Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

Amid the conversation, a low, hoarse roar emerged from the sticky darkness enveloping the unlit street. However, this wasn’t the Dragon Roar, but rather a human voice emanating from deep within the throat, reminiscent of the murmurs uttered before death.

Emilia had already summoned her Ring of Fate, yet even its glow couldn’t illuminate far distances. The young Elf Girl, having gathered her courage, resolved to lend her assistance this time, although her left hand still tightly clasped Luviya’s hand.

Shard, following the sound, turned eastward, gazing along the street that stretched into the distance, then slightly lifted his gaze to the sky, meeting Mr. Goodman’s eyes by coincidence.

Those eyes were larger than Shard himself, and as the hidden entity in the dark sky revealed its full form, all three witnessed Mr. Goodman’s enormous head descending slowly from the dark heavens. Even as Shard raised his Longsword, illuminating a broader area, they saw what was unmistakably a giant, humanoid silhouette crawling on the street like a reptile, with its two arms resting against the tall buildings on either side of the street, while the head opened its mouth, gradually approaching the ground.

Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a human body at all but rather Mr. Goodman’s head directly connected to two thick arms.

And within that gaping mouth, countless normal-sized blood-red figures resembling Mrs. Goodman, a boy, a girl, and a puppy were connected to the mouth’s upper and lower sides, all waving at the three individuals on the dark street:

"Care to be a guest at my house?"

The chaotic sound resonance produced a seductive power that Emilia tenaciously resisted with her own spiritual power, then realized Shard and Luviya hadn’t even summoned their Rings of Fate, nor had their expressions changed.

"I am too weak..."

Meanwhile, the large mouth with its immense tongue resembling Mrs. Goodman at the tip, had already shot out. It pierced the air with a sharp whizz, continuing its descent to the ground after colliding with the incoming Thunder Spear, its surface crackling with electric arcs, undeterred.

Luviya pulled Emilia back swiftly as they both watched Shard’s figure disappear, only to reappear above the tongue. In Shard’s empty left hand, the Black Key transformed into a Light Orb before finally becoming a Long Staff. As his body succumbed to gravity, falling onto the giant tongue, silver-white thunder streaked across the staff’s surface. Once he landed on the tongue, he stabbed downward with one hand.

The silver-white thunder successfully penetrated the tongue, with sticky, dark green moss clinging to it, pinning it firmly to the ground.

Standing on that temporarily immobilized, soft tongue, Shard ran toward the giant head hovering above the street. After just a few strides, with his raised hands clasped together in front of his chest, Shard transformed into a gigantic moonlit diagonal cross, slicing along the tongue towards the head:

"Moonlight Slash!"

"Oh!"

The enormous groan from Mr. Goodman’s head caused Emilia to feel ear-piercing pain. The dreadful diagonal cross-shaped scar appeared on the lower half of the head’s face after the moonlight struck, but the wound didn’t even reach the bone.

The diagonal cross reverted to Shard, his expression serious. Using "Lagre’s Leap", Shard returned to the two women, catching the dark Long Staff as it flew skyward, pulled back with the tongue into the mouth, and handed it to Luviya.

Without needing to ask, Luviya understood Shard’s intentions. With a gentle wave of her right hand, summoned pure water formed a Water Ball in front of her, temporarily serving the function of a Crystal Ball. Holding the Yggdrasil’s Staff, she tapped the Water Ball, and as the purple glow shimmered in her eyes, the Divination achieved great success:

"To banish it once more, you must destroy the door in this illusory Dark World."

"I’ll hold this thing off, Luviya; finding the door is up to you."

Said Shard, charging again towards the wounded giant head, with its tongue pierced and its face still healing from scars. Countless Illusion Technique-created Red Butterflies dispersed in the sky, camouflaging the women’s retreat. Wasting no time, Luviya swung Yggdrasil’s Staff, granting herself a blessing of luck before pulling Emilia back towards the ominous-looking Three Cats Inn standing like a Haunted House in the darkness.

Only after the fact did the Elf Girl follow behind Luviya, softly chanting spells to bestow "False Life" and "Elven Wind" blessings upon them both, puzzled as she glanced at the weapon in Luviya’s hand. Yggdrasil’s Key, acquired only after the Battle of Randall Valley, was unfamiliar to Emilia, having never seen it before.

Yet upon looking at that black wooden Long Staff, a feeling of... wanting to cry unexpectedly welled up inside her.

The interior of the Three Cats Inn, shrouded in darkness, was markedly different from what Emilia was familiar with. Were she to enter such a maze-like place alone, she feared she’d never find her way out. But at this moment, holding onto Luviya’s hand, she simply followed the Diviner, eyes seemingly aglow, who relentlessly pressed forward with the Long Staff in hand.

Repetitive ascents and descents on the stairs occasional rushes into rooms she had never entered. Emilia, not even having time to observe the intimidating hotel interior filled with various human faces and hands perpetually reaching out to grab her, found themselves on the topmost floor of the inn.

The real third floor of the inn typically featured two rows of rooms on either side, but now there was only one door.

"Be careful, stay close to me."

