Kanna's Transformation on Terra

Misery narrowed his eyes and turned to look at Kal'tsit some distance away. Kanna's words had clearly reached her as well. He had no real objection to bringing Kanna along, and because of Outcast, he found the little girl rather agreeable. But he knew how important Kanna was to Rhodes Island. Without Kal'tsit's approval, he would never secretly take her away.

Kal'tsit had naturally heard Kanna as well. She had initially wanted to stop her, but then she remembered that Kanna and Rosemary were close. Having just come out of confinement and learned that her friend had been attacked, Kanna would naturally want to help. Refusing her under such circumstances would not be a good choice.

After a brief consideration, Kal'tsit nodded at Misery. "Bring Kanna along. However, Misery will be in command of this rescue operation. Kanna, you are not to act on your own."

After speaking to Misery first, Kal'tsit fixed Kanna with a stare.

"Okay! Rosemary's in danger, and there's no time to waste. I'll go to the Engineering Department to get my weapons. We'll meet on the top deck!"

With that, Kanna hurried toward Vulcan's workshop.

Misery had no objection to Kanna leaving. Instead, he led the team toward the uppermost level of Rhodes Island.

Since this was an emergency rescue, they certainly would not be traveling overland. Rhodes Island had transport helicopters, though they were rarely used.

But in a crisis like this, aerial support by helicopter was clearly much faster than driving.

Once aboard, the group sped toward the target location.

Misery spread out the safe house map Kal'tsit had given him and began assigning tasks to the team.

After finishing the arrangements, he looked at Kanna. He understood her strength, but they had never operated together before, so he wanted to see what choice she would make on her own.

Sensing Misery's gaze, Kanna pointed at the front entrance of the safe house. "Since you and the others will keep them occupied around the perimeter, I'll break through from the center! Please give me a new communicator, then drop me directly above this location. Once I'm down, I'll head straight for the safe house. If I find Rosemary, I'll have her reestablish contact through the new communicator."

Misery nodded after hearing her out, not doubting that Kanna had the ability to accomplish the task.

"Your method is worth considering. But the area around the safe house entrance will definitely be where the fighting is fiercest. For safety, the helicopter can't get too close to the ground. Once you reach the airspace above, wait for a while. Move only after we begin attacking from outside."

Misery's plan was that the helicopter's appearance over the center would inevitably draw both sides' attention. Once Rosemary's side saw reinforcements arriving, their morale would rise. Then, while the enemy focused on the helicopter, Misery's team could launch a surprise attack from the outside. The sudden arrival of the helicopter could also temporarily slow the enemy's advance.

Airborne Rescue

Very soon, the helicopter reached the outskirts of the safe house. Misery led his men off first, leaving Kanna alone inside.

The helicopter brazenly carried Kanna directly over the safe house.

From above, Kanna could clearly see the Rhodes Island operators' temporary defensive position below. Several operators lay at the very front of the position, their pupils unfocused and their breathing stopped. They were clearly dead.

Only the secondary position, temporarily formed with Rosemary's floating greatswords, had given the remaining operators a chance to catch their breath. Rosemary herself was sitting on the ground, and the pallor of her face made it obvious that she was in terrible condition as well.

Kanna's expression darkened at the sight. Silver-white vertical pupils appeared once more in her azure eyes.

Under normal circumstances, she would already have dropped down and turned every enemy into charred ash. But as Kal'tsit had said, these enemies could not be allowed to escape. Still, where they had come from and who had been involved behind the scenes were more important than simply eliminating them.

The helicopter that suddenly appeared in the sky drew both sides' attention, just as Misery had predicted.

The Rhodes Island side saw the familiar insignia on the helicopter and revealed expressions of relief. Reinforcements had arrived. The enemy, meanwhile, warily watched the helicopter circling in figure eights overhead.

Several casters and crossbowmen tentatively attacked the helicopter, but it nimbly evaded them all.

Kanna stood coldly by the aircraft door, communicator in hand, describing the enemy's deployment below to Misery's team as they infiltrated.

With Kanna's aerial reconnaissance and reports, Misery's side made excellent progress, quickly picking away the enemy's outer perimeter.

Once the outer layer had nearly been eliminated, the enemy finally discovered Misery's team, and a new round of fighting began outside.

