Chapter 74: The End’s Celestial Feather (Part 1)
In the basement of the Tian Shang Yuan residence.
Faint glimmers flickered on the cold stone floor, reflecting off the icy walls.
A stifling tension pervaded the air.
Zong Yue’s collapse caused the entire space to momentarily fall into silence.
The minister of the Kawano City Special Circumstances SEMA Division, Ueda Yuki, who arrived on the scene at a crucial moment, did not relax her vigilance due to Zong Yue’s fall.
Her right hand tightly grasped the hilt of her katana, which she had just sheathed.
This was to prepare for any possible surprise attacks at any moment.
“…Minister of the Special Circumstances SEMA Division, I have long heard of your name.” Lao Sang’s deep voice echoed in the silence as he jumped down from a recess in the wall, slowly approaching Ueda.
Ueda’s arrival brought him a sigh of relief.
With such a renowned A-rank esper on the scene,
there was no longer anything to be afraid of.
“What’s the situation outside?” Lao Sang’s tone contained a hint of urgency.
Facing Lao Sang’s familiar demeanor, Ueda frowned, showing a hint of disgust.
But she still answered his question:
“The red star is currently absorbing the city’s magic and life force.”
“The troublesome people you brought are temporarily safe.” Ueda said as she gently pressed the hilt of her katana.
As if to indicate that she had just saved them from the fantasy beast.
“I’ve sent them back to the city to assist in evacuating civilians. Their strength would only hinder us here.”
“Thank you very much, esteemed minister.” Lao Sang laughed, naturally understanding that this was Ueda’s kind gesture.
With the capabilities of those silver-level hunters,
staying here wouldn’t help at all and could pose a life-threatening risk.
Ueda did not continue to heed Lao Sang’s frivolous tone and shifted the conversation back to the matter at hand:
“So, have you figured out what kind of ritual this is?”
She fixed her gaze on the middle-aged man lying on the ground and the silver-haired girl beside him.
Ueda cautiously stepped closer to the two, the floor’s complex and massive star pattern came into view.
The pattern was emitting an eerie red light.
It was clearly undergoing some sort of ritual.
But neither Ueda nor Lao Sang dared to directly disrupt it.
Because acting rashly without understanding the type of ritual could result in greater casualties.
If this was a ritual for blessing, recklessly destroying the site might summon the object they were praying for directly to Kawano City.
The resulting disaster would only be more severe.
“It should be multiple rituals. One is a sacrifice ritual, and the other… should be a summoning ritual.”
Lao Sang analyzed, “But it’s unclear who they are sacrificing and summoning…”
“The star…” Ueda was also at a loss.
Lao Sang raised the blade in his hand, attempting once again to sever the link between the “ritual” and the girl lying on the ground.
But it was still ineffective.
And this time.
The already battered blade completely broke in half.
With a crisp sound of breaking, the blade limply separated, falling onto the cold floor.
This was an extremely ominous omen—
It symbolized that the connection between the ritual and the girl was accelerating its crystallization.
“What ability?” Ueda glanced at Lao Sang out of the corner of her eye.
“A replica of the Storm Authority…”
Hearing the words “Storm Authority,” Ueda couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows.
The sound of the broken blade hitting the floor awakened the silver-haired girl who had been lying there.
Her eyelashes fluttered slightly and she slowly opened her ethereal eyes.
Tian Yu slowly opened her eyes, feeling a sticky, warm liquid sliding down her forehead.
As Tian Yu’s purple eyes regained consciousness, they were immediately covered by a crimson glow.
Transforming into the red eyes that symbolized the identity of a fantasy beast.
Upon opening her eyes, the first thing she saw was her father’s back.
Blood was flowing from his body, pooling at her feet.
“Father… Father?” Tian Yu’s voice trembled, filled with disbelief.
At the same time.
