Isadora reached the entrance to Paradise.
In a diguise that of a light blue-skinned, eight foot humanoid figure with four ears, the princess moved quickly but with enough caution.
Instead of rushing to Varian right away, she was gathering information first. It wasn't that she wasn't worried. But she wanted to maximize all chances of rescuing Varian.
Unlike one what one would expect from a collection of dangerous worlds, the reputation of Paradise was mixed. It's all thanks to the propaganda dished out by the paradisians themselves.
On one hand, the ones who barely managed to survive and escape the damn place were shouting all over, giving speeches after speeches, trying to educate people on how deadly the place really was.
It didn't matter if you're rank 4 or rank 6, there were plenty of worlds which restricted your rank to suit the 'character'.
Without proper decisions and corresponding actions, even a rank 7 powerhouse would die in that wretched land.
It's a place that was equally dangerous to every single awakener.
Hearing these opinions, people were naturally scared of the damn place.
But on the other hand, there was an opposite view being pushed. Unlike the fearmongers, this one had a more professional side.
As Isadora walked the streets of a busy city in the borders of the Nexus Empire, she saw more than a dozen holographic s about Paradise.
On the restaurants, schools, training institutions—they were everywhere!
Flyers, posters, pamplets. Radio announcements, TV ads, metanet pop ups.
Paradise was truly ubiquitious in both the physical and digital worlds.
On the way here, she did see planets that were totally disenchanted with the propaganda.
They believed it's truly a deadly place conjured by a sadistic divine ranker for his entertainment.
But as one drew closer and closer to Paradise itself, the beliefs of people shifted drastically.
It was scary.
It's like a virus that infiltrated every mind.
From the schools—
"I want to go to Paradise and become the superhero who will save the world!"
"Moo! I want to start a newlife! I hate school! In Paradise, I will become a character who already finished all his studies!"
"And I will take on the character of the Emperor with three thousand beauties, hohoho!"
To companies—
"The bills keep piling up. Maybe I should just jump in and solve these money problems once and for all."
"The security guard went to paradise and returned. He married the daughter of the founder and is now sitting on our heads. Fuck him! If he can do it, why can't we?"
Down to even the most common conversations in the public.
"Come one, come all! The legend of the SSS grade!"
"We are the number one agencies of Paradise."
"Bro, fuck these idiots. I'll prove them wrong. The day I return from Paradise is the day these guys will know my greatness!
Thirty years of misfortune, thirty years fortune! Don't look down of young men!"
Without getting into any disputes or conversations, Isadora reached the spaceport of the planet.
Along with all the terminals which had space gates from where you could move across duchies, there was one special terminal.
Its space gate took you directly into Paradise.
As she passed through the space gate, the world turned blank and then light slowly dawned.
When Isadora came to her senses, she was in a town square. Her disguise had long vanished without any trace of warning.
She tried to use a diguise again but it failed, like an invisible rule was preventing her from using a false identity.
'A rule created by the power of order. I should avoid any conflict with the paradise
system. Fabricator is not an enemy I can face at this point.'
She quitly put on a wooden mask and wraped herself with a black robe.
Along with her were three more candidates, all humanoid but one with a tail, one with three legs and one with one eye.
"Welcome to Paradise, I'm your…"
The introduction began.
And while this happened, Icarus also reached one of the many entrances to Paradise.
Boom!
With a resounding noise, he was blasted out of the space gate and the gate itself quickly disintegrated.
The sound alerted the guards nearby but before they could check what happened, he vanished.
"What the hell is happening?"
Icarus tried to enter a gate on another planet. And when he passed through it, a powerful divine aura blocked him from entering Paradise and slapped him out.
But this time, Icarus ripped a bit of that power before he was thrown out.
'A very, very powerful rule barring all divine rankers from Paradise?'
Icarus finally understood the reason.
So, he created a clone having only a fraction of his strength and sent it in.
Boom!
It's still rejected.
Then, he created a clone with only a bit of divine power, only enough to make it a pseudo divine.
Boom!
"Divine, divine, divine…aha!"
He created a clone again and this time, stripped it out of all the divine power, making it equivalent to a celestial.
It's stronger than any peak rank 9 celestial but still far below any divine ranker or even a pseudo divine.
This time, the clone went in without any difficulty.
Around the same time, Immortal also figured out the security mechanism of the entrance.
And not just that, Paradise seemed to identify people through a very strict mechanism.
So, if one clone entered, the second couldn't.
