At the sa ti, in Longxi Village.
Gozuki watched the seven children fight.
This ti was different, because he had given them the Air Blade, letting them test it in actual combat while hunting Longxi monkeys.
Aka and her friend Tsukushi restrained their presences and crept near the Longxi monkeys.
"Oh no, Aka-chan, this is bad. There are four of them!"
They had targeted a group of two, but just before Aka and Tsukushi made their move, they discovered more.
Before this, defeating just one required them to make a strategy and carry it out.
Even then, it ca with life-threatening danger.
If there were four, once the assassination failed, they had no chance of winning.
They might not last a few moves before being taken down.
Thinking that, Tsukushi felt afraid.
'But this is Father's order.'
He said unexpected situations during missions were normal, and when encountering them, they should retreat.
'But if I retreat, will Father still call a good girl?'
Tsukushi was conflicted.
She gripped the bare hilt in her hand, as though it were a cross.
Seeing her like this, Aka did not comfort her. Instead, she said, "I'm going in."
"Huh?"
"I said I'm going in. I'm going to defeat all the targets over there. If I can't do that, I'll fall behind. I don't want that."
Aka expressed her determination.
'Right now, even if I am only being driven forward, that is fine. Compared to ntal acceptance, I will let my body move first, then think afterward.'
Whoosh!
Aka stood up and moved toward one side.
She did not erase the sound she made. Such noise startled the Longxi monkeys.
Seeing the enemies' attention drawn by Aka, Tsukushi reacted.
'Aka-chan is creating an opening for ?'
She tightened her grip on the hilt, even though it gave her no sense of safety.
But Father guaranteed it was a powerful weapon, and Aka trusted her too.
In that case, anything she said would be aningless unless she responded through action.
Aka's speed was not much faster than the Longxi monkeys'.
With their nurical advantage, the beasts soon blocked her path.
Facing enemies she had killed before, even at a disadvantage in numbers, Aka did not feel afraid.
She was calm.
She recalled how to use the tool in her hand and released the safety.
In an instant, she felt the surrounding airflow drawn into the hilt.
The hilt was bare, yet it gave her a sharp feeling. She did not dare touch it. Her instincts told her if she did, her palm would be gone.
'With this...'
Aka was focused.
She felt the movents of the Longxi monkeys slow down. She could capture the changes in their expressions.
The Longxi monkeys made sounds, seeming to communicate.
They failed to notice Tsukushi behind them.
The girl's figure appeared, reflected in Aka's pupils.
"Yaaah!!!!"
The hilt Tsukushi swung transford the airflow into an invisible vacuum blade.
An attack carrying the girl's resolve cut into the Longxi monkey from the shoulder.
She aid for the neck, but struck the shoulder.
'This is bad.'
'The blade will get stuck in the bone.'
Father taught her it was a place where one must not cut with a blade.
'But wait.'
'Does the weapon in my hand even have a blade?'
Swish!
Tsukushi felt as though she only swung the hilt in her hand, a short wooden stick no longer than twenty-two centiters.
And yet, the Longxi monkey... was cut in two.
"No way!"
Tsukushi stared at the Longxi monkey she killed. It had not let out a scream.
"This... was done by ?"
She looked toward Aka.
But she did not see any happiness on the other girl's face.
'Aka, why do you look anxious? Huh? Are you saying sothing?'
'Dodge?'
'Dodge... away?'
'Huh?'
Tsukushi was covered by a shadow.
It was the Longxi monkeys.
Seeing their companion killed, they went mad and rushed toward the girl who ambushed them.
Aka saw Tsukushi freeze. A thought arose in her mind.
'She is full of openings.'
'The Longxi monkeys will not let that chance go!'
They were about to move.
'I have to be faster!'
'If I want to save Tsukushi...'
'I have to surpass my limits!'
The limit her past self had reached—she would surpass it now!
"Aaaaaah!"
A red light rose in Aka's eyes, and the muscles in her calves bulged sharply.
In the next instant, her figure turned into a black line.
With godlike speed, like a ghostly gale, she appeared behind one of the Longxi monkeys in the blink of an eye.
The air blade pierced through the back of its skull without the slightest resistance.
But Aka could feel it.
The life before her was flowing away.
'Two more!'
'There's no ti.'
'Then I'll do it from here!'
"Tsukushi! Get down!" Aka shouted, gripping the vacuum blade in her hand and swinging it horizontally.
Under the light, one could faintly make out an invisible blade sweeping through everything.
It crossed the distance in an instant and cut the two Longxi monkeys in half at the waist.
Their faces still held looks of shock. They had no idea what had struck them.
Thud. Thud.
Because they had been split into four pieces, even the sounds of them hitting the ground doubled.
Sweat ran down Aka's face, and her breathing was a little ragged.
But when she looked at the dazed girl who still seed unable to process what had just happened, Aka felt sincerely glad that her companion had survived.
Hidden in the trees, Gozuki also wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
Just now, he had already been prepared to intervene.
But who could have imagined that Aka would erupt like that?
As expected, her aptitude was excellent.
