Chapter 253: Major Event Three: Night of the Witches (13)

Owl Judge stood at a corner of the Stage Apparatus, gazing down at the unconscious Red Lotus.

He remained motionless for a long while, though the pupils behind his mask contracted slightly.

"A'zhi...?" he murmured hoarsely after a long moment.

Finally snapping back to his senses, he dropped to one knee and propped Red Lotus up. He looked closely at her again—without a doubt, the face beneath the mask belonged to his younger sister, Xia Ningzhi.

"How could this be—" Ke Linye muttered, his clear eyes widening slightly.

A moment later, he slowly raised a hand to his flickering metal owl mask, falling into a long silence.

The tricolored light of Terminus Night washed over his bewildered figure, stretching his shadow across the ground until it was as long and slender as a crow.

Owl Judge lowered his head, completely baffled. 'If A'zhi is Red Lotus, A'xue should have known for a while now. But after all this time, she never told me once? Why would she keep this a secret?'

Nearby, the magical girl Sakurahime dropped her longsword and quickly knelt beside Winter Hunter.

She crushed the Magic Card Xi Ziyue had given her: "Blessing of the Deer."

It was a highest-specification healing Magic Card; there were no more than five in the entire world. If used in time, it could even regenerate severed limbs.

A second later, Winter Hunter's body was enveloped in blooming flowers and thorns, as if she were resting in a makeshift garden.

Motes of green light danced back and forth in the air like sprites, and the serene cry of a deer echoed from the foliage. A moment later, a new right arm visibly sprouted from the white-haired girl's severed shoulder, the skin as pristine as a newborn baby's.

Only then did the magical girl Sakurahime breathe a sigh of relief. She turned her head toward Xi Ziyue.

Xi Ziyue stood with her eyes slightly lowered, meeting the gaze of the Doll Witch currently clamped in the jaws of the Jade Zodiac Rabbit.

"Any words from the loser?" Xi Ziyue asked.

"Words from the loser? You're obviously the ones who lost, aren't you?" The cloth doll tilted its head. "I coaxed Ember into becoming a witch. And with the sacrifice of a Dual Crown Name Witch, Terminus Night will soon truly activate. Then, the oldest witch in history—sealed inside this Stage Apparatus—will awaken. What happens next is obvious. Even the most low-energy, incompetent idiot could picture it."

She paused, raising her gemstone eyes to look mockingly at Xi Ziyue. "If you're trying to salvage this now—it's already too late."

"Alright. Are you done with your last words?" Xi Ziyue asked, her expression unchanged.

"Huh?"

The cloth doll's face immediately fell.

"What makes you so certain the sacrifice was successful?" Xi Ziyue asked calmly.

"What are you getting at?" The cloth doll tilted its head, squinting at her. "The moment that spotlight hit me, it meant the sacrifice began. It should be just about finished by now."

"Then why don't you guess what kind of Magic Card I left on Ember ahead of time?" Xi Ziyue said. "It's the only one of its kind in the entire world. It took me quite a bit of time to get my hands on it."

The Doll Witch suddenly froze.

At that moment, the young woman in the cheongsam lightly clapped her hands. The Jade Zodiac Rabbit instantly snapped the Doll Witch's neck, swallowing the cloth doll's head and body whole.

"Mr. Judge, how is Utuna?" Xi Ziyue asked casually.

"Gravely injured, but she can still be saved. Officer Girl took her and Rain Crow to get treated," Owl Judge replied absentmindedly.

"Is that so? That's good..."

With that, Xi Ziyue slowly stood and turned to look at the eerie mansion in the center of the stage. The sky was still blue; the witches of Terminus Tower had all been wiped out, and everything appeared perfectly calm.

At that very moment, in the chapel deep within the mansion.

Cold sunlight spilled through the stained glass windows onto the altar. The crimson water within the fountain surged upward in reverse, forming a cocoon that trapped the girl inside.

Ke Mingqing tipped his head back, staring blankly at the sight. He had largely figured it out: the Stage Apparatus had only been partially active earlier, and only the sacrifice of a Dual Crown Name Witch would truly activate it.

"...Sis?" he called out after a long pause, trying to reach Xia Zili trapped inside the cocoon.

But no response came from the crimson cocoon in midair. Instead, an eerie sound echoed through the chapel—as if some creature were eating and chewing.

Ripples of interwoven black and gold magic rippled outward from time to time, gently brushing against Ke Mingqing's cheeks like blowing desert sand.

