Chapter 638: Torn Paper

That Mecha's body jerked backward, its two feet stomping two deep pits into the ground; the over-three-meter-tall iron lump staggered back two steps before steadying, almost sitting flat on its butt.

The Flame on that small head surged higher, crackling, and the expression on that face shifted from shock to a twisted mix of anger and fright.

It steadied its posture, lowered its head, and stared at the paper on the ground.

The paper still lay there, its grinning face still bent, as if mocking the way it had just jerked back in fear.

Weiba Daye's Flame surged higher again, its eyes widened, mouth turned down, its whole face filled with anger.

"Huo Huo—!"

Its voice exploded from the Mecha's chest cavity, bursting with pent-up fire: "Is it you! You little crybaby! Come out! Who are you trying to scare with these torn papers?"

No response.

But more papers drifted down.

This time it wasn't just one sheet but several, drifting down from different directions—from behind the half-collapsed wall on the left, from the top of the slanted pillar on the right, from the grayish sky overhead—as if something invisible were tossing them down one by one from those spots.

The papers varied in size—some as big as a palm, some as small as a fist—edges cut even more raggedly than before, some still uncut with stray paper threads attached, but each bore the same expression: curved eyes, a curved mouth, corners turned up high, that grin especially glaring in the dim light.

Weiba Daye's Mecha turned its body in a circle, its small head following, the Flame-born eyes scanning the drifting papers back and forth.

It tried to burn them with its Flame, but there were too many papers—by the time it burned one, another had already drifted onto its head; burn that one, and three more would float past its feet.

"Huo Huo—! Get out here, old man—!"

Weiba Daye's voice exploded from the Mecha's chest, this time laced with genuine fury; the Mecha shuddered, and Lapis Flame surged from its patterns like a burning coat, igniting all the papers drifting around it.

The papers curled and turned to ash in the Flame, the ash drifting in the air like black snow.

But more papers drifted down.

Ilya hid behind Saber, watching the strange "paper rain" outside.

The little paper figures with smiling faces drifted from all directions, as if dancing a dance she couldn't understand.

A few sheets drifted to her side, landing on the gravel at her feet; she lowered her head and saw the smiling face on the paper staring at her—curved eyes, curved mouth—a grin not exactly terrifying, yet in that grayish ruin, in that air where even the wind carried an indistinct musty or other odor, the smile sent chills up her back.

She clenched Saber's sleeve like a startled cat.

"Saber..."

Her voice was soft: "What are those..."

Saber did not answer.

She stood there, the Curry Stick held crosswise before her, its tip pointing at the open space where papers kept drifting down.

Her brows were furrowed, not from fear but from a calmer focus.

To her eyes, those papers held no magic, no killing intent, no aggression—they were just paper.

But the problem lay here—there was no wind.

She felt no wind, yet the papers drifted on their own, falling from different directions, as if something unseen were manipulating them from somewhere hidden.

Weiba Daye stood in that open space, Lapis Flame still burning on its body, turning the papers that drifted near it to ash, but the papers were too many—burn one batch and another arrived, as if it could never be finished.

Its patience had worn to the limit; the Flame on its small head flickered, and its expression shifted from anger to irritability.

The Mecha's body jerked into a crouch, its mechanical arms bracing on the ground, then the whole Mecha sprang up and leapt onto the nearby half-collapsed wall.

It stood on the walltop, its small head looking down from above, watching the papers still drifting down.

"Huo Huo—!"

"Are you there or not! If you are, get out here, old man! Don't fool people with these torn papers!"

No response.

Only more papers were drifting.

The little paper figures with smiling faces surged from all directions, as if an unseen person overhead were tossing paper money, sheet after sheet, tumbling, spinning, circling in the gray air, encircling Weiba Daye's tall Mecha in the middle.

Weiba Daye's small head turned left then right, then right then left, its Flame-born eyes staring at the ever‑gathering papers; its expression shifted from anger to impatience, then to a "let's see what tricks you've got" stare.

Then the papers moved.

As if pressed by something, they began to crowd toward the center, one sheet sticking to another, edges aligning, corners overlapping, as if an invisible hand were piecing them together.

The joined papers grew ever larger—from a palm‑sized scrap to a table‑sized sheet, then to a wall‑sized giant—its edges fusing at the seams, the smiling faces stretching and distorting in the process: the curved eyes pulled into two parallel short lines, the curved mouth stretched into a long arc, that arc no longer a smile but more like a gaping maw ready to bite.

When that hand reached out from the sea of paper, Weiba Daye was still waiting for the papers to keep drifting; it never expected them to stop floating, let alone to fuse into a hand.

The hand had five fingers, each as thick as Weiba Daye's Mecha body; the paper grain on its back remained clearly visible, and the smiles originally drawn on the papers, stretched to the finger joints, had become several indistinct yellow blotches.

The hand pressed down from mid‑air, accompanied by a heavy, muffled whoosh, its five fingers splayed open.

Weiba Daye reacted swiftly; the Flame on its small head surged higher, its face shifting from "wait and see" to "just this"; the Mecha's body sank, its right arm rose, palm aimed at the descending giant hand, and a lapis-colored light wave shot from its palm—fast and true, like an upward‑thrusting spear—piercing the hand's palm.

The light wave burst out the back of the hand, exploding in a cluster of lapis-colored sparks against the dim sky; the spot struck on the giant hand tore open a large gap, paper edges flipping out like a ripped wound, and the charred paper ash from the blast drifted out of the crack, scattering in the air as a thin wisp of black smoke.

Weiba Daye gazed at the rift, at the hand it had pierced, and the corners of its mouth twitched upward.

"What a lousy trick,"