It started out as a small bck dot. All it took was aire sed for that bck dot to expand massively. By then, it was akin to a miniature sun hanging in the sky.

  “Ara. That is how it works.”

  Disregarding the extreme ges in the ground, Kurumi maintained her usual expression. The hems of her dress fluttered along the hot wind. The extreme heat caused by two secutive bombardments did not cause any damages to her nor her dress.

  Soon, the miniature bck hole colpsed. All that was left were three fragments of a dark blue rhombus gem. More of her es came out of her ‘shadow’ and started heading towards the drop-off points.

  In the midst of it all, a dark blue silhouette emerged out of thin air. The figure gained detailed features belonging to a human.

  It only took a blink for the newer to bee shocked. Her sight finally shifted towards Kurumi.

  “We have a lot more in on than I thought, Herrscher-san.”

  Her high-pitched tone sounded as if she ying around with the Herrscher.

  In that split sed, the figure wasted no time. It swiftly disappeared under Kurumi’s sight.

  The flintlock pistol on her hand remained pointing to the ground.

  “Perceptive, isn’t she? If she wasn’t…”

  She reized the newer. It was her than the sixth Herrscher Aleph warhem about. Her inal appearance was seen by his elemental sight. The girl did not choose to ge it, and as such, Aleph discovered her inal appearance as well as three of her disguises.

  “Hm…”

  Her eyes became dazed as she thought of her move.

  *****

  [Achievement Unlocked: Long Distance Kill]

  [Achievement Unlocked: How is that possible?]

  [Achievement Unlocked: Time is Retive]

  …

  Numerous achievements rang in Aleph's mind. He looked at his pinky fio be exact, one of the strings tied into it.

  ‘Kurumi used up one of her ces.’

  The first ability brought by the [Red Strings of Fate] allowed him to copy one of his teiques and pass them to the girls. With [Information Imprint], Aleph forcefully broke this limit. He bihe two abilities to form something simir to a ‘Stigmata’. Its sole effect was to raise the upper ceiling of the copied abilities into three uses.

  The one he gave to Kurumi was her than Star Rage. Its destructiveness was no joke, sidering how it could bring down aire p if he willed it.

  inally, it was a cursed teique with an apanying shikigami. Both the user and the shikigami could ge their imaginary mass, in turing a strong close-quarter-bat style.

  Aleph’s Star Rage did not have that shikigami. Instead, he could target one of the items he ‘owned’. The definition of ‘owned’ is an item in his possession to which he has absolute ownership.

  He knew about its capability to turn into a bck hole with suffit imaginary mass added, hehe spherical metallic balls were used.

  “Her stockpiled lifespan should be good enough. These achievements suggest that she succeeded…”

  His figure opped moving. By the time he thought it over, he had already arrived irue Herrscher of Fme’s location.

  ‘Not good…’

  He sed the ey with elemental sight and found that the Herrscher of Fmes disappeared.

  It did here.

  ‘The sixth..!’

  Aleph decided to nd near Kevin first.

  Swoosh-!

  The tter was still using his abilities to cool the burning city down. It was doo prevent any damages to the transport and bat ships when desding into this pce.

  Tap.

  His nding was silent, yet it attracted Kevin’s attention.

  Seeing it h, he dropped most of his vigince down.

  “What happened here?”

  “I fought the Herrscher… It was Adjutant Rong… Major Himeko’s fidant. Her power was off the charts…”

  Kevin began telling the details of their fight. The two-minute-long fight ended abruptly. Finally, he focused on talking about the sudden appearance of the sixth Herrscher. The way she appeared and disappeared was extremely fatal in bat.

  If it weren’t for some unknown reasons, she might’ve been able to kill the majority of their current high-level MANTISes, with the exception of those who were the stro.

  ‘She’s cautious enough. I o help Vill-V finish that thing.’

  The living Sed Herrscher Core—previously the Bnk Core—provided way too many precious data to Vill-V. The Global Time Fracture System was simply one of the things she ied over these past three months.

  One of the things she was w on was a device that would lobsp;space. It is able to prevent any phenomeed to quantum enta. That includes the sixth Herrscher’s ability to teleport to pces.

  Just then, a sound came from Aleph’s earpiece.

  Buzz-!

  The static sound was cleared up. Kurumi’s voice came from the other side.

  “I got it, Ain.”

  “Alright. I’m heading over.”

  *****

  Ling was able to draw up a funal pn. Although the Co often had ges—as if it has a split personality disorder—she was taught some of its prehensible as. Then, it gave her fems to distribute to others

  Other than those occurrences, she vaguely felt that the Co was inprehensible again.

  heless, she only had one goal this time around: to gather up more allies.

  To do that, she wandered around the world and began choosing four people out of all.

  It wasn’t a difficult feat as she has a pre-existing talent pool to select from—Fire MOTH.

  Three of the people she selected came from Fire MOTH. The final one came from the outside. These people have an astounding knowledge of their specialties, strong honkai resistance, or both.

  Thus, the only thi was to find a way to ‘stall’ for time.

  The Co’s as were inprehensible. It wanted Ling to select Herrschers through the Gems, yet it did not stray from the inal process of Herrscher Awakening.

  If it was that ve, they could have simply undergoransformation at the Moon.

  That alone made it clear that something was wrong with it.

  ‘Create a believable bait. Sir Aleph has to be drawn to it. Then, awaken the rest and take them away.’

  The pn was a success. Aleph did head into the ‘fake Herrscher of Fmes’. This gave Ling much more leeway to take the other four Herrschers away.

  However…

  ‘The Herrscher of Reason is gone.’

  Ling thought of the girl with a golden pupil. She had never seen that girl before. She went through many bubble worlds, yet it was Ling’s first time seeing the girl.

  It was as if her existence was nothing but air.

  Still, Ling knew she was there.

  In the end, she shook off these chaotic thoughts as she focused on another problem:

  ‘How should I take the Herrschers away?’