Chapter 639: Paper Person

Its voice carried a smug tone of "just this little skill," "you dare to come out and embarrass me with just this little skill—" its words were cut off.

Another hand reached out from behind it.

That hand was larger than the previous one; when its five fingers spread, it covered most of the dim sky above Weiba Daye's head.

It slipped out silently from behind Weiba Daye, without a rustle or omen, as quiet as something rising from water; by the time Weiba Daye felt the chill on his back, the hand had already come down.

The force was far beyond what a thing made of paper pieces could muster; the three‑meter‑tall, iron‑clad Mecha of Weiba Daye was slammed to the ground by that palm, and shards of stone and broken tiles exploded from its feet, as if struck by a cannonball.

The Mecha's upper half remained exposed, while its lower body was completely buried; its two mechanical arms propped against the ground, trying to pull itself out, but the hand still pressed on its head, unmoving, like a mountain of paper.

Damn—!

Weiba Daye's voice trembled with incredulous anger, "You—You ambushed—!"

The hand ignored him, moved away from Weiba Daye's head, and turned toward the direction where Saber and Ilya were standing.

The still‑falling paper pieces also turned, like a flock of startled birds, all at once shifting direction and surging toward Saber and the others.

The paper re‑coalesced in midair, this time forming not a hand but an absurdly thick pillar; its top was flat, like a cut stone column, and it barreled toward Saber, roaring with a wind that pressed the breath from one's lungs.

Saber did not retreat.

Facing the incoming paper pillar, her hand on the sword did not tremble, nor did she grip tighter; she calmly raised the sword before her, the crimson pattern on the blade flashing sharply, then a black‑red Light Pillar, thicker than the paper pillar, erupted from the tip, like a beast freed from its Rein, slamming into the paper pillar.

The paper pillar split from the middle, as if cleaved by an extremely sharp knife, dividing cleanly from top to bottom into two halves.

The two split halves slid past Saber's sides, crashing into the ruins behind her, raising clouds of paper ash and debris.

Saber did not look back at the debris; her gaze stayed fixed on the back of the split paper pillar—where more paper pieces were coalescing, reshaping, transforming from one form to another.

The paper pieces were no longer satisfied with forming a hand or a pillar; they began to assemble into human shapes.

When the first paper person rose from the pile, Saber almost didn't recognize it as a person—its head was tilted, not on purpose but because it was assembled crookedly, the whole skull angled fifteen degrees to the left, as if it had a stiff neck.

It had one long arm and one short arm; the long one hung to the knees, the short one only to the waist. Its legs were mismatched—one thick, thicker than Saber's thigh, the other thin, thinner than Ilya's wrist. It stood wobbling, as if a gust could topple it, yet it didn't fall; instead it stepped forward with those uneven legs toward Saber.

Its gait was more absurd than its shape; when the thick leg stepped, its body leaned right, and when the thin leg stepped, it leaned left—wobbling like a drunk on a tightrope, each step seeming to fall yet staying balanced, tracing an S‑shaped path among the broken stones and tiles toward Saber.

Saber stared at the paper person, her brow furrowing—not because it was strong, but because it was ugly; its crooked form reminded her of the straw dummies she'd seen at a market in childhood, equally lopsided and ugly.

But she knew this paper person wasn't meant to scare crows, because a second paper person had already risen from the pile, then a third, fourth, fifth—those paper people climbed up one after another, some even more crooked than the first, some even uglier, some with heads turned backward, some with arms down, one with its two legs assembled reversed, knees bent backward, walking like a humanoid frog moving backward, each step like a crouched horse stance.

Ilya stuck half a head out from behind Saber, watching the crooked, uniquely ugly paper people, her mouth twitching.

She was scared, yet found it somewhat funny; the two feelings mingled, twisting a strange expression on her face, as if wanting to laugh but unable, wanting to cry but unable.

"What are they… doing…"

Her voice was so soft that Saber almost didn't catch it.

Saber gave no reply, because the paper people had already started running.

Their running posture was even more absurd than their walking; the wobbly bodies swayed wildly, the mismatched legs tripping over the broken stones, occasionally a paper person would fall, roll twice on the ground, scramble up and run again, falling and getting up repeatedly. The scene resembled not a charge of soldiers but a bunch of toddlers who just learned to walk chasing a runaway rubber ball.

Yet they ran fast; their crooked bodies cast blurry shadows in the dim light, surging from all directions, encircling Saber and Ilya in the middle.

Saber twirled her Curry Stick once in her hand, blade tip down, then lunged forward, charging into the mass of paper people.

The great sword swept horizontally, cleaving three paper people at the waist; their upper halves flew away, lower halves remained standing, the upper halves spun twice in midair, slammed to the ground, shattering into paper fragments, then a vertical slash split another paper person from head to foot, cleanly dividing it in two; the halves fell to opposite sides, still moving on the ground, fingers clawing at the stones beneath, clawing a few times before stopping.

But those paper fragments did not die.

Saber watched the shredded paper writhe and curl on the ground, turning from fragments to sheets, from sheets to strips, from strips to blocks, and from blocks reassembling into a hand, a leg, a crooked head.

The reassembled paper people were even uglier, because their bodies bore many cracks—the very places Saber had cut—edges jagged, misaligned when pieced back together, stacked crookedly like wounds sewn with thick needles and coarse thread.

Ilya watched from behind, the ruby in her palm heating up.

"Ilya…"

Its voice stammered, but the force behind it was far stronger than before, "You have… to transform… Miss Saber alone…"

Ilya bit her lip, raised the ruby, and pink light burst from the staff, engulfing her whole body.

When the light faded, Ilya had changed—wearing a pink dress with white ruffled edges, a light sheer cape behind her still luminous in the dim light, and a butterfly‑knot hair accessory on her head gently swaying in the wind.

She kicked off the ground, springing into the air, and the paper people looked up at her, their crooked heads turning along her trajectory, like moths drawn to a light.