Yuki, taking small solace in being surrounded by friends and future classmates every bit as exhausted and overwhelmed as she was upon their floating force dome piloted by a headmaster who looked every bit as weary as the rest of them did, leaned her head against the boy she had every intention of giving herself to the moment they landed, and damn the consequences. And the look in his cheeky grin brought a flush to her face, because it was clear that he felt the same.

  “You’re mine,” he whispered in her ear, sending delightful shivers down her spine that warmed her belly and had her lips caressing his own.

  “Good thing we held off on you-know-what,” she teased when they broke off their breathless kiss, to the sight of a cheekily grinning Jack, an amused-looking Lord Levalier nominally in charge of their thousand Bronze-Tier revenant guardians, and everyone else. Even a maimed Senren, somehow snug in a protective Jack’s arms, flashed them a wan grin.

  Richard’s teasing expression turned solemn. “It will be so hard to give you up in two weeks ti—”

  his words cut off with a cry as the distant sky beyond the doomed realm adjoining New Arcadia blazed with a sudden shockingly brilliant flare of light, flashing a pearlescent rainbow hue.

  “Fuck, that’s bright!” Richard cursed even as absolutely every last purple-eyed foreign exchange student, as Yuki now thought of them, blanched and trembled, shielding their faces as fast as they could.

  Even the headmaster’s brow rose in desperate alarm, belting out a sonorous chant that caused the entire floating half-globe to transform to a pink hue even as Levalier belted out desperate orders.

  “Men! Barrier formation on the southern flank! Three men deep! Now!”

  Elonia herself crumpled, eyes wide with horrified dismay. “Oh, no! No, no, no!”

  Yuki spun around, immediately upright, her naginata at the ready, yet there was no foe that she could fight. Her desperate eyes locked on the wild-eyed headmaster.

  “Wyrmwood! What’s wrong?”

  Yet it was Levalier who spoke, eyes tearing with regret and perhaps radiation blindness.

  “Do you truly not know, Yuki?”

  “No!” an alarmed Yuki huffed, sharing alarmed looks with her Terran counterparts. “The locals amongst us never got a memo on what the hell anything like that would—”

  “It’s Hyperion radiation!” Senren sobbed, burrowing her head in Jack’s protective arms.

  Levalier nodded solemnly. “The deadliest radiation unique to starship cores. It’s what destroyed the northern continent of Sapphira 3, imperiled the atmosphere of the entire planet, and completely wiped out the Augustine clan.”

  Jack’s bright green eyes widened with horror, his freckles contrasting all the more against his sudden pallor. “Then we’re utterly fucked. But… why aren’t we dead already?”

  “You have your queen to thank for that,” Wyrmwood said softly, even as Elonia trembled upon her elevated throne, her hair blowing in wild, unseen winds even as her once vibrant features radiating such became gaunt, visibly withering before their eyes.

  Jack, no fool, began to curse. “Fuck. You’re burning your Soul Reserves like Steve used to. Stop it, Elonia! It’s just going to kill you!”

  Much to everyone’s surprise, Wyrmwood dipped his head, gently clasping the queen’s trembling hand, clawing at the armrest she sat upon.

  “The boy is right, Your Grace. Please. Your very presence is what’s saving us. Now you need to relax your grip upon your realm.”

  “But the radiation!” She sobbed.

  Wyrmwood sighed. “Yes, some will leak. Yet only a tiny fraction of what otherwise would, so dense is the barrier protecting the most ascendant realm upon Terra from a wildly escalating Black-Tier region.” He gazed calmly down at the quiet forests and fecund fields smelling of rich crops, luscious fruit and bucolic happiness. His eyes crinkled with a gentle smile. “Our most precious jewel here on Terra. A realm you now refuse even to leave, so its strength is your own and your strength its bastion.”

  He gave her a reassuring smile. “Were it otherwise, there would have been absolutely no way we could have warded off a Bronze-Tier monster surge for so very long, barring them until hundreds became hundreds of thousands, all pushed back by your brother. And even now, that barrier holds. So the radiation that would have washed over an entire continent in the blink of an eye in a fully settled world will not be immediately fatal to anyone within our capital. As for the handful of towns that failed to flee the southern border per your desperate plea...I fear that is the price we must pay for your own survival. For without you… New Arcadia is surely doomed.”

