Chapter: 66. DLC Female Protagonist Erica (4k) (28/46)
In the hazy state of consciousness not fully awakened, Erica seemed to have a dream about the “past.”
At that time, she was still a child, and every day her brother would wake her up.
Her brother would always knock on her forehead with his knuckles, making it impossible for her to stay in bed.
The room was simple, with a few faded carpets laid on the wooden floor, and outside the window was a gray-yellow street and earthy eaves.
It was a small border town frequently torn by war, with scarce resources and harsh conditions, yet every morning their mother would have a steaming hot breakfast made from firewood waiting for them—coarse porridge cooked with goat’s milk, paired with rock-hard naan and tomato stewed beans, that was all they could enjoy.
She and her sister would always compete to lick the last drop of milk from the bowl, with her sister laughing and pouncing on her saying, “Sister is the slowest,” the two of them tumbling into a pile until their mother helplessly pulled them apart.
Their father would often appear at the door, wrapping his turban tightly, revealing a face rough and darkened by the wind and sand.
He was not one to say much; he would simply come over, open his arms, and tuck Erica and her sister under his armpits like a shepherd taking care of sheep, ruffling their hair with his big hands and smiling as he said, “You have to listen to your mother today too.”
Then he would hoist his worn-out toolbox over his shoulder and step into the already cracked streets, working as a porter, handyman, or even a temporary mercenary, just for a meager amount of food for the family.
There wasn’t much entertainment at home, but every evening, the whole family would sit on the roof to watch the stars.
Under that endless night sky, her sister would always lean on her shoulder, excitedly gazing at the brilliantly shining stars overhead; she was a child who loved the stars.
They lived in poverty and simplicity, but that was all the happiness they ever had.
Until one day, that little happiness vanished.
That was the moment when Erica first encountered extraordinary power.
It came with a detached air, taking away everything she had.
On a night when winds and sands howled, a battle between empowered individuals fell upon this remote town like a natural disaster.
Flames descended from the sky, and the explosive shockwaves tore through the streets and houses like wild beasts.
Erica still remembered that moment when the house collapsed, and her mother shielded her and her sister with all her might, pushing them away with her last strength.
Meanwhile, their father tried to drag her mother from the fallen beams, but the flames that came down turned him into a charred shadow, leaving not a single word behind.
Her brother fled with them, but as they turned the corner, they were caught in the sweeping wave of a mad empowered individual—blood splattered on her face, and her brother fell before her and her sister, his chest shattered.
All Erica could remember was her brother’s last words echoing in her ears: “Run!”
Holding her injured sister, Erica ran aimlessly, the flames staining the entire town behind her in blood.
Her feet were already cut and bleeding from the broken glass and rubble, but she tightly held onto her sister, too scared to stop.
Erica fled along a path towards the hills outside, hiding under rocks and in dry ditches, until she plunged into the darkest part of the night.
Until she stood beneath that dark yet starlit sky.
That was the most beautiful starry sky Erica had ever seen, but the child who loved the stars in her arms had turned cold.
In that moment, anger, despair, and pain converged deep within her soul, forming a power that awakened her extraordinary abilities for the first time under the shining stars.
This was a secret buried deep in Erica’s heart.
She loathed the “extraordinary power” in this world.
If all this misfortune came from some fault of hers or her family, maybe she could understand it.
Even if it was simply that those empowered individuals cruelly decided to destroy her home because they found her family unpleasant, she could accept that.
But the reality was even more cruel.
Everything she cherished was destroyed merely because of a “spillover” that had nothing to do with them.
Her little happiness was thus taken away for no reason.
Not due to karma, nor fate’s judgment.
There were no signs, no explanations.
Like a storm that was casually swept by, uprooting everything she had.
This, Erica has never been able to understand and will never be able to forgive.
For this reason, she hated the extraordinary world—
Hated that power capable of indiscriminately stripping ordinary people of all happiness in an instant.
But she was also a person full of contradictions.
She had fallen into the deepest darkness, seen the end of despair, yet still wished to believe in the light that remained in people’s hearts.
