Chapter 250: Major Event 3: Night of the Witches (10)

A few minutes earlier, in another corner of Terminus Night.

Ke Mingqing and Little Red Riding Hood froze. Slowly, they raised their heads above the Christmas Sleigh and looked toward the edge of the stage device.

Through the blizzard kicked up by the reindeer, they met the Witch of Despair's gaze.

A veil of gray obscured the woman's face. Deep gray static swirled in her pupils, yet they still leaked an undeniable, suffocating madness.

"Crap, we ran into a witch," Little Red Riding Hood said, her expression changing. "We have to avoid her and figure out how to break into the mansion."

Ke Mingqing looked into the Witch of Despair's eyes and stayed silent for a moment before shaking his head. "It's useless. She's already locked onto us. We can't outrun her."

He paused. "But there's one piece of good news. Out of the three witches in the Terminus Tower, she might be the only one we actually have a sliver of a chance against."

"Are you joking?" Little Red Riding Hood shot back. "I don't know where you get your confidence, but I'm getting out of here."

With a crack of her long whip, she urged the two reindeer forward.

"Aroo!!!"

The reindeer tossed their heads and cried out, their hooves striking the air and kicking up a howling blizzard. They charged wildly through the snow, trying to bypass the Witch of Despair.

But a split second later, magic laced with gray static rolled off the Witch of Despair. It formed a tidal wave of a domain, crushing down on them from all sides.

"She released her domain!" Ke Mingqing shouted.

"I'm not blind!" Little Red Riding Hood yelled back.

But no matter how fast the sleigh bolted, it couldn't outrun the expanding domain. The deep gray swallowed them whole, trapping them like a swamp.

The hair on the back of their necks stood up as a massive chill exploded in their chests. It felt like the freezing winds of Siberia had slammed right into them; the eerie magic pierced Ke Mingqing's pores like countless sharp needles.

"So fast..."

Ke Mingqing's pupils shrank. The Witch of Despair's attack was completely unavoidable.

And this was the witch holding back. When she passed through a village in Norway during her prime, every resident was infected by her magic. Their minds were trapped in absolute, unadulterated despair. Afterward, they either hanged themselves or slit their throats. Others bit off their tongues, suffocated themselves with charcoal smoke, or strangled themselves with their bare hands... their methods of death bizarre and varied.

In the end, the only survivors in that village were an infant and a few passing super-human travelers. They lived because their mental fortitude was strong enough. After the witch left, they slowly recovered and waited for rescue.

A second later, Ke Mingqing and Little Red Riding Hood's consciousness was devoured by the murky magic.

As if caught in an eerie cradle, the sleigh began to sway and rock. The entire world spun around them until their vision went black and they lost consciousness.

With a pair of thuds, they collapsed onto the sleigh. Even the two reindeer couldn't escape the same fate.

When Ke Mingqing opened his eyes again, he saw an unbelievable sight: a girl locked inside a cramped, box-like space.

Darkness shrouded her surroundings, hiding her exact features. He could only tell that she had very long white hair.

The snow-white locks spilled around her feet like cotton. Hugging her knees, the girl sat in the darkness day after day, using a finger to trace bluebirds and a man in a strange uniform on the ground.

As the years flowed by, her eyes gradually dimmed. Her drawings turned into a single, monotonous word: "Liar." But her lips continued to softly murmur someone's name.

Watching silently, Ke Mingqing felt like he was suffocating, as if an invisible hand were gripping his heart, squeezing it tight.

As time marched on, that suffocating pressure almost made him vomit.

It felt as though he, too, had spent countless years in this cramped space, enduring the desolate isolation and mental emptiness. A fierce desire for self-destruction surged uncontrollably in his chest.

In the blink of an eye, many more years passed. One day, the girl suddenly raised her hollow eyes and looked toward the exit of the cramped space.

She reached out, touched the handle of the black box, and turned it with a click.

But just as she was about to push the door open, someone outside seemed to slam against it, making the entire box shudder.

Startled, the girl shrank back. At that moment, dense, blood-red text materialized on every surface of the cramped space, identical to the writing drawn by the Witch of Despair's magic.

—Don't go out.

—Don't go out.

Don't go out.

