The golden cage was a crucible, and Nox was the fire. She moved not with blinding speed, but with impossible, fluid precision, as if she were editing reality around her. Kenta's new harmonious style, a dance of light and shadow that could disarm platoons, was rendered useless. He would lunge, Hikari no Ha a silver streak, only to find Nox had already shifted the space between them, his blade slicing through empty air. He would summon Yami no Hikari's nullifying energy, and she would simply step through it, the darkness parting for her like a curtain.
Sarah was faring no better. Her High-Grade combat skills, the product of a month of brutal refinement, were a child's flailing against a master. She unleashed a perfectly controlled blast of fire, and Nox caught it in her palm, the flames dying without a sound. A series of disabling nerve strikes were effortlessly parried with flicks of Nox's wrist, each block sending jarring shocks up Sarah's arms. They were like moths battering themselves against a diamond pane.
[WARNING: Host physical integrity at 67%. Ki reserves depleting rapidly.]
[ANALYSIS: Combat efficiency against target 'Nox' is 0.01%.]
[RECOMMENDATION: Immediate activation of Auto-Battle Mode is the only non-zero probability path for survival. Host cognitive functions are a liability.]
The System's message was a cold splash of reality. Sarah gritted her teeth, ignoring it. She wouldn't surrender her will, not yet. Not while she could still fight.
Nox, meanwhile, seemed less like she was fighting and more like she was conducting a tedious experiment. She sighed, a sound of profound boredom that was more insulting than any taunt.
"This is truly dull," she mused, effortlessly evading a simultaneous strike from both of Kenta's blades by leaning back at an impossible angle. "You have such fascinating potential, but you're so… unrefined. Like raw gemstones dragged through the mud." She flicked her fingers, and a wave of force sent Kenta skidding backward, his boots carving grooves in the marble.
She glanced towards the shimmering barrier, a flicker of genuine impatience in her starlit eyes. "I do wonder if my Lord will be displeased by my late arrival. Orion does so hate to be kept waiting."
The name landed in the room not as a sound, but as a seismic shock.
For Kenta, it meant nothing. But for Sarah, the world stopped.
Orion.
The name was a brand seared onto her soul. The Emperor of Shadow. The one who had murdered her first and only friend in this world, the gentle giant who had tried to protect her. The one whose face was the centerpiece of her burning, all-consuming vow of vengeance.
Every thought, every strategy, every ounce of pain from the fight vanished, replaced by a white-hot, all-encompassing static. The memory of her friend's lifeless eyes, the sound of Orion's mocking laughter—it all crashed down on her at once, short-circuiting her reason, her fear, her very sense of self.
Her body went rigid. The frantic energy of the fight drained from her, leaving behind a terrifying, absolute stillness. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, stared through Nox, into a past painted in blood and shadows.
Kenta saw the change instantly. "Sarah?!"
She didn't hear him. The world had narrowed to a single, horrible truth: this creature, this Nox, served him.
The System's alert, which had been a persistent hum, now flashed with urgent, crimson priority.
[CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL BREACH DETECTED.]
[HOST COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS OVERWHELMED BY TRAUMATIC ASSOCIATION.]
[AUTO-BATTLE MODE BYPASSING HOST AUTHORIZATION.]
[OVERRIDE PROTOCOL ENGAGED FOR SURVIVAL.]
But no override was needed.
A single, ice-cold, perfectly articulated thought formed in the storm of Sarah's shattered mind. It was not a plea. It was a command.
System.
Take it.
Take everything.
Kill her.
There was no transition. One moment, Sarah was a statue of frozen grief and rage. The next, her head snapped up, her body straightening with an unnatural, mechanical fluidity. All emotion
vanished from her face, leaving a placid, vacant mask. Her eyes bled into a luminous, piercing silver, shining with a light that was not her own.
The air around her crackled with a new kind of energy—not the wild flare of ki, but the silent, terrifying hum of infinite calculation.
Nox, who had been about to deliver a final, dismissive strike, paused. Her bored expression melted away, replaced by genuine, sharp surprise. "Oh?"
The Sarah-thing didn't speak. It analyzed. It saw the LR-ranked aura not as an insurmountable wall, but as a complex equation of energy density, psychological patterns, and physical constants. It saw the golden barrier of the Crimson Gala not as a prison, but as a set of boundary conditions.
It moved.
It wasn't faster than before. It was… elsewhere. It didn't dodge Nox's next attack; it was simply in a position where the attack was statistically irrelevant. It closed the distance, its movements a series of perfect, minimalistic adjustments that defied anticipation.
For the first time, Nox was forced to take a step back. Her starlit eyes widened further, not in alarm, but in rapt fascination.
"What is this?" she whispered, a slow smile spreading across her lips. "This… this is different. This is not the girl."
The System, now in full control, ignored her. It had its directive. It had a target linked to Orion. And it had a single, cold, uncompromising objective.
Eradication.