Stainless used Geppo to land on a section of ruined building. His gaze swept over the two figures darting past each other below-the Golden Great Buddha and the black werewolf.
The shock waves from the two powerhouses' battle were staggering. Buddhist light and black flames crossed, utterly destroying the ground. Little remained of the stone paving and concrete, exposing broad, sandy craters.
Sengoku, in his Buddha Form, was pursuing Red Count. His golden palm struck where Red Count had just stood, gouging a huge depression in the ground and sending sand, stones, and wreckage blasting outward.
Red Count leaped to the flank and flipped in midair. As he landed, his claws swept across the ground. Black flames snaked along the marks he left as if alive, surrounding Sengoku from every direction.
Stainless took a deep breath and shouted to Sengoku.
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku! Staff Officer Tsuru asked me to tell you-Advisor Shining has been locked inside imaginary space! Those Obelisks are the ritual's key nodes!"
Sengoku punched the ground. A shock wave swept through the Hellfire, and Buddhist light smothered the black flames.
"-Hmm!?"
Sengoku did not stop to speak with Stainless. He merely glanced at him to acknowledge the message.
Then he turned his gaze skyward-the Black Sun was slowly rotating, tiny, fluorescent corona ripples flickering across its surface.
He held the advantage in his fight with Red Count, giving him room to spare some attention.
"...Imaginary space."
Sengoku repeated the term quietly, his brow furrowing.
According to their intelligence, Shining had originally been an ordinary human. He had become what he was now because of an accident during Bondrewd's research into "imaginary space."
-No wonder he could be "locked inside" it!
Sengoku spotted the crucial detail.
He no longer worried about Shining's "safety." Wasn't that practically the same