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Comprehending and accepting something were two completely different things.

Azalea, who comprehended that Russell had anticipated the current circumstances, couldn\'t accept whatever Russell\'s situation was at this moment.

She was curious, and at the same time, worried. Although she already realized that Russell wasn\'t an ordinary person, especially in terms of knowledge possession, Azalea couldn\'t help but want to question him this time because what had transpired was something that was history-changing and didn\'t concern a single individual anymore.

"...Ah, f*ck it!"

Tensely walking arbitrarily, back and forth, in her hotel room, she cursed, which was then followed by the sound of tapping through her smartwatch as she called someone under her wing as the master of Thorn of Rose.

"Trace the location of this contact number and quickly send it to me. Now!"

With a firm voice, the person on the other end of the call didn\'t manage to question what she needed, rather, the person responded, noticing the urgency in Azalea\'s voice.

"...Yes, Boss!"

***

"I-Isn\'t that?"

Han Jiho and Anya Amasawa\'s eyes widened, horrified.

At this moment, they were like nomads who were traveling numerous buildings to avoid the approaching screams of those who were trapped in the imaginary Dark World and had their lives ruthlessly stolen.

As Anya spoke in wonder and trembling lips, trying to calm her mind, she pointed to one of the bodies laying on the ground, on the sidewalk across the road.

"Yeah... He\'s the one I fought with during the mock battle in Etheria\'s Colosseum."

Han Jiho scrutinized and recognized the lying dead body at least ten to twelve meters away from where they were hiding. It seemed as though luck had left them because they couldn\'t find anyone they knew like Samantha, Elizabeth, or Rumia, but they were also hoping, though they were not speaking about it with each other, that they were safe and not caught in this life-and-death situation.

"He may be cocky, but certainly he\'d be recruited by numerous renowned guilds after he graduates."

Jiho added while being alert to his surroundings.

"Unfortunately, he\'s dead."

Anya spoke in a dejected tone.

After an unknown period of time of traversing between the ruined infrastructures, they finally heard a noise... a noise that wasn\'t a depiction of someone\'s scream and impending death.

Even though that\'s the case, they were cautiously approaching the noise, which was far from the seemingly endless screams from afar.

For a moment, the noise almost quickly vanished as though Jiho and Anya\'s presence were sensed, causing the two to ready their weapons in case of an unexpected attack since they weren\'t certain if there were more attackers in Central Square.

Hiding behind the door of a room, Anya glanced outside for a moment before she spoke to Jiho, who was also poking his head through the door.

"S-Samantha-!"

Recognizing the individual that came out of stairs at the end of the hallway, just near the rooftop of the building, Anya spoke, just enough for Samantha to hear.

Samantha then gladly heard Anya\'s familiar voice as the latter beckoned them to go inside the room.

"I see. So it\'s your footsteps that remain."

Jiho looked at the terrified Celine, who had already shed tears due to fear since the current predicament she was in was something that her fragile heart could not handle.

Unexpectedly for Anya, Samantha approached her and then hugged her. Anya, who somewhat felt Samantha\'s gratification, did the same.

"I\'m glad you two are alive, where are the others? Elizabeth? Rumia...?"

Samantha asked, curious. She then paused for a moment before she added:

"R-Russell...? Where is he?"

<Psh. I told you that you should stop worrying about him.>

<Ah, right. Well, I couldn\'t help but ask.>

Samantha and the entity\'s voice in her head exchanged words.

"Uh, we don\'t know."

Anya spoke as she looked at Jiho.

But at that moment, Anya\'s eyes widened in horror as she saw a woman, with a smile on her face, wearing a hood standing behind Jiho.

"You mean Russell Moon...? Unfortunately, they are not here."

***

Chills run down their spines at the sinister voice of the woman. With just the pressure she was exuding, Samantha, Jiho, and Anya trembled and involuntarily fell to their knees, while Celine coughed blood, her nose bleeding before she fainted as though she was convulsing.

"Worry not. I\'ve lowered the pressure I can exude because killing you instantly will be boring... Especially you... Artorious\' daughter."

After she said that, the woman kicked Jiho and Anya almost at the same time, sending them flying out of the building as they crashed toward the road.

Bam-! Bam!

Due to their stats, after they conquered the Tower of Growth, and after they trained for some time, falling from such a height was something they could survive, especially when the building they were in wasn\'t a towering one.

But it was the kick from a player under the realm of S Rank, which caused their ribs to shatter on the spot, that could surely do more than just an injury.

"W-who are you...?"

Samantha, crouching through immense pressure, mustered her courage to ask.

"Ha... I\'ll be nice and answer one question... But, why are you protecting that weakling?"

Samantha got in front of unconscious Celine because it was something she ought to do.

\'I promise that I\'ll protect her...\'

Samantha thought as she didn\'t answer the woman\'s question.

"I see... It seems you\'re not going to answer me, so it\'s my turn to answer you.

"I bet you don\'t know, but I\'m one of your father\'s companions... Well, you haven\'t even born in this world when it happened.

"But all I can say is that your father is someone I resented the most because of his betrayal.

"I may not be different, but he too was an indiscriminate murderer."

"M-murderer...?"

Samantha\'s mouth trembled as she asked. The woman only smirked before she said something that wasn\'t related to Samantha\'s question.

"Humans truly can see better in the dark now, even without the moon.

