Trap

The current Carlos was a monster who could take down Bruce in one minute.

If he let his guard down even slightly, he would be finished in an instant.

‘I’ll go all out from the start.’

Shooting Star.

Yuseong’s body transformed into a beam of light and shot forward.

The distance closed in an instant.

Though Carlos tried to take a defensive stance after being startled by the unexpected speed, he was a bit too late.

Crunch!

The Blood Energy concentrated in his right hand pierced through Carlos’s arms and penetrated his chest.

In a normal situation this would have been the end, but Carlos didn’t even fall down, let alone show any signs of pain, and calmly launched a kick.

However, Yuseong, who had already activated his near-precognitive prediction, blocked the attack without difficulty and launched a counterattack.

‘As expected, still crude.’

Carlos’s movements were fast and strong but lacked depth.

It felt like a beginner playing a game for the first time trying to control a max level character.

It wasn’t that Carlos completely lacked martial arts knowledge, but the gap in skill and capability was so large that his movements felt awkward.

To Yuseong, who had achieved unity of body-energy-mind and balance of spirit-energy-mind, Carlos was just a fool with nothing but strength.

Of course, he couldn’t simply dismiss a fool with overwhelming strength.

Overwhelming power that could break stances in one hit and shatter martial arts techniques.

As Bruce had experienced in the earlier fight, overwhelming power alone was enough.

Boom!

But Yuseong had items that could withstand that power.

Tyrant’s arms boasted monstrous strength that didn’t lose to Carlos, and absorbed most impacts to enable stable exchanges.

“You brat!”

Carlos’s face twisted with anger at the sight of Yuseong handling his attacks.

He needed to hurry and stop Bruce, but to think he would be held up by someone like this.

Grinding his teeth, Carlos soon seemed to recall something and stopped attacking to reach into his chest.

“A cigarette?”

Yuseong unconsciously muttered at the unexpected item, forgetting the tense situation.

After lighting the cigarette, Carlos gave a sinister smile and took a deep breath.

At that moment, Yuseong threw himself backward with all his might.

Thud!

His vision turned red along with an impact like his head was being crushed.

In the world slowed by Asura Perception Way, Yuseong realized Carlos’s fist had grazed his temple.

If he hadn’t read it with near-precognitive prediction and moved in advance, his head would have been pierced through by now.

“Die!”

Before he could collect himself from the shock, a strike came flying.

The problem was that the speed was too fast.

Even though he had predicted the trajectory in advance and moved a step ahead, it was an overwhelming speed impossible to dodge.

Just before Carlos’s fingertips could pierce his heart, unexpected help arrived for Yuseong who had fallen into despair.

Clang!

Pure white frost suddenly appeared around Carlos, instantly freezing his entire body.

Though the ice didn’t last even a second before shattering, it was enough time for Yuseong to withdraw his body.

“Mr. Yuseong!”

“Bruce is preparing a skill! We need to hold Carlos down!”

No lengthy explanation was needed.

The users who appeared belatedly quickly grasped the situation and surrounded Carlos.

“Mr. Carlos. I understand your circumstances, but please stop this. It’s hard enough just dealing with monsters, but for humans, fellow users at that, to fight each other. This is madness.”

“From my perspective, frantically trying to protect a world destined for destruction seems more like madness.”

“The world’s destruction isn’t confirmed yet. If we can find the Divine Fragment, we can stop the invasion.”

“You can’t be serious? You’re saying you’ll find the Divine Fragment that couldn’t be found after searching entire dimensions? Even if by some miracle we find the Divine Fragment, what are the chances of a user becoming a transcendent being? No, can a single transcendent being even protect Earth in the first place?”

The atmosphere grew heavy at Carlos’s words.

Though no one spoke it aloud, it was something everyone had vaguely suspected.

“A world destined for destruction anyway. I’ll do what I want.”

“Still…”

“Haah, you’re really being annoying.”

Carlos sighed and looked up at the sky.

Lorraine was busy dealing with Kasim and had no leeway.

In the end he would have to stop Bruce himself, but even with backup from the World Tree, it would take quite some time to take down four users.

‘Need to use a few more.’

Carlos took out cigarettes from his chest and put them in his mouth.

A forbidden item that burned the user’s life force to boost all abilities.

Though it was a dangerous item that depleted most of one’s life force from smoking just one and had extremely short duration, that didn’t apply to him who was receiving infinite life force through the World Tree.

“Stop him!”

Yuseong ran over with a shocked expression from a distance, but it was already too late.

The three cigarettes instantly turned to ash and scattered in the air, and Carlos flexed his legs within a feeling of omnipotence like he could do anything.

Shot at a speed transcending sound, Carlos first targeted Yuseong who had approached close range.

The murky grey aura shattered the red martial energy and pierced through the body beyond.

Or at least, that’s how it appeared.

Clang!

‘What the hell is this guy? What skills has he learned?’

He knew Yuseong had high strength, but this was something strange.

It was impossible for an attack that had even shattered Bruce’s body with Diamond Indestructible Body skill to not leave even a small scratch.

‘I can’t lose but this will take time.’

Leaving behind Yuseong who was being pushed back, Carlos charged at Isaac who was next closest.

After shattering the solid sword barrier in one hit, Carlos planted his fist in Isaac’s face.

Blood splattered as the helmet crumpled from the strike thrown with killing intent rather than suppression.

‘One down.’

The next target was Ryuhei.

