Chapter 420: _You’ve Merely Delayed the Inevitable

Amazon Rainforest

All over South America, nature had begun a cataclysmic takeover.

Roots and vines spread into cities and villages, coiling around buildings and breaking apart roads until they were inaccessible.

Mountains trembled as ancient trees in the Amazon rose higher, branches spreading rapidly enough for the changes to be seen from space.

Screams echoed all around the continent—news stations immediately broadcasting the unprecedented event in real time.

Meanwhile, as the continent got turned into another planet, Valentine and Gabriel led the other Hunters in battling Javier.

The Necromancer leapt into the air, his death aura withering every vine the entity possessed SS-Rank sent his way.

Gabriel joined in the flank, increasing the gravity around the target.

"We can’t let that thing spread its control any further!" Valentine snarled.

If it was able to wipe out two civilisations on a planet by itself... he didn’t even want to imagine what it was capable of now that it had control over Javier.

Hunter Zola and three more SS-Ranks jumped in to aid Gabriel and Val, while Ji-Hoon stayed back, eyes glowing with a red light.

She grabbed a fate thread, pulling it with enough force to make her grunt.

Merely a couple of seconds later, Zola was able to precisely land a strike across Javier’s chest with a conjured energy blade, bouncing back with a huff.

Unfortunately, before anyone could register that as a victory, the vines on his chest grew back in a heartbeat, the wound becoming non-existent as well.

Javier thrashed a hand forward despite the heightened gravity around him.

"Watch out!"

"Ah!"

Two SS-Ranks were swatted like flies by his outstretched vine arm, getting slammed through multiple trees before collapsing several meters away.

His eyes locked on Valentine and Gabriel.

"Oh, shit—"

Tonnes of rock rumbled as thorn-filled roots shot out. Each one was thicker than an adult man, impaling a few unlucky Hunters before they could even scream.

Blood and guts rained upon the forest floor.

Gabriel managed to teleport himself while Valentine jumped to the nearest tree, summoning an undead avian beast that attached itself to his back before taking off.

Zola conjured thousands of energy swords, sending them at the beast that was once Javier.

Whatever damage left on his plant armour regenerated in less than a second.

Ji-Hoon strained.

They were literally pushing their luck here.

"Zola, duck!" She screamed.

Right on cue, several thick vines shot out of the ground around the South African Hunter. One grabbed his arm before his energy wing constructs could get him out of there.

"No, no, no..." Pain zapped through that arm, and he instantly knew what was coming.

The arm was ripped clean off his body as more vines entangled him, suspending him off the ground.

Crimson sprayed out like a fountain, dripping down the vines.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!"

His cry sent chills down the spines of the Hunters who remained. They still stood back to offer support to the SS-Ranks.

And now even they couldn’t stand a chance against the enemy.

BOOOMMMMMM!

A massive pillar of blue flames fell from the sky, consuming Javier without warning. The blast was so searing that trees a few meters away and the vines holding Zola melted instantly.

Gabriel teleported the SS-Rank to the safety of an armoured vehicle.

He inclined his head to the clouds as more flames poured, the pillar widening until it felt all-consuming.

’Talk about a dramatic entry.’ A smirk touched the corner of his lips for the first time all day.

Finally, the flames receded faster than they’d appeared.

A lone figure stood at the centre of the scorched earth, one hand still lowered from where he’d cast the attack. The blue inferno surrounding him gradually died away until nothing remained except rising heat distortions dancing through the air.

Ambrose slowly lifted his gaze.

His expression was frighteningly calm.

Not because he’d accepted what had happened. Because he hadn’t.

The anger burning inside him had simply become too quiet to show.

His eyes swept across the battlefield, lingering on the injured Hunters before finally settling on the thing wearing Javier’s face. For the briefest moment, his jaw tightened.

Spatial awareness expanded while Aura simultaneously pulled out system windows to decode the data he’d receive.

The world around him dissolved into countless streams of information.

From the forest beneath his feet. To the mountains beyond.

Every river, root system and patch of vegetation stretching across South America flowed into his consciousness.

Ten kilometres. Then a hundred. Then a thousand.

The expansion never stopped.

It raced across Brazil before swallowing

Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and every remaining nation upon the continent.

The sheer amount of information would’ve shattered an ordinary mind within an instant.

Aura calmly processed it all.

[Hostile biomass detected.]

[Establishing continental map...]

[Primary root network identified.]

[Command nodes located.]

Ambrose closed his eyes.

Within his awareness, billions of vines no longer resembled separate organisms. They formed one colossal circulatory system spreading beneath an entire continent.

Every branch. Every root. Every flower blooming where it shouldn’t.

Everything ultimately converged toward a single living network.

"I found you."

The entity watched him in silence through Javier’s glowing eyes. The Brazilian Hunter had been burned badly, but once again his plant armour covered him, keeping him stable.

Then it smiled.

A smile that did not belong to the Brazilian Esper.

"An interesting ability." The vines surrounding its body slowly coiled together, almost as though they, too, had realised something was wrong. "You perceive the whole."

"I don’t need to." Ambrose reopened his eyes. "I only need to see enough."

His palm pressed gently against the burnt ground.

Blue flames erupted beneath the soil.

At almost the same instant, absolute frost spread outward alongside them, racing through the countless underground roots like opposing currents travelling the same river.

Fire consumed. Ice restrained.

Every major command node he and Aura had identified was struck simultaneously.

From orbit, South America transformed.

Veins of brilliant sapphire fire illuminated half the continent while vast crystalline sheets of ice raced across the other half, meeting one another with impossible precision.

The relentless expansion of forests, vines and mutated flora ground to an abrupt halt as billions of interconnected roots were burned, frozen or fractured in the same heartbeat.

Across countless cities, civilians looked on in stunned disbelief as the advancing walls of vegetation simply... stopped.

Silence settled over the battlefield.

Valentine stared. Even Gabriel’s eyes widened slightly.

The entity lowered its head, examining the charred vines peeling away from Javier’s arm before a low chuckle escaped its lips.

"So that’s why..." Its glowing eyes slowly lifted toward Ambrose. "I wondered what made you so calm."

Fresh green shoots quietly pushed through the ash beneath Javier’s feet.

They grew slowly and steadily, unaffected by the devastation surrounding them.

"You haven’t defeated me." The entity smiled once more. "You’ve merely delayed the inevitable."