Just as Fuli was repeatedly subjecting Tribios to the Star Domain Supreme Hegemony, and the elegant Princess's soul-stirring, high-pitched war cries were echoing in his ears—
On the other side of the globe, on the outskirts of Sapphire City, inside the old pump house of a certain reservoir.
Creak!
A pair of hands pushed the door open from the inside.
"Those thousand-knife-deserving bastards!"
A venomous growl squeezed through the teeth of an adult man with unsteady footing. The pain tearing through his soul nearly caused him to faint.
Gritting his teeth, he stumbled toward the nondescript black sedan parked by the roadside.
Internally, however, he couldn't help but feel a shred of relief. If not for the precious item he had procured from that gathering place of lunatics known as the Masked Tavern, he likely would have truly died at the hands of those two wretched brats.
As a bizarre organization dedicated to stirring up trouble, the "Floridians" possessed all sorts of strange transformation and escape items.
For example, rainbow candy that forcibly changed the consumer's gender, or the secret potion Athanasia that could transfer and solidify the soul.
The secret treasure the man had stolen was named Yamato.
Of course, it wasn't the super-divine weapon that severed the human and demon worlds from the Devil May Cry series. Rather, it was a counterfeit forged by a highly skilled Masked Fool who had referenced the prototype, possessing a similar appearance and effect.
Relying on Yamato's power of separation, the man had split himself in two before the operation.
He had sent his telepathically linked doppelgänger to execute the plan of usurping the Golden Lineage, while his main body remained hidden in the shadows, waiting for the dust to settle.
He never expected that just as his doppelgänger was about to plunder the full extent of the Inazuma sisters' Baal power, that damned Fuli would pop out of some godforsaken corner.
Not only did Fuli defeat the Critical-Grade doppelgänger with effortless ease, but he also allowed that crazy woman named Raiden Ei to reclaim the hard-stolen Golden Blood through sheer torture!
One could only say it was a stroke of bad luck. If Fuli had simply decapitated the doppelgänger, the power stolen by it would have instantly returned to the main body, allowing the man to escape with the residual power of the Demon God Baal.
But Fuli had chosen to let Ei do the deed herself. As a twin Golden Descendant, she had forcibly extracted the other half of the power during the torture, causing the man's main body to fall into a state of extreme weakness.
"Those motherless leftovers!"
Thinking of his ruined plans, the man climbed into the driver's seat, gritted his teeth, slammed the gear stick, and stomped the gas pedal to the floor as if venting his rage.
The engine roared like a beast, and the sedan shot out like an arrow from a string.
He didn't know if they could track his main body through the doppelgänger. All he wanted now was to get to the airport as fast as possible and flee this country that had documented his heartbreak.
Perhaps the pain of his split soul was too intense, for just as the car rushed onto the somewhat empty suburban highway—
BANG!
In a moment of distraction, a heavy object smashed onto the hood of the car.
Warm liquid splattered onto the shattered glass and trickled down.
"Mom! Mom, what's wrong?! Sob sob sob..."
Outside the car, the heart-wrenching wailing of a young boy could be heard.
"Fuck!"
It never rains but it pours. Realizing he had caused an accident, the man cursed furiously.
Without even glancing at the shattered windshield or the female corpse on the hood, he shoved the door open, fled the scene, and ducked into an inconspicuous alleyway by the road.
The alley was dimly lit, and a few older children were chasing each other playfully.
One little girl, wearing a small pink dress with her hair in twin braids, was running happily and didn't notice him, crashing headlong into the stumbling man's legs.
"Ouch!"
The little one landed on her butt. Rubbing her forehead, she blinked her big eyes at the weird uncle who looked ferocious and radiated hostility. Timidly, she asked, "Uncle, do you want to play 'Explode the Dog Bowl' with Little Flower?"
"Scram! Damn brat, go play by yourself! Don't annoy me!"
The man couldn't be bothered with her.
"Oh."
The little girl didn't pester him. Watching his retreating back, she squatted down, took a firecracker from her pocket, lit it, and stuffed it under an overturned stainless steel dog bowl.
Run, cover ears, all in one smooth motion.
BANG!
Under the dog's tearful gaze, the stainless steel bowl was blasted into the sky. God knows how many times it spun in the air before tracing a parabola and falling.
CLANG!
Impartially, like a precision-guided missile aided by gravitational potential energy, it smashed ruthlessly onto the back of the man's head.
"Ah—Holy shit!"
"S-S-So sorry!"
Seeing the trouble she caused, the little girl and her friends scattered and vanished in a puff of smoke.
Only the man remained, seeing stars and clutching the impact site, squatting on the ground and howling in pain.
It took a long time for the piercing agony to subside.
"Those damn brats... if I hadn't lost my power, I'd take every single one of you and—Hiss!"
He staggered up using the wall for support, sucking in a cold breath before he could finish his threat.