Luviya’s voice reached her ears, and Emilia nodded slightly, cautiously observing the surroundings. She felt that since arriving in Tobesk, she had truly witnessed the real life of Circle Sorcerers. The days at the Academy now seemed very ordinary.

With only a single door on one side, the corridor’s windows, while inaccessible, allowed a view outside. At this moment, Shard’s battle with that giant head continued. The three-pronged tongue shooting from its mouth obstructed Shard’s attacks, while the four arms connected below the head gripped the rooftops of buildings on both sides of the street, enabling the head to maneuver freely in the air. The other two arms continuously smashed the street and ground, and by now, a third of the street had become ruins.

This giant head was not the true form of the "Friendly Neighbor." Even though Shard had bravely expended a large amount of Spirit to use the "Black Moon Insignia," only the right hand below the head had been annihilated. Soon after, the power of the Relic formed three new arms, transforming from two arms to the current four.

This is not the normal world, so Shard summoned the Ring of Fate. When Emilia saw the Seven Ring Life Ring, she, like other Female Sorcerers, was amazed by its sheer size.

The gigantic fist slammed Shard from the air towards the ground, only to hit the scattering Butterfly Swarm. Subsequently, it was instead restrained by the black Chains that emerged from the Butterfly Swarm. A silver cat ran nimbly along the restrained arm, leaping high to regain human form, and the Longsword in its hand slashed down, directly severing half of the arm connected below the head.

The wail was so sharp it caused cracks in the glass. As one arm fractured, three more arms grew from below the head. Simultaneously, the even larger mouth extended out tongues, dense and tentacle-like, one after another.

"Hm~"

Shard swung the black Chains in hand, guiding the ensnared severed arm towards those tongues. The densely packed tongues wrapped around the severed arm, drawing it along with the Great Sin Chain into the mouth.

The mouth chewed the severed arm, splattering blood like it was about to flood half the street. But soon, it was forced to open wide again, as the tonsils secured by the Great Sin Chain were forcibly pulled out from the mouth.

On the street below, Shard’s figure was so clear and bright. Emilia watched the scene of the battle with fascination, not even noticing Luviya urgently and swiftly using Yggdrasil’s Staff to tap the ground and carve Runes.

Shard had restrained a significant portion of the "Friendly Neighbor’s" power, so the obstacles Luviya encountered were not immense, especially since she held an Angel-Level Weapon. During breaks in carving the Runes, Luviya followed Emilia’s gaze out the window, observing Shard’s deft maneuvers in his battle against the giant head, seeing him get knocked out only to quickly return to the battlefield through various ingenious methods.

"Is this how your daily life usually is?"

She heard Emilia’s soft inquiry, the Elf Girl’s eyes never leaving the glowing man on the street outside:

"This is so different from the life of students like us living in the school. Though I’ve left the school before, Randall Valley wasn’t very dangerous back then. It turns out, Circle Sorcerers live like this..."

"You probably misunderstood, this time is an exception."

Busy with her task, Luviya immediately corrected:

"Don’t overthink it, you’ll understand after spending a couple of days living at his place. In fact, our daily lives are often quite peaceful. Come help, I need to carve a Rune Base Formation, soon we will face this thing head-on. Do you understand...?"

She stopped speaking, she and Emilia leaned their heads towards the window. The enormous head, supported by dozens of column-like arms, had already ascended to a higher altitude. In the darkness, some viscous substance surged towards the mouth opened at an unbelievable angle. Soon, Mrs. Goodman, covered in black slime and resembling a dried corpse, crawled out from the mouth.

She was now twice Shard’s height, and compared to her plump figure in life, her body in this state was emaciated, with wrinkles covering the bluish-black skin. Holding what appeared to be a Human Bone Greatsword assembled from the corpses of two children, she opened her mouth, emitting a piercing shriek of "Ah~" as the Bone Sword wielded the dark viscous energy, slashing down from the high sky toward Shard, who was breathing on the ground.

This strike was more powerful than any previous attack, as if the entire dark city world was stirred by it. Shard on the ground looked up at the black arc light from the Human Bone Sword, which was larger than his body, a smile on his face as he timed the release just right, tossing a frog leg and leaping into the air:

"Finally a chance for me!"

He raised the Longsword with Dragon Scale patterns high in both hands, matching the deadly arc light in the air. The Core Spirit Rune "Space-Time" on the Ring of Fate behind him flickered with a gentle glow like the Moon in the night. The colors of the Starry Sky appeared amid the dark world, and Luviya and Emilia at the window watched Shard leap into the air, the Longsword in his hand deftly meeting the black arc light as he utilized the force of his waist’s twisting swing on take-off, whirling the sword in the air:

"Adel’s Principle of Return!"

The black arc light was firmly attracted by the Night Watchman, the Longsword swinging in the air, resulting in an inky vortex. With the conclusion of this vortex, Shard slashed the immense black sword mark forward once more. The level of darkness in the inky color did not compare to the terror of this dark world, yet it seemed interspersed with speckles of Starlight, making the sword mark not frightening with dark world’s horror, but in Emilia’s eyes, exceptionally captivating.