"Looks like you want a fight." Chu Lian pressed with two fingers, tossing the white-haired girl—blade and all—aside. She looked at the girl's cold face and murmured.
With a bare, delicate foot, she hooked up the Cold Beauty blade from the ground, took the two-meter-long saber into her hands, and pointed its tip at the girl. "I'll use the Cold Beauty to fight you. Let's see how it goes."
"Then try me." The white-haired girl paid no attention to anything else. If you want to use a blade, then use a blade.
She pushed off the ground, her figure shooting forward like lightning, sweeping a horizontal slash.
Clang~ The greatsaber caught her blade. Chu Lian twisted her body and kicked her in the waist, sending her back, then pressed forward. Before the girl could steady herself, Chu Lian chopped three times in succession, forcing her to draw her other blade to parry.
"Whether it's a longsword or a greatsaber, as long as I want to use it, I can." Chu Lian's exchange looked effortless, yet the girl's gaze locked onto her, both hands tightening around the twin blades, saying nothing.
"Since you're unhappy, let me see what it is that's making you so unhappy." Chu Lian exhaled, gripping the greatsaber with both hands and spinning it, whipping up gale after gale as she attacked.
With both hands on her blades, the girl cut apart the incoming gales in front of her. Staring at Chu Lian, her figure suddenly vanished.
"Shun!" In the next instant, while Chu Lian was still searching for her position, the girl's voice rang out—cold as a reaper's verdict.
Clang... Yet the sword art that had once forced Chu Lian into a flurry—making her use several abilities—was now blocked with a casual lift of her hand.
Two pairs of equally deep eyes met. As they crossed past each other, both turned in the same instant—clang clang clang~—a rapid series of collisions. Their figures grew faster and more elusive, until only two blurred shadows remained darting back and forth across the rooftop.
Fortunately, both had restrained their destructive power below the peak of the Spirit rank. The energy they released had no effect on the rooftop. Otherwise, with that exchange alone, this place would have collapsed.
Clang~ With a thunderous impact, the two stopped about two meters apart. A chaotic gale burst from where their weapons met, sweeping up dust that scattered into the air.
"I lost." The white-haired girl lowered her twin blades and spoke softly to the person opposite her.
The greatsaber rested on her shoulder, its edge less than a centimeter from her neck. The cold gleam felt like touching the iciest block of ice in midsummer—piercingly chill.
A strand of hair was lifted by a light breeze and drifted down. The two girls watched that wisp of white hair without speaking. Chu Lian naturally lowered the Cold Beauty and planted it into the ground.
"I lost. Next time, I'll win." The white-haired girl sheathed her twin blades behind her, turned away, and no longer looked at Chu Lian—as if none of this meant anything.
"You could try using 'Shun' with both blades at once. Maybe you'll gain something unexpected," Chu Lian said after a brief silence, watching her back.
The girl paused for a moment. She neither nodded nor replied, and continued toward the rooftop door.
"What a troublesome personality." Chu Lian shook her head. She knew why Kurosaki Satsuki had come. Just earlier, when she had been entangled with Li Xiu'er in Chu Chu's room, the one who had suddenly opened the door was her.
But at that time, Kurosaki Satsuki had shown no expression, said nothing, not even a flicker in her eyes. She stared at them for a moment, then simply closed the door and left.
Chu Lian had thought it was nothing. But at dinner, Satsuki hadn't given her a single glance, as if she were invisible.
So when she came up here to fight, Chu Lian understood—she had something on her mind. Unlike the other girls, who could confide in someone, or at least had someone to talk to...
With only Hiyori—the quiet, taciturn type—around her, how could Kurosaki Satsuki have anyone to open up to? She herself was already a woman of few words, and Hiyori was the same kind of action-first, speechless type.
Putting those two together was a nightmare for anyone lively. How could there be any real communication, any chance to speak from the heart?
