Three major factions appeared the moment everyone settled on the newly constructed Aeon Bridge, divided according to national loyalties. Claud wasn’t interested in joining any of them, like some of the other Bearers of Destiny, but now that there were groups led by leaders of whole nations here…

“What a mess.” Claud glanced at Thirteen and Seven, whose body language spoke volumes about their stance and thoughts. He could practically see the fear and suspicion radiating off them, but in Thirteen’s case, this much was understandable. What wasn’t understandable, however, was Seven’s own fear.

The last he checked, the only Bearer of Destiny that had been menaced so far by the newcomers was Thirteen, so…

He cast another thoughtful glance at the armoured young man, and then looked around the Aeon Bridge. The Aeon Bridge had changed form the moment everyone stepped on it. Rather than an actual rectangular bridge, the whole thing had shifted to form something like a eight-spoked wheel laid flat on the floor. In the middle of the spoked wheel was a weird pillar of nine-coloured light; something that Claud promptly pegged as the object that needed to be protected…

Or in his case, sabotaged.

At any rate, the surroundings had shifted so naturally that Claud hadn’t noticed, but the whole setup had changed so thoroughly that even someone who thoroughly lacked an awareness of their surroundings would have noticed.

As he stewed in some random thoughts, a low howl filled the air, and multiple rifts appeared. At the end of every path was one such rift, and as he watched on, quivering white…things stepped out of these rifts, each of them radiating an air of utter wrongness.

If this was one of those intruders, Claud wasn’t going to complete his Omen Mission. This thing was far too creepy for him to even consider the possibility of passing. In fact, every fibre of his being was designating these white, squishy things as enemies of the world, and simply raising his blade against them was enough to fill him with some determination.

“Those are the parasites we must protect our world from!” Emperor Grandis proclaimed. “The Logia, monsters from the gap between worlds! Annihilate them, or we will be destroyed!”

Claud found himself roaring with the rest, and a cold part of him dimly noted that this was probably due to some innate effect of the Emperor’s artefacts. Nonetheless, he could hear a ring of truth within those words itself… but why did the Emperor know so much about these things? He knew about their name, their origin and their goal.

What other secrets did this world hide?

Shaking his head, Claud eyed the monsters that were forming up at the end of his lane. Everyone had moved to take one lane each, although there were some with two people…like Seven and Thirteen, who, despite their constant animosity, had chosen to group up together.

“Are you sure you two want to group up together?” Claud asked, curious.

“I don’t really want to, but you’re more threatening than her,” Seven replied, pointing at Thirteen. “At least I can escape from her. You? Yeah, no. Therefore, you must be stronger than the two of us.”

“How did you even come to such a conclusion?”

“Call it an instinct,” he replied.

“Same,” Thirteen ended. “Strong. You are.”

Claud frowned. Did they manage to detect his number of mana circuits? The possibility of that happening was very high; he had prepared for battle when Supreme Saran directed a whole lot of animosity at the three of them earlier. It was possible that the others had picked up on the fact that he was nearly a septa-folder at that point in time.

Rolling his eyes, he looked at them in the hopes of conveying his surface thoughts of them being gravely mistaken, and then turned back to his path. He had brought some artefacts alone, and after activating the Laggard Locality — which created an area in which everything else other than the user was slowed — he drew out his sword and waited.

His eyes drifted over to the three leaders of the world. Emperor Grandis was standing in the middle of his own path, the nine halos behind his back shining in an aesthetically pleasing way. Supreme Saran was smacking the ground with his mace, in what seemed like an experiment of hardiness, and First Lady Cecily was leaning on her battleaxe lazily.

The Association President had two chains whirling to his left and right. It was an odd choice of weapon, but Claud had no intention of pointing that out whatsoever.

After looking at the others, Claud bobbed his head. He had been looking for a good time to annihilate the other Bearers of Destiny, but at this rate, more and more people would arrive. Even if he managed to kill them all in one fell swoop, the flames of vengeance would swiftly consume him — Claud didn’t think that he could defeat Emperor Grandis, Supreme Saran and First Lady Cecily on his own. Alternatively, he could try to kill all the top fighters too, but what kind of scenario would he need before something like that could happen?

Sighing, he focused on the build-up of white monsters. There were hundreds of them on his path alone, and those things didn’t look like they were in the mood to talk either.

Before long, a weird, eerie sound filled the place, a sound that reminded Claud of crickets, and he lowered his stance.

Those things were getting ready.

Barely a second after that thought appeared in his mind, a ripple ran through the assembled monsters, and a shriek filled the skies. The monsters surged forward a moment later, and Claud took a deep breath.

This battle was one of endurance.

The monsters squirmed and twisted in grotesque fashion as they charged towards him, crawling on all fours and leaping around randomly. Claud had even half-expected them to fly, but thankfully enough, those things were still beholden to the almighty force of gravity.

Claud tracked the front rank of enemies, and then intuitively understood that he would need to use his mana to take them out with ease. There was no relying on physical strength here; there were so many foes charging him that a normal sword wouldn’t be able to complete a swing. In fact, he would need to emulate a farmer; every swing and strike had to mow down stalks of wheat.

Heavy thumps shook the entire place as mana coated his sword and pulsed through his body. Claud glanced at Emperor Grandis, who was the first to meet the enemies in battle. The nine halos behind the emperor were busy firing bolts of light without any overt instruction from their owner, crushing the white monsters as they charged forward to their inexorable doom.

Claud retracted his gaze as the air around his weapon distorted a moment later. Blood filled his ears, and as the first batch of enemies slowed down, his sword whipped outwards. Flesh hissed, and three white monsters fell apart, bisected at the torso.

Following a silent rhythm, Claud continued to cut down the enemies that were charging at him. The Laggard Locality was proving its weight in gold right now; anything that got close to him immediately found themselves slowed by some strange power, and Claud made use of these openings to inflict fatal blows.

Striking another white thing — Claud was sure that the Emperor called them Logia — with the flat of his blade, he glanced at the seemingly endless tide of monsters. The white insect-like monsters were pouring out of the rifts at the end of his path without any restraint, and time segued into a blur as Claud continued to mow down the enemies like a farmer dealing with his harvest.

Those monsters were quite a pain to deal with too. The corpses of these things vanished the moment they died, which meant that Claud couldn’t use those things to create a battlefield to his advantage. He could only endure the pain of swinging his sword over and over, but at least his mana expenditure was insignificant.

“I’m so glad I did some exercise,” Claud muttered to himself. Dodging three slow slashes by sword-like appendages, he turned the owners of these disgusting things into neatly severed pieces of white pulp again.

Before he knew it, several hours had passed, and the wariness that had filled his body had weakened. It wasn’t something that Claud could help — staying keyed up for an entire day was mentally stressful, and he was, right now, killing those things in a fashion eerily similar to chopping vegetables.

After all, the presence of the Laggard Locality had removed most of the actual threat to him. What remained was for him to slowly and surely whittle down the enemies that had been slowed — there really wasn’t any actual risk…

For now, anyway.

Bisecting a bunch of Logia or whatever, Claud took a step back and caught his breath. Those things didn’t seem to be relenting anytime soon, and—

Another shriek filled the air, and another surge of white maggoty things joined the ranks of monsters.

Claud breathed out slowly at that sight, and then rubbed his arms. At the rate in which he was swinging this sword, his right arm was going to be a lot bigger than his left arm soon.