Even if you go out, you won't find him. You're better off waiting here. You're better off dying here.

Ke Mingqing suddenly froze. A massive wave of depression and loneliness flooded over him, drowning his heart.

'So you've always regretted leaving the Time Moment Box back then...' he thought.

Just then, a clear, sharp chime drifted over from afar, ringing in Ke Mingqing and Little Red Riding Hood's ears like the cry of a bluebird. It shattered the oppressive, chaotic illusion.

They snapped back to reality. Staring at the crimson surface of the sleigh, they remained dazed for a moment before slowly raising their heads, their eyes suddenly clear.

Only then did Ke Mingqing and Little Red Riding Hood realize their hands were wrapped tightly around their own throats, squeezing hard enough to leave red welts.

If that chime had rung even a second later, they probably would have snapped their own necks without realizing it.

"A bell?"

Ke Mingqing paused. Filled with lingering fear, he turned toward the sound. A translucent, illusory bird carrying a cyan bell in its beak fluttered toward them from the distance.

Magical relic No. 18, the Azure God Bell. Its function was to broadcast a chime that purified people's souls; negating the effects of mental abilities was merely a side benefit.

Immediately after, two figures shot across the distant sky. Ke Mingqing looked up and spotted Mizumio Akari, one of the Magical Girl Three Giants, and the Danish magical girl, Magical Girl Deep Space.

He silently observed Mizumio Akari. This was his first time seeing the other members of the Three Giants. At that moment, a super-human status panel slowly materialized above Magical Girl Mizumio Akari's head.

[Superhuman Codename: Magical Girl Mizumio Akari]

[Type: Magical Girl]

[Danger Rating: A++ Rank]

[Description: "Mizumio Akari", one of the modern Magical Girl Three Giants. As a member of the Three Giants, Mizumio Akari naturally has her exceptional qualities. Her magical weapon is a lantern—or more accurately, all kinds of lanterns from ancient times to the present, from both home and abroad. Her battlefield adaptability is extremely strong, with combat experience second only to Xi Ziyue.]

"The Witch of Despair relies on mental abilities as her primary power. Her other attributes are much weaker compared to other witches. If we neutralize her mental attacks, we can gain the upper hand in the fight," Mizumio Akari said expressionlessly, her silvery-white hair dancing in the wind.

She raised her right arm, and silver magic rippled outward, forming a lake-like curtain in midair. Beneath it, the silhouettes of lanterns could be seen.

Some lanterns looked like kites, some like pumpkins, some like green bamboo, and there were even red-themed Chinese-style lanterns. The sheer variety was dazzling.

Then, the lanterns slowly floated up. Before long, as if breaking the surface of a lake, a massive swarm of lanterns passed through the magic-woven veil, rising into the sky behind Mizumio Akari.

Ke Mingqing raised an eyebrow and looked up.

The brightly lit swarm of lanterns illuminated the dim early morning sky, even slightly washing out the chaotic colors of Terminus Night. Then, they swept toward the Witch of Despair like a surging tide.

Meanwhile, the Witch of Despair stood quietly in place, acting as if she had no interest in the lanterns.

Like a machine, she repeatedly tried to envelop the four figures in front of her with her magic, but her efforts were in vain.

Realizing something was wrong, the Witch of Despair raised her eyes—still swirling with gray static—and looked toward the translucent bluebird fluttering overhead.

The bluebird carried an inconspicuous wind chime in its beak. The sound of that chiming bell was protecting their minds.

In the next instant, the Witch of Despair stomped the ground. The moment her small leather shoes struck the surface, her body drifted upward like a phantom, piercing through the brilliant cluster of lanterns to fly straight at the bluebird.

"Don't even think about it," Mizumio Akari said expressionlessly, catching sight of her movement.

As she spoke, a string of lanterns behind the Witch of Despair abruptly cracked open, bursting into silver-blue flames that swept toward her.

"Boom!!!" The shockwave from the exploding lanterns blew the bluebird away, allowing it to escape unscathed.

The Witch of Despair felt the scorching wind wash over her back, but she didn't turn around.

Instead, bright red blood poured from every pore on her body, forming a crimson suit of armor that completely encased her.

