Chapter 350

Over London, gloom shrouded the sky.

The already-destroyed capital city lay desolate, riddled with holes.

This land seemed to have undergone the baptism of a high-intensity war, as if bombarded round after round by enemy intercontinental missiles, tragic beyond belief.

Collapsed buildings lay on the ground like giant beasts, covered in thick soot and ash; the streets turned gray and oppressive.

Ruins and broken walls were everywhere, fragments scattered across the ground like sharp blades that had sliced apart the former prosperity.

The high-rise clusters that barely still stood, though not completely toppled, could no longer support the city's skyline scenery.

They just stood there, solitary and alone——

Windows shattered, outer walls mottled, like giants dead yet unfallen, silently narrating something.

Like a scene from a kaiju disaster film, tremendous violence had rampaged here; after the storm that crashed and rushed wildly scattered, only a mess remained.

And now……

This rare tranquility was as fleeting as a night-blooming cereus, equally unable to last long.

Above these ruins, suddenly, a dark crack opened its giant mouth like a prehistoric beast, greedily devouring every thread of light around it, ruthlessly tearing sky and earth apart.

——In that instant, time seemed to freeze.

All things stood motionless, leaving only the terrifying sight of that crack gradually expanding, like a doomsday scroll slowly unfolding before the world's eyes.

Even the westerly-slanting sun in the distant sky, about to sink below the horizon and shroud the land in twilight, seemed under people's horrified gaze to……

——shatter.

………………

Of course.

That was merely a visual illusion.

The sun still hung high; it was just that the crack's spread made everything become illusory and distorted.

It was like a giant abyss inverted in the sky, opening its mouth to swallow the whole world, continuously expanding, spreading, gradually eroding everything.

In an extremely short time, the entire firmament was completely covered by that dark crack, as if the end of the world had already arrived.

Gloom like spiderweb cracks spread across the horizon; those cracks intertwined, forming a giant dark web. They crisscrossed, dense and packed, impossible to gauge the full extent of their coverage at a glance.

Like death's shadow, enveloping the earth and people's hearts.

This moment——

Survivors in the ruins, rescue personnel who had set out first, or perhaps search teams carrying certain secret missions……

All trembled with fear, hearts pounding, utterly terrified.

It's coming, it's coming! Indeed it's come again!

Ah, familiar violence; ah, considerate beating…… this is simply a nightmare cycling repeatedly, making one involuntarily give birth to despair.

Has this world truly gone mad to an irredeemable degree?

How long since the last disaster, how has it come again!

This time, what kind of catastrophe will it be? Is Great Britain Island going to sink?

In a flash——

The setting sun's afterglow was finally completely devoured.

The sky spread with a color different from night, a gloom even blacker than night.

Looking out over the whole sky, all was eroded by darkness; perhaps all of London's sky, or perhaps all of the United Kingdom, all of Great Britain, or perhaps——

All of Europe?

Vast enough to give rise to such imagination.

If one could look from a place where Earth's surface curvature is observable, that would probably be another sight entirely: the darkness like a boundless ink sea, spreading wantonly across the planet.

As if a god's hand brushed past Earth and carelessly spilled a drop of ink too thick to dissolve.

That darkness rapidly diffused, staining a small region.

Next, there wasn't too long a wait, just after a brief stagnation.

The darkness covering the entire sky began to stir like a living thing.

Then…… one saw a kind of inexpressible existence, describable only as concentrated gloom in black rays, suddenly descend from the heavens, pierce the long firmament, and pour straight toward the horizon's end!

These black rays were like arrows of death, carrying endless chill and destructive power, tearing through the void, leaving shocking traces.

——Simply like……

——the entire sky had been weaponized.

The boundless dark ink sea stirred, continuously depicting countless black rays, like an ocean woven from despair, waves surging, carrying the momentum of destroying everything!

This dark torrent poured down, straight and aligned, volley-firing toward some direction in the far distance!!

As if at that far, far end……

There existed an enemy.

………………

………………

It was this moment!

It was this time point!

A girl wearing a black-and-red dress, beautiful to the point of raising goosebumps, was shuttling through light and shadow at a speed surpassing human understanding.

Twin pigtails tied with uneven volume on left and right, and a left eye engraved with a clock face, became her most obvious features.

That inhuman, alien oppression was strong.

Yet it also added to this girl her unique and astonishing charm.

Kurumi Tokisaki.

But not the Kurumi Tokisaki of this current historical stage, rather the Kurumi Tokisaki who transmigrated from the future, returning to the day of London's destruction.

By means of Honjo Nia's Angel, utilizing that super-super-performance search engine, she confirmed such a more concrete and detailed time point.

Originally she could have locked onto a slightly earlier time period...

But that would have no meaning, and might even waste the activity time limit granted by the Twelfth Bullet.

Good steel must still be used on the blade's edge.

After all, the key to reversing the future does not lie in defeating the Origin Spirit here, but in persuading that even stranger transcendent existence here.

He.

Or rather, He, indeed appeared here.

It's just that Honjo Nia couldn't confirm it; whenever her Angel retrieved the corresponding intelligence, it would always seem to suffer some interference, either freezing up or producing garbled code.

Or else, in the relevant intelligence, abnormal, incoherent deletions of all sorts would appear.

Simply like reading some containment file, where key parts would suddenly appear blacked out or deleted.

However, although this was troublesome, it also let the later Kurumi Tokisaki and the others perceive a reverse pattern, which might not be absolutely accurate, yet at least could serve a purpose at critical moments.

