High above, ash-black snow kept falling.
Chris stood suspended in midair, using the far-sight granted by [Five Sight Omniscience] to quietly watch the figure curled up behind cover below.
Watching the girl squeeze her eyes shut, wearing the resigned look of someone who'd given up on life and was just waiting to die, Chris couldn't quite hold back a laugh.
Still, amusement aside, he understood her despair well enough.
Under the rules the Black Sphere imposed on the 'ghost,' she was stuck in an awkward spot.
Only one person was allowed to see her. If anyone else spotted her, all her progress would be wiped out, and she'd instantly fall into an evil spirit to be hunted down.
As the ghost, Morishita Ai had no god's-eye view at all — there was no way for her to know the exact positions of Chris and the other qualified examinees and test-takers. All she could do was blunder around like a headless fly, dodging on pure luck.
On top of that, the Mysterious Merchant nearby kept drawing waves of players closer.
Her reaction was, frankly, born of sheer helplessness.
But in truth, Morishita Ai had talked herself into a blind spot.
Even if she did nothing at all, people would eventually stumble onto her anyway.
And staying hidden here, getting spotted by other humans was pretty much only a matter of time.
So why not widen her thinking a little?
She could simply go find Oriana herself, explain the situation, and ask for protection.
Even if that meant using up her one 'visible' slot on Oriana, with the Mysterious Merchant identity to back her up, Oriana could easily talk or bluff her way through, turning away any classmates who might wander close enough to spot Morishita Ai.
Taking it further, even setting aside the Ex Machina and Dragonia tearing into each other overhead—
—the black ash falling from the sky alone was already a perfect natural filter.
Vampire blood could shrug off some of that damage, sure, but before becoming a vampire, they were human first — and humans felt pain!
Barring a handful of exceptions, nobody could stay clear-headed enough to go running around hunting for the Mysterious Merchant while their whole body burned like it'd been doused in acid.
The risk of stepping out simply wasn't worth the reward.
Still, if Morishita Ai had actually tried it, the most likely outcome was Chris popping up to give her a good scare at just the right moment.
Chris shook his head, dropped his invisibility, and dove down from the sky without a hint of caution, landing right in front of Oriana.
By then, Oriana had already noticed Morishita Ai trembling behind the rock.
She didn't quite understand why the girl was hiding from her specifically, but at heart Oriana was a kind girl.
Since the girl wanted to hide, Oriana instinctively wanted to help cover for her.
So the instant Chris landed, Oriana's fingers twitched.
The metal puppet floating beside her immediately gave off a soft glow, wrapping her in a layer of shielding.
In this dim world where sunlight was blotted out by battle-smoke, the light shield stood out sharply — clearly meant to draw Chris's attention so he wouldn't immediately notice Morishita Ai.
Chris took the whole scene in, and spoke up as if caught off guard:
"Does this black ash actually affect a mechanical life form like you, Miss Oriana?"
Oriana shook her head lightly. "It's not corrosive."
"It's just that the ash gets into the gears in my joints... it catches when I move, and it's uncomfortable."
Chris chuckled, not dwelling on it, and got straight to the point:
"In that case, if you're all right, Miss Oriana, I'd like to take you with me. It's still too dangerous here."
"Before that, though..." Chris changed tack. "Mind if I take a look at what's on offer in the shop this time? I'd like to prepare some countermeasures."
Hearing the request, Oriana — assuming Chris hadn't noticed Morishita Ai — nodded obediently.
She raised her arm; the metal puppet spun in place, and a pale blue item-purchase interface unfolded in front of Chris.
[Genos's Starting Template]: This is the same cyborg conversion template used by Genos, the 'Demon Cyborg' who debuted as an S-Class Hero. It comes with a lightweight base mechanical body, a single-arm incinerator cannon, and a small back-mounted thruster. Under normal conditions it can steadily kill Threat-Level Demon monsters, but against stronger Demon-level threats, self-destruction is the only real option. As a cyborg template, though, it's compatible with other tech-side templates and has extra upgrade potential.
