In her field of vision, she saw two all-too-familiar figures bound and entangled by countless silver threads, their bodies twisted into bizarre postures in midair like suspended marionettes, unable to move and at the mercy of others.
"Mm..."
Oppressively agonized moans drifted from their throats from time to time, as thin as a reed pipe and faint as a mosquito's buzz, unsettling the heart and breaking it apart.
"Bronya... Class Monitor..."
Staring at the sight before her, the girl softly identified them. In her sea-blue eyes lay the killing chill of a harsh winter. Murmur.
At the same time, uniform and monotonous mechanical puppets began descending from the ceiling of the Theatre of Domination. Like swarms of fearless ants, they piled over one another and surrounded the girl from every direction, leaving no gap through which to escape.
"Without a Herrscher's power, you are nothing but an ordinary weakling."
Not far behind her, an especially massive mechanical puppet—the Herrscher of Domination—appeared and sneered softly.
Several silver threads clung to its sharp, hook-like claws, woven and tangled like a spiderweb. Its pitch-black mechanical body seemed forged from some unknown material, gleaming with a deep, frigid light.
It looked indestructible and impossible to contend with. Its eerie crimson eyes flickered faintly, seemingly filled with endless malice and curses toward the world.
Simply standing there, it exuded an unprecedented pressure, as though one stood at the edge of an abyss, leaving the mind trembling.
"Ah..."
As if to provoke Kiana, it slowly tightened the threads in its hand. Silver light flowed over them, and the bound Bronya and Fu Hua once again let out uncontrollable groans of pain.
At the sight, Kiana immediately clenched her teeth and roared, "Let them go!"
"You have conviction, but no power to act on it."
The Herrscher