Eryke the Third opened his eyes wide as he watched the shadows vanish into the sky.

Their remains gradually dissolved into the void from which the tentacles had emerged.

For a moment, his pupils flickered with confusion…

Then they dilated. Even without seeing it, he turned and ran for his life, mustering every last ounce of strength.

From the void, tentacles surged forth without end.

First in the hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, until they numbered in the millions.

But then, they stopped. A thin barrier shimmered, halting their advance.

More tentacles strained to emerge from the void, but they were securely blocked by the thin, shimmering barrier that bound them.

It was like an invisible wall, desperate to be crossed but impenetrable.

Still, the tentacles didn't relent. They pressed harder.

Pop!

A strange sound echoed through the air as the barrier cracked. A single tentacle forced its way through the breach.

But the barrier regenerated instantly, slicing the tentacle clean off. It dropped to the ground and withered, drying up in seconds.

"Hmm?"

A voice, human-like, yet not quite, resounded:

"Someone dares to disturb my children?"

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once, echoing through the forest and reaching every living creature within.

Then, all the tentacles withdrew, slithering back into the void as it sealed itself shut.

Eryke the Third glanced behind him and let out a sigh of relief.

"Did that thing really leave...?"

Ahead, the forest's edge was just meters away. His lips curled into a smile.

Eryke the Third was overwhelmed with excitement.

"So close. I'll leave this cursed place and never come back."

He was mere inches from escaping the godforsaken land.

But fate had other plans for his joy.

Bang!

Time froze.

Then slowed to a decimal degree.

Eryke the Third's body was still running, but each step stretched into eternity, moving only inches by the minute, slower than a snail's crawl.

The void distorted the sun and a pupil popped out.

It was a strange, slitted pupil, too long, too deep, like a wound in space that bled no light. It turned, slowly, searching through the forest.

Time resumed its original flow and Eryke the Third fell to the ground and then he looked up at the sky with sheer horror.

"Human… no, not quite. You resemble one, a copy. How interesting."

The voice echoed directly in Eryke's mind.

At the same time, a blue prompt flickered into view before him:

[An Outer God has noticed you…]

A simple message, but Eryke was too focused to even glance at it.

"Tell me, copy, how dare you kill my minions like that?"

The voice spoke again, not in anger, but with unsettling curiosity.

Eryke the Third took a deep breath, forcing his spiraling thoughts to settle.

'This… this might be an opportunity, not a death sentence.'

But before he could speak, the voice shifted, no longer curious, but cold and final:

"It doesn't matter what you say or think in front of me, you are nothing more than a bug. Die."

His heart sank.

The eyes just blinked once in the sky.

The surrounding temperature spiked violently, soaring to a blistering 1,200–1,500°C.

The forest responded in agony. Moisture fled from every leaf and blade of grass.

Right in front of Eryke the Third, a colossal tree, ancient and dense with life, perhaps capable of surviving for centuries, began to decay under the heat.

Its lush leaves turned to vapor.

The thick wood ignited, blackened, and disintegrated into fine smoke, scattered by the wind.

He fared no better.

His clothes instantly vaporized, revealing his chiseled chest, every muscle exposed to the infernal heat.

But it didn't stop there.

His skin began to blister and burn away, peeling in white-hot strips and revealing the raw, vulnerable organs beneath.

The heat was unimaginable. What had once been a lush, vibrant forest was now a cracked, lifeless wasteland—scorched into oblivion.

"Ahhh—!"

Eryke the Third screamed, his roar of agony echoing across the desolate land.

Pain surged through every part of his body. He looked at his hand, no longer flesh, only exposed muscle and organs, and even those were beginning to burn, soon to be reduced to ash.

"Even with the Death Skill… it'll only buy me one more life. But I'll still be burned to ashes again…"

His thoughts spiraled as he desperately searched for a solution.

His heart was literally aflame. His brain was exposed, steaming, pulsing and struggled to form coherent thought. It was a gruesome sight, horrifying in every sense.

Suddenly, an idea flashed in his mind.

He couldn't fight the heat, but maybe, just maybe, he could reach the source which started all this calamity in the first place.

With a burst of motion, Eryke the Third's scorched, skeletal leg pushed off the ground, launching him into the air.

He rocketed through the burning atmosphere, soaring over a landscape of utter devastation. The forest was no more, reduced to ash and molten sand, where glass now glittered in shattered sheets across the ground.

Then, his eyes locked onto it, the plant.

The dead energy-filled plant.

Against all odds, it was still alive, still thriving in this searing ruin.

But before hope could take root in his heart, a thunderous roar tore through the sky:

"I won't let you be, copy."

The pupils in the sky flared with blinding brilliance. The heat in the surrounding area surged again, this time past 3,000°C. Everything combusted instantly.

It was as if the apocalypse itself had descended. Every trace of life in that place was annihilated in a heartbeat.

Eryke the Third disintegrated mid-flight, his body turned to plasma before he could reach the plant. His skeletal hands stretched out, mere inches away but couldn't reach it in the end.

But only the death plant remained.

All else vanished in an instant.

"A mere copy has no right to compete or to disrupt my plans."

The eyes blinked once more… then disappeared from the sky.

The sky itself cleared, as if scrubbed of chaos.

Warm sunlight bathed the scorched earth, glinting off the lingering plasma and the one thing that remained: the death plant.

It was as if nothing had ever happened.

But…