—Five minutes earlier—

Boredom pooled in Ling like stale rain; she opened the Script to test its fangs.

She read Alicia locked with the Black Dragon, a storm where Alicia was drowning.

Her chest tightened like a knotted ribbon; worry and hesitation clashed like twin tides.

She thought, a cold pebble in her heart: we… we have nothing to do with each other now.

The story reached the instant the Black Dragon would strike Alicia, a blade poised over dew.

Ling had steeled herself not to intervene, resolve like frost on glass.

But the page poured Alicia’s inner world, memories fluttering like moths around a lamp.

Only one line burned her eyes:

[Countless scenes raced through Alicia’s mind; the last was Ling’s smile, soft as spring light.]

In a heartbeat, Ling sprang up like a startled sparrow, not reading another drop.

By design, the Script only peeks one minute ahead, a sand-grain in the hourglass.

She ran that minute like wind through bamboo, and found Alicia right at that scene.

—End of memory—

“Stop!” A tender loli voice rang like a silver bell inside Alicia’s skull.

The killing blow fell like a hammer, yet a book rose like a shield and caught it.

“Who?!” The Black Dragon bounded back like a panther; anyone who took his punch wasn’t ordinary prey.

He looked and froze, ice choking a river; a loli had blocked his proud strike?

What a joke; the thought gnawed like a rat. Only one had ever stopped him.

He lifted his gaze to the loli, eyes twisting like wires; like seeing a fifty-year-old man in a dress.

“Are you… Zhuge Kongming?” The name dropped like an old coin.

“Ri—pft. You’re the creep. I’m not telling you who I am.” Her words snapped like a twig.

The Black Dragon exhaled like a leaking bellows; at least his lifelong rival wasn’t a cross-dressing ghoul.

“Whatever. Are you here to stop me from killing her?” His voice slithered like smoke.

Ling flushed and turned away, cheeks pink as peach petals. “N-no! I’m not worried about her.”

“I’m just passing by.” The lie hung like mist.

Alicia and the Black Dragon shared one thought, a spark jumping between stones: tsundere.

“Jerk! You’re tsundere! Your whole family’s tsundere!” Her retort cracked like thunder.

Ling fired a Magic Cannon; the shot blazed like a comet and howled through air.

The Black Dragon slipped aside like a shadow; dread pooled heavy as lead.

That Cannon’s mana was a burning ocean; a hit would cripple him, if not grind him to ash.

Ling’s eyes tracked him like hawks over a field, catching every twitch and turn.

Lian, an otaku for years, knew pre-aim like a gamer’s mantra; Ling fired where he’d flee.

Instinct screamed like a siren; the Black Dragon hurled an explosion spell into the Cannon’s path.

The blast kicked him midair like a gust under wings; he veered, dodging the roaring star.

He didn’t relax; caution hooked him like a fish. If he hesitated, he’d sink.

He drew mana like oil from a well, burning it fast as dry straw.

“Mind-Slow Domain!” Darkness poured like ink, draping the world in a midnight cloak.

Ling still saw him, yet his outline frayed like torn silk, jagged and incomplete.

Impossible; her heart pounded like drums. She could track a God King’s speed—was it the domain?

The Black Dragon didn’t care; while the field held, he whipped a leg at her head like a scythe.

A black blur bloomed on Ling’s right, a storm-shadow; before she reacted, force slammed like a wave.

The sudden kick threw Ling like a leaf; the Dragon hovered, eyeing his right foot.

His foot twisted into an irregular knot, wounds raw as volcanic cracks; it looked crippled.

What’s her skull made of? He snarled inside like a caged wolf. Full force, and rebound damage?

Ling rose from the rubble like a flower from ash, patting her little head like a cat.

She was unharmed, yet her eyes brimmed like rain. “Jerk, that hurt!”

The Black Dragon stared, stunned like a statue; she cried unscathed, his leg was gone, and he said nothing.

Who bullied whom? The question hung like a crooked moon.

Ling pointed her tiny pinky at him, a needle of anger. “I’m mad! You can’t fix this!”

“Huh?” He pointed at himself like a confused scarecrow, not sure who she meant.

Her answer was ten Magic Cannons, lined like stars; they screamed in parallel like a meteor shower.

He blinked through space like a knife through fabric, dodging the deadly sky-road.

The next heartbeat, as if fate were read like tea leaves, a loli pink fist smashed him away.

He steadied midair like a kite tugged by wind, touching his deformed face, soft as clay.

“How can you see my escape route?” His disbelief rattled like hail.

“Hmph. Secret.” Ling hid the Script behind her back like contraband.

“Tch.” The Black Dragon clicked his tongue like flint and reeled his domain in.

If it didn’t work, don’t waste mana; the thought cooled like iron in water.

He saw the loli waiting, playful as a cat with a mouse; fear spread like frost.

She was toying with him like he used to toy with prey, waiting for despair to bloom.

Ruthless; the word bit like winter.

He had no move to harm her; even life-burn would be a scratch, a fruit fly on stone.

He was at a loss; the road narrowed like a canyon. Time to use that method?

“Tell me, human,” he asked, voice low as a drum, “why so strong, yet living in such a frail land?”

Ling twirled a golden strand between two fingers, sunlight on silk. “If I could go back, I would.”

The Black Dragon shook his head, puzzled like a disciple before a cryptic master. “What do you mean?”

Lian couldn’t hold back; his words fell like pebbles. “No meaning. Use your move. I know you’re ready.”

Surprise flickered across the Dragon’s face like a lantern; still, he chose to invoke the art.

“Ancient Arcana: Existence Oblivion!” His roar surged like a tidal wave toward the moon.

Nothing changed; the air stayed still as a pond. Ling frowned. “Where’s the attack?”

Then blood erupted from his body like broken springs; he knelt, eyes wide as moons.

“Impossible! Impossible!” His voice shattered like glass. “Who are you?”

“This is for slaying gods! Why can’t it hurt you?” Panic writhed like snakes.

Ling stared, baffled as a child at snow; she felt nothing, yet he collapsed on his own.

What kind of trick was that? The question drifted like smoke.

He looked at her: loli frame, strange book, a face lit with steady confidence, like dawn on water.

He remembered whose shadow matched this shape; self-mockery cracked into a laugh like dry wood.

“Haha… so it’s the Demon Lord,” he said, bowing into death like falling ash.

“I was courting fate, blind to your return… To die by your hand isn’t an unjust grave.”

His body weathered away like sand in wind; only a core remained, dark as obsidian.

The Black Dragon’s core lay on the ground, a heart of stone.

Demon Lord? What’s that? The thought blinked in Ling like a firefly.

Confused as she was, she caught every word like nets catching fish.

As for the core, she’d leave it to Alicia, like placing a river stone back in its stream.