Kill the Sun

'That's a sniper round!' Nick thought after looking at the streak in the air.

Nick had seen many guns being fired in his life, but he had never seen a sniper round that had moved at these speeds.

Then, Nick saw the coral man as the icy flakes were blown away.

A small hole had appeared in the man's abdomen.

That bullet had definitely hit its mark.

Nick's eyes widened as he saw everything around the hole freezing!

The man's abdomen was quickly freezing over, and if he didn't do something, he would be dead real soon.

BANG!

Suddenly, the corals coming out of the man's back hit the man's lower body, shattering it.

Everything below the man's chest was obliterated.

If the man were a normal human, he would die within a couple of seconds.

However, this was not only an extremely powerful Extractor but also a meat puppet of a Specter.

Even though the man had received devastating damage, he still calmly pointed his gun at Zarren again.

Zarren charged at the man, and Mundus readied himself.

But then, the gun moved.

It pointed away from Zarren and pointed at…

Nick!

Nick's eyes widened, and he only saw the flash of a distant muzzle.

He couldn't even think.

The next couple of moments happened at unbelievable speeds.

First, the gun fired its round at Nick, who couldn't even hope to dodge that.

Almost simultaneously, a blue blur shot out from below Nick.

It was the cerulean sword puppet, and it was fully repaired!

Or was it a second one?

The cerulean sword puppet immediately stopped between Nick and the bullet to block it.

Yet, before the bullet hit the cerulean sword puppet, something else happened.

BANG!

A brutal lightning bolt arrived at speeds that the bullet couldn't compete with and completely obliterated the puppet again.

The puppet was turned into dust before the bullet hit it.

Nick seemed frozen in time since he couldn't even think at the speeds at which these events took place.

The bullet shot past the dust of the cerulean sword puppet.

BANG!

And hit a small plate of steel just centimeters in front of Nick.

WHOOOM!

Huge and long tendrils came out of the bullet, and they all reached for Nick.

But at the same time, the steel plate grew, covering more and more of Nick's body.

The steel and the bullet battled for dominance, and eventually, Nick was encased in a steel ball, which was, in turn, surrounded by roots.

As far as Nick was concerned, he only saw the flash of a muzzle before darkness encased him.

For just an instant, Nick wasn't sure if he was still alive.

But then, the Nightmare's influence appeared, and Nick was certain that he was still alive.

Burning blades cut into Nick's flesh and peeled it off its bone.

Sadly, the only thing he could do was to grit his teeth and hold out.

While Nick was being tortured by the Nightmare, the roots covering the steel ball extended toward the ground.

WHOOOM!

And threw themselves towards the sea!

They had captured their target!

The realization of what happened occurred simultaneously in everyone.

Mundus' eyes narrowed, and the black puppet in his hand curled into a ball.

DING!

Strings appeared in the air and became taut, stopping the root-

covered ball.

The roots tried to keep pulling, but they couldn't compete with the strings.

By now, it was obvious that the coral man was an Early Hero, while the people from Anatomy were Initial Heroes.

Yet, even though the coral man was stronger than Mundus, his relationship between him and his roots was different from Mundus' relationship with his strings.

The roots were like minions, and they wouldn't get new Zephyx from the man. This limited their output, and eventually, they would run out of Zephyx.

Meanwhile, Mundus' strings were directly manipulated by him, and he could infuse them with as much Zephyx as he wanted.

So, even though the roots pulled with all their strength, Mundus just stopped them by using more Zephyx.

In less than a second, the roots became weak and stopped moving.

Nick had only been moved one kilometer closer to the sea, which was still a couple hundred meters away.

Zarren saw that he no longer needed to infuse the ball of metal with Zephyx to harden it and focused on the man again…

Who pointed his gun at Zarren.

WHOOM! BANG!

Zarren summoned a big sheet of metal between him and his opponent.

The bullet hit the sheet and wrapped around it, making both of them fall to the ground.

Meanwhile, Zarren charged forward.

At the same time, more strings appeared above the man, keeping him in place.

The man hadn't readied another round yet.

Mundus and Zarren focused on the coral man.

They were about to win.

"CAREFUL!"

At that moment, Kevara's words seemed to pulse throughout the world.

These words were not spoken with her mouth but with her Zephyx, allowing her to bypass the speed of sound limit.

At that moment, Zarren and Mundus looked higher into the sky, towards the other battlefield.

Kilometers of the sky were covered in silver metallic liquid, making it seem like the world was covered in clouds.

At the same time, countless small pieces of metal were shooting past the clouds at unbelievable speeds, destroying the ground everywhere.

Luckily, there was a metallic cloud above the people of the first battlefield, protecting them from the fallout.

From time to time, huge explosions of lightning shot past the clouds of metal.

The liquid metal clouds were made by Kevara, and the countless pieces of metal were made by Liera.

When the people from the first battlefield looked up after Kevara's shout, they saw something terrifying.

The coral woman had summoned a spear made of lightning, and she was about to throw it.

Sadly, she was so fast that no one could react.

WHOOOOOM!

The bolt of lightning left the skies.

They passed over Nick.

They passed over Zarren, Mundus, and the coral man.

They shot into the horizon at the south.

This was the place where the earlier sniper round had come from!

This was where Ariel had to be!

Silence.

BOOOOOOOOM!

A kilometer-wide explosion of lightning brightened the horizon.

For the first time, there seemed to be two suns.

Sssshhh!

And then, as everyone looked towards the south, a nearly imperceptible sound of quietly whispering wind went through the battlefield.

An instant later, a new coral man appeared, almost his entire body covered in corals.

In his hands were two longswords…

And he stood right behind Mundus!