Global Awakening: Only I Can Respawn

"That's what you get for fooling around with crazy women," Lysandra yelled back at him. "Who told you to mess with their queen?"

"For god's sake, nothing happened between us, I swear!"

"Try telling them that!" Lysandra yelled, raising another barrier to stop the volley of arrows and spells.

YuWon thought as long as they made their way out of the cave, things would be easy. Unfortunately, he couldn't be more wrong.

The oni became infuriated when they entered the royal chamber and saw Akari's mate had escaped and tied her up.

The onis got so pissed; they abandoned everything and began chasing after the duo. They didn't care if YuWon had someone else. In their mind, he had to give Akari a child so she could carry on the lineage of royal blood further.

That crazy bitch. Instead of clearing their doubts, she left her crazed followers on me! They believe I slept with her and went to get milk.

However, before they could make a choice, a familiar flash of light blinded the two. The angel stood before them, fidgeting like she had done something to get in trouble.

"Um... good thing I found you," she said, smiling awkwardly.

"What do you want now?" YuWon asked and kept running.

"It's nothing much. I just made a mistake and have to correct it."

Even though YuWon didn't stop or say anything, he raised his eyebrow to convey his confusion.

"I might have miscalculated your arrival point. None of you were supposed to spawn here... hehe."

"Hehe? HEHE!?" YuWon finally retorted, remembering Anna's words.

In her timeline, they ended up in a desert, not a forest. YuWon thought it was weird and now the angel was there to correct her mistake.

"But fret not, it would only take a minute to move you to the right place!" the angel smiled. "You'll like the world tree. It's a great place to be—"

"Wait, it's not a desert?" YuWon retorted.

"Why would it be a desert? There's only one on this planet, and no one can survive there. Maybe you could, since you killed a fire giant. But everyone else would be burned to a crisp as soon as they set foot in it."

YuWon frowned upon hearing those words. Anna had explicitly told him about the desert. It made him wonder if the situation of the desert was so bad. Then how did she survive there?

For a moment YuWon thought the angel could be lying. But the angel didn't have a reason to lie to him. Something was off about Anna and this time he would not let her go without making things clear.

But first... let's get out of this forest.

"Fine, do what you have to," YuWon replied. "But there better be some compensation for this."

"...you're a greedy bastard. Has anyone told you that?" The angel sighed before waving her hand.

The next moment, YuWon and Lysandra disappeared, along with everyone who had come to the forest with him. But as they got teleported to the world tree, the angel smiled, looking at the sky above.

"Goddess Ereshkigal," she mumbled. "I hope you're happy now. You should have left him for the others, but your unwillingness to share might lead to his death."

The thing she told YuWon about making a mistake was a made-up story. In reality, the gods weren't pleased with YuWon being rewarded for killing the fire giant.

In their eyes, it broke the balance of their game. But since he deserved the reward, the other gods urged the angel to make things fair.

Since YuWon was stronger than his peers, they decided to put him in a place where his strength matched the challenges. So, they sent him to the world tree.

But even though he might survive there, the same couldn't be said for his companions. After all, because of YuWon, they all had to skip three trials, missing out on rewards that would have helped them get used to the new environment.

"Oh well, it's not like they would have survived for long either way," the angel shrugged before disappearing as well.

***

YuWon blinked a few times to shake off the haziness. He looked around, trying to make sense of his surroundings, only to see Lysandra lying on top of him.

"Where are we?" YuWon mumbled, trying to force Lysandra up.

But then he heard footsteps and immediately got alert.

"Are you guys okay?" Yuna called out.

Soon Yeji, Gina, and the rest came into his vision. YuWon pushed himself on his elbows, careful not to disturb Lysandra, who was still half-asleep. As he looked around, he noticed some of them were injured. Even Yeji had a cut along her cheek that looked fresh.

"What happened to you?" YuWon asked.

"After you left to find Lysandra, the wolves came back," Yuna explained. " We lost a few more people, and the rest of us didn't get away unscathed. Even so, we ended up killing most wolves before we found ourselves here."

"Yes... where are we?" Gina asked, looking around. "This doesn't look like a forest to me."

"Yes, it's not a—"

YuWon was about to explain everything to them when Anna gasped and pointed ahead. They followed her trembling hand and saw a massive tree in some distance.

The tree towered over everything. It was so massive that they couldn't see the top of it. Its trunk was thicker than any mountain they had ever seen, stretching endlessly into the sky.

The most unsettling part was the branches. They spread out in every direction, covering the sky like a web. Instead of clouds, all they could see were the thick branches. It was as if the tree had swallowed the sky, leaving only a few patches of light to shine through.

"World tree..." YuWon mumbled, remembering what the angel had told him.

He finally understood why it was called as such. It wasn't a tree, but an entire world in itself. But Anna completely broke down.

"No... no, no, no. We're screwed," Anna shook her head as if she had seen a ghost. "We're so screwed now."