Miaoyue sat in midair, hugging her knees in utter boredom.
“One thousand and three Teachers... One thousand and four Sophies... No, wait, why isn't this one Teacher again? No, Teacher is usually too strict, I should start counting over. The first one will be Sophie, and all the rest will be Teacher. Teacher is invincible.”
“Damn it, is Sophie here yet? If she doesn't show up soon, I'm really going to send everyone back to the dust in perfect harmony.”
Spinning in circles, Miaoyue made a decision.
She would go out first to check on the situation.
The protection of the Invincibility Art was not infinite.
Although she could cast it indefinitely, she would bore herself to death.
Outside Silvervein City.
A blood-colored magic circle enveloped the sky and the city, turning it into a massive crucible of scorched earth.
The dark red mist, like viscous blood teeming with life, writhed and spread frantically through the fissures of the earth and the ruins of collapsed blocks.
Darkness and this touch of blood shrouded the world together.
The moon had vanished.
Evernight had arrived.
In such an environment, the vampires received a perfect, all-around enhancement.
The civilians' terror grew deeper. They could only pray for the Hero, calling out her name, but the Hero was currently “holding off” the Witch and could not come to save them.
Driven like cattle by the vampires, they cried out for help in sheer terror.
“What a delightful tragedy.” The Ancestor took a deep breath, circulating all his mana through his lungs before exhaling slowly. “So perfect.”
Meanwhile.
Miaoyue's Invincibility Art, after enduring countless heavy blows of holy light and the ruthless tearing of space, finally let out a sharp, crisp cracking sound.
Crack.
Miaoyue planned to step out for a quick look before retreating back inside her Invincibility Art.
Accompanied by a flurry of drifting reddish-gold crystalline light, the petite figure of the black-haired girl finally materialized in the void once more.
Miaoyue's long eyelashes fluttered slightly as she slowly opened her eyes.
In that very split second!
A cruel sneer played on the lips of the vampire Ancestor. The dark gold disc array in his palm detonated with a boom. The ancient blood slaughter magic circle, which had been charging for so long, instantly surged to its absolute limit. A dark red pillar of destruction, meters in diameter and woven from countless ancient blood-colored runes, locked directly onto Miaoyue's face and blasted downward!
The day of slaying a demigod.
Was today.
“For the Saintess! For the New Moon!”
However, a millisecond before that world-ending bloody light could consume Miaoyue, a fanatical, hysterical roar erupted from behind a pile of rubble nearby!
Accompanied by the glow of teleportation, Bishop Modi rushed out from the shadows of the ruins without warning, leading over a hundred New Moon Sect believers behind him. They formed a human wall of flesh and blood in front of Miaoyue.
The moment the unexpected turn occurred, the bishop had already begun regrouping his forces. Monitoring the shifting situation through surveillance magic, he had originally been teleporting the cultists out of the city one by one.
But the moment they saw their Goddess step onto the field, they returned.
To show their ultimate loyalty to the Moon Goddess.
In an instant, the fanatical faith deep within their souls completely overrode their fear of death.
Squeezing out every drop of their meager mana, they poured all their holy water and enchanted potions onto their shields, desperately trying to erect a fragile line of defense against the devastating blood light.
“Heretical worms... they completely overestimate themselves.”
The vampire Ancestor in midair tilted his head, a cold glint of disgust and disdain flashing in his crimson eyes.
Yet, the attack he had so carefully charged was ultimately blocked.
Boom!
A blinding crimson tide swept past, forcing eyes shut.
There was no bloody splatter of flesh, nor any shrill screams.
Within a ten-thousandth of a second of contact with that bloody ripple, Bishop Modi and his hundred-plus fanatics were physically vaporized and erased! In a single instant, their flesh, weapons, clothes, and souls were turned into blackish-gray dust drifting through the sky, scattered across the cold, scorched earth by the howling winds of the array.
At the final moment before his body dissolved, Bishop Modi still maintained his posture of lunging forward to shield her. In those slightly opportunistic eyes of his, nothing remained but an unreserved, fanatical resolve for his deity.
