Chapter 62: Seeing Clearly

"Who is there? Show yourself!" she swept her gaze across the surroundings and shouted in a low voice.

Rustle—!

Combining her mind pushed to its absolute limit with the processing power of her battle armor's auxiliary brain, she caught a faint, sudden disturbance in the void behind her—a microscopic rustle of movement.

"Warning! Death warning... High-energy approach detected. Please evacuate immediately, please evacuate immediately..."

Even without the reminder from the auxiliary brain, just feeling the leaking energy fluctuations caused a terrifying tremor to wash over her entire body like a flood.

"I am going to die—!"

She was utterly certain of this in her heart.

In an instant, discarding any concern for her mission target, she hurled it backward.

Every bone in her body clicked loudly, her muscles tightened like hemp ropes, and her skin temperature surged to seventy degrees Celsius...

A terrifying force surged through the soles of her feet as she stomped down heavily.

Boom!

The hard rockery she stood upon shattered, and her figure shot forward like an arrow.

The surrounding air was blasted away, forming a expanding circle of white shockwaves.

Swish!

A continuous string of intestines and visceral organs spilled from her abdominal cavity into mid-air, lashing against the bushes below as her upper body rocketed forward, hanging suspended upon them.

Only then did she realize that her lower body had vanished at some point, leaving a torrent of blood and entrails streaming behind her.

Plop!

Lacking momentum for the remainder of her flight, her upper body plunged straight toward the ground.

The void rippled slightly, and the faint, ten-meter-long outline of a giant catfish flashed and disappeared. Her upper body vanished along with it.

Peace and tranquility returned to the garden.

The discarded Wakaba, still wrapped in a bedsheet, traced a parabolic arc through the air and landed squarely in the arms of a gentle young girl—Keiko.

Keiko wore a black long dress that did not belong to the academy uniform, with a fluffy hemline and a full, rounded bosom that revealed a deep cleavage.

"Oh my, oh my~~, Wakaba-chan, you're safe now!" Keiko comforted the girl in her arms, only to find that Wakaba was still fast asleep.

"This idiot is still sleeping?" Huolian appeared eerily from the side.

She was wearing that set of mysterious battle armor, which was in a completely different dimension compared to the so-called armor worn by Kazuko Kawamoto.

The armor clung tightly to her entire body, outlining a slender, youthful girl's physique, with a chest even flatter than Wakaba's.

She had been there the entire time, but since Keiko had acted, she didn't get the chance to step in.

Last time, both of them had been occupied, and by the time they discovered Wakaba was missing, no trace of her could be found.

They had originally thought Wakaba was locked in solitary confinement by the headmistress, never expecting she had been kidnapped...

Watching Wakaba sleep soundly, Huolian felt her anger flare up. They had worked themselves to the bone to rescue her, yet she was sleeping through it all.

She reached out to pinch Wakaba's cheek, only to have her hand slapped away. "Ah! I died again!"

The stunning little girl mumbled fuzzily and loudly, "No way, let's go again. This time I'll definitely see that blade..."

Huolian: "..."

Keiko: "..."

Both of them fell speechless at the same time. Connecting this to whatever nonsense the idiot was muttering during the day about beating up bad guys, could dreams even form a continuous series?

They didn't understand, but they were deeply shocked.

"The effects of the sleeping potion probably haven't worn off yet," Keiko offered after a long moment, explaining on Wakaba's behalf.

Huolian let out a cold snort and said nothing.

She walked over to the spot where Kazuko Kawamoto's blood had spilled, reached out to touch it, and activated the armor's system, Queen. Results were generated shortly after.

"This trace of gene-editing... It's a genetic modifier," she murmured, then looked at Keiko. "Genetic modifiers of pure flesh and blood are usually deployed for assassinations in high-end venues, and the largest assassin organization in Settsu City is..."

"Don't look at me. I'm just a magical girl; how would I know anything about shrines?" Keiko shook her head gently with a tender smile.