Ke Mingqing quickly pieced the situation together: the crimson cocoon formed by this altar intended to devour and sacrifice the Witch of Finale and Ashes before she could fully awaken.

He tentatively stepped toward the cocoon, but before he could even near the altar, a ripple of black and gold magic sent him flying, slamming him hard into the chapel wall.

With a sharp crack, Ke Mingqing hit the ground, his fractured right arm sliding limply down. After a moment, he let out a muffled groan, clutching his arm as he picked himself up.

The young man looked up once more.

Just then, a faint light suddenly flickered from within the dim cocoon.

Ke Mingqing froze.

He quickly guessed that the Protection Card Xi Ziyue had left on Ember was taking effect. The shadowy outline of a massive door frame appeared within the cocoon and began to tremble slightly.

"Is that the 'Gate of Generations' Little Red Riding Hood told me about?" Ke Mingqing had heard of this Magic Card.

From ancient times to the present, generations of magical girls had left remnants of their mana within this door frame. When the door opened, all that mana would surge out, forming an inviolable Barrier to shield the card's user.

The next moment, the massive, iridescent door swung wide open within the cocoon. Suddenly, the giant crimson shell ruptured, dissolving into bloody water that dyed the entire altar red.

The figure of a girl in a dark gold form-fitting dress was revealed. She hovered in midair, curled up with her arms wrapped around her knees.

Little paper dolls, looking like stick figures, held hands to form a ring that orbited the girl.

The paper ring hovered about three meters away from her, making her look like a halo-wreathed angel from myth. As the little paper dolls on the ring spun in their circle holding hands, they murmured in various languages: "Liebe ist eine Lüge. (Love is a lie.)"

"Die Liebe eines Sünders wird den Geliebten töten. (A sinner's love will kill the beloved.)"

"Wir werden uns am Ende der Welt wiedersehen. (We will meet again at the end of the world.)"

Ke Mingqing watched the ring alternately expand and contract, then looked back at the girl in the center. He stood frozen for a moment before shouting at her, "Xia Zili!"

Ghostly blue flames ignited at the corners of the girl's eyes. Amidst the cold, flickering firelight, she slowly opened her eyes. Golden pupils locked directly onto Ke Mingqing, the depths of her gaze rippling like concentric waves of water.

She raised her right arm horizontally. A radiant golden cross-shaped longsword appeared in front of her palm, piercing through a furled pitch-black umbrella.

"Ruhe. (Silence.)"

The girl suddenly spoke, her voice brimming with majesty, as if thousands of bronze bells were tolling in unison.

The babbling little figures on the ring instantly went dead silent. Then, in an absolute silence, she slowly grasped the Sword Hilt.

As if a Maiden Tyrant had grasped the sword of absolute authority, an explosion of black and gold magic instantly expanded outward, forcing Ke Mingqing's body out of the chapel.

The Witch of Finale and Ashes had thus been born.

Within the paper ring, a tyrannical golden light danced in the girl's pupils. Her skirt, woven from gold and black roses, fluttered in midair.

"Little Grey!" Ke Mingqing blanked for a second, then corrected himself and called out her other name.

But the girl acted as if she hadn't heard him, her expression as frigid as ice. She raised her right arm and gave the Umbrella Sword a casual swing. Magic instantly surged out like a dark gold tidal wave, swallowing the entire mansion.

"Boom!!!"

The world fell apart before Ke Mingqing's eyes. Logically, at such close range, he couldn't possibly dodge and would only be incinerated to ashes in an instant. But just then, a gloomy-looking little paper doll slipped out from his sleeve.

The little paper doll lowered its head slightly, directly facing the sun-like, blinding light, and hissed, "Allegory of the Cave ["Allegory of the Cave" (Derived from the philosopher Plato) (Briefly teleports your body into a cave, returning to reality after 10 seconds; however, your mind will be continuously assailed by hallucinations during this period, with a probability of being unable to leave.)]"

Before his body could be swallowed by the black and gold light, a narrow Spatial Rift suddenly opened behind Ke Mingqing and sucked him inside.

Then, that rift instantly snapped shut, looking as if it had never existed at all. In the blink of an eye, the radiant dark gold magic swallowed the entire chapel.

The world fell into absolute silence.

Meanwhile, outside the mansion, back on the Stage Apparatus.

