BOOM!
The explosive device mounted upon the cliff’s face went off the very moment Leo’s left palm struck the display of his clock.
Consisting of several packets of condensed explosives that could be moved around to change its purpose has turned into an incendiary launcher.
At first, when the entire cliff shook under the force of the explosion halfway up its base, everyone froze.
It was a natural human instinct to stay still when encountering the unknown, something deeply ingrained in everyone’s genetic code from the long ages the species spent as mere prey for stronger and faster predators.
And from the looks of things, the same rule applied in this world too.
‘Move!’
Paying attention to moving at just a slightly hurried rate, Leo paid no attention to the other guard who noticed him.
In the time it took the man to shake off the mental shock caused by the sudden explosion and the shaking of the ground, Leon covered five more steps. And even then, rather than looking at him, the guard’s eyes moved over to the flashing tip of the smoke arc cutting through the clear, blue sky.
Two more seconds passed, allowing Leo to take five more steps and reach the halfway point to the nearby truck.
And in just one more second…
CRACABOOM!
If there were a hundred packets of condensed explosive within the device, then only three, maybe four of them served as the propellant.
And when a huge chunk of a forest suddenly rose up to the skies, carried away by the massive ball of fire that the explosives turned into, not a single pair of eyes could be bothered to move toward Leo.
‘Keep moving,’ Leo urged himself both to move but also to maintain his relatively relaxed, casual pace.
Five more steps and the young man reached the range specified within the instructions he fed into his clock. And following said instructions, while proving the quality of its sturdy design, the rear gate to the truck swung open.
‘Just a little bit more!’
Behind Leo’s back, the fireball quickly turned into a cloud of smoke, much faster than it would happen in a game or a movie he knew of. Still, while the area of direct impact turned into a scorched wasteland… The real damaging factor of the explosion has yet to…
WHOOSH!
With no more than ten steps left before reaching the safety of the truck’s insides, the shockwave of the massive explosion finally reached the hill, striking Leo squarely in the back and sending him flying several steps forward.
Bang!
Not accounting for this in his plans, Leo was caught off guard by the sudden pressure.
With his muscles already pushed to their limit and working on nothing but nanites and adrenaline, Leo had no hopes of resisting the shockwave. As a result, just to prove that everyone had to pay for their stupidity, the wave of the compressed air not only sent him flying… But also smashed him right into the armor of the truck.
“Khe…”
A fresh wave of pain replaced Leo’s self split between the mind-numbing pain in the head and the extreme pressure in his chest that squeezed every last molecule of air out of his lungs.
‘Shit, move man, move!’
Sliding down the armor the shockwave smashed him against, Leo failed to push his muscles through this very last stretch.
The young man fell down on his ass, with the inviting safety of the truck’s open rear gate mere inches away.
So close… yet so far.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!”
A clearly feminine voice filled the air.
A voice Leo could easily recognize, for it was engraved as a trauma deep into his soul.
And it was this very voice that allowed him to spark just one more, desperate bout of strength.
Grabbing at the edge of the open gate, Leo pulled himself inside of the truck before slamming his fist into the huge, red button.
But nothing happened, save for the new wave of dull pain exploding all over his wrist.
‘What the…’
“AN INTRUDER!”
All of the distractions could only work so far. And with nothing but a box of movable plexiglass protecting the button for an emergency lock-down of the truck, the alarm was now up.
‘Oh, come on!’
Gritting his teeth and losing precious seconds to flip the cover of the button up, Leo’s fingers caressed the outer surface of the button, struggling to gather even the whisk of strength necessary to actually press it in.
A series of hurried footsteps reached Leo’s ears, once again sparking a shadow of strength. Or maybe it was the nanites overcoming the numbness and exhaustion of his body in a moment of desperation?
Either way, mere moments before the cultivators could reach the back of the truck…
“HE WENT FROM THE BACK!”
Leo finally managed to press the big, red button.
A sudden flash of intense, red light nearly blinded the young man, only for the entirety of the extremely heavy truck to shake when the emergency protocol activated, slamming the rear entrance with enough strength to crush anything that stood in the gate’s way.
The rear entrance to the truck closed… And Leo suddenly found himself in a completely new world.
Surrounded by nothing but steel, various equipment racks, and interactive panels, he could forget about the entirety of the outside world for a moment. In here, a man felt protected; protected by the many tons of reinforcements designed to withstand the worst of what all sorts of worlds down the probability well could throw at them.
But there was also another point to note, something that Leo could observe all the way back on Earth, but also something that Leo being from Earth made it impossible for him to notice back then. Now that he got inside and closed the rear entrance… The insides of the truck were perfectly silent.
At least, for the few seconds before all sorts of slamming and banging from the outside filled the truck’s insides with quite the head-hurting noise.
