All over the world, televisions, phones, and radios buzzed with one terrifying headline after another.
People were glued to their screens. Hearts pounding. Palms sweating.
It felt like the end of the world.
A female reporter appeared live on screen, her face pale and full of fear. Her hands trembled as she held the mic.
"We have just received more terrible news..." she said, her voice shaking. "I think this might be the unluckiest day in human history."
She looked down at her notes with wide, shocked eyes before continuing.
"Russia has announced that their nuclear missiles have been hacked," she said. "They swear they had no control over it. It wasn't their decision to launch anything."
She paused to catch her breath, then added,
"America tried to stop the missile in the air… but their defense systems aren't working either. They've been hacked too."
People watching the news at home gasped. Some covered their mouths. Some dropped to their knees.
"This… This is global-level terrorism," the reporter continued, her voice cracking. "How is something like this even possible? Who could do this?! How did we let it happen?"
Chaos spread across cities. Streets were filled with screaming people, trying to call loved ones, running without direction. The fear was too much.
But the ones most frozen in horror… were the people of America.
They had only minutes left.
A nuke was coming. And it was coming fast.
All across the country, people cried. Families hugged each other tightly. Parents held their children close, whispering soft prayers.
Some screamed. Some stood still in silent shock.
It was pure panic.
Just then, on the live broadcast, the female reporter's assistant ran up to her and whispered something in her ear. Her eyes shot open in shock.
She suddenly shouted into the mic, her voice loud and frantic.
"Breaking news! Another breaking news!"
Everyone watching held their breath.
"The location where the missile will land has been found!" she shouted.
She paused as her lips quivered and her hands trembled.
"It will hit Mauna Loa!" she cried. "Mauna Loa in Hawaii, America! That's the world's largest active volcano!"
Her face turned ghost white as she screamed the next words:
"This isn't just a bomb—it's an extinction!"
Her voice grew louder and more desperate.
"A catastrophe! A real catastrophe!!"
Suddenly, her eyes rolled back and her body fell to the ground.
She had fainted from the shock—live on camera.
------------------
Meanwhile, in Japan…Everything was going according to plan.
"TELEPORT!" Sasha shouted.
Woshhhhhhh!
Scarlett vanished into thin air like a gust of wind disappearing into the night.
Sasha had done it—She successfully teleported her. It wasn't easy. They needed the highest ranking teleporting artifact as support.
Se wiped the sweat from his forehead and took a deep breath.
"You've done your part, Sasha," Arthur said . "Now it's my turn."
With that, he disappeared as well.
He had the ability to teleport too but teleporting someone like Scarlett was out of his league, Only expert like sasha could do it.
---------
Scarletta vision went completely white for a second. She felt her body spinning, her hair flying.
Then—whoosh—she was floating in the air, high above the ground.
"Huh?" she muttered, blinking in confusion. "A… volcano?"
Below her was a sea of glowing lava. The earth was shaking. The volcano was alive—angry—boiling with heat and danger.
What Scarlett didn't know was that she was now in America, right above Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano in the world.
She had never been to America before. She didn't know this place.
Then—her gaze caught something in the sky.
A man. A middle-aged man with big muscles, his whole body burning in red-hot flames.
He was the same one who could summon meteoroids. In past attempts, he had been with Team A and Arthur, fighting against her. But now, it seemed like Arthur had changed sides—he had created the perfect spot for this man to use his power.
The man screamed, putting everything he had into his voice.
"Meteoroid Summon! Meteoroid Summon! Meteoroid Summon!"
From the sky, three huge, burning rocks came crashing down.
Scarlett didn't panic.
She smirked.
"You really think a few hot stones can kill me?" she said, raising one hand.
She formed her fingers into the shape of a gun.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
She shot three blasts of pure mana. Each one hit a meteoroid perfectly—BOOM! CRACK! CRASH!
The meteoroids shattered like glass, exploding into tiny bits.
But just as she relaxed, her blindfolded eyes widened.
From behind the broken meteoroids, a giant missile flew past her at lightning speed.
It wasn't meant for her.
It was heading straight for the volcano.
The meteoroid was just an distraction, They wanted the missile to fly into the volcano without her realising it.
Scarlett was easily fast enough to catch a nuke missile and sent it back but it was her recklesness and greatly underestimating her opponent was the reason gheu could pull it off.
In short, Scarlett was just being lazy, Not a biy bothered by whatever they were doing.
--------------
Meanwhile, on the ground…
Arthur stood a short distance away from Scarlett, watching from below.
"Everyone, activate the Energy-Shifting Barrier!" he shouted.
All around him, dozens of people began chanting spells. Glowing symbols and lights filled the sky. A huge white magic circle slowly spread out, wrapping itself around the entire volcano like a shield.
Arthur clenched his fists. His heart was racing.
