Chapter 249: Major Event Three: Night of the Witches (9)

Two minutes ago, in a corner of the sky above the Leijing City Center.

The Witch of Calamity stood at the edge of Terminus Night. She wore a purple-and-black dress, her algae-green hair flying in the wind. From her high vantage point, she stared down at the woman in the Russian military uniform. A massive, elongated Naval Gun hovered perfectly straight above the uniformed woman's head.

The two faced each other in silence.

A second later, almost simultaneously, she and Officer Girl each raised an arm.

"Bang!!!"

Just as Officer Girl's Naval Gun fired, a meteorite tore through the atmosphere, whistling as it plummeted from the sky and collided with the artillery fire.

The blaze illuminated the entire stage of Terminus Night. The meteorite blocked the Naval Gun's bombardment and immediately burst apart, shattering into thousands of fragments. Wrapped in sparks, they rained down in a flurry, hurtling straight toward Officer Girl's head.

As the shower of meteorite fragments fell toward her, Officer Girl hovered quietly in midair, her arms crossed over her chest. She seemed to ignore the sight, as if waiting for something.

Suddenly, a massive arm seemingly forged from shadows blocked the space above her head. The claws at the end of the arm abruptly expanded, sweeping a dark current across the sky to shred and scatter the meteorite fragments.

Officer Girl curled her lips, quietly admiring the scene as though someone had just set off a beautiful fireworks display.

Close behind, two figures—one black, one white—passed through the fiery rain and approached.

The former wore a pitch-black cape and a crow-beak helmet, with a massive dark silhouette clinging to his back. The shadow grinned, baring bloodstained teeth. The latter was a bizarre figure, entirely bone-white and wearing a white top hat. A small bead was embedded into every joint of his body, and he clutched a finely crafted cane.

Officer Girl pressed down the brim of her hat, planted a hand on her hip, and said to Rain Crow, "How considerate. I didn't expect you to have this side to you."

Rain Crow fell silent. He always felt that in this woman's eyes, everything he did looked like flirting. Over time, he had simply learned to ignore her.

"Oh, come on! When are you two going to realize that this is a battlefield, not your flirting ground?" White Jack, left hanging on the side, couldn't hold back anymore.

"Oh? Isn't this your rumored lover?" Officer Girl raised an eyebrow, looking at White Jack's face.

Rain Crow fell silent once again.

"Oh, no, no, no, you're his rumored lover." White Jack looked straight at Officer Girl, his tone like a child politely declining a red envelope from a relative during the New Year.

Spreading his hands, he continued, "Fine, we're both his rumored lovers. This is Leijing's most promiscuous old crow. His ex, Clock Maker, was just put in the ground, and he's already out here fooling around."

"Shut up," Rain Crow said coldly.

"Yes, sir." White Jack snapped to a mock salute.

In that instant, they suddenly heard the roar of a volcanic eruption. Looking up sharply, they saw that the Witch of Calamity had conjured a massive volcano atop the stage device. The black, red-tinged peak towered majestically, and a sudden flare of light illuminated the pitch-black crater.

Then, bright, scalding magma boiled out from the opening, incinerating the air in its path. It cascaded down like a fiery red waterfall dropping from the highest heavens.

It was as if a sea of fire was descending from the sky, the atmosphere letting out sharp shrieks as it burned. The magma churned violently, unleashing an immense wave of heat that dyed even the clouds a translucent red.

White Jack raised a hand to hold his top hat, shaking his head with a sigh. "Come on, could the fights between you S Ranks get any wilder? If this were a movie, we'd be at the light pollution segment!"

Rain Crow paused slightly, and Officer Girl raised an eyebrow.

"We can't let the magma fall into the city, or it will cause massive casualties." Rain Crow lowered his head, glancing down at the superheroes and magical girls conducting rescue operations in the City Center.

"You sure have a lot of rules. I'll handle blocking this stuff, then. You and that white thing go deal with the little witch."

Officer Girl spoke in a leisurely tone. Countless metal parts flew over like torrential rain, rapidly assembling in midair to form a colossal metal ring.

"Understood."

Taking the lead, White Jack blew a colorful bubble. He poked it with his fingertip, and his body was instantly enveloped by a giant bubble, floating upward at high speed.

The Shadow of Saturnus split its mouth into a grin and unfurled a pair of pitch-black, giant wings. Flapping them, it carried Rain Crow soaring into the sky.

The two precisely controlled their flight paths, weaving through the gaps in the magma. They brushed past heat capable of evaporating the atmosphere, charging toward the stage of Terminus Night before they could be reduced to ash.

