Boom!!!
A cold flash tore through the sky, the building collapsed with a roar, and dust billowed up, obscuring the entire sky. At the critical moment, an ink-colored afterimage leaped out of the collapsing building.
Before she could even catch her breath, she sprinted into the distance like an arrow from a bow—the surrounding temperature seemed to drop a few more degrees, and even the air condensed into tiny ice crystals, shimmering with a ghostly blue light in broad daylight.
However, an ice-blue beam of light tore through the darkness, carrying a bone-chilling cold as it struck with the force of thunder. The figure's pupils shrank suddenly, and her body instinctively dodged to the side, but the cold flash followed her like a shadow, piercing her left shoulder in an instant.
Severe pain flooded her consciousness like a tide. She stumbled half a step, blood gushing from the wound and blooming into a shocking red on her black collar...
"The air is getting colder."
Sister Acheron's pace was a bit faster than usual; she keenly sensed that the surrounding temperature was slightly lower than when she arrived. This subtle difference didn't catch the attention of the pedestrians on the street, who seemed completely oblivious to the change in temperature.
Sister Acheron remained silent, simply continuing on her way. The unexplained drop in temperature, combined with the faint climate changes appearing in the sky, suggested that something had indeed happened ahead.
'Yet, under such obvious circumstances, why does it seem like no one has noticed?'
Suppressing her doubts, Sister Acheron slightly increased her speed... A short moment later, she arrived at her destination. She looked intently, her purple pupils instantly seeing through everything before her. She murmured softly:
"A barrier, huh."
This commercial district, which looked as bustling as ever to the passersby, presented a completely different scene in Sister Acheron's eyes. The streets where crowds constantly came and went appeared as silent, deserted ruins.
Sister Acheron reached a general conclusion in her mind. 'It's similar to a relatively independent mirror dimension, and judging by the internal destruction, it seems to be man-made.' The temperature inside had already reached sub-zero, and a thick layer of frost had even formed on the rubble within the ruins.
Just as Sister Acheron was wondering whether or not to intervene and investigate, a blue figure quietly appeared in the sky within the barrier. Sister Acheron immediately looked up. When the figure was reflected in her purple pupils, they trembled slightly before quickly returning to calm. On Sister Acheron's face, her usually unperturbed expression rarely showed a ripple of surprise.
Beneath the sky stood a young woman dressed in a light blue ancient-style robe, holding an ice-blue longsword, the tips of her black hair dyed with the color of ice and snow. Her sapphire-like eyes were as clear as a cold pool, with the purity of a galaxy hidden in their depths; her face was as beautiful as morning dew and as cold as melting snow. Unlike Sister Acheron's indifference, she possessed a similar air that forbade any desecration, looking like a fairy who did not belong to the mortal realm, only to be admired from afar.
With such an exquisite face, the woman held her own even when compared to Sister Acheron. There was one more thing that surprised Sister Acheron: The power this fairy used did not seem like that of an Ability User; instead, it was more similar to the entirely different system used by Mo Xi.
The Fairy in Blue floating in the air seemed to feel an invisible gaze piercing through the barrier and looked sideways in suspicion. When her gaze met Sister Acheron's outside the barrier, Sister Acheron clearly noticed a look of shock and a moment of panic appear on the Fairy in Blue's originally calm face.
As the sapphire pupils collided with the amethyst gaze, the two pairs of eyes completed a silent exchange across the barrier. Sister Acheron wasn't at all surprised at being discovered. She clearly felt the woman's significant strength, and she hadn't intentionally hidden herself. So, being discovered was only natural.
However, whether the Fairy in Blue thought the same was unknown. Then, the Fairy in Blue seemed to have realized something. She quickly returned to normal and turned her gaze back to the ruins below.
'Did she recognize me?'
Sister Acheron didn't mind the Blue-Clothed Woman's disregard and followed her gaze. Their "gazes" soon simultaneously locked onto a figure fleeing in the shadows.
It was a woman wrapped in tattered black robes. The fabric was already as shredded as butterfly wings, no longer able to hide her face, revealing a stubborn figure beneath the tight black clothing. Although her appearance didn't match Sister Acheron's indifference or the Blue-Clothed Woman's cold, ethereal air, she had a mature charm of her own that was quite striking.
But at this moment, with her beautiful face and scarred body—though the wounds weren't fatal—she looked like a branch broken in a storm, showing her wretched state.
"Damn it, is this person a monster?!"
As a First-Level Esper, the Woman in Black immediately realized she had been discovered. But she had no choice but to desperately try to find a way to escape. However, the Fairy in Blue in the sky didn't seem to intend to give her a chance to flee.
The longsword in the woman's hand glowed with a ghostly blue light, the blade trembling slightly as the surrounding air instantly condensed into several strands of ice crystals, falling like snowflakes. In the next moment, her figure moved like a shadow. The longsword drew an arc, seemingly casual yet hiding a sharp edge. With a blend of hardness and softness, she struck out—a cold flash broke through the air, and sword qi, like a cracking glacier, pointed directly at the Woman in Black's location.
The Woman in Black, frantically fleeing through the ruins, suddenly felt a sharp pain at the back of her neck, and her whole body trembled as if struck by lightning—she didn't dare look back, only running with all her might.
However, that snowy white sword light was like lightning piercing the air, passing through layers of ruins and ignoring all obstacles to strike her vital point. Where the sword light passed, it even carried a trace of rosy light, like a blood-stained sunset, cutting the Woman in Black in half at the waist at the last moment, her breathing instantly freezing.
'Not bad.'
Sister Acheron saw at a glance that the other's sword technique was extraordinary, at least unlike anything used by an Ability User or existing in this world. Even Sister Acheron had to admit that such exquisite swordplay would definitely be among the best on Blue Star.
However... Sister Acheron suddenly turned her gaze toward the lifeless corpse.
'Is it a Supernatural Ability? Similar to the Substitution Jutsu in Naruto, but it seems somewhat different.'
She saw through the other's little trick at a glance. And she was quite certain in her heart that the woman had not died.
The woman in the sky also seemed to have noticed the anomaly, her gaze staring intently at the corpse on the ground. Shortly after, the corpse quietly turned into a puff of smoke, proving that the opponent was indeed still alive. This made the Fairy in Blue's expression turn cold, and angry words escaped her lips:
"What kind of Supernatural Ability is this? It's even more annoying than an unkillable cockroach."
After cursing, she began to search for the other's tracks again. Clearly, although the fairy knew the opponent wasn't dead, she hadn't seen through the trickery of this Supernatural Ability.
On the other hand, Sister Acheron, outside the barrier, had already accurately located the Woman in Black's figure. She made no move, only letting her gaze fall on the other's somewhat familiar face. In her eyes, thoughts flowed like a galaxy, as if she were tracing back some forgotten memory.
(Fumina: The woman in black should be an original character, I don't know much about Acheron lore. So, I might be wrong. But the Frost Lady is probably one of the Special Grades, Silver Wolf searched up)