Ah screw it, I'll step in

Do you know why humans dream? Bear with me on this one. The human brain is incredibly sophisticated, to the point where it has inherent auto-functions for self maintenance. Just imagine the sheer number of things you think of every single day. So when you fall asleep, as you would be required to do so when you overtax your brain, you would go into a phase of REM sleep. During this phase, your brain will organize all your memories and throw away all of what it considers junk.

Obviously, when this goes on, your brain will be extremely active. With such brain activity happening out of your control, the electrical signals released by those activities will reach the visual cortex, which will try to make sense of those signals. What it 'tries' to make sense of, is what you see in your dreams.

According to this, I would say that it's technically possible for me to dream. But the bigger question is whether the virus would react to my dreams the same way it does when I'm conscious. If that's the case and I were to have a nightmare, I could wake up to see mother earth disintegrated. Definitely a thought to keep in mind, but it's completely irrelevant at the moment.

This entire line of thought was just a result of me desperately hoping that what I saw before me was a dream. But no.

> Skillset: Immortality (Complexity - S) ; Cause & Effect (Complexity - S)

The blond man with a handlebar mustache, his shiny white and gold cloak fluttering around, was very real. Why is there another immortal in this world? I distinctly remember the Omnipotent mentioning only two immortals that he had created. So, either he lied or he messed up somewhere while modifying the program. Knowing him, both possibilities are equally likely.

"Greetings, fellow outsiders," the handlebar mustache man's voice was unexpectedly high pitched. He also had a weird magic skill I didn't know anything about; except its name. I didn't physically see it being performed against Edith. All I knew was that he managed to seriously break her bones with it.

Gotta be careful of his attacks, I thought to myself. And at that exact moment, he brought his arm forward, seemingly a gesture of attacking. Defensively, I threw the apple in my grip in front of me. After a 0.25 second delay, a fully matured tree grew before me in an instant, shielding me from the attack I expected.

But nothing happened. It was almost as if he only pretended to attack, to force me to make my move first. He was still holding out his arm, but I saw his cocky smirk for a split second before he pointed his eyes and arm upwards, angled at the treetop. Its branches suddenly continued growing just as rapidly as the tree did, and it was all directed at me. I jumped back, while being calm so as to not provoke the virus. Its growth stopped only inches away from where I landed. I stepped further back.

The tree that grew under the influence of my mana alone, now stood with all of its branches overgrown in my direction like thick vines, with leaves and apples still hanging on them. Seeing this, the sicko who was on the sideline started stuttering while pointing his finger at me. "You... you—" He seemed to have forgotten about the young girl he just killed for his pleasure, and the young boy he left alive inside the warehouse.

"So, it was you," the handlebar mustache man interrupted him, stepping to the side from the apple tree that was obstructing our eye contact. "You're the one responsible for killing our people in the eastern forest. I'm glad you showed up as I hoped, it's nice to meet you…" he expected me to fill in with my name, but he just received silence. "Okay, so that eliminates all potential for friendship."

I was deeply occupied in finding a way out of this situation, and the situation was pretty much fight or flight. Let me give you a brief assessment. The skill I just used was the regular growth spurt skill, not one of the new variants I wanted to experiment on. Because obviously, I needed more than 1 apple to conduct experiments. But after seeing it get countered by the handlebar mustache man, I became more wary of his magic skill. You're probably thinking he is just copying my skill and using it against me, but that's where you'd be wrong.

You see, the growth spurt skill does not have any property to control the proportion or the direction of growth. Sure, I can use it on an existing tree and make it grow further, but even then, the skill would only initiate at the roots. So, I can't use this skill on a specific branch to make that grow disproportionately. However, the handlebar mustache man had no problem in doing so. All parts of the tree that grew from his counterattack were directed at me. There had to be more to his skill than just replicating. It went without saying, I had to be wary of his counterattacks while experimenting on the new variants.

To my right, Edith was slowly getting back up on her feet. I gave her my hand, grabbing which she pulled herself up. I knew she was about to apologize, but we had no time to waste. I pulled her closer to me, and whispered, "Keep attacking him and don't drop your guard, I will help you out whenever needed. I just need some time to figure out how his magic skill works, so that we can come up with a counter to either defeat him or get out of this place with Loeya."

She gave me a nod, while subtly wiping away the blood dripping from her mouth. I stepped back, and we both shot a glance at our enemy — the immortal handlebar mustache man. The sicko on the sideline was still standing there like an idiot, but he was insignificant by all means.

Edith initiated her fourth combat phase. Slowly covering her entire body from feet to head, except around her eyes, a thin layer of blue fire appeared and burned calmly. Till now, her mana consumption had been moderate; she had over 95% of her total mana capacity unused. But the fourth phase will have a much heavier toll on it, because the flames around her actually serve as active defense. I thereby took responsibility to not prolong this fight for the sake of Edith.

With a fireball shot from her hands towards the handlebar mustache man with its blue glow radiating brightly, the fight began. The shockwave from this shot was even more intense than in her previous combat phases. Before the fireball could reach him, she bolted at him, focusing more mana over her fists. He managed to barely dodged the fireball, crouching and leaning his body to the side.

He was more athletic than I thought, more so than any other mages who solely rely on magic. Anyway, he realized that was a close call, and seeing Edith coming at him with more punches to throw, he extended his arm for a swift counter attack. Edith's left shoulder suddenly came in contact with an unanticipated explosion, the size of a firework. Her defensive layer reacted quite explosively to cancel out the energy of the explosion. She was still knocked a little to the right (because of the law of conservation of energy), but that was about it; apart from that, even her clothes remained intact.

