Time was in a slight frozen space as Levin moved. After he made a small flick with his finger, he cut his speed.

Time returning to normal.

A giant burst of lightning exploded all at once, sonic booms began roaring across the center of the Elven Continent. The buildings rumbled before the land under them cracked and split, buildings shattered and collapsed into rubble. Bolts and metal flew in the air, the circuit then split. Everything around Levin imploded, the shadows around him dissipating.

Dust and metal fell down the abyss, landing next to Risible, some of it landing around Six and I as well.

The rumbles subsided, the exterior was in complete shambles. The part of the World tree near the circuit was barely standing, holes in the metal everywhere, molten metal falling from the lightning’s heat. Levin retracted the slime surrounding Laviel, she was staring forward. There were red markings across the walls of debris, like someone splashed buckets of dark crimson paint. Laviel looked around and lightly felt the center of her forehead where the bullet should have impaled, but nothing was there.

A tear ran down Laviel’s right cheek, her arms dropped to her sides. She looked toward Levin who stood there, his back to her. Laviel’s eyes had shifted to a vibrant and grateful green… before they unconsciously swapped to a light pink. She didn’t know why her heart rate had increased, but it wasn't in a fearful way.

It was when she stared at this man.

The only two still alive on that level of the World tree, were Levin and Laviel.

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

“Woah, woah, woah-”

Risible jumped to the side, a giant metal pipe slammed into the ground where he had previously stood.

“That could have hit me!”

He pointed at the pipe aggressively while bitching out the Elven Queen.

“Do you people not have a thing called ‘safety’ around here?!”

Dust continued lightly falling from the abyssal hole above us.

I turned my attention from the unseeable ceiling to the Elven Queen.

“So? Are you going to answer my question?”

“Why would I ever answer a monster like you—”

Lydia’s eyes suddenly went wide. She looked down to see molten metal falling softly onto the ground. There was a hole drilled through her mechanical body.

The tip of my sword was pointed at the spot where the hole was, white and gold flare-like sparks lightly trickled around my blade slowly.

||FIRE BEAM; MODIFICATION, HEAVENLY FLAME||

“I won’t ask again.”

The queen’s lips quivered slightly as she stayed silent, her eyes glaring at me in a violent way. Six appeared to be quite ticked off considering she seemed to simply ignore him as a threat. Just like Goldwill.

“Hey.”

Six took a step forward.

“How about you pay attention-”

A giant slab of metal slammed down onto Six. He was standing at the wrong place at the wrong time. I really was starting to feel bad for him…

The shadows around the World tree cracked, before shattering into millions of pieces. [Shadow World] broke down completely.

Six’s right arm landed at my feet and sat still, I quickly took a step back making some distance. His body didn’t move at all though.

“Isn’t he going to regenerate?”

I pointed at where Six’s body was, the splattered slime under the slab of metal refused to move.

“Uh huh…”

The arm’s finger twitched slightly before black slime warped it into Six’s head. He was scowling… and now he was just a head. Though his hood was still there as well for some reason.

“I hate this. Stupid title. Stupid metal. Stupid queen. Stupid world-”

Six kept going on with this giant list as he grumbled to himself.

“Is he alright?”

“Give him five minutes.”

“Okay…”

I turned my attention back to the Elven Queen who was glaring at us intently.

“C’mon I don’t have all day-”

“Die!”

A giant right arm with a shield was thrusted forward, the tip of the shield aiming at me. I tilted my head slightly in confusion, a small flash of white light went off. The entire right side of my body blew up into his hole of air, my left eye wide as I saw the hidden cannon under her shield.

I hastily regenerated my body and activated a few skills.

||SEARCH||

||MAP||

My irises glowed a slight green, a red marker quite a bit further into the World tree lit up roughly up one level from us. I looked at my map and saw a hidden passage on the opposite side of the queen.

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“Risible, I’ll go get Esther real quick. Distract her for a bit.”

I quickly swapped into my slime form before dashing under the queen and through the seams of the mechanized hidden door. Risible was standing in shock as he watched me leave him alone. The queen’s eyes were glowing a blue electronic color, she refocused on Risible who then ran around the metal room with Six’s head in his arms.

“Why am I left to do this?!”

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

I reformed my body on the other side of the hidden door. The halls were dimly lit and it felt kind of ominous just standing there. As I walked I noticed the white metal change into a dark-gray color, the rooms were all empty except for these creepy-looking operating tables inside of them.

I came to a closed door on my right that was labeled ‘special’.

The red outline I was looking for was inside, I canceled both my spells and broke the door down to see Esther strapped down to one of those tables. She was staring blankly at the ceiling, her body looked lifeless while laying there. Her eyes were half-lidded. I quickly ran over and made a small red slime karambit.

The straps holding her down were swiftly cut, she turned to look at me.

“Esther, are you alright?”

She stared at me blankly.

“I’m bored.”

“Huh-?”

I blinked a few times while she continued staring at me.

“You’re… bored?”

…

Esther turned her eyes back to the ceiling.

“I’ve been sitting here for days-”

“Hours.”

She glared at me before facing the ceiling again.

“I’ve been sitting here for hours, with nothing to do. She just left me here.”

