become a military colony, as the different countries fought over the resources on the planet was not able to move appropriately and efficiently to counterattack the invaders. Furthermore, because of their lack of understanding of what the Parasites represented, many human activist groups rose and proffered the desire to have peaceful talks with the aliens.
Even as he read the files detailing the information back then, Noah did not have much opinion on what transpired. With insight and information at disposal, it was easy to see and understand what should have been done back then by humanity.
But hindsight was always 20/20 and far removed from reality. There was fundamentally nothing wrong with wishing to discuss peacefully with the first alien races they had encountered in the vastness of space.
Sadly, while he could not give a subjective judgment, reality did the job for him. Because of politics, military and civil protests, the army was mired in a plan of incomprehension and was swiftly annihilated by the invading alien species. Annihilated and incorporated into their ranks and turned against their comrades.
The Mars outpost fell at the hands of the Parasite and the invading aliens started assimilating humans in their evolution process to make better versions of themselves by learning human characteristics. They learned new things, new tactics, new ways and capabilities of thinking like humans. They imitated humans and increased the numbers of their soldiers exponentially as they had so many surviving specimens.
Thus, it was deemed the most catastrophic defeat in the history of humanity and paved the way for the Parasites’ domination in the subsequent fights.
“So now, I have to annihilate them? Alone while they are boosted?”
Was it asking him to change the course of history? It did not seem to be the case but Noah always wondered one thing— what would his life have been like if they never appeared?
Surely far worse.
But now wasn't the time to dwell on the past. Fleeing from his pursuers while employing all of his honed skills to erase all of his traces, Noah swiftly entered the abandoned fortress.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He felt like he was entering some sort of military & art museum, showing the history of a world long forgotten in the vestiges of the past.
He couldn't help but wonder what was the purpose of this place? However, he was soon able to realize the significance it held for humanity.
Perhaps this was truly a record of history for the human race.
After all, for him who already knew what happened, he had no need nor interest to search around this place, but for the people who knew nothing, these ruins would be a great page of history they would be keen on inspecting and understanding to further realize the evolution and significance of humanity.
This is all good and all but now, what should I do?
Sitting on the ground, he spun his mind into thinking things through. The Parasites of those times were at the first stage of their evolution, but they were already able to move in large numbers, far surpassing the corresponding human numbers.
Noah was sure that he could kill many of them without much problem, but he was anything but a tireless machine.
He had been fighting nonstop since his time in the spaceship and now if he started waging some kind of war on the Parasites of all things, he would most likely lack enough juice to fuel himself. He really didn't want to get captured by those disgusting creatures.
“Well…”
His brain, which had slowed down to a crawl due to processing all the information he had collected, started churning the gears once more to figure out a solution to his predicament. Sooner than he expected, he realized that the answer was quite simple all along.
After all— he had been in the same situation in the past.
Though at that time I had people paving the way for me.
For all his pride and arrogance, Noah would never say that he could have done it all alone.
Not only because he could have not razed through everything on its own without expending all of his juice, but also because it would have been an insult to all the soldiers who had sacrificed their lives to bring more information about the Parasites.
An insult to all the scientists who never went home and experimented even on themselves to find answers regarding the Parasites— their invaders.
Finally… To all his friends who fought alongside him for a better future for all of humanity.
This time though, he was all alone. No Mecha to his name, no companions to fight alongside him, and no support to help him out.
— You are wrong.
Oh? What do you mean?
— You are not alone this time either.
…. Heh… Hahaha.
Noah laughed inwardly. Not caring whether he would be found or not, he laughed out loud to himself.
“Truly ironic.”
In the end, he leaked out a sigh. His eyes became cold as he prepared his mind to fully enter combat mode.
Indeed. The situation was different from back then but so was he.
“Where was the Mothership?”
— In this period of time. I should have already landed on Mars. Let me guide you there.
Very well.
Instantly, Noah moved along a guided path as new information was fed into the screen of his visor, directly before his sight, acting as a makeshift GPS to the Mothership, housing the Queen of all Parasites.
Even as he ran in the opposite direction towards the parasites, Noah still found the situation extremely ridiculous even by his standards.
Here he was, trusting the very being who had caused the whole situation in the first place by invading Earth and killing his friends in cold blood.
Now they were about to fight a past variation of this very being…
How could this be anything but an astonishingly ridiculous situation?
