Chapter 57 : 

Episode 14 : Catastrophe (1)

⟨In an unlighted hallway near the stairs lies a body of a boy, bleeding a pool of blood on the floor.

Beside that boy was HwanGi in his child self, hugging his childhood friend firmly.

HwanGi cried for help, calling for someone to come save his childhood friend.

Tears fell down his cheeks like a waterfall until there were no tears left to shred upon his fallen friend.

With a pen penetrated through Sans's head, it caused blood to overflow onto the floor.

Despite attempting to block off the wounded area, HwanGi was unable to stop Sans's blood from flowing down his head.

At that moment, HwanGi's finger moved itself to Sans's nose to check whether or not there was breathing.

However, no air was going through his nose and HwanGi's finger started to tremble as if he had lost a little hope. 

Then HwanGi laid his ear closer to Sans's chest where his heart was. 

He proceeded to find out if Sans's heart was beating, wishing that his childhood friend was still alive and kicking, but when he discovered Sans's heartbeat was nowhere to be felt, HwanGi sensed his world was falling apart little by little.

HwanGi stared at his hands that were covered by his fallen friend's blood. Before long, he wiped away the tears on his face, dying his face with Sans's blood.

As soon as he realized the blood of his childhood friend was on his face and his hands, he trembled from the fear of being alone.

"Sans..! Don't die, please! Sans!" HwanGi began to shake Sans's body, begging for his friend to return back to life. 

His tears which should no longer formed after crying so much, suddenly flowed down his cheeks again.

He cried and cried until an hour had passed.

Afterwards, HwanGi felt the gentle light shining upon him and his fallen friend's body.

He became aware that this light wasn't sunlight but it was too soft to the feel that he perceived himself faintly getting sleepy by the seconds.

A female figure with royal blue light dazzling around her body, including six massive angelic wings being shown behind the back of her.

When HwanGi's eyes were half opened, he felt the touch of her hand caressing his hair as well as Sans's.

Using all his last drop of energy, he begged for help from this stranger yet a beautiful lady. "Pl..ease.. save..h..him.."

The graceful lady in front of him heard his request and gave him a heartwarming smile to him.

The moment the lady picked up Sans's body by using her wings, HwanGi extended his hand out with little strength. 

His eyelids slowly but surely closed all the way when the angelic lady faded away into the air with Sans.⟩

A "Beep" sound was ringing in HwanGi's ears, awaking him from his sleep.

[Stage #10 has forcibly started.]

[A Calamity's arrival will bring about chaos to this world!]

"What..?" HwanGi was confused as to what was going on, but when he spotted JoonChul in the arena, he began to wake everyone up from their rests.

———

Two hours earlier..

Within the blizzard, I struggled to avoid the falling snowflakes that had sharp edges sharpened enough to cut through skin.

I bawled at the Empress who was being wrapped around with my whip. "Frostina! Remember me! I'm your Captain!" 

She continued to break free from my grasp, however she failed to do so.

Thus, she started to generate an icy shield, expanding itself around her body which forced the whip to release her and dropped to the floor.

"Goddamnit." I cursed, backing off a few steps from the Empress.

With the icy shield successfully helping her to escape, she quickly made the shield disappear to cast her skill.

I gripped the handle of my whip, signaling Lucifer to transform into a sword.

And when he did, I grasped my sword's hilt as firm as possible before dashing toward the Empress, so that she wouldn't have enough time to completely cast her skill.

On the other hand, this was what Frostina wanted. The fact that she was having a sinister smile on her face, proved to me that I fell for her trap.

My feet that were in the snow layers, felt as though they were freezing from the coldness of the snow.

I perceived myself unable to make a move with my feet, so I activated my skill to get through this.

[Imitation of ‘Divine Flame’ Lv. 3 has activated.]

The freezing feet of mine were soon able to walk perfectly fine when the ‘Divine Flame’ melted away the snow surrounding me.

Not only that, the flame was caught on the Empress's dress, burning through the fabrics of her dress without stopping.

Despite her dress burning to ashes, the Empress shredded snow upon herself, creating a chilly blue dress in one glance while also giving a stop to the flame that was burning her dress before.

She seemed as if she was angry at me for ruining her wonderful dress, because she proceeded to shower down a rain of icicles above me.

The icicles weren't the same as last time, because right this moment, the icicles were utilizing the blizzard's sharpened snowflakes to cover itself, creating a layer of sharp coating to strengthen its power.

At that moment, I spawned in small portals to capture all the icicles before shooting them back at the Empress by generating a whole ton of portals behind her.

As I intended, what I just made was an infinite loop of icicles shooting from one portal to another, forcing the Empress to dodge and block with her icy shield.

By using this small window of opportunity, I pulled out a medium MP potion and drank it immediately.

While the Empress was preoccupied, I jumped up with my bow in my hands ready to shoot my target.

When I was close to releasing my three arrows from the bowstring, a shockwave of coldness rustled throughout the arena which in turn, freezed the entire area completely.

The arena soon transformed into a winter like place, and not only that, there was even snow falling into the Mist, turning the Mist to sky blue instead of its menacing purple.

Without caring about that shockwave and the Mist, I let go of the bowstring, shooting the Empress with arrows that had silky strings poking out of the arrow tips.

The silky strings began to form itself into a net to capture the Empress.

When the arrows landed in different locations, the net was already enclosing the Empress inside while the icicles were still being blocked by her icy shield.

In the midst of this situation, I remained in the air before moving down as fast as I could with my sword directing at the Empress.

The Empress was dealing with the net as well as the icicles but when she noticed me coming her way.

She became fearful of me which led her to bring forth an ice golem to take my attack in her stand.

My sword tip hit the ice golem's chest, causing sparks and snowflakes to originate in the collision.

I gritted my teeth with pure wrath as I pulled back my sword before allowing me to step on the ice golem. 

Then I leapt off the ice golem with Lucifer's form being a battle axe, I slashed the ice golem's head, leaving only a clean cut behind.

By the time I was done defeating the ice golem, the Empress fused all the icicles shooting at her into one giant icicle.

The massive icicle was soon in front of me, readied to launch itself toward me as I was descending downward.

"You little.." I shouted at the top of my lungs, spawning a portal where I was falling into and reappeared behind the Empress.

The Empress looked as though she was expecting me to do this trick and used a skill on me which made me frozen in place.

Unfortunately for her, she thought she won this match but..

The one she captured was just my clone while the real me was above her, coming down at her in full speed.

In an instance, she caught a glimpse of me before I could land a blow to the top of her head using my fist, however she was unable to defend against my attack, allowing me to smack her head which in turn forced her to lose consciousness instantly.

From how much I had to fight and concentrate throughout this match, I was tiredly exhausted.

Especially since I overworked this body to the brim without having any repercussions whatsoever.

On the contrary, I finally got to stop Frostina from attacking me before she could use her full strength.

Even though my comrades and Frostina had limits to their powers, they could easily kill anyone within one minute.

I was just lucky that she didn't even try her best to defeat me, it must be because she presumed I was just an insect in her eyes. 

But by now, the situation was getting worse and worse.

How long did we battle and how much did we use our skills and Mana? If by any chance that we used too much, then..

What is about to happen any minute now will turn into a catastrophic disaster...