—Price: 50,000 item points
[Sharingan]: One of the three great eye techniques of the ninja world, a mirror of the heart's inner workings. It usually awakens in members of the Uchiha clan during moments of intense emotional shock. One tomoe grants weak dynamic vision and low-level visual genjutsu; two tomoe sharply boost perception, letting the user predict an opponent's movements and copy taijutsu and ninjutsu; three tomoe allow fluent use of perception, copying, seeing through illusions, and genjutsu support.
Note: Requires the Uchiha bloodline to use properly, or else Chakra drain is massive and the eye can't be closed at will. The Uchiha bloodline can be purchased separately in the Presiding God's Space.
—Price: 15,000 item points
[Asauchi / Zanpakuto]: A weapon from the world of Bleach — a living extension of the soul, a symbiotic partner whose personality and power perfectly match its wielder. Normally only Soul Reapers qualify to obtain an Asauchi and resonate it into a true Zanpakuto, but thanks to modifications by a certain great inventor, this version of the Asauchi can resonate with ordinary people too. You can also purchase a finished Zanpakuto outright and try to fuse with it to awaken your soul's power.
—Price: Asauchi 10,000 item points / Zanpakuto 25,000 item points
[Aatrox's Greatsword]: Sealed within this blade is the undying soul and origin power of Aatrox, the former Ascended. Touch it, and the Sword's Demon will possess you, reducing you to a Darkin husk. As long as the blade endures, Aatrox never truly dies. But if your will is strong enough, you might just be able to bend it to your own use (not recommended for the weak-willed).
—Price: 25,000 item points
[Baymax]: The inflatable medical robot from Big Hero 6. Originally designed as a personal healthcare companion for everyone, meant to heal physical and emotional wounds and soothe distress. Comes preloaded with tens of thousands of complete medical and counseling protocols, plus full-body vital-sign scanning and all-purpose first aid. With the right armor attachments, it can hold its own in a fight too.
—Price: 15,000 item points
[Metro Man's Alien DNA Serum]: A serum extracted by the villain Megamind from a strand of hair he lifted off Metro Man. Once injected, it grants an ordinary person a weakened version of Metro Man's powers: flight, laser eyes, super strength, invulnerability, super speed, heat vision, and super hearing. Even weakened, it's still a dimension-crushing superman template.
—Price: 100,000 item points
Chris read through the entire list from top to bottom.
Then he put on a disappointed look, as if nothing had caught his eye.
He looked up at Oriana and said:
"Sorry, Miss Oriana. Looks like nothing this refresh brought up is something I can put to immediate use."
"Let's get out of here first and go regroup with Ryuuen and the others..."
Oriana showed no disappointment at having a deal turned down. She just nodded.
After all, the role Chris had given her was simple: act as a merchant, sell items to examinees for points, buy pretty skins, and make some friends along the way.
Leaving with Chris now meant she'd get to meet more people, and it also gave her a natural excuse to draw attention away from Morishita Ai hiding behind the rock, letting the girl slip away.
However she looked at it, there was no reason to refuse.
And yet.
Under the pen of the [Book of Ages], the course of every event had already been fixed in stone.
Just as Chris stepped forward, ready to swing his blade and open a rift to take Oriana away—
Morishita Ai, listening to the conversation from behind the rock, thought she'd finally made it through, and the nerves stretched to their limit relaxed by a barely perceptible degree.
And since Chris was about to leave — and the two of them had, after all, shared a life-or-death bond before—
out of some indescribable curiosity, she decided to quietly poke her head out and steal a glance at Chris's retreating back through a gap in the rock.
But just as she shifted her weight—
whether it was some stray gust of cold wind, or just that holding one position too long had made her move a bit more than she meant to—
her shoulder brushed against the rock wall beside her, knocking loose a few tiny pebbles from the edge, which went tumbling to the ground with a soft clatter.
Normally, the black ash piled up on the ground would have cushioned the sound, and pebbles rolling wouldn't have made much noise at all.
But unfortunately—
the timing happened to fall right after Aranleif unleashed [Far Cry].