"I've tried everything," he thought. "Lava can't melt her. A nuke can't kill her. The only thing left… is space. The outside world itself!"
He gritted his teeth as the missile got closer and closer.
"No one have enough strength to throw her into space. But a planet-level explosion just might work…"
"But even if a nuke drops into the volcano, 99.999% energy would spread onto ground causing destruction instead of going up. "
He looked up at the people flying around the magic circle. They were tired, sweating, struggling—but they kept going.
"That's why I brought them here," he thought, his chest rising and falling faster. "This Energy-Shifting Reactor made from pure magic—it will send the explosion upward. Not outward. Not across the land. Just straight up."
"This volcano became an natural mana dense place, The mana is very pure in there, The explosion would be even dozens of times more stronger than what it should be",
His eyes locked on the missile now, flying through the sky like a spear of doom.
It passed right by Scarlett.
And now…
Now it was his turn.
Arthur's body tensed. He took a deep breath.
"This is it," he whispered. "The final piece of the plan."
Suddenly, a golden glow surrounded his body.
[SS Skill: Prime Time – Activated]
The air around him twisted, and the world began to slow down. Everything—falling ash, the rippling heat waves, even the glowing light from the volcano—moved in slow motion. It was as if time itself had bent to Arthur's will.
[S Skill: Warp – Activated]
[S Skill: Turbo Speed – Activated]
He gritted his teeth. Activating so many strong skills at once burned through his mana like wildfire. His heartbeat grew heavy, his veins pulsing painfully.
But he didn't care. He had no time to rest, no space for fear.
In a flash—no, faster than a flash—he vanished from his spot and reappeared high above the volcano, behind the flaming man who had summoned meteoroids. The man's body still burned like a walking inferno.
Arthur didn't waste a single second.
He quickly pressed a small glowing artifact onto the man's shoulder.
"Teleport!" he said firmly.
Woshh! The man vanished, safely moved away.
Arthur's eyes narrowed, his body already moving again like a streak of light. "I made a promise. I will protect as many peaple as i can!" he told himself, his voice filled with determination.
Next, he appeared beside a floating woman in a white robe, her hands glowing as she held the giant magic barrier over the volcano.
"Teleport!" he said again, placing another artifact on her. She vanished, her work now complete.
"Teleport!"
"Teleport!"
"Teleport!"
Over and over, he darted through the air like lightning, grabbing the mages who were holding the barrier and sending them away to safety. Each one he saved made his body feel heavier, his vision blurrier.
Time was speeding back up.
The world was returning to its normal speed.
And the nuke—that monstrous weapon—was almost there, just seconds from hitting the volcano.
Only Arthur remained.
He stood alone now, the ground cracking beneath him, the sky blazing with blinding light.
Blood dripped from his nose. A trickle ran from the corner of his mouth. Inside, his organs screamed in pain. His legs shook. His heartbeat was pounding like a war drum.
Still, he didn't fall.
With trembling hands, he placed the last artifact on himself. His lips, stained red with blood, moved one last time.
"Teleport..."
And just like that—he vanished.
Then…
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The sky exploded. The earth shook.
A bright, white light swallowed the sky and land. It was the loudest, deadliest sound the world had ever heard. The volcano was gone. Mountains melted. The ground cracked for miles. Trees, animals, even the air itself—nothing survived.
Even though most of the energy had been pushed upward by the barrier, some of it escaped. The shockwave tore through the land. People turned to dust in mid-air. It happened so fast, they didn't even know they had died.
The wind carried death.
Radiation burned everything.
No one was spared.
But Scarlett?
Scarlett had already been launched into the sky—so high that the world below looked like a blur. The nuke had exploded with the power of Tsar Bomba, nearly 50 megatons of TNT. Combined with the volcano's own fury, the energy was unimaginable—over 2.092 × 10¹⁷ joules.
It was enough to send a mountain-sized rock flying out of the solar system.
And Scarlett?
She was no ordinary person.
She had been blasted at a speed of 7,230,000 meters per second—so fast that it took her only 0.014 seconds to reach outer space.
The world below disappeared like a fading dream.
But even though it happened in less than a blink, Scarlett wasn't just flying helplessly.
She was not dead object that would fly into space for eternity.
Her instincts kicked in.
She put strength into her body, Forcefully stopping it from going any further.
Her body stopped in space, floating gently. Her limbs hung loose, slowly spinning in circles. Her skin was scorched, her clothes completely burned away from the explosion.
She was naked—yet untouched.
No scars.
No wounds.
And for some reason, Her blindfold was still wrapped around her eyes—untouched by fire, untouched by death.
"What the fuck happened?" Scarlett muttered to herself, floating slowly in the vast emptiness of space. Her voice echoed strangely, as if the silence around her was trying to swallow it whole. But even louder than her words were the questions growing louder in her mind.
