Empire Building With Infinite Warehouse-Chapter 117: Spatial Crush

The sound of the military grenade completely vanished the exact second they fell backwards into the swirling green energy of the portal, and it was like someone just flipped a switch to turn off all the sound in the entire universe.

But there is a problem in jumping blind into an unstable interdimensional tunnel while running for your life.

The silence was immediately replaced by a horrifying, crushing pressure that squeezed every single inch of Julien’s body from all directions at once without giving him any time to prepare.

It felt like a hundred concrete blocks were suddenly stacked right on top of his chest while a giant invisible hand wrapped tightly around his throat.

He tried to take a desperate breath of air to calm his racing heart, but his lungs were completely flattened inside his ribs and refused to expand at all.

The green light swirling all around them was not just some pretty magical effect meant to look cool because it was actually a chaotic storm of raw spatial energy actively trying to tear their physical forms apart piece by piece.

Julien forced his watering eyes open despite the blinding pain and watched a red system window flash right in the middle of his distorted vision.

His bright red health bar was dropping so incredibly fast that it looked like water draining out of a broken sink.

He realised with pure dread that he was losing ten percent of his total health every single second they spent trapped inside the terrifying green tunnel.

’This was a terrible decision,’ Julien thought to himself, watching his health drop down to a highly critical forty percent while his vision started getting blurry and dark around the edges.

’I should have just stayed at my boring market stall and sold cheap healing potions to regular scavengers instead of playing the brave hero for a guy I barely even know.’

Maya was floating right next to him in the strange zero-gravity environment, and she looked terrible.

Her skin was turning a scary shade of pale blue due to the complete lack of oxygen, and she was clutching her throat with both hands like she was trying to physically force her windpipe to open.

Kyle was positioned slightly ahead of them in the glowing tunnel, but even his broad frame was curling inward under the impossible weight of the spatial crush.

When everything was going downhill, Aiden suddenly reached out across the swirling space and grabbed Julien by the shoulder with a grip so incredibly tight that it almost bruised the bone right through his ruined merchant coat.

Julien looked over and realised in horror that Aiden was actually taking the spatial damage way worse than any of them combined.

The raw energy of the portal was literally ripping the skin right off the poor guy’s arms and face in a constant, unending wave of destruction.

But his unique system skill was fighting back with everything it had to keep him alive.

Rapid Regeneration was working in overdrive to heal the terrible, deep wounds just as fast as the swirling green energy created them.

It was honestly the most disgusting and painful thing Julien had ever witnessed in his entire life, far worse than anything he saw back in the military bunker.

The constant cycle of destruction and healing made a horrible, wet, tearing noise that somehow echoed perfectly over the roaring silence of the dimensional tunnel.

Aiden gritted his teeth so hard they looked like they might shatter, and he pushed through the agonising pain to grab Maya by her dark cloak and pull her closer to the centre of the group.

He reached out with his other bloody hand and snagged Kyle by his ruined leather armour, pulling all four of them together into a very tight circle right in the middle of the chaotic green vortex.

And then Aiden did something absolutely crazy that ended up saving all of their lives from certain doom.

He stopped his system skill from focusing entirely on fixing his own internal injuries and intentionally pushed the healing magic outward to encompass the rest of the group.

His blood literally burst from the open wounds on his arms and sprayed over Julien, Maya, and Kyle like a protective red net.

The warm liquid coated Julien’s face and soaked deep into his clothes, and the entire experience was incredibly gross and terrifying all at once.

But the exact second Aiden’s blood covered his skin, the crushing spatial pressure instantly stopped squeezing his flattened lungs.

The green energy of the tunnel started tearing at the protective layer of blood instead of ripping their actual bodies apart, giving their rapidly draining health bars a desperate chance to finally stabilise before they hit zero.

’This guy is literally using his own immortal body as a human meat shield to ferry us safely across the multiverse,’ Julien thought in pure disbelief, staring at Aiden’s agonised face while the guy kept pumping his own life force out just to keep the spatial barrier intact.

’If we actually survive this trip, I am never complaining about carrying extra inventory weight ever again.’

The portal travel felt like it lasted for ten agonising hours of pure torture, but it was probably only a few terrifying seconds in real time based on how the system usually operated.

The swirling green light finally reached a blinding peak of intensity that forced Julien to squeeze his eyes tightly shut and brace himself for the absolute worst.

Crushing pressure completely vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving them floating in nothingness for a split second.

The protective layer of blood dissolved into thin air the exact moment they exited the spatial tunnel, and gravity suddenly decided to work normally again without any warning.

Julien hit the ground incredibly hard and rolled a few times across a very cold, solid surface before finally coming to a complete stop on his back.

He lay flat on the ground and sucked in a large breath of fresh air, feeling his bruised lungs expand painfully against his sore ribs.

He just stayed there for a long minute without moving a single muscle, staring up at the strange sky and waiting for his racing heart to slow down to a normal rhythm.

They had actually survived the crazy, desperate jump, but judging by the incredibly hard landing and the creepy atmosphere around them, the real problems were probably just getting started.