Time to Run Again

He hadn’t thought it was strange from the start.

There could be users who rarely engage in external activities, just like there was a user who dumped their goggles on a complete stranger and disappeared.

However, Yuseong felt a strange sense of discomfort after Changwei began his official activities.

He stays idle while the altars and towers, core facilities maintaining the barrier, are being destroyed?

Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, this could have been understandable if Changwei was a user classified as Three Weak level or a non-combat personnel like Sophia.

But Changwei was classified as a Three Strong level powerhouse, with skills acknowledged even by Bruce and Kasim who were also Three Strong.

It was extremely strange that he didn’t show himself at all when he could provide great help just by supporting from the rear or providing covering fire.

And when Changwei didn’t show even a glimpse of himself during the decisive battle that would determine the world’s fate, Yuseong could be certain.

“You’re not choosing not to fight. You couldn’t fight because you lost your skills and items.”

A moment of silence passed.

Though Changwei kept his mouth shut, his horribly distorted expression said everything.

“No matter how strong one becomes, there are limits to individual power! For the sake of preventing destruction, I chose a more efficient…”

“Sorry but I didn’t come here to chat. Let’s end the conversation here.”

Cutting off Changwei’s words, Alice opened her subspace and took out a small token.

At first, everyone was bewildered, not knowing what it was, but the moment an emotionless voice rang out from somewhere, they wore expressions of shock.

[Prime Code confirmed]

[Revoking temporary commander Changwei’s qualification and transferring all authority to the official commander possessing the Prime Code!]

After a brief silence, Changwei shouted as if screaming.

“Take that away!”

No sooner had the words ended than Lucifer rushed toward Alice.

However, Alice followed Yuseong’s instructions and activated Blessing’s Absolute Protection skill, taking all of Lucifer’s attacks head-on while charging straight toward Changwei.

Woong!

Perhaps he hadn’t lost all his power.

The moment Changwei stretched out his hand, illusions unfolded before his eyes and shockwaves struck his body.

But it wasn’t enough to stop Alice who had become serious.

Alice instantly broke through all interference and arrived in front of Changwei.

“Let’s negoti…”

Crunch!

Alice’s fist extended and Changwei’s upper body exploded into pieces with a dull bursting sound.

The pathetically remaining two legs were swept away by the delayed wind pressure into a corner.

The greatest sorcerer and physics.

It was too pathetic a death for someone who had once nearly obtained the world.

“Oh my, he died.”

The atmosphere is too light to believe a comrade had died.

Seeing Lucifer stop his attack and retreat as if he’d been waiting for this, Yuseong let out a sigh of relief.

He had thought it strange that Lucifer, a transcendent being, would move according to the words of Changwei who had lost all power, but fortunately it was as he expected – they were bound by contract.

-Ask if they’ll continue fighting.

“Lucifer, was it? Will you continue fighting?”

“What’s the point of fighting with the world in this state. I have no reason to fight anymore, so I’ll withdraw like this.”

Shrugging his shoulders exaggeratedly, Lucifer walked through the hole Alice had made.

-Shouldn’t we stop him?

‘Let him go. We don’t have time to waste fighting now. That one later…’

-…Ah.

After hearing Yuseong’s words and looking at Lucifer with sympathetic eyes, Alice turned to Bruce who was coughing up blood in the corner and said.

“Mr. Bruce, if you want to live, get out quickly too. If you stay here, you’ll die.”

“…What exactly are you planning?”

“Nothing special, just going to crash this flying fortress at full speed into the Outer God and push it back through the rift the gods came from.”

“What?”

Hearing these unexpected words, Bruce forgot about gathering internal energy for a surprise attack and wore a dumbfounded expression.

The very person responsible for bringing the Outer God and reducing the world to this state now says they’ll drive out the Outer God.

Wondering if this was a deception, Bruce shook his head.

Right now he was in a situation where he could die from moving just a finger.

There was no benefit to be gained from deception, and even if it was deception, there was nothing he could do right now.

Finally, Bruce dragged his staggering body outside.

‘Alice.’

“Um, so… Vimana?”

[Main system Vimana standing by. Please issue command.]

“Can you charge at full speed toward that monster over there?”

Grrrng!

Along with a heavy resonance, the floor that had been tilted to one side regained its horizontal position.

Vimana was rising.

However, Yuseong and Alice couldn’t help but be flustered by the main system’s emotionless voice that followed.

[12 minutes 42 seconds until target point reached.]

“That’s too slow.”

‘Too slow.’

Impact is proportional to mass and velocity.

Vimana had sufficient mass, but its speed was far too slow.

Though fast for a fortress spanning dozens of kilometers, this speed wasn’t enough to push back the Outer God.

“Is there no way to increase the speed?”

[This speed is the limit with current engine output.]

‘Damn it. Let’s go back to Dragonia right now. In this case, dropping Dragonia from the atmosphere…’

“No, there’s no need for that. If it can’t go faster because output is insufficient, that means we can increase speed if we have enough output, right?”

[That is correct.]