“Isn’t that a good thing though?”

Esther sat up and got off the table, she stretched a little before rolling her arm around to get the stiffness out.

“How?”

“Well, that means the queen didn’t do anything to you.”

“...”

“Fair.”

I heard a loud grumbling noise, I looked toward Esther. She was staring down toward her stomach. She put her hands on it lightly before looking at me.

“I’m hungry.”

“I don’t have anything-”

I felt my sleeve roll up causing me to pause mid sentence.

“Esther… Why’re you biting me?”

“You can jusht regesherate it back-”

Her teeth were trying to sink in my arm, she tried to pull her head back.

“Stop it.”

She kept biting, trying to get a part of me off. I grabbed the back of her shirt and lifted her off of the ground. She was a few inches off the ground, enough where she couldn’t move where she wanted to.

Esther released her bite and… broke down?

“I haven’t had anything for over a day- the last thing I ate was that piece of toast! I’m so hungry I can barely think straight… even just a small nibble? Please?!”

She was whining quite a lot, almost like a kid whose parents wouldn’t let them do what they wanted.

I threw Esther over my left shoulder and started walking back where I came from as she hit my back.

“Hey, just a bite? Please-?!”

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

“How long do I have to keep running for?!”

A white beam shot behind Risible, leaving hot burn marks on the metallic walls.

I slammed my foot into the mechanized hidden door, it broke into pieces, falling onto the steel-like floor. The Elven Queen turned her attention toward me and aimed the tip of her shield at me again. I side stepped this time, since I knew how it worked. A white beam shot past into the corridor behind me, lighting it up slightly as I stepped forward and dropped off the side of the ledge. I landed with a slight bend in my knees.

Risible ran over to me, he looked out of breath… somehow…

“Huh? What’s Esther doing?”

I turned to my right to see her greedily trying to bite into my right shoulder. She looked kind of savage like a starving animal… or maybe one with rabies…

I was still holding her by her knees over my left shoulder, but she had slid her upper body over onto my other shoulder.

“Risible, we’re all good. Let’s just leave.”

“Heh- but what about the queen-?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Risible stared at me in a sort of shock as I started walking off in the direction he came from.

“Esther, pass me some mana.”

“No, not unshil I gesh shom food.”

She kept ripping at my shoulder hungrily with her teeth. Though it was futile, I just made my shoulder a similar consistency to rubber.

||SPELL CREATION||

Fine, I’ll just take some myself then…

I started lightly connecting some gears while I walked, Risible was following behind with Six’s head in his hands.

Lydia looked immensely frustrated, I mean I could guess why pretty easily. We randomly showed up, destroyed her military defenses, broke into the World tree, then we proceeded to break her body apart… ah- then we broke her anti-magic, and now we were walking away like nothing happened.

I finished making the new spell while Lydia’s cannon started charging up again. I flicked the cyan mana gears, they shattered and reformed into a sigil on two of my fingers. My index and middle fingers.

“Mana Steal, plus Modification Quick Drain.”

I lifted my right hand and touched Esther’s right carotid artery lightly with my index and middle finger. My mana surged up as Esther plopped her jaw down onto my shoulder drowsily, her eyes closing to be half-lidded, it was a temporary side effect I added so that Esther would chill out for now.

Lydia aimed the cannon at us, I stopped walking.

||SPELL CREATION||

Now~ data copy, paste, modify. I shifted the gears around, a small golden gear was near the center of the cluster… It shattered and rebuilt around my right arm.

“Die, you monster!”

The cannon fired, a quick sparkle of white light raced toward us.

“Heaven’s Barrier—”

A quick barrage of yellow hexagonal shapes formed rapidly around us, the white beam slammed into it. The hexagons rattled as a cyan color started shifting and replacing the yellow. Small sparkles of mana coating over the barrier… The beam came to a slow stop. Smoke was rising from the cannon’s barrel, the queen was panting heavily. Sparks were shooting out from her neck, her hand twitching slightly.

The barrier was now entirely cyan, small mana particles hopped around it causing me toI smile warmly.

I snapped my fingers together and turned them into a finger gun pointed straight toward Lydia.

“—Death Reflector Modification.”

“BANG~!”

I moved my thumb down, almost like pulling a trigger.

The barrier instantly turned red, the previously cyan coloring and the particles of mana zoomed into a central point that faced the Elven Queen. Mana circles of pure red formed. They started at a medium size and grew larger before they ended off with smaller sigils. They slammed together, a bright red beam, an exact copy paste of her white beam, was shot. It plowed through the metal floor melting everything into molten liquid. It quickly approached the queen, her eyes widened. A small chip in the back of her skull cracked and fried, her robotic eyes almost seemed to glisten for a moment.

“Ah… Laviel… Esther…”

The beam reached her face, her body starting melting down.

“I love–”

The beam slammed into the queen. Melting her metallic skin down, her skull caved in and metallic strands of hair melded together. The pile of molten liquid collapsed to the floor, it was at the point that anyone would think she was just fallen debris from above.

Steam and smoke sizzled from the cooling pile of metal.

I made a heavy sigh of relief.

“Alright, let’s go~”