Darkness

Just as Touko Aozaki, hiding behind the scenes, was frightened by Alice Kuonji's Moon Oil and prepared to have Beowulf Lugh withdraw from the battlefield at once, Alice Kuonji was not in very good condition either.

Because she had previously used Blue Robin to take her place in death, she had expended a considerable amount of magical energy herself. Moreover, she only had that one Robin PLOY in hand. Before she repaired Robin, Alice Kuonji was extremely vulnerable. If Beowulf Lugh found another chance to attack her, she would certainly be defeated—or even die.

More importantly, Night Oil, Alice Kuonji's greatest reliance, possessed the immense power of this "Fragment of One" only as long as its main body was not found and the surrounding environment remained night...

The two had already fought for quite some time. Although Alice Kuonji could now use Flat Snark's ability to generate True Ether on its own to wear down the Golden Wolf of fully materialized soul, once the night passed and the true sun rose, Alice Kuonji would no longer hold any advantage. Her confrontation with Touko would be reversed.

Alice Kuonji hesitated. She took out a rune stone hidden in her cloak pocket and looked at it. It was a communication stone Aoko Aozaki had left her before. As long as she infused it with magical energy and crushed it, Aoko would learn of her situation and immediately enter the battlefield.

Whether it was day or night, that soul-materialized phantasmal beast would never run out of energy...

At that thought, Alice seemed to make up her mind. She tightened her grip on the communication stone in her hand.

Meanwhile, the argument between Touko and Beowulf Lugh was nearing its conclusion. The Fantasy of the Earth was ultimately no match for the overwhelming power of Touko's soul-deep contract... It chickened out and agreed to retreat.

Touko Aozaki's surveillance familiar also landed on the fur along Beowulf's back at that moment. Touko had not needed to withdraw even that familiar, but considering she had already spent a great deal of money this time producing various Mystic Codes and dolls in order to defeat her younger sister, it would be better to recover the surveillance familiar for the sake of resource efficiency.

But sometimes, agreeing to retreat did not mean one could successfully retreat from a battlefield.

Though this abandoned amusement park was in the midst of night, it had been revived by Flat Snark's effects, and its interior was actually filled with lights.

Yet for some reason, every light was now going out "in the same direction," as though a monster that devoured light lurked somewhere in the darkness, consuming every source of illumination one by one.

Beowulf Lugh immediately became alert and stared at the pitch-black area in the distance along its escape route.

Strangely enough, as a phantasmal species, Beowulf Lugh undoubtedly possessed night vision. It could see everything even on a lightless wilderness, yet when it encountered this darkness, it could see nothing within it.

But Beowulf Lugh was not afraid, because it knew that few things in this world could hurt it, much less kill him. So he remained cautious and advanced step by step, intending to find out what exactly was inside that darkness.

As it moved forward step by step, the eerie darkness before it shrank back step by step. The giant wolf wore a humanlike expression of contempt and disdain.

For some reason, however, the doll soldiers and toy monsters that had been endlessly entangling it earlier no longer came near. Beowulf Lugh was somewhat puzzled, but it was ultimately a good thing that those things were no longer pursuing it. The wounds on its body had already begun to heal at high speed.

Beowulf Lugh took one step forward, and the darkness retreated one step. But just as it was satisfied with its own strength, it saw something strange on the ground the darkness had relinquished.

It was a human body.

No, it was only half a body. More precisely, it consisted only of the upper half, standing upright on the ground.

All of its arms had been placed before its body in the posture of devout Buddhist prayer, palms pressed together, while the lower half of the humanoid body had been planted upside down in the ground not far away.

Beowulf Lugh was puzzled. What was this thing?

"That is one of my dolls," Touko Aozaki's grave voice came from the familiar on its back. "Be careful. I can no longer contact the cores of these dolls."

Having been battered black and blue by the many strange creations activated by Flat Snark, Beowulf Lugh was somewhat wary of things that looked wrong at a glance. Rather than charging about as it had before, it gradually backed away, intending to escape in another direction.

But before it had taken more than a few steps back, it felt a bone-piercing chill coming from its tail.

It immediately leaped forward, then turned around and looked behind it, only to discover a wall at least several dozen meters wide blocking its retreat.

That "wall" looked indistinct, seemingly formed from some kind of roiling black mist.

If it had merely been an ordinary wall, Beowulf Lugh could have smashed it apart with a single charge. But the thing before it was clearly not normal.

The longer Beowulf Lugh stared at and examined the pitch-black wall, the more uneasy it felt, and the less it wanted to go forward.

"What is wrong with you, Beowulf?" Touko's voice was somewhat anxious. "Just jump over that pretentious thing! It is not even very tall, is it?"

That was true, but Beowulf Lugh, as a beast, had always trusted its instincts. Throughout its long life, its instincts had always been right and had always guided it to success.

And now, its instincts told it to flee, to stay away from that strange "wall."

Thus, Beowulf Lugh, which had always been loyal to its desires, turned and ran. It leaped over the doll on the ground in its strange prayer pose and ran toward the direction in which the darkness had receded.

Yet the farther it ran, the more damaged dolls it found appearing beside it.

They held the same prayer pose, and their upper and lower bodies were likewise separated.

Neatly arranged, these praying dolls formed a road leading into the darkness.

Beowulf Lugh did not stop. It had no interest in these inexplicably broken dolls. It only wanted to follow its instincts and escape this damned amusement park.

But as it was about to reach the end of the dolls, all the darkness gathered together like mist, slowly swirling like a tornado before dispersing again.

Beowulf Lugh naturally had no interest in stopping to watch. It was not some overly curious human.

It charged straight into that black "whirlwind." Something like this could never stop its advance!

But just as it was about to approach, the darkness gradually dissipated, and a red-haired woman slowly emerged from within, watching Beowulf Lugh and Touko Aozaki's familiar with a faintly mocking smile.