The Witch of Calamity noticed this. She suddenly clenched the fingers of her right hand, and the magma rapidly closed together in midair, forming an airtight curtain that completely blocked White Jack and Rain Crow's path forward.

"Oh, whatever shall we do?" White Jack murmured, suddenly thrusting his right palm upward.

[Wall of Ten Thousand Armies (B-Rank Skill): Thrust forward a massive wall composed of flesh-and-blood statues of ancient soldiers, dealing a tremendous impact directly ahead and pushing away enemies approaching you.]

In a flash, a layer of brilliant golden light erupted from his palm, instantly forming a majestic, unparalleled golden city wall.

The statues of soldiers, wielding shields and spears, advanced upward. Although they were swallowed up in the blink of an eye, they briefly halted the rolling magma, creating a fleeting gap for Rain Crow and White Jack.

In tacit understanding, the two darted through that sliver of space as if passing through the cracks of the world, then continued their advance toward the stage of Terminus Night.

"Nicely done."

Watching this, Officer Girl curled her lips into a slight smile. The metal ring above her head suddenly burst with blinding flames, its entire body taking on a dangerous red hue.

Immediately, the ring began to fiercely spin in midair, much like a giant Wind and Fire Wheel from an amusement park, spawning a furious tornado.

Following that, the surface of the ring began to detonate in rapid succession. Amidst a thunderous roar, the explosion of flames swept upward along the tornado, surging and colliding with layer upon layer of splattering magma. It kicked up a cloud of scalding mist that almost completely obscured half the sky.

Hissing sounds echoed across the heavens. Amidst the multiple detonations, the metal ring gradually self-destructed and disintegrated.

Fortunately, by this time, the tornado had devoured the last swath of magma, fading away at the edge of the sky like the dying glow of sunset.

Meanwhile, White Jack and Rain Crow had already boarded the stage of Terminus Night, closing in on the Witch of Calamity.

Suddenly, Rain Crow said coldly, "Dodge!"

White Jack froze. He obviously didn't understand what was about to happen—he didn't possess the instantaneous precognition of the Shadow of Saturnus.

At that very moment, a torrential rain suddenly began to pour over Terminus Night. A closer look revealed that it wasn't ordinary rainwater, but acid rain. Immediately after, massive clusters of earth spikes violently thrust out from the stage.

These spikes formed a ring, enclosing White Jack and Rain Crow. Then, they instantly contracted inward, like spiked walls attempting to crush them inside.

The Witch of Calamity's attack swept in from both the sky and the ground simultaneously. White Jack had almost nowhere to run, yet he still hesitated over whether or not to use "Superman Philosophy."

Clearly, this was just a puppet. He had to save his "Superman Philosophy" to protect his main body.

Therefore, White Jack quickly dismissed the thought. Instead, he put on the Lucky Gloves, took out the "Dice of Calamity," and swiftly tossed it. Amidst the chaos, the red-and-black dice rapidly hit the ground.

The face pointing upward was none other than Point 4.

[Point 4: Temporarily turns your body into an impenetrable statue. You cannot take any actions during the three seconds you are a statue.]

Right before White Jack could be shredded by the spiraling spikes closing in from all sides, or corroded into nothing by the acid rain pouring from above, his body was suddenly coated in the color of hard stone, freezing in place like a statue.

It was as if he had received God's blessing—no matter what struck it, nothing could harm the statue.

Hands on its hips, it maintained a slouching, lackadaisical pose as it was squeezed into the air by the spikes, before tumbling clumsily to the side with a heavy thud.

'Now this is relaxation. Striking a pose right in the middle of a bunch of S Ranks,' White Jack thought.

On the other side, Rain Crow let out a low growl, and the Shadow of Saturnus immediately folded its wings to shield its massive form. As the acid rain and spikes struck simultaneously, he stood firm like an immovable reef amidst the frenzy of heat and corrosion.

The black shadows rippled wildly, and the wings of the Shadow of Saturnus were gradually burned full of holes.

However, right at this moment, a blazing white sword light suddenly slashed across from the distance, incinerating the final wave of acid rain until not even ash remained, allowing Rain Crow to catch his breath.

White Jack snapped out of his statue state at this time. Lying on the ground, he turned his head and saw that the magical girl Utuna, already wielding a blade of light, was sweeping in from afar.

The sword light just now had been her handiwork. At this moment, a fiery-red super-human species interface hovered above the red-haired girl's head.