After that earth-shaking, world-ending blow, the entire battlefield had fallen into a rare pocket of silence.
So a tiny sound that would've meant nothing amid the earlier hail of gunfire was, right now, not exactly deafening, but sharp-eared listeners would definitely catch it!
Morishita Ai still hadn't realized she'd given herself away.
She poked half her head out, blinking in mild confusion.
Because as far as she could see, the clearing ahead was completely empty — no sign of Chris at all!
Had he moved fast enough to already leave without her?
Or had he heard something and gone off to scout for threats?
She turned it over in her mind and decided the latter was more likely.
After all, as the core figure who sold items and boosted combat power, the Mysterious Merchant's importance in this exam was obvious.
Sure, even if the Merchant died, an item could be consumed to revive them — but the randomness involved was way too high.
If luck went badly and a top-tier life-saving item got burned in the process... that would be a loss no qualified examinee could accept.
Right, Chris was probably off eliminating some hidden threat... but what kind of threat could there even be around here?
Surely those robots up in the sky hadn't spotted them down here and sent someone to scout?
Morishita Ai was busy letting her imagination run wild.
Suddenly, a broad hand landed on her shoulder without warning!
"Eep!?"
Morishita Ai nearly jumped out of her own soul.
On pure instinct, like a hamster spotting a predator, she yanked herself back into the shadow of the rock, hands clamped over her head, wearing the full ostrich look of "you-can't-see-me-you-can't-see-me," completely unwilling to face reality.
Against the soft hiss of black snow falling in the background,
the air seemed to freeze, quiet for a stretched-out two seconds.
"...Morishita?"
Chris asked.
Hearing that painfully familiar voice, Morishita Ai — heart still hammering from the fright — felt a strange sense of safety well up inside her.
She swallowed, cautiously raised her head, and asked in a trembling voice:
"Only you... is it only you who can see me?"
Chris nodded, sounding not particularly surprised:
"I stopped time with [The World] a moment ago, just wanted to check what that sound behind the rock was. Once I saw it was you... I was actually planning to pretend I hadn't seen anything and quietly leave."
"But then I thought about it — the rule for the first stage of your Revival Round is that you absolutely can't be seen by anyone."
"And since I already saw you during that time-stop window, there's probably no dodging the Black Sphere's judgment on that."
Chris spread his hands. "So I figured, since you're already exposed, I might as well come see you off."
"Though looking at it now, you haven't fallen into an evil spirit... so you must've already moved into the second stage of the Revival Round?"
"Yeah. Thanks to a reward from the previous stage, I can now grant viewing rights to the first person who sees me, without anything bad happening."
Morishita Ai nodded.
Then, a beat late, it hit her, and her eyes widened slightly as she asked:
"But... how do you even know the rules of the 'Revival Round'?!"
The girl sucked in a sharp breath, instinctively shrinking back. "Don't tell me... you're actually a spy the Presiding God planted among us!?"
"And now that I'm a ghost who can't tell anyone else, you've just stopped bothering to act!?"
Watching her act like she was facing a mortal enemy, Chris's mouth twitched, caught somewhere between laughing and sighing:
"That's quite the imagination you've got. Shame you're not writing light novels."
"Actually, it's Ryūji Kanzaki and Shiranami Chihiro. Someone already beat the Revival Round and made it back to reality — they're the ones who told us all this."
"Someone actually beat the Revival Round!?"
The dull look in Morishita Ai's eyes lit up instantly, and she couldn't help pressing further:
"How, exactly, did they win?"
"Can you tell me?"
"I'm curious!"
Chris thought it over and answered honestly:
"According to Kanzaki and Shiranami, if you clear this test, the next stage is the real Revival Round that decides life and death. Win that, and you truly revive and return."
"As for what their actual Revival Round involved, it was surviving a crisis that was about to destroy their planet."
"Whether your next challenge will be the same as theirs, though... hard to say."
Just as the two of them were trading information—
Oriana, who'd been standing watch behind the bare rock the whole time, suddenly spoke up in warning:
"If we don't want more people seeing Morishita, we should probably get ready to move."
