Their path was that of a death goddess. Reina drove as if brakes were a mere suggestion. Any unfortunate beast in their trajectory was simply… annihilated. Ketovan estimated that Reina had claimed at least a hundred lives just by driving to their destination. Finally finding the courage to move, Alexander leaned toward Hakon.
"Does she actually know how to drive?" he whispered.
"I don't know how to drive myself," Hakon whispered back, looking genuinely terrified. "So she's the only way I can use this item."
"I know how to drive!" both Ketovan and Alexander shouted in unison, white-knuckled as they gripped the car doors to keep from being tossed around by the sheer inertia.
Five minutes later, the Great Tree loomed ahead. It was a monstrosity. It boasted a hundred branches, each spanning 200 kilometers.
"It's home to millions of beasts—insects, predators, and plant elementals. Each branch acts as a level with its own Lord. Once a Lord is slain, the branch can be severed. The last time this tree was cleared, a Noble Rank 88 had to use his full power, though his core was a measly Core of Moss," Ketovan noted, reading from a glowing screen.
"Never underestimate a core," Hakon grunted. "Even a Core of Ants can be deadly in the right hands."
Reina wasn't listening; she just buried the accelerator. Massive roots began to erupt from the ground, forming a mountain range around the base of the tree. These weren't small obstacles; the crests and troughs were at least a kilometer deep. But the car didn't slow down. Its velocity kept it moving in a straight line, ploughing through the earthen hills rather than climbing them.
"What is this car made of?" Alexander yelled over the roar of the wind.
"A Royal Rank item I bought from a Fleren fifty years ago!" Hakon shouted back.
"Do you regret it?" Ketovan asked.
"Every single day!" Hakon replied.
They were a split second from slamming into the trunk when Hakon reached over and yanked the steering wheel. The car went into a massive drift, sliding for a good hundred kilometers before finally coming to a halt. Reina blinked, snapping out of her trance, and began fixing her disheveled hair.
"What happened?" she asked innocently.
"Nothing. We just saw a devil driving a car on the way," Ketovan choked out, collapsing onto the grass the moment he got the door open.
"Why didn't you tell me? It would've been cool to see a beast like that. Besides, we could use a new car—this thing is too slow," Reina said, completely oblivious to the fact that Ketovan was talking about her.
Alexander scrambled out of the car and immediately began puking; his Normal Rank body simply couldn't handle the g-forces.
"What's wrong with him?" Reina asked.
"He must have eaten something bad," Hakon lied, trying to spare her the truth.
As Ketovan and Alexander managed to get back on their feet, Franklin's motorcycle pulled up a minute later.
"Are we in such a hurry?" Franklin asked, dismounting.
"What hurry? I was going slow," Reina said, her cheeks puffing out defensively.
"Let's just move. We have a beast to kill," Hakon said, pointing upward.
"Aren't we supposed to start at the bottom branch?" Alexander asked, craning his neck so far back he felt it might snap.
The sky was gone, replaced by a dome of branches and leaves with a radius of at least 200 kilometers. The trunk alone was the size of a small city—at least 70 kilometers wide. Its height was impossible to gauge, hidden somewhere between 600 and 1,600 kilometers up in the atmosphere.
"How are we getting to the top?" Alexander asked.
Hakon and Reina shared a look. Franklin sighed, understanding the silent communication, while Ketovan looked just as lost as Alex.
"What?" Alex asked nervously.
"There is a way… you won't like it," Reina said.
"Don't tell m—"
Before Ketovan could finish, Hakon snatched him up and launched him into the air. Ketovan vanished into the canopy of leaves before he could even finish his protest.
"What if he hits a branch and dies?" Alex gasped.
"He won't. I'm a Noble Ranker, Alexander. My brain calculates trajectories that normal people can't even fathom. I've aimed him so he'll hit the highest branch with a soft landing on his ass," Hakon said, before tossing Reina skyward without a second thought.
Franklin simply manifested a pair of shadow boots and began walking up the air toward the summit.
"Damn him and his core," Hakon muttered. He grabbed Alexander by the shirt and jumped.
Suddenly, they were soaring. As they ascended several thousand kilometers, Alex instinctively activated his All-Seeing Eye. He could feel every life form within a 250-kilometer radius—roughly three branches of the tree. His vision pierced through the wood, seeing the mountain of vegetation for what it was. He spotted three specks on the topmost leaf, fighting human-sized grasshoppers.
Hakon glided toward the leaf and landed in the center of a swarm, obliterating them instantly with a small burst of his Solar Flare skill.
"Show-off," Reina retorted, sliding her revolver back into its holster.
The leaf they stood on was several hundred meters wide, covered in a mountain of dead insects.
"Any Commander Ranks?" Hakon asked Franklin.
"No. Two Soldier Ranks commanding seventy Normal Ranks each," Franklin reported, dismissing his shadow skills.
"At least give a heads-up next time," Ketovan snapped at Hakon, still smoothing out his clothes from the "flight."
"Fine, fine. I thought the surprise might be exciting," Hakon chuckled.
Alexander stared at the heap of grasshoppers, each one larger than he was. Any one of these creatures could likely wipe out an entire city on Earth, yet these people had cleared them like common pests. Some had clean holes through their heads, others were perfectly decapitated by Ketovan's sword, and the rest were charred to a crisp by Hakon's landing.
He didn't know if he had vastly overestimated the grasshoppers, or if the people around him were simply monsters in human skin.
***