  A shuddering Elonia sobbed but bowed her head, releasing her grip on whatever she had been holding, the life flooding back into her features even as the shimmering pearlescent light in the distance, blazing against the mirror-like barrier between realms, doubled in intensity.

  Yuki blinked in surprise. They were revealing Eric’s name so casually now?

  Richard gently squeezed her hand. “It’s alright. Now he must be a part of the story. For all our sakes.”

  Yuki opened her mouth but could only shake her head as she gazed upon what was now most definitely her boyfriend’s odd fey gaze, before shivering with unexpected insights of her own.

  “But what about my brother?” Elonia whispered, tears in her eyes.

  Wyrmwood, eyes heavy with regret, solemnly shook his head. “I don’t know, Your Grace.”

  “I think I understand,” Yuki declared as Richard’s arms wrapped protectively around her.

  “What do you know?”

  Yuki flashed a wan smile. “I think maybe, he did it to save us?”

  Wyrmwood’s normally gentle gaze turned hard and focused like a hawk’s. Or perhaps… a dragon’s.

  Yuki froze, feeling like a mouse too petrified to move before the headmaster’s expression shifted the tiniest bit, and he was once more a gentle Santa Clause eager to gift them all with presents of priceless magical lore.

  “What do you suspect, child?”

  She gulped. “If it’s him, if he somehow grabbed a starship core… doesn’t it make sense? What better tool to kill those locusts eager to destroy the world than a big massive roach bomb? Incinerate every last one. Even if it dooms an entire territory… even if it leaks and maybe dooms us… at least he can save the rest of the world?”

  Elonia, hearing every word, clenched her hands into tight little fists, eyes clenched shut with dismay. “But what happens to Eric? He’s right there! How can he possibly survive?”

  The looks of dismay and regret Elonia saw on so many features told her well enough of course.

  She choked back a ragged sob before turning to meet Wyrmwood’s solemn countenance.

  “Get us to New Arcadia city as fast as you can. If nothing else, I can… I can at least keep everyone there…” Elonia’s voice broke with regret, crumpling upon her throne as the headmaster solemnly nodded, their already rapid pace doubling once more.

  ****

  “Eric, you absolute madman! What are you doing?” Bunbun mentally screamed even as she raced as fast as she could. For what had been hidden in shadows and discord now blazed as bright as the sun. Cords winding and throbbing like arterial channels now flared with unmistakable brilliance to Bunbun’s Arcane Perception, leading right to what her Dominion Interface Map pinged as the sole rift within the entire region.

  “A gift… coming in hot!”

  Bunbun squealed in delight. “You did it, you bloody genius! And ooh… you’re cooking alive! Shit, your Health pool is crashing! Did you really port in Wormy II with your Recall Familiar perk? And he’s STILL permanently hot? Fuck! That radiation is now a part of him! Is he even alive? Did it instantly kill him? Fuck! Get out of there, Eric! It’s killing you!”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Her momentary excitement turned to horrified dismay, sensing Eric’s agony. But most of all, she sensed his furious resolve, even as he fled for all he was worth.

  Her tiny rabbit heart pounded in absolute terror, forced to appreciate more than ever just how perilous a game they were playing and that it was very likely neither of them would survive.

  If her master’s agony was any sign… if he couldn’t flee any faster than he already was… he was dead in a minute and so was she.

  “So we die heroes, Bunbun. Beats the fuck out of 40 years of 9-5, wouldn’t you say?”

  Bunbun mentally laughed even as her tiny physical body, despite all its enhancements, heaved just trying to keep up a measily 150MPH. “You absolute fuck, you’re the son of Hollywood royalty that turned into intergalactic royalty! A 9-5 office job was never your… fuck, I just made contact!”

  Bunbun’s fatalistic grin turned into a squeal of dismay.

  For she sensed far more than the rift throbbing with the pulsating arterial cord channeling so much deadly potency away from the tyrannical monster now battling a shockingly hot Wormy II.

  It also led to the most twisted of traps, the tiny bunny realized as it froze dead still less than fifty yards away, perfectly hidden by lifeless rubble and the shockingly brilliant corona of Hyperion radiation to her rear. Because if she didn’t share his master’s perks and a damn good chunk of his defenses… if Hyperion Blazer wasn’t singing happily about its boons in the constant stream of Interface messages she turned off in a moment of pique, she’d be nothing but glowing bones.