"I've noticed... something's moving at high speed and closing in on us fast."
She hadn't even finished speaking.
Midair, on a thin gust of wind—
an Ex Machina analysis unit, machine code Uc207Pr4f57t9,
otherwise known as Shuvi, the female lead of No Game No Life: Zero, had already appeared in the sky above their location.
Having just finished collecting close-range data on Aranleif's [Far Cry] output, she'd received a sudden order from the network command to check something on her way back: why humans were voluntarily wandering into the battlefield while they fought the Dragonia.
As an Ex Machina unit, Shuvi had no reason to question orders — only the duty to act on them.
But since humans were the native species of this world, Disboard,
they had no divine protection of their own, nor any special ability to wield spirit-power.
Through the long war between the races, humans had only ever existed as collateral cannon fodder and prey.
In the Ex Machina's vast database, the very term 'human' wasn't even formally registered as a race name — they were simply logged as 'monkeys.'
So when Shuvi's scan picked up Oriana — another mechanical life form — down below, alongside Chris with his strange energy signature,
Shuvi froze for a moment, a brief system crash.
...Why could they survive the corrosion of the black ash? And what was that mechanical body?
She was processing.
Should she follow protocol and observe safely from a distance, or take initiative, seize these humans, and get first-hand data?
Chris, however, had no intention of giving the confused Ex Machina unit time to decide.
Almost the instant Shuvi began her calculation—
"The World!"
Chris summoned his Stand without hesitation, stopping time once again!
In the gray-white world, everything froze.
Chris wasted no time. His right hand gripped the [Enma Blade] and slashed through the empty air in front of him.
A pale blue arc of light cut a gash through the void, ripping open a dimensional passage straight into the [Mountains and Rivers Sovereignty Map].
He grabbed Morishita Ai by the back of her collar with his left hand, tucked Oriana under his right arm, and strode straight through the spatial passage.
And so—
when time started flowing again,
less than half a second had passed by Shuvi's perception.
The scorched earth before her was already completely empty.
As if they'd evaporated into thin air.
Only a few clear footprints left in the black ash, where Chris and Oriana had been standing, silently proved that living things had once been here.
Shuvi tilted her head, the indicator lights on her mechanical headpiece flickering rapidly.
She immediately activated full-spectrum radar for a deep scan of the surroundings.
Finding no trace of magic power from Chris and the others, not even a spirit-response left by spatial transfer, she came to a conclusion.
Shuvi decisively linked to the mainframe:
"Analysis unit Uc207Pr4f57t9, unexplainable anomaly detected."
"T-target life forms vanished without a trace, classified as high-value observation targets."
"Requesting independent investigation and tracking authorization."
Three seconds later, an order came back from the command network:
"Granted."
Perspective crossed the barrier between dimensions.
Inside the [Mountains and Rivers Sovereignty Map] lay a vast, picturesque land of green hills and clear waters.
Thanks to a proposal Suzune Horikita had made earlier, meant to guard against the Flügel — with their world-ending power — showing up on some whim,
the vast majority of qualified examinees and test-takers in this exam had already gone through the mirrors into the [Mirror World] to lie low.
Inside the self-contained world of the [Mountains and Rivers Sovereignty Map], only Amikura Mako remained, holding a mirror that served as the link between the [Mirror World] and the Map.
Chris obviously wasn't about to land right next to her.
So he deliberately picked a remote patch of forest, far from the valley where Amikura Mako was, as his landing spot.
As the spatial rift sealed shut behind them,
Morishita Ai felt the world spin, and then found her vision had gone completely dark, as if something were covering her eyes.
She reached up on instinct, wanting to yank off whatever jacket — one carrying a faint, familiar scent — was draped over her head.
"Don't move."
Chris's voice came from beside her, his hand rising to stop her:
"I'm guessing you heard Miss Oriana's warning just now."
"An Ex Machina spotted us from above — that's why I had to force us out using time-stop."
"You know [The World]'s time-stop doesn't last long. To avoid anything going wrong, I had to take both of you along."
