Chapter 253
Chapter 253: Justice Is on My Side!
Dense black mist rose from the earth, rolling and churning before everyone's eyes on the back of the howling gale.
Livi raised one hand to cover his nose and mouth, pushed against the wind, and fixed his gaze into the black mist—continuously trying to make out whatever lay within.
Vladimir stood motionless in place, silently watching the black mist sweep past his feet, staring with a grave expression toward the spot where it had risen.
The black mist coiled and wound without stop, sweeping even past the towering treetops and swallowing Safirose in the near distance along with everything else.
She raised her head and lifted one arm to cover her face, forcing 1 eye shut, fighting with all her might to stay conscious—watching this ominous black mist gradually engulf her.
An enormous yet narrow shadow stretched slowly across the sky, blotting out every last trace of moonlight that had been there before.
The stars overhead were swallowed one by one. The sky sank into a vast, heavy silence.
Livi narrowed his eyes. The air around him was compressed rapidly; tiny water droplets gathered one by one and floated into position on either side of his body, trembling faintly.
At last, in the sky above, the colossal black shadow solidified into something real.
A black silhouette vast enough to blot out the heavens seemed capable of swallowing whole the pale full moon—snapping it to pieces with a single peck.
Its enormous, razor-sharp jet-black talons carved fissures into the very fabric of space. The dense, lush feathers that covered its body squeezed out black mist without pause, blanketing the entire world.
The damp and frigid smell that carried with it reached Livi's nose and mouth almost immediately—like the long-preserved obsession that lingered inside an ancient tomb, heavy enough to suffocate.
The jet-black Giant Eagle swept across the boundless sky as though the next moment would plunge the world into absolute darkness.
The black mist at its back had already spread far, far into the distance.
Even the sky above the Royal Capital was slowly tainted under the mist's creeping advance, sinking into total blackness.
Livi sensed the enormous danger bearing down on him and moved to retaliate.
But the moment he raised his head, the water molecules that had gathered all around him suddenly froze in midair.
As if time itself had been suspended—every water droplet hung motionless, their very forms no longer trembling.
"What is this?"
Livi stared at the water droplets around him and cried out in alarm.
Countless Mage-soldiers all around collapsed where they stood, strength draining from their bodies. Eyes clamped shut, their forms wrapped in wisps of black mist, they lost consciousness and fell.
Livi reflexively swept his gaze around—and found that only he and Vladimir still retained any awareness.
So no one could answer their questions.
The enormous jet-black eagle body obscured the sky directly above them.
A single colossal eye slowly opened in the sky—like something tearing through the boundless darkness.
A vortex spiraled out gradually from within that absolute black.
That vast pupil had displaced the moon, and the great amber-yellow eye slowly revolved in place.
The amber-yellow irises began pressing inward through the space around them—warping and distorting into something deeply unsettling.
The vertical pupil split into countless dense, tiny sub-pupils. But every last one of them was fixed without exception on the 2 figures below.
When Vladimir was locked in that gaze, he could feel—even against his will—that every single hair on his body had begun to stir on its own.
As if breaking free from his body's control, something in him began to develop the impulse to flee.
In an instant, the world all around became unstable—like a reflection in a mirror or the moon in water—and the trembling world began to reassemble. Blurred fragments of color were flung before their eyes one after another.
The warping colors seemed to form twisted, deformed shapes—chaotic and profane.
Livi and Vladimir both registered the strangeness around them at the same moment.
"A Vision..."
Livi narrowed his eyes—but the space around him was little more than slightly unsteady. He couldn't sense anything terrifying closing in.
Vladimir registered the same. Rather than fighting it, he quietly dropped his combat stance and stood still within the space.
This Vision that had been constructed around them seemed to hold no hostile intent toward them at all.
Before long, the illusion faded gradually—dissolving like color washed away by running water.
The world returned to its original form.
By the time they came to their senses, Safirose—gravely wounded—had apparently already been taken away, vanished without a trace.
Vladimir spat on the ground and broke into a stream of curses:
"What the hell was that thing."
The blue ripples in Livi's eyes were still faintly shimmering.
He surveyed the Mage-soldiers lying collapsed all around him and said slowly:
"I can't make sense of it."
He raised his head and looked around.
On every side, towering, thick walls had suddenly risen from nowhere.
Like some astonishing earthen barrier, they had completely surrounded everyone present.
Livi reached out to touch one—and found it damp to the touch, its surface covered in straight vertical lines.
As if a realization had struck him, he looked up.
