…I'll protect Shirou!
Ye Sizhen thought that as her gaze swept over the three people standing before her.
One was the Wandering Sea Magus who had granted her the Privilege of the Thought Key Rune.
Another, incredible as it seemed, judging from the divine aura wrapped around her...
She was not a Thought Magus capable of using the Immortal Path, but a true Immortal.
Any one of them stood far above Ye Sizhen in terms of a Magus's caliber.
As for the last one, her attire marked her as an Alchemist from the Atlas Institute.
Her presence could not compare to the other two at all, yet there was something unfathomable about her.
Ye Sizhen thought bitterly that even this young girl was probably more skilled at Magecraft than she was.
The overwhelming difference in strength between them was like a thick barrier, separating Ye Sizhen completely from the other side.
Only now did she understand how ridiculous she had been, feeling proud over merely grazing the surface of Magecraft from the Age of Gods...
"Hey, what exactly is going on here? Why aren't you saying anything?"
The Immortal wreathed in divine energy stared at Ye Sizhen with those flame-like golden eyes and pressed her again.
"How much longer must I wait?"
"!"
Sweat beaded at the back of the Thought Magus's neck.
She needed to stall for a little more time, if she could...
The one who helped her out was the female Magus from the Atlas Institute. "Wait, Wuzhiqi. You're scaring her."
Wuzhiqi...?
Ye Sizhen's pupils widened slightly.
How could that be...
No Thought Magus could possibly be unfamiliar with that name.
Over three thousand years ago, the continent of the Age of Gods was still under the rule of King Yu, one of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.
At the time, there existed a demon beast believed to be unmatched.
It resembled an ape, possessed strength surpassing nine elephants, had a blue body and white head, golden eyes and snow-white fangs, truly a creature with fiery eyes and golden pupils.
When King Yu was regulating the Huai River, that demon beast summoned storms and led an army of aberrations against him.
King Yu was greatly troubled by it, and in the end, he had to send an army composed of gods and dragons to capture it.
It was said that King Yu bound the hard-won demon beast in special chains and hung a golden bell on it.
That demon beast's name was "Wuzhiqi."
It was considered one of the original inspirations for the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, Sun Wukong, in Journey to the West.
Ye Sizhen held her breath.
Because she had realized that the demon king from ancient legend shared striking similarities with this woman.
Leaving aside the ape-like form, the flame-like golden eyes, the golden bell, even the chains wrapped around her arms were identical.
She had guessed that the woman's origins were anything but simple, but she had never imagined she would be someone this extraordinary...
Even so, I have to win... I must win.
I won't let these people lay a hand on Shirou.
Though Ye Sizhen herself had not realized it, deep down, she had already come to see Shirou as her new dream.
"Latio."
The blue-haired alchemist broke the silence.
"Latio Crudelis Hiram. That is this individual's name."
Crudelis...
Ye Sizhen recognized that name.
It belonged to one of the Six Sources of the Atlas Institute, equivalent to the Twelve Lords of the Clock Tower, or the families of the Tenth Floor of the Spiral Manor.
It was yet another extraordinary name... but at this point, she would no longer be surprised no matter what kind of great figure appeared.
A descendant of the Six Sages who mastered Alchemy of the Age of Gods. Of course she was someone Ye Sizhen could never compare to...
The violet-haired alchemist spoke. "Let's negotiate, Ziz's disciple.
Tell Latio where Shirou Amamiya is now. You brought him here, didn't you?"
"Shirou Amamiya won't be coming."
Ye Sizhen said without changing expression, "I lied to you earlier. I never captured Shirou at all."
"..."
Wuzhiqi raised an eyebrow.
Ziz, however, kept smiling.
"What do you mean?"
The blue-haired female Alchemist from the Atlas Institute asked, "Come to think of it, Latio has been sensing killing intent from you for a while now.
That should not be Latio's imagination. What exactly are you planning?"
Ye Sizhen said nothing.
As her answer, she elegantly raised her right hand.
Then, one after another, the dolls and masks Ye Sizhen had hidden throughout the estate appeared and floated into the air.
These were all the possessions she had brought to Japan.
Every doll Ye Sizhen had collected was an exceptionally high-grade Mystic Code, each one worth millions of dollars.
The many dolls and masks surrounded the three Magi in a circular formation.
"Oh..."
Wuzhiqi, the Immortal of the Summit Court, placed one hand on her hip and gave a bewitching smile, revealing sharp, white fangs.
"Not a bad little trick. To think a brat born in the modern age could manage this much... It must have taken quite a lot of work."
Hmph. Keep acting tough while you still can...
Ye Sizhen reached into her bosom with her left hand and took out the shell that served as the medium for Magecraft of the Age of Gods.
"Open and Close (Let this be the beginning)."
She activated the incantation (Spell) that connected her self to the Thought Disk.
