Light and Shadow

The concert officially began.

As the intro to the first song played, eighty thousand people raised their glow sticks overhead at once.

It was an upbeat song.

Knight's voice was much steadier than it had been in rehearsal. She had really done it, letting the end of each line fall softly into the waving glow sticks and the roar of eighty thousand voices singing along.

In the front row, Chen Qianqian sang along the whole time, wildly off-key but full of enthusiasm.

Beside her, Yang Chen smiled and waved his glow stick, though his gaze swept inch by inch over the stands, the aisles, and the dome beneath the brim of his cap.

Those traces of malice were still there.

Like ink sunk to the bottom of a pool, they neither dispersed nor stirred. They waited patiently for something.

The second song. The third.

The excitement rose higher with each one.

Then, during the instrumental break of the third song—

Yang Chen's smile vanished.

The malice moved.

Three floors beneath the Stadium, in the main drainage conduit.

No one was there.

Only a row of black crystals embedded in the gaps between the pipes glowed faintly.

Negative Emotion Crystals.

The Liberation Faction's central creation: through a secret art, they compressed the fear, despair, and resentment of multiple people into a single crystal, then buried it in the city's veins.

When inactive, it sat as silent as a stone. Any scanner passing over it would register only a string of harmless mineral readings.

That was why the underground pipe network had been reported "normal" during the morning inspection.

Now they had awakened.

As the first hairline crack appeared on a crystal's surface, the air in the passage began to warp.

Gray-black mist seeped from the crack, gathering against the damp pipe wall, taking shape, rising—

A Fallen Beast stood up.

Then a second. A third.

Deep in the passage, crystals lit up one after another, like a burning fuse spreading toward the ground directly beneath the Stadium.

"Warning—! Fallen Beast activity in underground pipe network Sector D! Numbers... numbers are still increasing!"

Alarms erupted in the command room.

Old Wei shot to his feet. "How many?!"

"Twenty—forty—and rising! Activity in Sectors D, E, and F at the same time! They're converging on the load-bearing level!"

"Most are only first-tier, with a few second-tier... but there are too many!"

Old Wei's blood ran cold.

The load-bearing level.

They were not after the audience—not yet.

They were gathering beneath the Stadium's foundations. At a single command, everything above eighty thousand people's heads, along with this city's pride, would collapse into a deep pit within seconds.

"Masked Heroine!"

"Already there."

Masked Heroine's voice over the comms was terrifyingly calm.

The next instant, the black figure on the lighthouse vanished, and the gate to the underground passage was kicked open.

"Ranger, east passage. Action Team, seal every ventilation shaft. Don't let a single one get aboveground."

"And remember—"

She paused.

"No one gets to stop the singing up there."

And so the battle in the darkness began.

No audience. No cheers. No lights.

In the underground passage, only gunfire lit up the savage outlines of the beasts, again and again.

The Action Team members wore exoskeletons and used their bodies to block every gate leading to the surface.

One was struck by a Fallen Beast's claws and slammed into a pipe wall with a muffled grunt. They got back up and raised their gun again.

"Hold the line!"

Ranger flashed through the east passage like lightning.

Absolute Evasion made her like a wisp of smoke no one could catch. She wove through the pack, drawing seven or eight roaring Fallen Beasts after her.

But despite the effortless grace of her movements, Ranger looked grim.

Her damage output was limited. She could manage against first-tier Fallen Beasts, but against second-tier ones, her attacks were nowhere near enough.

Worst of all, more Fallen Beasts kept appearing.

"Senior! There are too many! The crystals are still spawning them!"

"I can see that."

At the deepest point of the passage, Masked Heroine smashed a crystal with one punch. Black mist burst from it, choking her and forcing her half a step back.

But when she looked up, dozens more still glowed throughout the underground passage.

Fine beads of sweat had appeared on Celestial Star's forehead.

Unable to use her unique ability, she could only hold on with basic Magic Power attacks.

She could not last much longer like this.

Onstage, the fourth song began.

Knight held the microphone, her voice still clear and bright.

But only she knew that cold sweat had soaked her back.

She could feel it.

Right beneath her feet, beneath the cheers of eighty thousand people, familiar, bone-chilling malice was waking, one presence after another.

Like boiling water trapped under a lid, its tremors hammered at her senses through the thick layers of earth.

The fighting had begun.

Her comrades were dozens of meters beneath her feet, fighting for their lives in the dark.

And she—

"No matter what you sense, you are not to move unless we give the order."

