Stumbling awkwardly, Chu Lian once again used Teleport to move herself to a safe zone. Letting out a long breath, she muttered to herself. She had no idea what was going on—her luck felt as though it had dropped straight to rank E.
Even though she hid carefully each time, the shockwaves from the ongoing battle somehow always swept in her direction. The constant bombardment left her increasingly frustrated.
"What the hell is this? Why do all these shockwaves feel like they have eyes? Wherever I go, they follow!" Chu Lian's mouth twitched. She had long given up trying to complain—this had happened far too many times.
Ever since she had revealed herself and fired three arrows at the dragon, both sides had seemingly taken her as a target. Their missiles and dragonfire constantly landed near her hiding spots, forcing her to keep her eyes glued to the sky, ready to dodge at any time.
"Oh? What's that?" While crouching behind a crumbled wall, Chu Lian kept one eye on the sky battle above and another on her surroundings. Suddenly, her eyes lit up with excitement.
"You attacked me just now... so I'll go after your little brother instead." Her gaze locked onto a slowly advancing tank.
The heavy tank rumbled across the ground, its cannon barrel swiveling back and forth as if searching for prey.
In a fight dominated by aerial combat, tanks weren't particularly useful. Still, occasionally the dragon descended to ground level—those rare moments were when tanks could truly shine.
But such opportunities were few and far between. Most of the time, they either stood idle or were destroyed by stray blasts from the ongoing battle.
That was why Colonel Harland had ordered, an hour earlier, that most of the tanks patrol around the city's perimeter instead.
During patrols, the tanks occasionally rescued civilians trapped under rubble and deterred looters, maintaining what little order remained in the devastated city.
"Sorry about this... but don't worry, you won't die in there. So please forgive me." Even as she muttered apologetically, Chu Lian had already drawn her bowstring and loosed an arrow toward the tank.
Boom! However, before she could notice, a missile detonated nearby. The explosion's shockwave struck her head-on, hurling her through the air.
Her body spun twice midair before she landed, barely regaining balance. Looking back at the smoking crater where the missile had hit, she pressed a hand to her chest with lingering fear. "Thank goodness... I'm okay."
The next second, however, the Spirit Convergence Device hovering above her head let out a faint, unsettling crackling sound.
Clang! Since the beginning of the zombie outbreak, that device had followed her faithfully. But this time, it finally failed to withstand the damage—it shattered completely.
The faint, dragon-shaped aura coiled around her body dissipated as the Spirit Convergence Device let out one last mournful chime—clang, clang...—before disintegrating into drifting silver dust.
Clenching her fist, Chu Lian tested her strength. Her power was still there, but the constant wellspring of vitality she once felt had vanished. "So it couldn't hold on after all?" She smiled bitterly, though not surprised.
During the zombie war, the device had taken no damage. But during her battle with Hiru—when Anna, possessed by Tírnas, had blasted her hundreds of meters twice—it had already been weakened. Though Chu Lian had dispersed most of the impact, the device still absorbed a great deal of it. This nearby missile explosion, though not a direct hit, had been the final straw.
For Chu Lian, the shockwave was nothing. But for the already-damaged Spirit Convergence Device, it was the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back, reducing it to dust.
She barely had time to mourn its loss before angry shouts echoed from the distance—in English.
The tank she had struck earlier was now a smoldering wreck. Yet, the American soldiers inside had survived. Crawling out of the ruined vehicle, they spotted Chu Lian standing there and immediately began yelling and cursing.
Chu Lian narrowed her eyes, suppressing her irritation. With a powerful leap, she bounded up the wall and sprinted toward the roof of a relatively intact high-rise.
"Destroy my things, will you? You think I'll just let that go?" Her sharp eyes turned toward the skies, scanning for the fighter jet that had just fired the missile at her location.
"Found it..." Ayase's voice echoed in Chu Lian's mind. She nodded slightly, her sharp eyes locking onto a low-flying fighter jet.
Slowly, a layer of violet light tinted her pupils, turning them deep purple. A faint, intrigued smile curved her lips.
From her vantage point, she could clearly see the brown eyes of the pilot sitting inside the cockpit—eyes brimming with arrogance and madness.
She didn't understand why, in such a desperate, near-death battle, he could show such a deranged emotion so opposite to the calmness a pilot should have.
But Chu Lian didn't need to understand. All she knew was that this man had fired a missile at the place where she'd been standing moments ago. And that was reason enough.
"Sorry... but please, go and die." Though she had fought through countless battles, Chu Lian was still someone who hated turning her weapon against her own kind.
She could slay zombies without hesitation, or cut down the night fiends—because in her eyes, those weren't human beings.
But when it came to humans, yakshas, or other humanoid races, she still felt the weight in her heart. It was because of that that, whenever she felt killing intent toward such beings, her violet eyes—the mark of Dark Chu Lian—would appear, taking on that sin in her stead.