The lanterns popped and shattered like lit firecrackers, their silver-blue flames lighting up half the sky.

But a moment later, when the sea of fire faded, Mizumio Akari saw only a blood-red figure.

She focused her gaze and saw the Witch of Despair, completely covered in crimson armor, still hovering motionless in midair.

"The ability to manipulate blood?" Mizumio Akari was slightly taken aback.

Without a doubt, she had miscalculated. She had assumed the Witch of Despair only possessed mental abilities, meaning they would have the absolute upper hand with the Azure God Bell.

Yet no one had ever mentioned that the Witch of Despair also had the power to control blood. Now that it was playing out right before her eyes, she questioned whether she was in reality or trapped in some illusion fabricated by the witch.

Fortunately, the bluebird's chime still echoed in the air, reminding Mizumio Akari of the boundary between reality and hallucination.

Chasing that ethereal chime, the Witch of Despair flew directly into the space above Terminus Night.

But at that exact moment, four silver-blue, diamond-shaped fragments shot over from the distance—Magical Girl Deep Space's magical weapon, the Azure Sky Shield.

The shield had split into four pieces, stabbing toward the Witch of Despair like executioners' swords.

Simultaneously, Magical Girl Little Red Riding Hood crushed a series of Magic Cards. Fireballs, water jets, and lightning—various elements intertwined, merging into a three-colored rainbow beam that blasted toward the Witch of Despair's back.

But the Witch of Despair merely halted in midair and raised her right hand. Frenzied blood poured from between her fingers, forming a heavy curtain in the sky.

The curtain acted like a massive river of blood, swallowing everything that came at it. Every attack plunged inside and fell dead silent.

Meanwhile, Ke Mingqing wasn't standing idle. He activated the A-rank skill Thunder God's Merging Lightning state.

Instantly, the battery icon in the upper right corner of his vision shifted. The glowing green liquid representing its charge was emptied in a flash.

Then, pitch-black and deep-blue lightning surged around him, intertwining like countless tiny snakes before merging into an ink-like current that flowed into every corner of his body.

Every strand of Ke Mingqing's hair stood on end, his pupils illuminated by the black-blue electricity.

The next moment, he exploded off the sleigh, plunging toward the edge of Terminus Night like a falling thunderbolt. He sprinted forward along the stage floor, which was flashing with alternating three-colored light.

Amidst the roar of thunder, the young man rapidly closed the distance to the Witch of Despair.

But he had no intention of fighting her in close combat. Instead, he feinted, dodging to the side to put some distance between them. Raising his right hand into a blade shape, he slashed out an arc of lightning from an imperceptible angle.

"Bang!" The lightning vaulted past the blood-woven curtain, striking toward the witch's silhouette.

In the blink of an eye, the Witch of Despair tilted her body slightly, and the black-blue lightning brushed right past her.

The arc crackled as it danced through the air, faintly illuminating the pair of crimson eyes behind the witch's gray veil.

Ke Mingqing's strike had just been a feint; he wasn't surprised she dodged it.

He knew very well that even in his Merging Lightning form, he could at best hold his own against an A++ rank super-human species. Going toe-to-toe with an S-rank was still pushing it too far.

What he hadn't anticipated, however, was the Witch of Despair flashing right in front of him. Squeezing a massive amount of blood from between her fingers, she condensed it into a blood-red longsword in midair.

Gripping the sword, she slashed at his neck!

"Swish!"

Violent winds blew back his bangs, the blood-red edge of the blade expanding infinitely in Ke Mingqing's pupils. Fortunately, at that exact moment, a small paper figurine poked its head out of his palm and threw its arms up.

"Superman Philosophy!" it shouted.

The second it finished chanting, the paper figurine ducked its head and scurried back into the cuff of his windbreaker.

A split second later, Ke Mingqing's body was enveloped in a faint golden light, making him look like a Buddha statue enshrined in a temple.

The Witch of Despair's blood sword struck his neck but couldn't move another inch.

Seizing this split-second opening, Ke Mingqing exhaled scorching steam laced with electric arcs as rolling lightning coated his hands.

He thrust his left hand like a blade toward the Witch of Despair's forehead, while his right hand balled into a fist and smashed brutally toward her abdomen.

