"What the…" Toti was flabbergasted at what he saw. "Where in the world are we…?"
An endless horizon of nothing but barren savanna, and in the middle of it, Toti and his roommate, Ana; lost and deserted.
"Ana! Ana get up!" Toti entered panic mode and looked towards Ana who was lying on the ground.
"Ugh…my nose hurts… Did I land on my face?" Ana opened his eyes and rubbed his itchy nasal bridge.
"Wake up! We're in trouble!" Toti shook Ana and forced him to sit up.
"Agh… my back hurts too." Ana complained as he digested the barren lands he was on, the sight of it looking very similar to the one where he fought Behrman.
"Ana! This is no time to joke!" Toti pulled Ana up. "I think we're in trouble!"
"Agh…what happened now?" Ana stood up and stretched his body.
Raawwwrrr
The ground on which the duo was standing started to shake violently and an ear deafening roar penetrated the open savanna, splitting the ground open as huge crevices started to emerge from the cracked depths, filling the blue air above with temperature breaking black flames.
[Warning! Male Body (F) is unable to withstand the terrain]
"!" Ana immediately turned his head to look towards the cause that had just broken the peaceful plains into a fiery world of magma.
[Baby Hellhound: Rank A]
Fur of black ebony, and a carnivorous red jaw dripping with green blood, the baby hellhound appeared to be standing at a massive size of over five meters; with sharp iron claws and a burning tail as long as Ana and Toti's heights combined, its pointy ears twitched as it smelled the death of its powerless lunch by sniffing with its barbed and poisonous tongue.
"A monster…" Toti was struck speechless at the sight of the magnificent being glaring at him from the distance.
Grrrrrr
The baby hound growled in hunger, looking at the two boys who had lost their way and come into the deep forbidden lands, a place they should have avoided at all costs…
"What kind of inbred dog is that?" Ana raised his fists like a boxer.
"Ana! That's a high level monster!" Toti too, put one foot back and got into a fighting stance.
Ana smirked in nostalgia after seeing Toti immediately prepare himself; a good battle sense and an understanding of the situation they were in, with no escape possible, Ana liked how his roommate instantly buckled up like a seasoned warrior without too much conversation, for it reminded him of his days fighting other stronger gangs, but only this time, he wasn't standing alone.
[Warning! Male Body (F) is taking damage…]
"Tch." Ana clenched his fists and scanned the monster infront of him.. "What weakness does it have?"
"I don't know." Toti filled his hands with golden mana and carved out a vibrating translucent mana sword. "But it doesn't look like it has any weaknesses."
Ana watched Toti perform his magic with his side eye, but he had no time to question anything, for the beast roared again.
Raaaawwrrr
[Warning! Male Body (F) has taken fatal damage]
"Aggh!" Ana firmly gripped his right temple that seemed to be banging blood inside his hemorrhagic skull.
"Ana!" Toti noticed Ana's condition swiftly, but as he was about to tell Ana to fall back, the beast jumped sky high.
"!!!" Ana, too incapable of following the hellhound's jump, only witnessed his time pass a second before his body got thrown away multiple meters back with a multitude of burning rubble following after him.
[Warning! Male Body (F) has taken fatal damage!]
[Autoswitch Activated]
Ana crashed into the magma ground and all the hot debris from everywhere collided against him, burning and tearing all his new clothes, once again.
"Agh, the hell." Ana kipped up right away and glared at the dog that had just tried to stomp him.
"Grrr..." But he found that the hellhound was pushing against some kind of golden mana shield with its snot, trying to rip it open with brute force.
"Ackk-" And Toti had activated that mana barrier, and it was barely holding back the hound's gigantic teeth, while Toti, himself, used all his strength to prevent the hound from moving towards Ana by pushing against the shield with both his hands.
"Tot-" Ana was about to dash towards Toti and cut that rabid dog's throat, when all of a sudden, he noticed that his hands, his chest, abdomen and his lower legs, had no clothing, and the only place that was covered was his groin, his half burnt trouser barely prevailing through the disaster.
"Ana! Are you all right?!" Toti called to check whether Ana was still alive without turning his head away from the monster in front of him.
"...!" Ana wanted to reply but he couldn't, he just couldn't speak to his roommate whom he had scolded for being a degenerate; so there was no he could talk to Toti by being in a shamelessly clothed degenerate body and thus, Ana was stuck in a major conundrum.