So when troubled, the girl didn't know who to confide in, nor how to vent. In the end, it was only natural she'd come to fight the one who started it all.
"That kind of personality won't do. Unfortunately, it seems I haven't managed to change it yet. That's really a bad thing." Chu Lian set the greatsaber down, sat on the rooftop with her small hips, and thought about the white-haired girl.
Then she leaned back, covering her eyes with one hand to block the bright sunlight, a faint heaviness in her heart she didn't know how to handle.
"I'll just sleep. This has nothing to do with me." After lying there for a while, finding the gloom impossible to dispel, Chu Lian closed her eyes and gradually fell asleep.
As she slept, the sky suddenly changed. Black-red light spread out, centered above her, covering a one-kilometer radius around her home, turning it into an isolated world.
The wind stopped. The sun vanished. All sounds—human and otherwise—fell silent. Flowing water froze. Shards of a teacup falling to the ground hung motionless in midair. Almost everything became a frozen picture—except for a few girls within the building.
"What's going on, meow? So sleepy... let me sleep a bit more, meow." Tina, who had been asleep ever since Chu Lian fell unconscious last night, woke under a strange sensation.
In human form, she lay draped over the windowsill, rubbing her eyes and shaking her head, her long twin tails swaying—completely not awake yet.
"Something strange has appeared." Shu Ouma, who had been lying on the bed with a laptop, updating her knowledge of this world, closed it, set it by the bedside, got up, and came to Tina's side. Looking up at the black-red sky, she spoke.
"Something strange, meow?" Rubbing her eyes, Tina tried hard to wake up, but found herself too drowsy. She yawned, stretched, and only then managed to force her eyes open to look at the sky.
"A Heavenly Demon! Meow—Master is in danger!" The moment Tina saw the sky, all her drowsiness vanished. She leapt off the windowsill, transforming into a white cat midair, and dashed toward the rooftop.
It wasn't that she didn't want to reach Chu Lian by slipping into the shadow plane. Rather, within the area covered by that black-red light, all spatial power was restricted. Using it would only result in being thrown into some unknown turbulent spacetime stream—extremely dangerous.
"Lian." Seeing Tina so tense, Shu Ouma knew Chu Lian's situation was urgent. She immediately ran to the bedside, grabbed her handgun, opened the door, and rushed toward the stairs.
"What is this?" The moment the anomaly began, Li Mingxue and Yukari Yakumo—the two strongest here—sensed it at once. A mysterious force confined their ability to leave the first floor. Unless they reached the Transcendence Realm, breaking through was impossible.
"Another anomaly?" Though their bodies were restrained, their spiritual senses were not. Li Mingxue immediately extended her perception. When she saw the black-red sky, her eyes narrowed.
"Looks like the little one is in danger. Should we step in? My gaps aren't something this trivial can seal," Yukari Yakumo said calmly, gently blowing on the still-steaming tea in her hands.
"We can't get out. Even if your gap could take you instantly to the rooftop, the next second you'd be thrown into some unknown spacetime turbulence. Getting back would be troublesome."
Li Mingxue clearly felt an indescribable binding force. For her, it wasn't an unsolvable problem—but only if she released her full power.
Right now, she didn't dare act rashly. Releasing power at the Transcendence level might instantly destroy the enemy, but three seconds later, she would be cast out of this world, sent beyond the heavens. At that point, returning would be nearly impossible.
"Damn it... why am I always restricted from acting?" Li Mingxue was frustrated. Recently, their enemies were either inexplicable or the type that specifically restricted her actions, making it nearly impossible for her to save Chu Lian.
"Relax. This confinement doesn't just bind us—it binds the enemy as well. Only those below Heaven rank can act. And below Heaven rank... do you really think the little one can't handle it?" Yukari Yakumo remained composed. She knew far more about Chu Lian's secrets than Li Mingxue did.
For example, back at that graveyard—when it should have been a certain death situation—a massive dragon suddenly appeared beside the girl, radiating a power that even she found unsettling.