A full moon slipped through the tall treetops and fell into his field of vision.
Only then did Livi startle into full understanding.
They hadn't been blocked off by a high wall at all—it was the ground beneath them that had sunk deep into an enormous crater!
The forest floor had completely collapsed, yet the trees surrounding it bore no signs of having snapped or broken.
The crater was immense—so vast that it inspired a trembling, involuntary awe.
Like the marks left behind in the earth after a Natural Disaster-class Magic had been unleashed—profound and bottomless.
Viewed from above, this sudden pit had appeared on the earth out of nowhere, utterly discordant with its surroundings.
And yet neither of them felt any wound on their bodies.
A miracle...
At that moment, Livi suddenly noticed something.
Near the edge of the pit, a narrow path had been left behind.
It was perfectly straight. He could even make out clearly that the earth on both sides of the path had been cleanly sheared flat.
"This direction..."
Led straight to the Royal Capital.
Livi fell silent.
Whatever that creature was.
It had let them go.
***
Through the mist, Safirose dragged her heavily wounded body and ran at speed through the Outskirts of the Royal Capital.
Above her pale-haired head, Weija sat in perfect ease—the very picture of a god at rest.
Even as she stumbled across uneven terrain, her steps unsteady, it seemed completely undisturbed—detached from the world entirely.
"As I said—the next time we meet."
"Don't disappoint me."
That sharp, deep voice sounded from directly above her. The words themselves were simple—yet a chill shot up Safirose's spine the moment she heard them.
She came to an abrupt halt, braced against a tall tree beside her, and caught her breath in short, ragged bursts.
Her green serpent pupils contracted slowly as she stared up into the distant sky.
"I..."
The Crow's jet-black silhouette flashed through her mind without pause.
She had disappointed it.
Safirose didn't know why, but she had produced that thought.
Yet she herself understood perfectly: before that Crow, she had no room for resistance whatsoever.
Then, Weija's voice reached her ears once more:
"And so, I'll give you one more chance."
"Become stronger."
Safirose went rigid where she stood. The emotions surging through her were tangled, frozen—impossible to put into words.
How could she become stronger?
All of a sudden, a gale howled through the surroundings, sweeping up the tiny grass fragments scattered across the ground.
In the space ahead of her, beneath the force of that wild wind, a jet-black vortex began to take shape.
Safirose turned to look. The space before her seemed to warp at tremendous speed under the pressure of some force.
The next second, darkness spread rapidly out of nothing—a void fissure was torn open, twisting itself into the shape of a passageway.
A man in a black Coat, carrying himself with extraordinary bearing, stepped unhurriedly out from within.
The moment the Crow saw the new arrival, it flapped its wings and flew onto Viktor.
The instant Safirose laid eyes on Viktor, she froze in place.
She could feel plainly that the aura this man carried far surpassed that of the previous 2—by a significant margin.
But when her gaze swept across Viktor, the threat-level assessment flickered before her eyes:
【Scanning target. Threat level—None】
That was right. None.
And yet the void fissure just moments ago had made Safirose clearly sense that this force had reached a level of power so immense it bordered on the grotesque.
Shattering the sky itself would not have been surprising.
Could it be... that her own body had made an error in judgment?
At that moment, Viktor's voice rang out slowly:
"Hard to understand?"
The Coat behind him seemed to reignite—as if flames had been rekindled within it. Crimson magic patterns gradually lit up and spread across the Coat's entire surface at speed.
In the instant the red light had spread from top to bottom, faint flames even began to flicker along the hem.
Safirose's eyes snapped wide open.
【Scanning target. Threat level—Extreme】
That dangerous aura was still climbing—without the faintest sign of stopping.
In a daze, Safirose felt a cold frost descend in an instant, and a wave of icy sensation spread from her back.
Safirose let out a cry of anguish—a piercing, harrowing wail.
Even the birds within a radius of 10 miles were startled into flight, scattering in all directions.
She collapsed to her knees. The veins beneath the skin of her body bulged violently.
Her back—1 white wing had been cleanly severed.
It fell to the ground and was slowly soaked through by blood.
Scalding red blood gushed from the massive wound, beating down the grass all around.
Warm blood continued to flow steadily from the wound.
Safirose curled her body and fell to the ground—breathing in pain, fast and shallow.
Viktor held in his hand a transparent Wind Blade condensed from high-velocity airflow, standing before Safirose, looking down at her with cold indifference:
"Our first lesson."
"Has begun."