“Meddlesome bugs,” the Ancestor snorted coldly.
Though the sacrifice of Modi and the others was like ants trying to shake a giant tree before god-slaying power, the final mana barrier they had burst forth with all their might still rendered that devastating wave of slaughter imperfect.
It had been blocked.
To ensure he could execute a flawless, absolute kill on the Witch, the Ancestor frowned slightly. Forcing down his irritation, he raised his hand to readjust the core nodes of the ancient blood crucible array.
The ritual was so powerful that it would take a full thirty seconds to recharge its power.
Please don't go invincible again!
The Ancestor silently kept track of the seconds.
“Huh?” Miaoyue, who had intended to slip back into her Invincibility Art, widened her eyes.
She didn't understand why her followers had suddenly appeared only to throw their lives away.
But.
The New Moon Sect was her home!
Every single person in the sect.
She had been paying attention to.
Boom!
The massive greatsword of light slashed down once more as the Hero charged again.
But this time, a slender finger tapped against the greatsword of light, stopping its momentum dead.
Feeling the unexpected resistance, the Hero raised her eyes, meeting Miaoyue's cold gaze.
“Then don't blame me, Hero,” Miaoyue said softly. “You started this.”
“If only they are down there, it will be very lonely.”
“Everyone is afraid of solitude anyway.”
“So let's just put everyone together. The entirety of Solitude.”
“That way, no one will be lonely.”
With a flick of her finger, the sword of light shattered into pieces, and the Hero was sent flying backward.
Phase 5: Crown Liberation.
...
Black Gallows.
“It's fine. I still have a trump card.”
Sophie silently watched Miaoyue vanish before her and took a deep breath.
Don't panic.
Stay calm.
There's still hope.
She opened her system inventory.
As a faint ripple shimmered in the void, five formless, strange fragments appeared in her hand.
The Law Fragment of the Aphasia Witch, the Law Fragment of the Nameless Witch, the Law Fragment of the Puppet Witch, the Law Fragment of the Insatiable Witch, and the Law Fragment of the Perfect Witch.
The “dirt” she had scrubbed off while helping Miss Hero bathe.
Sophie had kept them all along as her ultimate trump cards.
Now, they could finally be put to use.
“Is it really worth going this far for Miss Knight?”
A soft, elegant voice drifted from behind Sophie.
“There is no 'worth it' or 'not'.”
“If you were the one in that situation right now, Little Dino, I would do the exact same thing.”
Sophie said casually.
Shironaka Fueno walked up to Sophie.
There was no surprise on her face; she had long known Sophie would answer this way.
After all.
This was her Elder Brother.
No matter how many eras had passed, and no matter that his soul had reincarnated into this petite girl's body, his foolishly gentle nature of treating his companions with equal care had never changed in the slightest.
“Then I shall wait and see.” Shironaka Fueno sat down casually to the side.
Sophie nodded.
She turned back around, carefully arranging the five Law Fragments on the scorched rocky ground, forming a crooked, highly irregular summoning circle.
But it was enough.
This was a ritual circle that any basic Cleric could use.
Its effect was to send a request for contact to one's deity.
In short.
Divine possession.
She was going to pray to the gods.
And the one who would respond...
The surrounding night wind suddenly ground to a halt.
Sophie pressed her hands together, chanting aloud in her most solemn, noble, and grand choir-like tone:
“O supreme projection wandering within the endless void and the cracks of time, O echo of the past controlling the wheel of the Red Moon of destiny!
Hear the offering of this mortal world, and listen to the echo of the great throne.
I am Hiso.
I have not truly fallen, nor have I been erased by destiny. It was only due to the tearing of laws and the pull of the abyss that I fell into an endless slumber beneath the lightless, freezing sea.
Now, the dark night shall rise, and the light of the Red Moon shall grace the earth once more. I have awakened with absolute power from the crevice of my slumber!