But the Witch of Despair forced blood from her pores to form a palm-sized shield on her forehead, blocking Ke Mingqing's knife hand. She couldn't stop his fist, however.

"Bang—!"

The fist wrapped in black-blue lightning smashed into the Witch of Despair's stomach. It punched a bloody hole straight through her, sending her body flying dozens of meters away.

After throwing the punch, Ke Mingqing crouched in place, looked up into the distance, and shouted, "Do it!"

Little Red Riding Hood drove her two reindeer, their hooves striking empty air as they gathered a howling blizzard beneath their feet. They charged forward, pulling the sleigh as it barreled toward the Witch of Despair's back.

Magical Girl Deep Space stomped the ground and rocketed over, wielding her glowing deep-blue shield to assault the Witch of Despair's airborne body from the front.

Seeing the pincer attack from front and back, the Witch of Despair merely raised a hand. She condensed the blood spraying from her abdomen into a thick, solid pillar.

Gripping the crimson cylinder, she swept it in a circle. First, she swatted Magical Girl Deep Space away, then she blocked the incoming Christmas Sleigh tearing through the blizzard. After a brief stalemate, she sent the sleigh flying as well.

In that very instant, however, Mizumio Akari manipulated a cascade of multicolored lanterns to fall from the sky. The lanterns formed a vibrant, winding dragon that plunged straight down onto the Witch of Despair's head.

"Boom!!!"

The string of lanterns rapidly fractured, erupting into a blaze of silver-blue fire that swallowed her figure entirely.

Although the Witch of Despair forged a suit of blood armor over her entire body at the last possible second, the intense flames still wormed through the gaps, setting her whole body ablaze.

Ke Mingqing breathed a sigh of relief. When Mizumio Akari's lanterns exploded, the moment the silver-blue flames touched an opponent's body, they temporarily froze the target's time.

In other words, the Witch of Despair would be completely immobilized for the next few seconds, leaving her at their mercy like a wooden dummy.

Rain Crow had met Mizumio Akari once before and had discussed her combat style with Ke Mingqing over the phone, noting that her abilities shared some similarities with the Clock Maker's.

But Mizumio Akari was significantly inferior to the Clock Maker—she could only pause someone's time after she had successfully damaged them.

The Clock Maker, on the other hand, could unconditionally pause the time of everyone except himself, like a tyrant ruling over time itself. The tradeoff, of course, was that he could only pause it for a little over a second.

'Did we win?' Little Red Riding Hood thought, turning back from the Christmas Sleigh to look at the witch burning in the silver-blue flames. No matter how powerful a witch was, if she were frozen in place for a few seconds and focused down by her enemies, she absolutely wouldn't survive.

In that exact second, however, an anomaly occurred.

The Terminus Night stage device suddenly began to shake violently. Every floor tile pulsed with white, blue, and black light, massive halos of color drifting across the stage.

Immediately after, a beam of chaotic light plunged from the sky like a spotlight, shining directly onto the Witch of Despair.

All four of them froze. At that moment, the gray turbulence wrapping the Witch of Despair's body suddenly multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold. From a distance, it looked as though a gray giant were towering over the stage.

The burning silver-blue flames were instantly extinguished as endless gray magic radiated outward. Watching this, the group on the stage could only stare in shock.

Without a doubt, Terminus Night had activated. The Witch of Despair's magic surged, and the malice buried within it—the frenzy capable of collapsing a person's mind—was magnified countless times over.

The bluebird's chime still echoed in the air. But now it provided only a feeble buffer—keeping them from descending into self-destructive hallucinations, yet utterly failing to stop everyone present from being crushed to the ground by that tyrannical magic.

It felt like ten thousand rabid dogs were barking hysterically in their ears, like thousands of tiny men were smashing their skulls with iron hammers.

Ke Mingqing, Little Red Riding Hood, Mizumio Akari, and Magical Girl Deep Space instantly lost all strength to resist. They were pinned flat against the stage of Terminus Night.

"Deep Space!"

Mizumio Akari's face darkened. Forcing her head up through the pain, she shouted at Magical Girl Deep Space, who was closest to the Witch of Despair.