There seed to be many examples of people transforming in a mont of crisis, but in reality, the odds were far lower than one in ten million.
Only an extrely small number of people could accomplish such a thing.
And once they experienced that sensation, they would begin to grasp things from ti to ti afterward, as though sothing within them had suddenly opened.
Even Gozuki had not expected Aka to actually do it.
"Aka…"
Tsukushi stared blankly at the three Longxi monkeys Aka had killed in an instant.
After a while, tears suddenly welled up in her eyes, and she threw herself at the black-haired girl, hugging her tightly.
"You saved ! Waaah, thank you!"
"Just now… I almost died, didn't I?"
Aka silently nodded, feeling lingering fear herself.
And… she looked down at the hilt she had crushed in her hand.
'This blade… is terrifying.'
...
South of the Imperial Capital lay the Forest of the Lost.
Because it was less than 200 kiloters from the Imperial Capital, this forest, entrenched with a massive number of Danger Beasts, could be considered a hidden threat to the city.
But the Empire never considered eradicating it.
Simply because Danger Beasts did not naturally gather in organized herds.
The more powerful an individual Danger Beast was, the more solitary and territorial it beca.
There were even terrifying individuals that hunted and ate their own kind just to secure a feeding ground.
This biological habit ant there was no discipline or chain of command among Danger Beasts.
Even weak Danger Beasts would not be tad by powerful ones, because they were primal creatures constructed this way.
Without an alpha "King" to unite them, there was no need to worry about Danger Beasts being commanded together to siege a city.
They just caused small, localized skirmishes within the forest and had zero impact on the massive Empire.
Two hundred years ago, the Empire's army sent troops to sweep this place, but every ti they dispatched soldiers for subjugation, they encountered a rare, toxic heavy fog, resulting in failed campaigns and heavy casualties.
And that strategy held up to the present day.
Pri Minister Honest, to enrich his own pockets, ruthlessly cut military spending to reduce "unnecessary" border expenses.
Subjugate the Danger Beasts? Just ignore them.
The military only needed to dispatch a few guards to garrison the treeline, tasked with sounding an alarm when a crisis occurred.
If they t a situation they could not suppress, they used chemical signal flares to transmit the situation to the Imperial Capital.
"Roar!"
"Squeak..."
The yawning guards felt confused by the sudden trembling of the earth beneath their boots.
For the veteran soldiers, this was their third year guarding the southern forest, but it was their first ti encountering an earthquake out here.
Rumble... Rumble—
The earth's vibration grew stronger, making the sleepy guards snap awake.
"No, this isn't an earthquake!"
What was going on?
The soldiers looked toward the dark forest.
Under the bright moon, a large group of massive silhouettes reflected in their terrified eyes.
Enormous shadows, each over seven or eight ters tall, so even pushing ten ters, were so nurous they overlapped and appeared in literal swarms.
Giant Danger Beasts!
"Hey! Look over there!"
"Am I asleep? Is this a nightmare?"
"Hey, fire the signal flare!"
"Huh?"
"What a joke."
An old soldier who was slacking off by the fire sneered.
Looking at the terrified rookie recruits, he muttered, "A signal flare isn't sothing you can fire on a whim. That's a classified item ant for massive military crises, how could we use it over a trivial matter like an earthq—"
"Holy shit!"
"Wh-what is that?!"
Seeing his companions drop their armor and flee, the old soldier frowned and looked toward the forest.
The Giant Danger Beasts, lined up as if they had agreed to co out for a coordinated stroll, appeared right before his eyes.
"G-Giant Danger Beasts. This number... Impossible, we can't block them. I don't want to die here, I'm running."
The veteran threw away his spear and stripped off his heavy steel armor, hoping the tal wouldn't beco a burden to his escape.
Looking out, a massive horde of huge Danger Beasts poured out of the forest like a flood.
They roared as they charged, crushing and trampling swaths of ancient trees into splinters.
Among them were large Danger Beasts the soldiers had only seen in mythology paintings, and even towering Dragon-type Danger Beasts.
Dragon-types are recognized as the absolute strongest individuals among their kind.
If allowed to charge out of the forest like this, they would reach the Imperial Capital in less than two hours.
A flustered, terrified young soldier removed the safety pin of his signal flare and pointed the tube at the sky.
His na was Noel. He was a new recruit and he had just started a family.
The day before yesterday, he received a letter from ho, informing him his daughter had just been born.
He wanted to flee, but if no one fired the signal flare, the Imperial Capital might be trampled without awareness.
When that ti ca, his family living in the outer slums would not survive; they would simply be the second batch of victims!
He had to do it!
"Hurry, faster."
Noel sped up his movents, raising his trembling arm high, firing the signal flare right before he was stepped on by a massive claw.
The signal flare, trailing bright red smoke, rose high into the night sky, alarming many people.
This flare transmitted the anomaly 15 kiloters away, and local guards stationed at the next watchtower who observed the signal fired new flares.
Like this, the ssage was passed in a straight line to the Imperial Capital nearly 200 kiloters away.
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