Crack! Crack!
The cracking sound of bones twisting and snapping echoed through the battlefield.
Justice stood frozen, his body refusing to obey his own command. A cold chill ran down his spine as sweat trickled down his forehead. He didn’t need to turn around where that sound came from. He didn’t need to see it.
He already knew.
She was still there.
His breath hitched. His hands trembled. His heart pounded against his ribs.
In his mind, he could see it clearly—her faceless head, her pale, unnatural skin, and those white feathered wings.
The scythe in his grip felt heavier. His fingers loosened around its handle.
’Why isn’t it dead?!’
He screamed inside his mind.
That attack…
That was his strongest skill. The ultimate technique he had perfected over years of training. The skill that could even tear through mountains and even can drown an entire city.
Yet— It wasn’t enough.
Justice clenched his teeth.
It wasn’t like he had no other skills to use. But [Hydrostatic Cataclysm] was different. It wasn’t just an attack—it was his ace card, his most powerful skill. And his scythe, the ancient weapon that he had discovered deep within an underground ruin, amplified it beyond its natural limits.
With it, he could bend the laws of Elementals, using it at full potential despite the location..
No matter where he was, no matter how light the Water Essence was in the environment, the scythe ensured his attack would always work at full power. After all, it defied the basic theory of Elemental Essence.
But—
There was a catch to it.
A fatal flaw after using it.
It has a whole three-hour cooldown.
And for the next three hours—
Justice was powerless.
The moment he had unleashed that attack, he had already lost.
His Essence was drained, leaving him helpless in a land rich with Fire Essence.
He had overestimated himself.
He had underestimated her.
Justice swallowed hard, his throat dried out.
He had made a big mistake—a foolish, reckless mistake.
A mistake that he couldn’t take back.
His lips quivered. His knees felt weak.
And this was the reason why he could never surpass Hope.
Not because Hope was stronger.
But because he never made mistakes.
Slurp! Slurp!
A sickening, wet slurping sound reached his ears.
Justice’s breath hitched.
"Eek!"
He wasn’t the only one. The students behind the Ice Dome were frozen in place too, their eyes wide open, as if they had seen a ghost.
Except for Hope.
Hope wasn’t reacting.
He couldn’t afford to.
After all, his focus continued to remain on maintaining the Ice Dome—a crystal-clear barrier that shielded the students from the threat outside.
And letting go of it wasn’t an option.
If he did, if the dome shattered even for a fraction of second, the students would be exposed to the threat.
And they would all perish.
That was the reality of the situation.
That was the order given to him by the Hero Association—Protect them. Bring them back. No matter what.
Crack! Crack! Slurp!
The sounds continued.
It was disgusting.
Justice gulped hard, his hands clenched into fists.
He can still see her.
The figure of her was reflected on the surface of the Ice Dome.
And what he saw made his blood run cold.
The faceless figure—Nathalia.
She was slowly regenerating.
Her body, which had been torn apart by his attack, was restoring itself.
He saw it all.
How the loose, shredded intestines slithered back inside her torso, making that sickening, wet slurp as they slid into place.
How her broken ribs, which were once scattered, were now twisted and reattached itself, snapping together with a cracking sound.
How her limbs, once fractured and dislocated, reformed in the midst of all.
Justice felt the strength drain from his legs. ’No… No, this isn’t happening.’
His attack—his strongest move, the technique he had spent years perfecting—had done really nothing to her.
Nothing at all.
The students behind the dome trembled with fear.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
Because what they were witnessing was not just regeneration.
It was something…
Something beyond monstrous.
Justice could feel it in the air—the oppressive, suffocating presence of something that shouldn’t exist.
And yet—
His eyes, locked onto the Ice Dome’s reflection, refused to look away.
Because what he saw…
Was pure horror.
’How?!’
Justice kept repeating the same question in his mind.
How was she still alive?
How could she not be killed?
How was anyone supposed to defeat something like her?
The Faceless Nathalia stood there, she wasn’t moving a bit. her body was now completely restored. It had taken only thirty seconds for her to restore.
One thing is clear…
She can’t be killed.
Everyone thought the same thing. And worse—they were all right.
She was an immortal, but nobody knew that.
It was a dream-to-reality forged from Nathalia’s own dream, yet it was separate from her own creator. It was A being that existed with its own thoughts, its own will. But she didn’t have emotions.
It was why she was like this. That’s the reason despite being cut into various pieces she was still standing there emotionless, and fearless.
Then the question was… how do you kill something like that?
Justice gritted his teeth. His mind raced, searching for a way, a weakness—anything can work this time. Then he remembered something—
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’Wait.’
A single thought surfaced in his mind.
The skill he had just used [Hydrostatic Cataclysm].
It had broken apart water at its fundamental level, separating hydrogen and oxygen apart. The area was already filled with these atoms, scattered in the air.
All he needed now—
Was a single spark.
His thoughts accelerated, searching for possibilities forming like a complex puzzle assembling itself in mere seconds. If he could just generate a tiniest flicker of flame, if he could ignite the loose hydrogen in the air…
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Then he can create an explosion.
A massive detonation.
It was the only thing he can do now.
He didn’t hesitate for a second.
Justice took a slow, steady breath, shifting his focus towards his finger.
His Water Essence was nearly depleted, but he still had it control—just enough to pull this trick off.
His fingers twitched, channeling the last of his strength into his inventory ring.
Carefully.
Precisely.
The ring’s storage operated through Essence recognition. It reads the flow of energy before allowing access to items within it.
But—
What if it was overloaded?
Justice concentrated on it, pushing his Essence into the ring, not to retrieve something—but to flood it.
To overwhelm it.
To force a malfunction.
The mechanism inside the ring wasn’t designed to handle such a sudden surge of energy. If he could cause even the smallest short circuit—
And if that reaction happened in an atmosphere thick with hydrogen…
Boom. His plan will succeed.
Justice’s lips curled into a smirk.
It was a reckless gamble.
But it was the only chance they had.
End of Chapter.