System Engage — Field: Hecate

The goal was to see this tournament through from beginning to end without a single hitch. If any problem arose—if misfortune struck mid-competition—it would cast doubt on the credibility of both Super Gemini and Jucheongwang. And S.E.N might well make its move, aiming for exactly that opening.

Registered as a boss entity, Ryu Hwi made the rounds of every stage, checking for suspicious gamers. Even now the broadcast cameras were surveying every corner of the venue on the lookout for anything unusual, while YggON kept scanning for any trace of S.E.N's presence. Crowley used a unique ability—one built on an application of Yggdrasil's own power—and YggON claimed it could read that power's signature.

"I'd rather know in advance, if I can."

[The readings are too faint to work with at the moment. Gather the data and dump it on 5555.]

"Do your job, YggON."

[I am working, if you hadn't noticed?]

The great free-for-all raged on. With thousands locked in melee, it was chaos pure and simple.

"Hey, quit getting in my way!"

"That's my line! Drop dead!"

"You drop dead! Gahk—?!"

The two who'd been brawling a second ago took a bomb flying in from the side and went out in a blaze of glory. The gamer who'd fired the shot pumped a fist in triumph—only to be split by an axe sailing in from the other flank. The mood among the broadcast audience hit a fever pitch right along with it.

"Ryu Hwi, aren't you gonna jump out already?!"

The deeper the melee sank, the more brilliantly Bisque's skill shone. Bisque the Mad Dog had always stuck to her headlong-charge style of combat. That she'd climbed all the way to 'next ace' with such a crude, brute-force approach said everything about how freakishly sharp her instincts were.

"Whew. Terrifying stuff."

Ragna, watching from a distance, clicked his tongue. At the moment he was hidden inside an item called the Magic Cardboard Box. Moving rashly would only get him flattened, so for now he intended to stay put and observe how things played out.

That was when a certain gamer drifted into Ragna's field of view. A woman with water-blue hair so beautiful it pulled the eye whether one wanted it to or not—custom work, maybe, or maybe not. She simply stood there, doing nothing, yet somehow none of the other gamers made her a target. For someone that conspicuous to take zero fire was strange.

Is she running some kind of item? Urk—?!

The woman's eyes met his. Despite his concealment item, she seemed to have pinned down his existence with perfect precision. She came toward him with an easy, strolling gait, and Ragna—still tucked inside the box—gripped his Bubble Shooter, wavering over whether to drop cover and strike first.

"You sensed me just now, didn't you? Seems you get detected when your target is also in concealment."

She addressed him in a light, offhand tone. Ragna had no idea how he was supposed to answer that.

"Enjoying the tournament?"

"Well, I mean... yeah."

Ragna answered before he could stop himself, then hastily clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Right? I'm enjoying it too. Which is a real shame. If it weren't for a request from that person—someone with zero sense for reading a room—I could have enjoyed it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a whole lot longer."

She raised a hand toward the sky.

"I suppose this tournament ends here."

With a light snap of her fingers, she murmured, low and soft:

Light that eroded the world itself spread in every direction. Data touched by that light broke down into countless 0s and 1s, then reassembled into something new.

"Gahk—?!"

Ragna, closest of anyone, was swallowed by the decomposition into 0s and 1s in an instant. He had no idea what was happening. It felt as if the world itself were being dyed a single color.

A blue so deep, so utterly blue. Clearer than the sky, bluer than the sea. A mystic light. The world had been remade in Hecate's color, and that data-devouring power spread outward as if to swallow not just Ragna but everything around him.

In that very instant—faster than any other gamer could even register the world's distortion—a single streak of radiance pierced the light and drove onward.

"...?!"

The woman rebuilding the world went wide-eyed. Before her, without warning, stood Ryu Hwi.

"Did you think you could just wreck someone else's tournament?"

Why is he here?! She hadn't even been given a moment to be startled.

[Please do not assume the same trick will work twice. And kindly stop treating a UR like a joke.]

An 'interference' had struck mid-reconstruction. Hecate swallowed hard. The Field, deployed in an unstable, half-finished state, couldn't exert its full strength; it swallowed only Ryu Hwi, Ragna, and Hecate herself. The three of them vanished from Super Gemini.

"...!"

Noel, mid-broadcast, registered that Ryu Hwi's feed had cut out for a moment.

No way. They actually came?!

Ryu Hwi had warned her beforehand not to panic if his signal dropped mid-broadcast—along with the warning that not just GA-ES but S.E.N might show up.

"Ohhh! And here Pokryeol Daedo and Bisque come face to face! A head-on clash between former Linzea Guild members!!"

Noel kept casting, calm and steady. Her job was to see this tournament through safely, without incident.

The warped blue light was unpleasant. He clicked his tongue, checking his surroundings.

"So blocking it completely really is impossible, huh?"

[Even that only worked because I cut in while the Field was still deploying. Once it's complete, interference would be difficult even for me.]

"Aren't you awfully useless for a UR?"

[Was I not sufficiently capable, given that interference was possible at all? What more does this human want? And if you keep disrespecting the UR, it means war.]

He spotted Ragna, the cardboard box still over him, wearing a thoroughly dazed expression. Ryu Hwi had identified him in advance as the gamer with the fastest progression rate in all of Super Gemini—and he also knew the man had once been an analyst under Linzea.