Immortal looked at his 30 avatars. They weren't exactly clones. But they too wouldn't be able to get in.
'As long as I become perfect, everyone will regret for treating me like a failed project.'
Immortal stripped himself of the little divine power any pseudo divine would have and stepped into the gate.
The world went black before he saw a water fountain and a small town.
"Welcome to Paradise, I am th—"
Ignoring the petite woman who was greeting the six participants, Immortal kicked the ground and started running.
Since Paradise was fortified, he couldn't break the space or destroy the world. And yet, his sheer speed caused the ground to split open before it quickly reverted back to normal.
Paradise was a large world with many towns and cities. Between them was wilderness with a lot of monsters, too dangerous for even a rank 9 to cross.
The only way to go from one town to another was to spend the points. Or to have some really good treasures.
Or…the strength that even most rank 9s don't posess.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Right at this very moment, Varian was pondering on the next world to divine in.
Isadora was using her space treasure—the purple card—to reach him at the fastest speed possible.
Icarus and Immortal were both chasing after the evermoving trace of Isadora.
Paradise was just too big and too fortified for them to move the distance they would've moved in the outside world.
So, while both of them were a lot stronger than Isadora, they needed some time to reach her.
Once she reached the town, Isadora raced to the town center where she found a familiar young man standing in front of a hundred digital screens, rubbing his chin with a serious expression.
He was deeply immersed despite the busy and noisy crowd.
But when she arrived, he turned his head with a confused expression.
"W-What?"
His eyes widened as they met Isadora's.
Looking around, he quickly grabbed her hand and dragged her to a corner, amidst the suspicious looks of the nearby crowd.
"Why the hell are you here?" He asked using his soul power.
"I came to save you." Isdaora wiped the sweat off her forehead and replied with a dissatisfied expression.
Catching her breath, she punched him in the chest. "I thought you were in danger and came running. But you don't even have a word of thanks! What an ungrateful man!"
Varian caught her wrist before she could break his ribs. His tense expression relaxed and he looked into her beautiful red eyes said with a teasing smile. "Just a thanks? I can give you more."
"Damn it!" Isadora yanked her hand out of his grip and summoned a couple of screens displaying the worlds. "Since you're so safe you can flirt, I'll just leave this wretched place. Have fun with your harem of 3000 beauties, Mr. Emperor!"
"Wait, where did that come from?" Varian was genuinely dumbfounded at the accusation.
Not to mention the fact that he found the most beautiful woman of that world, Princess Elizabet to be less appealing than even his maids, even if she was more beautiful, he wouldn't have had any other intention.
"I'm a loyal man, okay?"
Isadora snorted with a look of content as she swiped away the floating screens casually.
"Mountains will shrink and oceans will dry,
But your shamelessness will never vanish."
"…"
Varian raised his hand in surrender. What could he do when she starts using even poems to attack him?
"How about you give me a chance to explain? Oh yeah, better than explaining, we can just do a synergy for you to che—ouch!"
Raising her foot from Varian's, Isadora said without looking at him. "It was the first and last synergy."
"But we did tw—"
"Shut up!" Isdaora said with an embarassed expression and her fingers began to frantically swipe the screens.
As Varian was about to tease her, two powerful auras locked onto Isadora. Almost at the same time, the two auras launched a devastating attack on the town hall.
The paradise system reacted quickly, intending to stop the attack. But these were from beings at the very peak of rank 9.
The system didn't expect any attacks and was thus going to be a moment late in blocking the attack.
As the prime target, Isadora wouldn't be able to escape.
Isadora and Varian had only a single moment to react.
Despite the danger, Isadora didn't want to use the purple card to teleport away. Due to the shortage of time, she couldn't take Varian away. If she left by herself, he'd surely die in that attack.
'To think I'll die like this…'
In that last moment, Isadora turned to Varian.
The face she used to hate was now reflected in her eyes.
'I guess it's not too ba—hmmm?'
Varian grabbed her hand and slammed a floating screen.
Just as the attack reached them, the two disappeared.
The town hall was razed to the ground and everyone in the town died in an instant.
The sky turned red and two lightning bolts fell.
Icarus and Immortal crashed to the ground, vomitting blood. A golden chain enveloped their necks before merging into their skin.
Now they could no longer use their here except for self-
defense.
But it didn't matter.
After giving each other a hostile gaze, they ran to the razed town hall using only their physical strength.
And entered the same world that Varian and Isadora did.
A world that had a 100% death rate.
