Against The Eternity Chapter 69: [68] Chapter 44: Forgotten Self

Read chapter 69 of Against The Eternity by Phoenixfly_steller on NovelPedia.

[68] Chapter 44: Forgotten Self Eklavya stood on the riverbed like a man already half-dead. His breathing was ragged, his limbs heavy as stone, and every pulse of his heart sent pain rippling through his battered body. His ki reserves were nearly empty, his muscles torn and screaming in protest, his vision dimming at the edges. He had reached the absolute limit of what a five-star practitioner warrior with a Supreme Body could endure. There was nothing left to calculate, nothing left to plan. He had given up. And perhaps that was why it happened. Just as the thousand-legged centipede surged forward, its massive shadow swallowing him whole, its mandibles opening wide to tear him apart and end everything in a single, merciless instant, something deep inside Eklavya shifted—not in his core or channels, not in his soul, but far deeper than both. His muscle memory awakened. There was no thought, no conscious decision, no warning. His body simply moved on its own. In a blur so sudden that even Eklavya himself could not comprehend it, he twisted aside, his feet sliding across the riverbed with perfect balance, narrowly evading the centipede’s fatal strike. The beast’s mandibles smashed into the stone where he had been standing, pulverising solid rock as if it were brittle clay, sending shockwaves through the water and fragments of stone exploding outward in every direction. Eklavya staggered, but he did not fall. His eyes were wide, unfocused, burning with something that was not fear and not reason. His chest rose and fell violently as something ancient and ugly clawed its way up from within him, tearing through restraint and sanity alike. Words burst from his mouth before he could stop them, raw and venomous, carrying the weight of hatred buried so deep that even he had forgotten it existed. “I won’t die today,” he said, his voice hoarse, trembling, yet filled with a terrifying certainty. “I haven’t taken my revenge yet. I won’t die before killing those bastards.” The centipede halted for a fraction of a second. Even the beast—a high-tier creature that had devoured cultivators stronger than Eklavya without hesitation—hesitated. It sensed something unnatural, something wrong. The speed Eklavya had just displayed did not belong to a man on the brink of death. It was precise. Controlled and trained. Inside the ring, Magha was stunned. He had seen Eklavya push beyond his limits before, had witnessed his stubborn will and reckless courage time and again, but this was different. This movement had not been forced through pain or fueled by desperation. It had been instinctive, polished, as if Eklavya’s body remembered something his mind did not. ‘He never fails to surprise me,’ Magha thought grimly. ‘But those words… revenge? What kind of past would carve something like this into a man’s muscles?’ The centipede did not remain idle for long. With a shrill screech, it lunged again, its massive body surging forward as thousands of legs churned the riverbed, propelling it at terrifying speed. Water exploded outward as it charged, its presence overwhelming, crushing. Eklavya moved. Again, his body reacted before his thoughts could catch up. His figure blurred, vanishing from the centipede’s sight for an instant before reappearing above it, landing hard atop its armoured back. The beast roared and thrashed violently, its body twisting and rolling as it tried to throw him off. Eklavya’s balance faltered, but his hands moved on their own, fingers digging into the gaps between the beast’s scales with desperate strength. Without hesitation, he raised his sword and drove it down with all the power he had left. The blade shattered. The sound was sharp and final, metal splintering against the centipede’s impenetrable scales. The beast screeched, not in pain, but in fury, accelerating violently as it flung its body side to side. Eklavya lost his footing, his grip torn loose as he was hurled through the water and smashed into the riverbed with bone-rattli