"Grrrr!" With a race against time, Ana then witnessed the bad dog raise its paw up, intending to slam it down on Toti's shield.
"I- ahem." Ana deepened his voice as much as he could, deciding to put his pride aside just for once. "I'm alright! But look out-"
Slam
The beast's paw slammed on the golden hexagonal shield and broke the barrier, burning up the surroundings and throwing Toti back exactly towards Ana.
"!" Forced to make a choice between letting Toti die by traumatic explosion or letting himself die by traumatic mental implosion, Ana, like a pro, chose the third option, instant speed to escape a hard choice.
[Active Skill: Lightning Blitz activated]
Ana innervated his senses with slowness by activating the only battle skill that he had, and monitored everything that was happening in the course of that fraction of second.
And with his overpowered eyes, Ana saw that Toti was flying straight at him and the beast was chasing after him like an innocent puppy, its jagged green teeth directed at Toti's legs, ready to bite off his lower body.
"Tch. No choice then." Ana blitz forward towards Toti, and with lightning speed, he closed Toti's eyes and tore off his shirt while Toti was still mid air, making sure this roommate isn't able to find out his degeneracy; and the size of the shirt being much bigger than Ana's current small body, it easily did the job that Ana wanted after he wrapped it around himself, covering up his entire torso, hiding everything that needed to be hidden.
And in the exact next instant, he grabbed Toti's leg with his left hand, but with much more subtelty this time, stopping him from flying straight into erupting magma.
"Grrr.." The slow voice of the hellhound slowly closed in on Ana, but Ana, with his free right hand, this time, grabbed the enormous snout of the A-rank beast that had come close to him.
"Bad dog." Sparks of lightning emerged from Ana's hand as he gripped the hound's metallic nose with his now sharpened nails and whipped it on the ground like dough.
"Grawwr-" The hellhound's eyes rolled up and his mouth flooded out a sea of green blood as its body took insane damage on being slammed so recklessly, its insides being thoroughly fried to the core with Ana's electric touch.
Ana however, didn't want to take a dirty bath, so he hopped away from the gushing green fluid, while still holding Toti's leg with one hand, moving away about half a mile in a single moment.
[Active Skill: Lightning blitz deactivated]
"What?" As if to make matters worse, Ana was stunned to see that his skill auto deactivated for some reason.
"Ughhh-" And also Toti opened his eyes without delay, only to find his upper body lying on the ground and his left leg dangling upside down because a beautiful girl was holding him by the ankle.
Both Ana and Toti stared at each other for a while, each hesitating to speak first; Ana, because he had gotten caught and Toti, well…
"Uh…are you a Goddess?" Toti tried to smile at Ana.
"Tch." But Ana punched him in the gut, holding back more than ninety nine percent of his strength.
Toti's mouth foamed up and a golden layer of mana emerged from his skin, before shattering completely.
"..." And with just that, Toti passed out.
"Did I kill him?" Ana shook Toti's body a little and checked for any signs of life. "Tch, looks like he's still alive."
"So you are the one she calls Prideful."
"!!!" Ana's playful fun came to a halt when a reverberating voice filled the sky, the same blue sky that had at one point turned dark grey.
Tiiiing
A giant sword, with a golden hilt and a black main body, emerged from the blackish grey clouds, its body covering up the entirety of the sky above Ana's head and its sharp tip pointing downwards to the barren land Ana was standing on.
"But it seems, she has overestimated you."
[The 8th Supreme Harbinger of The Calamity Enforcers: Melufilous has joined the Matriarch Duel as a pawn]
Ana's system showed him something extremely unusual but that was the not the end of it..
[Warning! Melufilous's Domain has begun encroaching...]
[Warning! Exit the Domain as soon as possible]
Tiiiing
The giant sword in the sky aligned itself by making a thunderous noise, and it now pointed directly at Ana's head.
"You will never save this world." A man, looking eastern in origin, wearing a black clothing, mostly resembling a yukata, jumped down from the sky and landed on the baby hellhound's unconscious head.
[Pawn Melufilous: Rank (SS)]
"In my Madam's name." The man, named Melufilous, then pointed his katana towards Ana.
[Melufilous makes the first move as White]
Thousands of swords of different sizes came out of the now dark sky, and all of them followed their master, each turning and pointing at Ana.
"No woman in the universe will replace the all-powerful Empress."
[Ana Krauser has been allocated as the Black King]
"I will make sure of it."