While she hated the destruction brought by abilities, she deeply loved those who possessed powers.
Because in her most lonely and desperate moments, there were people who accompanied her.
Those were some children like her, displaced by the disaster of extraordinary powers.
Young boys and girls, also wandering due to the spillover of powers, supporting and relying on each other to survive amid the ruins.
They did not ask about the past, nor inquired about names; they only shared the only blanket with her during every meal and night watch.
It was these people who accompanied her through war and displacement, teaching her how to use her own abilities.
Helping her repair one ancient device after another in abandoned machine rooms, building a place to survive.
Until that day, she was discovered by Kane.
Until she met Miss Tianyin.
That mysterious, powerful, and lonely girl.
Perhaps because she had seen so many empowered individuals’ backs during her growth,
So Erica, with just one glance, saw that similar loneliness.
She understood that beneath Miss Tianyin’s strong and reliable exterior lay a child robbed of everything by fate, just like the one who once stood beneath the starry sky.
At that time, someone had held her hand and pulled her from the abyss.
So she wanted to pass on that warmth.
If someone had given her a glimmer of hope then, now, she wanted to be that “person.”
—————–
At the edge of the island.
Erica woke from that long dream.
The light before her made her stare blankly as she lifted her head, gazing up at the straight beam of light piercing the sky, emanating an aura of destruction.
She could feel the magical fluctuations from the center of the island where Miss Tianyin and the others were.
They were currently working together for the final resistance.
But instinct told Erica.
—If this continues, everyone will die.
Even if everyone had exerted their utmost effort, they could not stop the beam of light capable of consuming everything. The hot breath slowly approaching was the most direct warning.
Her “happiness” was once again in her hands.
It was about to be taken away by “extraordinary power.”
—Don’t…
Erica pressed her hands tightly against her chest, trembling as she stood up from the ground.
It felt as if she had returned to those years.
Before her were her beloved family members, suffering under the threat of extraordinary power.
And this time, she was no longer an unarmed ordinary person; she had become an empowered individual.
It seemed destiny had given her another chance.
To make up for the regrets of the past—returning to that night adorned with stars, saving her beloved family.
—She had promised Miss Tianyin that they would meet again.
—If this continued, whether it was Miss Tianyin or herself, they would ultimately perish together in this beam of light.
—So, she had to stop the “β system”!
A glimmer of magical light quietly flickered in her eyes.
—She had promised Miss Shiyuan that she would protect Miss Tianyin.
—Now was the moment to fulfill her vow.
—Now was the moment to repay Miss Tianyin!
The opponent was the “β system,” “inorganic matter,” “machines.”
Whether it was “super machines” or “super AI.”
The place of its existence—was the only realm she was proficient in!
It was the last sanctuary created by her, who had nothing, alongside everyone else.
“How can you once again take everything from me in the realm I excel at!!!”
Magic surged out from the cracks within her soul, completely igniting her eyes.
Extraordinary ability—Heaven Key Liberation.
In the unseen torrent of data, the Alpha system felt the intrusion of the “other” for the first time.
The azure data stream that it had tightly controlled was instantly replaced by golden brilliance—that was the color of Erica’s magic.
The unexpected development caught the Alpha system off guard.
In the moment of complete unpreparedness, its core computing power was forcefully invaded and rewritten by Erica.
Though the Alpha system retaliated quickly, it wasted a significant amount of its computing power, greatly weakening its control over the “Judgment Light” against the special circle Sema and the three major academies.
Meanwhile, Erica collapsed on the ground again due to excessive use of magic and powers.
Above the dome, the “Judgment Light” showed its first signs of unstable magical output.
The destructive might of “Element Fusion” began to wane.
But with just this, it was far from enough.
Those on the ground, including Nagi, could not hold out much longer.
The gradually fading consciousness of Nagi was the best proof.
A broken soul could not provide effective magical reinforcement, and the magic within her was nearly depleted.
The beam of light emanating an aura of destruction slowly pressed down.
