After a round of battle, their energy was drained like a drought lake, and the aftermath was hard to call, but they wouldn’t be ready to clash again soon.

The awakened power of an Artifact Spirit could boost allies in a lightning burst, a tide that lifted every boat on the field.

In the Underworld there was no second gift like it; weak teammates climbed a rung like hands on a ladder, while the strong soared on wider wings.

Don’t underestimate it; raw strength has a ceiling like a low sky, yet a gust of outside wind can flip the banners of a battlefield.

That said, Yun Shi couldn’t use it now; she was a burnt-out candle, a hollow reed in the wind.

“Next, let’s regroup,” she said, voice low as surf before dawn.

Yun Shi picked up her Goggles from the ground and forced her leaden steps, each footfall heavy as wet earth.

“Uh… who do we even look for now, in this fog?”

“Miyuki Kiseki, or the Magic Institution. Either way, we shouldn’t linger here under this falling sky.”

Yun Shi pointed at the motionless corpse across the way, a fallen tree in a silent grove.

Moa finally snapped out of it, sprang up like a startled sparrow, and hurriedly packed her things to leave.

If word spread like wildfire that a key Church fighter died here to a Witch, the consequences would be dire.

It might raise Yun Shi and Moa’s names like banners in the Underworld, but trouble would snowball and the Church would strike back like a hammer.

So they had to leave before the Church caught the scent, slipping out ahead of the storm.

As Yun Shi and Moa fled like shadows at dusk, a figure drifted in, and Yun Shi’s keen senses pricked like a thorn—someone was striding up openly behind them.

She snapped on her Goggles like a visor and braced, and Moa read the thunder in her shoulders and stepped forward to shield.

They were spent to the bone, dying embers in a wind, yet could only gamble one last swing.

“Yun Shi!” The call rang like a clear bell through rain.

To their wide-eyed shock, the newcomer was no enemy but a familiar face, like winter thaw breaking ice.

“Sham?” Her voice flickered like a candle in a draft.

“Thank goodness, Yun Shi, thank goodness—you’re okay!” Relief poured out of her like rain after a long drought.

Seeing her friend, Sham couldn’t hold back; she pounced into a full-body hug, shameless as a cat stealing cream.

Yun Shi wanted to push her off, but she had no strength; her soft arms pressed like feathers, half-denial and half-invite, so she let Sham be.

After all, Sham had worried for her like a lantern in fog; once wouldn’t hurt.

“Mm… too sly, Sham! How can you hog Yun Shi all by yourself like a winter heater?”

“Hehe, if you’re jealous, Moa, then come take her back, like tug-of-war over a quilt.”

“Fine, you said it,” Moa replied, a spark in her eyes like fire catching tinder.

“Enough, both of you!” Yun Shi’s shout cracked like thunder.

The result: both ended up with lumps like rising buns on their heads and teary faces like wet glass.

“Right, Sham, why are you here?” The question flew like a pebble across water.

Yun Shi didn’t forget the key issue and loosed it like an arrow from a bow.

“A lot happened. The Underworld’s unrest rippled everywhere like storm waves,” Sham said, breath steadying like a tide.

“I fought through the chaos and finally found you, like following smoke to a fire. Right now, Mizuki is with her mentor, so she should be fine.”

“Mentor? Since when did she have a teacher?” The doubt rose like a hidden spring.

Right—Yun Shi still didn’t know Mizuki had taken a master, or how much sweat she’d paid in secret, while Yun Shi drifted in Japan like a kite.

Back then, Mizuki lingered in Britain like a long shadow; Yun Shi thought it was just the Magic Institution, not a training ground, and Sham’s hint now rang like a bell.

If it were only the Magic Institution, she wouldn’t have stayed so long, unless the trail vanished into thicker mist.

That girl was hiding something like a stone tucked under silk.

The more she thought, the more likely it felt, frost creeping across a window.

“Well then, Yun Shi, let’s go find Mizuki first,” Sham said, like following a river upstream.

“Okay,” Yun Shi replied, a nod falling like a leaf.

Anyway, she’d know once they found her; Yun Shi soothed herself like rubbing a smooth worry stone.

“So many people here…” The words stumbled out like stones, and the air felt cold as rain.