She continued forward, and launched her second set of attacks. With the heat from the fire magic ready to be released out of her fist and maxed out body strengthening and agility, she threw two consecutive punches at the handlebar mustache man. He jumped back, dodging the first punch, and aimed his magic on the ground where Edith's foot was about to touch. An invisible force broke the ground in the targeted spot, and expectedly trapped her foot. But that didn't stop her from throwing her second punch. He took that attack head on while at the same time, counter attacking. The same kind of invisible force struck Edith's chest this time. Her defensive layer reacted even more explosively this time.

Both of them were swept back by the collision. The immortal was knocked further back compared to Edith whose foot was stuck on the ground. One had burn marks around his shattered and bleeding nose, while the other only suffered a broken ankle. But both healed within seconds. "No way…" the handlebar mustache man muttered. Once his nose was completely healed, he wiped away the blood and loudly asked, "What is the relationship between you two?"

For whatever reason he was asking, I had no obligation to reveal anything to an enemy whose character trait specified his cunningness. So, I — and by extension, Edith — remained silent.

Anyway, things were not looking good. I mean, it was looking good, but actually wasn't. The enemy was clearly on the ground while Edith was on her feet. The problem however, was with the mana consumption. With just two moves and her defensive layer triggering twice, Edith had already consumed about 5% of her mana capacity. That may not sound like much, but if you do the math, you'll find out it's over 5 times the amount of my sealed mana capacity. At this rate, this fight would barely last another 20 minutes before she runs out of fuel.

I know I said I would help her out when needed, but honestly, I just said it in the heat of the moment. Me getting involved in a fight against an actually strong opponent was way too risky to begin with. Moreover, I was still piecing together information on how his dumb magic skill worked.

… Ah screw it, I'll step in. Like I said, this was a fight or flight situation, and we had already decided to fight. But first, I needed to take measures to minimize the risks. After observing the exchange of attacks between them, I figured that the handlebar mustache man's attacks originate from his opponent's immediate attack. Basically, if you attack him with fire magic, you can anticipate the counter attack to be related to fire; or explosions. With this knowledge, I can ensure that the virus won't encounter any unanticipated threats.

I snapped a branch of 6 apples from the overgrown tree near me, and made my way towards Edith with it. "Looks like you two are not fond of having a civilized discussion," said the handlebar mustache man, while standing up with a rather annoyed expression.

I also became rather annoyed. Talks about being 'civilized' was the last thing I wanted to hear from a religious extremist. He removed his cloak and cast it aside, as if he was going to start fighting seriously. That pissed me off even more. I plucked one of the apples from the branch on my left hand, and released some mana into it. I performed my all new skill, which I had coded on the carriage ride here.

> Skillset: … Seed Modification (Complexity - A) …

Meanwhile, princess Loeya was in the backside of the warehouse, where she found a small window with loosely nailed wooden planks over it. She used her wind magic to break it open, and crawled her way inside; her small frame made it effortless.

She probably expected at least one or two guards to be there to make things difficult for her. Fortunately, they were all dead. She had no idea about the unexpected enemy that showed up by the way. As far as she knew, everything was going according to plan. Walking down the hall, she heard a boy's sobbing that was louder and nearer than the murmurs of the other 54 captives. She gave in to her curiosity and opened the door to the room with the sobbing boy.

She gasped at the horrific sight she saw. Unable to maintain balance, she fell back on her butt. The same young boy was sitting there in shambles, mourning the loss of his friend that died unjustly. Her head was still being held in his hands, while her body was laying beside him.

Taking a deep breath, princess Loeya called out to him. "Mister?"

On second thought, I think I'll just skim through the part where she convinces him to go with her. Basically, he seemed to be traumatized and wanted to die. But through the power of beauty or whatever, his heart was moved by the princess's charm. And they became familiar to the point where they now know each other's names. The boy's name is Gregory Corvis, and he now wants revenge for the death of his friend. This took a whole 8 minutes, during which 54 people were locked up needlessly in the other room.

Princess Loeya and Gregory made their way to the locked door with the remaining captives on the other side. She was not wearing her oversized cloak anymore, it was in Gregory's arms, covering his dead friend for burial later on. All the while, the sounds of explosions and fighting streamed from the outside. They couldn't see the battle through the opening of the front door, but the flashes of light from the fire and explosions were visible.

Smash!

The locked door was shattered open by princess Loeya, inviting the attention of the captives. The four guards who guarded them were nowhere to be seen; clearly, they too were forced out into the battle. The captives were all in similar one piece clothing, covered in sweat and tears; as was Gregory. Some of them recognized the royal princess, since her disguise was no more, but none raised any questions. Because, at that moment, she was more a ray of hope that they needed to escape their confinement regardless of her identity.

"Worry no longer, beloved citizens of Eden," she said loudly. "You are all free now, and I will help you leave this place. Please follow me." And they did so with a smile on their faces. They walked straight towards the front door, walking on the untidy floor. The princess and Gregory were in the front, while the rest trailed behind in a crammed manner. The sounds of battle grew louder with each step.

Only a few feet away from escape, the ground beneath them suddenly shook violently to the point where it caused cracks on the floor. Consequently, the entire warehouse broke apart. And to make it worse, lanterns that were hanging on the wall, fell, broke, and set the place on fire. "Run!" princess Loeya screamed as she made a dash for the exit.

Somewhat of a poor decision making on her part, but it's hard to blame her in such a situation. Gregory and princess Loeya made it out first. As for the rest, many tripped on the cracked floor and fell only to be trampled over by the other panicked captives running for their lives. Only 13 of them made it out in one piece before the warehouse collapsed entirely. Princess Loeya was on her elbows and knees, and when the dust settled, she saw the true scale of the brief disaster that had just taken place. The ground beneath her, along with the entire wasteland and then some more, were all wrecked. The damage was especially intense around a certain individual, indicating its origin.

I should probably take you back 8 minutes ago and explain what the hell happened.