Though still weak, with that dragon's abilities alone, it would be difficult for the girl to die. Even if each activation required immense consumption and long recovery, it was still an overwhelmingly powerful trump card.
"But she just..." Li Mingxue's concern clouded her judgment. Chu Lian had only just awakened from unconsciousness—she feared she wouldn't be able to fight at full strength.
"You're her mother, after all. I may not know her exact origins, but I do know some of her abilities. This level of unconsciousness means nothing once she's awake, doesn't it?" Yukari Yakumo took a sip of tea, rarely offering comfort.
It was mainly because Li Mingxue suited her tastes. She looked just as young as a girl, possessed extraordinary talent, and although weaker than Yukari now, with her potential it was only a matter of time before she caught up.
More importantly, she had a youthful heart—capable in household matters and fond of teasing others. Of course, Yukari would never admit that another reason was that Li Mingxue was one of the rare humans whose chest could rival her own.
She had seen many humans. The white-haired maid of the Scarlet Devil Mansion—her chest size changed every time, and Yukari was already numb to it. Then there was Reimu Hakurei of the shrine—always wrapping herself tightly, likely flat, maybe slightly better than Chu Lian, but not by much.
As for others, aside from a few great youkai who could match her, she rarely saw anyone comparable.
Li Mingxue was an exception among exceptions. How could that not interest her? It just proved—without ample bosom, how could one win hearts? Chu Lian definitely wasn't her biological daughter, right?
Of course, to be precise, everything in this house interested her. It was just a matter of different aspects.
Since she was interested, she felt goodwill, and wanted to get closer. So offering comfort wasn't strange at all.
"Let's hope so." Li Mingxue calmed down slightly. Her spiritual sense remained fixed on the rooftop. The moment something threatened Chu Lian's life, she would break all restraints and go—no matter the cost, even if it meant never returning.
"When that happens, you won't need to act. I'll help you. Compared to you, even if I'm thrown to the deepest part of the dimensional universe, returning would still be effortless for me."
Yukari Yakumo set down her teacup and waved her hand, finally paying more attention to Chu Lian's situation. She was curious—how would the little one resolve this crisis?
"Mommy..." Anna opened her golden eyes in her sleep. A black inverted cross flickered briefly. Then she jumped out of bed, her small figure in pajamas following Shu Ouma up the stairs.
"Yanran..." Cai Ya and Li Xiu'er, who had been chatting with Liu Yanran, stopped. Feeling the pressure on their bodies, they immediately knew something had happened.
At this moment, what to do depended on Liu Yanran. Among them, she had the most experience dealing with such situations—from her previous life.
"We shouldn't move," Liu Yanran shook her head. The best thing they could do now was nothing—just wait for the situation to be resolved.
They currently had no combat ability. Going up would only force others to protect them.
"Let's go to the hall. If I'm not mistaken, Aunt Mingxue and Sister Yukari should be there." Liu Yanran's decisiveness made the others instinctively follow. They left the room and headed downstairs.
At the stairway, they encountered the Umbral Knight Hiyori. She looked at them silently and said, "Go to the hall and wait. It's the safest place."
With two of the world's strongest present there, sending the non-combatants to the hall was undoubtedly the best choice. Without worries, the others could fight freely.
"Be careful," they said. This had already been their decision, and now hearing Hiyori confirm it, they didn't stop her.
"To die on the battlefield—that is a warrior's fate." Hiyori left behind those words and departed.
"Big Sis!" Chu Chu, who could ride lightning, was the first to reach the rooftop. She looked at Chu Lian, who was slowly rising from the ground, and called out softly.
"Heh... Chu Chu, there's going to be a big battle soon. So... do your best." Chu Lian turned and glanced at her, speaking gently.
Then, gripping the blade shard, Cold Beauty's blazing white edge appeared in her hand. Her eyes lifted to the sky, waiting for the enemy she had already anticipated...