[Ling Cage: Cupping Therapy Clip finished playing. The Vortex Instance has been unlocked.]
[Match] [Team Up]
As the scene in the sky came to an end, the small light screen before everyone appeared once again.
And beneath the original Mount Natagumo Instance, a second option had now been added—
The Vortex Instance.
Across countless worlds, aside from a handful of people still savoring Boss Bai's dashing figure, most of the audience had already clicked into the new Instance without hesitation.
Even the original residents of the Lighthouse in the Ling Cage world entered the Instance with great excitement.
After all, even among those natives, many had never once stepped outside the world of the Lighthouse.
Most of them were born on the Lighthouse and died on the Lighthouse. Other than the Hunters, the majority had never even crossed its gates.
But now, with the Vortex Instance—
Not only could they safely come to the outside world,
Even if they died inside it, they would still revive back in their original world.
What could possibly be more exciting than that?
At Babyls, in the Royal One classroom, Iruma had long since been dying to enter the Vortex Instance.
But that hateful Kalego-sensei insisted that no one was allowed in until after class.
So amid the students' collective groaning and complaints, Iruma forced himself to endure until class was over—
Only then did he team up with his two closest friends, Clara and Asmodeus, and enter the Vortex Instance together.
They selected [Team Up], found Clara and Asmodeus in the friends list, and pulled the three of them into the Vortex Instance together.
After a brief blur of consciousness, the three of them found themselves already inside the Instance.
And inside, besides the three of them—
There were three more figures.
"Woof! Hello, everyone! My name's Xiaotian! Nice to meet you! Wanna add me as a friend? Ge and Xiaoyu never play with me, so could you guys play with me instead?"
While everyone was still looking around at their surroundings, one of the other three—a blue-haired boy—was the first to enthusiastically introduce himself.
Iruma was momentarily startled by Xiaotian's overwhelming enthusiasm. After freezing for a second, he finally responded:
"Ah? Ah! Hello, I'm Iruma. These two are my friends, Clara and Asmodeus."
He introduced his two friends as well.
"Hello, Iruma! Hello, Clara! Hello, Asu!"
After happily greeting the three of them, Xiaotian turned his attention to the other two people.
The one who looked like a high school student was the first to extend his hand toward Xiaotian.
"Peter. Peter Parker."
"Hello, Peter! That's a strange name. Are you a foreigner?"
Xiaotian shook his hand, though he still looked a little puzzled.
"Judging from his brown hair and appearance, isn't that kind of obvious?"
Asmodeus muttered from the side.
"No, no, no! Azz-Azz, obviously the three of us look weirder, okay?!"
Clara shook her head at once and refuted him.
"Look—Azz-Azz, your hair is pink, my hair is green, and Iruma-chi's hair is blue. Compared to them, the three of us are clearly the weird-looking ones, right?"
"...…."
For a moment, the entire place fell silent.
"Ahem… speaking of which, shouldn't it be my turn to introduce myself now?"
After the awkward pause lingered for a bit, it was the final figure who broke the silence.
"My name is Aizen Sōsuke. Judging by appearances, I'm probably the only adult here, am I not?"
Aizen pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose with one finger and gave the other five a gentle smile.
The moment they saw his smile, the other five people in the Instance all thought the same thing at once:
A reliable adult!!!!
Just as the six of them were introducing themselves, six figures also emerged from the dark valley in the distance.
[The Instance is about to begin.]
[Five]
[Four]
At that moment, that familiar hollow voice rang out above them once more.
And while everyone's attention had been drawn away by the countdown, Iruma quietly whispered toward his right hand:
"Mr. Ali? Mr. Ali, are you there?"
After calling twice without any response, Iruma finally noticed that the Gluttonous Ring, which he had always worn on the middle finger of his left hand, had vanished.
Just as panic set in and he lowered his head, about to search the ground for it—
The countdown in the sky reached its end.
[One]
[Crush them!]
"Whoosh!"
A glowing blue arrow suddenly tore through the air from the distance, heading straight for Iruma's throat.
"Iruma-sama!!!"
Although Asmodeus noticed the arrow was aimed at Iruma, it was moving far too fast. There was no way he could intercept it in time.
Just when he and Clara had fallen into despair, thinking Iruma was about to be eliminated—
A blue figure suddenly shot out from the side, rushing in front of Iruma with lightning speed, opening its mouth—
"Awooo!"
—and bit down on the sonic-boom arrow in a single snap.
Under the stunned, slack-jawed gazes of everyone else, Xiaotian removed the arrow from his mouth, gave them a thumbs-up, and grinned.
"How was that? Pretty awesome, right?"
...….
Ten minutes later, Iruma and his two friends had returned to the Royal One classroom, each carrying a bronze box in their hands.
The moment the other nine classmates spotted the bronze boxes, they all rushed over.
Lied: "WOAH!!!!! Iruma Squad, you guys actually cleared the new Instance? Did you run into the Devourer swarm, or Boss Bai's ground team?"
Jazz: "Probably the Devourer swarm, right? Boss Bai's way too strong. Feels like only high-ranking demons like Kalego-sensei would even have a shot at clearing that."
Amid the noisy flood of questions around them, Clara proudly lifted her chin, shook the bronze box in her hand, and announced haughtily:
"We ran into the ground team—and we cleared it super easily!"
Lied: "No way!"
Sabnock: "Clara, you guys beat the ground team?"
While everyone looked completely unconvinced, only the class brain, Allocer, calmly made a guess:
"You ran into some extremely powerful teammates, didn't you?"
"Hehe~ You guessed it."
Clara grinned proudly.
"We met some really incredible people.
There was Big Bro Xiaotian, who can catch anything with his mouth; Peter, who can shoot spiderwebs from his wrists; and Uncle Aizen, who was gentle and dependable.
The three of us practically didn't do anything at all—we just breezed through it."
"Mm-hmm, they were all really amazing people from other worlds," Asmodeus added from the side. "And they were very easy to talk to, too. They even added us as friends, so we can keep teaming up with them in future Instances."
While the others chatted excitedly around him, Iruma lowered his eyes to the reappeared Gluttonous Ring in his hand and fell into thought.
"Looks like… there's no way to borrow Mr. Ali's power inside the Instance world…"
And so, after the people of countless worlds had spent another week playing through the Vortex Instance—
And had made quite a few new friends from other worlds—
A new round of countdown numbers once again appeared in the sky.