Facing Ichinose Honami's bewilderment, the others felt their hearts sink as well.
After a brief silence, the Black Sphere's notification chime abruptly rang out.
[Notice: Apart from the test personnel who have entered the extra instance, all test subjects within this exam venue, along with the intruders, have been brought under the dominion of the 'Control Devil.']
[To leave this world, first deal with the Control Devil; alternatively, you may forcibly break free at the cost of deducting one life from whoever wishes to escape.]
[For the moment, the Control Devil's perception of you has been temporarily shielded. By your own will, you will have one minute to make your choice.]
"The Control Devil..." Ichinose Honami's gaze trembled slightly. "When did this happen?"
"Heh heh—there's no need to do anything."
Sakayanagi Arisu narrowed her eyes slightly and analyzed in a thoughtful tone: "Domination, in and of itself, represents a concept of overwhelming power."
"If a devil's power derives from humanity's fear and perception, then for a concept-tier devil like her... it's perfectly natural that you'd be weaker than her and could be dominated by her at will, wouldn't you say."
"I won't claim she's stronger than a 'primordial devil,' but she absolutely wouldn't be much weaker either."
"And among everyone we've encountered since arriving in this world, who do you think could trade blows with the Darkness Devil without being overwhelmed?"
The answer was self-evident. "Makima..."
Ryuuen Kakeru clicked his tongue irritably: "Damn it, I told you these two lousy spheres wouldn't make things easy for us."
"Forget it—whether it's her or not, let's send some of our people back to the school first."
"Otherwise, if it really comes to a fight and you all get turned into her dogs, I can't say for sure whether simply dying once would break this damn domination."
"Heh heh... indeed, that's how it should be done."
Kouenji Rokusuke pressed his lips tightly together: "That said, Horikita Girl ought to stay behind."
"If possible, we'd best not rely on Makima's power, and instead find our own way to track down the Darkness Devil."
His gaze swept over the ruins below:
"It's just that now that Santa Claus is dead, we've lost any score-farming target we could immediately get our hands on... I'm afraid we'll have to wait until Chris Boy's instance over on his end wraps up."
"He took an extra exam yesterday, so he should have points to spare right now."
"Who the hell knows when he'll finish his instance, though. You've got to plan for the worst in everything."
Ryuuen Kakeru shook his head with a cold sneer: "I remember that monster said before she died that she has puppets all over the world. Now that she's lost her central consciousness, those puppets of hers that can only shriek 'Halloween' should be pretty easy to find."
"I'll see if I can use this world's network systems to hunt them down and scrape together those tens of thousands of points."
"Conveniently, it'll give me something to do while we wait for this [Super High-School-Level Animator] to get to work."
"As for the rest of you... just leave Horikita behind as support." He turned his head toward Kouenji:
"Let me get the unpleasant part out of the way first, Kouenji. I sure as hell don't want this Super High-School-Level Animator of mine—worth ten thousand item points—getting one-shotted by some 'time-stop' of yours."
Kouenji Rokusuke spread his hands indifferently. "Fair enough." "In that case, I wish you good luck on your hunt."
"It's just a shame Student Council President Horikita has no way to leave..."
Horikita Suzune pressed her lips together in silence.
The world of Final Destination.
On a frontage road of the highway in the outskirts of Los Angeles, a fierce wind howled.
Although Chris had led the group out of the gas station explosion's maximum damage radius in time, forcing Death to abandon one of its schemes—that didn't mean Death would let the matter drop because of it.
After all, in this time-limited, twenty-four-hour instance, it had no time to wait for its prey to scatter and let their guard down before slowly making its move.
And so, in fact, as early as when Chris had hoisted up that stretched SUV—
bounding off across the city skyline like the Hulk—Death's second round of scheming had already quietly been set in motion.
First, it precisely calculated where he'd land after each leap, planting inconspicuous yet extremely slippery little gadgets along the routes he was bound to take.
Second, it tampered with the inside of the vehicle.
Waiting only for a single slip-up from Chris to wipe out everyone inside the cabin in one gruesome explosion.
And even taking ten thousand steps back—even if this scheme failed—the chassis damage caused by repeated, successive ultra-long-distance leaps, along with the occupants being jostled into a dizzy, miserable stupor, were perfectly suited for Death to construct its subsequent chain of killing moves.
