Lightning ripped across the battlefield as they sprinted, hammering the ground; crackles stitched the air while a red mist unfurled like dusk fog. After the lightning, bands of blue-violet cut down like falling blades; blood gushed in a sudden spring.
A black shadow and a figure wreathed in arcs swept past, leaving crimson splashed like scattered petals. Working in tandem, Thunder Lady and Yun Shi broke wave after wave of attacks; without Tyrant to spearhead, without Hawk Hunter and Comet to screen, the two still forced their foes to stagger and stall.
They were codenamed operatives of the Magic Institution, storm-worn and tested; their strength spoke like thunder. The Witches and the Single Leaf Clan watched Thunder Lady’s arrival with gratitude shining like lamp-light, praise worn openly like banners. The black shadow was quietly ignored, as if not drawing blades on a one-time enemy was already a courtesy paid like a bow at dawn.
Thankfully, the girl didn’t care; she dove back into the bloodstorm like a hawk falling into rain.
“I’ll take that side, Night Phantom!” Thunder Lady called, then vaulted over Yun Shi’s head; arcs burst from her skin like live serpents, and countless strikes fell like a summer storm, pounding the earth and sweeping foes clean across kilometers like a tide.
Seeing Thunder Lady move that fast, Yun Shi refused to lag; she clenched her small fist, then tore space like silk. In an instant, the crowd before her vanished into emptiness, not a drop left like rain on stone. She seized the lattice of midair itself, ripped it open, swallowed the incoming attacks and hurled them back like a mirror of wind; the effect was plain as daylight.
The two cut lively paths through chaos and, without noticing, turned the tide like a river bending. Far off, Sham could only sigh in the dark, the sound like a reed in night wind. She knew their power, yet worry still gnawed like a cold worm—especially for Yun Shi, a girl clearly out of rhythm. Would she hold?
The Special Task Force had traded their lives for hard-won intel, a lantern lit by ashes. It said the Divine Ling Family’s Crystal Tower lay spread beneath the whole field like roots under soil, leaving the Witches tongue-tied and unsure where to strike. Days passed with fewer deaths, yet no clean answer; they still stood stymied before the Tower like a boat before rock.
Earlier, Yun Shi had filed a report, her own deduction sketched like chalk lines; it was worth a read. She wrote: the Crystal Tower’s likely anchor sits in the factory, though they might have moved it. The Tower’s blast covered all domains like a ringing bell, which means its activation needs a fitting site, a place held tight like a fortress gate.
By that logic, the factory—this guarded throat—was most likely, since the Divine Ling Family stationed elites there like iron stakes. There had to be a ghost in that house.
Even with the plan’s inference, the Magic Institution and the Single Leaf Clan couldn’t break in, mainly because the Flamebu Family had joined the fray like oil on fire. The task turned thorny.
So they’d call on the Special Task Force again, like sending falcons back into storm.
Hope perched on a few young shoulders like white herons. If they won, Single Leaf could stand and the Divine Ling Family might be struck. If they failed, Single Leaf would fall, and the Institution would bleed.
“Careful, Mizuki!” Elana shifted into an M1216, the metal blooming like a steel flower, snapping shots that boomed like drums while shielding Mizuki behind her like a wall.
“Elana...” Mizuki watched the Artifact Spirit pull the trigger, the rhythm like rain on tin. Bittersweet rose in her chest, a taste like smoke.
She wanted to adapt to war, to move like a blade in storm—but killing didn’t come easy; first she needed resolve, a stone laid in the heart. Miyuki Kiseki did not have it yet.
You can’t ask someone who’s never taken a life—not even a chicken—to cut a human throat; that’s a bridge made of glass. To kill, you wrestle your own shadow; without that struggle, the hand won’t fall. No true heart stays calm at the moment of a first blade.
Clouds thickened overhead like a black quilt, night-battle cruel as frost, the earth glazed in blood. Suddenly, crystals rained from the sky, glowing faint red like winter plums; beautiful, and terrible.
“Sham, move!” Yun Shi tackled her like a wave hitting a reed; the crystals struck empty air. She didn’t pause; energy flared like a sunburst, and the attack before her ripped like paper, a pressure front colliding with the crystal rain like clashing storms.
“Mizuki, give me Mystic Power—now!” Elana’s urge cut through like a bell. Mizuki didn’t hesitate; she seized Elana midair and let her body’s instinct pour Mystic Power like water into a channel.
“Form Three, Reaper Scythe!” She gripped the weapon and hacked hard; crystals split clean in two, halves whirling past her flanks like shards in wind.
Shards kissed skin with a stinging bloom; Mizuki sucked a cold breath, brows knotted like drawn bowstring. She didn’t stop; she kept cutting the oncoming crystals, using the Reaper Scythe like a windmill in hail. Only that could shield her to the fullest.