"No… more like, why the fuck did it happen?" she said again, narrowing her eyes behind the purple blindfold.
She tried to piece it all together—the chaos, the sudden teleportation, the huge explosion, and the one person behind it all.
"Wasn't that assassin guy... Arthur? Why is he doing this? And how the hell did he plan all of it so perfectly?" she frowned, biting her lip slightly. "If I was still the old me… I would've been dead. No question."
She let out a shaky breath.
Then, something strange clicked in her head.
"Wait… I can talk in space?" she blinked, confused. She touched her neck gently, feeling no resistance, no lack of air, no pressure. Just her voice, clear and calm. She turned her head and looked down.
Far, far below her was Earth, glowing softly like a blue marble. It looked beautiful. Peaceful. But then her eyes focused on one part of it—a huge, dark fog that curled and moved slowly like a living shadow. That was where the explosion happened.
The memory of the blast flashed in her head, and she clenched her fists.
Her eyes moved toward the sun—so bright and close. It should've burned her eyes, but she didn't even feel the heat.
"Damn... I'm naked again," she muttered with a flat expression, glancing down at her bare body. She sighed and then slowly touched the purple blindfold on her face.
Still untouched. Not a scratch.
She gave a soft laugh, her voice quiet. "No wonder… it was personally made by the Second King of Hell. Whoever that person is...Is surely goated" Her lips curved into a half-smile.
"I'm not freezing either. Guess that's what happens when you have a godly body," she said, raising an eyebrow, clearly proud of herself. She tilted her head, admiring her own strength for a second.
But then something sticky touched her fingers.
She looked down at her hand.
A thick, dark red liquid was sticking to her fingertips.
"...Blood?" Scarlett blinked in confusion. She turned her palm, staring at the red stains.
"But… I don't even have blood in my body," she whispered.
Her eyes slowly looked around.
And then she saw it.
Her body froze.
Even though her heart hadn't beaten in a long time… it suddenly felt like it was hammering in her chest.
There, not far from her, floating lifelessly in the cold silence of space… was Irish.
Or rather, what was left of her.
Irish's body was broken. Shattered. Her limbs were bent in unnatural angles. Bones were crushed, torn apart. Flesh floated in tiny pieces, drifting like red petals in water.
It was horrible.
It was unreal.
And worst of all—Scarlett had completely forgotten that Irish had been teleported too.
She stared, her lips trembling, as something heavy pressed down on her chest. Her breathing grew sharp.
Then her eyes burned with rage.
"YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!" Scarlett screamed, her voice shaking space itself. Her body shook with fury.
"I'LL GIVE YOU THE WORST DEATH IMAGINABLE!" she roared.
She clenched her fists tight and her muscles tightened like steel. With all the strength she had, she launched herself toward Earth—like a blazing star returning home.
--------------------
Meanwhile, in Japan—Tokyo to be exact—Arthur fell to the ground in the middle of a quiet street. The sky was just starting to turn a soft orange.
He had wanted to teleport everyone to South Korea, far away from the explosion. But his power had limits. Seoul was the farthest he could reach.
His knees hit the cold pavement, and his breathing turned shaky. Tears streamed down his cheeks like a river, dripping onto the ground below.
He had done it. He had stopped Scarlett Nova. He had saved everyone he could.
But at what cost?
"I… I killed people from my own country… my fatherland," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I'm the one who caused this… I can't forgive myself…"
He broke down completely, crying with deep, painful sobs. His heart felt like it was being crushed from the inside.
But then—
A loud crashing sound shook the street.
It was like a meteor hitting the earth. The ground cracked beneath his feet, and dust flew into the air.
Arthur looked up, startled.
Just a few steps away, a figure stood tall, surrounded by smoke and broken pavement.
Scarlett Nova.
She stood there with her long hair flowing gently in the wind, one hand clenched tightly in a fist—and in her other hand, she carefully carried Irish's head.
"So there you are," she said, her voice firm and sharp.
Arthur's eyes widened in shock. "You… you're alive?" he whispered, completely frozen in place.
Scarlett didn't answer that. Instead, she looked straight at him with a serious gaze.
"You know what? Bring as many heroes or villains as you want," she said, her voice calm but heavy with emotion. "Let's see who can save this world now."
She slowly raised one hand toward her face.
Then she took off her purple blindfold.
The sunlight hit her face fully for the first time in a very long time.
Her eyes—one glowing blue like the sky, the other deep crimson like blood—were finally visible. Both had dragon-shaped pupils that seemed to glow with power.
The moment her eyes met Arthur's, something happened.
Sparkle!... Sparkle.. Sparkle....
Her pupils widened slightly.
She could see it all—every moment Arthur had died, every time he had gone back in time, every plan, every fight, every failure, every sacrifice. His pain. His hope. His desperation.
Nothing was hidden from her gaze.