She knew this was likely their last chance; the Witch of Despair was still immobilized for the moment.

But once the "time stop" effect on the witch faded, their last shred of hope would be snuffed out like a candle in the wind.

Magical Girl Deep Space twisted her head forcefully, grabbing her messy hair as she fought against the gray turbulence frantically corroding her mind.

"Ahhhhh!!!"

She roared and lifted her head, planting all four limbs on the ground to drag her hunched body up.

The young girl faced the gray magic pouring from the Witch of Despair head-on. With every step she took, blood leaked from her eye sockets, nose, and mouth. The intense mental pressure felt like a power drill boring thousands of bloody holes into her skull. Yet she still lunged forward with a savage expression, like a desperate beast—hideous and mad.

Finally, she snatched two diamond-shaped fragments of her divided shield off the ground. Slamming them together into a double-edged sword, she cleaved off the Witch of Despair's right arm. The severed limb flew through the air in a spray of blood, tumbling across the stage to land in a corner.

"Fiona Andersen, that is my mother's name!"

The girl shrieked hysterically as she raised the double-edged sword once more, driving it straight through the Witch of Despair's chest.

A witch's weakness was her heart; every magical girl knew this. Some witches could regenerate even if they lost their heads, but without a heart, they were completely ruined. The corrupted Comet Fragments only latched onto the surface of their hearts, serving as the source of all their magic. Without a heart, they lost their powers and were reduced to nothing more than powerless madwomen.

Blood sprayed from the witch's chest, dyeing Deep Space's cheeks crimson.

She lowered her eyes, staring at the gaping hole in the Witch of Despair's chest. Knowing she had won, tears streaked from the corners of her eyes.

"Endride Solheim, that is my father's name!" the girl roared until her throat almost split. She raised the double-edged sword high with her blood-soaked right hand and swung at the Witch of Despair's head.

But at that very moment, something entirely unexpected happened. The Witch of Despair, who had just lost her heart... actually moved.

In a split second, the Witch of Despair used the blood pouring from her severed shoulder to form a sharp sword. Grabbing the blood sword with her left hand, she struck first. The crimson longsword instantly pierced Magical Girl Deep Space's chest, skewering her heart.

Everyone on stage froze. The scene unfolding before their eyes was completely incomprehensible. The rule of the heart had been proven true on every single witch in the past, yet it did not apply to the Witch of Despair.

"We're not done yet..." Magical Girl Deep Space wheezed hoarsely, planting her hands on the ground and forcing herself up. The other two diamond-shaped fragments floated up from the floor of Terminus Night and shot wildly toward the Witch of Despair.

With a sickening squelch, the diamond fragments stabbed into both of the Witch of Despair's shoulder blades. But an instant later, they were repelled by a burst of blood-red light, falling limply to the ground.

Expressionless, the Witch of Despair lowered her head. She twisted the blood-red longsword, churning it inside Magical Girl Deep Space's body to utterly mangle her internal organs, before kicking her away.

"Miss... Deep Space..." Little Red Riding Hood's pupils shrank.

"How could this be..." Mizumio Akari murmured.

The Witch of Despair slowly lifted her head, looking at the bluebird flying through the sky. A blood-red spear materialized in her right hand.

She casually hurled the spear. It instantly crossed a hundred meters, piercing straight through the bird's body and crushing the wind chime in its beak.

With the shattering of the magical relic Azure God Bell, the static-laced magic was left entirely unchecked. It expanded from the Witch of Despair's body like a domain. The lead-gray power poured into everyone's mouths and noses, dragging them into hallucinations they could never escape in this lifetime.

The entire world was dead silent, save for the howling wind.

Just then, however, a faint rustling came from the cuff of Ke Mingqing's windbreaker, like a tiny insect chirping inside.

A moment later, a small paper figurine hopped out of his sleeve. Plastering itself against the back of his hand, it chanted faintly.

"God is Dead."

["God is Dead": (An ability from the philosopher "Nietzsche") (Breaks the influence of one domain-type or rule-based ability on you, allowing you to escape from it.)]

A holy radiance slowly surfaced above Ke Mingqing's head. Although he was still inside the Witch of Despair's domain, his body and mind were no longer affected by it. The next moment, he opened his eyes.

