Clang!

The first cloaked figure stepped forwards, drawing forth a heavy greatsword that fell against the dream leech’s axe.

In that brief opening, the remaining two leapt onto the nearby rooftops and assumed a battle-ready stance.

SHRRRAA! The leech recoiled and retreated a small distance, carefully observing the new arrivals as its body slightly twisted.

At last, the combatants unveiled their hoods.

“Commencing dream leech extermination of two reflector-types,” the man wielding the greatsword announced.

“Roger!” the other two shouted in unison.

“...A sort of law enforcement in the Confluence? They all seem to be Shapers…”

Yet, instead of rushing back into battle, the three reached under their cloaks and each produced three small square objects almost akin to cartridges.

With a sweeping flair, they traced those cartridges through the air.

“Projection success,” they echoed, one voice more monotone than the others.

“No, that can’t be considered shaping…”

The swordsman, whose shaping at first surrounded his greatsword, now had a pair of draconic serpents orbiting his body, which exuded a faint touch of frost.

Meanwhile, the two on the rooftops wielded abilities that appeared even more contradictory. One controlled a spectral fish-like creature while their body glowed with flames, and the other conjured lightning that grew through the air like vines.

Elena and the rest of the adventurers could only stand aside as this nonsensical battle raged on, and as these amalgamations of shaping collided against the dream leeches’ bodies and the surrounding buildings, Elena couldn’t help but notice that nobody cheered.

Nobody stepped forward to help the fight.

Another cartridge shattered midair. This time, Elena felt it—a slight resistance that she knew she had felt before.

“It lags behind them like they can’t control their own Possibility. Or rather… it’s like that Possibility doesn’t want to obey them.”

The world seemed to pause, waiting for her conclusion.

“Dream Hunters,” she realized.

Another cartridge clattered across the stone, sliding towards her as the soulless eyes on the backs of their uniforms watched.

For each technique the dream leeches tore through, the Dream Hunters simply drew out more cartridges, tossing the spent ones aside like empty bullet casings.

Yet, despite this seemingly endless arsenal of abilities, one thing was clear: They weren’t winning.

The dream leech that previously lagged behind the other now lunged forth, a dozen eyes opening across its body that shot a paralyzing gaze into the swordsman.

Just like that, his Possibility Density went silent—the currently in-use cartridges that floated beside him clunking uselessly against the ground with a hollow thud.

The air fell flat.

“N-No—!”

Before the other hunters could react, the dream leech wrested the sword from his grasp and carved a path across his chest, flinging him backwards into the crowd of adventurers.

“Damn you!” he shouted, his eyes wildly sweeping over the adventurers that broke his fall. “You useless pieces of— That thing’s not a reflector!”

His mouth stopped as he bit his lip in frustration.

“Suppressor-type…” Irin mumbled the verdict.

Grabbing onto the closest adventurer, he pulled himself up and drew out a new tool out from under his cloak, this one resembling a nail gun. Hastily, he pressed it up against the adventurer’s neck.

“I’m sure you all won’t disagree with this extraction. After all, you’re the ones that fed us false information.”

Even still, no fellow adventurer stepped forward.

“Stop.”

The hunter didn’t know when it happened. He didn’t even sense her approach, but now Elena stood behind him, her hand tightly holding onto his arm, slowly pulling it away from the adventurer.

In that instant, he could’ve fired. If he had, maybe he would’ve obtained a useful ability to put an end to this extermination. Yet, for a reason he couldn’t understand, every fiber of his body was screaming against disobeying this presence.

In these moments, the air didn’t shift even one bit, but even so, the other adventurers could feel the weight of Elena’s single utterance.

It wasn’t a weight that forced acknowledgement, like Waker’s pressure. No—it was weight simply because it was.

“You—! Who do you think you are?!”

“No one special.”

With a gentle tap, Elena pushed the hunter back, who, after stumbling for a bit, fell back onto the ground.

“So this is all they’re able to do. Take and cry.”

She turned to face the ongoing battle.

The recently identified suppressor-type lashed out against the two remaining hunters, rocketing them through the nearby storefronts.

“They won’t last much longer.”

By now, Irin had pushed his way to the front of the crowd, but in spite of that, he couldn’t take the steps forwards to where Elena calmly approached the dream leeches.

It was that same feeling he had gotten back in the Wild Ring—a sensation of distance that told him right now, Elena was living in a world not his own.

“You still want to fight, huh?”

Irin couldn’t tell who exactly she was speaking to, but in that very moment, everyone became able to notice the spear in her grasp, gently humming.