Chapter 98: No plan is working

"Yo!" Mei called out, waving at Hannah after delivering the finishing blow to the irritating monkey.

Hannah nodded and approached her. "So, I suppose the negotiations went well?"

It was less a question than an affirmation, a conclusion she had already reached. However, contrary to what Hannah had presumed, Mei’s response was far from whatshe expected.

"There is no deal. We’re simply helping them develop a favorable impression of us." Mei snickered, resting a hand on her waist as though the matter were hardly worth discussing.

Squelch!

Both women turned at the sound and found Morbis standing over the bird’s corpse. He had finally managed to finish it off, exhausting the last remnants of his shroud.

A slight injury marred his shoulder, but aside from that, he appeared to be in reasonably good condition.

"For my right hand man you took more time than I should be expecting." Mei remarked, making her displeasure known without the slightest hesitation.

Morbis paid little attention to her complaint. Instead, he surveyed the surroundings, his gaze lingering on the devastation left behind by the creatures.

"So this is the true strength of a Void," he muttered. "Any one of these creatures could wipe out an entire A-rank squad and run rampant through a city."

Despite her usual carefree attitude, even Mei couldn’t deny the truth in his words.

Yet another question soon occupied their minds.

"Who the hell killed all those monsters over there?"

Until she had witnessed Hannah struggling against these creatures much like themselves, Mei had entertained a lingering, unsettling possibility. Perhaps the lone S-rank Hunteress had somehow managed to take on more than fifty monsters by herself.

But that clearly wasn’t the case.

"It’s him."

Morbis spoke suddenly, his eyes fixed on something in the sky.

Both Mei and Hannah followed his gaze, and what they witnessed left little room for doubt.

The Dragon they had been watching get tossed around was finally falling apart.

Its neck and body were splitting into pieces, great chunks of flesh plummeting from the sky as blood rained down upon the battlefield.

It was as though the heavens had opened during the height of the monsoon, except the torrential downpour carried a distinctly different hue.

Crimson.

And at the center of it all, the one responsible for the Dragon’s demise remained suspended in the air, seemingly unbothered by the carnage beneath him.

"He’s annoying."

The unexpected remark shattered their momentary stupor.

All three immediately turned toward the source of the voice, their attention snapping away from the falling Dragon.

"You!"

Hannah moved without hesitation, charging straight at the young man. Yet before she could even reach him, he casually snapped his fingers.

In the very next instant, Hannah found herself standing right back where she had started, as though her entire charge had been nothing more than a pointless exercise.

Morbis’s expression grew solemn.

"You... what exactly are you?" he asked, his guard rising another notch as he realized the young man was no ordinary civilian caught in the aftermath of the battle.

Mei, on the other hand, broke into a grin.

"Don’t tell me... this shortie is the boss of the Void?"

The boy showed no visible reaction to her insult. His composure remained undisturbed, as though her words hadn’t even registered.

That only made Mei frown.

If this really was the individual commanding such a formidable force, she couldn’t afford to take him lightly. She had intended to provoke him from the outset, hoping to gain even the slightest advantage by disrupting his composure.

Unfortunately, her attempt seemed to have accomplished absolutely nothing.

"That Dragon was with me all this time," the boy said, his voice carrying a strange mixture of irritation and sorrow. "I took care of him from the moment he was nothing more than an egg. And yet, someone destroyed him with their bare hands. Can you imagine?"

Hannah’s expression hardened.

She moved around the boy, positioning herself between him and the car while keeping a careful eye on his movements.

Morbis followed suit, moving to the opposite side in an attempt to surround the boy and limit his avenues of escape.

"What exactly are you after?" he asked, his tone guarded. "Did you come here simply to toy with human lives?"

For the first time, the boy tore his gaze away from Kai and turned toward Morbis. His eyes were lifeless, their pupils narrowed into thin slits as he gave a simple nod.

"Yes. I came here to entertain myself."

Somehow, those few words sent a chill crawling down the spines of everyone standing around him.

The boy hadn’t released a trace of killing intent, nor could they sense any magical presence emanating from his body.

And yet, something about him was deeply unsettling, an inexplicable sense of danger that lingered in the air despite his otherwise innocent appearance.

"And I fully intend to enjoy myself," the boy muttered under his breath.

Then, for the first time, they felt it.

A presence.

The air grew heavy as the boy began to levitate, his feet lifting effortlessly from the ground. His small figure appeared almost weightless, yet the pressure surrounding him seemed to grow with every passing moment.

Once again, his attention returned to Kai.

He slowly raised a hand.

Snap!

Another snap rang out.

However, unlike before, nobody was displaced from their position. Instead, something far more alarming unfolded around them.

"Look!" Mei exclaimed, raising her hand toward the left.

A colossal dungeon entrance had torn open the very fabric of space. Its gate was large enough for an entire airplane to pass through without difficulty, while the immense magical presence radiating from it was impossible to ignore.

They could practically feel its weight pressing against their skin.

"Hey... look over there," Morbis called out, his voice betraying a rare uncertainty.

He could hardly believe what he was seeing.

Hannah’s breath caught in her throat as another dungeon appeared, followed by yet another. One after another, gates of identical size and overwhelming magical presence materialized around them, encircling the entire area.

One.

Two.

Three.

Twelve.

Fifteen.

The dungeons formed an enormous perimeter, cutting them off from the outside world as though an invisible wall had risen around the battlefield. There was no mistaking the message behind such a display.

The innocent face before them belonged to something far beyond their understanding.

"Hmph... he’s just trying to intimidate us." Mei forced out a snicker, desperately clinging to her usual bravado. "I bet they’re nothing but empty shells..."

Her voice gradually trailed off.

A faint vibration had begun beneath her feet.

Then came another.

The ground trembled as the first monsters emerged from the dungeon gates, their enormous bodies surging into the open.

They were unmistakably alive and each one of them at least strong much like the ones they had fought.

Their roars reverberated across the battlefield as hundreds upon hundreds of creatures poured forth, their numbers swelling with every passing second.

Their movements could be tracked easily since their target was constant.

Every single one of them was charging toward the same location.

The very center of the encirclement, where Mei, Hannah, and Morbis stood.

"We aren’t winning this..." Hannah murmured.

Her voice was barely audible beneath the thunderous approach of the advancing horde, but neither Mei nor Morbis needed her to say it. They had already reached the same conclusion.

No sane person would believe they could survive a confrontation against a thousand monsters.

Not when a significant portion of them were A-ranks.

Their expressions thoroughly pleases the Void Monarch. His face split in a grin as he said. "Yes...that’s what-"

*Shlink*

Suddenly, a wave of frost slashed through the air as Kai was seen stabbing something into the sand right beside the car.

A small ice formation erupted from the sand before—

*CRACKLE*

The desert suddenly turned into ice age.