[Superhuman Species Codename: Magical Girl Utuna]

[Danger Rating: A++ Rank]

Utuna landed by Rain Crow's side. Wielding a blade of condensed magic power, she and the Shadow of Saturnus completely crushed the remaining earth spikes.

The Witch of Calamity raised an eyebrow, her long green hair flying in the morning wind like seaweed.

Just then, a beam of Pitch-Black Moonlight shot out from nearby, carving a sharp trajectory through the air. It was unbelievably fast, piercing straight through the Witch of Calamity's shoulder in the blink of an eye.

A spray of blood splashed out. The Witch of Calamity paused for a moment in surprise. Her right arm flew backward, dropping onto the stage floor.

The Witch of Calamity looked toward the source of the moonlight. She saw a tall, slender figure wearing a pitch-black trench coat and a black owl mask, standing upon a flat plane of darkness, silently watching her.

The newcomer was none other than the Owl Judge.

"Reinforcements are here. Ah, these are Lord White Jack's connections, see?"

White Jack said, lowering his deep eyes and pointing at the Witch of Calamity. "Do you understand that there's strength in numbers? I suggest you surrender right—" Before he could finish his sentence, a sudden earth spike skewered his chest, hoisting him into midair.

Blood dyed the bone-white body, spreading down the length of the spike.

He wiggled his perky rear and wildly flailed his arms, hammering his little fists against the spike. After struggling forcefully for a while, he realized there was no way to break free.

"The moral of the story is that S Rank and A Rank are built different. Don't casually approach stat monsters from now on." White Jack was out of options. 'This isn't necessarily a bad thing,' he thought. 'Since the big boss and Utuna are here, I should be able to focus on dealing with the Witch of Despair.'

With a sigh, he simply dissolved into a cloud of white mist and slowly drifted away.

No one paid attention to White Jack's death. The moment they arrived on the battlefield, the Owl Judge, the magical girl Utuna, and Rain Crow had already moved to besiege the one-armed Witch of Calamity.

After landing on the stage device, the Owl Judge immediately chopped with his hand, sending an arc of moonlight floating out. Utuna held the magical relic "Branch of the World Tree" high, blazing white magic erupting from the sword hilt. After crushing the incoming earth spikes in one fell swoop, she charged at the Witch of Calamity, thrusting the blade of light in her hands straight at her chest.

Rain Crow seemed to have foreseen something using the instantaneous precognition of the Shadow of Saturnus. In a flash, he spread the shadow's wings and soared into the sky above Terminus Night.

However, at that exact moment, the entirety of Terminus Night suddenly began to rumble and quake.

With the exception of Rain Crow, everyone else was briefly stunned.

They could tell from the commotion that the device was starting to activate. In the next second, a spotlight of red, white, and blue abruptly descended from the sky, beaming straight onto the Witch of Calamity.

At this moment, the magic power around her exponentially multiplied. Black and purple magic surged across the Witch of Calamity's skin, her long, algae-green hair rippling amidst the magical frenzy.

[Superhuman Species Codename: Witch of Calamity]

[Danger Rating: S+ Rank (Through the enhancement of the Terminus Night device, the temporary combat power of the seated witches has been increased.)]

"There's a phase two?" Observing the Witch of Calamity's head from his mist perspective, White Jack complained, "Emperor Roselle was wrong. Witches aren't delicious at all. Witches deserve to die."

The Witch of Calamity raised her hand, triggering a furious tsunami.

Amidst a crashing roar, surging ocean waves rushed out from in front of her, intercepting the moonlight unleashed by the Owl Judge. The waves crashed head-on into him and Utuna, sweeping both of them toward the outskirts of Terminus Night.

The seawater seemed to drown the sky, and even the sun, viewed through the waves, appeared to be dyed a deep sea blue.

However, Rain Crow had avoided the crashing tsunami through his precognition; his figure remained suspended directly above Terminus Night.

Then, he and the Shadow of Saturnus plunged from the sky together.

The giant shadow beat its wings, flying horizontally to dodge the thousands of earth spikes shooting upward, steadily closing the distance to the Witch of Calamity.

In the next second, the Witch of Calamity suddenly raised her head. Across a distance of a hundred meters, her profound eyes met Rain Crow's gaze.

At that moment, directly above them, the sun—flickering in and out of the clouds—gradually became veiled in a crescent-shaped shadow, as if it were being devoured by something.

A solar eclipse.

This too was a form of natural disaster, though the conditions to trigger it were exceedingly harsh. Even the Witch of Calamity could only manifest it into reality with the blessing of "Terminus Night."

