The battle within Tsukimisato raged on.
The earth was being torn apart and heaved upward without end.
Twisted rock veins clawed up from underground — like giants lurking beneath the surface, swinging their fists down at Soga Yura.
But the moment Sakura Mai joined the battlefield, everything changed.
The girls' front line had completely broken free of the desperate straits from before — that awful bind where Su Yuzu hadn't dared touch Soga Yura, where she hadn't been able to carry her through the fractured, heaving ground.
The Knight Princess took charge of dodging, shielding Soga Yura.
Whenever a serpentine rock vein suddenly lunged at Soga Yura, Sakura Mai's golden-light-blazing evil sword cleaved straight through it — through mountain and earth alike.
It was the first time Su Yuzu had ever seen sword qi from a game manifest in real life.
Every swing of Sakura Mai's blade sent pale golden sword light raking through the ground, cutting down every obstacle that stood in its path. That light traveled nearly a hundred meters before it finally faded.
On the other side — Dai Ling was still staring toward the courtyard to the west, almost stupefied.
Those dark golden vertical pupils were filled with disbelief and something that bordered on genuine fear.
Her erosion domain had been pushed back halfway through its expansion.
In normal circumstances, that kind of thing only happened among Aberrants when a lower-ranked Aberrant encountered a higher-ranked one — or a Catastrophe Beast.
But Dai Ling was an Aberrant created through conversion by an Aberrant Activation Device. She was different from ordinary Aberrants. She didn't have to strictly observe the rules of the game between Aberrants.
So then... what was lurking over there?
The answer was starkly clear without needing to be spoken aloud — and that very clarity made Dai Ling feel fear rising from somewhere deep inside her.
In all the futures she had glimpsed through the Eye of Insight, none had ever recorded a fate like this. None had ever shown her a picture like this.
Was it a 'Beast' that had drifted up from the Abyss?
Or was it... Dai Ling felt cold sweat seeping down her back — another... 'Throne'?
A different 'Throne' — one that had nothing to do with Su Yuzu?
She had the sinking feeling of a mantis catching a cicada while a sparrow waited behind — of being caught in the middle of a storm she had never accounted for.
She had always believed herself to be the one driving fate forward. The woman who had peered into every possible future through the Eye of Insight, who had guided the currents of destiny — that woman suddenly realized:
Fate was not nearly as clear as she had recorded it to be.
She was nothing more than a self-important fool who had convinced herself she'd seen through everything, while countless hidden undercurrents surged all around her.
Clang—
She raised a wall of stone and caught the long blade Su Yuzu swung down at her.
The woman who had remained so composed, so certain she held the upper hand — the moment her erosion domain was cut short, her mind had dissolved into chaos.
She looked up at Su Yuzu.
At the girl's skirt, billowing wildly in the air.
Then she drew a deep breath.
She had nowhere left to retreat. The Abyss was at her back.
The only thing she could do now was to push Su Yuzu toward the Throne with everything she had.
Just how terrifying could a completely unhinged Fourth Sequence Aberrant be?
It felt as though the entire Tsukimisato was about to collapse.
Cherry blossom petals, fine as powder snow, whirled wildly in the quaking earth. Bottomless fissures kept spreading across the ground — as if trying to swallow all of Tsukimisato whole.
Yet those cracks skirted around the courtyard where Sakura Renxin was with almost uncanny precision, turning it into an isolated island.
"Yura!!!" Sakura Mai shouted at Soga Yura.
"On it, on it!" The girl's Mind Control domain expanded rapidly.
To Soga Yura's eyes, the entire world of Tsukimisato turned into solid blocks of darkness. Every human's mental presence appeared to her like a thin thread of light cutting through the dark.
Only the courtyard where Sakura Renxin was — to Soga Yura, it was like staring into an Abyss that could not be glimpsed or fathomed at all.
The elites and nobles had started running the moment the fighting broke out. Only the sheltered girls who had been kept here huddled inside the various buildings of Tsukimisato, trembling.
Soga Yura seized control of their minds and began organizing their escape.
The whole of Tsukimisato was about to become a battlefield.
Su Yuzu launched herself at Dai Ling.
Sakura Mai also swung the Sword of Erasure toward Dai Ling's position.
Dai Ling held her ground, slamming her fist into the earth.
The ground — which had been endlessly heaving and spitting out rock serpents — began to shake and shudder in a new way.
The girls couldn't fly. They still needed somewhere to land.
This time, Dai Ling — wholly focused on overwhelming them — gave them not a single moment to breathe.
Shhhk, shhhk — in the middle of the violent tremors, Su Yuzu heard the sound of sand flowing.
A deep, wordless dread welled up from somewhere inside her.
And then — she saw it. Black sand seeping up from the earth.
Iron sand.
Su Yuzu's pupils shrank. She watched as that black iron sand swirled up at terrifying speed.
A whip?
No. A storm.
A storm capable of grinding any flesh and bone to pulp in an instant.
Her instinct was to recall Behemoth — but there was still an injured person on Behemoth.
And Soga Yura was right behind her.
Faced with that girl's life and this incoming assault, Su Yuzu felt as though she had no choice but to make a decision.
"Get behind me!!!" And just then, Su Yuzu heard a girl's furious shout.
Sakura Mai drove the golden evil sword into the ground with absolute resolve.
The earth beneath the girls' feet temporarily stopped its shaking.
But countless iron grains were still sweeping up into a storm, surging toward Sakura Mai and Su Yuzu.
And behind them — a physically useless Soga Yura.
Sakura Mai looked at Dai Ling.
The girl's jade-clear eyes — which were normally bright and sharp — had frozen over like ice in that moment. Yet at the same time, they blazed like fire.
A roaring flame ignited.
Within the blaze of the Sword of Will, that iron sand looked as though it were burning — every grain turning incandescent red.
Drip.
Su Yuzu suddenly heard a distinct sound — the sound of blood hitting the ground.
She looked ahead of her. She looked down at Sakura Mai's feet.
Crimson blood dripped down, one drop at a time.
Dai Ling had drawn the metal up from beneath the earth, magnetized it, and gathered it into a storm. And that storm was not a one-time attack — it could cycle back again and again, like a meat grinder, shredding every enemy within her domain.
But in this moment — that red-hot metal, glowing as if it were on fire, had all converged in front of Sakura Mai. That evil sword devoured it, hungrily, every last grain.
The price — Sakura Mai's swaying, unsteady form. Blood, falling drop by drop without end.
Su Yuzu stared at the red warning indicators blinking in front of her.
In [Operator Development] — Sakura Mai's status had changed to: Heavy Damage.
A world burning like the end of days. The earth, cracked and crumbling.
Sakura Mai finally stumbled and fell — and with her went the Sword of Will that had wrapped around the blade. Left behind was a single red-hot sword of pure malice, which, now that the Sword of Will's embrace had dissolved, finally bared its true and terrible nature.
Su Yuzu and Dai Ling locked eyes.
Then —
Step by step, the girl walked forward. Her right hand closed around that vicious, snarling blade.
"Don't!!!" Sakura Mai still tried to struggle up.
The Sword of Erasure — no one outside the Sakura family could draw it.
ROAR!!!
It was as if a malevolent spirit screamed in rage — ten thousand demons clawing at her, trying to swallow Su Yuzu piece by piece.
At Su Yuzu's throat, the white Snow-Drift Fragrance flowers bloomed and unfurled.
Then —
CLANG!!!
The evil sword cleared its sheath.
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