Saiyan stowaways on the Ark

And at a normal flow rate, this would only take a moment.

This reminded Elena of the close-range bombardment ultimate move she used when she still had a hand cannon.

However, Carmen used an old-fashioned hand cannon that was more difficult to load, and fired a much denser barrage of bullets in a shorter time, with each bullet being far more powerful than his own at that time.

The immense pressure to survive forced her brain's reflexes to their limit, but her physical functions did not improve accordingly. Elena watched helplessly as more than twenty bullets flew toward her body.

With such intense bombardment, even a slight glancing blow would result in annihilation.

Slice them apart with a sword? Disrupt their trajectory?

Can I achieve that speed myself?

Escape this area?

How far can the explosive force cover?

One hundred meters? Two hundred meters?

Can I escape in an instant?

Can Yu Bo handle the aftermath?

And after that, did they have the strength to fight against the mad saints?

Even if he runs out of ammunition, can he still withstand the saint's flawless supreme magic?

After thinking about these questions, Elena thought of another one.

"By the way, what about that guy named Tomat?"

She diverted a tiny portion of her attention, observing her surroundings out of the corner of her eye.

But then she discovered that Tomat had somehow appeared in front of Carmen, thanks to her rapidly developing dynamic vision, which had grown to cope with the perilous environment.

In this "time-lag" perspective, even the dissipation of the sparks from a bullet leaving the barrel is a slow process, and in terms of the bullet's trajectory, one can even see the ripples created by the air being pushed aside along its path.

But Tomat's activities didn't seem slow at all.

He strolled leisurely in a timeless environment, then, as if picking cherries, he "picked" the bullets from the sky one by one, gathered them in his hand, clenched them tightly, and finally threw them into the horizon.

Then, he walked up to Carmen.

Carmen's eyes slowly turned to Tomat, and she began to adjust her posture. Then, the hand holding the hand cannon began to retract her wrist, while her other hand holding the sword slowly rose, assuming a ready position for close combat.

Before he could finish these actions, Tomat walked to Carmen's side, raised his right hand, looked at his fist for a moment, and then threw a blurry punch diagonally upwards, grazing Carmen's chin.

The latter tilted its head slightly, its chin became half-open, and its lifeless eyes slowly rolled upwards.

Carmen began to bend her knees, slowly leaning forward—until she was close to the ground.

"boom."

The instant before he collapsed to the ground was also the moment when Eleanor's dynamic vision burst ended.

Scattered shell casings fell, still warm, their crisp sound upon landing easily drowned out by the cacophony of dozens of hand cannon shots. Soon after, an explosion echoed from the distant sky, the shockwave shaking the earth.

Before Carmen was completely sprawled on the ground, Tomat grabbed him by the collar to prevent him from falling flat on his face, then asked Eleanor:

Should we take him with us?

[Event] Fool's Day Stories: Part 8 - Unexpected Encounters

An old man, witnessing the fall of Iberia and the impending end of his life bearing the name of saint, could no longer speak, but as long as the strange sounds of the waves continued, he would continue to fight.

An old man, witnessing the destruction of his homeland for the second time, was consumed by bitterness and rage that completely extinguished his reason. The life-extending technique, which required a painful price, continued to work on his body. As long as Iberia did not perish, the saints would not die; as long as the saints did not die, they would continue to bear the name of Iberia. And killing would be his only remaining way of expressing this "eternity."

“Take it. I no longer need it. It is a relic of an old friend. But rather than keeping it on land with me in the silent sea, it is better to leave it exposed. Do not return to Iberia, and do not meet me again—then I will no longer be myself.”

Determined to make his existence a testament to the continuation of Iberia, the old man encountered Dr. Rhodes Island, who was leading the evacuation of Iberia, on the eve of making this crazy decision.

He handed her the lantern he had with him, hoping it would lessen her suffering from the fear of the fish.

Then, calmly allow yourself to return to eternal rage.

Carmen has no memory of what she saw or thought after that.

He opened his eyes again and saw the murky sky.

A hazy, drunken state swept over Carmen's mind. His first thought was why he was there and why he was lying on the ground.

It was as if just a moment ago he was gazing at Iberia, which had been destroyed by the Dust Eater and the Terrorfish, from the edge of the cliff, his heart filled with sorrow and anger, and the next moment he was lying here.

Then, he suddenly realized that he had reached the end of his life.

Changing one's name to "Iberia" is itself a forbidden contract. As long as Iberia exists, the saint's lifespan will be the same as Iberia's. As long as they are not killed by external forces, they can easily obtain a lifespan far exceeding that of ordinary people.

But Iberia was already destroyed—so Carmen transformed herself into Iberia, driven by eternal rage, fighting for herself, which was to fight for Iberia. As long as she continued to kill, as long as she survived, Iberia would not perish, and Carmen's life could continue.

A nation does not possess a clear individual consciousness. Now that he has reclaimed the individual consciousness named "Carmen," it signifies that "Iberia" is facing its third destruction due to its defeat.

Who defeated themselves?

A massive, overwhelming swarm of terrifying fish?

A large group of powerful Sea-seed individuals?