The sun's light was abruptly snuffed out, and the entire world was cloaked in darkness.

Rain Crow's vision went black. He lost sight of everything; even the precognitive ability of the Shadow of Saturnus could only peer into profound darkness.

Right then, thousands upon thousands of earth spikes—capable of piercing through skyscrapers—erupted from the floor of the Night of the Witches device.

In this split second, Rain Crow commanded the Shadow of Saturnus to dart violently to the right, putting distance between himself and Terminus Night as quickly as possible. At the same time, he folded one wing in to shield his flank.

However, in the very next moment, an earth spike as hard as an iron tower still pierced through the curtain formed by the giant shadow's wing, tearing it open. Without holding back, it impaled Rain Crow through the back.

Blood instantly sprayed out, staining the proud, giant black shadow red.

The Shadow of Saturnus curled its lips. Rain Crow coughed up a mouthful of blood, and then, like birds with broken wings, the two thrashed wildly as they plummeted through the air.

"What?" Fortunately, Officer Girl noticed the scene in time.

Raising her hand, she generated a series of metal walls right in the path of Rain Crow's descent.

After consecutively smashing through several walls, Rain Crow's descent finally ground to a halt. The Shadow of Saturnus slowly dissolved. Clutching his impaled body, he drew in a deep breath.

"It seems this device is genuinely dangerous to be able to boost a witch's abilities to this degree." Officer Girl flew over and caught him, supporting his body as she spoke.

"Take Blue Pigeon and leave..." Rain Crow said hoarsely, slowly shutting his heavy eyelids.

"That child won't listen to a word I say," Officer Girl replied. She swept her right arm horizontally, conjuring a series of metal walls floating in midair to support the drowned Utuna and the Owl Judge.

"Ho, that was a huge help..." The Owl Judge clambered onto the horizontally floating metal wall, tugging at his drenched trench coat. Water cascaded from his cuffs.

Utuna, on the other hand, silently rose to her feet. She turned her head, glancing at Officer Girl who was holding Rain Crow in the distance.

In the very next moment, as if sensing something, the Owl Judge, Utuna, and Officer Girl all froze slightly before snapping their heads up from the metal walls.

Before their very eyes, a shocking scene unfolded!

Seven gargantuan meteorites appeared one after another in the atmosphere, completely blotting out the light of the sun.

Right after, the meteorites slammed into each other with thunderous crashes, stacking together! The ones in the back pressed against the tails of the ones in front, amplifying the momentum of their descent!

Friction with the atmosphere birthed a blinding blaze. Dragging trails of crimson light, they plunged down, casting a world-covering shadow over the earth.

"If we don't stop that thing, the City Center will be flattened in an instant!" the magical girl Utuna shouted, snapping out of her daze.

"Anyone can see that." The Owl Judge shrugged. "The question is, how do we block it?"

Officer Girl pulled down her hat brim. For the first time since the battle had started, a solemn expression surfaced on her face.

"By staking our lives on it!!!"

Utuna roared, her red hair whipping wildly in the wind. Both of her arms were burned into a blurry mess of flesh and blood by the blazing white radiance pooling within her blade.

Even so, she raised the sword hilt high! At that moment, the blazing white light expanded a thousandfold! The girl seemed to become a sovereign ruling the world, or the statue of the Goddess of Victory hoisting her torch high. Gripping a Holy Sword that looked as if it could pierce heaven and earth, she swung it down with an earth-shattering roar.

The instant she swung the sword hilt down, the world fell dead silent. The blazing blade, like a pillar of light, tore through the atmosphere and plummeted straight and heavy.

"Boom—!!"

A thunderous blast rang out. The blazing white tide of magic clashed against the seven linked meteorites. Every single meteorite trembled violently, each shudder triggering a howl from the atmosphere.

The world was roaring. The raging atmosphere battered every figure, pressing down like the palm of Buddha in an attempt to crush everyone deep into the earth.

Yet Utuna continued to fiercely resist, her expression savage, her face flushed red by the firelight. Her upper body armor shattered, and her skirt tore open in strips. At this moment, the skin all over her body was cracking; she was practically burned into a black-and-red figure of blood.

But having only held on for a second or two, the magic atop the sword hilt—as vast as the stars—finally extinguished. The world darkened, and everything was engulfed by the meteorites' shadows.

Utuna's entire body went limp. She collapsed to her knees on the metal wall created by Officer Girl.

