The barrier around us dissipated into nothingness, the hexagons quickly warping themselves out of existence. The queen’s molten metal corpse laid at the center of the metal floor, steam and smoke rising from the pile of debris.

||FLIGHT||

“Risible, grab on. We’re heading up.”

“Ah… right.”

Risible grabbed my ankle, I started flying us upward out of the abyssal metal pit. He had Six’s head in his arm still, and Esther was over my shoulder almost in an intoxicated-like state. It took us around a minute, but we finally breached the top to see Levin and Laviel standing together. The World tree’s walls were completely fucked up, holes filled the metal and we could even see the sky way out in the distance. We landed next to them and I promptly checked everyone around us.

“One, two, three… wait- where’s Deadeye?”

“Oh-... h-he’s… somewhere…”

“Levin…”

Risible stared at him blankly.

“Wh-what? I don’t know right now, h-he’s with this weird airship!”

Laviel peeked with cautious yellow eyes from behind Levin’s back. She saw Esther on my shoulder, her eyes quickly changed to an orange color while she ran over.

“Esther! Hey-... Esther?”

Laviel tilted her head slightly, she was looking at Esther’s mildly intoxicated state.

“She was being a little wild, so I took her down a few notches. She should be fine in a few minutes.”

“Oh… okay.”

I walked over to the circuit and extended some slime out to make a temporary bed. I laid Esther down gently, she looked up dizzily.

I sat down against the wall next to the bed with a sigh.

“I’m so tired…”

Everyone else also relaxed a little, considering we had been going consistently for at least a day. It gets extremely tiring… well, at least the mental strain does.

Esther sat up a few minutes later, slightly disoriented. She turned to her right and saw Laviel.

“Laviel!”

“Huh-?... Esther!”

Laviel quickly jumped onto her feet and ran in to hug Esther. However, what I thought was going to be a very heart-warming reunion turned south very quickly.

Esther was holding Laviel by her collar.

“Why were you hitting on Cyn, huh?!”

“Oh- uh- I wasn’t-”

“Don’t lie to me. I saw you with that ruler.”

“I-I couldn’t just go out and get him or I would have been caught immediately!”

“Hmph!”

Esther turned her head to the side with a slight pout, but it quickly turned into a slight smile.

“I didn’t do anything to him-”

Laviel had her hands up reassuringly, Esther’s grip started loosening.

“But you tried taking my clothes off… you said, ‘Let’s get you cleaned up now, shall we~’-”

I turned back to see Esther roughly swinging Laviel back and forth.

“You fucking liar!”

“T-Traitor!” Laviel’s entire body was being wrung out by Esther.

“Wa-wait Esther- I have a boyfriend-...”

Esther stopped for a second and glared at her. I looked over kind of shocked as well.

“Who?”

Laviel then quickly ran over to Levin and pulled him up. She linked her arms around his right arm and leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Right here~”

“Wh-what… wa-wait?”

“Heh-”

“Huh?”

Levin, Esther, and I were all staring at Laviel in a shocked state, she continued gently holding him, almost tighter than before.

“When did she…”

I was extremely confused.

“Levin made some moves while we were gone? Nice man~”

Risible gave Levin a thumbs up while he stuttered, he kept looking at me for help… but I wasn’t going to do anything. I was almost dazed from what I heard.

I mean knowing how Laviel was though… along with Levin’s overly timid mindset… I could picture how this happened, but it seems like this happened right now since Levin didn’t even know.

Esther was staring at them with a slightly pink blush across her face, she leaned down a little, resting her head onto her hand.

“They’re kinda cute together…”

I sat on the bed next to her and tilted my head slightly.

“Really?”

Esther’s eyes moved over to me, her face grew redder.

“Y-yeah…”

Risible looked back and forth between me and Levin.

“I’m extremely jealous of both of you... lucky ass bastards.”

He pouted a little before he smiled brightly and started laughing. His eyes appeared kind of hollow though, almost as if a piece of him was missing…

My face was a little red before I joined Esther in resting my head on my hand. Levin on the other hand passed out from the stress, Laviel caught him and then got super concerned.