Or perhaps it was the birth of a child who was present?

Carmen's consciousness had not completely faded, nor had he completely lost his strength. He forced his exhausted body to sit up, wanting to see what had defeated him.

—Then Carmen saw Tomat, who was roasting a tarantula over a fire, and Elene, who was sitting by the campfire dressed in strange clothes.

"...?"

Their eyes met, and for a moment the air seemed even quieter than the Great Stillness.

"You're awake? Grandpa, would you like something to eat?"

Thomas greeted her casually, while Elena straightened up, both surprised and delighted.

"Commander Carmen!?"

You can tell if a person is normal just by looking into their eyes.

Those once cold, murky, and ruthless eyes now reveal a very human emotion—confusion.

This is why Elena's first reaction wasn't to issue a warning, but instead to call out a name she had never uttered before.

“…Elena?”

"Yes, it's me. Are you alright? If you're not feeling well, please don't move around. Please continue to lie down. You seem quite weak; you almost lost your life earlier!"

Eileen stepped forward to help him up, but Carmen gestured with his hand that it wasn't necessary. He sat up, stared at the campfire in silence for a while, and then stared intently at Tomat, who was using uncorroded steel bars as skewers to pierce and roast the dinosaurs on the other side of the flames.

"You defeated me, didn't you?"

Carmen could only draw this conclusion now. He didn't know how much time had passed since that day, how much strength Elene had now, or what the background of the man who grilled the terror fish was. However, he could only glean these things from the current situation.

Carmen, not receiving an answer, continued with even deeper doubts:

“Elena, you said I was in mortal danger before. What happened? Why am I still alive? If I had been defeated before, I wouldn’t even have had a chance to wake up. The life I ‘borrowed’ would have been taken away in one go as a price, turning into dry ashes.”

"Ah... so this is the secret to the saints' immortality?"

Elena exclaimed as if she had heard something extraordinary, while Thomas seemed to have received an answer and said:

"No wonder you were emitting a lot of light before, and your energy was leaking out like air. If I hadn't given you my energy, you would be drier than a dried-out salted fish."

—That happened less than a minute after Tomat knocked Carmen unconscious with a single punch.

Carmen's body suddenly emitted a dim light, and at the same time, her body aged rapidly, instantly transforming from a robust middle-aged man into a frail old woman on the verge of death. Thomas also sensed from her aura that Carmen's energy was constantly dissipating, exceeding the range of normal decline.

So, as Carmen lost his breath, Tomat infused her with an equal amount of energy, maintaining a delicate balance for over ten minutes before finally ending the ordeal. Carmen ended up looking the same as before, with only a few more wrinkles around her eyes. If you didn't look closely, she wouldn't look much different from before.

"...Light? Gas supply?"

As Carmen pondered these words, Eleanor spoke up beside her:

"To be honest, it can't be said that 'we' defeated you together. I was just being suppressed by one side. It was Mr. Tomat who intervened in time to save me and stop you in the process."

While frankly admitting that his strength was inferior to that of the Saints, he also showed Carmen only a small part of Tomat's strength.

An unspoken surprise appeared on Carmen's face. She stopped pondering the unfamiliar circumstances Thomas had described and instead offered her sincere gratitude:

"...I see. It seems that you saved this old feathered beast."

Carmen's feelings were somewhat complicated.

Because he wasn't sure whether being alive was a kind of luck.

The surrounding scenery showed that this was still a world of despair, and if given the chance, probably no one would want to experience it again.

But he also received an unexpected gift—not eternal madness and anger, but the opportunity to continue living in the world as Carmen, not alone, but unexpectedly encountering his seemingly safe and well-behaved grand-disciple.

But this reflection lasted only a very short time, because rather than lamenting the bitterness of an uncertain future and the sorrow of being back in a world of despair, Carmen chose to express her sincere gratitude for this wonderful stroke of luck.

He stood up and addressed Tomat, who was sitting by the campfire, in a very formal Iberian manner:

"Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Although I am unable to express my gratitude in the name of Iberia at this moment, please accept my personal thanks."

[Event] Fools' Past: Part Nine - Let's Burn This World of Riddlers to Ashes

Carmen and Eleanor are now facing a difficult choice.

Although they had said before that, "To express our gratitude, please feel free to ask if there's anything you need, and we'll do our best to help."

But the demands that Tomat made at this time were more difficult to accept than expected.

—That was the grilled dinosaur that Tomat handed over.

In fact, aside from the poisonous individuals, the dinosaur is not inedible and can provide enough food to keep people from starving.

However, the side effects after taking it are another matter entirely.

The tenacious vitality of the dinosaurs means that even when they are dried into salted meat, they may revive in the human body and invade the body, turning the unfortunate consumer into one of their own.

While fire can largely suppress and kill the tarantula, simply grilling it is hardly reassuring.

"It's okay, just try it, it won't upset your stomach."

Looking at the grilled tarantulas skewered on steel bars in their hands, constantly releasing spurts of oil from the flames, the two could only hesitate and remain reluctant to eat, their eyes filled with doubt and confusion.

Eat it; common sense has always told them that this is not a wise choice.