O mortal Witches and agents of the laws, if you yearn to witness my supreme glory once more, if you wish to rebuild true order in this war-torn world...
Hereby, I command you to offer up your power of laws!
Bestow your deepest pain, weakness, and all the burdens of your laws upon this chosen vessel!
Any calamity or curse capable of stripping spirituality, weakening the physique, banning mana, or shattering bones, I shall welcome with open arms. Hurl them all at my body!
In short!
I, Hiso, send money!”
Boom!
The clouds in the sky physically tore open a massive rift in an instant.
The five Law Fragments of the Aphasia, Nameless, Insatiable, Perfect, and Puppet Witches arranged on the ground simultaneously erupted into pillars of pitch-black law fire, shooting straight into the sky.
A mass-broadcast divine summoning.
“Do I need to send money too?” Shironaka Fueno tilted her head, watching the pillar of light shoot into the sky and then curve back down toward her own head.
“Cough... it was a mass broadcast,” Sophie said.
Sophie couldn't tell which Witches would respond to her.
Nor did she know if this “Qin Shi Huang transfer funds” scam could actually trick the Witches.
In the next instant.
More light cascaded down from the heavens.
When the first light fell, Sophie's tongue was the first to lose sensation.
Next were her ears, her eyes, and the remaining strength in her bones. She heard her spine snapping section by section within her body, only to be welded back together by something freezing cold in the very same instant. Pillars of light slammed down one after another, denting the scorched earth and making her nearly unable to stand—curses that stripped her spirituality, drained her mana, regressed her life tier, and threatened to sweep away her very memories.
It was too much. Sophie couldn't count how many Witches were responding to her, nor did she have the time to try.
【Heart of Yin is active... Status effects have been reversed.】
Rumble!
In an instant, the mana and life essence within Sophie's body erupted like an exploding supernova, violently bursting through her entire physical form and mana circuits!
The terrifying aura climbing steadily within her, threatening to collapse the entire space, transformed into a visible tempest of violent currents with her at the center.
“Now, they've all turned their gaze here,” Shironaka Fueno said, looking up.
“Who cares? Just do it.”
“There's still half a minute left. I'm off!”
Sophie exhaled a breath of turbid air laced with golden lightning.
Before her voice even faded, she bent her knees.
Boom!
Under the force of her leap, the high cliff of the entire Black Gallows mine physically sank by dozens of meters, instantly collapsing into tens of thousands of tons of flying debris.
Meanwhile, Sophie's figure had already transformed into a red-and-black torrent of destructive fire that tore through the night sky, blasting toward Silvervein City, two hundred and forty thousand meters away, at an extreme speed of eight thousand meters per second.
Wrapped in incandescent flames, she drew a fleeting, kilometers-long crimson scar across the pitch-black canopy.
Fueno stood atop the collapsing cliff debris, her dark blue skirt and blue hair dancing wildly in the howling wind.
“Oh dear, Elder Brother, even if you rush over now, you won't make it in time.”
“It's already over, after all.”
Shironaka Fueno shook her head with a smile.
But.
“If a play ends before the protagonist even arrives, wouldn't that be too much of a pity?”
“Since Elder Brother has asked me...”
“Then, let this world...”
“...perform an encore for Elder Brother.”
“Crown Liberation.”
Shironaka Fueno slowly raised her head, sky-blue flames dancing in her eyes.
“Domain Expansion.”
A tiny stage began to extend from beneath her feet.
Shironaka Fueno clasped her hands behind her back, a smile on her face, her eyes tracing Sophie's receding figure.
Elder Brother was always so understanding; he knew she wouldn't be happy to save those supporting characters who were about to leave the stage.
Tragedy was also part of the performance.
A so-called tragedy was simply tearing beautiful things apart for others to see.
A Puppeteer should not interfere with the performance itself.
But if it was merely solving the issue of the protagonist arriving late, that was another matter entirely.
For such an important performance, one couldn't use a stand-in, could they?
As long as it was Elder Brother, Shironaka Fueno was more than happy to offer timely help.