At Ye Sizhen's command, the shell opened, and the Catalysts on its inner surface traced lines across her beautiful, unadorned face.
The crimson lip gloss and violet eye makeup were proof that the Thought Magus of the Watchtower of Possession had entered combat mode.
Good...!
Joy rose in Ye Sizhen's heart.
Just as she had expected, Ziz could not reclaim the Privilege of Magecraft from the Age of Gods once he had granted it to her.
Once a contract was formed, it could not be undone.
Unless that man died completely, Ye Sizhen could freely use the Thought Key Rune.
"You mean to defy us in order to protect Shirou Amamiya, is that correct?"
Even after things had gone this far, Latio was still seeking an answer.
Ye Sizhen wondered whether this girl might be some kind of artificial intelligence robot from the future.
Anyway, I'll take you out first. You look the weakest!
Ye Sizhen lightly swept her finger horizontally, and one of the dolls in the circular formation suddenly opened its eyes.
An invisible mass impact surged toward the three Magi.
But at that moment, the earth suddenly changed.
In the Garden where they stood, countless gray and white substances surged upward.
The grayish-white material, reminiscent of white bone, took the shape of monsters.
Ye Sizhen recalled a Greek myth she had once heard, in which a Magus could create an endless army of skeletal soldiers by throwing dragon teeth into the earth.
But what emerged now were all kinds of grotesque forms, spiders, wolves, bears, and skeletal birds that flew through the sky in defiance of the laws of physics.
The mass attack Ye Sizhen unleashed was stopped by the skeletal monsters, who threw themselves in its path like suicide shields.
Ye Sizhen realized they were most likely creations of Age of Gods alchemy, familiar spirits specialized for defense against Magecraft.
And their master appeared in the distance.
It was a skeletal giant nearly three meters tall.
When it raised the bone sword in its hand, every skeletal monster around it opened its jaws at once and surged toward Ye Sizhen.
The cheongsam Ye Sizhen wore had top-tier defensive capabilities. She judged that she could ignore the bites of these low-level familiar spirits.
So Ye Sizhen did not move. Instead, she kept her guard up against the three Magi and the Bone Giant, who had yet to act. They were the far greater threat.
Wait.
Ye Sizhen suddenly realized it.
These monsters only looked as if they were trying to bite her. In reality…
"BOOM—!!!"
Hundreds of monsters instantly transformed into Mana bombs.
They exploded around Ye Sizhen, blasting the ground beneath the Thought Magus high into the sky.
A few seconds later, the dust from the explosion gradually cleared.
At the center of the smoke was a glowing sphere, like an enormous bubble.
Inside that sphere, the ordinary laws of physics seemed to have lost all meaning. Rubble floated lightly through the air, some upright, some sideways, before stacking together at slanted angles and maintaining a strange balance like a surrealist painting, protecting a certain space.
Ye Sizhen stood unharmed at its center.
Her refined face, snow-white skin, the cheongsam adorned with glittering ornaments, and the Red Spider Lily Tattoo on her chest had not been touched by so much as a speck of dust.
When the highest-grade Mystic Code was linked to the Thought Key Patterns, even miracles that could no longer occur in the modern world could be reproduced.
Modern Magecraft, which had to deceive the world to bring about supernatural phenomena, was no more than dust before it.
This was Thought Magecraft of the Age of Gods, now permitted only to the immortals of the Summit Court.
And now, this estate had become Ye Sizhen's domain of immortal magic.
The mass of matter, the motion of molecules, even space itself, all now fell under her control.
"To think you could react in that state. That's impressive…"
The giant everyone had assumed was nothing more than a bone monster with raw power actually spoke.
Not only that, it even scratched the back of its head in a rather human gesture, as if somewhat irritated.
"What do we do next, Miss Latio?"
Startled by the contrast before her eyes, Ye Sizhen spoke.
"I heard that, in principle, the Atlas Institute doesn't allow weapons made inside its underground facilities to be taken outside, does it?"
Latio answered the Thought Magus's question with an utterly serious expression.
"Of course. No weapon has been taken out. This one... Tangere is Latio's bone."
"What?"
"Just as the Eltram family of the Atlas Institute can manipulate Etherlite like nerves, the Crudelis family can manipulate Exoform as their own bones. All the bones used just now were produced from Latio's body. As long as they are part of the body, they do not violate the precepts of the Atlas Institute. Yes, the Six Sources of the Atlas Institute, the name of the families entrusted with hereditary traits. For we seek the possibilities of our own bodies."
Ye Sizhen was left speechless.
She had not expected to come into contact with an entirely new field of Magecraft at the very end of her life.
The blue-haired woman said, "Tangere's personality was created by Latio by allocating two portions of her divided thoughts. Because it was allowed to grow according to its own judgment, the result was this disgraceful personality."
