Dragon's Wrath

Huo Lin was certain the Book of the Night Sky had the power to destroy.

Several months had passed since she first came into contact with the Book of the Night Sky. She had kept it sealed with her magic every moment since then. No one understood the destructive power of this out-of-control Device better than she did.

But the girl claimed she wanted to use the Book of the Night Sky to save people. That was laughable.

Huo Lin had read through the spells recorded within it several times. They had all been recorded by the grimoire's previous masters during their travels across different worlds. There were plenty of strange spells, but not one could save an entire planet.

So the girl before her was not telling the truth.

Iris was at a loss for words. She knew perfectly well that Huo Lin Yagami was not Tiriye. She would not be so easily fooled.

But she was determined to obtain the Book of the Night Sky. It really did contain something she needed.

She had absolutely no chance of winning a head-on fight.

The next second, Iris vanished from where she stood. As an AI's humanoid terminal, she had no true physical body.

Iris did not understand how this had happened. Tiriye had successfully intercepted the Mages from the Time-Space Administration Bureau, whom she had expected to be their greatest obstacle.

Yet her own task, which should have been effortless, had met with the strongest resistance.

An S-Class Grand Mage? What kind of joke was this? How could someone like that exist on this planet?

Fortunately, humans were not AIs. Real humans always had weaknesses.

Family and friends, for instance.

Iris knew exactly how much risk her next move entailed. Her extraordinary AI processing power could even calculate the precise probability of her own destruction.

Angering a legendary Archmage was no laughing matter.

Even so, Iris had no other choice.

Even if she died... well, for an AI, that would mean breaking down completely. There was still something she had to do.

Whatever the cost.

"I'm sorry."

Iris appeared in front of Hayate. The moment she seized the girl as a hostage, she felt pressure like the sky itself was falling.

That was the line. She had crossed her opponent's bottom line.

Although she had already accounted for this in her calculations, facing it in person still filled her with unbearable terror.

Magic power condensed into something tangible, raging like a typhoon.

Iris truly realized that what stood before her was not a human at all, but a calamity! If she could, she would have fled a thousand times over rather than face her here.

Iris only held Hayate's arm in a token grip, not daring to squeeze hard enough to hurt her. So Hayate did not feel afraid either.

"Why are you attacking us?"

"Please believe me. I don't want to hurt anyone. I only want the Book of Darkness."

Huo Lin drew a breath and barely managed to suppress her fury.

"So you only want the Book of the Night Sky?"

"Yes!" Hearing the softening in her tone, Iris felt as though she had been granted a pardon. "As long as you're willing to lend me the book, I'll agree to any conditions."

"All right. Let Hayate go, and I'll give you the Book of the Night Sky."

Iris wanted her to hand over the book first, but she did not dare ask. It had nothing to do with morality, only the sheer gulf in their strength. She knew Huo Lin's patience had reached its limit.

Threatening her with a family member was far from a good idea, but Iris had no other leverage.

"I understand."

Iris did release her grip. She raised both hands as though surrendering, showing that she had no hostile intentions.

Huo Lin tossed the Book of the Night Sky toward an empty spot behind her.

Seeing that Huo Lin had kept her word, Iris felt a surge of delight. With no time to think about anything else, she lunged toward the Book of the Night Sky.

At the same time, Huo Lin darted over to Hayate, scooped her into a bridal carry without a word, and shot into the sky.

Huo Lin knew better than anyone what would happen once the Book of the Night Sky left her hands and its seal was lifted. Since her opponent had shown malice, she had no reason to warn her.

Looking at the bronze book before her, Iris was certain it was the Book of the Night Sky!

More than thirty years had passed, but the book's appearance had not changed at all. It looked exactly as it did in her memories.

The next instant, Iris's fingers touched the cover of the Book of the Night Sky. Almost simultaneously, an immeasurable torrent of magic power erupted outward from the bronze book.

Before Iris even realized what had happened, the surging magic pinned her entire body firmly to the ground. Crushing gravity collapsed the surface, pulverizing the strata beneath it and forming a deep crater a hundred meters across.

Any normal living creature with a physical body would have been crushed by that immense pressure, no matter what it was. Fortunately, Iris was not one.

As an AI, her body was artificial, formed solely from materialized data.

"Impossible... the Book of Darkness... its Control Personality was clearly sealed away. Why is the curse still here?"

As her data inevitably suffered damage, Iris's body began to distort, like a screen with poor reception.

Of course she knew the Book of Darkness was cursed. She had experienced it firsthand thirty years ago. But that was also why she had personally witnessed its rampaging Control Personality being sealed away. The Book of Darkness should now have been a harmless book.

Why had it turned out like this? And why was it so much more terrifying than it had been thirty years ago?

She could not win. She could not resist it at all. They were on completely different scales!

Meanwhile, the Time-Space Administration Bureau also detected the eruption of energy.

Without any warning, it went from calm to an eruption in mere seconds. It passed straight through intermediate dimensional oscillation and severe dimensional oscillation, jumping directly to the level of a dimensional rift!

"Admiral! We've detected a dimensional rift in Tokyo's Shinjuku district! According to our observations, it's occurring inside a barrier!"

Had it happened outside, it would have caused massive casualties in an instant, potentially destroying an entire city and plunging a whole country into disaster. Fortunately, it had occurred inside a barrier.

But a dimensional rift was too terrifying. No one knew how long that barrier, erected by an unknown caster, could hold.

Although it had happened without warning, Admiral Lindy quickly guessed the cause.

"The Book of Darkness. Its curse must have erupted!"

Lindy's husband had died from the Book of Darkness's curse ten years ago. He had been aboard the ship escorting the Book of Darkness, but it had suddenly gone out of control. Like a raging black hole in space, it had swallowed the Time-Space Administration Bureau's entire ship in an extremely short time.

Fortunately, a Grand Mage from the Age of the Gods was still there.

Clow Reed, in whom their hopes rested, did indeed appear inside the barrier.

"Huo Lin, you've vented enough. Isn't it time you took it back?"

Contrary to Admiral Lindy's expectations, the current Clow Reed could do nothing about the Book of Darkness either. He lacked the magic power to suppress it directly unless he reclaimed the reincarnated body housing the other half of his soul. For now, he had no intention of doing so.

"Eriol? What are you doing here?"

"With a commotion this big? I'm not blind."

The monsters in the area were still multiplying. Eternal Curse Night had fully unfolded. Countless monsters that existed only in fantasy twisted and coiled, manifesting in this world around the core of Eternal Curse Night.

"If you don't act soon, it'll break past its limit."

By his estimate, the monsters' threat level had already reached Super S-Class. Once the final barrier was breached, it would become a true dimensional calamity.

Of course Clow Reed could not simply stand by. Although even a dimensional calamity could not truly threaten him personally, his successor, Sakura Kinomoto, was still in Tokyo. She was in Tomoe Town, not far from here.

This was nothing like the minor trouble caused by the Clow Cards.

People really would die!