But this was happening and this was reality.
Back then when he woke up with her in his mind, Noah had thought that he was going crazy and that he had been compromised by the enemy already, becoming a Parasite of his own.
The two of them fought against each other every step of the way, but fighting against an entity that was one with you was no different from fighting against yourself.
Furthermore, back then he had not been as physically strong as he had become now. He suffered greatly at first.
Until they started to work together.
From hatred. To reluctant partnership. To acknowledgment and finally an awkward relationship of what could be considered trust.
As his time spent with the Queen increased and the total amount of time with her in his head surpassed the time he had ever lived on Earth, most possibly, his own sense of self became far blurrier as he continued to wonder.
Was he truly Noah?
Was it truly the Queen of Parasites in his head?
Or were they nothing more than a new being created with the memories and capacity of the two melded into one?
What made Noah, Noah? What made him what he was?
Such philosophical questions tormented him in the past but were swiftly buried in his mind as he fought for survival.
He was Noah.
The Strongest Mecha pilot on Earth and it was time for him to add a new legend to his long line of accolades.
It's time to kill!
Like a mad bulldog, Noah started to rush towards the horde of over 100 parasites that seemed utterly astonished to see him quite literally jump them.
The armor encasing his body started to change, wiggling and morphing as the aesthetic form changed to a more burly shape without any significant detail.
Numerous crimson eyes appeared all over the body while deadly spikes and jagged teeth-wielding mouths formed all over the exoskeleton.
Noah was sure that from afar, he looked like nothing more than a monster but it did not matter to him.
Sometimes…
To kill monsters…
You had to become one yourself.
***
The following fight against the horde of Parasites was undoubtedly the most difficult fight Noah had to go through in a long, long while. Almost too long.
From the get go, what made the Parasites truly terrifying, beyond their ability to evolve into the beings they devoured and assimilated into themselves, was their hivemind. All of them were connected due to this trait.
They did not feel fear.
They did not feel fatigued.
They did not question orders.
They did not refuse orders.
Destroying themselves was not seen as a sacrifice, for they did not truly die and were still part of the greater whole. Thus they were complete, thus they could do anything.
Death did not stop them. It was not the end, merely the dissection of a single part, insignificant to the greater whole.
They had no individual greed, desire or will.
Just their purpose and the duty to accomplish said purpose by any means necessary.
Parasites were the ultimate army, the epitome of military perfection that would make any military drool to make them their own. Perhaps, the only thing one would find lacking in them would be the inherent time required for them to learn and evolve from their former self.
Fighting them was a tiring ordeal, often giving the feeling of not being a worthwhile endeavor.
Since they all shared the same senses, it was impossible to catch them off guard in the traditional sense. Alerting even one of them meant alerting the whole horde and the hive mind as a whole.
If this had been an assassination mission in the game, Noah would have thrown the controller against a wall and cursed all nine generations of the developer of this unbalanced game for giving him such an impossible mission.
Thankfully, this was reality, and stealth was merely one of the many options.
———
Endless roars of an enraged beast filled the periphery of the forest as raging winds and billowing clouds of dust rose in the surroundings of the horrific sound. The amalgam of explosions from gunshots, super rifles and other conventional weapons used in the olden times created a cacophony of carnage in a form of music that was nothing short of a beautiful symphony of death and destruction.
To kill a parasite, destroying their heads and their hearts was the surest way possible that they had devised while fighting the cosmic beasts. They could die of blood loss but as they inherently had great vitality, they could survive even if they were bisected from head to toe.
Bzzz~!
Noah immediately stepped to the side, even before the sound could reach him. The missing hand on his right arm was the result of him having underestimated technology.
Portable Railgun.
Perhaps one of the greatest wet dreams of all scientists who specialized in weapon development on Earth was this particular weapon. And the worst thing was…
They shouldn’t have this shit right now. Not when it was developed far later in the fight against the Parasites.
The first usable model of a Portable Railgun was created long after the war against the aliens began and was only equipable on Mechas for the greatest efficiency possible while using the guns. They had never managed to reach the level of a handgun in his time either, only being able to make it portable enough for the giant Mechas. Which wasn’t portable in the truest sense but it was what it was.
In the first place, it should have been impossible to create a source of energy high enough to shoot an explosive railgun and the recoil would destroy the shoulder of anyone trying to use the cataclysmic weapon.