“Please guide me to the facility supplying energy to this fortress.”

‘Um, Alice? Can’t you hear me?’

“Mr. Yuseong. Please trust me.”

About to say something at Alice’s confident response, Yuseong closed his mouth.

Right now the one performing the quest wasn’t him but Alice.

As the client, he could give advice but the decision-making power lay with Alice the user.

‘Alright. Give it a try. If it fails, we can just retry.’

Finally, Yuseong decided to trust and leave it to Alice.

[Arrived at destination.]

Thump! Thump! Thump!  

Arriving at the engine room, Alice frowned at the sight of the massive engine pulsing at regular intervals like a heart.

To Alice’s eyes with Eye of Truth activated, the engine appeared like a sun.

Though enormous energy was being emitted enough to distort space and physics, Alice didn’t hesitate to step forward and place her hand on the engine.

“Ugh!”

Would this be how it feels to have lava flow into your body?

Faintly grimacing at the sensation of pain she had long forgotten, Alice drew up energy while activating skills.

internal energy, magic power, spirit power.

The three energies were unified into one by Infinite Origin Force and doubled through amplification skills.

[Engine output 107.1%. 10 minutes 32 seconds until target point reached.]

Energy too massive for a mere human to contain.

But compared to the energy emitted by Vimana’s engine, it was barely a drop in the ocean.

This wasn’t enough.

Alice closed her eyes and focused consciousness inward.

Thump thump thump.

Skills don’t just mean special abilities or powers like martial arts, magic, or physic power.

Skills encompass everything from talents and physical characteristics that can’t be precisely physically measured like ‘genius’ or ‘heavenly body’, to scientific powers like ‘enhancement procedure’ or ‘combat nanomachines’, and even extend to race itself, like how Kasim shed his human shell to become undead.

Being an android was no different.

Just as Alice had used steel wings to enter Vimana, she could use all of an android’s abilities as skills.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The pulsing sound growing louder.

The warmup was complete.

Alice awakened the dragon heart sleeping deep inside.

[Engine output 194.4%. 7 minutes 35 seconds until target point reached.]

The heart of a dragon lord who had lived for thousands or tens of thousands of years emitted massive energy.

But even this wasn’t enough.

With just double the output, they couldn’t achieve the speed needed to push back the Outer God.

[Engine output 232%. Output excess. Risk of engine overheating. Please lower output.]

Though the main system’s warning was heard, Vimana was disposable anyway.

Alice used Infinite Origin Force’s power to take in the energy emitted by Vimana’s engine, fuse it with Yuseong’s energy and dragon heart’s energy into one, then output it through amplification skills.

[Engine output 414.2%. 4 minutes 3 seconds until target point reached.]

[Engine output 547.1%. 2 minutes 47 seconds until target point reached.]

[Engine output 722%. Time until target point reached…]

Endlessly rising output and time decreasing proportionally fast.

And the moment the countdown ended.

Booom!

■■■■■■!

A massive roar followed by a horrible sound that couldn’t be expressed in human language shook the world.

Alice immediately escaped outside the crumbling Vimana that had charged straight ahead under an unknown impact.

Boom!

Breaking through the wall and emerging outside, what entered Yuseong’s eyes was the sight of the Outer God letting out strange cries while destroying Vimana and the gods watching in shock behind it.

Everything would end if they just closed the rift now.

But there was one more thing that needed to be dealt with first.

‘Remember what I said earlier?’

Instead of answering Yuseong’s question, Alice showed through action.

Taking out Hendrik’s silk hat from subspace, Alice put her hand inside.

Though only one use remained, that was enough.

Alice strongly envisioned one person while pulling her hand out of the hat.

“…Huh?”

What emerged from the hat was Lucifer, muttering stupidly, unable to process the sudden situation change.

The moment Lucifer emerged, Alice threw a punch she had prepared with all her might, and the defenseless Lucifer was thrown backward without even being able to scream.

“W-wait! Just wait a moment!”

The Outer God bursting into maniacal laughter and gods screaming while fleeing.

Smiling at Lucifer who belatedly grasped the situation and desperately flew toward them, Alice drew out all remaining karma and energy to unleash Dimensional Slash.

Swish!

The massive rift covering the sky vanished instantly and clear skies appeared.

-Mr. Yuseong! The quest clear message appeared!

Alice’s joyful voice was heard and after a moment all senses returned to normal.

“…”

After being dazed for quite a while, Yuseong pinched his cheek.

Though he felt a stinging pain, he just couldn’t feel any sense of reality.

That’s when massive cheers were heard from below.

Everyone regardless of age or gender was cheering while shedding tears of joy.

Only then did Yuseong realize all this wasn’t a dream but reality.

“…It’s really over.”

Yuseong slowly closed his eyes.

Cleaning up after the Human Alliance, rebuilding the ruined world, treating people affected by the Outer God, distributing goggles, Sun Moon Ritual, and so on.

They had just solved one thing, but mountains of problems still remained to be dealt with.

A very brief rest.

Now it was time to run again.