Bang!

The man in black fired without a blink, spark splitting the night like flint.

Tang Coco crossed her arms over her chest, reflex ahead of reason, a paper shield in a storm.

Crack!

Aah!

By sheer luck, the round hit the watch on her right wrist. The face burst like ice, yet the bullet failed to pierce. Pain slammed through her like a hammer. She cried out.

Then every eye froze. Shards unraveled into blue motes, fireflies shed from glass. They drifted around her, then stitched themselves back into the watch. It looked new again. Only the hands whirred, a pale-blue comet blur.

Tang Coco didn’t see. In the heartbeat of impact, a message pulsed in her mind:

“Threat confirmed. System emergency start. AI Erasure Protocol initializing…”

“Fuck!”

Angry he hadn’t dropped her, the man in black cursed. He raised the gun and fired twice more, bullets knifing toward her lowered body.

Whoosh!

A blue energy field surged around Tang Coco, cocooning her like calm sea under moonlight.

“I Field.”

A toneless voice slipped from her bowed lips.

She slowly lifted her head. The four men in black saw her face and stumbled back. Her light-blue pupils had turned alluring crimson, like a blood moon over still water. Paired with flawless features, the wicked beauty stung like wine.

“Th-this… what…”

“Move! Together! Kill her!”

That crimson hue spooked them, fear rising primal, like an Asura pit yawning under their feet. The tall one barked orders.

He braced both hands; two SMGs blinked into being, smoke without fire then steel. The other three charged straight at Tang Coco. Same organization, but those three had only sprouted signs of Anomaly Power, not yet able to use it.

Watching them, Tang Coco’s lips tilted, a crescent over a dark tide.

…

Ningxin reached the western shore. She jumped from the car and sprinted forward, salt wind like knives on her cheeks.

“Well? Found anyone?”

She asked a group of Abnormals—A Team. The lead youth answered, breath sharp as the surf:

“No. Just a black van and a Porsche. That van matches the foreign Abnormals’ ride we scouted.”

“Mm. So it’s that foreign crew. The Porsche? Where?”

“In there.”

He pointed. Ningxin ran over. Her heart jolted like a struck bell—it was Ye Yiyi’s sports car. Tang Coco had to be here.

“Coco, where are you?”

She scanned the shore, anxious, eyes like lanterns in mist. From deeper along the coast came faint gunshots, thin but clear—to an Abnormal like Ningxin, gunfire is lightning in the ear.

“There! Move!”

Certain now, Ningxin led the team at a sprint, feet drumming like rain.

They fought through rough ground and jagged paths, then reached the battleground. Every one of them froze, breath snagged like cloth on thorns.

Cliff walls and boulders looked carved by a giant blade, edges clean as ice. Rubble sprawled like broken waves. Blood slicked the earth. Severed limbs lay scattered like driftwood. Four middle-aged corpses lay apart, butchered, as if sliced piece by piece.

Even those used to bodies felt sick, stomachs turning like storm-tossed boats. It looked like pure cruelty.

But what stood ahead shook them more—especially Ningxin. She stared, rooted, as if frost held her ankles.

At the center, a black Mech girl, nearly two meters tall, stood on a slab of stone. Midnight Armor draped her form. Red light pulsed in the seams, breathing like a living thing. In her hands, a black mechanical longblade; the edge shone blood-red, paint or fresh blood impossible to tell.

On her crown, an asymmetric mechanical ear-cup; cables fed a pale-blue half mask, showing everything below the nose. Her hair blazed fire-red, a waterfall of flame down to her thighs. The Armor covered only key parts; white arms and long legs lay bare to the salt air, danger wrapped in allure.

“Ningxin… wh-who is she?”

A female member beside Ningxin stammered, voice a sparrow in wind.

“She… she’s the Abnormal I just found. Her Anomaly Power isn’t stable. I should’ve watched it. I didn’t expect it to slip loose.”

Ningxin murmured, words careful as stepping stones.

Tang Coco noticed them. Her crimson eyes, coals under water, looked through the pale-blue mask toward the newcomers.

“Coco… are you okay?”

Ningxin spoke, worry tightening like a cold tide around her ribs.

“Yo~ And here I was wondering who. The woman who meddled with me days ago.”

“You…! Are you… Coco?”

The words and the aura weren’t the Coco she knew. Ningxin was shaken, heart flitting like a trapped bird.

“Coco? Of course. This is me. The real me.”

“No. Coco wouldn’t be like this.”

Ningxin was sure something had gone wrong, a shadow over a spring.

“Ugh… you talk too much!”

She flash-stepped. In a blur of heat-haze, Tang Coco was in front of Ningxin.

“Ningxin!”

Everyone jolted. Fire flared like tongues. Vines stirred like snakes. None dared move. Tang Coco’s longblade lay on Ningxin’s neck, a winter edge breathing cold.

“Oh? You don’t seem afraid of death?”

The slender mechanical edge hovered a finger-width from her throat. Tang Coco’s tone was amused, a cat playing with a moth.

“I don’t believe you’ll kill me.”

Ningxin held her gaze, seeing the sultry face behind the mask like a rose behind ice.

“Heh. Naive. You women are so soft. Whatever. I can’t stay like this forever. That weak me still needs your help. I’ll spare you—for now.”

She lowered the blade and, to their surprise, walked to the shattered rocks, steps like embers going dim.

“Soon there’ll be a prismatic stone under this. Take it back. Guard it. Got it, little chick?”

Tang Coco spoke without looking back, words tossed like pebbles.

Being called that rubbed Ningxin wrong; few ever dared address her so. But the moment was a knife’s edge; she swallowed it like bitter tea.

“Alright. Back up, rookies.”

She didn’t wait for replies. One hand on the blade. Blue-red particles jetted from her back, twin comets roaring. The red glow around her deepened, a furnace breath. Then her body became a streaking afterimage, carving the ground like a storm through bamboo.

The tremor and energy ripples drove Ningxin’s team back to the cliff wall, bracing like trees in a gale.

After barely ten seconds, it stopped. Dust thinned like fog at dawn. They moved to the center, feet cautious as deer.

The place looked earthquake-torn, stones everywhere. At the center, a crater yawned. Inside, a girl lay sprawled atop a blue-violet prismatic stone, unconscious, like a fallen star on cold glass.