Regrettably, even in this state, the man knew the difference between a full meal and a beating. He hadn't forgotten he needed to run.
He rubbed his temples vigorously, suppressing the churning killing intent and dizziness, and continued toward his target: a motorized tricycle (a "tuk-tuk") parked in the corner, whose owner had carelessly left the keys in the ignition.
Heaven never seals off all exits. Without much effort, he started the engine.
But just as he was excitedly preparing to drive away, an old woman's voice suddenly shouted at him.
"Aiyo! Why are you stealing my car?! Help! In broad daylight! Is there no law anymore?!"
A white-haired, hunched old lady stood trembling at the alley entrance, leaning on a cane and pointing at him angrily.
Damn it!
Alarm bells rang in the man's mind.
There is a Western saying: one woman is equal to five hundred ducks.
If this old lady started screaming and attracted bystanders, or even the police... No! He had to stabilize her!
"Ma'am! Don't! Don't shout!" The man forced a smile uglier than crying. "I... I'm actually in huge trouble! Yes! It's an emergency! My family member is suddenly ill! I just thought of borrowing your car. I promise I'll return it as soon as I'm done! I definitely will! Please have a heart!"
"Will you return it?"
The old lady looked at him suspiciously.
"Definitely!"
The man said with certainty.
"An emergency, huh? Alright then."
The grandma was kind-hearted after all. She moved aside with her cane, trembling as she shuffled over to a stone bench under an old locust tree nearby and sat down, fiddling with the pieces on a Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) board.
"Eh? Where's Old Fu? He was playing chess here just a moment ago."
Looking at the empty seat opposite her, she paused, then hurriedly called out, "Hey, young man borrowing the car, did you see that old geezer who was playing chess with me?"
"N-No, I didn't!" The man, who had driven the tuk-tuk only two feet before it stalled, was sweating profusely. "Ma'am, why is this car out of gas?"
"Out of gas? Isn't it normal to be out of gas? Oh, right, that old geezer probably went home to get gasoline."
The old woman cooling off under the tree fanned herself happily, a trace of imperceptible cunning flashing in her cloudy eyes. "Young man, seeing as you're idle anyway, want to play a game of chess with this old lady? By the time we finish, that old geezer might be back with the gas."
Gasoline! There's gasoline at her house!
A fierce light flashed in the man's eyes.
According to his usual style, since she said there was gas at home, he would have immediately put a knife to the old hag's neck and forced her to take him to it.
But thinking of his journey, which felt cursed by bad luck, he suppressed his killing intent and sat opposite her, resetting the messy chess pieces.
The old lady played Red; the man played Black.
"I'll go first."
She picked up the Red Cannon, her fingers crossing the River boundary, and bluntly took the Black Horse.
"Hahahaha! Your horse is gone! Your mom is gone!" [T/N: "Ma" implies Horse, but is homophonous with Mom. "Ni ma mei la" is a classic insult meaning "Your mom is dead."]
She suddenly burst into a sharp, manic laughter completely incongruous with her age. The wrinkles on her face squeezed together, and a crazy light flickered in her cloudy eyes.
Her figure and face began to twist and shift amidst the laughter, shattering and reassembling like a kaleidoscope.
First, it was the grinning face of the cunning little girl who blew up the dog bowl.
Then, the tear-streaked face of the wailing boy by the street.
Then, the pale face of the mother lying in a pool of blood, hit by the car.
Finally, it settled on a visage the man knew all too well: a classical cherry blossom patterned yukata, and a playful face wearing an innocent yet wicked smile.
"It's you!!!"
The man was terrified beyond measure, finally realizing he had been in the palm of "Buddha's hand" all along.
He sprang up from the stone bench, retreating madly. In his panic, he accidentally knocked the entire chessboard to the ground.
"Yes, it is~ Mr. Traitor who split himself in two, I have brought you destruction!"
Sitting on the stone bench, Sparkle swung her small feet clad in high wooden geta, the bells making a crisp, pleasant sound.
"Hehe, are you satisfied? This improv performance with you as the protagonist..."
She propped her chin on one hand, admiring the man's terrified expression with great interest, her eyes curved into crescents, looking harmless.
"You! How on earth did you find me!"
The man felt like he was in a nightmare.
He was in such a hurry to run not only because he feared Fuli and the Divine State authorities, but even more so because he was afraid of being found by these lunatics with no bottom line!
He was a traitor to the "Floridians"!
Whether it was that Yamato or the forbidden knowledge to usurp the Golden Lineage, he had stolen them from a murdered Masked Fool!
"How did I find you? Just found you, like that!"
Sparkle spread her hands innocently. Clearly, no one would ever get the specific method out of her mouth.
Realizing this, the man gritted his teeth, forcing himself to calm down. "Y-You plan to avenge that dead guy? Heh, since when did the relationship between Masked Fools become so loving?"
