Savior Crowd

The darkness receded, and the scene reconstructed.

The smell of gunpowder filled the air as a man opened his eyes to a vision of disaster. Fleeing people were screaming, city streets were burning, and skyscrapers were toppling. Gunfire shattered the silence, explosions erupted from unknown sources, and sirens faded into the distance.

Extreme villains sat atop armored vehicles, operating heavy machine guns to strafe distant titans. Monsters invading the city clashed with alien spaceships, while sharks flew through the air along columns of seawater to tear at pedestrians. Bombers dropped shells, and distant streets were swallowed by the fires of explosions, collapsing section by section.

A white waterfall poured down from the edge of the moon, and tidal waves of gravity pulled meteors down toward the city, which turned into fully armed, flame-shrouded land-air vehicles upon impact.

They looked up as the flaming land-air vehicles broke through the cordons, soaring over their heads from acceleration ramps. Under the leaden sky, it all felt like a bizarre, crumbling dream.

"Um, where is this?" the man asked.

"I'm not sure. I remember we weren't here just a moment ago."

"She's over there."

The five members of the Savior Crowd looked toward Akabane Tsubaki, who was not far away. The girl stood beneath the gray sky with a digital wall rising behind her. A blazing attack helicopter crashed behind her, the resulting shockwave blowing her red twin-tails into the air.

Only then did they notice that Akabane Tsubaki had changed her attire. Martin boots hugged her slender calves, and the spike-covered Alice swept across the ground. The hem of her black and white gothic gown caught the approaching dust, which was then ignited by sparks in the ash, looking like an eternal patch of dandelions.

A pair of skull earrings had flames flickering within their eye sockets. Akabane Tsubaki's cross-shaped pupils auto-focused on the confused group. The heat vents on her Apostle Armament opened, and the loader popped out.

She loaded several incendiary rounds into it, looked at the group calmly, and tilted her chin up.

"What does she mean by that?" one of them asked, puzzled.

"I don't know. By the looks of it, she seems to have hostile intentions toward us."

"Could it be that Her Highness the Holy Maiden wants to test our strength?"

"Huh?" Akabane Tsubaki drawled. "Did you really enter Skyline City without even knowing what a Visiting Battle by Overstepping Authority is?"

"Skyline City? So this place is called Skyline City?"

"Not sure."

"What does she mean by that Visiting Battle thing?"

Akabane Tsubaki was speechless. Were these five here to perform a comedy routine?

They had actually come to participate in the qualifiers without even knowing what a Visiting Battle by Overstepping Authority was?

She began to admire their willpower. Did they really come to Oasis just to find this so-called Holy Maiden?

Akabane Tsubaki almost felt bad about attacking.

"Let's just say I'm testing you."

"If the five of you can beat me, I'll go be your Holy Maiden. If you lose, the Savior Crowd dissolves on the spot, and you go back to train some more. How about it?"

"No." The leader shook his head. Akabane Tsubaki then noticed a large 'One' marked on his face mask, something she hadn't seen before.

"We are here to liberate people from this filthy world."

"This is the mission of our Savior Crowd. We cannot agree to Her Highness the Holy Maiden's request to dissolve."

"If we lose, we will go back and train until you recognize us."

Akabane Tsubaki let out a long breath and raised her baseball bat toward the five of them. "Then shall we start fighting?"

"We will give it our all," One said with a nod.

The moment the battle began, several burning land-air vehicles drove in from four different directions of the street simultaneously, their ear-piercing drones echoing under the gray sky.

Akabane Tsubaki stepped to the side, letting a burning land-air vehicle brush past her chest. Then, she began to sprint toward the five of them at high speed.

During her run, Akabane Tsubaki's figure gradually became transparent under the effect of Optical Camouflage until she merged with the environment, entering a stealth state.

The five men moved as if they had practiced together countless times, simultaneously shrinking into a concentric circle. With synchronized steps, they dashed across the ground, their legs interweaving to leave behind series of afterimages.

At first, Akabane Tsubaki didn't understand what they were doing until she saw them rotating at a speed visible to the naked eye through their interweaving steps. They spun faster and faster, the 'One, Two, Three, Four, Five' marks on their masks flashing by like a spinning mechanical wheel, merging into a single entity.

Looking at them head-on, the five of them had seemingly become a ten-armed, five-faced Vajra.

A speeding land-air vehicle roared toward them. Three, who was well-built, happened to be facing it. He let out a loud roar, the muscles in his arms surging like waves before rising like a mountain.

He smashed a fist into the front of the vehicle, denting the metal and shattering the glass. The entire land-air vehicle was halted as a shockwave erupted. The front of the car sank, and it flew into the air, tracing a scarlet arc before crashing straight into a nearby building.

Akabane Tsubaki's mouth hung open slightly.

But it wasn't over. A second land-air vehicle arrived immediately after. This time it was Five's turn. He roared as the ten arms behind him struck out like machine guns.

"Ora ora ora ora ora!"

The punches were so fast that an ordinary person could only see afterimages. The power of each punch was enough to shake mountains and shatter stones, physically denting the front of the car. The entire body of the vehicle grew flatter under the high-speed punches, quickly being compressed into a metal disc. The ten-armed Vajra threw it like a circular saw at the last land-air vehicle flying through the air, cleanly slicing it into two sections.

Akabane Tsubaki's pupils trembled.

At this moment, only one thought remained in her mind.

Maybe these five really could save the world.

An ear-piercing horn sounded from behind her. Akabane Tsubaki snapped back to her senses and leaped into the air, landing on the roof of that land-air vehicle. Timing her movements perfectly, she began jumping from one car to another.

In this combat space, a wave of burning vehicles seemed to rush out every five seconds. Both sides of the battle needed to dodge the collisions while launching their attacks.

Clearly, these rules favored stealth-classes or hunters with high agility.

However, Akabane Tsubaki broke into a cold sweat. As she dodged, she spared some energy to look back, unable to withstand the absurdity of the five merged men using their god-like strength. The ten-armed Vajra charged straight through the center of the traffic flow, punching through sedans and kicking over school buses. When they stood their ground and held their breath, they were like an indestructible golden bell. Trucks that collided with them were as fragile as Lego bricks, sending burning metal fragments flying like a rainstorm.

"Her Highness the Holy Maiden, watch closely as we prove ourselves!"

The roar, like molten iron, exploded in her ears, and Akabane Tsubaki was almost moved to tears.

Hey, hey, hey, are you serious?

What is with these five? Isn't this a bit too ridiculous?!

This wasn't right. Weren't the people from Nine Dragons Street supposed to be scholars or literary youths? Why did the art style become so bizarre when it came to her?

Everything was fine before. Why did it have to become so unlucky the moment it was her turn?!