"Samantha, right? You should thank your father for humanity\'s suffering.

"Playtime is over."

At that moment, the dark scythe appeared from the darkness, then, in that split second, the woman got behind Samantha and dragged the unconscious Celine by her neck.

"N-no...! Please! Don\'t kill her! Kill me instead!

"I-I don\'t know why you are doing this or even if it\'s because of my father, please!!

"Please... Spare her. She\'s innocent, and she\'s just an Alchemist..."

For the first time in her life, Samantha shed tears for someone who wasn\'t related to her family.

The woman looked at Samantha in confusion. The former was being reminded of herself, begging Artorious to revoke his final judgment of deciding a cruel act when they were undergoing the mysterious Trial of the Stars.

"...Be grateful that you are somehow different from your father.

"But... what a shame."

With her words, Samantha\'s cry reverberated throughout the certain building they were in as the woman snapped the neck of the innocent Alchemist, Celine.

At least that should have been the case.

"W-what...?"

Celine turned into a cloud of dark some and disappeared from the woman\'s grip, confusing her eyes and Samantha\'s.

Samantha almost instantly realized that Celine disappeared not because she was killed, but because she was transported outside of the imaginary Dark World. In other words, Celine\'s body came back to the real world.

***

"Go! Just hit the shadow\'s remnant!"

Russell ordered his Chaos Companions as they positioned themselves just several meters away from the shadow standing in the middle of the road.

Since it was a bad idea to approach closely or cause stimulus to the shadow or the one that\'s acting as the Dark World\'s core or gateway, Freya and Amelie were the ones attacking from a distance using the Skill: Magic Missile, and it was Russell and Ken who were assigned to block the defense mechanism of the shadow whenever it felt their presence or received any form of stimuli.

"Oppa! Those are faces!"

Freya realized something, which the other also did. But Russell knew it beforehand so instead of thinking about it, he ordered his younger sister and Amelie to just shoot the remnants of faces that would appear in the shadow\'s abdominal part.

What was screened in front of them was similar to the Tower of Growth\'s Area of Fealty where there were panoramic views of events whenever they would or just answered the Administrator\'s question. But this time, the faces of those who were trapped in the imaginary Dark World were being shown intermittently like a cloud of dark smoke from the shadowy figure.

"Focus on them."

With Russell\'s words, Freya and Amelie fired a barrage of Magic Missile on the faces that were being screened like a panorama.

With their actions, a certain reaction occurred. Upon every hit, the shadow hit them back with a dark wave, but Russell, who was technically immune to Dark Element, tanked it all as he stood in front.

After several moments of hitting and getting hit, forms of dark smoke that were expelled from the shadow coalesced and turned into human bodies.

"Ce-Celine!"

Amelie shouted, seeing the critical condition of the Alchemist she liked to mess with sometimes.

"I\'ll get her."

With Ken Raven\'s words, he run towards the shadow that resembled the attacker\'s stature and picked up the unconscious Celine. He did it without much worry, even though the shadow was now aware of his existence since he wasn\'t the one who was giving it strong stimuli to trigger its defense mechanism.

Sometime later, the panorama ended.

\'Those who are either unconscious or dead are the ones that are only being shown.\'

Russell thought as he ordered them to stop for a moment to take a rest since they couldn\'t do anything other than disrupt the skill user\'s mentality, which could affect the foundation of the imaginary Dark World.

***

"Ha... Haha... HAHAHAHA-!!

"What an amusing situation this is!"

The woman guffawed maniacally because of the unexpected situation.

"I thought we are the only ones who managed to successfully experiment with Chaos... But it seems there are people we didn\'t know who possess it as we do.

"Interesting..."

"Hup-!"

While distracted, Samantha did her best to lunge a surprise attack, which certainly didn\'t work because of the woman\'s battle experience and overall strength.

"Hey... Why are you being rude now, Artorious\' daughter?"

With just her left hand, the one that wasn\'t holding the dark scythe, she stopped Samantha\'s attack. Without waiting for Samantha to make a response, the woman also kicked her out of the building.

Disappearing from the darkness, the woman appeared in the middle of the road where there Samantha, Anya, and Jiho were lying down, all three were grunting in pain.

"Does your father even loves you? He should have shown himself by now, am I wrong?"

Crouching down, hugging the dark scythe, the woman looked at Samantha, who was in agony.

"Ah! Right! Even he wouldn\'t be able to enter this imaginary world of mine! What a bummer!

"Sigh... I apologize for talking so much, but my momentum was disrupted by whoever is outside."

After she spoke, she again instantly disappeared and beat up Samantha, Jiho, and Anya, who didn\'t even manage to recover.

"You talented ones should quickly die, but I want to play with you three. Show me what you–"

The woman didn\'t finish her words as two women; one was holding a whip, while the other was holding a sword that\'s exuding a white aura, appeared and attack her from behind.

With perfect synchronization and the echo of the imaginary Dark World because of the outside\'s disruption, the woman slightly faltered...

But she managed to block both attacks.

Quickly getting back from the woman\'s attack range, Rumia, and Elizabeth recovered the three bodies. They then poured into their mouths the highest quality of Health Potion just below Elixirs.

Since it wasn\'t enough for them to recover fully, another one was poured for each of them.

"What a show of camaraderie."

The woman slowly clapped, finding the situation entertaining as she muttered from a distance.

"...But what a bunch of low-rank players can do?"