Hoshimi Miyabi slashed again, her blade flashing as she cut down a pursuing Ethereal midair.
Her strength was waning, and the spectral eye of Tailless flickered weakly beside her. Her expression shifted slightly.
Beside her, the other three members of Section 6 were also exhausted, now fighting on sheer willpower alone.
Miyabi's eyes flickered faintly as she pressed her lips together. Continuing like this clearly wasn't sustainable... but no solution came to mind.
Just as they began retreating, Soukaku suddenly spoke up.
"Chief, if there's truly no other way... what if—what if we go help Nineveh?"
The words sounded absurd. After all, Nineveh was their enemy.
Yet instead of dismissing it, Miyabi's thoughts stirred. Harumasa and Tsukishiro Yanagi beside her also hesitated, considering it.
For some reason, the surrounding Ethereal had thinned, giving them a brief chance to breathe. Miyabi stopped in her tracks.
"Soukaku's suggestion... it's feasible."
"Whatever the case, let's try it first."
Her voice was quiet, but resolute. She lifted her gaze to the sky. The others instinctively followed, eyes fixed on a point above.
There, Nineveh was locked in battle with another colossal, grotesque Ethereal. Its crystalline tentacles writhed and twisted, evoking instinctive dread.
This monster was the very culprit that had dragged Section 6 here.
Against it, Nineveh looked like a child. She lacked both size and strength, clearly outmatched.
Only because half its body was trapped in a massive spatial fissure—immobilized in midair—could Nineveh hold out this long.
"Perhaps we can escape through that spatial fissure."
Tsukishiro Yanagi breathed heavily, pushing her glasses up as her gaze fixed on it.
"Hmm. We don't know where it leads, but it's better than wandering aimlessly."
Harumasa nodded. At that moment, Soukaku added quickly,
"But how do we even get up there?"
It had been her suggestion, yet clearly only half-formed.
Miyabi looked up at the vast, empty sky. Approaching the clash above was no simple feat—it was a daunting challenge.
She drew a deep breath.
"There's always a way. Let's move closer first, then figure the rest out!"
"Yes, Chief!"
...
"Oh? Finally starting to feel afraid?"
On the ruins of the Trial Tower, Zane stood with a shattered longsword in hand, watching as the ethereal crystals recoiled. His tone was cold.
The towering crystalline pillar slanted downward, plunging into the earth, pinning the Ethereal monster in place.
His eyes glinted faintly. The pillar worked, but the creature was like an indestructible cockroach, its regeneration unnaturally strong.
If not for the pillar, even a wound this massive might have closed.
But despite its resilience, Zane's relentless assault had instilled fear. This was no battle—it was slaughter.
Its regeneration made it less a threat and more an indestructible training dummy.
As the Ethereal retreated, Zane stepped forward. Around him, the ruins had been cleared. The once-smooth ground was now pitted and scarred.
Scattered embers of fire and lingering sparks of lightning marked the ferocity of the clash.
"Planning to cut off your tail like a lizard?"
His brows lifted as the monster contracted further, abandoning the part trapped beneath the crystalline pillar.
But Zane had no intention of letting it escape so easily.
His figure blurred, afterimages streaking across the battlefield. By the time they faded, he was already standing atop the Ethereal's body.
A pitch-black vortex swirled in his hand. He pressed it down.
Its devastating force shredded everything it touched. The monster, sensing danger, accelerated its contraction.
Its body softened, the black crystalline supports breaking into fragments. Vast portions of its form sloughed off, dissolving into streams of light.
It looked like a panicked retreat—armor cast aside.
Zane grimaced. He could keep the discarded remains here, but even so, the monster had escaped.
His attention turned upward—to the spatial fissure.
He felt its turbulent energy wash over him, and his eyes narrowed.
"Let's go inside and take a look."
The monster's regenerative power likely came from the space beyond. That alone made it worth investigating.
Danger?
If he still feared danger, he might as well have stayed cowering in the Cretan Hollow.
Stepping over the monster's remains, Zane approached the fissure. A familiar sensation drifted from it.
He looked up.
The vast rift split the air like a vertical wound, its edges crackling with multicolored lightning. Like torn paper—or rather, like a gateway.
Most of it was clogged with the monster's remains. The rest glowed faintly, suffused with flowing, prismatic Ether.
As Zane stared, the swirling colors dissolved, giving way to red.
A blurred crimson world rippled like a reflection on water.
Within it, a pair of blood-red eyes opened.
The same eyes he had seen once before, in Dead End Hollow.
The fissure suddenly widened, as if torn apart, stretching a hundred meters high and dozens wide.
Like a vertical scarlet pupil.
The eyes were gone.
Zane's lips curled into a smile.
"It's welcoming me in... Looks like I've no choice but to take a look."
He stepped forward into the crimson.
...
Within the blood-red world, dozens of flying Ethereals filled the skies. On closer inspection, some bore humans on their backs.
"Chief! Look over there!"
Harumasa clung desperately to the ethereal crystal on his Ethereal mount, both to avoid being flung off and to dodge attacks from others. If this one failed, he'd have to "change rides," or it would all end here.
"What?"
Miyabi followed his gaze. At the horizon, a strange structure loomed, wrapped in crimson light.
"That's… that's one of the Old Capital's buildings!"
Tsukishiro Yanagi had been watching too. At Miyabi's words, her eyes sharpened with realization.
This place—was actually the core zone of the Old Capital!