Mizumio Akari stood silently before Ava's corpse, her silver-white hair swaying in the wind. Little Red Riding Hood cast her blue eyes downward, her golden hair obscuring her forehead.

But neither had the time to mourn the dead. Suddenly, a berserk curtain of dark gold light tore through the gloomy mansion, its power ravaging outward like a gale.

They both froze, then jerked their heads up. The massive mansion crumbled to ashes before their eyes, and a figure completely wreathed in dark gold magic slowly ascended toward the sky.

"Teacher Mizumio, what is that?" Watching that ascending dark gold figure, Little Red Riding Hood blanked for a second before asking.

"Is that... Ember?" Mizumio Akari was stunned for a second.

Before they could get a clear look at the figure in the sky, the Stage Apparatus began to violently quake in the very next second.

Immediately after, the entire Terminus Night tilted and plummeted from hundreds of meters in the air. A sharp sense of weightlessness blanketed everyone's bodies. The people on the stage teetered unsteadily, reeling as if caught in a dance.

"Teacher Mizumio?!" Little Red Riding Hood's shout grew louder.

Mizumio Akari finally snapped out of it and shook her head. "It's still unclear what's happening. Regardless, let's go rendezvous with Xi Ziyue first."

Little Red Riding Hood hesitated, seemingly worried about someone, but eventually gave a quiet "Yeah."

Then, she blew a whistle, and the Christmas Sleigh sped over from the distance. The Christmas-clad magical girl scooped up Deep Space's corpse and boarded the sleigh. Mizumio Akari sat down in it as well.

Little Red Riding Hood cracked her whip, and the two reindeer hauled the sleigh into the sky, flying toward Xi Ziyue's side.

Meanwhile, the tilt of Terminus Night grew steeper and steeper. If it had originally been a perfectly stable flat surface, it was now an outright slope.

At that moment, in another corner of the Stage Apparatus, Xi Ziyue and her group were also forced to slide downward, plummeting diagonally toward the very edge of Terminus Night.

Immense wind pressure swept over them, whipping the girls' hair and skirts into a frenzy. Owl Judge's pitch-black trench coat snapped loudly in the gale, looking just like the wildly fluttering tail feathers of a bird.

"Teacher Xi Ziyue, Terminus Night is beginning to collapse!" Sakurahime shouted, holding Winter Hunter.

Owl Judge tightly embraced Red Lotus, searching for an opportunity to evacuate the Stage Apparatus.

"Everyone, please gather near me."

Xi Ziyue said expressionlessly as a Spatial Rift abruptly opened beside her.

The cars of the space-time train extended out from the rift, suspended in midair. Carriage after carriage linked together, gradually twisting into a bizarre loop.

Owl Judge and Sakurahime stepped on top of a suspended carriage, halting their descent. Just then, the two reindeer hauled the Christmas Sleigh over from the distance, stopping right next to the carriage.

"Senior Deep Space?" The magical girl Sakurahime was the first to notice Deep Space's abnormality, asking her.

"Deep Space has sacrificed herself," Mizumio Akari said grimly. "But this isn't the time for that. Look over there."

Hearing this, Owl Judge looked up toward the distant sky. Above the tilting, plummeting Terminus Night, a figure radiating dark gold light all over was slowly ascending toward the sky.

"Could that be..." He stared blankly, murmuring silently, "...Little Li?"

Xi Ziyue remained completely silent, her eyes—as clear as bamboo—flickering with faint light.

At this very moment, the Maiden Tyrant in a dark gold corset dress stood high above the heavens. She slowly raised her massive, cross-like Umbrella Sword, triggering a massive atmospheric tremor.

The next instant, from the tip of the blade, an ocean-like surge of magic rippled outward.

"Boom!!!"

A deafening sound crashed down. A berserk beam of light shot straight into the clouds along the tip of the blade, gradually sweeping outward. Its scale rivaled the Tower of Babel from the myths of the Bible.

The first to suffer was naturally the mansion in the exact center of Terminus Night, followed closely by the entire Stage Apparatus.

The sky, the clouds, the earth—at this moment, the entire world was dyed an identical golden hue, just as if dusk had arrived.

A deathly absolute silence continued for a long time. When that ocean of magic illuminating the world finally receded, the sky above was completely cloudless.

At this moment, only the girl remained, standing entirely alone in her original spot.

The crowd looked up to see that the entire Stage Apparatus had vanished without a trace. Just like that, the legendary "Terminus Night" faded away behind the curtain of history—