One might call it hypocrisy, or mock it as a saintly pretense. But it was also the very reason she had yet to cross the moral line within her heart.
Mike was an F-22 pilot. When the dragon appeared and began destroying the city, he was ordered by his superiors to join the battle.
At first, he had remained calm and composed. But as the fight dragged on and the jets flown by his friends were torn apart one by one, fear began to grow within him.
Then, during a close encounter with the dragon, he saw its eyes—eyes that looked down on the world with disdain, filled with hatred, rage, and greed.
For some reason, he understood the emotion in those eyes as clearly as if it were spilling over.
From that moment on, his heart was consumed by madness and terror. He had had enough of this hopeless, one-sided slaughter.
At this point, he was no longer Mike, but a puppet controlled by fear and insanity—a walking corpse venting his hatred upon the world.
The missile that had just been fired toward Chu Lian? Yes—it had come from him. He no longer cared about the war itself. He only wanted to destroy everything—everything he could see.
"Pitiful soul..." After watching him for a while, Chu Lian seemed to understand the reason for his madness. She let out a cold hum and gently released her fingers. The arrow of spiritual power vanished from her bowstring with a swish.
"Ahahaha..." Mike laughed wildly, filled with ecstasy and satisfaction at the destruction he had caused. And then—his consciousness was gone.
Boom! The arrow pierced through the fighter jet effortlessly, streaking into the distance as the madman vanished with his aircraft, leaving only fragments of burning wreckage raining from the sky.
"Why do the weak come to the battlefield?" Chu Lian shook her head as the violet faded from her eyes. Glancing around, she noticed many had already spotted her. Without hesitation, she looked toward another direction and used Teleport, vanishing once again.
"Who is she? Her combat style doesn't resemble that of an American. In fact, it seems... more like a Huaxia warrior. Unfortunately, her face appears obscured by some kind of barrier. We can't make out her appearance at all."
Colonel Harland had been silently watching the mysterious girl's appearances on the tactical screens, deep in thought.
Her combat ability had exceeded his expectations. While she wasn't as devastatingly destructive as the so-called S-Class superheroes, her unique powers clearly had an effect on the dragon.
And this instant teleportation she just used—it resembled the spatial ability that the U.S. military's higher-ups had been researching and whispering about. He wondered if there was some connection between the two.
"Pook, do you know who our youngest superhero is?" Colonel Harland asked over the comm line, still watching the chaotic battle unfold. "I mean, the youngest one among those ranked A or higher."
"Please hold on, I'll check." Hearing Colonel Harland's question, Pook quickly began typing on his computer. Inside a classified file marked with an "X," he found the information the colonel was seeking.
Moments later, he picked up the phone and reported to the waiting Colonel Harland. "Colonel, I found her. A girl named Aisha—ten years old, ranked A-class, spatial traversal ability."
"Can you retrieve more detailed information?" Harland's eyes lit up. Could this Aisha be the same girl who appeared on the battlefield earlier?
"I'm sorry, Colonel. What we've accessed is already the highest clearance we're allowed. Anything above that is strictly restricted—we don't have authorization." Pook's apologetic tone carried through the receiver, making Harland sigh in frustration.
"It's fine. Just stay alert and await my orders."
After hearing the firm "Yes, sir!" on the other end, Colonel Harland ended the call. Resting his elbows on the desk and his chin upon folded hands, he sank into deep thought.
"Forget it. I'll leave this matter to the White House. Since they love meddling at crucial moments, they can clean up their own mess for once." After pondering for a while and coming up with nothing, Harland finally shrugged. Raising an eyebrow, he muttered to himself in the empty conference room.
His gaze drifted back to the main screen—only to freeze at the sight that appeared before him. The figure on the monitor made his pupils contract sharply. It was the girl again—the one in blue armor, holding an ornate bow.
Meanwhile, the girls watching from the platform had remained quiet, but a sudden explosion from the distant battlefield drew their attention. What they saw next was so incredible that they stood speechless, unable to believe their eyes. Was such a sight even something a human could produce?
"Why... why do I feel so uneasy?" The white-clad young man racing toward the battlefield suddenly felt a surge of dread. His blood churned violently, and he stumbled to the ground, coughing up blood.
"This feeling... like I'm facing some natural enemy... what is it?" Never before had he been so curious about anything unrelated to his master.
But this time, curiosity overwhelmed him. What kind of existence could make a Heaven-tier warrior like him feel so powerless?
The once-clear sky darkened in an instant. Black clouds gathered rapidly, and purple lightning twisted across the heavens. The thunder rumbled like the drums of war—loud, continuous, deafening.
The sea rose violently, waves surging and crashing against the shore. Massive marine creatures that had fled moments earlier were caught again by the churning tides, flung helplessly back onto the beaches.
The wind howled mournfully, as if terrified of something unseen, rushing madly through the ruins of the shattered city.
Amid this world-shaking storm, the transformation unfolding in the center of the battlefield was even more awe-inspiring...