He snapped his head up and looked toward the Witch of Despair in the distance.

The Witch of Despair also raised an eyebrow. She slowly turned her head, looking at the only figure around her who was still awake.

Amidst the dead silence, Ke Mingqing slowly opened his mouth and shouted that name at the top of his lungs, his voice hoarse and desperate.

"Bai Ziling!"

The world fell absolutely silent.

In that split second, the roar of artillery echoed from afar—the sounds of the Witch of Calamity clashing with Officer Girl. But the name from Ke Mingqing's lips still reached the Witch of Despair's ears, like an echo crossing thousands of years.

The Witch of Despair suddenly froze.

For some reason, the gray turbulence shrouding her body quietly faded away. Like the quicksand of time falling away, her true form was exposed to the air.

Ke Mingqing stared at her face. Reflected in his eyes was a young girl with white hair and red eyes, wearing a plain white dress.

Her appearance hadn't changed at all in hundreds of years. The girl's crimson eyes were wide open in shock.

He remained silent for a long time, a complex emotion flashing through his eyes. It was just as he had guessed. When Bai Ziling time-traveled from decades in the future, an accident had occurred.

An accident even she hadn't realized happened.

During that accident, she was split into two entities. One Bai Ziling successfully arrived in the modern era, took the pseudonym of the puppeteer Bai, joined the super-human criminal organization Death Crow, and revealed the truth of everything to him, along with what was going to happen in the future.

But the other Bai Ziling, split during the time-travel, appeared several hundred years in the past and became the terrifying Witch of Despair everyone feared.

Suddenly, Ke Mingqing recalled the illusion he had seen when her magic had occupied his mind.

Just as the white-haired girl gathered the courage to leave the box, she had heard someone outside violently pounding on the door, telling her not to go out. Dense strings of text had suddenly appeared inside the box:

—Don't go out.

Ke Mingqing knew that scene wasn't a memory, but her fantasy.

After drifting through different eras for hundreds of years, the Witch of Despair had begun to regret leaving that box that day. Maybe if she had waited just one more day, Giovanni would have come for her.

If she had never left that box, maybe Giovanni would have shown up eventually...

She always thought this way, dwelling on the exact same thing over and over, regretting the choice she made.

But that day, she had left. She couldn't wait any longer, so she opened the box's door. After that, she did so many stupid things.

She had traveled back to the past, yet she failed to find Giovanni. She emerged in an era where he hadn't even been born yet. Even if she screamed his name at the entire world, no one would answer her.

As time went on, she even began to doubt if such a person truly existed in the world.

So she thought—if only she hadn't left the box. At least that box was proof that Giovanni existed, that he wasn't a fabrication, that he had truly been there...

Later, she wandered like a ghost through a world without Giovanni. Even at the cost of her own heart, she couldn't find the person she had spent so long chasing.

And so, she became a hollow witch. The long years dragged on, and despair slowly filled her empty chest.

Wherever the witch walked, the pent-up, incommunicable despair surging in the depths of her soul would bleed out. Like a torrential storm, it soaked the corners of people's hearts, forcing those around her to do what she had always wanted to do but couldn't:

Commit suicide.

Perhaps she had always wanted to destroy herself to escape this emptiness and solitude. But the obsession to find that person constantly haunted her mind, leaving her to wander through the endless years like a lonely ghost.

It was only on the day she completely forgot who she was looking for and why she was even alive that she would finally choose to end her own life.

But right now, the Witch of Despair heard that name once more. The name only her beloved knew.

"Bai Ziling, I've come to pick you up..." Ke Mingqing said softly.

He lowered his head and remained silent for a long time. The early morning sunlight bathed his head, his hair fluttering in the wind.

The white-haired girl simply stared unblinkingly at Ke Mingqing's face. Her bloodstained lips parted slightly, silently mouthing a name.

At that moment, in her crimson pupils, Ke Mingqing's face suddenly shifted.

He became a young man with black hair and blue eyes, looking like an Italian. His face was expressionless, his calm eyes quietly watching the stage floor illuminated by the chaotic three-colored light.

