Inside the bubble space, the light bent and warped like a tangled skein, and the dark gray ceiling of the warehouse reflected above in fractured, broken pieces.
Rita's fingers rested lightly against the long handle of her scythe.
Her perception expanded to its absolute limit in an instant.
It was hard to put into words. If her battles before had been like watching the world through a thick pane of frosted glass, then now, the entire space was crystal clear to Rita's eyes.
Even the tiny motes of dust drifting free in the air, even every faintly tensed muscle fiber beneath Raven's trench coat — none of it could hide from her.
Stigmata: Aphrodite.
The mythical goddess who presided over love and beauty.
The new Stigmata hadn't just given Rita a simple boost in raw power — her reflexes, her dynamic vision, even her perception itself had leapt forward by entire orders of magnitude.
Raven's fingertips clenched tight around the grip of the Third Divine Key, the Seven Thunders of Judgment.
As the World Serpent's top assassin, her senses had never screamed this loudly before.
The maid standing across from her wore armor that looked, on the surface, no different from the kind the Valkyries of Schicksal used. And yet the very air around her seemed to be surrendering to her on its own.
"It seems your arrogance now outweighs even your instincts as a Valkyrie."
Raven moved.
Her body left a trail of afterimages where she'd stood, the hem of her coat flaring out like crow's wings. Several specialized throwing weapons streaked out through the gaps in the gas smoke, aimed straight for Rita's throat and heart.
In the same breath, she drew her short blade in a reverse grip, using the smoke as cover to skim low along the ground at an angle, hunting for an opening to bring her Divine Key to bear in close combat.
Rita simply stood there. She didn't move her feet, not even a fraction.
Her right wrist gave the slightest flick.
The massive scythe carved a near-perfect arc through the air.
"Clang—!"
A crisp, ringing clash of metal exploded outward, swelling into a deafening roar.
Every one of those incoming projectiles was swatted away by that single sweep.
Raven's short blade had already arrived.
Rita only turned slightly, letting the long shaft of her scythe press down in the same motion.
Pain seared through the meat of Raven's palm.
The force behind that blow felt less like a blade and more like a hundred-ton truck at full throttle slamming into her head-on.
Her short blade collided with Rita's scythe-shaft, throwing off a shower of blinding sparks.
An overwhelming, mountain-crushing force surged up through the blade.
Raven's feet carved two deep gouges into the concrete floor as her whole body was hurled backward through the air.
She slammed into the invisible wall at the edge of the bubble, her internal organs churning violently, her eyes bloodshot behind her mask.
How was this possible?
This kind of pure strength??
This kind of senseless speed??
Was this really still Rita?
Even when Rita had been S-rank before, her strength had been built on the pinnacle of technique.
Her physical body hadn't been strong enough for this — not to the point where every single strike made Raven feel like she'd just gotten hit by a truck.
Rita came to a stop, twirling the scythe in her hand in an elegant flourish, flicking off a trace of gunpowder residue that had clung to the blade.
"Miss Raven, your eyes are full of confusion."
"Are you wondering why an ordinary person could put out this level of force?"
Rita's voice remained as elegant as ever, but to Raven's ears, it grated like nails on glass.
"It seems you truly haven't yet grasped what that power I spoke of — the power bestowed on me — actually represents."
Raven spat out a mouthful of bloody froth.
She forced herself back to her feet, and the Seven Thunders of Judgment shifted form once more in her grip.
She'd already realized this fight would be far harder than she'd imagined, but a killer's composure kept her from giving up.
Rita advanced, step by relentless step.
With every stride, fine cracks split open in the ground beneath her feet.
That heavy footfall sounded exactly like a death knell.
"You're slowing down, Miss Raven," Rita said, turning her scythe in a horizontal sweep.
Raven ground her teeth.
She tried to use her armor's mobility to put distance between them, to switch to long-range sniping.
But to her despair, every time she blinked away even a few meters, that ominous long scythe would appear at the center of her vision again, as if it had never left.
Rita's speed had surpassed the speed at which Raven's own optic nerves could process an image.
The two shadows crossed and recrossed endlessly in the dim reflections of the warehouse.
Raven kept hurling incendiary bolts and trap-mines, trying to sow chaos in the explosions.