Various weapons of at least A rank or higher came flying in, but Carlos advanced forward without the slightest hesitation.

Breaking holy swords, crushing magic spears, shattering cursed axes, and twisting death scythes into scrap metal.

Crunch!

‘Two down.’

After landing a kick into Ryuhei’s chest, Carlos threw himself at his final target, Olga.

She must have fully deployed her abilities as the space around Olga was dyed white.

A space of absolute zero that freezes everything.

With normal cold, you could just attack and escape before freezing, but Olga’s cold was a combination of various supernatural abilities, so carelessly touching it would make things troublesome.

Carlos picked up the sword Isaac had dropped and threw it at Olga’s heart.

Clang!

Yuseong barely managed to deflect the sword by cutting in at the last possible moment.

Though killing two would have been easy, Carlos withdrew without following up.

This was because Carlos’s goal wasn’t to kill users but to protect the World Tree.

Upon spotting Bruce who was still maintaining his stance, Carlos raised both arms and gathered energy sent from the World Tree.

“I’ll erase you without leaving a trace.”

Carlos threw the gathered energy at Bruce.

The moment that massive energy was released, Bruce along with everything within dozens of meters would vanish without a trace, and the World Tree would be safe.

But things didn’t go as planned.

“Contract: Party A Kang Changseok, Party B Black Tortoise. 5 second limited contract. Payment 5 million karma points.”

Along with the quiet chant, a defensive barrier shaped like a tortoise shell appeared and blocked the energy Carlos had thrown.

The seventh user who hadn’t shown himself until the very end.

When Kang Changseok stomped his foot, black currents flowed from his shoes and shadows from all around rose up and began charging at Carlos.

“Such petty tricks!”

Boom!

The shadows were easily torn apart, unable to withstand Carlos’s power.

It was nonsense to think shadows could stop Carlos when even users couldn’t.

However, no matter how powerful his strength was, it was impossible to eliminate shadows without eliminating light itself.

Carlos was forced to waste a moment of time before the endlessly charging shadows, and in that time Bruce’s sword swung down.

Nameless Cut.

A simple cut that contains all power in a single strike.

And thus an attack more powerful than any other.

The black martial energy shot from Bruce’s sword tore through space as it flew toward the World Tree.

“Nooooo!”

Despite Carlos’s scream, the black martial energy cut through the World Tree, and the thousands of buildings behind it along with Mount Fuji.

Everyone lost their words and could only stare blankly at this godly sight that was hard to believe even seeing with their own eyes.

However, just one person, Bruce’s expression was subtly twisted.

“Damn it…”

“What? What’s wrong?”

Everyone was bewildered by Bruce’s sudden cursing.

“Ha, haha, kuhahahahaha!”

Carlos understood why Bruce had cursed and burst into wild laughter.

Despite the World Tree being cut, overwhelming power still filled his entire body.

Or more precisely, when the black martial energy passed through the World Tree, the link was briefly cut and power drained away like the tide.

But before long the link was restored as if nothing had happened and power surged back.

The meaning of this was simple.

“…At this level it’s not a World Tree but a Demonic Tree.”

Just as Carlos had recovered from fatal injuries with overwhelming life force, the World Tree too had used energy absorbed from Earth to recover its severed parts.

The compatibility was also too poor.

If it had been an explosive or impact type attack it might have dealt some damage, but Bruce’s cut was too sharp, and as a result the World Tree could easily reconnect the cut surfaces.

After grasping the situation, Carlos shouted with a cruel smile.

“Let’s end the games here. Lorraine!”

With his shout, buds formed on the World Tree and began blooming.

Thousands, tens of thousands of grotesquely shaped flowers that looked like they belonged in another world bloomed all at once, filling the surroundings with a stench that seemed to rot one’s nose.

If hell existed, perhaps it would look like this.

The sky was hidden by the corrupted World Tree, and zombies, dark elves, and living plants crawled across the ground.

Carlos rose high into the sky and flicked his finger while looking down at the ground.

Woong!

Tens of thousands of flowers began shining all at once.

Even without using near-precognitive prediction, it was clear what would happen.

Yuseong muttered on behalf of the users fallen into despair.

“We’re screwed.”

———-!

Death rain falls from the sky.

Yuseong lowered his stance in preparation for the impact and deployed all available defensive skills.

“…Huh?”

Though he expected an unbearable impact, he felt nothing even as time passed.

When Yuseong cautiously raised his head, he spotted the users who had gathered in one place and Kasim deploying defensive magic, letting out a sigh of relief.

“Not dead?”

“I really thought we were going to die. Would it kill you to come help sooner?”

“I’ll say those words right back at you. We thought we were going to die too.”

“Damn it. What do we do? Should we escape through quests?”

“No. We might escape the immediate crisis but we’d have to come back here eventually, and because of time differences we’d all be scattered and picked off one by one. What about escaping through spatial movement?”

“Space is too unstable so it’s impossible. If we try spatial movement now, we’re likely to get thrown into dimensional gaps.”

“So it was a trap from the start.”

No wonder things seemed to be progressing too blatantly – it was a trap to draw users close to the World Tree to deal with them.

Yuseong bit his lip.

It wasn’t that there was absolutely no way to escape.

Using Dragonia’s return function that could freely traverse reality and dimensional gaps, they might be able to escape from here.

‘But what then? We were able to come this far because Carlos didn’t interfere. But if we retreat now, can we make it back here again?’

After pondering briefly, Yuseong looked at the back of his hand.

It seemed he had no choice.