Eik squinted hard as the thoughts swirled around in his head.

  Ihasu was quicker to put words together but she wasn’t getting it any more than he was. “The worlds have… what, vanished, you said? What do you mean? How is that possible?”

  The Alliance-affiliated woman’s jaw worked with clear frustration. “I wish I could provide satisfactory answers to any of those questions. I really do. But as I said, this news is minutes old and we’re still coming to grips with what we’re seeing.”

  Eik listened without speaking and the woman continued.

  “So, what I mean is exactly what I said. Somehow, two worlds proximate to the Chasm are gone for all intents and purposes. We are getting no readings about them whatsoever. Neither about spawning grounds, Ak’ki concentration, environmental condition, or anything else. It is a complete blank, as if there is… well, nothing.”

  “But how is th—” Ihasu began.

  “And as for how that is possible,” the woman continued. “Nobody has a clue. But the issue warrants further investigation. Urgently. Hence, I have been sent here to fetch you, Mr. Magnasen. I would appreciate it greatly if you would follow me back to the headquarters in Gimleh immediately.”

  “Hon, could you butter a few more slices of toast for me, please?” Eik asked Ihasu as he stood up and went throw on a jacket. “Unfortunately, it seems we’re going to have to cut short this cozy breakfast. Duty calls.”

  “Don’t get hurt,” she said and placed one slice of buttered toast after the other on his plate. “Is four enough?”

  “Yeah, it’s perfect, thanks. And honestly, I’m not sure I even can get hurt anymore,” he chuckled as he put on his shoes.

  “Maybe not now, but if you ever meet the Lord of the Moon, that will change. It’s a Worldbreaker, Eik!”

  “Hey, so am I. Worldbreaker against Worldbreaker. It makes sense.”

  That little piece of information seemed to catch the Alliance messenger completely off guard, a sharp inhalation revealing her surprise to the entire room. Eik looked up over his shoulder at her with a smirk. “I’m-I’m s-sorry, Mr. Magnasen…” she stumbled.

  “Nah, don’t be. It’s still an open secret at this point. I don’t really care about hiding it anymore, so feel free to spread it around.”

  “I… Okay?” she said. She watched him go and give his wife and then his little son a hug. The boy hadn’t looked up even once from the moment she stepped inside. What a strange kid. But then again, if your father is an X-ranker, what kid wouldn’t be a little affected by that?

  Eik himself seemed pretty down to Earth for someone who was supposedly by far the most powerful person in the entire Alliance, so the kid was probably going to turn out totally normal in the end.

  “All right, I’m ready to go, Ms. Messenger,” Eik announced, a slice of buttered toast hanging by his teeth.

  She opened the door for him and he stepped into the mid-morning sun. “Aah, yes,” he breathed, soaking up the warming rays. “Now this! This is a good day to di—”

  “Stop saying that crap already!” came his wife’s voice from inside the house.

  “Yeah, sorry,” he said sheepishly and cleared his throat.

  “Are you really a Worldbreaker?” the messenger asked.

  “Uh huh, yeah, totally. See?” he said and showed her his forearm. Glowing letters etched into his skin displayed his basic information.

  [Supreme Divinity of Toxin — I]

  “What is…?” she said with hesitation, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. Was that supposed to be a power rank? What had happened to the letter system?

  “We’re in a hurry, aren’t we?” he asked, interrupting her train of thought.

  “Oh, uuh, yes, very much so, actually.”

  Eik snapped his fingers and two Profound Toxin beasts measuring about five meters each manifested to pick up both of them. “All right, here we go!” he shouted with a fist raised in the air, sending a mental order for the Living Manifestations to take off toward the Gimleh gate. Just as they left the ground, he granted them both Raise to the Occasion.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Excuse me! Unhand me at once!” the messenger snapped, struggling in the unbreakable grip. “Let me go——!” she screamed as she and a giggling Eik disappeared into the distance toward the portal hall, the summons now powerful enough to take them all the way there in a single leap.

  A neighbor standing on the other side of the fence that separated their gardens followed the two shrinking figures with her eyes and looked back into the kitchen through the open window when they had disappeared on the horizon.

  She smiled knowingly. “Good morning, Ihasu.”

  “Melanie?” Ihasu called back, sticking her head out of the window. “How are things? Did you get your sunflowers to take root?”

  “Yes!” the woman said, beaming with pride. “Come take a look if you have time!”

  “Sure! Let me just haul Goo along. Sec!”

  She disappeared inside and came out of the front door shortly after, carrying the boy by the back of his shirt collar. By now, the immediate neighbors knew the Magnasen Ougi family well and even knew of Goo’s unique physiology.

