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"Probably not over yet," Sam said uncertainly, scratching his cheek. "The space rift hasn't closed, and judging by how intense the leaked void energy is, there's no way this was all the soul beasts."
Feeling the void energy gathering together inside his hell space, Sam couldn't quite get a read on the situation either.
After all, he was just here to complete a mission. No one had told him exactly what to expect.
"Either way, let's deal with the space rift first," Elsa suggested. "Fix it before more soul beasts go crazy."
Sam nodded. Kurama didn't object either.
The sooner they finished, the sooner they could head back.
After collecting the wandering souls and corpses left behind from the battle into hell, Sam used the Op-Op Fruit ability and brought everyone near the space rift.
Back at the Super-Dimensional Mercenary Guild, Robin had warned him not to let Kurama get too close to the rift, so Sam deliberately kept his distance.
"Hey, kid! Something's really off here!"
The moment they arrived, Kurama felt a force eroding him. He immediately looked at Sam. "If we stay here too long, Wu Liuqi won't be able to handle it."
Wu Liuqi rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah, I'm the dead weight. Sorry about that."
He was actually still okay, but Liu Erlong was clearly struggling.
Thankfully, she was still wearing the Demon Fox Cloak Sam gave her. Otherwise, she probably would've been corrupted by the void energy the moment she arrived.
"Hang in there. The cloak should hold," Sam said to her.
Liu Erlong nodded, and Sam instantly appeared near the space rift.
"Robin really didn't lie. Kurama feels awful even from that far away, but I'm standing this close and I don't feel anything at all."
Sam nodded to himself, satisfied with what he'd drawn.
Thank god Robin didn't screw me over. Otherwise, I'd be completely lost right now.
"King of Wisdom, help me figure out how to plug this thing."
"Yes."
"Analyzing…"
"Solution: Use the Op-Op Fruit. Exploit the special properties of ROOM to stitch the torn space together, like performing surgery."
"…Huh?"
Sam: "Stitch it together? You're not joking, right? (Shocked dog meme)"
"Answer: The King of Wisdom never jokes."
Sam: "…You're actually a genius. You came up with something like this."
No joke, the King of Wisdom really was a mad genius.
Thanks to the upgraded Op-Op Fruit, the ROOM he created was a hemispherical domain where everything inside could be manipulated by him.
With the King of Wisdom's simulations guiding him, this insane idea was actually doable.
Thinking about it, even without the King of Wisdom, Law from the One Piece world could swap people's minds and do all kinds of absurd stuff. This wasn't that unbelievable.
Probably.
With no better ideas of his own, Sam decided to try the King of Wisdom's method.
The hemispherical barrier enveloped the entire space rift. Sam clenched his hand, and the rift actually started to close.
This was largely thanks to the King of Wisdom pushing his Op-Op Fruit development close to awakening.
And he hadn't even had the fruit for that long.
If it weren't also busy analyzing the miniature hell and the Hell Sword, the fruit would've awakened already.
"Holy crap, this is way harder than I thought!"
Sam poured in tailed beast chakra and ice magic at the same time, barely managing to compress the rift down to about one-tenth of its original size.
"Boom…"
While he was focusing on the repair, Kurama and the others were suddenly attacked.
"W-What?!"
Kurama was blasted away, crashing to the ground. He stared at the monster now standing where he'd been, his face full of disbelief.
"I didn't sense it at all…"
Clang!
The sharp crash of blades colliding rang out, followed by Wu Liuqi, Elsa, and Liu Erlong being sent flying.
"So strong!"
Wu Liuqi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, cold sweat soaking his back.
If Elsa hadn't reacted instantly when Kurama was knocked away, throwing up multiple layers of rock-solid ice walls in front of him, and if he hadn't poured all his energy into the Thousand Demon Blades, the three of them would've been cut clean in half.
Elsa and Liu Erlong were breathing heavily, chests heaving, barely holding back blood.
This might be a high-tier parallel world, and Liu Erlong might be a half-tank, but her level was still low.
Elsa's level was high, but she was a glass-cannon mage.
The fact that neither of them was seriously injured was already incredibly lucky.
"Whoa, why does this thing look so much like a mantis?"
"Void Mantis?!"
After getting a clear look at the three-meter-tall monster that attacked them, Wu Liuqi let out a weird yell, complaining in his very unstandard Hong Kong-style Mandarin.
"It's that big. That's totally cheating, right?"
"....."