Unfortunately, Chris was a cheat.
The telekinesis he'd honed to mastery via the [Psychic Power Training Box] could, in Chris's hands, function perfectly well as a mini version of a bio-force field.
Even without tapping into that particular cheat, the [Demon Possession] he carried alone—
if he wanted, could improvise brief midair hovering and an externalized defensive force field too.
That said, considering that aside from Kamuro Masumi, few of the others in the car were fools.
So the telekinetic assistance had actually only been applied at the very beginning.
The rest of the journey relied purely on his arm strength—and on this American SUV being tough enough to take a beating!
And seeing Chris perfectly ignore all the "little contrivances" along the way—even, as if in provocation, deliberately stepping onto the lethal traps it had designed yet emerging unscathed...
this invisible reaper immediately activated Plan B.
"BOOM!"
As Chris once again landed while hoisting the SUV—
the violent jolt caused the car key, which had never been pulled out, to twist.
At the same moment, a White Room staffer, pitched forward by the jolt, in trying to steady their center of gravity, planted their right foot squarely—not a hair off—right onto the gas pedal!
The engine let out a roar.
That person immediately realized something was wrong and tried to lift their foot.
But just as the car lurched, it happened to shake loose a heavy metal ornament from the dashboard.
"Clack."
The ornament landed precisely on the brake pedal!
Gas and brake engaged at the same time, sending the whole car into violent convulsions.
From beneath the car, Chris very obligingly put on a show of "almost losing his grip," and used the momentum to toss the vehicle onto a patch of muddy wasteland.
"Bang!"
With that, the inside of the car spun into a whirl.
It left Kamuro Masumi and Yotsuya Miko—who each had only one life left in the car—pale as sheets, forced to clamp their hands desperately over their mouths and choke back the churning in their stomachs to keep from throwing up on the spot.
As for the ever-tough Nanase Tsubasa and the affectedly demure Senior Tachibana Akane, while they weren't quite so dramatic, both were grimacing hard, clearly thoroughly miserable.
Only Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, a product of the White Room, kept his composure, gripping the overhead handle with one hand.
Not only was he unaffected, he even had the spare presence of mind to pay attention to the abnormal grinding sound coming from the car's chassis.
He wrinkled his nose. The smell of gasoline. The fuel tank had ruptured—was this Death making its move again...?
He raised an eyebrow and was just about to call out a loud warning to Chris.
Only to see that Chris had already yanked open the deformed car door, addressing the group inside and their sour expressions: "Come on out."
"Hurry up and get down—feels like this car's about at its limit."
"Keep this up and it'll blow sooner or later."
"Anyway, we've reached the outskirts now; once dawn breaks we should be about in the clear."
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka nodded, released the handle, and hopped down from the car:
"I just caught the smell of gasoline."
"If it's similar to what happened at the police station, this car's been 'cursed' by Death—another two or three jolts at most, and I'm afraid some chain of coincidences will set off a spark and an explosion."
Hearing this, Kamuro Masumi scrambled out of the cabin in a terrified tumble, staggered a couple of steps, and very nearly toppled into the roadside drainage ditch right along with the acid rising in her stomach.
Chris stepped up and patted her on the back: "Is it really that bad...?"
Kamuro Masumi sloppily wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth, knitted her brows, and shot him an annoyed glare:
"My Combat Suit is in a disabled state right now... I'm just an ordinary high school girl who couldn't so much as truss a chicken, okay?!"
"Please don't pin too many expectations on me!" "Right now I'm not even sure I could beat Kushida Kikyo..."
Chris sighed helplessly and turned to look at Yotsuya Miko and Nanase Tsubasa, who were likewise rubbing their temples and gulping down fresh air:
"Get yourselves back in shape as soon as you can."
"I don't think reaching the outskirts means we'll be able to avoid accidents."
"I noticed just now that there seems to be an interstate highway cutting through this area—that's another hidden danger..."
Kamuro Masumi took a deep breath and forced herself to stand up straight:
"I know. Thanks for the hard work just now."
Chris shook his head, his gaze passing beyond them.
He looked toward Tachibana Akane, who was still sitting in the cabin, biting down hard on her lip and staring blankly into space.
"Senpai, you should get out first." Chris extended a hand. "I keep feeling like this car could catch fire any second—it's not safe."
At his words, Tachibana Akane snapped back to herself.