Kurumi Tokisaki is ultimately the Spirit who controls time and shadow, and is a future temporal state, so naturally whether it's attribute point allocation or skill level, they are all higher numerical values.

Her marching speed was extremely fast; in the instant of transmigrating over, she immediately left the skies above London, almost in the blink of an eye leaving the British mainland, rushing into the vast sea.

One breath... as if time had solidified.

Two breaths... heartbeat and breath accelerating in synchronization.

Three breaths... every second as long as a thousand years.

In short, in an extremely brief span of time—

Kurumi Tokisaki, like a meteor tearing through the night sky, with a staggering decisive posture, from outside the field in one move killed her way into the battlefield on that sea domain.

That was precisely the stage where the battle between Origami Tobiichi and "Phantom" trended toward white-hot intensity—

Of course, only Origami Tobiichi unilaterally thought so.

Actually it was just that the girl, crazed and desperate, almost forgetting the importance of defense, launched wave after wave of continuous offensive like a mad wind and sudden rain, yet couldn't achieve any substantive battle results at all.

And "Phantom" also seemed to have been entangled until losing patience, preparing to unilaterally end this meaningless battle.

—Bang!

A gunshot rang out, heralding the uninvited guest's arrival.

The howling bullet did not hit "Phantom", but precisely struck Origami Tobiichi, striking her body that had abandoned unnecessary defense.

No blood splattered.

No flesh pierced.

Even brought an astonishing recovery effect.

Just like a videotape playing, about to reach the end, suddenly "rewound", Origami Tobiichi's state recovered to near full state almost instantly!

Even the latter, in that near-fanatical state, couldn't help feeling a trace of astonishment.

But there was not the slightest hesitation; Origami Tobiichi was even unwilling to spend one more second looking toward the direction the bullet came from, directly relying on her surging physical fitness and energy—

Viciously pouncing toward "Phantom".

The Tactical Manifestation Device's output power also once again instantly rose to maximum.

The girl didn't know why Kurumi Tokisaki would suddenly appear, why she would help herself, but at this time, what she cared about more was the "source" behind the Spirit Phenomenon.

"You...!!"

Facing this kind of sudden unexpected situation, "Phantom" obviously also couldn't have predicted it, for a moment somewhat shocked.

The already exhausted Origami Tobiichi had her own state reset by time reversal.

The eruption under these circumstances was still very astonishing.

—Light sword instantly killed to before the eyes.

—The giant cannon's charging process as if accelerated and skipped, at close range bombarding out a light stream!

—A directional Random Domain instantly formed, in a split second superimposing multiple layers of different properties.

Must admit, Origami Tobiichi's tactical ability is really extremely strong, talent also very good.

Even in that confrontation just now, in the seemingly fruitless brief offense-defense battle, she still saw through the enemy's habit of evading attacks.

So she knew very clearly how to seal off the opponent's movement.

Of course, limited by the absolute gap in strength, this actually has little meaning...

But—

If the temporary ally present also has another powerful Spirit, then this assist has meaning.

Bang!

Another gunshot.

Spiritual power scattered like sparks, intense light spreading to the surroundings.

The spiritual power defense wrapping around "Phantom" was torn apart on its own, spiritual power of the same root and source colliding with each other, the violent reaction produced even blasting Origami Tobiichi away.

The girl very lightly controlled the Connection Suit, quickly stabilizing her figure in mid-air.

She as if by instinct manipulated the outermost Random Domain to change defensive properties, offsetting the impact, eliminating inertia.

Simultaneously nervously yet expectantly widening her beautiful eyes, tightly staring at the center of that intense light.

"..."

"..."

"A splendid attack, to actually be able to achieve this step..."

A quiet voice transmitted, after the light scattered, that strange figure's outline appeared again.

Although still unable to distinguish that strange noise-like appearance, however her voice could already be distinguished.

The young woman's voice was clear and pleasant.

"Such powerful Spiritual Power — it shouldn't be something you can possess right now, so... did you return from the future to this moment?"

Mio Takamiya looked at Kurumi Tokisaki with some Surprise, her Tone slightly wistful and sighing, but more than that was a Faintly felt unease and wariness.

She had already been worried about this uncontrollable factor; now it seemed the Ominous premonition was about to become Reality.

The current situation already showed Faintly signs of spiraling out of control.

"Yeah, is it a surprise, Mio?"

Kurumi Tokisaki giggled, lifted her skirt hem, exaggeratedly Curvature her knees, and performed a bow.

It carried quite the meaning of "I stand right before you — see how much of the past remains in me."

"You..."

Mio Takamiya Frown.

She had only just uttered a single syllable when the Next Moment, she saw with Jing Guai that at the End of her Vision, a stretch of Endless Darkness was spreading over at high speed.

Right!

And that Inverse Form too!

She Sudden realized this point, however the moment she saw the attack, the attack had already Simultaneously Arrived.

A torrent of Darkness poured down, instantly submerging Mio Takamiya's location.

The sea surface that had been glittering with ripples and bathed in the Setting Sun just One Second ago turned into pitch black where one couldn't see five fingers before one's face in an instant, as if night had Arrival.

And the Next Second, what appeared on the Battlefield —

Was a figure wearing a blue-black long dress, a pitch-black Kether suspended behind her head, in a posture like one clad in mourning attire.

"... Wh-what——!!"

Origami Tobiichi Wide Eyes, looked at her own Mors Posture with Disbelief.

Darkness devouring the Sky, Despair given form.

From "Kether" —

... Reversal into the form of "Bacikal"!

(Chapter End)