"Good relationship? No, no, I'm just upholding the organization's beliefs." The Fool deliberately dragged out her tone, mischief dancing in her eyes. "Didn't you say you loved the atmosphere of the 'Floridians' when you first joined, Little Bro? Treating each other like mortal enemies, mouths dipped in poison, pure combat with no interests involved—it warms the heart, doesn't it? What? Hehe, regretting it now?"
Y-You were serious about that?!
The man was dumbfounded.
"Of course not."
She hopped lightly off the stone bench. Her bare feet stepped onto the cold stone slabs as she gracefully approached the man step by step, each footfall seemingly landing on his heart. "Upholding the organization's beliefs... that sounds so old-fashioned. And avenging a colleague? That's so boring it makes me want to vomit."
"Then why the fuck won't you let me go?!!"
"Because you're too low..."
"Wha—?"
The smile on Sparkle's face vanished instantly, replaced by a cold indifference laced with extreme mockery.
She stopped in front of the man, looking him up and down as if assessing garbage. "You know? From the moment you joined the Fools, I've been watching you from the shadows, Little Bro."
"Because the stench on you was too strong. That stink of someone who only joined for profit and planned to bail the moment they got the goods. Honestly, there wasn't a single bit of Elation in it."
She curled her lip in disgust, as if smelling something foul.
Then she suddenly puffed out her small chest, looking serious. "But as a renowned director, Director Sparkle has an obligation to fully excavate the pitiful talents of her actors!"
"Even if it's a pile of mud, I have to see how high it can stick to the wall."
"So, I didn't warn that idiot who was triumphantly showing off about destroying a Bubble Universe. I even quietly closed his escape portal for him, watching helplessly as you poisoned him, killed him, and took his sword and knowledge."
"Then I followed you like a shadow, expecting that you, having stolen the power of a Fool, might bring me a big surprise."
Would it be toppling a nation?
Or toying with the faith of some god?
Or perhaps creating chaos that would make the audience roar with laughter?
"But the result?"
Sparkle's voice suddenly pitched up, filled with the frustration of unmet expectations. "The result is that you used that ability to bully a pair of newly awakened, clueless Golden Sisters? You went to all that trouble to kill a Fool and take everything he had, just for the utterly boring idea of 'gaining power'?!"
"Idiot! Stupid! Moron! Small fry! Mud that can't stick to the wall! You are literally so low you've pierced the Earth's core!"
She scolded him angrily, her face flushed, as if she had been greatly insulted.
"Even so, as a director who finishes what she starts, I professionally played the role of the dead Miss Makoto, wanting to see how you would react."
The Fool sighed. "Pity. I got my hopes up on my own, and got disappointed on my own again."
"So I've concluded: you stink of barren mediocrity right down to your bones. You're the lowest, most boring kind of trash villain. You don't even qualify to be a clown."
"So—"
A smile bloomed on her face—extremely sweet, yet extremely dangerous, like a blossoming poppy.
She leaned down and whispered into the terrified man's ear:
"Goodbye."
"No, actually... never see you again."
"No! NO!"
The man's pupils, dilated in horror, reflected a magnificent, blurred, and destructive kaleidoscope. Countless fragments of light and shadow rotated, reassembled, and collapsed behind Sparkle, appearing as if they would suck all of reality into them.
The surrounding illusionary alleyway shattered like morning dew, revealing the dilapidated old pump house from the very beginning.
"When did I fall into the hallucination?"
"The answer is... from the start."
The Fool in the scarlet yukata lazily took off her fox mask, bent down, and picked up the counterfeit Yamato that radiated a cold chill from the ground, casually hanging it at her waist.
"Fufu, done and dusted~"
Having disposed of the garbage, the girl clapped her hands, hummed an off-key tune, and skipped toward the exit.
She paused. "Come to think of it, wasn't Deputy Alliance Master Shuhu shouting in the group chat the other day? Saying he wanted to team up with everyone to cause some big trouble at this Wardance Ceremony?"
"Do those old geezers at the Taixu Front know about this?" Her lips curled into a cunning arc. Sparkle took out her phone and tapped quickly. "Whether they know or not, I'll be kind and notify them! It'll be more lively that way!"
She sent out an anonymous warning message, looked up at the gray sky, and smiled an innocent, harmless smile.
---||---
Through various investigations, the Taixu Front had basically clarified the sequence of events regarding the Chrysos Heirs usurpation.
Located in the Pudong New Area, at the Anti-Honkai Administration, within the Confidential Archives Room of the Investigation Division on the third basement level, the unlucky Tieshi Yixia and Mu Hanyin had been sent by Yanqing to organize the relevant data.
It was already deep into the night. Looking at the mountain of paper files and flickering electronic screens, Mu Hanyin, who had been working by lamplight for half the day, shoved the table and wailed, "I'm so tired, Yixia! And so hungry!"
