I Hate Systems

The Mental Energy stream that Compass Carburettor transformed into flowed towards the Realm in an instant, about to enter it when suddenly, a magic circle appeared, preventing his entry.

Bang!

He crashed into it, unable to go inside as Compass Carburettor grunted, using Spirit Morph in an effort to transform the magic circle into Mental Fragments and pass through. 'What? Why is it so hard?'

There was intense resistance to his Spirit Morph as the magic circle withstood it firmly, barely showing signs of letting up. But it seemed like he would need a few seconds at least to transform it into Mental Fragments, absorb it and then enter the Realm.

But before that could happen, a sea of flames erupted out of the magic circle and drowned him, causing his screams to echo around as even the Invoked Spirit was destroyed. Moreover, the attack was so accurate that the Main Character System fragment was unharmed.

Arnark snapped his finger and reclaimed it, frowning in alarm, 'He already destroyed a hundredth of my imprint on the fragment. As expected of the man I feared. MC or not, he's terrifying.'

He didn't reveal this information to anyone though, unwilling to spark second thoughts in the minds of the Genre Representatives.

If they were to know that Compass Carburettor was capable of reclaiming the Main Character System fragment from him and even take over them completely, then they would happily side with him once again.

After all, everyone was aware of Arnark's evaluation of Compass Carburettor, the most terrifying Main Character to date, even above the first Main Character.

The only reason they supported Arnark was due to him winning the tussle with Compass Carburettor in who would retain the power of the Main Character. Since he won, it meant he was better, which was why he won the support of the Genre Representatives.

"Dammit!" Compass Carburettor's shout resounded in the apocalyptic setting as a serpent burrowed into the ground and devoured a building to reform a larger body.

The body that had grabbed hold of the Main Character System fragment had been annihilated. So, he had to do something about it.

"You won't escape." Arnark frowned as he landed on a region, unleashing the power of the Dragon Race of the Fantasy World.

Divinity Incarnate!

Instantly, the region transformed into his domain, one where he could sense everything and control everything.

Boom!

The earth rumbled and cracked as a geyser gushed out, sending a serpent flying to the surface. the water transformed into blades that diced up the serpent into thousands of parts before a Lightning Spirit appeared out of the geyser and transformed it into a sea of lightning that destroyed all the Mental Fragments.

"Master, can you do what Compass is capable of?" Arnark communicated with Slayer, "You are now being fuelled by all of Conjurer's worlds, right?"

"I can't." Slayer said in disappointment, "It seems Compass harnessed Conjurer's power to derive a power of his own. He already had the means to generate this power, just that the power system in Conjurer's world happened to be the catalyst to modify it to its current form."

"That's unfortunate." Arnark sighed before he began to eye the Tell-Tale System, preparing an attack to mortally wound it. Until now, two Grade 3 Systems stood beside the Tell-Tale System as its bodyguards, having never made a move.

So, unless something was done about them, it would be hard for Arnark to target the Tell-Tale System, especially in the presence of the Regression System, 'This is somewhat troublesome. I should do something before Zaira returns…'

Arnark noticed a dozen serpents spill out of the Realm's entrance and drill into the ground, not making any moves beyond that. His face convulsed as he felt mild throbs of anger, "This bastard never gives up, huh."

'I should kill his main body.' Thinking as such, Arnark just took a step forward in the Realm's direction when he was stunned to see the Realm relocate itself a hundred metres away.

"…"

'Shit!' Veins popped on Arnark's forehead when he realised the Realm was wary of him. But, it was just against him. It was gradually approaching the other Main Characters. There were fragments of the Main Character System in them too. And in terms of sheer power, they weren't as strong as Arnark.

'If they become careless for even a single moment, Compass will prey upon them.' Thinking as such, Arnark became tense, intending to prepare against him when…

"This timeline wouldn't regress!" The Tell-Tale System shouted upon condensing enough power, unleashing echoes of energy that slammed into Immortal, actually slowing down his rate of regression.

"Arnark!" Slayer shouted in alarm.

"I know!" Arnark pried his attention away from Compass Carburettor and focused on the Tell-Tale System, announcing through Lore, "There's a leakage in the bard of tales!"

When the Tell-Tale System created a rule that this timeline wouldn't regress, Arnark couldn't do the opposite and create a rule that this timeline would regress to counter it.

That would imply lore, of the Fantasy World's timeline capable of regressing, forming one of its foundations. The moment this gets set in stone, the fate block Slayer had created would shatter, allowing the Regression System to regress their development and undo everything they had done.

But, if Arnark didn't take action and slowed down Immortal's regression, it would allow the Systems more time to deal with him, flipping the tide of the situation to their favour.

This is why, he didn't fall prey to the Tell-Tale System's schemes and instead targeted it directly, creating lore that the Tell-Tale System's power wasn't efficient, due to its leakage.

And indeed, as the Tell-Tale System didn't block against this, the efficiency of its rule was reduced, causing Immortal's regression to accelerate slightly. Arnark wanted Immortal to rampage further and severely wound the Systems so that Slayer could devour them and strengthen the Fantasy World further.

"Keuk!" Arnark grunted as veins popped all over his forehead as he churned his power of Lore to engrave this concept deeper into the apocalyptic setting so that the Tell-Tale System would be affected more.

And similarly, the Tell-Tale System too was doing the same, suppressing his Lore as the two were trying to one-up the other party.

Only they could counter the other party, so Arnark didn't wish to let up, bellowing soon after, "Aaarghhh!"

Right at this time, a serpent burrowed out of the ground from near his feet and transformed into Mental Energy to flow into his body, alarming him, 'Shit!'