Watching Remilia Scarlet spread her majestic, bat-like wings and glide elegantly straight up into the high sky as well, Talulah adjusted her grip on her scabbard, asking with a distinct note of analytical concern, "There won't be any severe, catastrophic problems resulting from this match, will there?"
Hong Meiling, who was lounging nearby with her arms crossed comfortably behind her head, let out a massive, unbothered yawn before lazily waving her hand dismissively.
"Oh, relax! It is honestly just the equivalent of setting off a few festive backyard fireworks," the gatekeeper said with a chuckle. "How exactly could there be any real, life-threatening danger involved in a standard game?"
Up in the wide expanse of the clear sky, Flandre and Remilia hung suspended in the air, standing directly facing one another across a distance of several hundred meters.
Down below, Patchouli Knowledge casually flipped open a thick, ancient grimoire with one hand. With a silent flick of her fingers, she deployed a massive, shimmering translucent protective barrier across the upper atmosphere, ensuring that their chaotic Danmaku wouldn't accidentally slip past their perimeter and catastrophically fall to the vulnerable ground. Because of this magical anchoring, the entire structural range of their explosive "battle" was completely and safely confined to the upper heavens.
"Big sister, I am officially starting right now!"
Flandre finished shouting her playful warning and immediately raised both of her small hands high above her head.
VUUUM—
In the blink of an eye, four massive, intricately glowing Magic Circles abruptly materialized in a square formation directly around Remilia's floating form. The very next millisecond, a torrential, spiraling wave of vibrant red and white Danmaku surged outward from the circles, violently converging straight toward her at the center of the trap.
Remilia, however, remained utterly unfazed. With supreme, breathtaking grace, she calmly and fluidly maneuvered her slender body through the incredibly narrow, microscopic gaps within the swirling storm of energy. Those fast-moving Magic Bullets merely grazed past the flowing edges of her royal cap and vestments without managing to physically hit or clip her form at all.
After effortlessly dodging the initial ambush for a few brief seconds, Remilia extended her index finger, pointing it directly toward Flandre's position.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Several exceptionally large, dense crimson Magic Bullets shot out from her fingertip, tearing through the air at a breakneck, rapid velocity.
It was only because Flandre was already deeply, intimately familiar with her older sister's standard offensive opening moves that she was successfully able to dodge the massive projectiles with incredibly quick, hyper-acute reflexes. For any ordinary native Terran warrior unfamiliar with this mystical methodology, this single, lightning-fast opening move could easily blast them into unconsciousness and defeat them instantly.
But merely dodging the initial path of the large Magic Bullets wasn't the end of the threat. The moment the large spheres traveled past her, countless smaller, razor-sharp Magic Bullets violently exploded outward in a radial pattern along their entire trajectory, saturating the empty air.
Seeing the inescapable wall of tracking energy closing in, Flandre's form instantly blurred, splitting into four identical, fully physical manifestations. Among the four clones, two of them tightly gripped the legendary, crooked blade Laevateinn, swinging the fiery swords in wide, blazing arcs to violently slash and detonate the incoming Magic Bullets safely away from their core. Meanwhile, a third clone rapidly fired off a volley of unique Magic Bullets that violently ricocheted everywhere off the edges of the barrier, while the final clone deftly wove her dense energy projectiles into a massive, interlocking net, casting it aggressively forward toward Remilia.
Not far away across the arena, Remilia loudly and fiercely scolded her younger sibling, shouting over the wind that she was being utterly immoral and cheating by unceremoniously ganging up on her elder sister.
Flandre, however, merely stuck out her tongue, cheekily stating that Four of a Kind was originally her own foundational, signature Danmaku technique, and was therefore completely within the legal boundaries of their established rules.
"Hmph! If that is how you wish to play, let me properly show you the absolute majesty and overwhelming power of your big sister, Flandre!"
Remilia finished speaking her piece and raised both of her hands high into the air. In the very next split-second, a terrifyingly dense, suffocatingly tight barrage of dark crimson Danmaku shot out rapidly in all directions across the horizon, utilizing her body as the central, echoing axis of a massive, expanding star burst.
"Uwah! That is way too much to handle!"
Flandre cried out in a mixture of excitement and panic, her four clones frantically splitting apart as they tried to simultaneously counterattack while dodging the relentless wall of projectiles.