The Bone Giant said, "I never thought you could be so heartless! We're practically siblings, yet you criticize me like that. My heart aches, Miss Latio."
"Shut up. And don't call me Miss."
"Yes, Miss."
Ye Sizhen could no longer bear listening to their routine. Her gaze stayed fixed on Ziz and Wuzhiqi, the greatest threats present.
They did not seem ready to make a move yet.
A bell suddenly rang.
By the time Ye Sizhen reacted, Wuzhiqi had already vanished from her field of vision.
Ye Sizhen immediately drove the Mana throughout her body, creating a barrier around herself with no blind spots.
At the very least, it should hold her off for a moment, or so Ye Sizhen thought.
Clearly, as someone born in the modern era, she had still underestimated the Demon King of the Age of Gods.
Even after being sealed for three thousand years, even though this body was merely a temporary manifested Divided Spirit.
Wuzhiqi's power was overwhelming.
An arm as slender and supple as a young girl's casually smashed the defensive spell array blocking her path.
She shattered a barrier woven from Thought Key Patterns with brute force alone...!?
Ye Sizhen instinctively raised her "Enhanced" arms, guarding her chest as she leapt backward.
She had fully prepared herself to withstand the impact, but the force transmitted from Wuzhiqi's fist still sent her flying like a cannonball.
"...Ugh!"
Ye Sizhen's body crashed into a distant building and was finally buried beneath the rubble.
How long had she been unconscious?
Ye Sizhen's Magic Circuits had kept recording the passage of time. Only a few seconds had passed.
But most of her functions were gone.
This was...
She quickly grasped her current condition.
She had lost all feeling in her lower body. Her spine was probably broken.
The Thought Key Patterns were repairing themselves automatically, but although she had learned Age of Gods Magecraft, the rank of the Key Patterns themselves had not risen.
They would need time before they could function perfectly again.
With her spine destroyed, she could no longer activate the Magic Circuits formed parallel to her nerves.
...Was this the end?
A voice came from above.
"Hey, hey, you've got to be joking, right?"
Wuzhiqi looked down at Ye Sizhen, who lay on the ground like a rag.
"It's been a long time since I got serious. With all that bold talk of yours, I thought you'd be something special...
No matter how fragile the Mystery of this era may be, you can't possibly be this weak, can you?
Honestly, I was hoping you'd help improve my mood a little."
"Guh...!"
Ye Sizhen's beautiful face twisted slightly.
She could not argue. She had not even withstood a single punch before being defeated so easily.
Mystery is overwhelmed by stronger, older Mystery. That was an eternal truth.
As a Thought Magus, how could Ye Sizhen possibly stand against an Xian from the Age of Myths?
"No more new tricks? Then die."
Wuzhiqi raised her arm with a cruel smile.
"You are technically my junior, so don't worry... I'll make sure you die without pain."
Although Ziz and Latio were both shouting, "Don't kill her yet," this self-centered queen clearly had no intention of obeying anyone's orders.
But just as Wuzhiqi's fingertips were about to cut off Ye Sizhen's head.
The earth began to shake, then turned into something like boiling water.
Even Wuzhiqi struggled to keep her footing.
That meant this was no natural earthquake. It was a distortion of space itself.
"This is... You forcibly connected the spacetime of the surrounding area to the Thought Disk?"
Wuzhiqi narrowed her golden eyes. "Was this your plan from the very beginning?"
The Thought Disk was a Mystic Code fused with the planet and possessed mass equal to the Earth itself.
What would happen if a mass on a planetary scale were overlaid onto the surface?
In that instant, it would be like tearing open a hole in the inner wall of a spacecraft.
With a tragically beautiful smile, Ye Sizhen grabbed her ankle.
"Return to The Root with me and become fuel for the Thought Disk, Senior."
"You idiot! What have you done?! Let go!"
For the first time, Wuzhiqi screamed in fury, but it was already too late.
For one brief instant, both light and sound were erased.
The Thought Disk manifested on the surface like a pitch-black typhoon eye the size of a soccer ball, sucking everything nearby into itself.
Of course, that included Ye Sizhen herself.
But she did not regret it.
Even if this was only for my own satisfaction.
This life was given to me by Shirou in the first place.
Besides... those few short days I spent with him meant more than all the time I lived before combined.
So this is... the end...
Goodbye, Shirou.
Make sure you live happily, okay?
Ye Sizhen smiled from the bottom of her heart.
"...Huh?"
Just as she was about to close her eyes, something flew past her.
It was an arrow.
A strange, twisted arrow.
No, on closer inspection, it looked like a long sword twisted into a spiral, piercing straight into the pitch-black distortion in spacetime.
Who had fired that arrow?
Ye Sizhen followed its trajectory with her gaze.
"...Ah."
In a daze, she saw the hero from her dreams.
"Shirou?"
***
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