Staring at the heaps of bodies, breathless like broken dolls on the ground, Mizuki clenched her Reaper Scythe.

“It’s dangerous here. Let’s head somewhere safe, like birds to higher branches.”

“Where’s ‘safe,’ Ms. Andrea?” she asked, feeling for a door in the dark.

“Just follow me,” Andrea said, a lantern’s glow leading through fog.

Andrea didn’t answer directly; she led Mizuki along a route she’d set, a thread through a maze of thorns.

Mizuki was her student, and Andrea would shield her like a cloak, but not now; enemies swarmed like ants, and she couldn’t spare the focus.

So she chose to avoid fights, treading light as a fox through snow.

Whatever came next would unfold step by step, like stones laid across a river.

London, England, was at its most dangerous and chaotic, the capital humming with turmoil like ozone before lightning.

In the Outer World, life went on; in the shadows, real darkness bled like ink.

A flood of Mystic Power broke loose, and sealed spaces staged brutal battles like storms in bottles.

Now, Shitou Yuya’s team had cut down a squad like wheat and were moving to a new safe spot like birds shifting nests.

They had fired the first shot at the Church like a spark on dry grass, but they weren’t gods; they needed rest between rounds, not an endless war-drum.

“Yuuya went to scout, right? He should be okay, right?” The words fluttered like moths around a flame.

Shen Ling Zou scanned the grass like a wary wolf, worry clouding his face like a passing shadow.

“Relax. Yuuya’s strong. He’ll be fine,” Rin said, voice warm as a hearth.

“You’re right. I worried too much. Thanks, Rin,” he said, gratitude bowing like a reed.

“No need to thank me. We’re comrades, a rope braided together,” she replied, light as wind through leaves.

They chatted and walked through the grass like a picnic, but the peaceful field hid fangs in the dew.

Shen Ling Zou and Kananin Rin, and the separated Shitou Yuya, didn’t know a nightmare waited like a covered pit.

“Hmm?” The prickle came like a thorn under skin.

Shen Ling Zou halted mid-step like a deer; confusion cooled to calm, then sharpened into blade-bright killing intent, and Rin followed his gaze.

A girl stood there, smiling at them like a crescent moon that hid a blade.

If she were ordinary, they’d relax, but she wore the Church habit like a lifted flag.

Silver-white hair fell to her waist like snow, and her white-gray nun’s dress cut to the knee like a modern blade, clashing with the Church’s austerity.

Her face looked harmless, yet her eyes held cold steel like winter water.

“Witch…” Rin breathed, the word frosting like breath in cold air.

Yes, despite the Church attire, her cut and the ripple of Mystic Power spread like pond rings, more like a Witch of the Magic Institution.

A Witch showing up now was unlikely, like a heron in a storm; they should be locked with the Church, not strolling to greet two strays.

Then there was only one case, like a single track in new snow.

“Are you the Third Vessel Soul?” The question flashed like a drawn blade.

Shen Ling Zou asked coldly, voice like sleet on stone.

Everyone knew that concept; two Vessel Souls had already hurled the world into turmoil like twin storms.

Clearly, this girl carried power to tilt the world like a lever under a boulder.

“Rebecca Ben Lowell,” she said, the name dropping like a stone into a deep well.

The girl smiled as she spoke, a self-introduction held up like a calling card.

“Don’t underestimate us,” Shen Ling Zou growled, voice low as distant thunder.

He didn’t know her depths, so he struck first; crimson crystals crawled over his arm like frost.

Seeing that, Rin refused to retreat; she gathered energy like a whirlpool, her eyes opening bright as stars.

“Summon, Siren!” she cried, the words calling the tide.

Light peeled away, and a monstrous woman rose, keening to swallow all like a maelstrom.

By all signs, Shen Ling Zou and Kananin Rin held the wind; newborn Witch Rebecca shouldn’t match them, the balance clear as noon.

“Little sister, too bad. You’re Church, so blame yourself for jumping out to block us,” Rin said, words falling like cold rain.

She flicked her hand like a knife, and her Siren answered with a roar that rolled like thunder over dark water.

The Siren let out a deep-sea bellow, killing intent surfacing like a dorsal fin.

Oddly, Rebecca didn’t flinch; she stood calm, even smiling, a lily bending but unbroken in the wind.