‘One minute left,’ Leo thought, struggling to even raise his wrist to take a look at his watch.
Every single part of his body was in pain. He pushed every last muscle of his body to its absolute limit and then beyond, relying on nanites to approach and then slam right past all the limits his biology designed.
Still, now that he was within the relative safety of the truck and with the clock to the return mercilessly ticking, Leo forced all the pain to the back of his head before grabbing on random parts of the truck’s insides to pull himself up to the front-left corner.
Or to be more precise, the small compartment hidden beyond the thick barrier separating the driver’s area from the infantry holding position and then right below the driver’s seat.
THUD!
A strike far more powerful than anything before slammed into the side of the truck, rocking Leo’s body an inch to the side.
‘Fuck you,’ the young man thought, directing his curses to whoever was rude enough to keep bothering him.
And with only about thirty seconds of the clock, Leo managed to squeeze his hand into the small compartment and grab on an apple-sized orb covered in a special paint that made it look like just a rusty part that fell off something more important.
It was just another precaution implemented by the Sava corporation, just in case some natives somehow managed to get inside of the truck and loot it for whatever they could find inside.
This rusty sphere that fit perfectly within Leo’s hand was his ticket home. A single look at his wrist confirmed that his unfortunate adventure would finally end in just about ten seconds.
“As unlikely as it might be,” following nothing but his personal, perverted desire, Leo forced himself to stand up as he held the orb out to his right while grabbing onto one of the spare backpacks conveniently hanging on just the right spot for him to catch on.
“I’ve survived,” Leo announced to the world in a feeble, faint voice with a small smile of relief…
Only for a narrow blade to somehow slice past the many layers of the truck’s armor and skewer him right through his guts literally a single second before the rob lit up.
“Haaa…”
Not having enough strength to even scream out in pain, Leo simply stared down at the bloody blade coming out from just below his solar plexus.
His vision blanked right as the light of the orb suddenly expanded and filled in every nook and cranny of the truck’s insides.
The reality warped all around the young man and an invisible tether locked onto his mind, anchoring him back to the reality he originated from. A link… that Leo’s lethal injury prevented the young man from keeping a hold on.
Stuck in the dimensional void of the probability well, Leo glanced up, to where this tether attempted to pull him back home… Only for the link to break, sending the young man stumbling back into the dimension no human mind could navigate.
BOOM!
The explosive device mounted upon the cliff’s face went off the very moment Leo’s left palm struck the display of his clock.
Consisting of several packets of condensed explosives that could be moved around to change its purpose has turned into an incendiary launcher.
At first, when the entire cliff shook under the force of the explosion halfway up its base, everyone froze.
It was a natural human instinct to stay still when encountering the unknown, something deeply ingrained in everyone’s genetic code from the long ages the species spent as mere prey for stronger and faster predators.
And from the looks of things, the same rule applied in this world too.
‘Move!’
Paying attention to moving at just a slightly hurried rate, Leo paid no attention to the other guard who noticed him.
In the time it took the man to shake off the mental shock caused by the sudden explosion and the shaking of the ground, Leon covered five more steps. And even then, rather than looking at him, the guard’s eyes moved over to the flashing tip of the smoke arc cutting through the clear, blue sky.
Two more seconds passed, allowing Leo to take five more steps and reach the halfway point to the nearby truck.
And in just one more second…
CRACABOOM!
If there were a hundred packets of condensed explosive within the device, then only three, maybe four of them served as the propellant.
And when a huge chunk of a forest suddenly rose up to the skies, carried away by the massive ball of fire that the explosives turned into, not a single pair of eyes could be bothered to move toward Leo.
‘Keep moving,’ Leo urged himself both to move but also to maintain his relatively relaxed, casual pace.
Five more steps and the young man reached the range specified within the instructions he fed into his clock. And following said instructions, while proving the quality of its sturdy design, the rear gate to the truck swung open.
‘Just a little bit more!’
Behind Leo’s back, the fireball quickly turned into a cloud of smoke, much faster than it would happen in a game or a movie he knew of. Still, while the area of direct impact turned into a scorched wasteland… The real damaging factor of the explosion has yet to…
WHOOSH!
With no more than ten steps left before reaching the safety of the truck’s insides, the shockwave of the massive explosion finally reached the hill, striking Leo squarely in the back and sending him flying several steps forward.
Bang!
Not accounting for this in his plans, Leo was caught off guard by the sudden pressure.
With his muscles already pushed to their limit and working on nothing but nanites and adrenaline, Leo had no hopes of resisting the shockwave. As a result, just to prove that everyone had to pay for their stupidity, the wave of the compressed air not only sent him flying… But also smashed him right into the armor of the truck.
