​The two flew over the blistering, endless desert for two hours before the landscape finally gave way to a somber sight: the skeletal remains of a half-destroyed city. Ash's eyes narrowed, a familiar tension gripping her.

​"This is Speed's Territory," Ash stated, her gaze hard as she took in the crumbling structures.

​Sunny, now returned to his human form, stood beside her, his expression serious. He nodded, acknowledging the gravity of her words.

"The moment we enter, Speed will detect us. As a peak God rank, one step from the first order… it's a lot stronger than me." Ash pointed out.

​Sunny nodded and with a sharp snap of his fingers, the chains that had bound Ash's wrists instantly crumbled to dust. Ash stared at her liberated hands in surprise, then looked up at Sunny, who was holding out a small, luminous fruit.

​"This is a Spirit Fruit," he explained simply. "Have it. You'll need your full strength back."

​Ash's eyes widened, a mixture of shock and suspicion warring on her face: "Spirit Fruit? How did you get this? They're super rare—it's a miracle to find even one. And you're giving it to me, just like that?"

​'True.' Sunny thought, observing her reaction. 'I only got 19 of these fruits. It shows how important they are.'

He nodded, pushing aside his own internal valuation: "Don't worry about that. We are allies now. It'll be better if you can assist me here."

​A flicker of doubt crossed Ash's face. "With your strength, you don't need my help… Seriously, why are you giving me this?" She pressed, searching for a hidden agenda.

​Sunny sighed, a touch of impatience entering his demeanor, and turned to walk away. "The decision is on you."

​Ash watched his retreating back for a long moment, the heavy silence of the desert pressing around them. The fruit felt cool and potent in her hand. Her mind raced: 'Why the gift? Was this a test? A true sign of alliance? He shattered the chains first.' She reasoned, a small measure of trust settling in her heart. Ash brought the fruit to her lips and took a small, decisive bite. The sweet, energy-rich flesh instantly began to flood her meridians.

__

​Sunny stepped into the ruined city, his eyes scanning the debris-strewn streets and the skeletal shells of buildings. He glanced back, seeing Ash closing the distance. The subtle tension in his shoulders eased slightly, a testament to his renewed confidence in her fully-restored strength.

​"Can we sneak through Speed's territory? It'll be better to avoid a fight if possible," he murmured, favoring a strategic approach.

​"I don't think that's possible," Ash replied, pointing into the distance. Clumsy, humanoid shapes shuffled into view, their movements jerky and unsettling. A thick, vile green goo oozed from their mouths, ears, and eyes.

​"What are those?" Sunny asked, frowning at the grotesque sight.

​Ash turned to him in mild surprise. "You don't have zombies in your world?"

​"Well… I only saw these things in movies. Who would think—"

​"What is movie?" Ash interjected, utterly confused, the concept foreign to her reality.

​"A Movie is?" Sunny paused, shaking his head. The cultural gap was too vast to explain now. "Forget all that. Let's deal with those things."

​"No!" Ash caught his arm, pulling him back and pointing toward a large, broken boulder.

"They haven't noticed us yet. Let's think of a way around them." She assessed the approaching group with experienced eyes.

"Those zombies are all Stage One God Rank warriors. And there are about twenty of them." She pulled Sunny down, hiding them both behind the boulder.

​"And they never move in such small numbers. They always move in a horde of a hundred plus," she whispered, peering cautiously over the rock's edge.

​"A hundred Stage One God rank zombies… Frightening," Sunny said with a light, almost dismissive laugh.

"...?!"

​Ash turned to him, confusion hardening into mild annoyance. "Why are you laughing?"

​Sunny's smirk widened. "They're just good test subjects." He snapped his fingers. A shimmering gateway instantly materialized on the opposite side of their hiding spot, drawing the zombies' immediate, guttural attention.

​"What are you planning?" Ash's confusion deepened, a hint of unease entering her voice.

​"Watch."

​She turned back to the gateway. Through it, marched endless columns of humanoid figures clad in gleaming golden armor and wielding long swords.

​"Are those…?"

​"Yep, my army," Sunny said with a confident smirk. He casually sat down, resting his back against the cool stone of the boulder, seemingly unconcerned with the impending battle.

​"Leave no one alive," he gave the silent order through the system interface.

​WHOOSH!!

​The hundreds of Mercenaries lunged forward.

GRAAAA!

The zombies rushed to meet them, clashing with the endless stream of soldiers pouring from the gateway.

​BAM!!!

CRACK!

BOOOM!!!

​Ash raised her head, watching as the city's remaining structures disgorged more zombies, all racing towards the fight.

​"Your army... are they living creatures?" Ash asked, her curiosity overriding the immediate danger. She noticed the Mercenaries remained unnervingly identical and unfazed even after taking bites.

'He's not just strong; he has control over forces I don't understand.' She realized, the Spirit Fruit feeling heavier in her stomach.

​Sunny sat still, his focus internal, completely ignoring her question as he checked the system screen's rewards.

​{Congratulations, Mercenary 1 killed a mutant zombie. Gained: 100 EXP and 1 Evolution stones.} X36

'Evolution stones... Different rewards. It seems all monsters gives different rewards?'

