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After the Night of Seven Cities, Cyclone’s new story began.

Elsewhere, another story began in the darkness.

A drop of water fell, bringing the only sound to this silent world.

In the great city of Kakarl, anything was possible—including this mysterious basement.

Several black silhouettes appeared beneath the candlelight.

Yet not one of them spoke. The shadows only stared at one another.

They formed a semicircle. At its center stood a single person.

Wielding a massive scythe, she had cut through every obstacle to reach this place.

The powerful warrior was a woman dressed in an immaculate butler’s uniform, with long black hair flowing down her back.

Her single ponytail, clothing, and posture all carried a neat, orderly air. She was clearly no common street thug.

Threads of blood from an unknown source still clung to the scythe.

As the blood slowly dripped from its blade, they realized the only sound in the room hadn’t been water.

It had been blood.

Suddenly, a door opened behind the figure.

A flood of light poured in, followed by the person who had opened it.

“Damn it!! Seriously, what the hell kind of luck did I have last night?!”

A tiny loli appeared, her face twisted with anger.

She marched straight into the middle of the gathered shadows.

“Oh! So you’re the Grand Chancellor’s lackey~?”

Speaking without the slightest restraint, the loli crossed her arms and stared directly at the scythe wielder.

“If you want to discuss a deal, give me your name first!”

“I don’t have one. But you can call me ‘Maid.’”

“Huh?!”

In an instant, a sense of danger swept over them.

At the same time, the basement began to shake.

Maid immediately took a stance and unleashed a rapid series of scythe slashes.

Just before the ceiling collapsed, her scythe shattered every falling section of stone above them.

The high-speed barrage was forcibly halted in midair on the seventh slash.

A vacuum field had caught the blade.

At the center of that field stood three people.

“Here we are~”

“Hey, hey, hey!!! My head’s pointing at the ground right now!!!!”

When Maid realized they were allies, she swung the scythe back and returned to her normal stance.

“What the hell is this supposed to be?!”

“Who—who punched through Secret Base Number Three?!”

“Ma—Marcina?!”

The basement’s owners protested the sudden destruction.

One of the shadows even recognized an intruder as Marcina, the infamous archmage.

“Haha~ This city’s really huge. It took me ages to find this place, even flying around~”

The instant Marcina landed, the wind shield weakened as well.

And in that brief moment, a silver-haired rapier wielder standing before Marcina drew her sword.

She unleashed an explosive strike straight at Marcina.

Marcina merely tilted her head to the side and dodged it.

“Oh? If that big sister hadn’t stepped in, your strike would’ve killed the person you came to negotiate with too~”

The tiny loli stood directly behind Marcina.

“Sophiel…senpai…”

The one who blocked the powerful shockwave unleashed by the world’s greatest sword was Sonja, the current captain of Allen City’s Wind Knights.

But Sophiel didn’t care about her former junior at all.

Her eyes held only Marcina’s mocking smile.

“Stop wasting time. Why did you save that bitch?!”

“Hmm? Bitch?”

“Don’t play dumb?!!!”

“B-Big Sis!”

Just as Sophiel was about to strike again, another person intervened.

It was the vampire hunter Onigashima, who had accompanied her.

He used the flat of his greatsword to forcibly block the path of her rapier.

“If you attack like this, a lot of people here are going to die!”

Onigashima seemed to be the most rational one there.

Sophiel, however, shouted back.

“I don’t care.”

Her cold reply left Sonja, standing in the distance, stunned.

The hero of the past had become a cold-blooded monster.

“You mean Cyclone Theodore?”

Unlike everyone else, who had fallen silent, Marcina spoke the crucial name aloud.

“What?!”

The moment Maid heard it, she turned around.

“You can’t kill him~”

Marcina raised one finger and stopped Sophiel’s rapier in place.

“…”

Sophiel thought for a moment.

“What is he to you?”

“That…is a girl’s secret~”