Down below on the solid dirt of the training field, the gathered Reunion Movement crowd watched the kaleidoscope of colorful, continuous explosions rocking the sky, and not a single one of them could help but swallow hard, their throats dry with awe.
"Is this... is this truly the casual 'Danmaku game' that Flandre endlessly mentioned to us before?"
The veteran soldiers collectively felt that they had already significantly overestimated Flandre's sheer operational capabilities during her previous outings, but looking up now, they realized that their prior estimation was far from being anywhere near enough to capture the truth.
Based on the jaw-dropping scene of continuous, earth-shaking explosions lighting up the sky like a beautiful yet apocalyptic fireworks show, in terms of sheer raw, offensive combat power, this display could easily rival the coordinated broadside fire of one or two fully loaded, industrial High-speed Battleships.
But a military High-speed Battleship's heavy artillery broadside fire inherently possesses distinct, mandatory intervals for reloading and cooling down its barrels. The terrifying explosions presently chain-reacting in the sky above them were entirely seamless, unbroken, and continuous.
Most crucially of all, the strategic movement and operational deployment of a massive, land-based High-speed Battleship are fundamentally constrained and limited by the natural geography of mountains, ravines, and wide rivers. But these two entities dancing in the clouds could effortlessly go wherever they pleased across the continent without a single care for terrain.
If a major world power foolishly provoked them, and these two suddenly descended upon an active army encampment or a heavily fortified nomadic city, raining down a barrage of indiscriminate, high-density magical bombing before casually flying away into the clouds, the primitive anti-aircraft capabilities of most current nations wouldn't be able to restrict or hit them in the absolute slightest.
What kind of top-tier, unpreventable strategic weapon of mass destruction is this?
"Will I... will I truly be capable of becoming something like them in the future...?" Yelena asked, her voice hushed in utter disbelief as the colorful light reflected across her porcelain features.
"Your newly restructured biological ability is strictly related to the manipulation of absolute ice and ambient cold air, so you might not necessarily achieve the exact same chaotic, explosive destructive power as the Eldest Mistress and Second Mistress," Sakuya Izayoi, who was standing poised beside her, noted calmly. She glanced briefly at the silver-haired woman before continuing, "However, once you successfully unlock and develop your full, rewritten potential, your overall output should become incredibly similar to the scale of what these two are currently displaying right now."
Hearing Sakuya Izayoi's professional clinical assessment, Yelena's clear eyes were instantly filled with a profound, burning sense of longing and determination.
The perfect maid then turned her sharp gaze toward Alina, who was standing right next to Yelena, and said with a slight hint of genuine confusion coloring her tone, "As a direct, chosen blood relative of the Second Mistress through her lineage gift, logically speaking, you should be fully capable of reaching this exact operational level of power as well."
"But your current internal strength and combat output..."
Hearing Sakuya Izayoi's blunt, honest observation, Alina felt a deep blush of embarrassment creep up her neck, her fluffy ears drooping slightly. It was completely true that Flandre had left her an immense wealth of legacy treasures hidden deep within her awakened bloodline, spanning from ancestral combat knowledge to advanced magical manipulation methods. However, Alina had always firmly considered herself a peaceful logistics officer and an educator at heart. She had naturally focused all of her personal time and energy on various academic subjects, agricultural planning, and administrative duties, which meant her practical development in active, destructive combat was severely limited.
Yet, hearing Sakuya Izayoi's words now and staring up at the grand, awe-inspiring Danmaku filling the entire sky, a sudden, powerful thought of genuinely wanting to become stronger began to take firm root deep within Alina's gentle heart.
On the other side of the training arena, not far away from the commanders, Hong Meiling had enthusiastically assumed the role of a passionate field reporter, boisterously commentating for the confused spectators around her. After all, although the intense battle raging in the sky looked incredibly magnificent and visually stunning, almost no native Terran present in the arena could truly comprehend the tactical nuances or rules governing the exchange.
[The Second Mistress's opening sneak attack is called Taboo "Cranberry Trap". Come to think of it, the Second Mistress's unique techniques all seem to be fundamentally classified as forbidden arts!]
[For an ordinary, baseline combatant, they would definitely fail to react in time to Magic Bullets converging simultaneously from all four cardinal directions and get blasted to pieces!]
[But the Eldest Mistress is simply far too familiar with the Second Mistress's standard routines; look at how fluidly she easily dodged through the gaps without losing her footing!]
[Ah! The Eldest Mistress has officially launched her swift counterattack!]