  “See?” Melanie said, excitedly beckoning over Ihasu as she kneeled over a small plant bed. “I noticed these three sprouts coming up this morning. That’s hopefully a good sign.”

  “I’d say!”

  “Are you working in the garden today?”

  “No, unfortunately now. I have a shift in Gimleh today. Eik was actually supposed to take Goo today while I’m at work but it looks like I’ll have to take the kiddo to my grandpa for the day.”

  “Your grandpa’s an S-ranker, right? One of the most powerful men in the Nidafjeld Alliance;” Melanie asked as she offered the sprouts a bit of water.

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “What… does he say about the Gohkamorians?” the neighbors asked, surprising Ihasu with the question. The Gohkamorians? Well, perhaps it wasn’t so strange that they were where Melanie’s mind dwelled.

  After all, the Expulsion, the Lord of the Moon and the issues caused by them probably felt rather far from home in comparison to the Gohkamorian threat which had been a terrible and ever-present harm to Earth’s population for over ten years. There wasn’t an Earthling alive who hadn’t witnessed family and friends torn apart brutally like prey animals by the monster swarms.

  “Well, he doesn’t say much about it, really. He’s not really that involved in that whole matter. You know, while it’s true that my grandfather is one of the most powerful individuals in the Alliance, you also happen to personally know the number one most powerful person by quite a large margin.”

  “I do?” she asked, genuinely taken aback by the revelation. “Who?”

  “Melanie, it’s Eik. Eik is unquestionably the strongest Awakened in the Alliance, and maybe even in the Unified Mass as a whole.”

  “What?” she exclaimed, her voice cracking with disbelief. “Eik? The Eik I know? He’s the strongest in the universe? I— Wh… How? He’s from Earth!”

  Ihasu crouched down and used her fingers to gently move around a bit of the top soil in the plant bed, looking for more sprouts that might not yet have grown strong enough to break through to the sunlight. There! Bright green, vibrant, and still curled in on itself. Adorable.

  “He’s a bit of a special case, in more ways than one,” Ihasu said with a snort of laughter. “He is both a Worldbreaker and an X-ranker,” she continued. Seeing a lack of comprehension on her neighbor’s face, she pivoted to a more practical example. “Right now, he could probably descend upon Gohkamoria like a meteor and eradicate their entire civilization single-handedly.”

  The woman’s jaw fell open as she stared at Ihasu, dumbstruck, a frown slowly making its way onto her brow. “Well, then why the hell isn’t he doing that? Those bastards killed my parents, both my siblings, and nearly all of my friends! They all deserve to rot and die! Before they can do any more horrible things to us!” she snarled, her face warping into a mask of uncontrolled hatred.

  Ihasu pulled Melanie into a shoulder hug, trying to speak with as calm a tone as she could. The terrified, contemptuous, and furious trauma from which her emotions stemmed was something Ihasu had trouble even imagining. Living on Earth must have been like a constant, waking nightmare.

  “Eik’s new heights of power are still very new, so there’s no telling what that will mean for the feud, but I can tell you that Eik most certainly has not been keeping quiet about Earth’s plight. And between you and me, he has, ever since the beginning, had every intention of punishing the Gohkamorians. I promise you, Melanie—he will never let them get away with what they have done.”

  Something in Ihasu’s voice touched Melanie. Her tense shoulders relaxed, albeit slightly, and her frown unraveled if only a little. “He… really said that?”

  “He has. To me directly. Many times. There is no doubt in my mind that he means it wholeheartedly. He has suffered the exact same horrors that you and everybody else have. And he is just as enraged. Once the current trouble has been dealt with, I imagine Gohkamoria is his next stop,” Ihasu said with a reassuring smile.

  “But how can he allow those filthy bastards to send those killing machines to Earth?”

  “Gohkamorian monsters?” Ihasu asked, puzzled. “Have you not noticed? There are no Gohkamorian monsters anymore. Those warmongering fools maintain a brave and defiant facade, but behind the scenes they’re being careful not to further goad a titan whose rise to might could erase them from the annals of history.”

  “But the attacks…?”

  “Are Earth’s own Awakened beasts—or monsters, if you will—acting out, as Awakened beasts tend to do,” Ihasu clarified. “Sorry to break it to you, Melanie, but that is never going to end. That is just part of living in the Unified Mass. But Earth has found its footing with unique speed and established itself as a prominent force already. You are more than capable of resisting anything that might throw itself at your gates.”

  “I didn’t even know…” the woman sighed, resting her head on her knees.

  “Well, there’s a lot of stuff to be confused about when entering a new world, that’s for sure.”

  “Where was Eik going anyway?” Melanie asked. “He seemed to be in a hurry.”

  “Oh, no, it was nothing big. Just another day at the office, you know,” she lied.

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