Thunder Lady and her cohort coped like mountains. The other Witches would not be so lucky.
...
On the factory’s rooftop, a boy stood at the edge, eyes calm as still water toward the distant war; worry flickered like a moth, then went out. Shen Ling Zou paced the open space once, then sat like he owned the roof, the backs of his hands propping his chin, gaze fixed on crystals streaking through the heated night like comets.
“Master.” A voice rose behind him, familiar as an old bell. He chose silence like a closed gate.
“Master, Yanbu Junichi...” “No.”
“Yes.” Not a visit, only fishing for news; if there’s no audience, there’s no tale. The attendant thought, a quiet shrug like fog.
“Master.” “What now?”
“Are we truly not inviting the Four Pupils Clan?”
“...” Silence fell like frost. Not only the attendant—Shen Ling Zou felt the air drop a few degrees, breath whitening like winter.
“I don’t want to see anyone from the Four Pupils Clan. Not even him.”
After a long beat, Shen Ling Zou let the words leave like steam. He heard the helplessness in his own tone, a dull bell.
“Master, I know you’re not interested in your fiancée, but this was set long ago. Even if you dislike it, you have no room to skirt.” The attendant’s voice stayed polite, yet hard as lacquer.
“I know. But... I’m just running. I don’t like a woman I’ve never met; my heart already belongs elsewhere. I oppose the Four Pupils’ involvement because I don’t want to meet a fiancée I’ve never even seen.”
He raked his hair like plucking strings, and smiled at himself, a bitter curl.
“I’m sorry to him, but I can’t lie to a friend. And wasn’t this all basically shelved two years ago?”
“The Four Pupils don’t see it that way. The Divine Ling Family and the Four Pupils Clan are deeply tied, not like with the Flamebu Family. If you renege, trouble will roll in like storm surf.”
“I hear you... let’s talk after this ends.” Shen Ling Zou rose, unwilling to chew that knot further. He faced the war; the night wind lifted his bangs like grass blades, and a sheen of helplessness edged his eyes.
His betrothal was inked by elders long ago, a seal pressed into wax. He had never met the fiancée, yet he had a friend in the Four Pupils Clan; for a friend’s family, his feelings tangled like twine.
The one he liked was Night Phantom, not the Four Pupils’ daughter; that promised wife was only a name on paper. What he truly wanted was the face still hidden under a mask, the girl who moved a heart by feeling, not decree.
Family business—how hateful. He’d muttered that in his chest more than once, like a mantra in rain.
...
“Where... is this?” Mizuki looked around at the unfamiliar field; confusion rose like mist.
Minutes ago, after the Crystal Tower’s outburst, she dodged death using Elana’s strength, a thread pulled tight over a chasm. When she came back to herself, everything around her was strange. It was still a battlefield, but no familiar companions stood beside her. Sham, Thunder Lady, and the Night Phantom—gone like stars behind cloud.
Bodies lay scattered ahead, limbs askew like broken branches, a stench rolling in like bad tide; the iron tang pricked nerves like needles. Thankfully, Mizuki had slowly built immunity to the sight; steadying herself wasn’t too hard. She still couldn’t kill, but she could stand in a heap of the dead without breaking.
Even so, without comrades to shield her, a sixteen-year-old heart shivered like a leaf.
“Seems we got separated.” Elana’s voice came at the right time, a hand on the shoulder in a windy night.
“Is it safe here?” Mizuki clenched her bracelet, unease pulsing like a drum.
“Hard to say. It’s a battlefield.” “I see...”
“But I shall protect my master. Be at ease.” Her tone carried old steel, like a vow carved on stone.
“But, Elana, I—” “Chin up. You’re my master, aren’t you?” A light laugh, bright as a chime.
“...Thank you.” Mizuki loosened her grip; the knot in her chest eased like thawing ice.
She was truly uneasy. After what she’d seen, she finally understood the Underworld in full, a city of knives under the city of lights; fear is natural for a high school girl. Still, Mizuki wanted to change something, anything—if she could do nothing, she wanted at least to help, like a candle added to night.
She didn’t yet know: to walk as a strong one, you step forward only after your feet have been baptized in blood.
She wanted to act—but without strength and without resolve, the door stays shut like a locked gate.
Click. Suddenly, figures filled the space ahead, guns leveled like fangs, eyes fixed on her like hunting owls.
Mizuki stepped back; her heart clenched like a fist. Elana shifted into the Reaper Scythe, a curved night-moon, and took position before her like a guardian wall.
Mizuki had never imagined her life could pivot this fast, or that her true metamorphosis would begin here, under a sky of shards.