“Khe…”
A fresh wave of pain replaced Leo’s self split between the mind-numbing pain in the head and the extreme pressure in his chest that squeezed every last molecule of air out of his lungs.
‘Shit, move man, move!’
Sliding down the armor the shockwave smashed him against, Leo failed to push his muscles through this very last stretch.
The young man fell down on his ass, with the inviting safety of the truck’s open rear gate mere inches away.
So close… yet so far.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!”
A clearly feminine voice filled the air.
A voice Leo could easily recognize, for it was engraved as a trauma deep into his soul.
And it was this very voice that allowed him to spark just one more, desperate bout of strength.
Grabbing at the edge of the open gate, Leo pulled himself inside of the truck before slamming his fist into the huge, red button.
But nothing happened, save for the new wave of dull pain exploding all over his wrist.
‘What the…’
“AN INTRUDER!”
All of the distractions could only work so far. And with nothing but a box of movable plexiglass protecting the button for an emergency lock-down of the truck, the alarm was now up.
‘Oh, come on!’
Gritting his teeth and losing precious seconds to flip the cover of the button up, Leo’s fingers caressed the outer surface of the button, struggling to gather even the whisk of strength necessary to actually press it in.
A series of hurried footsteps reached Leo’s ears, once again sparking a shadow of strength. Or maybe it was the nanites overcoming the numbness and exhaustion of his body in a moment of desperation?
Either way, mere moments before the cultivators could reach the back of the truck…
“HE WENT FROM THE BACK!”
Leo finally managed to press the big, red button.
A sudden flash of intense, red light nearly blinded the young man, only for the entirety of the extremely heavy truck to shake when the emergency protocol activated, slamming the rear entrance with enough strength to crush anything that stood in the gate’s way.
The rear entrance to the truck closed… And Leo suddenly found himself in a completely new world.
Surrounded by nothing but steel, various equipment racks, and interactive panels, he could forget about the entirety of the outside world for a moment. In here, a man felt protected; protected by the many tons of reinforcements designed to withstand the worst of what all sorts of worlds down the probability well could throw at them.
But there was also another point to note, something that Leo could observe all the way back on Earth, but also something that Leo being from Earth made it impossible for him to notice back then. Now that he got inside and closed the rear entrance… The insides of the truck were perfectly silent.
At least, for the few seconds before all sorts of slamming and banging from the outside filled the truck’s insides with quite the head-hurting noise.
‘One minute left,’ Leo thought, struggling to even raise his wrist to take a look at his watch.
Every single part of his body was in pain. He pushed every last muscle of his body to its absolute limit and then beyond, relying on nanites to approach and then slam right past all the limits his biology designed.
Still, now that he was within the relative safety of the truck and with the clock to the return mercilessly ticking, Leo forced all the pain to the back of his head before grabbing on random parts of the truck’s insides to pull himself up to the front-left corner.
Or to be more precise, the small compartment hidden beyond the thick barrier separating the driver’s area from the infantry holding position and then right below the driver’s seat.
THUD!
A strike far more powerful than anything before slammed into the side of the truck, rocking Leo’s body an inch to the side.
‘Fuck you,’ the young man thought, directing his curses to whoever was rude enough to keep bothering him.
And with only about thirty seconds of the clock, Leo managed to squeeze his hand into the small compartment and grab on an apple-sized orb covered in a special paint that made it look like just a rusty part that fell off something more important.
It was just another precaution implemented by the Sava corporation, just in case some natives somehow managed to get inside of the truck and loot it for whatever they could find inside.
This rusty sphere that fit perfectly within Leo’s hand was his ticket home. A single look at his wrist confirmed that his unfortunate adventure would finally end in just about ten seconds.
“As unlikely as it might be,” following nothing but his personal, perverted desire, Leo forced himself to stand up as he held the orb out to his right while grabbing onto one of the spare backpacks conveniently hanging on just the right spot for him to catch on.
“I’ve survived,” Leo announced to the world in a feeble, faint voice with a small smile of relief…
Only for a narrow blade to somehow slice past the many layers of the truck’s armor and skewer him right through his guts literally a single second before the rob lit up.
“Haaa…”
Not having enough strength to even scream out in pain, Leo simply stared down at the bloody blade coming out from just below his solar plexus.
His vision blanked right as the light of the orb suddenly expanded and filled in every nook and cranny of the truck’s insides.
The reality warped all around the young man and an invisible tether locked onto his mind, anchoring him back to the reality he originated from. A link… that Leo’s lethal injury prevented the young man from keeping a hold on.
Stuck in the dimensional void of the probability well, Leo glanced up, to where this tether attempted to pull him back home… Only for the link to break, sending the young man stumbling back into the dimension no human mind could navigate.