Only then did Misery give Kanna the order to descend.

Kanna gave the helicopter pilot an OK sign, then leaped straight out of the aircraft.

After realizing Rhodes Island's plan, the enemy fell into brief panic. Then they decided to throw everything into an assault, wipe out Rosemary's squad first, and only then turn to confront Rhodes Island's reinforcements.

But just as their men rushed into the position, a Rhodes Island operator descended from the sky carrying an utterly terrifying aura.

Before they could clearly see what she looked like, she swung a massive two-handed sword and cleaved the fastest-charging few cleanly in two.

Kanna was burning with anger after landing. Seeing those enemies still foolish enough to charge at her, she had no intention of holding back. This strike of hers could cut through not only enemies wearing ordinary equipment—even a thick-skinned Great Beast would have its outer shell sliced away.

She did not even need to exert much force. With a simple horizontal slash, the blade flashed, and several enemies fell in response.

Frightened by the inexplicable deaths of their comrades, the enemy slowed their attack once again, allowing Kanna to walk into Rosemary's squad's defensive perimeter.

Though they saw only Kanna, many among them had witnessed the "great battle" between Rosemary and Kanna on the deck. They knew just how terrifying the newcomer was.

Kanna handed the communicator to one member of Rosemary's squad, then walked over to Rosemary and asked a nearby Medical Operator, "How is Rosemary?"

The Medical Operator nodded first, then shook her head.

"When the enemy launched their ambush earlier, Rosemary blocked most of their attacks. Then she continued fighting without pause, so both her mental and physical condition are very poor right now. I just gave her an injection, so at least the Originium concentration in her body won't keep increasing in the short term. But for her to recover, she needs to return to Rhodes Island headquarters for treatment as soon as possible."

Kanna nodded and pointed at the helicopter overhead. "I'll clear the battlefield. Contact the helicopter and get Rosemary back to Rhodes Island as soon as possible. Leave this place to us."

The other operators had also noticed the disturbance coming from behind the enemy lines and knew that Kanna had not come alone. They all nodded in understanding.

Kanna raised her greatsword and pulled it apart with both hands. Two longswords, one red and one blue, appeared in her hands. Without another word, Kanna burst out of the position and charged straight into the enemies rushing at them again.

Under the enemy's disbelieving gazes, Kanna wielded her twin swords, using Lightning Wedge's displacement and her own speed to appear and vanish across the battlefield. Like a blood-soaked reaper, she was everywhere and nowhere. Most terrifying of all, not a single enemy she struck could hold on for even one more second.

A massive shield was split apart, and the Shield Guard hiding behind it died without ever understanding why the shield that had always made him feel safe had melted as effortlessly as chocolate beneath a hot knife.

Originium defenses were shattered with a single sword strike. Before the caster could release another spell, a streak of azure flashed past, leaving only a headless corpse behind.

Kanna no longer needed to use her hands to deploy Lightning Wedges when using Star Alignment. With a flick of her little foot, a Lightning Wedge appeared by her feet. Then she kicked it precisely toward its destination. The next second, the two switched places. Red and blue light flashed from her original position, and every enemy in the surrounding circle died instantly.

If Rosemary's Arts embodied a violent kind of beauty, then Kanna's fighting filled her enemies with terror.

Even though the enemy had charged straight at them from the front, it somehow felt as if they were facing a master assassin. That terrifying figure silently reached their comrades' sides, swung her weapons, and a ring of soldiers fell. There had been no resistance at all. Most of them had looked bewildered right until death.

Deadly, efficient, and concise—everything had been captured with perfect clarity by the cameras aboard the helicopter overhead.

No one had ever imagined that battle could be this "simple." Just as Rosemary's squad prepared to raise their weapons and help Kanna repel the enemy, they discovered that aside from corpses scattered across the ground, not a single living enemy remained nearby.

At Kanna's beckoning, the helicopter that had long been waiting in the sky descended.

Kanna leaped onto the roof and vigilantly surveyed the surroundings. If any enemy tried to attack the helicopter with Arts, she would intercept them immediately.

Sure enough, just as the helicopter was about to land, a massive fireball suddenly shot out from a nearby house, heading straight for it.

With a kick of her calf, Kanna sent a Lightning Wedge flying between the fireball and the helicopter in the next instant.