But against this kind of absolute strength and speed, every trick she had felt utterly powerless.
Rita flickered into view before her once again.
The long scythe came down hard.
The air itself seemed to groan under the strain.
Raven raised the Seven Thunders of Judgment horizontally to block above her head.
"BOOM—!"
It was a collision that defied ordinary physics entirely.
Raven dropped to one knee. The once-solid concrete floor collapsed into a massive crater with her at its center.
Just as Raven braced to throw everything into a desperate counterattack, Rita suddenly withdrew all her force and leapt backward several meters, breaking off the assault.
That sudden, unexpected halt was far more unsettling than the fiercest offense could have been.
"What is this supposed to mean? Do you think... this little act of mercy will work on me?"
Raven panted heavily, her chest heaving, a thin line of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.
Rita stood there, her skirt swaying faintly in the raging wind.
"You still seem to be clinging to an unrealistic fantasy — that if you can just find one opening to fire, you can somehow reverse this irreversible collapse."
Rita lifted her right hand slightly.
Beneath the black armor, some manner of dark red pattern was beginning to glow brilliantly.
"Very well. So that you can finally let go of any illusions, I'll show you... exactly what kind of power that lord bestowed upon me."
Rita relaxed out of her combat stance, as though inviting an old friend to dance.
"Now, release your Divine Key. Please challenge me with everything you're most proud of, Miss Raven."
"...Have you lost your mind?" Raven's voice cracked. "Doesn't Schicksal's archive have records of what the Seven Thunders of Judgment can do? This is a Key of Judgment!"
"Of course there are records," Rita said with a faint smile. "It truly is a weapon of tremendous destructive power. A few months ago, I might have spent sleepless nights worrying over how to dodge its trajectory."
"But now, that kind of power no longer poses any threat to me."
Raven wasted no more words.
She planted both feet and shoved off hard, putting distance between them.
The Seven Thunders of Judgment rapidly shifted form in her hands, its massive barrel extending, pale blue lightning surging wildly through its energy circuits.
The air inside the bubble grew thick with an acrid, burning smell from the overcharged energy.
"Key of Judgment — Seven Thunders of Judgment—"
Raven pulled the trigger.
It was a bolt of destructive thunder capable of piercing the very night.
With a shriek that tore space itself apart, it became an unavoidable straight line, crossing the distance between them in an instant.
Outside the bubble, Kiana's fists clenched hard.
Just as the bolt of thunder was about to swallow Rita whole—
The Stigmata on Rita's back lit up.
A stream of Imaginary energy, pure to the point of absolute perfection, surged out from Rita as its core, instantly raising an invisible force field.
All the light.
All the lightning.
The instant they came within three inches of Rita's body, it was as if they'd struck an invisible phase shield.
The light began to bend.
The lightning began to scatter and disperse.
Rita took a single step forward.
She raised the scythe made of Pseudo-Soulsteel in her hand.
In this moment, she wasn't fighting.
She was "pruning" an error in this world.
"CLANG—!"
A detonation loud enough to shatter every pane of glass for miles rang through the warehouse.
Rita swung the scythe.
That bolt of lightning, which should have disintegrated her down to the atom, was instead sliced clean through the middle by that single diagonal sweep, forcibly split apart.
The massive trajectory of energy was violently redirected.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
The deflected lightning slammed into the inner wall of the bubble.
The already-crumbling barrier was punched through with dozens of holes.
The wild, uncontrolled energy tore through the warehouse, sending countless heavy iron shelving units flying.
Raven froze completely, her whole body rigid.
The Seven Thunders of Judgment in her hands still radiated leftover warmth, but her heart had plunged into an icy pit.
This was simply absurd.
It went beyond everything she understood about weapons and logic.
That had been a Key of Judgment — thunder capable of disintegrating atoms.
Why...
Why had it been deflected by a cold weapon? A cold weapon that wasn't even made of soul-steel — so why—
Rita's scythe let out a teeth-grating creak.
In the end, a metal of that grade simply couldn't withstand a direct clash against a Divine Key.
Fine cracks spread across the blade, and then, the instant Rita lowered her wrist, it shattered entirely into a scattering of glittering fragments.
"Well, I suppose Dr. Tesla is going to scold me thoroughly once I get back."