  Yet her still perfectly intact eyes had no problem making out the handful of naked Bronze-tier adventurers bolted upon a half dozen crosses, spikes through their palms, wrists, ankles and knees.

  It was a sight that froze Bunbun with horror. Because the shave-headed countenance with a cap of steel literally bolted into her bleeding skull was none other than a wild-eyed Elly even now writhing and screaming with inconceivable pain along with every other member of Rising Sun Corp.

  They had been brutalized and tortured, intestines spurting from wounds that would have already killed any mortal.

  It was a scene of nightmarish horror and barbarity that had been conceived by the most twisted of sadists… and Bunbun couldn’t help but shudder with horror, realizing that there was only one person who this tableau of horror had been intended for.

  Her master.

  For somehow, the perpetrators had known.

  Known the girl Eric had dared to open his heart to. Had dared to claim as his own.

  Someone strong. Safe. Assured. Perhaps the only girl it was even safe for him to fall for.

  And somehow, the pair of coldly smiling BASTARD Inquisitors in their blood-spattered form fitting-armor of enchanted obsidian alloys and spattered blood, had known.

  Yet that wasn’t all, a horrified Bunbun realized, desperate to block the vision at least for a few seconds from her poor master’s mind.

  It was what waited in the heart of the half dozen tormented Bronze, in the middle of a massive crimson rune-covered pentagram that would erupt in hellfire should members of a certain clan dare to cross, that was the true arbitrator of despair and absolute destruction.

  Bunbun didn’t even need Eric’s Mad Bomber and Find Structural Weakness perks to know that what she was looking at was a horrifically potent weapon of destruction that looked like something right out of the Manhattan Project.

  Of course she could sense the Hyperion Core whose deadly potency was almost completely contained by the force-field being generated to contain it. All that was keeping the radiation from roaring forth.

  Yet there was more to it than that. Much more, she realized, eyes widening as her mind blazed with so many overlapping Arcane Forces and fields, pressing down against that core.

  “Oh shit, this is the difference between a reactor meltdown and a fucking fusion bomb!” She whimpered so softly that her exceedingly distracted foes couldn’t sense it. But she could.

  Sense how some absolute madman had taken a core that, left raw and wild and radiating Hyperion death, could irradiate an entire continent, dooming millions of not billions and imperiling an entire world population if steps weren’t taken to contain, expel, or eliminate using the power of who knew what tier Silvers… or perhaps even Imperial intervention.

  But this… this was about compressing not one but three shockingly potent cores together. Forcing them in such tight proximity that it was all just a heartbeat away from violently erupting in one incalculable explosion.

  An explosion that Bunbun was pretty damn sure wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about natural barriers blocking radiation or critter transfer between various territories.

  This thing would obliterate them like soap bubbles, before destroying the entire world.

  Literally.

  If a naked Hyperion Core was as destructive to a living world as putting a lit candle under an unhatched egg to slowly fry the life within, this was the equivalent of slamming it down upon the ground in a titanic fury, and splattering the egg over, in this case, the entire solar system.

  Bunbun’s interface screamed in capital letters. But she didn’t need the entire planet giving her some insanely desperate mission, promising her any boon she desired, to know what she had to do.

  Racing forward for all she was worth as she made a desperate plea to her master now screaming with pain and the horror of his dying girlfriend who he had been too chickenshit to even admit was his girlfriend until she was literally dying on a fucking cross, and here Bunbun was, desperate to find a way to put a stop to what would probably, definitely, kill them all.

  If there was one upside, it was that she was a harmless bunny bouncing their way through impossible glare.

  If there was one downside, the pair of sneering inquisitors had just revealed a crackling rift clearly leading somewhere quite far away from this doomed world.

  The closest one cursed even as he twisted his gauntlet, generating a crimson field even as the Rising Sun corp screamed, their skin beginning to smoke and blister under the shockingly toxic radiation.

  “Hyperion Radiation! How?” Snarled the closest as he turned to glare down at the monstrosity of wires and containment fields radiating the promise of absolute destruction. “The cores are safely contained!”

  The second glared into the distance, before cursing and turning his head. “It no longer matters, Adolf. We need to leave. Now!”

