"Holy hell... where is this now..."
Boothill clutched his aching head, giving it a shake to clear his dazed vision.
"Crashing twice in one day... Freakin'... this sucks..."
Boothill sighed, genuinely wondering if he'd been set up by the corps.
"Where's my buddy?"
Once his senses returned, Boothill started scanning his surroundings.
"And the ship?"
He searched for Leon and any sign of the crashed ship.
But the sight that met his eyes left him frozen in place.
Before him was a vast pasture. Countless cattle and sheep trotted past, heading toward a lush meadow not far away where the water and grass were plentiful.
Boothill was incredibly familiar with this scenery; rather, it was the image of his hometown, where time had stopped in his memory, a place he could never forget.
"Algon-Apache."
This was his long-lost homeland, a home he could never return to.
"The water here is as mellow as fine wine, the snow as sharp as a knife's edge. This is—the best world there is."
Those were words often spoken by the people who raised him.
Boothill thought they were absolutely right.
A golden house or a silver one is never as good as your own doghouse.
No matter how great the big cities were, that was a life that didn't belong to them.
Even after becoming a Galaxy Ranger and visiting countless planets, Boothill never found another place like Algon where he would willingly die.
"What... what is happening..."
Boothill murmured, stunned. It was a little hard to believe, and a little... unwilling to wake up.
Algon. The ecology of this planet had been utterly destroyed by those bastards from the Market Development Department long ago. There was absolutely no way any trace of it could have been left behind.
Boothill was well aware of this.
But...
He really missed home so much.
Just let him stay a little longer... just a little while...
"■■■, what are you spacing out for over there? Hurry up and come here!"
From nearby came a voice, both strange and familiar, treasured deep in his mind. They spoke a name, handsome and resonant.
In the ancient tongue of Algon-Apache, it meant "a loaded gun."
Hearing his old name spoken again, Boothill's pupils constricted. He stiffly turned his head, his gaze fixed on the source of the sound.
"Grey... Nick..."
Boothill spoke with a tremor in his voice, uttering names that already felt awkward on his tongue.
"■■■, look, I can play the guitar now!"
Standing between the man and woman not far off was a little girl. They were the three most important people in Boothill's life.
Boothill instinctively held his breath, uncontrollably reaching out a hand as if to grasp this beautiful, fleeting moment.
But before he could fully extend his hand, the scene before him transformed once again.
The pleasant pasture had become a hellscape. The flames of destruction set every blade of grass ablaze, turning the paradise into a wasteland.
He used to love lying here, basking in the sun, but he was afraid he would never have that chance again.
Boothill stood frozen, as if in a trance.
Stray bullets whizzed past him from all directions—the resistance of the Algon people.
But in the face of the Corporation's high-tech weaponry, this resistance seemed so insignificant.
Fully armed soldiers were carrying out an inhuman massacre of the people of Algon.
"OSWALDO!!"
Boothill roared through gritted teeth!
BANG, BANG, BANG!
He didn't care if this was real or fake. Overcome with fury, he raised his revolver and fired relentlessly at these animals!
Watching the tragedy unfold once more, the obsessive need for vengeance in Boothill's eyes could not be suppressed!
...
...
The war-torn ruins.
"For fuck's sake, where did a simple crash land me? Dude, they even hit me with a time rewind!"
Leon cursed as he took in the scene before him.
The furious roars of battling Cloud Knights, the eagerly watching Denizens of Abundance, the living planet vivid in his memory.
And the Aeon of The Hunt, drawing their bow.
It seemed intent on sending him back to the moment he first arrived in this world, to let his consciousness die at the very beginning, to make the entire story that followed vanish like smoke.
As if everything was just a fantasy, an illusion. He was supposed to wake from this grand pipe dream and accept his death.
There's no Spring Autumn Cicada here, just the final delusion of a dying demon.
Obvious fake. Moron!
"Trying to suppress my system? You're really underestimating me!"
Leon sneered, looking as if 'the power of stats' was infinite.
"You think this crappy illusion can tarnish the reality of my stats? Are you ready to get one-shotted by my arrow?"
Leon's Dao-heart, his ambition for the throne of the Celestial Emperor, was unshakable. No one could stand in his way!
"Hiding in the shadows, afraid to show your face? You're not worthy of your own gimmick!"
Leon's system-sense told him this was all a setup by that gimmick-freak who'd been lurking for so long!
He couldn't figure out how this piece of shit dared to question him.
The only reason she could trap him now was because of her own unique gimmick, wasn't it?
On what grounds did she think sending him back to the past would make him lose his nerve? Did she think he'd gotten this far on pure luck?
That facing it all again meant certain death, so he should despair?
Give me a break. If using a gimmick counts as luck...
...then she's just a stray dog, too!
Besides, his status as an Emanator was the real deal, earned through hard work and sweat!
The system may have given him a momentary boost, but the fact that Lan didn't take it back later—and instead solidified his title—proved that the Aeon had acknowledged him fair and square!
These were his stats, his power!
"BREAK FOR ME!!"
As he spoke, a massive amount of Imaginary energy erupted from Leon's body. He was about to put on a real show!
He refused to believe this historical illusion could endlessly contain the energy someone radiated without exploding. That would be too broken.
In any case, screw it. Come what may, he was going to test the limits of this crappy illusion and see just how long it could hold him!
...
...
The galaxy.
A planet, immensely vast in the eyes of others, was at this moment being casually pinched between two fingers.
As if something the size of a planet was nothing more than a casual toy to her.
"Annihilation is not a process, but a result."
Phantylia chuckled, gently pinching the planet where the two were.
"Let that ignorant hunter draw his bow, kill what he loves, kill what he believes in."
Phantylia was proud of the game she had set.
"And finally, kill himself."
She had originally been on her way to find Leon.
It was only after coincidentally sensing the aura of "Iron Tomb" that she had temporarily changed her objective.
She decided to first support her colleague's performance before going to test the new Heavenly General of the Divine Bow.
But she never expected Leon to follow her here on his own.
Although she had no idea why he had followed, or how he had been so precise.
But it was truly a case of wearing out iron shoes in a fruitless search, only to find it effortlessly.
______
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