"But Felix is barely conscious for even three hours a day. How is he supposed to gain the strength to subdue a spirit?"
"We'll have to use a more… unconventional thod."
"…Sorry?"
There are two main ways to subdue a spirit.
First: to suppress it with sheer level.
In the end, if your level outstrips that of the spirit, even a Spirit King will yield. That's the nature of the system—a universal truth of the ga.
But in a situation like this, where there's no ti to level up and no proper conditions to do so, it's not even worth attempting.
Which is why Jhin turned to the second option.
"We get him an opposing spirit. That alone should be enough to put out the imdiate fire."
If the fire spirit is the problem, then introducing a water spirit into Felix's body would force the two into a state of mutual suppression—keeping each other in check so thoroughly they'd be too busy clashing to consu Felix's body.
"But where are we going to find a water spirit… Wait, ah."
"Exactly. We can find a similar one."
Who, after all, was responsible for freezing Whitevalley solid?
A dungeon that triggers natural disasters through a dungeon break usually points to a very specific kind.
A spirit-type dungeon.
It just so happens that the dungeon that broke out in Whitevalley is likely a B-rank dungeon where an ice spirit appears.
At that sa mont—
"Huff… huff…!"
While Jhin was in private talks with Danny, a man was charging down the steps of the underground shopping mall in front of Whitevalley Station, gasping for air as he tore through the dark.
Samuel slipped through a gap in a barricaded door he'd previously sealed shut.
"Gabriel! You've gotta see this!"
Inside the underground mall, a small cluster of players were barely clinging to life, bundled in scavenged clothes and shielding themselves from the cold.
Among them, Gabriel turned as Samuel ca rushing in.
His eyes went to the smartphone clutched in Samuel's hand.
"What's that? Where'd you get it?"
"Found it by chance. But that's not the point. Just look at this!"
Gabriel squinted lazily at the phone—only for his eyes to go wide with surprise as he saw what was on the screen.
It was a screenshot, sure—but clearly from an internet browser. With today's date on it.
"This… is this real?"
Frowning, Gabriel pulled out his own smartphone. A pricey foldable, but now nothing more than a chunk of dead tal—no calls, no internet, just a relic.
Samuel grinned brightly.
"You rember that New Capital player we hunted recently? It was in one of their pockets. No matter how I tried to charge it, it wouldn't work. I thought it was broken too."
He gulped before speaking again.
"It runs on Power."
"…Power?"
"Yeah. The battery is literally fueled by magic!"
It was a shocking revelation.
A smartphone that operates on Power?
Samuel's grin turned sly.
"But Gabriel. That's not the craziest part. Do you know what I saw online?"
He showed a saved image.
A nostalgic sight—a green hopage, long forgotten.
And at the center of it, the profile of a beautiful woman.
Gabriel recognized her imdiately.
"Millie?"
A forr mber of a top idol group, now a renowned singer-songwriter. A household na.
No one who hadn't heard of her could call themselves a citizen.
But why show her profile now?
Even if Gabriel was a fan, this wasn't the ti to be gawking at celebrities.
"Look a little closer."
"…What am I looking at?"
Gabriel squinted again, this ti reading the details under her profile.
And there, plain as day, was a line that made his breath catch.
– Rank 12 in Exodia 1 (Clarke)
He swallowed hard.
"…Why is that listed there?"
"Right? Weird, isn't it?"
Gabriel slowly nodded. It made no sense.
The Clarke he knew didn't look anything like her.
"Clarke's a man."
He hadn't seen him often, but no one in Whitevalley didn't know the so-called Clarke.
How could they not?
He was the one who carved out a warm, safe haven in the middle of this apocalypse and lived like a king.
They'd even offered tribute before—just in case they got on his bad side.
"So kind of hoax?"
"Co on. Who would fake sothing like this now? What would be the point?"
"…But I saw Clarke myself."
As if waiting for that, Samuel tapped on the screen again and played a saved video.
Sohow, sowhere, YouTubers still existed in this ruined world.
It was a video from an unknown channel.
"…She's raiding the moon? That moon up there?"
"Yeah. Supposedly this happened around six months ago."
The video was impressively edited, complete with a sweeping, emotional soundtrack. Then ca the action scene—Millie, wielding dual pistols, darting through enemy lines and obliterating vampires.
It looked more like a movie than a ga clip.
Gabriel murmured, almost involuntarily.
"…She's insanely good."
"Right?"
But more than that—what truly caught his eye was her gun.
The more he looked, the more familiar it seed. He couldn't mistake it.
The Phantom Revolver.
Clarke's signature weapon. The one that had inspired a whole generation of pistol users.
Gabriel could only draw one conclusion.
"…Then who the hell is Clarke here?"
"That's the strange part. Don't you think we should dig deeper, hyung?"
Gabriel looked around at the ragged players huddled in their barely warm shelter.
Just barely surviving in this freezing hellscape.
Recently, even Whitevalley Station had been under threat—the surrounding dungeons growing stronger by the day.
"If Clarke's a fake…"
He licked his lips.
And thought of the shopping center.
The only building in Whitevalley that hadn't frozen.
Even he had been eyeing it for a while now.
No, he wanted it.
It might not be Ark, the famous safe zone in New Capital—but it could beco his Ark. His own little utopia.
As long as it's warm, what's there to fear?
"…Boys. Grab your weapons."
Day one since returning to Earth.
As expected, problems were scattered everywhere. And among them, Jhin was now facing what was perhaps the most frustrating of them all.
"Honestly, trying to clear a B-rank dungeon with just us is unreasonable. Even if the plan is just to grab the spirit and run."
Though Jhin's level had risen considerably, it wasn't enough to roam freely through a B-rank dungeon.
