Teacher?

The moment the laughter faded, the world changed.

There was no roar, no tremor, no warning at all.

The light in the holding room was still the same light, and the walls were still the same walls. But Love knew with absolute certainty that something had sealed this place off from the outside world.

The sounds were gone.

The faint footsteps in the corridor, the static from the radios, the hum of the entire building... all of it had vanished.

A deathly silence.

Every hair on Love's body stood on end.

She had sensed no one approaching.

Thousand Blades was right outside the door, Songstress was in the corridor, and Love had personally laid a Perception Barrier throughout the Public Security Bureau. Yet until the intruder spoke, not one of them had noticed her.

The Gothic Girl, dressed in dark red and black, had appeared in the middle of the holding room as if she had been standing there all along.

Love acted without thinking, her magic power surging—

She dared to mock me to my face? Did she think I was made of clay?

But then something happened that Love had never expected.

The Gothic Girl lifted her heel slightly and tapped it against the floor.

Just one light tap.

A flicker passed through the room, like static flashing across a television screen, and the entire space changed in some unknown way.

Love's eyes flew wide.

Her connection to her own magic power had been severed.

It had not been suppressed or canceled out. It had been severed completely.

It was as though someone had plucked the very concept of magic power out of this tiny pocket of space.

How was that possible?!

*She was Dawn Rank! One of the people at the very pinnacle of the world!