Ueda’s gaze was as calm as water, she slowly placed her hand on the hilt of her katana, assuming a standard iaijutsu stance, and executed the motion fluidly.
“Hey, what are you trying to do?” Lao Sang reacted immediately: “She’s still a child!”
Ueda coldly replied, “But she is also a vessel in this ritual.”
“As long as you destroy the vessel, you can stop the summoning ritual—”
“I am willing to trade one life for the safety of the entire city.” Ueda’s tone remained unwavering.
Being a “result-oriented” person, she never shied away from any choice.
Her answer seemed to be an explanation to Lao Sang but also a means to persuade herself.
If her life held the same value, she would not hesitate to offer her own.
Just as her respected teacher had done.
“You…” Lao Sang’s expression darkened, clearly struggling to accept Ueda’s theory.
Yet it was evident that on the scene, Ueda had the most authority.
However, just when Ueda prepared to swing her blade, a scene before her and Lao Sang made them both freeze.
Countless tiny light particles rose from the complex pattern on the floor.
Like weak sparks floating in the air, they ultimately transformed into glimmering starlight.
These star-like lights seemed to possess life, flowing with an eerie red hue, surged into Tian Yu’s eyes like blood.
The red starlight descended like meteors, gathering at the center of Tian Yu’s pupils.
In an instant, her pupils erupted with blinding red light, transforming into brilliant—
Crimson star pupils.
The moment the star pupils formed, the aura around Tian Yu underwent a drastic change.
The juvenile charm that had previously surrounded her vanished without a trace.
She seemed like a completely different person—
“Tian Shang Yuan Chiko” opened her eyes, looking in confusion at everything before her.
—
“The time has come!”
Dodging the attack from Mana, the suited man suddenly opened his arms wide, a fanatical and twisted smile appeared on his face as he looked up at the red star in the sky.
“Tian Shang Yuan!” he shouted loudly, his voice filled with excitement and joy:
“Your deal with us has been fulfilled!”
“Next—”
“Reborn into this world! Supreme Master!”
—
“Why… Zong, Zong Yue?!”
The voice of “Tian Shang Yuan Chiko” trembled as she rushed toward Zong Yue, who lay in a pool of blood.
But just as she reached out her hand.
Her gaze suddenly halted on her own arms—those slender arms were completely different from the body she remembered.
“This… What is this…?”
“Tian Shang Yuan Chiko” stared at her blood-soaked slender arms, slowly reaching to touch her own face, her fingertips trembled slightly as if she was trying to understand her current body.
The changes and actions of the silver-haired girl before her made Ueda and Lao Sang tense up involuntarily.
The two almost concurrently tightened their grips on their blades, their eyes flashing with vigilance.
With a slight shift of her gaze, “Tian Shang Yuan Chiko,” utilizing her already beastly visual acuity, clearly saw her current appearance through the reflective, cold glint of the blade in Lao Sang’s hand.
“Little… Little Yu? Wh-why…?”
Her voice suddenly caught in her throat, and her arms froze in motion.
A purple-black glow rose within her red star pupils.
The light within her star pupils began to flicker uncontrollably—
The red star hanging high in the sky was suddenly invaded by a maleficent purple-black light.
The star pupils in “Tian Shang Yuan Chiko’s” eyes were also swiftly changing; the eerie purple-black light consumed the original crimson at a visible speed.
Until it was completely devoured by the purple-black light.
At that moment.
The purple-black star symbolizing “The End” once again hung in the night sky.
“Tian Shang Yuan Chiko,” no, “The End’s Celestial Feather,” slowly lowered her arms.
Her eyes flashed with purple-black star pupils, staring intently at Ueda and Lao Sang before her.
Her gaze contained not a shred of human emotion, akin to a deity overlooking all creation.
Under her gaze, Ueda and Lao Sang felt an unspeakable fear and despair rising in their hearts.
The dread emerging from within them engulfed their reason like a massive wave.