It seemed to announce the failure of the empowered individuals.
Before “Element Fusion” completely halted, that pale beam of light was still sufficient to pierce the sky, fall to the ground, and turn everything into nothingness.
Just as Nagi’s magic was approaching exhaustion and her consciousness was gradually dissolving—
“Thank you for waiting, my master.”
Like a whisper from a distant abyss, the voice of Shiyuan Nagi, brought an inexplicable sense of reassurance, quietly echoed in her ears.
The next second, the storm surged.
Above the horizon, at the junction of heaven and sea.
A massive figure wrapped in lightning suddenly appeared like a comet tearing through the sky.
The giant bird of thunder spread its wings in high altitude, each feather like a snapping lightning bolt, as it swept over the sea surface, the air seemed to be torn apart, with shock waves crashing like massive waves upon the shore, stirring up explosive roars.
Its trajectory sliced through the sky as if it had carved an invisible lightning scar.
Columns of magic power flashing with purple lightning shot from its body like arrows, piercing through the sky from the ground, like a waterfall of lightning flowing against the current, unhesitatingly crashing into that pale beam of light descending from the heavens.
At the same time, on the other side of the island, the ground trembled violently.
Cracks spread across the land like a spider web, accompanied by deafening roars, massive black tentacles broke through the earth from deep within the crust.
These were not ordinary tentacles but limbs of a colossal beast covered in hard, black scales, each one as thick as a mountain.
The ends of the tentacles split open, revealing gaping mouths filled with blood-red fangs gleaming ominously.
With an enraged roar that tore through the air, those massive jaws suddenly unleashed a torrent of scorching black dragon breath, marked by the heat burning the space and the scent of corrosive destruction, fiercely attacking the base of the beam of light.
Lightning and dragon breath intertwined, black and purple crisscrossing between heaven and earth.
The phantoms led by Shiyuan Nagi timely joined the battlefield at the last moment.
The surging magic caused the pale beam of light to emit a distorted wail for the first time.
Under the violent power coming from the ground and between the heavens and the sea, “Element Fusion” was forcibly pushed back into the air for the first time at a visible speed.
Meanwhile.
On the island appeared countless dark figures.
They flickered with red eyes, locking onto each incapacitated human on the ground, transferring them one by one to safer locations.
While Shiyuan Nagi’s slender figure hovered in mid-air, staring seriously at the pale beam of light before her.
That was supposed to belong to the “Master of Elements,” “Element Fusion.”
Not only did it not evoke nostalgia in her, but it only stirred her anger.
“I’m sorry, master, but—leave the next matter to me.”
As Shiyuan Nagi’s voice fell, the sky darkened again.
A pitch-black light erupted explosively from beside her, like a tear through reality, the darkness pouring from the crack completely engulfed the sky.
A dark dragon emerged from the rift.
Its body was like an embodiment of the void, its scales seeming to devour light, a purple-black core crystal embedded in its chest, emitting a dazzling yet eerie radiance comparable to the sun in its roar.
The purple-black light swallowed all colors, the sky stained with the thick ink of doom, as if the world was on the brink of annihilation.
The dragon of extinction—Omega.
Its massive form as dark as the night spiraled in the sky, the purple-black brilliance emitted from the crystal gradually encroaching, as if it were blackening the sky and devouring all of creation—
Under that light, the world appeared to be forcibly divided into stark contrasts of black and white, leaving only the boundaries of “existence” and “erasure.”
Just as Nagi exhausted her last bit of magical power, and her consciousness dissipated like snow—
Omega opened its massive mouth.
A “star ring” made of purple-black light slowly emerged from the crystal in its chest and unfolded in the void.
The next moment, an explosion erupted.
A swirling torrent of purple-black dragon breath gushed from Omega’s giant mouth, piercing through that purple-black star ring, transforming into a beam of “power of deletion,” rushing towards the pale beam of light like a cataclysmic flood.
The purple-black and pale lights collided in mid-air—
The clash of light and light finally brought this battle to a close.
