'Remember the timing of the last sword swing! Not too fast, not too slow!'
Facing one lightning bolt after another, Shiki's brain was already operating at its limit. Then, controlling all the power in her body, she unleashed a slash identical to the previous one.
"Hah ah ah ah!"
Accompanied by a delicate cry, Shiki, to Balladeer's shocked gaze, continuously severed the lightning he released.
"This is impossible!"
Balladeer couldn't understand. She was clearly just a human, so how could she do something even he couldn't?
How fast was lightning? If it were a block using similar power, he could understand, but what was this situation?
She cut his lightning. If it were that puppet or Beelzebul, it would be no problem at all, but the opponent was just a human!
'Incomprehensible, who exactly are you...'
Before he could think, Shiki's blade was upon him. Balladeer quickly controlled his six arms to swing his weapons to block, but they shattered instantly upon contact.
His pupils suddenly constricted to pinpricks, and an intense pain shot into his brain. That was his body, not something he condensed, so the breaking of body parts would naturally be accompanied by intense pain.
"Ah ah ah, you mere human!"
Balladeer's weapons were shattered one after another, until only the shield held horizontally in front of him remained.
Shiki aimed at the line of death on the shield, then, holding her sword with one hand, she directly pierced through the shield, then stabbed through Balladeer's left chest.
Balladeer's remaining hands instinctively grabbed the Nine Words Thunder, wanting to pull it out, but Shiki didn't give her opponent that chance. She pushed off with her feet, forcing Balladeer to leap off the cliff with her.
"For those you harmed!"
Lightning surged around Shiki, her power reaching an unprecedented peak. It surged into Balladeer's body through the Nine Words Thunder, beginning to violently destroy his bodily tissues.
Because his vision was obscured by the shield, that strike didn't hit the line of death on Balladeer's body, otherwise he would be dead by now.
But it didn't matter. Whether for those innocent people or for Xavier, Balladeer had to die today!
Balladeer also sensed the lightning invading his body and began to furiously unleash his own power. The two of them, like two golden and purple meteors, spun and fell from the sky.
Boom!
The ground was struck, creating a crater over a hundred meters wide. Shiki lay on the edge, contentedly exhaling a breath of turbid air. Although she hadn't hit the line of death, she had still used lightning to destroy Balladeer's core, and he wouldn't survive.
"Xavier, this old lady has avenged you…"
Shiki spoke, reaching out her left hand as if to grasp something, then let it fall heavily.
And beside Balladeer, a woman, or rather… a fox, appeared, one he was incredibly familiar with.
"Long time no see, Kunikuzushi, or should I call you Balladeer?"
"Cough, cough… As you wish…"
Balladeer could feel his body inevitably collapsing, and his consciousness was already blurred, about to dissipate.
"Is that so…" Yae Miko took out a pipe, lit the tobacco, and amidst the rising smoke, asked the question that was five hundred years late.
"Kunikuzushi, what do you seek?"
"Transcendence…"
"Kunikuzushi, where do you seek it?"
"World…"
"Kunikuzushi, where are you going?"
"Nonsense. Of course, I'm going to achieve true eternity…"
As his voice faded, Balladeer's body began to crumble into fine sand, starting from his limbs, and drifted with the breeze towards the endless ocean…
Rewinding time slightly, after Balladeer unleashed his form and burst out of the factory, Ayaka and the Traveler arrived at the research facility.
"Eh!? What is this!?"
Paimon looked in horror at the cultivation tank containing Xavier's head, the dense wires plugged into the back of his skull sending shivers down one's spine at first glance.
Ayaka and the Traveler's expressions were also grim; they had never seen anyone do such a thing.
"But… didn't Mr. Xavier just arrive a short while ago? How did he end up like this in just a few minutes?" Ayaka asked, puzzled.
"I think Xavier might have been put into a jar a long time ago."
The Traveler had a guess: it was the famous brain in a vat, transmitting various signals to the brain to make it mistakenly believe it was still "alive."
It seemed that the previous Xavier was in this state, but it was unclear what happened to his body.
"Is that so… Then Traveler, could I trouble you to put away this jar? Mr. Xavier shouldn't be resting in a place like this."
"Mm."
The Traveler nodded and stored the cultivation tank in the Serenitea Pot.
The three continued deeper, and soon they arrived at an area where instruments were chaotically arranged, with a huge hole in the ceiling above them.
"Such a big hole? They couldn't have gone up from here, could they?" Paimon said.
Lumine walked to the bottom of the hole and saw the golden-yellow thunderous storm outside, coloring the sky. Needless to say, they must have gone up.
"Ryougi-san has probably reached the surface, which means it's temporarily safe here."
"Phew~ That's good…"
Paimon breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't want to face such terrifying people again.
Ayaka looked around and finally found the wakizashi she had given Xavier for self-defense on the ground, along with a Gnosis that had lost its light.
Silently picking up the wakizashi and the Gnosis, and looking at the small pile of sand that shouldn't have been on the ground, she seemed to understand something.
'So that's it… Mr. Xavier, in your last moment, you also bloomed with your own light…'
Ayaka took out a handkerchief and wrapped up the sand pile. As the saying goes, fallen leaves return to their roots. He had lost his life in Inazuma, and his remains should not be left to rest here.
Boom!
Suddenly, a huge explosion reached their ears, and then the entire factory began to shake violently, with gravel constantly falling from the ceiling.
"Oh no! This place is collapsing! Let's go!"
The Traveler's expression changed, and she quickly ran back the way she came, heading towards the entrance. If they were buried in such a deep place, it would be difficult to get out.
The factory began to collapse, the collapsing corridors and rooms like a gaping maw, threatening to swallow them.
Fortunately, they managed to escape without incident, and Childe was already waiting for them at the entrance, though Yae Miko, that Fox, was nowhere to be seen.
"Tartaglia? Where's Yae Miko?"
"Oh? Are you talking about that Fox? She had something to do and left first."
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