After activating Star Alignment, Kanna appeared before the fireball. Facing it without fear, she swung her two swords like spinning windmills and sliced the fireball apart until it vanished into nothing.

That utterly absurd maneuver left the caster in the distance dumbfounded. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that his Arts could be dispelled in such a way.

While the enemy caster was still marveling at how his Arts had been broken through such an unreasonable method, Kanna had no interest in discussing the benefits of high Arts resistance against casters with him.

A Lightning Wedge appeared beside her. Using her weapon like a golf club, she smacked it straight into the small house from which the fireball had been launched.

The next second, Kanna used her swap to enter the house. Seeing several strangely dressed people around her, she swung her twin blades. Red and blue light flashed past, and in an instant, every enemy in the room had been beheaded.

Only then did the caster see clearly that the one who had ruined their operation was just a child.

"I lost to a child?"

With resentment and confusion, the caster collapsed to the ground without even putting up a proper resistance.

After dealing with the people in that room, Kanna used the Lightning Wedge to transfer back to her original position and continued protecting the helicopter.

Perhaps what had just happened was too horrifying, because the remaining enemies hesitated in fear and stopped attacking for the moment. Until Rosemary's squad carried the unconscious Rosemary aboard the aircraft, no one launched another attack.

The reason for this was naturally the work of Misery and his squad.

Using the intelligence Kanna had provided earlier, the experienced Misery quickly located the enemy command center. While his teammates cleared out the enemies around the perimeter, the bold and highly skilled Misery used his Arts to infiltrate the command center directly. Before the enemy leader could arrange a response to this sudden situation, he struck. In just two breaths, he killed three of the seven people inside. The remaining four, including the enemy leader, all suffered serious injuries.

With their command center under attack, the enemy was left leaderless. Some wanted to continue the assault and seize the chance to wipe out Rosemary's surrounded squad. Others believed they should first deal with the enemies who had been ambushing them from outside, while the rest hesitated between the two sides.

Most of those who chose to press the attack were cut down head-on by Kanna the moment they rushed out, while the supporting casters also died by her hand. With heavy losses among that faction, the survivors saw Kanna's savage combat power and retreated outward. After all, they could still put up a fight against the enemies coming from outside, but charging inward was practically suicide.

Even those in the neutral faction came to think the same way. For a time, the very center of the battlefield—where the helicopter was—was instead left without any enemies joining the attack.

The helicopter soon rose swiftly into the air and flew straight toward Rhodes Island.

With no more worries behind her, Kanna danced her weapons and charged toward the enemies around her.

The sky gradually darkened, and fine rain began to fall, blanketing the entire battlefield.

Misery sensed the Arts fluctuations rippling between heaven and earth. Remembering the report Kal'tsit had previously given him on Kanna's combat abilities, he came to a realization.

Still, he felt that ordinary rainfall could not offer their ambush any advantage. On the contrary, fighting beneath the rain would only make the battlefield more complicated.

At that moment, Kanna's voice came through everyone's earpieces.

"All participating Operators, please stay in the rain for a moment. One second is enough!"

Although they did not know what Kanna was up to this time, most of the Operators had already been outside the buildings. Even if Kanna had not said anything, they would have been getting rained on anyway.

Just as Misery wondered what Kanna was planning, her voice came through the earpiece once more. "The eternal path is magnificent; the Thunder God is eternal."

As soon as her words fell, every Operator discovered an image of a purple eye appearing behind them.

As Rhodes Island's most popular new Arts, everyone naturally recognized this spell.

However, when anyone other than Kanna used it, its effects were not only poor, but it could only imbue their own attacks with lightning Arts. Coupled with its outrageous consumption, even though some Operators had witnessed its tremendous power when cast by Kanna, no one chose to use it in actual combat.

Misery was even more shocked now. Kal'tsit's report had included an estimate of this spell's range. The conclusion then had been that even Kanna would need to remain within fifty meters of everyone, with no large obstacles separating them, to apply the spell to them.

But now, not only did their own battle line stretch for nearly a hundred meters, Kanna was also roughly five hundred meters away from them. With so many houses between them, by any normal judgment, she should not have been able to apply this spell to their group at all.

