Malik felt a vague sense of déjà vu.

It was as if he’d gone through something like this before.

Meanwhile, Huda immediately pointed her sword at him.

A thin blade she had hidden beneath her dress, its edge gleaming in the pale light.

"Who are you?!"

Her pink eyes were wild, rapidly darting between Malik’s bloodied hands and Safira’s unconscious body.

Are you working with the ones who attacked us?!"

’...I am probably IT’s most hated enemy.’

It was unfortunate that Malik could not just say that.

The name would not stick, the words would not make sense, and Huda would only grow more suspicious.

"I knew you were lying!"

Huda pressed on, her voice rising with fury.

"No weakling can handle this place for as long as you had claimed!"

Seeing that he was silent, she stepped closer, the tip of her sword inches from his throat.

"So tell me! Give me one reason I should not kill you right now!"

Malik shook his head slowly, his golden eyes meeting her pink ones without revealing a single emotion.

"I am not your enemy."

Though he said so, he did not deny that he had lied about his past in this land.

Something that Huda, of course, picked up on immediately.

"You still haven’t told me anything, dammit!"

Ignoring her outburst, Malik gently picked up Safira’s limp body, cradling her against his chest, and laid her against the trunk of the Tree of Life.

He cut off a piece of his dark clothing and wrapped it tightly around her wound in something of a tourniquet, pulling the fabric taut to stem the bleeding.

Hesitantly, Huda lowered her sword and approached, her eyes fixed on her injured friend’s face.

"Are you really...?"

She was unable to finish the question.

Malik nodded at her as he finished up, his hands steady despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins.

"Yes. Do you truly think that if I wished to kill you both, I could not have done it ten times over by now? You realize that you haven’t exactly been in the best state of mind on our journey so far, right?"

Huda took pause and stared at him.

After a moment, or two, or ten, she did the most unexpected.

Something that showed her growth:

"...fine."

Grumbling her acceptance, she knelt beside him and pulled a small glass vial filled with a glowing green liquid from thin air.

She uncorked it with her teeth and sprinkled the contents over Safira’s wound, watching as the liquid sizzled and bubbled against the torn flesh.

Then she tipped the vial to Safira’s lips and forced her to drink the rest.

In seconds, the wound began to knit itself together, the ragged edges pulling closed.

The bleeding stopped, and Safira’s breathing slowly stabilized.

"Thank you for helping her."

Huda’s earlier hostility was gone.

"I don’t know what happened, but it’s... it’s good that you’re here."

Stutteringly saying that, she pushed up to stand—

"Ah."

Only to pause, her eyes meeting the message carved into this tree’s trunk.

[Expedition 9999: I have no doubt that this land holds the remains of a God.

Perhaps the Tree of Life itself is a God’s grave.

It truly is a lost cause.

I do not know how long we have spent here, but we do not seem to be any closer to reaching the tree.

I am afraid there will not be many expeditions after us, if at all.

Perhaps all of our worlds’ Fate was to end up being in the Entity’s—]

The message stopped there.

Unlike most before it, the stop was too sudden.

It didn’t seem to trail off even a little.

Huda, who was reading the message, stopped there as well.

Her pink eyes glazed over, and her mind seemed to give up functioning in moments, sending her crashing into the snow beside her friend, unconscious before she hit the ground.

Malik, meanwhile, stood up in confusion.

’Why did she...?’

But not for long, as he read the message as well.

Instead of passing out as she had, his brain felt like it was boosted instead, the words triggering a cascade of realizations rather than a mental shutdown.

’It cannot be.’

Yes, many things began to click into place.

All of those expeditions—stretching back who knew how long—were not coming here to extract something from the ’Source’ or maybe even to find a way to stop the Demons from invading their lands.

No, it was something much worse than that.

It was a desperate action by the worlds that had yet to be overtaken by IT’s Will!

They were sending their best into this nightmare land to find a way to stop IT before it consumed everything, utterly desperate!

Expeditions were decreasing in number because IT’s influence had reached them!

It had infected their leaders and their people.

They were being turned against Devil’s Maw, against anyone who stood in IT’s way.

IT was pushing them to brand what should’ve been Heroes as Villains.

’This was the missing piece.’

Malik saw it clearly now.

IT possessed an ability to spread ITs influence like a virus.

Everyone who was exposed to IT was infected by ITs power, and after that... well, different people were affected differently. Some went mad. Some became puppets. Some simply forgot.

But all of them, eventually, served IT’s purpose.

What a final piece this was!

Malik’s greatest enemy was waiting, slowly amassing power from other planets, biding ITs time for the moment he finally returned.

IT had not attacked directly because IT did not need to. IT was content to let the universe tear itself apart while IT grew stronger.

’Hm.’

Once more, this had him feeling lost.

He had only just ’returned’ to a life he barely remembered, and already he was facing a God-level threat that had been manipulating reality for who knew how long.

...what the Hell was he supposed to do?

’...’

Malik had no answer.

If it were any consolation, strong as IT was, thankfully, IT seemed limited in capability.

IT couldn’t interfere in the world of the living too much, at least not without consequence.

Otherwise, Malik would have died the very moment he ’returned.’

Thump...

But of course, to make things worse than they already were, he was not given the time to think.

Thump!

Never was he given a chance to damn well think!

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

Perhaps in reaction to the message being perceived, the land around him began to shake violently.

The massive Tree of Life in the distance pulsed with each thump, sending shockwaves through the frozen ground that split the land with familiar red fauna.

Even more shadowy things began to appear out of the corner of his vision.

They were disgusting forms that hurt to look at directly.

Demons.

Damned Demons were appearing all around him, rising from the ground!

Unlike the ones he had dispatched in the desert, these looked strong.

Towering at least three meters tall, they were lanky and hunched, their bodies entirely elongated with sword-like protrusions jutting from their arms and legs.

Above their heads floated crowns made of the same shapes, arranged in a circle and connected by threads of Corruption.

’Ah... damn it all.’

Almost immediately, Malik pulled up his system, his eyes scanning the interface for anything that could help.

—

╔════════╗

║Fear System║

╚════════╝

{Class: 11 (Knight of Rukh)}

{Unlocking Class (10): 0/101}

{Fear Points: 0.4 → 15}

{Soul Glyphs: None}

—

’...’

The points had increased greatly from when he last checked.

Again, it was most likely from his fear spreading through the sultanate and beyond... or not.

No, it wasn’t.

It couldn’t be.

Time didn’t exist here.

Technically speaking, not a single moment should’ve passed outside the East.

In other words, this influx of Fear Points didn’t come from his enemies or his people.

It came from this land itself, as only this land moved.

How was that happening?

Was this land’s Corruption somehow turning into Fear Points?

Malik didn’t quite understand it, but there was no time to theorize.

Fifteen points were good, but it was just short of what he needed.

A single-use Soul Glyph would not be enough against this many Demons; they were too numerous.

He needed a peak Soul Glyph to have any chance, and to get that, he required sixteen Fear Points.

He had fifteen.

’One short.’

Malik looked at the Demons closing in from all sides.

He looked at Huda and Safira, unconscious at the base of the tree.

Then, he came to a decision quickly, the same kind of decision he had already grown tired of making.

’I have to stall until then.’

Malik let out a slow breath.

"Let us begin."