[Her chosen technique is the Divine Art "Vampire Fantasia"!]
[Those large Magic Bullets are traveling incredibly fast, instantly creating one solid wall of projectile suppression in the air, then a second wall, then a third...]
[The Second Mistress couldn't dodge the trajectory in time; she was absolutely doomed to take a hit, but look at that! She immediately activated her next major move!]
[Taboo "Four of a Kind"! Wait, hold on, it is not over yet!]
[The four Second Mistresses have simultaneously activated three entirely different sub-techniques at the exact same time: Taboo "Laevateinn", Taboo "Maze of Love", and Taboo "Specular Reflection"!]
[Oh my goodness, this is neither socially compliant nor legally permitted within standard tournament play! The Second Mistress has completely violated the core gentlemanly spirit of the spell card rules! If we were back home in Gensokyo, she would have already been instantly declared the technical loser of the match for stacking cards like that!]
[Wait, look! The battle isn't over yet! The Eldest Mistress is choosing to completely match her energy and continue the bout!]
[So, how exactly will our grand Eldest Mistress choose to thwart the Second Mistress's entirely illegal maneuver?]
[Will she directly resort to unleashing her ultimate, undisputed signature move, "Scarlet Gensokyo"?]
[No! Look closer, that is absolutely not the casting signature for "Scarlet Gensokyo"!]
[The Eldest Mistress has intentionally revealed a brand new, terrifying technique! I remember this specific pattern from the archives... it is called "Fitful Nightmare"!]
[My goodness! The entire sky across our field of view is now completely, seamlessly filled with endless tracking Danmaku! I am afraid the Second Mistress truly is completely doomed to get trapped this time around!]
[This isn't just a simple fitful nightmare anymore, folks; this is a total, inescapable psychological nightmare!]
The surrounding Reunion Movement infantrymen and officers stared up at the sky in a total, jaw-dropped daze. Although they couldn't fully comprehend or follow Hong Meiling's hyper-passionate, rapid-fire sports commentary, the visual of the crimson Danmaku falling across the sky like a torrential, roaring downpour of pure energy still made their scalps tingle with an instinctual fear of death.
Fortunately, everyone present knew that this was just the two young sisters playfully messing around in a controlled setting, and the destruction was perfectly confined within a localized boundary. If this were to ever become an actual, real-world indiscriminate bombardment targeting an enemy nation...
...then Remilia operating completely alone could probably easily wipe the entire Reunion Movement off the face of the map in a single afternoon.
Up in the high sky, after frantically dodging through several consecutive rounds of the escalating barrage, Flandre discovered to her dismay that the surrounding crimson Danmaku was becoming increasingly dense, locking down her escape routes to the point where she couldn't even slash them all away using the flames of Laevateinn. She knew deep down that if she wanted to break this deadlock, she absolutely had to resort to using her ultimate defensive-offensive move.
The four identical versions of Flandre, acting in absolute, perfect unison with one another, simultaneously raised their small hands toward the center of the arena.
In the very next microsecond, massive, expanding circular waves of dense, undulating Danmaku violently exploded outward from their bodies, colliding head-on with Remilia's incoming "Fitful Nightmare" barrage in the center of the air.
This was Flandre's absolute ultimate defensive technique: Q.E.D. "495 Years of Ripples".
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-BOOM!
In an instant, countless thousands of multicolored, blinding magical fireworks violently detonated against one another in the space between the two sisters, creating a roaring wall of pure white light.
However, through the smoke of the clashing energies, Flandre quickly discovered that even with four of her fully physical clones working together to output maximum power, the absolute mathematical density of her projectile waves was still far inferior to her older sister's seamless, oppressive output.
She couldn't help but let out a frustrated, competitive shout, gritting her teeth as she violently increased her internal magical output to its absolute limit.
But the objective structural result of the clash did not change in the slightest.
The cascading line of explosions continued to slowly, relentlessly push back against her line, creeping closer and closer toward her direct position.
A brief, exhausting minute later, Flandre realized that she simply possessed no mathematical way to withstand Remilia's relentless, mercury-like suffocating offensive. Rather than taking a direct hit to her face, she decisively dissolved her remaining clones and dove straight downward out of the active combat zone.
"I give up! I officially give up!" Flandre shouted loudly toward the referee, raising both of her hands in complete, playful surrender as she drifted safely back down to the grass.