"Ragna, was it? Sorry you got caught up in this, but I've got something urgent to deal with. It might get dangerous, so I'd like you to fall back."

"Y-you know who I am?"

"You've put up results good enough for that."

Ragna looked genuinely moved that Ryu Hwi knew of him.

"More importantly, what danger? No—where on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠earth are we...?"

Ragna never got to finish. A blue flash streaked past—and Ryu Hwi's gauntlet met a transparent blade that looked as if it had been carved from water.

"Gahk?!"

Ragna's breath caught at the suddenness of it. The one who'd ambushed Ryu Hwi was the blue-haired woman. Somehow her outfit had changed entirely into Greek-style armor, and blue energy wreathed her from head to toe.

"Did you think a sneak attack would be enough?"

Ryu Hwi sneered, holding the blade at bay with the gauntlet of his Shuffle Gun.

"I'm Hecate of S.E.N. I hear Crowley ended up in your debt last time, hm? That aside—how exactly did you block my Field?"

"UR. And Intuition."

Ryu Hwi answered simply.

"Crowley would hate that."

Hecate's entire body glowed blue. With a light flick of her hand, orbs appeared, each holding the power of lightning, flame, wind, and ice. Hecate, who wielded all four elements at will, caressed each elemental orb the way one might pet a beloved animal. When she snapped her fingers again, the orbs seeped into the four swords mounted on her back. Blades wreathed in thunder, flame, wind, and ice floated up into the air as though they had wills of their own.

"Well then. Regrettably, it's time to say our goodbyes."

As if answering her movement, all four swords struck at Ryu Hwi simultaneously. Hecate attacked leaving nothing behind but blue afterimages—four swords moving exactly as she willed. It felt like five people attacking at once.

"A skill?!"

Ragna was aghast. Super Gemini wasn't supposed to have any concept of 'skills' at all. But the power she was wielding now was, beyond any doubt, a skill. And then he realized that at some point his Bubble Shooter had vanished. His inventory wouldn't open either. It felt as though he'd been yanked into a game labyrinth entirely separate from Super Gemini.

Hecate snapped her fingers, and the blades—each steeped in flame, wind, thunder, and ice—unleashed their powers. In an instant, attacks of all four elements hammered down across a wide area, kicking up a colossal shockwave. Not the Super Gemini system, nor World of Phantasm's—something else entirely.

How?! Is she... the same as Ryu7017?!

A being that could ignore the system itself—and there were others like Ryu Hwi? Goosebumps crawled over Ragna's skin.

"I don't understand."

Hecate paused her assault, watching how things stood, and spoke.

"You're a UR, so I understand that within my Field you can still use items and exercise some measure of your abilities."

The storm died down, and a lingering breeze scattered the smoke.

"But every skill from the old version is sealed in here. So how are you responding to my attacks? Even with 'Intuition,' your physical capabilities should have dropped to those of an ordinary person."

Beyond the smoke, Ryu Hwi emerged without a scratch on him.

"That was back when I ran into Crowley, that bastard. I've got skills now."

"Without a single labyrinth built in 2.0?"

"Well. You'll see."

Ryu Hwi took a slow, deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them again—and the instant he took a single step forward—

KUUUOOOM!

Heaven and earth rang out.

"...?"

Startled, Hecate reflexively dropped into a combat stance. He'd taken only one step, yet an inexplicable pressure bore down on her. With every step, every single step, the space around them shook, and the storm kicked up by those tremors shoved Hecate back. Just holding her stance was all she could manage. Ragna couldn't even get properly to his feet.

"W-what is this now?!"

Nothing among the skills Ryu Hwi had shown so far looked like this. A skill that shook the very earth just by walking?!

Ryu Hwi halted for a moment and glared at Hecate.

"A Field is the power to forcibly rewrite a space into whatever system suits you best. Am I right?"

Forcibly converting the system within range. RPG into FPS. FPS into action RPG. Optimizing any manner of systems to fit yourself and one-sidedly ravaging your enemies—that was the true nature of the 'Field' as YggON had analyzed it. With this power, you could crush any opponent, no matter who they were. After all, you dragged them into a Field that favored you and strangled their strength at the source.

"You were planning to use that power to turn the tournament into a wreck, weren't you? Care for some important information?"

Ryu Hwi fanned out the Shuffle Gun's cards.

"I can't live my life just taking hits."

Ryu Hwi was suddenly standing right in front of Hecate. She flinched in surprise but immediately swung her sword at him—moving at nearly the same speed as Ryu Hwi buffed with [Haste Lv2]. The ability to make the world's system her own was genuinely formidable. The problem was that her 'enemy' was a man who ignored the system itself.

The moment Ryu Hwi stamped down hard, the ground heaved as though an earthquake had struck.

The violent tremor and shockwave erupting right before ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her eyes crashed over Hecate. Her stance, unable to withstand it, crumbled.

"A little something in return for your attack just now."

Golden energy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠settled into Ryu Hwi's left arm—a gold that swallowed even the blue dyeing the world. The light carved characters along his left arm. Characters meaning: sovereign of ten thousand demons.

[Heavenly Demon]

Ryu Hwi drove his fist forward and unleashed the power.

"Heavenly Demon Great Annihilation!"