  Adolf spat, glaring at the groaning bodies, shuddering as they wept and begged for mercy, intestines streaming from the vicious incisions they had wrought. “It must be Ernest Slaughter. There’s no one else it could be! He alone had both access and exposure. That damned boy DID destroy Sapphira 3 with a Hyperion Core. This will serve as our witnessed proof!”

  “It is absolutely perfect!” The shorter man forced a bitter chuckle. “And now our report will be flawless. The fool acquired the most illegal of contraband, tainted an entire world, before ultimately destroying his own planet to such a catastrophic degree that the galaxy will shudder with its passing!”

  Adolf sighed. “It’s a shame. I so wanted to see the look on the brat’s face when he caught sight of the elven slut, forced to appreciate just how dearly anyone who trucks with our foes will be forced to suffer before he loses both his life and his home.” He then flashed a cold smile at the writhing men, sauntering over to the quietly sobbing elf, before clenching her mangled flesh and tearing off a bloody chunk, eliciting a tormented scream.

  “Please! Mercy!”

  The sadist gazed up at the writhing bound elf spraying blood from her fresh wounds upon his face and laughed. “I’m afraid here’s where we say goodbye, little treasure. I just wanted to know that you have less than handful of minutes to live before this entire world is obliviated, and Ernest Slaughter is entirely at fault. How does it feel to know that your former lover has doomed you and all your friends?”

  “We are guilty nothing, you sadistic monsters!” Wheezed a dying Bennett. “It’s you who are responsible for this madness. You would would destroy an entire planet out of spite! If the empress knew just how far you monsters, her pet toys, had fallen —”

  His words cut off with a scream when the other inquisitor rammed a crackling rod into his bruised ribs.

  “As much as I would dearly love to continue this conversation… as much as I would have enjoyed seeing the look on Ernest’s face while he is forced to savor absolute terror, knowing that an entire world was doomed, that it was utterly beyond his ability to save, and he had no one to blame but himself, as our delightful toy ticked down to its final seconds… I’m afraid we will have to miss the show.”

  The inquisitor flashed a cold, supercilious smile. “But do tell him that Nazem Song sends his regards, should he make it before absolute oblivion strikes you all down. For the activation starts the instant your world's ultimate master wills it. And he is most eager to see the expression upon Ernest's face when he is finally forced to appreciate the gravity of his actions. How delicious an irony it is to know that his very rushing to your aid will be what destroys you all!” He laughed coldly, sneering up at the half-dozen doomed mercenaries bleeding from their crosses.

  Before lurching back in surprise when the massive deadly bomb in the heart of their circle began a rapid beeping countdown.

  "No!" The other Inquisitor cursed. "It is too soon! We're still here!" He wasted no further words, making a panicked sprint for the portal.

  Bunbun screamed in her mind even as she sensed her master’s howling fury and growing sense of despair.

  Racing for all he was worth.

  Bunbun froze. She knew those two bastards had to stop this! Or no. This was Malice's mad creation. It had to be. These inquisitorial fools were just tools themselves, now fleeing before Malice discarded them as casually as every other tool that monster had used and broken.

  And before she could even decide what the hell to do, the pair of Inquisitors leaped like the panicked men they were through the tear in space and time that snapped close a heartbeat later, leaving nothing but a shimmering delve gate from which Malice’s cord thrummed with channeled power a short distance away, both cord and hidden rift entrance revealing themselves in the constant brilliant surge of energy as Malice fought to tear and destroy Eric’s underlord, a half dozen mercenaries in the extremis of torment, and a massive container of blackened soul-steel sealing away a bomb that could destroy them all.

  And that was the horrid irony of it all.

  No wonder their foes were utterly confident that Eric could do nothing at all.

  Mad Bomber perk made it clear that there were multiple fail-safes and dead-man’s switches inside the bomb happily ticking its way to oblivion. And the entirety was made of battleship-calibre soul-steel. Because of course it was. Who the hell else besides goblins would dare not only make their illegal cores, warping even the System away from their horrific acts via paths of soul torment that were as close to hell as anything she had so far seen in this galaxy? Who else but they would take an already perilous core and figure out a way to make a planet-killing bomb?

  And now her poor master was screaming in fear, pain, and sheer despair. Sensing her dilemma yet knowing they dared do absolutely nothing to alert Malice to what they had found.

  “It’s okay, bossman. I think… I think I have a plan.”