Rita looked helplessly at the broken shaft still in her hand.
She walked toward Raven, who stood frozen like a wooden statue.
The two of them were only three steps apart.
If Rita wanted to, she could have driven that broken shaft straight through Raven's heart at any moment.
Rita came to a stop and gave a formal maid's curtsy of farewell.
"The outcome is decided. Let this pointless conflict end here."
The dust and smoke inside the bubble slowly began to settle.
Raven looked at that gentle, composed face, her voice trembling.
"You're not going to kill me?"
"I don't happen to share the tasteless hobby of stripping a group of children of their teacher."
Rita smiled faintly.
To Raven, that smile felt even more blinding than the thunder had been moments ago.
"What... are you pitying me because of those children?"
"I think you may have misunderstood something."
Rita turned and began walking toward Kiana, who was anxiously watching from outside.
"I'm not sparing you out of pity. It's simply that you still have use to us. That lord once personally instructed me — if I ever crossed paths with you again, to show you mercy this one time. Consider it his 'kindness' toward you, and also, as a producer, his final respect for a 'character.'"
Raven's voice shot up an octave, edged with a confused kind of fury.
"What is this, then? Charity? Just because of one sentence from that man named Su Yu, you'd choose to let me go?"
"No."
Rita turned her head.
Her gaze passed through the edge of the bubble and landed on Kiana, waiting outside.
"There's one more reason, and it's a very important one."
"Everyone needs a chance — an opportunity to reexamine what they're truly fighting for."
Rita's tone stayed even and measured.
"That was true for me. It's true for Lady Kiana out there, too."
"Miss Raven," Rita said, looking at her, "and it's true for you as well. Since you're still willing to struggle through this mire for the sake of those children, then perhaps there's still a trace of color in your soul worth saving."
Rita put away the broken scythe and didn't spare Raven another glance.
She turned and walked toward the edge of the bubble.
"If you find this hard to let go of, then think of it as a trade instead. If, in that other world, Miss Mei ever runs into a hardship she can't overcome on her own, I'd ask that you lend her a hand."
"What do you say?"
Rita's retreating figure looked composed and unshaken.
Raven bit down hard on her lip. Being let off so utterly like this stung far worse than death would have.
"You... you're every bit as infuriating as that bastard Su Yu."
"This debt... this trade — I'll remember it."
The edges of the bubble space began to flicker violently.
A powerful repulsive force shoved both parties back into their respective worlds.
The overlap between the two worlds was fading away.
A flash of light.
Rita reappeared at Kiana's side.
Kiana looked at Rita as she walked over.
Her armor was covered in dust and grime, and only a broken stump remained of the scythe in her hand.
But Rita's expression had never looked this at ease before.
"Rita, you..."
Kiana opened her mouth, but in the end all that came out was a complicated sigh.
"Don't worry. This was a decision I made of my own free will."
Rita spoke lightly, as if it were nothing.
"It's not that I've forgiven her. It's only that... in a script as shattered as this one, we have to leave something behind besides killing, don't we?"
Rita gazed out at the pitch-black night sky beyond the warehouse.
Kiana pressed her lips together.
She thought of those so-called "children" Raven had spoken of.
But that thought lasted only an instant.
She thought of Cocolia.
She thought of Nagazora.
On the scales of good and evil in this world, sin could never be so easily erased.
But Kiana didn't argue.
Because in Rita's eyes, she'd seen something called "choice."
The thing that idiot Su Yu had taught them.
To no longer be mere tools.
But instead, as people with souls of their own, to make choices they wouldn't come to regret.
She understood that feeling.
Just like all those nights she'd once spent asking herself whether she deserved to be saved.
Su Yu had given them an answer.
He'd given this cruel world a faint glimmer of light called "possibility."
If even a Herrscher like her could be saved, could walk the path of atonement,
then so could Rita. So could Raven.
"All right, then."
Kiana let out a breath and slid both her guns back into their holsters.
"Since you've already said all that, when we get back and you're in trouble, I'll take half the blame with you."
She clapped Rita on the shoulder.
"Let's go. That idiot's probably worried sick by now."
Rita watched Kiana's retreating back, a soft ripple of warmth surfacing in her eyes.
"As you wish, Lady Kiana."
____
Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