[Bonus chapter] IRINA'S VISION

Irina was standing in the middle of an empty road, devoid of life.

"This place... What the...?"

"Is this hell?"

Irina mumbled to herself, seeing the burning world around her. A moment ago, her aircraft got destroyed by Ace, and she remembered the scorching heat on her body. She was supposed to be dead. If so, then is this hell? She wondered.

As a scientist, she never believed in heaven or hell, even when the world changed and superhumans began to rise. She always believed that there was a scientific explanation behind it all. And she hoped to find out the real truth one day.

Near her feet, there was a broken crystal. She tried to pick it up, but her fingers fazed through it, "Is this real or an illusion?" She wondered.

The buildings were burning, there were no signs of living beings, and she couldn't even tell where she was standing. She looked up and saw ashes flying all over the sky.

"What happened here?"

"A dungeon breakout? Where are the superhumans?"

"Auggg!!! Cough... Cough... Corpses???"

Irina saw the results of many dungeon breakouts but never saw such destruction. She noticed she could feel the piercing hot air, and the pungent smell of rotten corpses nearly made her throw out.

She ran toward a building and peeked inside through the glass window. There was no one inside. Then she continued to check all the buildings one after the other, "Hufff!!! No one... Shit!!! I shouldn't have come here." She regrets her rash decision to come to the Silver World.

"That smell... Where is it coming from?"

Irina looked around in desperation. She noticed a thick stream of black smoke swirling behind the small valley, a few km away from her location. Thank's to her keen ocular superpower, she was able to pinpoint the exact location.

She wanted to go there fast, but all the cars were destroyed around her. So, she could only run there, "Damn!!! I hate this..."

On her way, she continued to her surroundings for life signatures, but it was for naught. Everything was burning, and everyone was gone, without leaving a single remains. There wasn't a single dead body of a human or animal.

"Did monsters kill them? But, I don't see any...," She thought while running toward her destination.

[30 minutes later]

"Hufff... Hufff..."

Irina finally reached the top of the valley. She was breathing hard in exhaustion. But the things she saw down the valley took her breath away.

"Aggggg!!!! Haaa... Hufff... Freaking hell..."

She wanted to vomit in disgust after seeing the situation.

A group of trolls was frying a human alive on the fire stand. He was screaming in pain, but no sound came from his mouth. The trolls seemed to have used some kind of silence skill to mask the noise. One of them was chewing on what looked like a roasted human leg. There were around 30 of them, and it looked like a little camp.

Around them were lying a mountain of bones and puddles of blood. There was a massive cage near the bones mountain, which was built with some kind of unknown black crystals. Inside it was around 70 live humans trembling in fear.

**[Trolls: They are giants with green skin, razor-sharp teeth, black eyes, and human-like intelligence. They are known for their immense strength and formidable endurance. However, they lack speed and perception. They can see and hear only 200 meters around them. They are only found inside A+ Ranked dungeons and are known for their habits of enjoying the screams of their prey before eating them.]

"Humff... Oh, God..."

Irina closed her mouth with both hands and ducked down. Her heart was beating hard, and tears dripped down her eyes. She couldn't believe what she just saw. It was truly the hell she thought it was. The only difference is that she was still on new earth or whatever was left of it.

While she was busy trying to think about the situation, a man's voice came to her ears. She jumped up in shock. She never expected any live humans loitering around the dangerous location. She looked around, but there wasn't anyone.

"What happened? Who are you?"

Irina asked without wasting any time. She was dying to know about the situation around her. She had no time to think about trusting the voice as her situation was already too grave for her brain to process. But that voice gave her a little hope.

[Woooosh] A black swirl of energy appeared above Irina's head and sucked her in, "Waaaaa!!!!" She screamed. The world turned upside down around her.

[Zooom] She found herself standing in a dark space, or more precisely, floating. Before her eyes was a massive planet, burning, "Is that...?" She stuttered.

"God? There is heaven and hell!!!" Irina yelled in astonishment. For a moment, she forgot about the disaster and wanted to know more about what goes beyond any scientific explanations.

[Clank] The burning world shattered like a piece of mirror, and a new one appeared. An earth that isn't burning.

"Timeline??? Then there is a way to reverse if we keep Ace alive, right?" Irina inquired. She finally found her long-forgotten dream of time travel. Right now, she couldn't believe that she was witnessing the future.

Irina could see herself from that long distance. It looked like she was in her 70s and still fidgeting with some equipment in her workshop, "That's just like me..."

"What about the third one?" Irina asked.

"Then, if he dies, the world ends... If he lives, the world... It ends differently..."

"How did he die? Is there no good ending? There must be something... Right? I mean... If we are talking about timelines, then isn't their infinite chances?"

Irina asked after knowing the terror waiting for humanity in the coming future.

"Unless... What?" Irina yelled.

Before Irina could ask anything or the voice could say anything further, she found herself inside a medical chamber, along with her people receiving treatments.