Antagonist Protection Service
Chapter 270 - 270: Antagonist of Earth (15)

Even after the sakura shrine maiden departed from the land of lava and hot air, the white mist persisted.

"..."

Within that chilling space, the masked entity stood.

The sword of ice was no longer grasped in his hand, replaced with nothing.

Now that all of the Objectives were over, and no more Challengers would likely arrive at this Floor for the foreseeable future, its strength was no longer necessary. The landscape would gradually begin to regenerate and restore itself to normalcy, in preparation for the extraordinary pushing force that would inevitably return.

After all, even if he warned every single person whose aims clashed with his own, there would unavoidably be those whose wills couldn't be altered with mere words.

And from what he had observed, she seemed to fit that description to a T.

'She'll come back eventually.'

Before that happened, he could only give the maximum possible benefit of the doubt.

And after they all knew well to not oppose him, the consequences of doing so being laid out fully in front of them to see――he could only hope it would change the stubborn rock that was their minds.

Of course, he understood that it probably wouldn't. He was the same, so he knew.

People with a dead-set goal don't give up just because someone tells them to.

But, even if it didn't solve the issue of people aiming to clear the Tower, the core of the matter should be taken care of in any case.

If it worked, there was little concern to be had.

If it didn't, he need only work that much harder to make it so.

'Well, I still need to get there yet... That guy's probably gained some more distance.'

For now, the first step should be settled.

'Thanks to the petals being so vulnerable to the cold, I managed to conserve a lot more divine energy with that attack than I expected... Should be enough to make it the rest of the way.'

And so, with no more notable obstacles remaining before him, he too vanished from the mist.

[Floor Cleared]

[Floor Cleared]

[Floor Cleared]

[Floor Cleared]

It was an unforeseen occurrence, albeit something that should have been expected when he looked back on it, but the 'Personal Best' of John Pierce, which was originally reported to be the Thirty-Sixth Floor at the time he split up from his former party members, turned out to actually be higher than he recalled.

Naturally, that was because, while he was busy leeching off Hanami Chisa's dedication to climb, it wasn't as if John Pierce would take that time to slack off―No, he too was also hard at work, and evidently, his exceptional climbing speed was not something hindered even despite the increased difficulty and pressure of the higher Floors.

Not only that, but while the masked entity aiming for his life was pushing himself to now finally catch all the way up, John Pierce was still going, the two cleaving through Objectives and ascending Floors simultaneously.

Of course, the one that was chasing him could not be called an unsteady force, and whether they were aware of it or not, the gap between the two gradually decreased.

――One; the top of his class, renowned all around the world as the number one Challenger in the world, 'The Frontliner', a true celebrity for his pace, his perseverance, his persona, the parity with which he humbly viewed those who awed him, and everything more.

――The other; a nameless, faceless, voiceless entity. Something that could only be viewed with detest by the world as he hunted down that which was precious to it.

'It' was slowly catching up to him, and as the hours ticked by, it only grew closer.

Eventually, after approximately 30 hours of constant advancement, the time had come.

[Floor 39]

For the first and final time, John Charleston Pierce and his pursuer would meet.

❖─────★★★★☆─────❖

In the midst of an endless, void-like expanse, there was a forest.

Except, it wasn't anything of the sort you would expect to find on Earth.

Floating atop a vast, flowing river, the forest utterly dead of life was broken up into multiple smaller islands, like a meandering, miniature archipelago.

Strangely, the river itself also could not be called ordinary, not in any sense.

Arcs of scorching lightning flickering off its incandescent surface, a swirling mix of blue, white, and purple shades that didn't seem to obey gravity in the slightest, it could only be said to liken to a river of plasma, flowing directly upwards.

Although, in this place, it's not like the concept of 'upwards' was ever clearly defined to begin with.

Perhaps that's what allowed this river to pass through three dimensions equally.

And so, flowing somewhere, flowing forever, and flowing terribly distortedly, it carried the archipelago of dead woodland on its back through space.

Within which there stood a masked individual.

[Floor 39]

[Objective: Find 'Salvation' before the islands reach their destination]

[Time Limit: ? Hours]

Again, the Objective was all-too vague, and even worse, the Time Limit was also practically useless.

Similarly, the consequence of failure also wasn't clear.

'Well, it's probably just death. Anyway, since it's only one question mark, can I assume it's no longer than nine hours...?'

Perhaps that was a smart way of looking at it, or maybe he was just being hopeful.

Regardless, he had a strong feeling things wouldn't take that long.

'Hm. I don't see him anywhere...'

The masked entity spawned atop a tree, however due to the unnatural orientation of the forest, it wasn't the top level of branches that was his starting location, but rather, the centre of the trunk.

On his right side, the roots dug firmly into the ground, which stretched just enough to carry a collection of near-identical dead trees into the hundreds.

In other words, the drifting islands of expired woodland, rotated to match the direction and orientation of the plasma river it floated atop, were indeed defying the laws of gravity too, the true identity of 'downwards' being a sea of nothingness pierced through by the previous sections of the river chasing chaotically behind.

'I should really make sure not to fall off, huh...'

Despite having climbed four high-level Floors in just over two days, the masked entity had only rested enough to where he wouldn't need to concern himself with prematurely exhausting himself of stamina or magic and divine energy.

For that reason, even though the events of this Floor were likely to be vastly more demanding than most of anything that had come before it, he had no excuse for failure.

So long as victory was attained swiftly, that is.

"..."

Scanning the surroundings, the entity craned his neck to see 'upwards', where the front of the destructive river continued to unfold and swirl on, arcing forward until it disappeared somewhere over the horizon. In that direction, there also seemed to be proper surrounding environments sprouting from the shadow of the void; snowy mountains truncated at the base, and on the other side, a cluster of similarly snipped erupting volcanoes.

Moreover, in the space above each of those extreme lands, patches of fitting sky appeared present――although, considering how everything was flipped ninety degrees, it meant those 'skies' were actually in the position of where the ground should have been.

Before all of that remarkable nonsense, though, the chain of islands ahead were revealed to him, tethered together with thick roots stretched across the gaps in between to tie them all together.

Other than these forsaken islands, there was nowhere else around to go, at least not until they floated by those misplaced mountains.

As was only natural, the entity experienced a terribly adverse feeling at just the thought of jumping into the river itself―even if he was strong enough to handle any of the trials he had been through to get here, his instincts completely shut any such optimistic hopes down.

Without a doubt, at least not at his current level, he wouldn't be able to withstand being utterly vaporised in a fraction of a second.

Of course, if that truly was the case, it could only mean one thing.

Somewhere within one of these close islands... John Pierce was surely present.

And, as if taking that understanding as a signal――

"―――!!!"

All of a sudden, a truly bizarre, ear-splitting noise resounded to steal the masked entity's attention away, almost comparable to the distorted cracking of tampered ice, followed almost immediately by a heavy thumping that shook the island whole.

Purely from the feeling of the vibrations echoing through the tree trunk under his feet, the figure could tell it wasn't something originating from the island he had spawned atop, but rather one of the many neighbouring islands located ahead.

At that moment, the Objective flashed in his mind.

[Objective: Find 'Salvation' before the islands reach their destination]

If someone needed salvation, it could only mean that there was something they needed salvation from.

Before any more time was wasted idling about, the masked figure set off, beginning to climb up the length of the dilapidated island through jumping between the dead trees sticking out the side like intentionally-placed climbing holds.

After all, if there was someone in danger here, and it wasn't himself...

Well, there was no question about who it could be, right?

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