Even battle-hardened espers felt as though they were trapped in place, unable to move under the weight of this invisible oppression.
Until the dual blades in Lao Sang’s grip emitted a faint light, awakening his senses.
“Run!”
Lao Sang’s previously frozen body regained the ability to move in that instant.
With his last ounce of strength, he seized Ueda’s clothing beside him.
He hurled her slender form towards the exit of the basement—
Stars above and on the floor simultaneously flashed with a faint light.
The star pupils flickered.
The End’s Celestial Feather defied the laws of physics, flipping through the air, landing lightly at the entrance of the basement.
“What—?!” Lao Sang’s eyes widened in disbelief.
While at the position where The End’s Celestial Feather had originally stood, Ueda knelt there, bewildered.
The End’s Celestial Feather wore a crescent-like smile on her dignified and adorable face.
The purple-black star pupils in her eyes sparkled with radiant light.
“Perfect impersonation,” no.
This was not the true name of this ability.
If one were to name it according to the essence of this ability,
it should be—
“Soul Resonance.”
Stars, in the world view of “Star Invocation,” symbolize the soul.
And what The End possessed was the authority of the stars—
“Soul.”
The principle of perfect impersonation is to create resonance between one’s own soul and that of another.
As the most primitive existence under the “Star Invocation” worldview, both “contracts” and “abilities” stem from the “soul.”
Thus, after “soul resonance,”
she could use the other’s abilities, even seize the other’s contracted beast for her own use.
This is also why “perfect impersonation” can alter others’ and the world’s perception.
The world’s recognition of existence is rooted in the most primal “soul.”
In contrast, this ability has limitations.
Those whose souls have dissipated cannot resonate.
In last year’s pseudo-god Hakurei event.
Nagi could not impersonate “ACE Hero Minamoto Katsuichishi” also for this reason—his soul had already been torn apart, making “resonance” impossible.
In the “Dusk Authority,” which cannot die.
As long as the “star authority” ability is utilized to directly disintegrate the “soul” with purple-black starlight.
You can “kill” the Hakurei priestess affected by the Dusk authority and the ACE hero.
The End’s Celestial Feather raised her hand as if to validate her possession of the “authority of the stars.”
Jet black shadows, like living organisms, climbed from her feet up her arms, transforming into a dark shadow blade.
Then, she swiftly struck down at her other arm—
The star pupils flickered.
Lao Sang’s right hand, which had grasped the “cut” blade, was severed at the wrist.
……
……
“What have you done?!”
Mana swiftly distanced herself from the suited man. Utilizing the physical capabilities endowed by the Hakurei priestess, she deftly maneuvered far from the scene.
She looked up, seeing that the originally crimson star had been completely dyed by an ominous purple-black, a bone-chilling chill surged up from her heart.
“This… Is this the star of the End?!”
Yusa, after moving Ringo into the “Tian Shang Yuan” residence, also noticed the changes outside, her face revealing surprise.
“That’s right!”
The suited man’s laughter gradually turned frenzied and distorted, his eyes gleaming with endless fervor and vengeful light.
“This is our moment of revenge! Hypocritical peace is about to come to an end!”
“This peace built on lies—SEMA!” The suited man’s gaze swept across Yusa and then Lao Sang:
“And the academy—”
“Blood debts must be repaid with blood—!”
Just as his words fell, the purple-black star erupted with dazzling brilliance, so intense it almost pierced the night sky.
That ominous light enveloped the suited man, his body began to twist and swell, limbs gradually deforming.
The shadow-formed body emitted eerie sounds.
As the mastermind behind this ritual, under this purple-black starlight, the suited man underwent a transformation—
Completely metamorphosed into a grotesque and sinister beast.
“GAaaaa—!!!”
The beast-like roar was deafening, and a strong surge of magical energy swept through the surroundings.
As if in an instant, the entire space trembled because of him.
Threat level 8, king class—
“The Shadow of the End.”