And the players from Paradise? Their average level hovered around 190. At best, they could handle C-rank dungeons—that was their limit.
'Whitevalley's players don't even warrant ntion.'
These weren't survivors who had lived by hunting monsters. They had simply endured the disaster of cold.
There were only a few scattered cases of them powerging to defeat a "Yeti," the monster born from a spirit—and their chances to level up had been limited to player-vs-player skirmishes.
Their overall capability was low.
'Their cold resistance is ridiculously high, but they're hollow shells inside.'
That's why Jhin had led the players out toward Whitevalley's outskirts.
According to what he'd heard, the closer one got to the Venus region, the stronger the powerphone signal beca. From the outer districts, it was even possible to reach New Capital.
'If I can just get in touch with Ark…'
If he could establish contact, powerful players would co flocking in just because he asked.
At the very least, soone like Millie… or Tempah.
If players of that caliber joined in, retrieving a spirit from a B-rank dungeon would be easy work.
'I wonder how strong they've beco.'
He had no way of knowing how far they'd progressed while he was away in Exodia 1.
According to what Danny had told him, the current date was around August—aning it had been nearly half a year since he disappeared.
There was no telling how many levels they'd gained in that ti.
'Right now I'm level 190.'
Even with all of his stats added together, he barely pushed the equivalent of 272.
It was a trendous leap in terms of the ti he spent in Exodia 1, but from Earth's perspective, it was more like a loss.
'I need to move faster. Leveling up is the only way forward.'
Just as he gathered his thoughts, they arrived at a soaked, half-lted outer district.
A highway rest stop, right in the middle of the expressway.
"Jhin. I'm getting signal."
"Got it."
Without hesitation, he opened his contacts. The first person he called was Millie.
— The person you have called cannot be reached. You will be redirected to voicemail after the beep…
No response.
Clicking his tongue in frustration, he scrolled through his contacts and tried the next number.
This ti, soone picked up imdiately.
—"Took you long enough. But what are you still doing in Whitevalley?"
"…Wait. How do you know I'm in Whitevalley?"
—"What do you an, how? You show up on the map."
It had been a while since they'd last spoken, but Bellatris wasn't the least bit surprised. Her voice was calm, even casual.
She told him that Luke had already passed along everything—his survival, his location, all of it.
Jhin smiled bitterly.
"How's Luke doing?"
—"Let's see. He went overboard expanding his business and tanked a few ventures, but he hit it big with one or two."
"…"
—"Anyway, why are you still in Whitevalley? Why haven't you co back to New Capital?"
It was hard to believe they'd been separated for months, given how ordinary her tone was.
Then again, this was Bellatris.
Maybe this was her way of expressing genuine concern.
"I can't co back just yet."
Shaking off his idle thoughts, Jhin focused on the issue at hand and explained the situation.
"I need a support team."
—"A B-rank spirit dungeon, huh… You really have a talent for getting yourself caught up in insane situations."
"What's that supposed to an?"
—"Tsk. We send you on a rescue mission, and you get trapped in a bugged dinsion for a month. Then we send you to the moon, and you vanish for over five."
Hearing her sigh, Jhin's expression twisted even more bitterly.
His life had been a ss since long before the apocalypse—his history of bad luck was well-docunted.
'And I haven't even told her everything yet.'
If he ntioned Exodia 1, even soone as rational as Ring-ring would probably be shocked.
'No point in going into it now. I need to put out this fire first.'
As if on cue, he glanced up and saw suspicious cloud formations over Whitevalley.
It was ti to go back.
"So are you sending the team or not? I can't give you the full explanation, but this is actually more important than the moon crash."
It wasn't a lie. If anything, it was an understatent.
Because if his guess was correct—and Felix was a major key figure in this world…
'Then we've got less than ten days before the world ends.'
After briefly stepping away to speak with soone, Bellatris returned with an answer.
—"We'll send a team. And we'll rescue the people trapped down there too. That should do, right?"
"That'd be more than enough."
—"It's about ti we expanded our territory anyway. We need to start reclaiming the provincial cities."
Jhin nodded. He agreed with her.
The normal life they'd once known couldn't be restored.
But they could still reclaim a place to begin again.
Then Ring-ring added, almost offhandedly:
—"By the way, you haven't t Clarke yet?"
"…You an Millie?"
—"Yeah. She and Lutz headed to Whitevalley the mont they heard you were back."
"…I haven't seen her yet."
The signal still went through—but the call never connected.
Maybe it wasn't that she wasn't picking up.
Maybe she couldn't.
'If she's already inside Whitevalley…'
Then naturally, the call wouldn't go through.
—"Hey,Kyle."
"Hm?"
—"There's sothing you should know."
For once, Bellatris hesitated.
After a brief silence, she spoke with unusual caution.
—"It's about Clarke. She's… not doing well."
"…Is she sick?"
—"No, it's not that. It's just… hmm…"
Her voice wavered with concern—and for a while, it didn't stop.
Bang!
A single gunshot echoed through the underground chamber, piercing soone's forehead cleanly.
The stench of blood filled the cramped air. No one even had ti to scream before collapsing like broken dolls, the flash of gunfire illuminating their deaths.
Bang! Bang!
Shot after shot, rciless and precise, tore through hearts without hesitation.
Half the survivors in the underground base were already corpses, lying in twisted heaps.
Soone whimpered desperately.
"P-please… spare m—"
Bang!
The plea was cut off mid-word by the cold pull of the trigger.
"What… what did we ever do to deserve this?!"
Bang!
Even those who cried out in agony couldn't finish their sentences before being silenced.
It had happened multiple tis already.
The massacre was completely one-sided.
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