After all.
Her theater...
...had always opened its curtains for him alone.
Whoosh!
Accompanied by the violent trembling of the void, countless ethereal threads radiating a deep blue glow gushed from her fingertips like an endless blue galaxy.
In that ethereal dimension that mortals could never touch or perceive in their entire lives, something stood.
Legend had it that the time of this world was controlled by a massive clock.
It was hidden in a very, very deep place. Deeper than the sea, deeper than dreams. Its gears turned tick by tick; with each tick, someone died, a meeting ended, and an unspoken word became forever too late to say.
No one had ever truly discovered this clock.
The clock that traveled through the frames of time...
...began to move in the opposite direction.
Tick... tick.
The cold, mechanical sound of clockwork turning echoed.
Screech— screech—
Strange friction noises followed closely behind.
To go this far, even she would have to pay a heavy price and might need to rest for a while.
He'd better not take the opportunity of my rest to hook up with someone else.
Shironaka Fueno pulled her ten fingers back.
“Well then, let the second act of the performance begin.”
Tick, tick, tick.
Sounds that no one else could hear.
—The thirtieth second.
Above the void of Silvervein City, the grand brilliance of Phase 5: Crown Liberation withdrew and reeled back.
The crown's glow, which had nearly ignited the entire sky, dimmed inch by inch, pulling back into that petite body.
The Hero, who had been sent flying, flew backward in reverse, returning toward Miaoyue.
Two hundred and forty thousand meters away.
The deep pit and massive boulders of the entire Black Gallows mine, which had already sunk by dozens of meters, immediately defied gravity, piecing themselves back together one by one.
Only that single figure, who had just shattered the cliffside with a leap and soared into the sky as a red-and-black torrent of destructive fire, did not look back.
—The twenty-ninth second.
The greatsword of light shattered.
The shards of the giant sword of light, which had been shattered by Miaoyue's finger flick, froze midair in that instant, then frantically converged in reverse, piecing themselves back together one by one before falling back into the Hero's palm.
The flying Hero stood firm once more, and that slender finger touching the sword blade slowly withdrew.
“Little Dino is really amazing,” Sophie murmured in sincere admiration from two hundred and forty thousand meters away.
The texture of the air, the flow of mana, the concentration of blood under Evernight.
Everything was reversing in a bizarre manner. Only she herself, isolated from the torrent by a gentle force, continued to charge straight ahead.
She let out a low chuckle.
“Thanks. Once again.”
—The twenty-third second.
Miaoyue's cold, murderous eyes slowly lost their chill in the reversal, turning back to blankness. The descending greatsword of light rose back up in reverse, returning to a distant speck of light on the horizon.
“.oreH ,em emalb t'nod nehT”
—The sixteenth second.
The dark gold magic circle in the vampire Ancestor's palm, which had been charged for so long, was spitting its accumulated power back out in the reversal. That thirty-second-long buildup was visibly retraced and dissolved.
And Sophie could already see the outline of that blood-colored scorched earth crucible at the end of the horizon.
She flew even faster.
—The ninth second.
The blackish-gray dust drifting across the sky suddenly halted above the scorched earth.
The ashes scattered by the gale of the array began to move against the wind, gathering and condensing back into the same spot grain by grain.
Bones and flesh, staves and clothing, as well as those nearly annihilated souls, were all molded back together in the backward flow of time.
Bishop Modi's lunging posture materialized once more from a pile of black ash. The hundred-plus cultists behind him stood straight again. In those slightly opportunistic eyes, the resolute and fiery light for his deity slowly reignited.
—The third second.
Sophie crashed through the Evernight barrier at the outermost edge of the city.
She held the Oil-paper Umbrella in front of her, incandescent flames scorching marks onto its ribs.
Diving downward, she fell like a red-and-black meteor toward the city shrouded in Evernight.
The world was still reversing.
And she had finally caught up to the end of its regression.
—The second second.
The vampire Ancestor tilted his head.
