"Lady Sirin!" Bella's face still bore the tear tracks from Shu's earlier intimidation.
Seeing Sirin appear, she looked like she'd found her savior.
"Mm." Sirin tilted her head slightly, glancing sideways at the excited Bella with a small nod, then nonchalantly averted her gaze. "Continue with your mission."
Bella immediately nodded vigorously, grabbing the still-dazed Kiana Kaslana and turning to fly off into the distance.
Hehe, Lady Sirin looked at me~ Hehe
"Wait!" Kiana finally snapped back to reality, struggling violently and making it difficult for Bella to control her flight.
"Tch..." Even without looking back, Sirin could hear the commotion behind her. Annoyed, she casually flicked her staff backward. A beam of light shot from the purple star gem on the staff, instantly striking Kiana between the eyebrows.
Kiana, who was just about to break free, froze. Her eyes rapidly became vacant, then closed as she fell into a deep sleep.
"So annoying..." Sirin grumbled, somewhat dissatisfied. But before she could finish, a figure flashed past her.
Shu, who had been knocked away, stabilized himself in a remarkably short time and then shot past Sirin at an even greater speed.
Shu's primary target was inevitably the captured Kiana. With the instantaneous burst of speed he displayed mid-air, even an AI with high-definition cameras couldn't possibly react—
"If you don't follow the storybook~" However, in that fleeting instant, Shu heard a complete sentence.
A sentence spoken unhurriedly, in the most ordinary tone, echoing inside his head.
And... there was a second half!
"—you'll be punished, 'kay~☆"
In that moment, Shu felt as if all his strength drained away, losing all [Hope] and [Wish], returning to that time when he could do nothing.
Simultaneously, an impossibly high mountain seemed to crash down upon him. A hundred times? A thousand times? Shu couldn't even begin to describe the super-heavy pressure that crushed him in an instant, slamming him directly from the sky to the ground.
No, not just to the ground!
The fragile earth couldn't possibly withstand Shu under such immense pressure!
The instant Shu landed, everything within a nearly ten-kilometer radius centered on his impact point instantly caved in, the area immediately around the center sinking over ten meters deep!
The bluestone-paved town ground shattered into pieces. Marble-built houses were pulverized into dust by the pressure. They didn't even have time to scatter in the wind before settling heavily onto the ground along with the now-stilled air.
Viewed from above, a massive circular depression had appeared in the vast Great Homu Kingdom, like a carefully crafted clay town smashed by a basketball, leaving a round crater.
And at the very center of the crater, at a depth reaching over 100 meters underground, Shu was still being crushed downwards by the weight, sinking deeper and deeper...
Mei and Bronya stood frozen, staring blankly at the giant pit before them.
As if meticulously designed, the crater's edge stopped precisely at their toes.
One step back, and they wouldn't touch the edge; one step earlier, and they would have been crushed into dust by the aftershock.
In the air, Sirin casually twirled her staff, stretching languidly with an air of complete relaxation.
"Mmm~ The great magical girl Sirin has once again defeated the evil Demon Lord and protected the peace of the Great Homu Kingdom☆!"
She yawned, lay down mid-air as if on an invisible couch, and let herself float freely.
"Ahhh... kinda tired now..." Sirin blinked, casually tossing her magic staff aside, letting it fall through the air and shatter upon impact, spilling out small LED lights and batteries.
No matter how you looked at it, it was just a cheap plastic toy staff...
The white clouds high above saw Sirin close her eyes and hurriedl drifted down, transforming into a soft white bed and blankets, gently "cradling" Sirin.
The whistling high-altitude wind also ceased, gently brushing past Sirin's cheek at a comfortable 26°C, helping her sleep more soundly.
The clouds and wind carried Sirin like this, slowly floating back towards the palace.
---||---
Bronya and Mei frantically rushed towards the center of the enormous crater.
The radius of the pit alone was nearly ten kilometers. How could they possibly reach Shu's impact point immediately just on foot?
Three hundred meters underground, Shu finally broke through the thick earth, falling into a vast subterranean cavern and plunging into a rushing underground river.
The immense pressure vanished instantly, as if it had never existed. The momentarily disconnected [Wish] and [Hope] quickly returned to Shu's control.
In the last moment of fading consciousness, he instinctively threw up the protective shield he had used countless times.
A short while later, in a section where the underground river's current was relatively slower, a pale hand reached out from the water, trembling as it gripped a rock on the bank.
A figure covered in wounds struggled out of the river, coughing constantly, crawling forward a few steps on hands and knees before finally collapsing halfway onto the bank.
Shu lost consciousness due to his severe injuries before he could even pull his legs out of the dark river.
Because the storybook dictated that the Demon Lord only needed to "slumber," not "be killed," Shu still retained the barest breath needed to maintain basic life signs.
It wasn't that Shu didn't want to use all his [Hope] to resist the sudden pressure; it was that he truly couldn't react in time. There was no warning, no premonition. By the time the weight crashed down, mobilizing [Hope] was no longer an option.
This was Shu's first truly devastating defeat. Against Evolution, he had forced out his opponent's trump card. Against Memory, he was unable to exert his full strength.
But this time, they had faced off directly, and Shu couldn't withstand a single casual move from his opponent.
It felt like a dimensional takedown by the story's writer against their own character! Every stroke of the pen decided his fate!
In this game, when someone broke the rules, the creator of the rules would forcibly pull everyone back into the game.
...
In the darkness, the corner of a cloak brushed against Shu's fingers.
The cloaked person crouched beside Shu. After a moment of silence, they reached out, grabbed Shu's collar, dragged him away from the water's edge, and placed him on dry ground.
"You really are lucky..."