He suddenly looked up at the raindrops falling from the sky, and a guess formed in his heart. But this was a critical moment in the battle, so he had no spare attention to ask about it.

"If you want to condense the Eye of Thunder Punishment and Evil into a small avatar that can be deployed on its own, recite the words I just said. Once the spell disappears, I'll replenish it for you."

Kanna's voice came through the earpieces again, and this news delighted Misery. There were only around ten of them, nowhere near enough to hold such a broad area. If the enemy saw through their numbers and chose to flee, their small group would never be able to keep them all here.

But Kanna's avatars changed things. He, Sharp, and Scout had studied how powerful those avatars were. Each was roughly equivalent to an Elite Operator. With ten extra Elite Operators on their side, preventing the enemy from escaping would be easy.

At Misery's command, every Operator immediately transformed the Eye of Thunder Punishment and Evil into a Thunder Seed and threw it out.

In an instant, more than ten of Kanna's avatars appeared on the battlefield.

Kanna's avatars inherited nearly all of her skills, and with their terrifying physical abilities, it was as though their side had suddenly gained more than ten Minato Namikazes.

Using Star Alignment, the avatars flickered in and out across the battlefield. Whenever they found a gathering of enemies, they charged in and unleashed a Myriad Thunder Prison. Moreover, Kanna could observe the battlefield through every avatar, and with Rain Tiger's Freedom surveying everyone on the battlefield, she could directly guide the avatars to carry out precise blasts wherever the enemy gathered. After an avatar disappeared, the Operators would turn the Eye of Thunder Punishment and Evil back into a Thunder Seed again.

Misery's group's task became searching the battlefield, locating places where the enemy had gathered in numbers, and throwing Kanna at them.

While Misery's group on the perimeter was busy with their grand Kanna-avatar tossing operation, the real Kanna inside was not idle either.

She swung her weapons, carrying out strikes from the inside out with the precision of a scalpel.

Beneath the curtain of rain, as long as anyone dared to show themselves, no one could escape her sight.

Under overwhelming pressure from both within and without, the squad quickly fell apart.

After all, the purple streaks whizzing across the battlefield were simply too terrifying. They descended upon one position after another like the reaper himself.

Comrades who had been perfectly fine over comms one second fell silent forever after a scream the next. Coupled with the gloomy sky and the drizzling rain, the fact that the squad only began to collapse after suffering nearly fifty percent casualties was enough to prove that it had been an elite force of the highest caliber.

Misery felt no joy at this. His face was filled with worry instead. If an enemy capable of fielding such a force came looking to cause trouble for Rhodes Island, then aside from a handful of the very best Elite Operators, no one would dare guarantee they could survive being surrounded and hunted down.

Even those top Elite Operators could not guarantee that their teams had any hope of surviving such an encirclement.

Rhodes Island's hope now lay with the commander he had captured. As long as they could pry information out of him and learn who was targeting them—force the enemy into the open—then even if they could not defeat them head-on, with Kal'tsit's capabilities, she would surely find a way to make them stop or leave them with no time to bother Rhodes Island.

"Everyone, pair up and pursue freely. But remember: do not leave the area where it's raining. Do not leave the rain!"

Once he discovered that the enemy had begun to flee in disarray, Misery decisively issued new orders.

Misery did not join his team in the cleanup. Instead, he bound the few captives he had taken tightly with rope. Whenever any of them showed signs of waking, he immediately struck again to keep them unconscious, preventing anyone from escaping or using Arts to self-destruct.

After charging through the enemy for a while, Kanna lost interest in prey that offered no resistance. Following the location she had locked onto earlier, she quickly found Misery.

Seeing Kanna jump in from outside, Misery nodded and pulled out a tissue from his bag, handing it to her.

"Wipe your face."

Kanna took the tissue and wiped the rainwater from her face. Then, standing in the open space, she clasped her hands together. A current surged from her body, swiftly evaporating every drop of rain from her clothes and hair.

Only after the damp feeling had vanished did Kanna sit beside Misery with a bright smile.

"Uncle Misery, it feels like it's been ages since we sat together like this. I still remember your grilled Originium slugs. They actually tasted pretty good."

Misery did not answer when he heard Kanna's words. The two of them did see each other often at Rhodes Island, but they truly rarely talked.