Looking at this familiar yet unfamiliar face, the white-haired girl was stunned for a long while. Then she lowered her eyes, raised them again, and silently mouthed that name once more, her stiff lips curving into a faint smile.

Ke Mingqing lifted his head, gazing at her without a word.

The next instant, the turbulence of gray static poured down like a veil once again. At times it formed a curtain covering her face, and at other times it dissipated in the wind.

The white-haired girl's face suddenly paled. Clutching her splitting head, she walked forward step by step.

Whenever that maddening gray magic threatened to envelop her, she would reach out, squeeze a blood-forged longsword from her fingers, and violently stab it through her own body.

Blood splattered in Ke Mingqing's vision, gradually dyeing the hem of the girl's dress red.

"Oh right, Bai Ziling."

"What is it, Giovanni?"

In the dim hotel room, the white-haired girl rested her head on the young man's lap, quietly flipping through a fairy tale picture book in her hands.

Giovanni thought for a moment. Shifting his gaze from his phone, he looked down at the white-haired girl on his lap.

"Since vampires can control blood, can you change its shape?" he asked.

Bai Ziling nodded gently, her snow-white hair swaying.

"Like, for example, could you turn your blood into a sword?" Giovanni asked.

Bai Ziling hummed in agreement. She raised her slender fingers, squeezing thin threads of blood from between them. She forcefully twisted the blood, fusing it into a tiny blade.

Watching this, Giovanni paused, then reached out and gently stroked her hair.

"You're amazing, Bai Ziling."

The white-haired girl smiled softly. Lowering her eyes, she quietly stared at the blood-red blade dangling from her fingertips.

The stage of Terminus Night was dyed a deep scarlet. As she walked forward, the white-haired girl raised her hand, squeezing blood from her fingertips to form a longsword before plunging the crimson blade into her own body once again.

With a squelch, a bloody hole was torn through her abdomen.

The girl struggled, using the immense pain to cling to her final shred of sanity as she stumbled toward him.

By the end, she looked like a crimson hedgehog, her body studded with red blades.

Blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth.

She gazed silently into Ke Mingqing's eyes, her stained lips moving slightly. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make a sound, as if she had forgotten how to speak. After all, it had been far, far too many years...

Ke Mingqing knew that dragging this out would only prolong her suffering. Sooner or later, she would lose her mind again and revert to being a witch.

The next instant, he leaped from the floor of the stage. Wreathed in electricity, he dropped from the sky, diving toward the Witch of Despair like a descending thunderbolt.

With the fingers of his right hand held tight together and cloaked in merging lightning, he formed a black-and-blue knife hand, thrusting straight toward the Witch of Despair's head.

Unlike the other witches, the Witch of Despair's weakness was not her heart.

Ke Mingqing knew this very well, because someone had once told him that the Witch of Despair had traded her heart to someone for something. But in the end, she couldn't find the person she was looking for, so she went completely insane.

Therefore, this witch never had a heart to begin with. Stabbing her through the chest was completely useless.

So Ke Mingqing aimed for the Witch of Despair's head instead of her chest.

With a fleeting roar of thunder, Ke Mingqing slowly came to a halt behind her. The battery of his Merging Lightning form was fully drained. The ink-like lightning flowing across his skin faded in the wind, and even the residual arcs in the air vanished.

He took a deep breath and slowly turned around.

A headless corpse shakily took two steps toward him before finally collapsing into his arms. Its only remaining arm slowly climbed to his shoulder.

The girl's trembling fingers gently brushed across his cheek.

She never spoke, even at the very end. Over these hundreds of years, she had called out the same name—a name that would never receive an answer—until even that name gradually faded from her mind. There was no longer any reason to speak. In the end, she had even forgotten the very concept of language.

Now, her memories were flowing backward like a chaotic river, finally returning to where they had first begun.

Back then, she was just a young girl. A young man wearing a train attendant's uniform sat beside her, softly reading the story from a picture book.

His head was lowered, his eyes calm. His voice was as intoxicating as a lullaby. Gradually, the white-haired girl in her memories closed her eyes, and the Witch of Despair's consciousness was fully swallowed by darkness.

Her body was scattered by the wind like loose sand, vanishing into the faint blue canopy of the sky.