Stelle struggled to open her eyes. At the edges of her vision, she could vaguely make out a flicker of fire...
Her head was spinning. During the final clash between Acheron and Aventurine, she had felt like a weed battered back and forth by fierce winds.
Thinking back carefully, all Stelle remembered was how Aventurine's final attack had nearly blinded her with all those dazzling chips everywhere. Then Acheron had drawn her blade.
Immediately afterward, some indescribable force had severed preservation. Space and time around her had frozen in an instant, and the eruption of power had stopped her thoughts as well. Her entire mind had twisted together like braided dough. Amid the madness that robbed her five senses of their original forms, her thoughts had filled with strange, tangled lines, and then her consciousness had plummeted through a bizarre kaleidoscope of sights.
And after that... there had only been those... flames occasionally flickering at the edges of her dim vision.
As her thoughts gradually cleared, Stelle abruptly opened her eyes, then froze.
The flames at the edges of her vision slowly faded, revealing silver-gray armor with a metallic sheen. The towering metal knight stood with his back to her, flames dispersing from his body. A slightly electronic male voice emerged from within the armor:
"...You're awake. I've been waiting here for you for a long time."
Stelle raised an eyebrow at his words. That was a rather strange way to put it.
Of course, Stelle knew who stood before her. Jiang Yu's presence had spared her a confrontation with him from the original plot, but Jiang Yu was also the reason she had learned about this Molten Knight much earlier. He was another member of the Stellaron Hunters, someone Silver Wolf had mentioned in an earlier call-Sam.
Because of