Shen Ling Zou’s crystals burst out like shrapnel, lancing for Rebecca, and he didn’t soften—his rise in the Underworld was forged in iron.

The crimson shards were about to skewer her like a hedgehog, yet Rebecca didn’t move a step.

However, like a gust through paper, everything changed.

Crack!

In a blink, as the crystals neared her face, she raised both hands and caught their tips like chopsticks.

Her arms should have vanished in a flash like paper to flame, but—

The crystals crumbled to grit in her hands, dust scattering on the wind.

She didn’t even have a scratch, skin unmarked like fresh snow.

“What?!” His voice cracked like ice on a pond.

Shen Ling Zou froze; he knew his power— that strike could level a building like an earthquake—so why did it vanish against this girl?

“Tch—Siren!” Rin’s command snapped like a whip.

Roar—the answer rolled like surf as the Siren charged.

Rin drove the Siren forward; it surged for Rebecca like a tidal wave, ready to tear her apart.

Rebecca slipped past the blow like smoke, vaulted onto the Siren’s back, and gathered her power like a storm in her fists.

Crack!

In another blink, something more jaw-dropping happened; the Siren shattered into fragments amid a scream, like glass under a hammer.

“Impossible!” The word slammed down like a wall.

Rin trusted her strength; her summons were strong as iron, and they shouldn’t fall in under a minute, much less be erased so completely like chalk in rain.

“I’m sorry, Head of the Kananin Family, and Mr. Shen Ling Zou. The losers are you,” Rebecca said, verdict falling like a gavel.

Rebecca turned with a smile that wasn’t warm, moonlight on ice, and Shen Ling Zou and Rin stepped back on instinct.

Another roar rose, and crimson crystals with a beastly shadow raced across the earth like wolves lunging for the girl.

Crack!

But it was the same each time; any attack that touched Rebecca turned to ash like moths meeting flame, leaving nothing behind.

While Shen Ling Zou and Kananin Rin poured out Mystic Power like water from cracked jars, Rebecca slipped in and rained down her fists.

With sharp martial arts and her own magic, she overwhelmed them like a landslide after a brief bombardment.

Fire flared and stones flew like meteors, carving a vivid scar into the air.

When Shitou Yuya returned, he saw a tableau like wreckage after a storm.

Shen Ling Zou and Kananin Rin lay on the ground, battered head to toe, exhausted and ragged like shipwreck survivors.

In front of them stood a composed girl, lofted like a falcon on a cliff, looking down with cold disdain.

Yuuya trusted their strength; they shouldn’t have fallen like this, yet truth lay like a stone on the road.

This girl was strong enough to defy heaven, a storm that bent even iron trees.

“Damn it!”

His anger flared like wildfire; Yuuya poured out his energy, opened the Blood Pupil, and swung at Rebecca like a crashing wave.

Boom!

But the outcome never changed; magic and Mystic Power broke like surf on Rebecca’s cliff.

In the end, Yuuya coughed blood into the dust, scarlet pooling like melting snow.

Rebecca’s smile thinned to calm, like the moon slipping behind a cloud; her task felt complete.

As expected, she netted three people, a clean draw through a dark lake.

“Third Vessel Soul—its master, Rebecca Ben Lowell. Right now, calling her the Underworld’s strongest isn’t too much.”

In the Church hall, Anjel heard the report and grinned, like someone lifting the last veil from a mirror.

At the Magical Stone Institution, Director Bena Svaren showed worry sharpened by urgency, like a drumbeat quickening in a storm.

Is this Underworld really just a cage of iron bars, unbreakable?

...

Just as Rebecca moved to strike again, Yuuya tried to rise; after so many fights, his body and spirit felt like wet ash.

A black silhouette rushed from afar, like moonlight knifing through night, lighting the dark.

The girl in a black cloak saw from a distance: Shitou Yuya half-kneeling, frozen, facing Rebecca’s blade like a lamb at the altar.

Her pupils widened in a flash; her heart skipped like a missed drum; sleeping memories thawed like ice in spring.

She couldn’t deny the worry swelling in this instant, a tide tugging at her chest.

“Bro... brother?”

In that breath, Yun Shi faced not just an enemy, but the past she’d lost, a ghost rising like mist from a river.