10 minutes later.
In the barren desert deep within the Divine Kingdom.
Nia Honjo numbly lifted her cup of black tea, took a sip mixed with yellow sand, then raised her head with a smile composed of forty percent despair, thirty percent bitterness and thirty percent disdain.
And right before her, in the distance—perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands of kilometres away—a great battle was raging in full fury.
The skirt-clad maiden merely swung her absurdly massive sword with a light flick, and dark light descended from the heavens, tearing through the wasteland, leaving behind gaping black voids in its wake.
Above those voids in the sky, Luo Shu transformed into a dazzling streak of lightning that exploded outward, scattering into countless radiant beams.
The light coalesced into gleaming white arrows, drawn back in full-moon arcs across the firmament before launching like bolts of lightning towards the girl's position.
The heavens flashed with streaks of thunder!
In an instant, dense and terrifying bursts of blinding lightning erupted, dyeing the entire sky a brilliant white.
For that moment, the world paled in comparison, and even sound vanished without a trace.
After the lightning subsided, there was a lull of roughly five minutes.
Then another all-consuming black light split the earth asunder—but this time, it wasn't lightning that followed. Instead, an endless sea of flames engulfed the entire horizon.
Countless volcanoes erupted from the ground with deafening roars.
BOOM!!
Fountains of magma spewed skyward as the terrifying tremors made the earth surge like rolling waves, swallowing everything in an ocean of fire.
When the cataclysmic upheaval finally ceased...
Another five minutes passed before gales took over, an endless black tempest lifting and shredding everything in its path.
Faintly, Nia Honjo could even see dark fissures continuously forming within the storm, as though the wind was tearing apart the world itself.
Witnessing these apocalyptic scenes unfold before her, Nia Honjo—sipping black tea amidst the swirling sand—could only utter a single word:
"Damn!"
"They're still not done... Just how stubborn is that brat?!"
Unable to hold back her frustration, Nia grumbled:
"She can't win, yet she keeps dragging Luo Shu into this—is she a balloon or something? The more you hit her, the bigger her face gets?"
"Just admit defeat already—would it kill her?!"
The thought of being caught up in this mess, forced to sit here and eat sand, filled Honjo with bitterness.
For Luo Shu, wielding his Authority was a double drain on both mind and body. Under these conditions, ensuring Nia Honjo wasn't caught in the crossfire was already pushing his limits.
And that woman, who carried fragments of their mother's persona, was banking on Luo Shu's inability to sustain his Authority for long. She was stubbornly dragging this out, playing dirty to wear him down.
To that end, she'd even deliberately schemed to pin Nia here, indirectly interfering with Luo Shu while prolonging the battle, refusing to concede no matter what.
This shameless display of obstinacy left Nia Honjo at a loss for words.
But as time passed, an odd thought crept into her mind:
"Somehow... the longer this fight goes on, the more human that woman seems to become..."
This petulant behaviour reminded her of a brat throwing a tantrum over candy, rolling on the ground in protest.
Was it just her imagination?
Another earth-shaking, heaven-rending tremor followed.
Holding her teacup steady, Nia Honjo glanced up at the pitch-black sky, intermittently streaked with crimson-black lightning, then at the fractured earth split by a canyon stretching beyond sight. Calmly sipping her tea, she remarked:
"Another five-minute break, is it?"
However, this time, after waiting for 7 minutes, the battle didn't resume, which greatly puzzled Nia Honjo:
"...Are they not fighting anymore?"
Nia Honjo thought suspiciously.
Just as she was confused,
On the crystallised land in the distance.
Amidst the rising heat, Luo Shu walked unsteadily across the crystallised ground with trembling steps, arriving before the defeated girl. Looking down at the girl whose body was barely intact and whose spiritual equipment was shattered, he panted and said with a mocking laugh:
"Continue?"
The girl lying on the ground didn't speak; she only looked up at the sky, surrounded by black lightning, listening to the continuous rumbling in her ears.
After a moment of silence, she turned her head to glance at Luo Shu and said coldly:
"What's the point of pretending like this?"
Luo Shu paused, giving her a deep look before placing his hand on his chest and activating Calamity Absorption at Angel level.
Instantly, all fatigue and the void in his Spiritual Power disappeared without a trace.
In just a moment, Luo Shu was fully revived, standing before the girl with a cheerful smile:
"I just thought I should at least acknowledge your earlier efforts!"
The girl turned her head away without speaking, seemingly angered by Luo Shu's act of feigning weakness...
Seeing her like this, Luo Shu walked over casually and sat down beside her. Though the ground felt a bit hot against his backside, he still sat cross-legged next to the girl with a smile and said:
"How about Tenka Yatogami? That's the name I'm giving you."
Hearing this, the girl turned to look at him and frowned:
"Wasn't it Tohka Yatogami?"
She vaguely remembered that before the battle began, Luo Shu had referred to her mother as Mio Takamiya and called her Tohka Yatogami.
Though she disliked the name Luo Shu had bestowed upon her, she was now curious as to why he wanted to change it further.
"That's the name of your other personality," Luo Shu said with a somewhat complicated tone. "The other you who hides in the shadows and secretly uses the Angel."
"No, I want the name Tohka," Tenka Yatogami said without hesitation.
Luo Shu looked surprised and retorted, "You're the older sister, yet you're fighting your younger sister for the name?"
Whether it was the term 'older sister' that convinced Tenka Yatogami or something else, she fell silent, seemingly accepting Luo Shu's address.
Seeing her remain quiet for a long time, Luo Shu finally smiled and said:
"Speaking of which, among you Spirits, there are quite a few with dual personalities!"
"Both the Fifth and the Tenth actually have dual personalities. Tsk tsk."
As Luo Shu clicked his tongue in amazement, Tenka Yatogami remained silent.
Just when Luo Shu thought she didn't want to talk, Tenka Yatogami suddenly said:
"Kotori Itsuka developed a split personality because she was too young to control her power. I'm not like her."
"What's the difference?" Luo Shu looked at her in confusion. "Isn't the power of creation from the Tenth Sephira also divided between two personalities?"
At this, Tenka Yatogami said stubbornly:
"She split because she couldn't control her power, while we were born this way."
"That's the biggest difference."
Saying this, Tenka Yatogami looked at Luo Shu with unwillingness in her eyes: "If not for your interference, Tohka and I should have been born as Seraphim!"