Torrential rain poured over Leijing. The world was dark and gloomy, off-key advertising jingles mingling with the rustle of the rain.
Ke Mingqing walked down the long street, carrying Shadow Girl's corpse. Rainwater battered the ground, sending up splashes and ripples.
Soon, a series of cold-toned settlement panel Pop-ups appeared in the hazy curtain of rain.
[Detected that the player has killed two B Rank super-human species. A total of 4,000 experience points have been acquired.]
[Congratulations, experience points have reached the current level cap. Player level has automatically increased by one—current player 'Ke Mingqing' level progress: Lv.18 (2200/9000 experience points).]
Ke Mingqing had no time to enjoy the post-battle settlement. He was currently observing the situations with Red Lotus and Rain Crow through the top hat's perspective and White Jack's perspective, respectively.
A moment later, however, he suddenly looked up, gazing into the sky against the falling rain.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ke Mingqing caught sight of a massive shadow.
He focused his gaze. His line of sight pierced the curtain of rain, and he finally made out the shadow's true form. It was a missile... Yes, a missile.
Instinctively, however, his thoughts turned to that tall woman in the Russian military uniform.
Roundtable Hero, Officer Girl. Her esper ability was the creation and manipulation of various weapons of war; a missile like this was definitely within her capabilities.
'A missile?' Ke Mingqing thought. 'Why would a missile appear at a time like this? Is it Officer Girl's esper ability? No, didn't Officer Girl return to the Roundtable headquarters a week ago?'
Soon, another sight appeared before him, entirely denying his guess.
The next instant, the advertising billboards atop every skyscraper and high-rise in sight abruptly went black. Then, they all began broadcasting the same image.
Standing in front of the camera was a middle-aged man wearing a brown bowler hat and a brown suit. He was looking down, wiping a monocle.
'Clock Maker...' Ke Mingqing raised an eyebrow, silently uttering the name in his heart.
He knew the real Clock Maker was currently playing a two-man game of hide-and-seek with Rain Crow, meaning this was a recording. And this recording quickly cleared up Ke Mingqing's confusion.
On the screen, the man put on the monocle, hooked the chain over his ear, and slowly raised his eerie eyes to stare into the camera.
"If my guess is correct, it should be 12:25 PM on August 25th right now, and you should have already seen the nuclear missile overhead."
Clock Maker spoke, his voice as leisurely and mocking as ever.
"You're welcome. This is a gift for a certain Miss Executive of ours."
He toyed with the pocket watch in his hand and continued speaking over its rhythmic ticking:
"I've heard the rumors, Miss. The Hero Control Bureau sent you to meddle in the affairs between Rain Crow and me. Of course, this is just hearsay, and I haven't verified if it's true... But considering this might be the last game between Rain Crow and me, I don't want anyone else getting involved."
"It took me quite some time to find the big shot who controls the nukes, and it took me even more time to brainwash him without leaving any flaws."
At this point, the corners of Clock Maker's mouth curled up slightly, a profound light swirling in his eye behind the lens.
"I hope you like this gift of mine. I'm very much looking forward to your performance. Leijing is counting on you to save it... Miss Executive." Having said his piece, the screen darkened.
Clock Maker's face vanished from atop the high-rises, but Ke Mingqing remained frozen in place. His eyes widened slightly as he muttered hoarsely, "A... nuke?"
He subconsciously pulled out his phone and glanced at the name "Xia Lingxue" in his notes, pondering.
'If Second Sister wants to intercept that nuke, relying solely on her esper ability shouldn't be enough. Will she unleash the Fire Giant Surtr? If so, how will she explain it to the Control Bureau people afterward?'
...
...
Meanwhile, in another corner of Leijing.
The torrential rain poured down.
Dressed in a khaki trench coat, Xia Lingxue stood atop the roof of a skyscraper. With her hands stuffed in her pockets and an Alpenliebe lollipop dangling from her mouth, she looked down at the screens on the billboards between the high-rises.
The fierce wind drove the rain against her, blowing her pitch-black hair around as the collar of her trench coat flapped in the gale.
Amid the majestic curtain of rain, she was the sole figure atop the skyscraper.
The neon lights of thousands of buildings flickered, and Clock Maker's mocking voice echoed across almost the entire city.
Yet Xia Lingxue simply listened in silence, her face utterly expressionless.
A short while later, as the recording Clock Maker had made for her finished playing, she slowly tilted her head back. She looked toward the missile plummeting toward the center of Leijing City at high speed like a massive black bird.