Chris explained patiently:
"But I'm not sure whether the Black Sphere's rules would count Miss Oriana, as the Mysterious Merchant, as one of the 'viewers' that would fail your test. After all, Intruders can apparently exist as the Mysterious Merchant too."
"Just to be safe, I have to make you put up with this for a bit."
"Of course, if you don't mind the risk, feel free to pull the thing off your face any time."
At that, Morishita Ai's hand froze mid-reach.
Reason quickly won out over her fear of the dark.
She carefully lowered her hand and felt around in the darkness until she found the warmth of Chris's arm.
The deadpan girl silently grabbed his sleeve and shuffled her way behind him by feel alone, saying nothing, making her stance clear through the simplest action possible.
Meanwhile, Oriana, standing on Chris's other side,
watched the two of them interact so seamlessly and tilted her head slightly, a flicker of confusion in her eyes.
Before her modification, Oriana had actually once been an ordinary girl full of curiosity about the world.
But now, with her flesh and blood discarded and her Hextech heart housed alone inside a cold puppet frame,
she inevitably had gaps in her logical processing when it came to the delicate, complicated, even contradictory feelings humans had.
Why would someone who wanted to live go about it in such a self-deceiving way?
She didn't understand.
And that was exactly what Oriana had always most wanted to change, to reclaim.
If she'd never possessed human emotion in the first place, maybe she could explore the unknown full of hope.
But what she feared was this: having genuinely once held those warm memories, only to have them ripped away by circumstances too cruel to name.
That hollow feeling of 'once had, forever lost' left her feeling utterly outmatched whenever she tried to imitate a real human.
Chris noticed Oriana's quiet dejection.
He mused to himself:
Once things here wrapped up, maybe he could pair Oriana and Shuvi up as a kind of control group.
One had gone from human to machine, trying to reclaim her feelings; the other started out as pure machine, trying to understand the human heart. Put the two little robots together, and surely they'd become great friends?
Still, these matchmaking plans would have to wait.
There was still time to spare before Shuvi found the door leading into the Backrooms.
For now, the priority was to regroup with Ryuuen and the others and get to the 'door' out of this world as soon as possible.
After all, he had his upcoming itinerary packed to the brim.
First he needed to go to the world of Berserk, cross blades with Dread Emperor, and rough up Griffith a little; then he had to time his entry into the world of Chainsaw Man just right, so he could pull Horikita Manabu into the Backrooms.
Otherwise, given how Horikita Manabu was currently faring in the Chainsaw Man world — basically an ordinary person who'd wandered into a match way above his skill level—
by the time Miyabi Nagumo went in and pulled him out...
his future brother-in-law would probably be hopelessly behind the meta.
Better to let him become a wandering trader in the Backrooms instead — that had more of a future in it.
With that thought settled,
Chris found a hidden tree hollow in the forest, carefully settled Morishita Ai — still with the jacket over her head — inside it, and warned her repeatedly not to wander off.
Only then did he set off with Oriana toward Ryuuen's location.
Meanwhile.
Disboard.
Following his radar, Ryuuen had already tracked down Asahina Nazuna and Chika Fujiwara hiding in a remote ruin.
Originally, to save time in this high-risk world,
Ryuuen had planned to just pull the two of them straight into the [Mountains and Rivers Sovereignty Map], then go meet up with Chris and head for the world's exit 'door' together.
But just as he was about to act—
Chika Fujiwara told him, dead serious, that the clay statue in front of them was actually a monster.
As long as you kept staring at it, it wouldn't move; but the moment you looked away — even just to blink — it would snap your neck instantly!
Ryuuen raised an eyebrow at the bizarre premise.
But when he glanced down at his Controller and pulled up Little Peanut's identity data, he found its score was actually pretty decent.
Ryuuen's mood instantly brightened.
"Well, isn't that convenient."
After all, as a cybernetically modified guy through and through,
Ryuuen wasn't fully human, but not fully machine either.
These days he could skip the physiological need to blink entirely.
