'System, do you think I can take on a rank 3?'
[That'd be a quick and painless death. Excellent choice, Host.]
'…I'm glad you don't have a body. If people regularly talked to you, they'd be so pissed off.' Varian shook his head.
The floating classroom he hid in floated aimlessly with the near-endless debris in the chaotic space.
It'd been two hours and they still haven't left. It'd take weeks if they had to thoroughly search everything. But they showed no signs of giving up.
'Didn't I just take one space gem? Why all the fuss? Didn't you have two or three?' Varian complained inwardly as he restrained his breath further.
Neihor and the six rank 2s were quickly scanning through the debris. One rank 2 was slowly approaching him.
Thousand miles.
Hundred miles.
Ten miles.
One mile.
With a creak, a lightning havoc threw the door to the classroom away and checked inside.
"Huh?"
His eyes met with Varian's and they both stared at each other for a second.
As he was about to contact others, a white light shot out from Varian's eyes into his.
"You lost your communication skills." Varian tried to construct a new order on this Havoc's body.
If surroundings could be controlled with new laws of order and chaos, then surely a person's body could also be influenced.
It's just…
The lightning havoc opened his mouth to say something but ended up sneezing. Once. Two. Thrice…
He tried to touch his bracelet but his fingers always slipped by.
'Law of Probability?' Varian didn't quite understand but kept himself busy with setting up the apparatus to make a safe escape.
He just needed two more seco—
BOOM!
The lightning havoc's aura blasted through the classroom's wall and shot into the space like a golden pillar.
"Fuck!" Varian wanted to punch him in the face.
But this was the best he could've done. He couldn't just impose arbitrary restrictions without paying the price. And making him shut up for a short while was already the biggest thing he could do.
"That rat!" Havoc Patriarch's soaring energy blasted away the space currents as the rank 3 made his way toward Varian at an astounding pace.
He seemed a hundred thousand miles away one second but in the next, he was just ten thousand miles away, and in the next, just a thousand steps away.
"Fucking di—" Havoc Patriarch raised his hand and blue flames filled the space like a mini galaxy. The elliptical sea of flames burned brightly and was about to engulf Varian.
'A few more seconds! Something shocking…something that'd stop him from killing me instantly. ' Varian gritted his teeth as the flames fast approached.
All energy seemed to be sapped out of his body and he couldn't even lift a finger.
There was no escape. He couldn't even strike back.
But…
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Seven tyrannical auras shot out from Varian and reached the Havoc Patriarch.
The attack that was about to deal him a finishing blow stopped at the last moment and Varian collapsed onto the floor.
The flames weren't attacking him but they sure were blocking him from using any energy.
Like a toy without a battery, Varian remained down.
"S-Seven paths? W-What are you…?" Patriarch Neihor's gaze toward Varian changed drastically.
The six rank 2s also gaped at the unbelievable.
"Must bring him alive and dig out his secrets." Neihor lifted Varian by his collar and signaled to the six rank 2s to return with him swiftly.
Incapacitated, Varian offered no resistance.
"Little bustard, you'll be the key to my race getting revenge against those that persecuted us." Neihor tapped Varian's shoulder.
But the seemingly harmless touch started a terrible fire on Varian's shoulder. His skin, and flesh melted with searing pain and the fire began to gnaw at his very soul.
Varian's eyes began to bleed as his blood grew hotter and hotter, quickly reaching the point of being comparable to lava.
Even if his blood was special, even if his body was resilient, deprived of all action, Varian couldn't do anything as his own blood began to melt away his body and inflection horrifying pain.
"Cry! Wail! You'll regret coming here and I'll be lucky for catching such a precious treasure boy."
Neihor looked into his eyes and sneered.
He expected Varian to cry, glare or close his eyes painfully.
But this guy…
"Heh…Hehehe," Varian frowned at the pain but kept an annoying smirk on his face as he stared at Neihor
"Have you gone insane from the pain already?"
"No, you've gone blind from…hiss," Varian sucked a breath of cold air at the pain and smiled at Neihor. "Greed."
"What are yo—?"
A beam of light shot out of Varian and enveloped all the spaceships.
Before any could respond, they all disappeared.
What greeted them was a new world, a new sky, and a new land.
An evergreen forest with species of trees he didn't recognize with birds and animals that he had never seen.
They were in Inner Space just a moment ago and now...
"W-Where?" Neihor looked around in vigilance. His six peak rank 2 subordinates were also checking their surroundings and exploring it with their senses, trying to make sense of the bizarre situation.
For some reason, their senses seemed to be working fine but the responses they were giving were ridiculous.
As celestials, their sensing range went beyond the surface area of entire planets. But now, they couldn't sense the end of this one forest.
"He disappeared somewhere. We need to catch him. He'll know the way out." Neihor said and the seven havocs marched together in pursuit of Varian.
An hour passed without any results. Then two. Three. Four…
"Arghhhh!"
Neihor's patience reached its limits and ignoring all potential dangers, the man simply attacked the forest.
In a blink, blue flames swallowed every tree, plant, animal, bird, and insect in the forest. The next second, all of them died off.
The evergreen forest disappeared and what was left was just an endless plain.
"There! I can see the edge of this place!" A rank 2 pointed with an excited smile and they all set off with hope.
They crossed that boundary, entered into what seemed to be another plain, and flew straight for two more hours at high speeds.
And they kept flying.
And flying.
For some reason, there was no change in the environment no matter how much they flew. It was always the same scorched plain.
That begged the question, if they were really moving away from the scorched plain, why was every plain they came into contact with also scorched? All of them shouldn't be burned, right?
And why were there only plains? Why only scorched plains? Most of all…why did they seem so familiar?
Neihor's heart reached his throat and he prayed for his worst nightmares to not become a reality.
But—
"This is the piece of cloth I threw an hour ago." A rank 2 pointed to a bright red cloth with a trembling finger.
"Let's go." Neihor pulled them forward.
"This is the fragment of my belt I tore off in frustration three hours ago!" Another rank 2 pointed to a designer metal piece on the ground.
Neihor gritted his teeth. "Let's go!"
But it didn't stop.
"This is the button of my—"
"This is the lump of hair—"
"This is the paint I—"
"Arghh! Stop it! Fucking stop it!" Neihor growled at them like a wild beast.
The havocs flinched and grouped together instinctively.
"Forget it. This space is weird. Just forget it. Let's go upward." Neihor said and they all nodded eagerly.
They flew from the ground and into space. But for some reason, no matter how high they flew, they just couldn't get into outer space. Rather, they ended up coming to a scorched plan.
From their point of view, they were moving up. But it's like they're astronauts coming from space and encountering the scorched plain every single time.
The group of havocs tried everything they could.
East, west, north, south. Up and down.
In the end, they all agreed on the only solution they could think of.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The scorched plain exploded as highly energized lightning and firebombs were poured relentlessly.
An hour later, Neihor took his group and traveled into the underground tunnel they made.
"Finally!"
It was a long tunnel. But they, there was light at the end.
And when they did come out into the light, what greeted them was a very, very familiar forest.
An evergreen forest with species of trees he didn't recognize with birds and animals that he had never seen.
"Oh god…"