"Boring," Xia Lingxue muttered blankly, taking the lollipop out of her mouth. "Who wants to get involved in the petty squabbles of you old men? Still, you really know how to make extra work for me..."
The next instant, the temperature on the rooftop spiked. The entire skyscraper, along with the gloomy sky above, was dyed a twilight, bloody red.
A fiery hue flashed through Xia Lingxue's eyes, and her lowered face was illuminated by the sudden blaze.
Amid the monstrous flames, she kept one hand shoved in her trench coat pocket and used the other to brush back her long hair, revealing a silver stud earring.
Immediately following, a dazzling curtain of blazing fire engulfed her figure and shot into the sky.
"Roar—!!!" A massive, sonorous bellow thundered beneath the heavens.
Pedestrians on the streets holding umbrellas and office workers staring blankly out of their glass walls, still reeling from Clock Maker's broadcast, were startled out of their daze.
They all raised their heads, gazing in dumbfounded terror at a scene capable of overturning their entire worldview. A fiery red figure, towering over two hundred meters tall, had manifested at the very top of the skyscraper. It raised a massive blade forged from blazing fire high into the air.
The wafting flames acted like a screen of fire, incinerating the falling rain entirely.
Xia Lingxue took a deep breath and slowly looked up. Panting heavily and exhaling geysers of blazing fire from his nose and mouth, the Fire Giant Surtr hoisted the flaming sword in his hands even higher.
He aimed the tip of his sword directly at the nuclear missile fast approaching through the atmosphere.
A colossal pillar of fire erupted abruptly from the tip of the blade, like the roar of a furious beast. A volcanic eruption of fiery light shot wildly toward the heavens without reservation, instantly spanning the sky.
At that moment, the gloomy sky looked like an oil painting cleaved right down the middle by red paint.
Surtr's pillar of fire split the sky in two. Even the torrential rain was evaporated, transforming into a billowing surge of snow-white steam that almost entirely swallowed the skyscraper, obscuring Xia Lingxue's figure within it.
And in that chaotic rift that halved the world, the pitch-black nuke was violently torn apart by the blazing fire, exploding thunderously in the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
"Bang—!"
The next second, the sky seemed to lose all color, reverting to a state of primordial nothingness. Every electronic device in the city center failed simultaneously.
The entire world plunged into darkness. Skyscrapers, long streets, and deep alleys were all engulfed by the sudden blackout.
It was as though broad daylight had instantly shifted into the dead of night; no one could see the sun's hues. All they could see was that sky-blotting splash of fiery red atop the tall building.
Following a moment of absolute silence, an earsplitting boom tore down from the atmosphere. The deafening blast instantly plunged every single figure on the streets and inside the office buildings into a state of temporary deafness.
Inside the offices of building after building, some people had already dropped to their knees, while others were clutching their heads. Now, they looked up in sheer horror, only to see a gargantuan mushroom cloud slowly rising, almost entirely blotting out the sky.
"Boom—!!!"
Only at this moment did they truly feel the sheer, tremendous scale of the noise.
By the time they covered their ears and came back to their senses, the world-eclipsing Fire Giant atop the skyscraper had already vanished. Only a smattering of residual flames remained, dancing in the wind.
Xia Lingxue vaulted over the edge of the rooftop, plummeting from a height of over two hundred meters toward an empty, deserted alleyway.
Her trench coat fluttered wildly. Just as she was about to hit the ground, all the rainwater falling alongside her froze solid. Her descending form scraped against the air, generating a wave of ice that cushioned the momentum of her fall.
In the end, as if she were surfing down a glacier, she smoothly slid into the depths of the alley, a cloud of ice dust scattering around her.
Xia Lingxue looked up, spotting the electronic advertising signs in the alley flickering on and off.
Moments later, all the signs went dark, as if completely sapped of life.
Xia Lingxue knew that a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere would cause widespread electronic failure. This phenomenon was known as a High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse, or an EMP attack in military and pop culture terms.
However, she hadn't actually known about this beforehand. Just before detonating the nuke from the rooftop, she had done some hasty last-minute research on her phone. Only after confirming it wouldn't cause overly disastrous side effects did she make her move.
Regardless, it was far better than letting the nuclear missile drop straight into the city center.
Xia Lingxue fished her phone out of her trench coat pocket, opened WeChat, and sent a message to Xia Wenna.
[Xia Lingxue: Mom, are you alright? Is everything fine at home?]
[Xia Wenna: A'Xue, Mom just heard a really loud noise coming from the city center. It scared me so much I dropped the clothes-drying pole downstairs.]
