Late Morning - Late Summer : Over the Sahara

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  (Back a moment)- Archangel Michael ~

  -Hm...- Looking down over the vast, endless sea of sand called the Sahara, I watched the dunes flow like a liquid with a mix of displeasure, worry, and fascination.

  They were sandworms, behemoths nearly a kilometer long that moved through the desert like a snake swims through water, heading straight for a rge wyvern that was just dropped out of a gate. "~Haah...~" -What a disaster this has become...-

  Over recent months, the rank-up had been advancing rapidly, and despite my perceived ability to send out System Mercenary requests when the rank-up began, not a single mercenary had actually arrived.

  And that was thanks to Earth's ranks being fucked, once again, by Evren.

  This time it had to do with her accidentally getting the Queen of the Elves caught up in her gate.

  Supposedly, because of her sudden disappearance and the prompt dropping of popution rank, I had lost the ability to call in system mercenaries.

  By the looks of things, it was all thanks to a failsafe set by the system to prevent administrators from sending out a powerful mercenary, lowering their popution rank, calling in new ones, and then bringing their original mercenary back to boost the popution rank over the others, and while I reported this issue to the System in hopes of getting it fixed, all I got in response was a message saying they were working to bring her back as quickly as possible.

  Every moment she was gone, Earth's mana rank and monster rank had been accelerating, and without new Mercenaries, Earth was seriously struggling. Every week, a new city or country would fall, and the global popution would plummet by millions. Even with the growing mana rank, Earth's popution could only grow stronger so fast...

  To the eyes of many, it was an indescribable disaster, a cataclysm that had a chance of ending the world.

  But it wasn't like all hope was lost in their eyes. Even as news spread of yet another country falling, there was hope. Around the world, people were gathering in groups to hunt the monsters of the rank-up, level up, and return to sell their resources.

  Globally, these groups were referred to as hunting parties, viewed as the front like of Earth's defense, and the focus of all research and resources.

  And generally, they did well. With retively decent survival rates, humanity was leveling up rapidly, getting stronger not just technologically, but physically.

  However, little did the public know.. they were completely lost behind the curve...

  Watching as the group of sandworms finally reached the wyvern, jumping out of the sand before coiling around it and carving away its flesh with its porous, sandpaper-like skin, I questioned if what I was doing was really the right thing.

  Throughout the rank-up, I had treated the more isoted spots of the world like a trash dump, nd to give to stronger monsters in order to keep them satisfied, and attempted to make them fight one another over territory. After all, if they all killed each other, humanity would survive until the wave was over, and could more slowly grow up to par with the monsters while exploring to retake lost nd.

  But it didn't take long for me to run out of nd...

  Eventually.. I just had to find a garbage disposal, a bde I could toss monsters humanity wasn't ready to handle.

  The issue was, without Evren, the resources from the monsters would never reach humanity.. and it'd only make them g further.. and further behind...

  "RAAAH-!!" Watching the wyvern scream and squirm as it was essentially ground into unrecognizable chunks of flesh, I grimaced.

  -At least it's not all going to waste...- Looking over my shoulder, I found a satellite orbiting right over us, watching the ruthless brawl with its artificial eye as specialists in India pnned out exactly what they would attempt to retrieve after the worms were done. -Thankfully, India has been pretty successful with their harvests...- With a nearly sixty percent success rate, I was truly hoping other countries would jump on the bandwagon.

  Without Evren, they seriously needed to take everything they could get their hands on.

  But I couldn't be sure. -At any moment, something too strong for even these monsters could appear...- And if it wasn't satisfied with some nd, it would only be a matter of time before it turned toward humanity. -It's just a matter of time...-

  Little did I know though, that ticking clock had already ticked far past where I believed.

  *WOOM* *BEEP* Feeling a crushing presence blow over me as my system screamed, I looked up to see so many warning panels that I couldn't see through them before accelerating my divinity, slowing time in an attempt to read everything. -W..WHAT?!-

  'Unauthorized users have entered your local system. Automated purge initiated.' | 'Automated purge failed.' | 'Raising security level.' | 'Unauthorized damage to local life detected.' | 'Unstable server status.' | 'Server Overload. Attempting to reroute system resources.' | 'Multiple purge attempts failed. Sending Manual Cleaner.'

  Knowing the presence I felt couldn't have been from Evren, I immediately turned toward it before darting through the Earth as fast as I could.

  But the system operated on a completely different timescale.

  *Beep* Before I could get even halfway through the Earth, the presence was violently shredded and scattered before a green panel appeared before me. 'Manual cleaning successful. Excessive server strain still detected, permanently raising Server Css from A to C.'

  But I didn't slow down for an instant.

  Eventually zipping through the opposite side of the mantle, exiting the crust, and coming to a stop in the upper atmosphere over Siberia, I looked down over an unfathomable vortex of mana like a hurricane on a scale Earth had never known, causing the skies over Russia and East Asia to glow like the northern lights. "~W..what.. am I looking at...~"

  It was more mana than Earth had in its entirety, allocated into a single area so densely it turned the snowy forest below into a nd of mythril. -Where did all this even come from...- Looking toward the center of the vortex, I tried to find the source of it all, only to find that the mana was simply too thick to see through...

