"Dodge!"
Nathan (Disnatz) and Matthew (Darkmaster69) flashed, dodging the colossal creature's attack. Both of them turned to a mist-like form. One was flame, and the other was darkness.
"Bind it, Florence!"
The girl in the blue blouse gritted her teeth as she unleashed her power. Thick roots emerged from the underground and quickly wrapped the colossal creature, which looked like a stone golem.
"Andrew, Mara! Go!"
Andrew and Mara climbed the golem through its stretched hand. As they ran over it, they dealt with and reduced the golem's hardness using their respective power.
Andrew scraped the stone with his wind cutter. Meanwhile, Mara used her enhanced strength to crush it. She would have used her poison if it was a creature with a real body and not a material.
When the giant stone golem finally showed a sign of vulnerability, John and Noir finished it off.
John touched the ground- soil and made a giant spike out of it.
Noir jumped and stood on the spike while charging his electricity. Then, when the spike pierced the golem's stone body, Noir released his lightning power, reducing the creature to dust.
He leaped down as the spike and golem crumbled, landing smoothly on the ground.
"Nice job, guys!"
The group gathered and celebrated their victory against the stone golem.
It had been 356 days since the world was abandoned. During that time, a great event was occurring in the world. On the seventh day of their survival, they awakened a mysterious power.
A week later, the world began to spawn unknown inhabitants, which led to a conflict between the survivors and them.
What the survivors thought would be a short conflict turned out to be longer and bigger because the creatures kept spawning, not only in the area where they lived but around the world.
For 11 months, they had traveled the world to hunt those creatures because they had nothing to do. And the survivors could only feel safe after ensuring the threats disappeared from their abandoned world.
Today, on the 357th day, they finally got rid of one of the colossal creatures that resided in the Amirice Continent.
It was such an absurd achievement for the seven of them to even manage to kill a colossal creature. After all, there was no one with a military background among them, and they succeeded in mastering their power with the help of a young man with eighth-grader syndrome or a chuunibyou, Matthew, or Darkmaster69.
After completing their job in the Amirice Continent, they returned to their base. While on the airplane, Noir never stopped working with his devices. He monitored all of the area with the colossal monster.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but he couldn't let his guard down because something might happen in this situation.
Also, it was just his feeling, but since the death of the stone golem, he couldn't help but feel something bad would happen.
Then, a few hours later, that bad feeling came true.
[An abandoned world has been detected! Checking for status...]
[Checked!
World Name: Earthium
Level: Catashtrope - Awakened
Terrain Potential: S
Power Potential: SS
Magic Potential: SSS]
[Sending data to the headquarter for verification...]
As the sound finally stopped ringing inside his head, Noir looked around frantically.
Noticing his behavior, Florence grew the branch in her hand until it touched Noir.
When his attention was on her, she asked, "Is something wrong, Noir? You look pale."
"I heard it again. The voice," Noir answered after a gulp.
Andrew's twitched when he heard that. Turning around, he raised his eyebrow.
"The voice? You mean the same voice you had heard when we were getting our superpower?"
Curiosity filled Florence's face. "A few months ago, you said the voice was talking about awakening or something. How about now? What did it say?"
"It-"
Before Noir could finish his words, the voice rang again.
[Verification accepted! Commencing to merge... ERROR!]
[Seven living beings have been detected! Executing Absolute Removal!]
At that moment, Noir's eyes went wide. The others who noticed his expression got curious and asked him what was wrong. However, before they could speak, in the blink of an eye, the six of them vanished without a trace.
Noir, who just came back to his senses after hearing the voice, noticed everyone else had gone. Now, only he was left in the airplane.
Fortunately, the airplane was in auto mode. But that was not the main concern.
"Are they... vanished?"
Different from the mass disappearance on the first day of the storm, where only the bodies were gone, but their clothes were left in the world. The six's disappearance left no trace. Not even their clothes or belongings stayed in that airplane.
Noir was bewildered and speechless. There seemed to be an error with his brain processing as he looked like a lost person at that moment. He couldn't express what emotion he should show. He should've been falling into despair and screaming hysterically, but he didn't. He just lost. Confused.
Or maybe it was because of his personality. Maybe he tried to think logically. But who did think with logic when there exist monsters and magic in the world?!
[One living being has been detected! Executing Absolute Removal... ERROR!]
[Reexecuting... ERROR!]
[ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!] [ERROR!]
The voice kept trying to use Absolute Removal to erase Noir. But it kept failing until it became inaudible in Noir's ears.
After a thousand tries, it finally gave up on using Absolute Removal on Noir. Instead, it used another command.
Noir might not have noticed since his focus was solely on the voice. While he listened to it, the world outside had frozen. The time had stopped.
Only he and the voice were the only beings who could move, hear, or talk in that frozen world.
[One living being has been detected! Executing Special Transfer!]
Finally, after the voice used the [Special Transfer] something happened to Noir. He felt his insides burning as though he was tortured by the hellfire. While he experienced that, the flow of time had returned.
However, the time flew much faster than how it used to be. The world was in acceleration mode. Everything moved so fast yet clearly, as though someone activated a timelapse upon the world at 100x or higher speed.
During that period, the world underwent a transformation into something alien. The land, water, sky, everything became different from how it was a few seconds ago - if we talk from Noir's perspective - if not, then a hundred years had passed for this world.
The last thing Noir saw before his consciousness was completely gone was the rising of a vibrant, eerie purple color from the east.
***
"Impossible..."
In a battle between a group of people who possessed supernatural powers and a two-meter-tall humanoid creature, the creature came out as a victor... or it was supposed to be the victor.
But, when it was about to put the last person to her demise, lightning struck it out of nowhere, even though they were in a closed space, a cave of some sort.
The surviving person in the group who witnessed the end of the creature held her breath while slowly turning around, noticing her team member who was supposed to be dead standing straight.
That supposed-to-be-dead member had electricities run through his body, and most of them gathered around his stretched right hand.
Looking at the man, the surviving person gasped.
"H-how... aren't you... already dead..." she said before passing out.