[Xia Lingxue: Just some fireworks. So, did you find A'Qing?]
[Xia Wenna: Not yet. I already told your dad to go look for him, but now there's another problem.]
[Xia Lingxue: What's wrong?]
[Xia Wenna: Xiao Li is missing too.]
Xia Lingxue blanked for a moment, stopping at the exit of the alleyway.
With her hands stuffed in her khaki trench coat pockets, the image of Blue Pigeon and the magical girl Ember's close interaction during that broadcasted training exercise suddenly flashed through her mind.
Crack. She subconsciously bit through the lollipop stick in her mouth. "Crap. Did Xiao Li go to avenge that Blue Pigeon...? Puppy love really is a killer."
Xia Lingxue thought, her cold eyes widening slightly.
She lowered her head and took a deep breath. Her expression chilled, and her figure vanished from where she stood.
...
...
At the exact moment the nuke detonated, on St. Honghu Street.
The torrential rain poured down.
Ke Mingqing was squatting in the doorway of a small convenience store. Sheltering from the rain, he watched the live broadcast of the city center on his phone, clicking his tongue in secret awe. 'As expected of my older sister,' he thought. 'She does things clean and quick.'
Bean-sized raindrops battered the crude awning. He turned his head to glance at Shadow Girl, whom he had left in the corner. She was lying on a recliner covered with a woven cooling mat.
At that moment, a notification Pop-up suddenly appeared before his eyes.
[Warning: Your Theater Puppet No. 02 — 'Blue Pigeon' has died.]
Ke Mingqing didn't care. He had long guessed that Clock Maker wouldn't let Blue Pigeon off the hook. After all, from the very beginning, Clock Maker had treated Blue Pigeon as a mere tool to flirt with Rain Crow.
He closed his eyes slightly, syncing his consciousness to his first Theater Puppet, White Jack.
Right now, White Jack was wearing the Tracking Sunglasses. The sunglasses showed that Clock Maker's location had settled at St. Honghu Plaza and hadn't moved for quite some time.
'Rain Crow is highly likely there as well,' he thought.
Because White Jack's top hat had been left behind with Red Lotus, he couldn't fly. He could only leap and sprint across the rooftops of the high-rises, looking rather pathetic as he went.
Before long, he pierced through the curtain of rain and descended from the sky, arriving at St. Honghu Plaza. There, he was met with a nauseating sight.
Blue Pigeon's body had been dismembered into a series of organs suspended beneath a high-altitude work platform. His severed head swayed in the wind, a tranquil face revealed beneath his shattered helmet.
Rain Crow, on the other hand, was kneeling on the ground.
Clock Maker stood quietly at the entrance of a building, his hands clasped behind his back as he looked down at Rain Crow's figure from above.
"What's the matter with you?" Clock Maker tilted his head. "Has your spirit really grown this weak? I am very disappointed in you."
Rain Crow remained silent. He kept his head lowered, staring blankly at the ground.
White Jack paused, noticing the air pressure dropping all around him. He looked up at the sky.
Suddenly, with a splat, a crow from the swarm plummeted from the sky. It spiraled downward and crashed into the ground, exploding like a squashed tomato into a mangled mass of bone and flesh.
White Jack scanned his surroundings. The exact same scene was happening again and again.
Amid the wind and rain, the crows dropped to the earth one after another—splat, splat—instantly smashing into bloody pulps. The corpses piled up all around Rain Crow.
Before long, his body was mostly buried beneath the crow carcasses, as if he were submerged in a pool of black rain. Corpses, corpses, corpses, tens of thousands of corpses... Like withering flowers, the murder of crows wilted around him one by one.
The dead crows quickly piled into a small mountain, completely obscuring his figure.
Rain Crow was drowned in the crow carcasses, as if he had fallen into a bottomless abyss. Yet, much like a mummified corpse, he still didn't make a single sound.
A long moment later, even his exposed, hollow eyes were covered up.
All that could be seen was a small black mound—a lonely, frigid mountain of crows. The torrential rain falling over the plaza was blocked by a flurry of drifting feathers.
"Oh... What is this?"
Clock Maker watched this play out through his monocle, the corners of his mouth curving up with deep interest.
"Heh, is the terrifying Crow Man about to super-evolve?" White Jack narrowed his hollow eyes. "As expected, for an esper, losing a wife and child really is the strongest buff."
The very next second, a bizarre human silhouette suddenly swelled from the dead center of the crow mountain. At the exact same time, an interwoven black and red panel Pop-up slowly appeared before White Jack's eyes.