​{Congratulations, Mercenaries killed a mutant zombie. Gained: 100 EXP and 1 Evolution stones.} X256

_

​WHOOSH!!!

​Both Sunny and Ash frowned, instantly feeling a dramatic, violent shift in the wind—a profound disturbance of the air itself. Sunny sprang to his feet, turning to the fray.

​"Speed is here," Ash whispered, her voice tight with horror. "The fighting must have drawn it here."

​They watched in stunned silence as the zombies, mid-clash, abruptly ceased fighting and began to scatter, attempting a panicked retreat.

​{Warning!!}

​".....?!"

​Sunny's blood ran cold. He turned to the system screen, the red writing demanding his full attention.

​{Great Mother's core slave, detected.}

​"Huh?"

​WHOOSH!!

​The sound was a mere after-image of the action. Ash and Sunny only registered a flash of light and movement. In less than a second, every single zombie dropped dead, their heads uniformly rolling to the side.

​'Such speed?! It's even faster than me!' Sunny thought, his heart pounding. Instinctively, he tried to use his system to check the profile of the new enemy.

​{Target is too fast to get information.}

​"Then use the eyes of one of the Mercenaries!" Sunny yelled, his controlled demeanor shattering in a rare display of frantic urgency. His outburst startled Ash.

​WHOOSH!!

​The light flashed again. Five Mercenaries, standing perfectly still, instantly turned to dust.

​{Five Mercenaries have been destroyed.}

​{Information gotten.}

​'Show me!!' Sunny commanded, his mind racing.

​{Name: Gabby Lilith.}

​{Bloodline: Light Steps - Legendary Rank.}

​{Rank: God Rank. Stage 20 (Peak God Rank).}.

​{Strength: 2,000,000.}

​{Agility: 25,000,000.}

​{Stamina: 3,000,000.}

​{Defense: 2,500,000.}

​{Attack: 2,000,000.}

​{Spirit Energy: 5,000,000.}

​{Note: Target cannot put on any armor.}

​'Such high agility?! Is that even possible?' Sunny thought in disbelief. The sheer disparity in the Agility stat made all his other abilities seem slow.

​BAM!!

​{457 Mercenaries have been destroyed.}

​"....?!!"

​Sunny was stunned. His strategy of using the Mercenaries as mere test subjects had become a catastrophic failure. The creature was not just a threat to be managed—it was a devastating force of nature that had just wiped out a significant portion of his combat strength without him even seeing the attack.

​BAM!!

​{625 Mercenaries destroyed.}

​'Shit!! Come back! All of you!' Sunny roared inwardly, his composure cracking under the sheer, brutal efficiency of the enemy. He snapped his fingers instantly.

​The remaining Mercenaries, hundreds of them, began to shatter into pieces, dissolving before the enemy's blinding assault. It was a humiliating, costly tactical retreat.

​WHOOSH!

​The flash of light was too fast. It streaked past the last dissolving Mercenary, shattering it into oblivion milliseconds before it could fully vanish. Sunny felt a visceral sting of loss, not just of resources, but of his confidence.

​"Such speed is terrifying," Sunny muttered, a genuine tremor of awe and dread in his voice. Ash could only nod stiffly, her head moving like a lizard's, her own formidable power feeling utterly useless against this blur.

​"What do you say, sneaking—" Ash began, already accepting the futility of their initial plan.

​"That won't be possible." Sunny cut her off, his eyes glued to the light. It wasn't aimless; it was already arcing toward their position.

​"Move!!" He lunged forward, grabbing Ash by the shoulder. He didn't hesitate, leaping straight off the shattered earth behind the boulder.

​BAM!!!

​The flash smashed into the heavy, solid boulder, which erupted into a blinding cloud of countless smaller rocks. Had they been a moment slower, they would have been pulverized with it.

​"How did it detect us?" Ash demanded, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was a master of camouflage, yet they were instantly found.

​Sunny landed with Ash on a nearby rooftop, the higher vantage point giving them a better view of the lethal, moving light below. His frown was deep, his mind already working on the next play.

​"She is a woman," Sunny revealed, the information delivered as a simple, cold fact.

​"How do you know that?" Ash asked, momentarily distracted from the immediate danger by the casual depth of his knowledge.

​Sunny didn't answer with words. He knew invisibility was pointless, and running was impossible. He needed to force a pause, to exchange precious time for information and a better battleground.

​"Gabby!!!!"

​Sunny screamed the name, projecting his voice across the ruined city.

​The instant the name left his lips, the deadly flash of light stopped moving. It dimmed, coalesced, and where the blur had been, a figure materialized.

Ash stared in disbelief: a beautiful young woman stood there, impossibly poised. Her long, vibrant blue hair flowed against her revealing, streamlined outfit, and her intense red eyes fixed, not on the gateway, but directly on Sunny.

"....?!"

​A profound silence descended, broken only by the woman's voice, a soft whisper that nonetheless carried across the ruins:

​"How do you know my name?" Gabby Lilith asked, her head cocked, a lethal curiosity replacing her killing intent.

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