However, it did not stop them from creating the deadly weapon of mass destruction.
Noah exchanged a flurry of fists and kicks against the horde of cosmic beasts before plunging his arm into the chest of one of the creatures closest to him and efficiently destroying its heart and core.
Even though he made it seem easy, the action itself was far harder than how he accomplished it so smoothly. They may seem like standard humans, in the most horrific and disfigured shapes possible, but their bodies were incredibly tough and resilient even before they received the boost, whatever the fuck it may be, from the system to elevate the difficulty. Furthermore, they could increase their speed and power by seemingly using Dark Matter or some similar substance.
I didn’t know you could do that.
— I didn’t know either. Humans never had Dark Matter inside their bodies so our evolution simply focused on increasing our physical abilities by integrating them into the human body.
That is good and all but, I am being surrounded by these fuckers.
It was also worth noting that he was unable to devour or eat them either as he did with the pirates. Not only because he didn’t have the time to go through with the devouring process but also because once they died, they would swiftly decompose and vanish from existence. Alongside their weapon. Thus Noah had no way of replenishing his energy reserves.
From fifty to five hundred and now far more than he could even count with a glance. The number of enemies did not go down as he killed them but simply kept on increasing.There was no doubt in his mind. This test was not something someone could pass. If the power of the Parasites was increased to match the power of the one taking the test then the only possible result would be surefire Death.
But far from feeling desperate in the current situation, a certain sense of excitement took hold inside Noah and was on a steady rise.
Fighting the pirates had started waking up his buried senses from his days fighting in the war but it had not been enough for him to recuperate all of his senses. They were too weak to bring much joy and anticipation inside him and awaken the predator that lay within him.
But this…
A massive grin formed on his face and his eyes shone in a luster of gold. This was a moment for him to retrace his steps and learn from the very basics. In the future, he might once again be besieged like this, so he had to make sure to lodge this experience in his memory.
People had no reason to play fair. War was not a game.
So all he had to do was simple.
Adapt.
It was his calling, the single most effective way he was able to become what he had become. His whole life had been one painful ride of survival.
Slowly, the bulkier form of the Parasite Queen changed shapes, and two scolopendra like swords formed on his back and around his arms all moving with pinpoint precision as they immediately pierced his targets with near instantaneous response time.
The energy leakage of the Dark Matter inside him gradually slowed down to a moderately acceptable degree as he watched and observed how to use this new form of energy. After all, the pirates he had killed did not have access to Dark Matter.
The first time he voluntarily moved this pool of energy that rested deep in his body, Noah had the impression that he ascended to new heights of power.
The world was not different.
Nothing had changed.
Nothing except for him.
His moves became more efficient, faster and more bizarre. Despite having no particular trajectory or set path, they were far more destructive. Like a predator rushing in a flock of sheep, Noah danced to the rhythm of his attunement and killed them mercilessly one after the other. The more he killed the better he became.
However, after a long time of slaughtering the beasts, he realized that the Parasites had changed their tactics.
They were giving him more space as they entered a form of ranged combat. Not because of fear but because they judged that he had no particular way to reach them from a distance. He could only go as far as mid-range by extending his retractable blades using his armor.
They were not wrong.
Noah had no way to perform any ranged attacks. But this was also the fatal mistake they made.
The parasites were many things, but for all the perfection they seemed to have, there was one thing that should never be forgotten.
They were not above being tricked!
— I found her!
The Queen had not stayed idle throughout this fight. Though she had an idea where the other Queen should have been at this time, she did not have a perfect memory either and couldn't give the most accurate positioning to him.
But she was not useless. Not only did she help him move the two blades on his back and cover him but she had been working on intercepting and analyzing the orders that were being sent.
The positioning slightly shifted and exact numbers were added.
— Southwest. 1600 meters away from our current location.
Noah crouched down as a runner, slowly accumulating power in his legs. Both by using his strength and the little insight he had received by observing and analyzing the way the Parasites used Dark Matter.
By the time the Parasites realized that something was amiss and were about to crowd him once again— it had already been too late.
“Goodbye, fuckers!!”
Whoosh! BOOM!
Several explosions followed as shockwaves spread in his surroundings due to every one of his steps and Noah immediately broke the sound barrier.
No obstacles could stop him nor even slow him down as he flew like a bullet toward his target.
It was time to kill the Queen for the second time and end the test.