The dark gold disc array materialized in his palm once more—this was the very instant of his first strike after charging his strength.
The ancient blood slaughter magic circle, charged for so long, instantly surged to its limit. A dark red pillar of destruction, meters in diameter and woven from countless ancient blood-colored runes, blasted downward, locking directly onto the petite figure who had just opened her eyes in the void.
The day of slaying a demigod.
Had arrived.
Two hundred and forty thousand meters away, atop the cliff that had been collapsing moments ago but was now perfectly restored, Shironaka Fueno stood with her hands behind her back, her dark blue skirt gently settling in the suddenly still night wind.
Weakened, she bowed to the empty air.
“Well then, let our performance begin.”
—The first second.
“For the Saintess! For the New Moon—！”
Behind the rubble, that fanatical, hysterical roar erupted once more. Accompanied by the glow of teleportation, Bishop Modi rushed out from the shadows of the ruins without warning, leading over a hundred cultists behind him as they threw their bodies of flesh and blood toward the world-ending bloody light in front of Miaoyue.
A millisecond before their bodies could touch that crimson ripple—
Whoosh.
An Oil-paper Umbrella snapped open above everyone's heads.
Sophie descended from the heavens.
With the incandescent flames yet to fade and golden lightning wrapping around her body, she held the umbrella with one hand and tapped her toes lightly against the void, landing steadily at the very front of Miaoyue, Modi, and the cultists.
The devastating dark red pillar of light crashed heavily onto that tiny Oil-paper Umbrella.
It did not pierce through.
It did not vaporize.
There was no black ash scattering through the sky, nor any shrill screams.
Under the rim of that Oil-paper Umbrella, the entire blinding crimson tide was completely diverted, torn apart, and annihilated. It transformed into two raging torrents of blood-red light that poured past the girl's sides, scorching the hem of her clothes and carving two bottomless trenches into the ruins behind her.
And beneath the umbrella.
Bishop Modi's lunging figure froze midair.
“...What?”
The cruel sneer that had just formed on the face of the vampire Ancestor in midair froze.
His crimson eyes suddenly contracted.
Where did this person come from?
His god-slaying strike, charged for so long and meant to be flawless, had been blocked out of air by an umbrella?
He didn't know who she was.
He didn't know where she came from.
And he certainly didn't know—that this strike had actually already missed once.
Miaoyue opened her eyes, and what met her gaze was Sophie, enveloped in lightning.
Red and black currents surged like an ocean behind her.
Miaoyue stared blankly at the figure.
A powerful aura flowed within the Saintess; she was nothing like before.
—What is there to fear? Isn't it just closing your eyes and counting? Just focus on casting your skill. When the channeling ends and you open your eyes, I'll definitely be standing right in front of you.
The person who had said those words had been gone for a long time.
“Ah, sorry~”
Sophie's hair whipped wildly in the gale, but a lazy, slightly smug smile played on her face.
“Sorry, sorry. There was a bit of traffic on the way.”
She shook the surface of the umbrella, flicking away the remaining traces of bloody light.
Her gaze swept over Modi and the others, over Miaoyue, over the hundreds of vampires and the Green Mist King, and finally landed on Kaila.
“My Saintess... you are too slow!!!” Miaoyue said, puffing out her cheeks.
“It's fine. Leave the rest to me. Take Modi and the others and leave first,” Sophie said.
“Exactly, what did you guys come here for? It's very dangerous here,” Miaoyue turned to look at the cultists, shooing them away. “Go, go, go. I'll take you away from the battlefield.”
“You cannot leave.” Seeing that the Witch seemed to be trying to escape, Kaila immediately charged forward, greatsword in hand.
But a figure stood in front of the Witch.
The greatsword's momentum was stopped.
“Sophie, you... leave quickly,” Kaila said with great difficulty, frozen in midair. “The current me...”
“Miss Hero is still Miss Hero. It makes no difference.”
“After all, Miss Hero was the one who personally asked me to 'come back'.”
“So now...”
“...I'm back!”
Rate on N.U.