"I've already asked the cafeteria to send food over." Tieshi Yixia, buried in documents, didn't lift her head, her voice slightly hoarse. "If you're tired, you can sleep for a bit. There isn't much cross-referencing and anomaly analysis left; I can handle it alone."
"How could I leave you to suffer alone!"
Mu Hanyin shouted. Seeing her friend still ignoring her, she couldn't help but get curious. "Are they that charming? I remember you didn't even touch dinner, you've just been gnawing on these documents."
"I'm just pondering a question." Tieshi Yixia stopped typing and rubbed her temples, which were throbbing faintly. "A question regarding the identity of the deceased."
"Hasn't that already been confirmed?"
Mu Hanyin was stunned, her drowsiness dissipating slightly. "The one attacked in the incident was the somewhat famous Miss Raiden Makoto. It's such a pity. I even have her VTuber stream clips saved. She was clearly such a sunny and gentle person..."
"Is that so?" Tieshi Yixia seemed nonchalant. "But what if I told you that the person who truly died in the initial attack might not be Miss Makoto, but her sister, Miss Ei?"
"Eh? You... Mmph!"
"Keep your voice down!" Quickly covering her friend's mouth and apologizing to their colleagues on the other side of the room, Tieshi Yixia lowered her voice. "This is just my personal guess. Just listen to it for fun."
"Mhm, mhm!"
Mu Hanyin's eyes sparkled with the light of gossip.
"Actually, I only have one reason for judging this, and that is the power carried by the Chrysos Heirs."
Tieshi Yixia opened a file, pointing to a few lines of key information and a photo beside them. "In the current records, the power carried by the deceased Raiden Makoto was the Demon God aspect of Baal, which we'll tentatively call Baelzebul. The sister, Ei, corresponds to the God King aspect of Baal."
"But don't you find that incongruous?"
She paused, her finger tapping on a photocopy of an ancient text regarding the origins of Baal.
"Baal's true origin is the main god ruling the ancient Canaanite region, only slandered as a Prince of Hell after the expansion of the Cruzian religion. According to this order, the older sister should inherit the divinity, and the younger sister should inherit the demonic nature of Baelzebul—that is, the Demon King Beelzebub. But here, it's reversed."
Tieshi Yixia wasn't speaking blindly; similar cases existed.
The most famous was that pair of Handmaidens of the Shade, the Chrysos Heir Sisters known as Khatvanga and Polycaste. Their power inheritance strictly followed the primary and secondary relationship of the mythological archetype.
Mu Hanyin's thoughts began to wander. "So you think that the one who lost her life at the start was actually Miss Ei? and after that, the older sister, Miss Makoto, unable to bear the grief of losing her sister and missing her too much, chose to dress up and walk around as her younger sister?"
"Yes." Tieshi Yixia nodded. "The personality traits in the files say the older sister is gentle, generous, and knowledgeable, while the younger sister is withdrawn and dislikes meeting people. For such a pair, it would be hard for the younger one to pretend to be the older one, but the reverse is very simple."
"Maybe it's also because of that Masked Fool?" Mu Hanyin pondered. "She appeared before Miss Robin in the guise of the deceased the very next day after Makoto died. Perhaps Ei—er, Miss Makoto—didn't intend to do this, but was forced to under her interference."
"Perhaps." Tieshi Yixia sighed. "It's a pity. The life form and energy characteristics of awakened Chrysos Heirs undergo a metamorphosis. Conventional DNA testing can't accurately distinguish between identical twins with the same blood origin and highly similar power attributes. We can only go by their statements."
"Or maybe you're just overthinking it, Yixia. Ah, thank you!"
Taking the steaming late-night snack from the staff member, Mu Hanyin opened the lunch box. "Anyway, let the big shots above worry about this kind of thing. We can't conclude anything discussing it here. By the way, will Miss Robin be invited to host the Luminary Wardance Ceremony this time?"
Recalling the pure white singer who had descended from the sky during the battle, stars appeared in her eyes. "Miss Robin is truly an angel! Once that song 'If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking' played, I felt my whole being ascend!"
"Indeed."
Tieshi Yixia also revealed a shallow smile, taking the meal box handed by the staff. The sweet and sour aroma wafted out.
However, when her gaze inadvertently swept over the autopsy photo in the file of the "Lord of the Flies" with its blood drained dry, a deeper thought uncontrollably drilled its way out:
Blood is the currency of the soul. Now that Miss Ei has reclaimed the Golden Blood and power, will those two sisters...
"Wow! Today is Braised Pork with Potatoes! Yixia, Yixia, what's your dish?"
The cheerful voice beside her called the girl's thoughts back.
"Mine? It's Double-Cooked Pork Slices."
"Let's share?"
"Sure."
She smiled, not planning to delve any further into the topic.