Danger lurked at every turn on the battlefield.
Kanao had pushed her Equinoctial Vermilion Eye to its limit. Traces of blood seeped from the corners of her eyes, and her vision began to blur.
A Crystal Child seized on her momentary opening, swinging the ice fan in its hand viciously toward her neck with a freezing wind that tore through the air.
Elsewhere, Shinobu Kocho had lost her balance while dodging a frontal attack. The ice spear in another Crystal Child's hand was already aimed at her heart, ready to pierce it the next second.
Inosuke was pinned firmly to the ground by two clones, their sharp ice claws about to rip open his throat.
A desperate situation.
The shadow of death fell over them all at the same time.
In the distance, the smile on Doma's face reached its most brilliant peak.
This was the sight he loved most.
Yet, one tenth of a second before all those attacks struck...
Uesugi Sasuke acted.
He did not move; only the kaleidoscope pattern in his right eye spun sharply.
An invisible surge of ocular power acted upon the mass of Amaterasu Black Flames burning in the center of the great hall.
Hum!
The mass of black fire, originally only the size of a person, seemed to receive its sovereign's command. Its shape changed drastically in an instant.
It no longer burned quietly. As though alive, it suddenly expanded, stretched, and transformed.
It became a streak of black light, moving faster than lightning to arrive above Shinobu Kocho, Kanao, and Inosuke in an instant.
Then, as Doma's brilliant gaze turned to astonishment, the Black Flames became an enormous, burning black dome-shaped shield.
The shield precisely enclosed Shinobu Kocho, Kanao, and Inosuke, along with the area around them.
The next moment, every attack