For a modified human like him, built with built-in surveillance plugins, an enemy that froze under a stare was basically a free target.
If he wanted to, he could stare this piece of broken rock down until the end of time.
With that thought,
Ryuuen waved a hand and sent Asahina Nazuna and Chika Fujiwara straight into the Mountains and Rivers Sovereignty Map.
He himself planted his feet firmly in place, ready to keep his eyes locked on "Little Peanut" while using radar to navigate his way onward.
But man proposes, and heaven disposes.
Just at that moment—
the world-shaking battle between the Ex Machina and the Dragonia drew to a close.
The unusual calm that fell over the area naturally caught the attention of a certain busybody watching the battlefield from high above.
As a perfect creation forged personally by Artosh, the God of War,
Jibril's greatest passion in life was collecting unknown knowledge — and rare trophy heads.
By all rights, a bottom-rung creature like a human — one that couldn't even sense magic power in Disboard — should never have piqued her interest, not even a little.
Unfortunately—
for the sake of convenience, Ryuuen had kept his Black Sphere Controller's stealth function active the whole time he'd been in this area.
But as it happened, the Controller's stealth was nothing more than optical camouflage — it fooled the naked eye, but did nothing to mask the heat and unusual energy fluctuations radiating off him.
In a world saturated with magic, that kind of energy signature stood out as clearly as a spotlight in the night.
And so—
Jibril chained together a few uses of [Spatial Transfer] and closed the distance in an instant, arriving over the ruins.
"Oh my?"
"How surprising. A mere monkey who can't even use magic, pulling off such a peculiar little trick..."
Feeling the terrifying pressure bearing down from above, Ryuuen was internally screaming — this was such bullshit.
He'd literally just checked Little Peanut's score and confirmed there were no high-score monsters nearby before he'd dared to stop and chat.
And because of a few extra words with Chika Fujiwara, wasting just that much time, he'd somehow attracted a monster on the level of the Flügel!?
Given that the Flügel were natural masters of spatial magic,
Ryuuen knew perfectly well he couldn't let her catch even a glimpse of a spatial treasure like the [Mountains and Rivers Sovereignty Map].
Otherwise, given how the Flügel — living weapons of war — behaved, she might just force-crack the spatial coordinates and chase him straight into the map for a killing spree!
He thought it over. Since there was no way out—
Ryuuen simply steeled himself.
He set Little Peanut between himself and Jibril.
Then he sneered.
"Playing spooky tricks, bird-lady? You think I'm scared of you!?"
Under Jibril's curious gaze,
Ryuuen, with maximum bravado... simply closed his eyes!
As for Jibril,
as an exalted creation of the god race, when had she ever seen prey this reckless with its own life?
"Running into a Flügel, and instead of fleeing, it shoves out an ugly rock and closes its eyes to wait for death?"
"Is this some new prayer ritual you monkeys invented?"
Jibril covered her mouth and let out a mocking laugh, contempt filling her eyes.
This was it? Here she'd thought it might be some interesting prey.
In that moment of careless overconfidence, Jibril impatiently blinked.
"Crack!"
Little Peanut, which had been standing there like a lifeless object, closed a distance of dozens of meters in an instant,
and clamped down hard on Jibril's slender, snow-white neck!
Then twisted, hard!
"Vwoom—!"
Since this particular Jibril was still at a point in the timeline before killing the Dragonia,
she didn't react in time.
Luckily, the winged race had absurdly tough physical defenses.
Jibril wasn't instantly killed, but—
"What is this thing!?"
Jibril flinched at the pain, shock and fury flashing in her eyes.
She struck back instantly with a blast of magic powerful enough to level a mountain, slamming it straight into Little Peanut!
"BOOM!"
The dust cleared.
Jibril had assumed the rock had been blasted to rubble.
But she was shocked to find that, in the split second her attack had inevitably created a blind spot in her vision—
Little Peanut had appeared, completely unscathed, behind her once again!
Those cold stone arms clamped around her neck again, in the exact same grip!
"Damn it! What is this bizarre magic!?"
Jibril was genuinely rattled now.