Under the immense air pressure, the metal beneath her fractured. Just as she was about to plummet to the earth, her body was suddenly caught and supported by a layer of Pitch-Black Moonlight.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't do it," Utuna said hoarsely.

"No, no, no, you did exceptionally well." The Owl Judge curled his lips. "At least you showed me an opening, even if it's only a single chance."

Officer Girl raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised by his confidence, and looked up overhead.

At this moment, the seven sky-blotting meteorites above were all shaking violently. Utuna's resistance just now had spread tens of thousands of cracks across their surfaces, looking as if they could shatter at any second.

But this was far from enough to stop them. If there was still a turning point, it had to be killing the Witch of Calamity before the meteorites struck the ground—but the problem was that the massive air pressure generated by the meteorites would obstruct anyone trying to approach Terminus Night. It was impossible for them to get close to the Witch of Calamity.

"I have no idea what you're planning, but do you need my help?" Officer Girl asked casually.

"Do you have any beam-type abilities?" the Owl Judge asked suddenly.

"What are you planning?"

"Punch a hole straight through the middle of those seven meteorites, following the direction I'm pointing." Raising his right index finger, the Owl Judge aimed it directly at the dead center of the seven meteorites.

"Understood."

Officer Girl pulled down her hat brim. Suddenly, she spawned a floating turret emblazoned with the Russian coat of arms. A tightly concentrated blue laser immediately blasted upward, instantly punching an inconspicuous hole through the center of the first five meteorites.

"Is this enough?" Officer Girl asked.

"It's enough. As expected of a Roundtable Hero. You're stronger than I imagined."

As the Owl Judge spoke, he slightly lowered his head.

In the next moment, he made his move. Aiming his fingertip at the hole Officer Girl had blasted, Pitch-Black Moonlight instantly coalesced just past his fingers, gradually gathering into a tiny, unnoticeable black dot.

The black dot pulsed, expanding and contracting.

At this time, White Jack—who had already turned into a cloud of mist—watched the scene. 'It's time to show you, witch, the most offensively powerful A Rank in the world,' he thought.

The Owl Judge observed the flow of the black and purple magic power in the sky. Tilting his head slightly, he said, "If my guess is right... you should be hiding right there."

In the next split second, a darkness akin to the dawn of the world erupted from his fingertip. Like a beast intent on devouring everything in existence, it roared as it shot into the sky.

It was as if God had turned off the lights; that beam of Pitch-Black Moonlight stripped away all the colors of the world. Then, it pierced sequentially through the core of all seven meteorites, burning a hole barely the size of a palm. It continued its upward flight, finally, with pinpoint precision and zero warning, skewering the black-and-purple figure currently hovering in midair.

In a flash, the Witch of Calamity's chest was blown open by the moonlight. Her heart was incinerated into a mist of blood, and her internal organs were entirely burned to ash along with it.

"How... is this possible..." The Witch of Calamity reached a hand to her chest, only to grasp empty air.

She stared in shock for a moment. Her body then plummeted onto the top of Terminus Night, collapsing into a pool of blood. Concurrently, the seven stacked meteorites detonated in midair.

"Looks like I guessed right. I could figure out the witch's location just by tracing the flow of her magic."

Tugging his black gloves up, the Owl Judge spoke with nonchalance, "And precisely because we were blocked from approaching her by the air pressure of the meteorites, she never would have expected us to blow a hole straight through all seven of them to take her out."

"Not bad at all."

Officer Girl whistled. Curling her lips, she forced her trembling right arm up horizontally.

Mustering the very last ounce of her strength, she summoned thousands upon thousands of miniature turrets. The small, floating batteries filled half the sky like a swarm of dragonflies. Then, a torrential barrage of bullets swept upward, intercepting the sky full of meteorite fragments and detonating them all together.

"Boom!!!"

The roaring blaze illuminated the sky, dyeing the faintly glowing sun on the horizon red.

The Owl Judge shifted his gaze away from overhead and glanced at the heavily injured Rain Crow and Utuna. "Rain Crow and Miss Utuna are both badly hurt," he asked in a low voice. "What's the plan?"

"I'll take them away first," Officer Girl said coolly. "We can leave the rest to that little red panda... She is, after all, the number one magical girl of the modern era."

As she spoke, she slightly turned her head, gazing off at Xi Ziyue, who was engaged in a fierce battle with the Doll Witch in the sky above Terminus Night.

"Then I'll go see if there's anywhere I can lend a hand." Having said that, the Owl Judge stepped onto a staircase formed of Pitch-Black Moonlight and shot upward like an arrow.