She nodded, placed her hand in Chris's palm, and used the support to step down from the cabin.
In a shadow beyond Chris's line of sight, she pinched her own thigh hard, using the pain to forcibly press down the dread inside her—only then managing not to lose her composure in front of her juniors.
But even so, when her feet touched the ground, there was still a faint trembling she couldn't hide.
Of course, at this moment, apart from Chris, no one was really paying any attention to Tachibana Akane's show of bravado.
Everyone, as if by unspoken agreement, held out their hands, watching the large raindrops landing in their palms, and the ink-black thunderclouds rolling and gathering at the far edge of the sky, lightning flickering within them.
Nanase Tsubasa thoughtfully wiped the rain from her cheek and murmured in a low voice:
"Senpai... the moment we stopped, it started raining and thundering out here in the middle of nowhere. Isn't this weather just a bit too much of a coincidence?"
Yotsuya Miko clutched the hem of her clothes tightly and chimed in:
"It feels... like it was deliberately waiting for us to get out of the car."
"And once it starts pouring and the road turns slick, combined with the highway right next to us, I just have this feeling something terrible is about to happen."
"Mm," Chris stroked his chin and picked up the thread half-jokingly, "if our luck's bad enough, getting struck dead by lightning out in the open isn't exactly impossible either."
The corner of Kamuro Masumi's mouth twitched wildly: "At a time like this, could you say something a little more auspicious?!"
Chris chuckled and was just about to open his mouth to explain.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who had been lying on the ground with his ear pressed to the asphalt, suddenly rose, his expression grave:
"The rain hasn't gotten heavy yet, but from the vibrations I'm hearing, there are quite a few vehicles on the highway—and they're all heavily loaded big-rig trucks."
"And there's no sign whatsoever of them slowing down."
"At this most dangerous stage, when the road's just starting to get slick, the slightest skid could very easily set off a chain of accidents."
Chris nodded in agreement:
"But for now, we actually shouldn't go running around recklessly."
"Running around blindly will only play into Death's rhythm."
"Let's just wait right here—meet every change with constancy—and see what other tricks this Death can pull."
Seeing how composed and confident Chris was, the others felt their hearts settle a little.
But in truth.
This sudden thunderstorm wasn't actually conjured by Death.
After all, the so-called Death in Final Destination is, at its core, merely a fabricator of all sorts of bizarre "coincidental accidents"—the operative type that seizes opportunities to wedge itself into any crack.
To actually have it influence large-scale weather out of thin air—
making a typhoon sweep through, a volcano erupt, or even dragging a meteor down from outer space for a precision strike...
that would be truly asking too much of it. It doesn't have that kind of power, you get it.
Unless it were given some extra buff. So.
In order to give old buddy Death a more perfect stage to perform on.
This torrential thunderstorm was, in fact, something Chris had quietly cooked up with the help of the Stand [Weather Report].
Mm, if you really get down to it.
This was a blood-pumping "combo move" between the presiding god and Death, transcending dimensions!
All of it to let this bunch of greenhouse-raised students experience the "local customs and conditions" of a foreign land across worlds—it was all the painstaking thoughtfulness of the great presiding god!
Just as Chris was poking fun in the back of his mind.
Accompanied by an ear-piercing screech of locked tires skidding.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka raised an eyebrow, his gaze locking onto the guardrail of the highway above: "To hear braking that hard from this far away... I'm afraid something's about to go wrong."
As his words fell, so it came to pass.
Soon, a deafening series of vehicle collisions and the explosive sound of tearing metal rang out from the highway above!
Amid flames shooting skyward, several industrial steel coils, each weighing several tons, smashed clean through the highway guardrail!
Lubricated by gravity and rain, these great equalizers tore through the dense shrubbery and came rolling madly down toward Chris and the others below with the force of a landslide!
Their rolling paths, constantly shifting due to the uneven terrain, made it utterly impossible to pin down exactly where the safe blind spots to dodge into might be.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had no doubt.
The very instant they tried to dodge, Death would absolutely use the mud and gravel covering the ground to make someone slip and fall, sending them precisely into the crushing path of a steel coil.
In that case, the only thing they could rely on now was...
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka turned his head toward Chris, only to find that he had already made his move! "BOOM!"
Facing the steel coils rolling toward them, Chris advanced instead of retreating.