The moment her gaze wavered even a hair, the thing would teleport in like some clinging parasite and strike?
For a moment,
Jibril had genuinely been dragged into a stalemate by Little Peanut!
Listening to the constant rumble of magic and Jibril's furious cursing from overhead,
Ryuuen, eyes still shut tight, planned to use the chaos of two high-score monsters going at it to quietly slip backward, ready to make a run for it at any moment.
Just then, the space behind him suddenly split open with a pale blue rift.
Chris stepped out of the rift, [Enma Blade] in hand.
Looking at Ryuuen's shady, eyes-and-ears-shut posture, Chris couldn't help his mouth twitching:
"Stop staring, let's move."
"Or were you actually planning to die as collateral for those two gods duking it out up there?"
Hearing Chris's voice, Ryuuen's eyes snapped open.
He looked at the blade in Chris's hand, an odd flash of admiration crossing his eyes:
"Tch. Say what you want, that blade of yours really is the real deal. Cuts through space like tofu."
He paused, then changed the subject:
"Actually, I was planning to come find you myself. But since you showed up first, I've got an even better idea."
Ryuuen pointed straight up:
"Your [Enma Blade] can cut straight through to the exit door out of this world, right?"
Chris followed his gaze up to the girl and the rock still going at it, frowning slightly:
"No reason it couldn't. Why do you ask?"
Ryuuen grinned, looking like a total scoundrel:
"Then this is easy."
"See that busted rock fighting the strongest Flügel up there? Its score on radar is on par with hers — a straight-up high-score boss!"
"And it's got a fatal weakness — as long as someone's watching it, it can't move at all!"
Ryuuen licked his lips:
"We could totally use your time-stop and space-breaking power to bag Little Peanut and take it with us!"
"Whether we bring it to the next world to piss off whatever strong enemies come chasing us, or just use it as our personal ATM for future missions,"
"it's a guaranteed win, not bad, right!?"
Listening to Ryuuen's outlandish proposal,
Chris raised an eyebrow slightly:
"Make the most of what's available, huh..."
"It's a bold idea, for sure. Worth a shot."
But for safety's sake, Chris added a warning:
"Before that, go wait for me by the 'door' with the Mysterious Merchant."
"[The World]'s time-stop only lasts a few seconds. I won't have room to spare for much else."
Hearing that Chris agreed, Ryuuen didn't hesitate.
He turned sideways and stepped straight into the rift Chris had cut open.
Once Ryuuen's figure had completely vanished,
in midair, Jibril was gathering a low-power [Heaven's Strike], intending to vaporize the annoying rock once and for all.
Chris's gaze hardened, and a golden Stand materialized behind him.
"The World!"
"Hmmm—"
Time and space froze instantly. Everything drained of color.
The glowing magic hanging in midair froze the instant before detonation.
Chris calmly stepped up through the frozen air like climbing stairs, until he reached the paused Little Peanut.
He hoisted Little Peanut onto one shoulder with a single hand.
But just as he turned to leave through the rift cut by the Enma Blade—
Chris stopped.
He glanced back at Jibril, still frozen in her haughty, contemptuous pose.
Recalling Shuvi's fate in the movie...
Chris thought about it for a moment, reached out to swipe some of the paint off Little Peanut's face, and unceremoniously smeared it evenly across Jibril's elegant, haughty face.
No helping it — Jibril really was kind of infuriating in the movie.
Not turning her into 'Jibril-and-mushroom stew' was already Chris — the only god around — showing mercy.
"She turns into a kid after using Heaven's Strike... how fitting~"
"Enjoy it, Jibril."
With all that done,
Chris, Little Peanut still slung over his shoulder, strolled leisurely into the rift.
As color rushed back into the world—
"BOOM—!!!"
a violent beam of Heaven's Strike tore through the sky.
And amid the deafening explosion, a girl's scream — sky-splitting, full of humiliation and fury — could faintly be heard:
"Eeeyaaaaah—!!!"
"What is this disgusting thing!?!"
"Where did my prey run off to now!?!"
____
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