  Even with the eyes of a god.

  -Don't tell me...- Opening up the world levels again, worried Earth's mana rank skyrocketed because of whatever the system purge did, I quickly found that the dial hadn't actually moved at all... None of them had.

  It was simply a burst of mana that came at no cost...

  A blessing that came at the perfect time. -It will be a while before anyone can harvest the mythril in this forest, but.. maybe things just made a turn for the better... Now I just need to set out quests to bring in new mercenaries...-

  That was at least what I thought until I felt the presence of a lower-ranked angel dart up behind me. "~S-Sir!~" She was young and flustered, but despite the unfathomable scene pying out beneath us, she paid it no mind. "~Lucifer has appeared!~"

  In an instant, I felt like I froze solid. "~What?!~"

  She instantly bowed in a bit of a panic. "~The Queen of the Elves finally returned with that terrifying woman you made a deal with, and he has begun to move, we just aren't sure what for yet.~"

  My eyes immediately widened as my senses heightened. But I couldn't feel his presence anywhere. "~Where is he-~" At least that was until I questioned it.

  Feeling it suddenly appear over Leyfa Askr, my gaze snapped to it before my divinity accelerated. -Don't tell me...-

  But I was too slow.

  By the time I arrived at the Oak, a column of light starting in the upper atmosphere had already pierced the ke and engulfed the two, lone presences on its surface.

  Presences I recognized in an instant. -NO!-

  Darting toward the water, my gaze snapped to the man at the top of the column of light, an archangel, simir to me, but with bck-feathered wings instead of white, smiling wide as I raced toward the water rather than him.

  He knew he had me beat.

  Raising his hand once more, a series of massive runes appeared, stretching several meters above him before suddenly, the surrounding area dimmed, and the sunlight focused into an unbelievably powerful, ser-like beam.

  I wasn't going to make it to the person before the beam nded, but I needed them to live until I got there, so, in a blink, I opened my system, adjusted the rewards I was going to give them for a quest, and marked it as complete. -JUST HOLD ON FOR A MOMENT! PLEASE!-

  -----Late Morning - Late Summer : Moriai | Leyfa Askr(A Second Prior)

  - Eve Altera ~

  *Pat* *Pat* *Pat* *Pat* Dashing out over the surface of the water, sending ripples across the glistening ke with every step, I did what I could to hold Bel's unmoving body as gently as possible without ever pulling my eyes off the canopy of The Oak. Looming over the horizon, its canopy, lit by streaks of sunlight reaching through its leaves, glistened with the sparkle of mana cores while the ambient mana grew thick.

  That morning, the air was especially hot and humid, with the mana almost making it feel viscous.

  Had I never been pulled to the other world with Evren, I would have considered it miserably uncomfortable, but at that moment, it felt oddly.. refreshing...

  *WOOOOSH* Unknowingly picking up speed as the mana grew thicker, the water beneath me blurred more and more, until eventually, the seemingly distant tree looming over the horizon began closing in.. drawing closer.. and closer...

  Until finally, I drew close enough to see someone standing atop the highest roof of the pace, looking in my direction. -Is that.. Eir..?- Squinting, I turned my hand toward the pace before spreading my fingers, a motion that I had trained the system to recognize in order to cast a magnification spell.

  But while the system immediately took hold of my mana to cast it, it never got that far.

  *Vwoop-BRRRRMMMM* Before I could even react, everything around me was engulfed in light, Bel's mechanical body was incinerated in my arms, and my skin melted before I was smmed into a wall of water so hard it broke my skull. *SPLAAASH*

  But somehow, even as my head jolted back, and the water forced its way through my eyes, nose, and mouth, my mind seemed to grow sharper rather than fall into a daze.

  *VWOOM* Gripping the surrounding water with my aura, I instantly started slowing down, trying to read my aura in order to make up for the blindness that followed my impact with the water.

  That switch never mattered though.

  Even though I could react faster with my aura, in the next instant, the system took hold of my mana again, and another burst of heat ripped over my body, rapidly vaporizing the surrounding water before trying to incinerate me as it did Bel.

  But in that same instant, an oddly intangible presence appeared in front of me. It was a mass of energy with no physical body or mana, yet somehow, I could clearly feel its presence.. its gaze.. aimed not at my body, but at my soul. -Is that.. a god..?-

  The moment I asked that question, everything slowed down, my system exploded with notifications, and the familiar sound of a gate met my ears before the bzing heat melting my skin eased with a cool, comfortable sensation taking the pce of pain.

  In the moment, I couldn't tell if it was just my body's panicked response to the burst of pain, swamping my mind with illusions since I didn't have the physical senses in pce to correct it, or if it was because of the interference of the being I felt next to me, but the moment I watched my body start to heal, it no longer mattered.

  I was alive.. and while my body had just been screaming in pain, in that instant I felt so full of energy it was almost intoxicating.

  Even if the rush didn't st long.

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