“Huh- hey? Levin? Levin?!”

The energy of everyone here compared to our surroundings was vastly different, an unfamiliar energy I was kind of starting to like.

||NOTICE: Title ‘Overdrive’ has been disabled! Semblance ‘06’ has returned to positive mana! Regeneration for semblance ‘06’ has been re-enabled!||

Six’s head pushed out of Risible’s arm as he regenerated back to his full body, he gripped his hands together lightly and stretched a little.

“I’m so fucking over this system…”

“Haha…”

I tried to lighten the mood by laughing a little, but the air ended up growing more awkward. We were all silent now and I could hear the slight growl of Esther’s stomach…

I glanced to my right to see her eyes wide and locked onto me with an almost rabid glare. I gulped and then quickly stood up, hastily deciding on something.

||SPELL CREATION||

I scrolled through my different spells and skills, searching for something to help me in my current predicament. There was good and bad news to what I was able to do… the thing with that modified version of [Heaven’s Barrier] was that it took an absurd amount of mana. I mean I know it was strong but… ten thousand?

I physically can’t do that alone. I did take roughly fifty thousand from Esther though, so my mana is still above its capacity.

Let’s modify [Teleport] then. Right now to move a large crowd I need to have some sort of physical contact with everyone, so I’ll just make it easier by having a warp. I’ll take inspiration from the Nano-Gateway that Laviel showed me.

I punched the mana gears, they shattered and reformed along my right arm. A sigil formed on the back of my hand with almost an icon of some sort in the center.

“Alright everyone~ we’re getting out of here!”

I threw my right arm out to my left.

||TELEPORT; MODIFICATION, CONTINENTAL GATE||

Slight sparks formed in the air, this clouded blue and purple vortex ignited. Red zaps of lightning bordered the gate, the other side completely blocked from our view.

So… how many people do we have? Well there’s me, Esther, Six, Risible, Levin, and Laviel. Deadeye would have been here as well, but right now he’s MIA. Levin said he was in some sort of airship, right?

“Do we go into that?”

Esther tilted her head as she stared at the gate.

“Yep~!”

Risible stepped forward and peeked his head into it, he pulled back and gave us a thumb up.

“All good~ it’s on top of a skyscraper near the ocean.”

We all went through the gate, the sun was bright, it shone down on us. We could feel the ocean’s breeze softly blowing since the skyscrapers were blocking it quite a bit. I then turned away for a second and put my hand to my ear.

“Hey, Ode.”

…

“Wow… this is high up…”

“Y-you shouldn’t lean over the e-edge… you might fall…”

Laviel turned toward Levin, her hands on the concrete wall. She smiled brightly before latching onto Levin again with bright pink eyes.

“You’re the best~ caring for my well-being~”

Laviel nuzzled her head against Levin’s chest causing him to start freaking out again. Risible was sitting on the edge of the wall, his feet dangling off the side. He turned his body so he was laying down on the ledge with one foot off the side.

“I could seriously kill for a drink…”

“You and your stupid ass drinks.” Esther huffed.

Risible turned toward her.

“You changed up how you speak reaal~ quick… Was it because of Cyn~?” He teased her lightly.

“N-no… not at all…”

Risible started laughing causing Esther’s face to grow slightly more flustered.

I put my hand down and turned back toward the World tree.

“Hey! Everyone, chill here for a bit. Six, come with me.”

Six started walking along with me, I jumped up onto the concrete ledge.

“Huh- Cyn, where are you going?”

I turned my head back with an excited smile.

“I have a final present for this continent before we leave~ Be back soon~!”

I flipped my whole body around while I fell back off the skyscraper, plummeting toward the ground.

“This fucking sucks.”

Six jumped onto the ledge and stepped off the side, rushing down after me foot first.

“Let’s do this Six!” I yelled up to him, trying to get my voice across the harsh wind.

“Yeah...”

His enthusiasm really helped me feel better about this!

Right before we hit the ground our bodies warped and twisted together before nothing but the dark towering shadows of the skyscraper stretched below.