“Huh?! Hey! What are you doing!”

Aer didn’t spare the shouting figure a glance; she pressed the stone into Ling’s body like sinking a star into a moonlit lake.

Light spilled from within Ling, blooming like dawn over snow.

A lizard-like figure in a white lab coat roared, his voice like gravel in a storm.

“Damn it! Do you know what you just did? You gave the core to the final designation—she’ll gain magic! When she does, what do you think she’ll do? You gave her your core—you won’t live!”

To Aer, his words were a mosquito whine by a stagnant pond; she flicked a sphere of mana and erased him like a spark snuffing a moth.

“Shut up. If I don’t do this, I’ll never escape your suppression field, that iron cage in fog; risk it all, maybe a rusted bike becomes a roaring motorcycle—I’d rather fight than wait for the cliff.”

For the first time, the greatsword-bearing lizard’s expression cracked like ice at noon; a Yokai like Aer, brainwashing failed and will blazing, was a rare storm on his chart, but duty stayed iron.

He drew the greatsword, laid it flat to his chest like a pale moon, then lunged and cut forward like a breaking wave.

“Horizontal Slash!”

The blade swept left to right like a scythe in wheat; Aer leaned back like a reed in wind and let it pass.

With both arms cradling Ling like guarding a hearth, she couldn’t throw a punch; she sprang to the lizard’s crown like a sparrow to a branch, green mana pooling underfoot like moss.

“Weight Overload!”

Gravity spiked ten thousandfold, a mountain dropping out of the clouds; Aer fell like a meteor and stomped his head with a thunderclap.

A normal brain would burst like ripe fruit, red under rain; his skull took the blow like bedrock under a flood.

Aer didn’t stop; her right foot lifted like a hammer raised at dusk.

“War Stomp!”

Thud!!

Her heel crashed into his face like a bell struck in a temple, and with ninety-thousandfold gravity still pressing like a black sea, you wouldn’t be talking scars—you’d be picking a coffin under cypress shade.

His face showed only light damage, a scratch on granite; he caught Aer’s ankle in one hand like snagging a snake and flung her rightward like tossing driftwood in surf.

Aer rose from the ground slowly, breath steady like mist, her eyes locked with his like twin blades crossing.

“Specimen 9527,” he said, voice cold as steel, “decent combat skills. Looks like those other ‘you’s gave you a storm of good knowledge.”

Aer snorted, a shard of frost in summer.

“Hmph… what’s that to you?”

A rainbow mana cannon roared from her hand like a comet; it struck and wrapped his body in a blazing tide.

Inside the roar, he felt only mosquito bites on thick hide, a drizzle on stone, hardly any harm.

“Tch. That defense is obscene—are you carved from mountains? Is there nothing that can hurt you?”

“Specimen 9527,” he said, tone flat as paper, “I’ve avoided high-power attacks so a precious specimen doesn’t break; that doesn’t mean I can’t break you. To spare yourself pain, surrender.”

“Shut up! I’ll say it one last time. I’ve prepared for today like weaving a net in rain. You’re just that guy’s broken shard, a chipped mirror—I’ll never quit because you tell me to.”

He kept trying, persuasion like a machine’s ticking, duty grinding on like gears in the dark.

“Even if you escape, with a body missing its core, what can you do? Haven’t you noticed your form blurring like fog? Your hands are turning transparent like glass.”

Yes—Aer had noticed; her body was going hazy like smoke, her hands almost clear like ice; separating the core cut off mana like severing a spring, and she’d fade like a candle guttering, the flame thinning in night wind.

“Even if I die, I’m taking Ling out,” she said, heart steady like a drum under rain.

At her tender way of naming Ling, the lizard’s brow tightened like a knot.

“You’ve formed friendship? That violates the Specimen Protocol carved like law on stone. You have two choices: die or be brainwashed.”

“Then… I choose a third.”

Aer’s mouth curved with a victor’s smile like a crescent moon; her body burst with white holy light like snow at noon.

“Life Sacrifice: Grasp of the Worldline!”

At that, fear finally crept into his face like a shadow crossing the sun.

“Why would you use that!”

Aer’s reply was a contemptuous smile, a blade hidden in silk.

“It’s the simplest thing we have… love. You, with no feelings, wouldn’t understand the river under the ice.”

She cut the air with a ghostly stroke, and his sword shattered like glass, fragments rising like stars into the dark.

“Honestly, I should thank you. Without your so-called mercy, I wouldn’t have had time to prepare this gift wrapped in thunder. So—may your passing be peaceful, like leaves floating down.”

Her hands closed as if grasping an invisible thread, then tugged; the air cracked with a sharp sound like breaking frost.

The lizard left the world with his blade, gone like dust on the wind, returning to his original shape—fragments drifting like ash.

Blue lights spiraled in Aer’s palm like fireflies, all that he was condensed like dew; she’d done all this for this bell-strike of a moment, and next she’d let this place vanish like fog at dawn.

She reached for threads no one else could see, lines like spider silk in moonlight.

“Causality Severance!”

No sound followed—only the thread snapping by itself like a twig; the world drowned in darkness like ink, with Aer and Ling shining like twin lanterns.

Aer glanced at her near-transparent body, and sighed like wind through pines.

“Gotta hurry. Then…”

She closed her eyes; white light flowed like water, and then snapped open; her pupils held white lines like rivers of starlight.

“Worldline—Converge!!”

Bang!!

Aer’s body dissolved from feet to crown like petals in a storm, yet her eyes blazed with excitement like flames at dawn.

“This way… it’s over.”

She pressed her small mouth to Ling’s like a quiet vow, then parted like drifting clouds.

“This me is shameless… I’ll send you ahead to see the lilies, white as moon-snow… but wait for me.”

With those last words, Aer vanished like a final ember; darkness thinned like night before sunrise, and Ling’s body appeared on a stretch of land carpeted with lilies, white waves in a field.

A single bright tear shone on Ling’s face like a star, and a glowing orb beat at her heart like a small sun.