章 33: Aozaki Aoko Case File [31]

*Lugh Beowulf nickname is Beo

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Through the lens of her surveillance familiar, Aozaki Touko saw Kuonji Alice's mist shield easily torn apart by Lugh Beowulf.

Kuonji Alice's abdomen was slashed wide open by the attack, and visible chunks of her internal organs splattered out. The girl's thin, frail body fell like a rag doll.

This caused Touko to gasp for breath momentarily.

"Beo!"

Touko's voice echoed from all directions.

"What did I tell you before?! You are not allowed to kill Kuonji Alice or Aozaki Aoko! You've violated the contract!"

"You're so noisy, Touko," the golden wolf bared its fangs, saliva dripping between them. Its eyes were filled with desire—lust, bloodlust, and overwhelming greed. While staring at Alice's body on the ground, Beo said to Touko, "I didn't break the contract. Look closely at this little magus. She's not dead."

Hearing this, Touko adjusted the focus of her familiar and looked again at Kuonji Alice lying on the ground.

Indeed, she had shed a lot of blood, but for someone nearly cut in half, it was not enough blood.

Alice's body emitted a faint blue light, and in an instant, it exploded into a flurry of blue feathers, disappearing from the spot.

"A substitution spell?"

Touko's low voice echoed in the abandoned amusement park. "I underestimated you, Alice."

"That's my line," Kuonji Alice appeared on a crescent-shaped sculpture atop a nearby building, no one noticing when she got there.

"Aoko warned me that you might have found a rather powerful familiar, but I still underestimated your abilities."

Alice looked down at her hand, where a small blue bird lay.

The once cheerful chirping was no longer heard, and its beautiful blue feathers were now disheveled. A gaping wound had opened up on the Robin's belly, nearly severing it in two.

Then, the bird's blue feathers gradually lost their color, turning gray and pale, and finally, it became a strange, shattered statue.

Alice carefully took out a pouch, gently placing the broken statue inside and stowing it away.

"Surrender, Alice," Aozaki Touko's voice called out.

"You've seen Beo's strength. You have no chance of winning. If you sign a Self-Geis Scroll not to interfere in my fight with Aoko, I'll let you go without trouble."

"You're truly heartless, Touko," Alice sighed.

"And if I refuse to sign, what will you do?"

"Heh," Touko chuckled coldly.

"A witch shouldn't say such things. If you don't sign, I'll have Beo defeat you, and then I'll seal your magic completely until I finish off my arrogant little sister."

"And then?"

Alice asked calmly.

"After sealing my magic, will you leave me here to feed the wild dogs?"

"…"

Touko said nothing.

"That's why I say, compared to Aoko, you're the truly heartless one."

Alice sighed again and carefully pulled a small flask from her cloak as if it were something extremely precious.

She gave it a gentle shake, and the contents inside swirled like some kind of green mist.

Touko, observing Alice's movements from a distance, immediately changed her expression upon seeing the flask in Alice's hand.

"The situation has changed. Stop Alice at once. Don't let her use that thing!"

Touko's voice shouted out a command. Beo transformed back into a whirlwind of gold and surged toward the girl perched high above.

At the same time, Touko activated her hidden trump card buried within the abandoned amusement park, the very reason this place was considered a trap.

It was a series of runes personally engraved by Touko, ancient divine runes painstakingly replicated from the depths of history.

Three hundred thousand characters, all related to the power of the sun, were activated by Touko's will.

In an instant, the "night" of the amusement park was replaced by "day." Kuonji Alice's Diddle Diddle: Banquet of the Night was naturally dispelled, for where there is light, there can be no night.

"How rough, Touko," Kuonji Alice remarked, "You and your sister truly are blood relatives."

The twin piglets, who had just narrowly escaped death, let out strange "cackling" laughs and fearlessly blocked the path of the golden wolf, trying to stop it from advancing further.

"Get out of my way, you broken toys!"

Beo roared, tearing the twin piglets apart. However, even in their shattered state, the remnants succeeded in delaying the golden wolf for just a brief moment—long enough to fulfill their mission.

The piglets' remains let out eerie, fragmented final laughs, as if mocking Beo's failure, before turning back into broken castanets and staplers.

Beo's form twisted, becoming some kind of soft fluid, rushing toward the girl on the moon sculpture.

But just as Beo's unstoppable claws were about to reach Alice's body, a soldier blocked its path.

It was an impossible occurrence. Beo couldn't comprehend how something so broken could stop it, a top-tier phantasmal species.

Yet it happened. A toy soldier in a ridiculous tuxedo, holding a shattered tray as a shield, blocked the full-force strike of the legendary golden wolf, Lugh Beowulf.

When Beo tried to leap up again, it was already too late. Things had become too difficult to handle, as it could no longer reach the black-haired girl.

The crescent moon statue beneath Alice's feet had turned into the real moon.

A crescent moon, like a small boat, gently carried the sole master of this domain, slowly rising into the sky, overlooking the earth.

No matter how powerful a three-thousand-year-old phantasmal species may be, without wings, it could not reach the girl at this moment.

No, to say it was unreachable would be incorrect. Beo, with its body, Materialization of the Soul, could theoretically transform into any lifeform on Earth, including a bird.

But having been raised among a tribe of werewolves, Beo was most familiar and comfortable with the forms of wolves and great beasts. Without training, it had no idea how to transform into a flying creature.

"Retreat, Beo! We're not prepared for this today, and we can't deal with that—"

Aozaki Touko's anxious voice echoed around, trying to command Beo to withdraw.

But it was too late. The stopper on the magical flask had already been opened.

The golden wolf felt the caress of a gentle breeze.

This was a miracle that most magi would never experience, the revival of things long dead and rusted.

The sunlight generated by the runes was once again veiled in mist; "daylight" reverted to "night," and the broken carousel horses transformed into pure white unicorns, while the wooden puppets began playing cheerful melodies.

Kuonji Alice's slender fingers gently brushed past, and the abandoned amusement park returned to a state it had never known.