Knight kept smiling. Her voice stayed perfectly on pitch. But the knuckles of the hand gripping the microphone had gone white, one by one.

She saw Old Wei's lips moving at the command station.

The louder the cheers beneath her, the more clearly she could imagine how brutal the battle underground must be.

Could Masked Heroine hold the line alone?

Would the Action Team's ammunition last?

They were ordinary people...

If even one gate gave way, if even one Fallen Beast reached the surface—those eighty thousand people—

The instant that thought entered her mind, Knight's breath faltered for half a beat.

She nearly missed the note at the start of the fourth song's chorus.

Someone in the front row looked startled.

The first question mark appeared in the livestream chat.

[Was she a little off just now?]

[Must've been our imagination, right?]

Knight's heart pounded.

She bit her lower lip and forced herself to push into the next line—

Just then.

A voice rang directly inside her mind, without warning.

Not through her comms. Not through the speakers.

It was right beside her ear, yet it seemed to touch her heart—perfectly clear, carrying a force that allowed no doubt.

"Miss Knight."

Knight's pupils contracted sharply.

She had heard that voice before.

In the hospital room, at the training ground, beneath the night sky over Commercial Street.

"Just answer everyone's love."

"Every second you stand in the light gives eighty thousand people a little more courage. That isn't running away. Right here, right now, it's something only you can do."

"As for protecting everyone's love—"

"That's my duty as a Pure Love Warrior."

The voice fell silent.

Standing at the very center of the spotlight, Knight suddenly felt her eyes burn.

She did not turn around. She did not hesitate.

The next instant, she sang the chorus's highest note steadily, beautifully, holding nothing back—

Boom—!!

Eighty thousand voices joined hers in a chorus that surged like a tidal wave.

[I imagined it! Knight's back on form!]

[That note gave me goosebumps!!]

Knight tipped her head back and sang. Tears welled in her eyes, but she smiled and blinked them away.

Thank you.

She said it silently in her heart.

I'm counting on you.

In the front row.

"Huh?"

Chen Qianqian tugged at Yang Chen's sleeve and leaned toward his ear to shout, "Did you hear that? Knight sounded a little off just now!"

No answer came.

She turned and saw Yang Chen staring fixedly at the stage.

In the shadow of his cap brim, she could not make out his expression. She only saw his lips move, as if he had said something without a sound.

Then Yang Chen stood up.

"I'm going to the restroom," he said.

"What? Now?" Chen Qianqian's eyes widened. "It's the fourth song! The one I've been waiting for is next!"

"I'll be right back."

Yang Chen smiled at her and pressed his glow stick into her hand.

"Wave mine for me."

He turned and strode toward the aisle against the flow of the crowd.

Holding both glow sticks, Chen Qianqian stood there in a daze.

Strange.

She could not say what felt strange.

There was nothing odd about Yang Chen going to the restroom. But the expression on his face when he stood up—

That was not the face of someone going to the restroom.

It was...

Chen Qianqian's heart tightened for no reason.

It was exactly the expression he had worn that day in the park, just before he shoved the shopping bags into her arms and charged off.

"Yang Chen...?"

Her voice was lost beneath the singing of eighty thousand people.

Three floors underground, on the load-bearing level.

The final gate.

The Action Team's defensive line had finally been torn open.

Three Fallen Beasts smashed through the warped gate and roared toward the vertical shaft leading to the surface. A faint glow from the stage showed at its far end.

"Stop them—!!" The captain's voice cracked with the force of his shout.

They could not stop them.

Some were already swinging their guns around, but there was no time to react.

The Fallen Beast in the lead had already leaped onto the shaft's first step.

It raised its head. That sliver of light reflected in its murky eyes.

At that very instant—

The light dimmed.

It had not gone out.

Something had dropped through that sliver of light.

The hem of her pink skirt spun through the pitch-black vertical shaft like a flower blooming against gravity.

The girl landed lightly between the Fallen Beasts and the gate. Her heels clicked against the floor, sending a crisp echo through the passage.

With her back to the strip of light, she faced the darkness. Her pink, starry eyes reflected the three Fallen Beasts—and beyond them, deep in the passage, an unbroken spread of ghostly green crystal lights.

The warmth had vanished from her face, leaving a bone-deep chill.

"Unforgivable."

Love slowly raised a hand.

Snap!

Her fingers snapped sharply.

In an instant, a beam of light ricocheted through almost the entire underground space, deftly avoiding every fighter.

Everyone struggling below froze at the sight.