Rumble rumble rumble—
It was like the heavens and earth had collided.
The cause of this apocalyptic tremor? The massive Icarus had finally descended upon the land.
The horrifying impact of its weight shattered the ground beneath it instantly, sending seismic ripples across the terrain like giant waves. The blast whipped up a dust storm akin to a super sandstorm, swallowing everything around it.
In that moment, the landscape completely transformed—nothing remained of the familiar terrain.
Then came an eruption of overwhelming power.
Multiple forces surged forth simultaneously, dispersing the sandstorm and revealing the form of Icarus. From the massive dragon's body extended what looked like blood vessel-like tubes that burrowed into the earth—as if sucking something out of it.
It was draining the planet's life force. You could visibly see the earth around Icarus dying.
In that instant, it felt as though the planet itself let out a wail of despair.
Light burst around the colossal dragon, illuminating the darkened sky and sweeping away the clouds that had smothered the heavens.
The next second, dozens of S-rank heroes and others launched their ultimate powers: slashes of light that tore open the land, firebirds that looked ready to scorch the entire sky, ice tornadoes that could freeze even light, thunder spears that pierced the firmament—all of it roared toward Icarus like a divine onslaught.
At the same time, several dragonkind joined in with their draconic breaths.
The combined might of these attacks could obliterate the entire capital region of Japan on the surface world in a single instant.
"——!"
All the attacks struck simultaneously, and at that moment, the radiant burst consumed heaven and earth.
Just before the explosion, if one could ignore the blinding brilliance, they would see an orb of high-temperature energy, like a plasma ball—a mini sun in every sense of the word.
The next instant, several dragons flanked the orb.
"Tohru, Elma."
"Understood." x2
In a split second, led by the two dragonkin, the group twisted space itself—then reinforced and compressed it, wrapping it tightly around the superheated energy sphere, suppressing the impending explosion.
What followed was an inward collapse.
The core began generating terrifying gravitational force, and as it continued to shrink, it created even more intense heat—an attempt to vaporize Icarus entirely.
Wait—no need to even exert force. The orb itself was self-collapsing.
The extreme density at its center had produced matter with absurd gravitational pull—enough to restrain the plasma sphere's explosion on its own.
Still, they reinforced the spatial seal, just in case.
Several seconds passed, and the world hadn't been reset—meaning Icarus hadn't had time to rewrite history.
But… shouldn't Icarus have recognized such a massive simultaneous assault as a real threat and reacted with a temporal reversal?
The reason it didn't was due to Lucoa's interference with history, causing Icarus to misperceive the attack as being from only a few individuals—thus not worthy of temporal intervention. To Icarus, such attacks simply fed it more energy.
Additionally, Icarus's ability to rewrite history couldn't go beyond its most recent "save point."
Every time it rewound time, the save point moved forward, much like overwriting a single save slot in a game—older states could never be recovered.
Suddenly, Tohru's vertical pupil sharpened. Something was nearby.
A glance revealed… an angel?
Unlike those clearly metallic artificial dark angels, this one appeared more like a living, breathing being—flesh and blood, with a full and curvaceous form, almost human-like. It even seemed to breathe.
Her appearance, however, remained hidden behind a sleek, motorcycle-style helmet that also concealed her hair.
Her wings were composed of glowing bands of light—each strand of light connected into the void behind her.
"Confirmed: Time Point 061855… Time Point 062125… Error. Non-interference time point confirmed. Targeted correction point identified! Target for intervention confirmed—Countermeasure [Apollon], detected coordinate XXXXX, one thousand five hundred and thirty-six kilometers away, overlapping space identified!"
Her voice was a beautiful girl's, but with a mechanical resonance. She spoke so quickly that Tohru couldn't even react.
But he did catch one clear word at the end:
"Jump."
And then—time itself rewound around them, as if the whole world were rewinding a video.
In a blink, Tohru's face darkened—Icarus, which should've been swallowed by the superheated orb, stood before them completely unharmed.
History had been rewritten again.
The next second, a figure fell from the air—it was the humanoid Lucoa, an arrow protruding from her abdomen.
"Lucoa! Dammit, who did this to you?! Was it a human?! Those bastards, even now they—"
"No… it was Icarus. I didn't expect that… that was the real body of Icarus. I—"
"I…"
What?
In that instant, the apocalyptic dragon-beast Icarus opened its enormous maw. Compressed energy gathered—not just from itself, but from the particles in the air, the light in the world—even light was devoured, absorbed into the abyss.
Without light, the area around Icarus became pitch-black, like it had become the embodiment of night.
This consumption of light kept spreading.
The next moment, light returned—but it was a beam of destructive radiance.
The deathray erupted forth, vaporizing everything it touched in a straight line, carving a deep gorge into the earth. Mountains in its path were utterly erased.
"Wait! That direction—!"
The beam was headed straight for a sacred mountain that mirrored one in Japan of the surface world.
"It's… it's gone!"
A near-hysterical cry came from distant observers.
Through satellite imaging, they saw the mountain—nearly four thousand meters tall—completely obliterated. The deadly beam continued, tearing across the land, carving into the ocean—and then, due to Earth's curvature, it angled upward into the sky.
What kind of horrifying attack was this? And more puzzling—what was the purpose? It hadn't even tried to sweep horizontally.
"Did… the beam vanish?"
"No… it hit something."
Satellite footage showed the beam striking what looked like empty air—but the point of impact rippled, like it had struck an invisible wall.
As the ripples spread, a strange sight emerged—through the waves of distortion, they glimpsed a commercial airplane flying. But when they looked past the ripples—there was nothing. No plane.
Someone connected the dots—and broke into a cold sweat.