He leapt up and, relying on the terrifying power of [Demon Possession], stomped the frontmost steel coil straight down into the mud with one kick, jamming it dead in place!
Then, using the recoil from the stomp, he sprang up again and repeated the trick.
After kicking away two more steel coils in midair—
facing the last enormous steel coil, which had been sent flying high into the air by a collision and was about to crash down into the group—
Chris gripped the Red-Backed Shrike in a reverse hold with one hand, drove the force up from his waist, and hurled it out with all his might!
"Shing—!"
The silver spear turned into a streak of red light, ran straight through the steel coil in midair, and was about to pin it to an ancient tree up ahead! However. This was the very moment Death had been waiting for.
At the precise instant the Red-Backed Shrike made contact with the steel coil.
"KA-BOOM!!!"
A bolt of ghastly-white lightning, thick as a finger, streaked down from the heavens as if drawn by a lightning rod, striking directly onto the Red-Backed Shrike, which served as a metal conductor!
The violent high-voltage current poured instantly into the steel coil.
With the lightning as a boost, the steel coil burst apart under the dual forces, and countless razor-sharp steel fragments wreathed in lightning—like a vast net spread wide and mixed with the sky-filling rain—came hurtling indiscriminately toward the people below!
This was the true killing blow!
Seeing this inescapable death-trap of a setup.
Chris raised his leg and directly activated the skill he'd obtained from Catwoman. "Black Marionette Dance!"
A limit-breaking surge of under 0.1 seconds.
Chris's figure split into dozens of afterimages within the curtain of rain, too fast for the naked eye to catch.
In the instant before the lightning truly conducted down to the ground along the scattering steel fragments and the pooled water, he forcibly carried everyone, one by one, to a safe distance.
However, because there were so many people, scattered across different positions.
In this extreme sliver of time, in which even a blink would be too slow, there had to be some order to the rescue.
Naturally, Chris first saved Kamuro Masumi and Nanase Tsubasa, who each had only one life left and thus no margin for error.
Immediately after, he scooped an arm around the waists of Yotsuya Miko and Senior Tachibana Akane.
Last of all, he gave Ayanokoji Kiyotaka an incidental kick, sweeping him and the White Room staff out of the central zone.
Naturally enough, because of the slight differences in order.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and the White Room personnel, who'd been placed last, had their arms cut to varying degrees by the scattered steel fragments around the periphery, and—through the rain's conductivity—suffered differing degrees of paralysis from the lightning's shock.
But thankfully, their lives were preserved. "Phew... saved."
Dumped onto the safe grass, Kamuro Masumi looked at the distant patch of muddy ground that the lightning had already scorched to charcoal, her heart still pounding like a frantic drum.
But before everyone could truly let out a breath of relief.
Because of the splattering scorching-hot steel-coil fragments, combined with the lingering force of the lightning that had just grazed past.
The stretched SUV parked not far off, its leaking chassis finally buckling under the strain, began to blaze with firelight and belch out rolling plumes of thick smoke.
Even as the rain grew heavier and heavier, it clearly couldn't suppress the flames that were about to detonate the fuel tank.
"That car... it's going to blow!"
Tachibana Akane, clutching her grazed arm, cried out a startled warning.
This cry of alarm successfully drew everyone's attention to the car that could turn into a fragmentation bomb at any moment.
The group instinctively began searching for cover.
However, in fact, at this very juncture—when all eyes had been drawn over and a tense atmosphere had been created.
No one was able to hear, through the dense sound of the rain curtain and the distant sirens, the strange noise hidden far higher in the sky.
Several hundred meters above their heads.
A massive passenger jet, both its engines shut down after being swept into the thunderstorm clouds, was plummeting straight down, out of control and without a sound, toward the very direction where they stood!
This, too, was one of Death's exquisite little contrivances.
Back when the lightning first began to fall, Death had cleverly exploited the magnetic-field disturbance to guide the thunderstorm onto this passenger jet, which it had tampered with in advance.
The chain-reaction car crash on the ground just now, the falling lightning, even the SUV about to explode—
all of it was a smokescreen released to mask this "finishing move" descending from the heavens! That's right. Under the cover of the wind and rain and the visual misdirection of the car's flames.
There was no doubt—this round should rightfully have been its victory.
Of course, all of this... did not account for Chris.
____
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