"Ah~~, I died again, waah waah—!" Wakaba in her arms started shouting again, waving her hands about.

"There, there, good baby, Mommy is here, Mommy is here..." Keiko cradled Wakaba, gently rocking her with the demeanor of someone soothing a baby.

Huolian: "..."

"Still, shrine organizations generally work for money; the forces behind the scenes might just be hiring them." Pondering this, she couldn't help but look at Wakaba. "Just what secrets does this idiot hold that makes those people repeatedly snatch her away?"

She had already realized that from the first kidnapping at the port, to the second involving Dr. Kidaohara Ai, and now tonight's genetic modifier—this series of attacks was most likely orchestrated by the same faction.

"Perhaps it's because little Wakaba is so pretty~~" Keiko remarked casually, looking at the gorgeous girl sleeping peacefully in her arms, who looked as pretty as a little celestial fairy.

Huolian initially wanted to refute, but after glancing at the peerlessly beautiful Wakaba, she suddenly felt Keiko made a valid point.

"Aside from being a bit pretty, this idiot really isn't anything special," she muttered, curling her lip, her tone laced with thick jealousy. Whether it was her imagination or not, she felt like this idiot had somehow gotten even prettier.

Among the four girls in the dorm, she, Keiko, and Evalyn all knew that none of them were ordinary.

Only Wakaba—after long observation by the three of them—had proven to be utterly ordinary.

"Aren't you going back?" Keiko asked, holding Wakaba as she prepared to return to the dormitory, noticing that Huolian wasn't following.

"I have things to take care of tonight. You go ahead, I'll clean up the traces here for you," Huolian waved her hand and said.

"Thank you," Keiko smiled gently, holding Wakaba as she flashed back to the dormitory's backyard.

Upon entering the dormitory lobby, she saw Evalyn.

"Evalyn-chan, I'll have to trouble you to edit the security footage in the dorm again," Keiko said softly.

"It is already done," Evalyn nodded blankly.

...

————Pure Avatar Perspective————

The Realm of Mist.

Everything within view was enveloped in a gray haze. A persistent mist drifted through the air, and a continuous drizzle fell, pattering against the thatched cottage and the muddy earth, making a pattering sound.

Above the distant black mountain forest, ethereal water vapor slowly rose, forming a three-dimensional ink-wash painting—hazy, ethereal, and rich with distant artistic conception.

Boom!

The landmine Wakaba had buried in the ridge ahead was triggered, and the fireball of the explosion swallowed the towering crimson figure that had been hurtling forward, while also dampening the mountain-like oppressive aura it radiated.

She herself was within the blast radius, her body pierced in countless places by flying shrapnel, her internal organs and bones groaning under the pressure of the explosive shockwave.

Yet, a look of joy surfaced on her face. Even though bloody trails streamed from her wide-open eyes, she looked at the defiled beast ahead with a triumphant air.

The explosion had caused the defiled beast's blade to deflect by about five degrees. Although the trajectory of the blade's edge could still sever her neck, her mind was already made up: "I can dodge it!"

After nine consciousness sublimations, she was finally able to capture the blurred trajectory of the opponent's slash.

"Now is the time!"

Her entire body's magic power surged, erupting beneath her feet to violently propel her body backward into a tilt.

In the blink of an eye, her field of vision had sunk below the cutting plane of the opponent's blade.

Screeech!!

The next moment, Wakaba felt a coolness around her neck. Her body maintained its tilting posture, but her head crashed backward due to the impact of the slash.

She had been decapitated once again.

However, amidst her flying head, the corners of her mouth curled into a smile.

"This time, I finally saw it!"

At the very instant of death, her nine-times-sublimated consciousness had successfully captured the trajectory of that blade.

Just as the opponent's blade was about to graze the top of her head, it had inexplicably jerked at an angle.

An acute angle, not an arc!

It completely defied the laws of inertia.

Moreover, its speed had more than doubled, directly severing her head.