The octopus came toward them, like an ocean tide bringing forth new hope.

“Za Wa…” Melody stared. “How are you here?” 

“Boss says evil is as strong as ya believe it to be, yano,” the octopus stated. “It is just easier, not better.”

“Well, quite an interesting pet you have,” Obi-wan chuckled. “So you said I’m wrong.”

“No, yano,” Za Wa replied. “I said don’t claim victory until the war is over.”

The octopus crawled toward Melody. 

“Follow me, yano,” the octopus asked the demoness. “Boss need ya to follow me, yano.”

“You mean Rem?”

“Not the paladin, yano,” Za Wa crossed his arm. “It is the Boss, yano!”

…

Luxinna woke up in a familiar misty jade-color hall.

“You again?” Luxinna exasperatedly sighed. “What is it this time?” 

“You lost,” a younger version of Luxinna stepped out of the trees. “Illma knocked you out.”

Luxinna forced down her headache. She couldn’t afford to stay here. That bitch would level the entire block to smithereens if given a chance. Her friend was counting on her to stop Illma.

“Why bother?” A younger elf asked, reading her train of thought like an exam paper. “Why bother trying when you have no chance?”

“Because she will kill everyone.”

“True, but people die every day. Those that die today are barely a trickle in the bucket of time. Can you save all of them? What arrogance pushes you to interfere in pre-ordained fate?”

Luxinna looked at the girl. There was something more to this than a simple conversation. What was the purpose of all this? In fact, why did she chose now of all time?

“What do you want?” Luxinna decided to cut to the chase. “There must be a reason you are asking these questions?”

“I just want to know why you are so invested in stopping other people's misery,” the girl replied. “All of them are fated to go out eventually. Illma will die to the mortal coil without you doing anything?" The girl shrugged. "And even if you get up, you won't stand a chance against her. Isn’t this a time for you to run? Fighting against Illma Zoldia Road will give you nothing but suffering and blood, do you truly want that?”

Luxinna thought for a moment. Weeks ago, she made a promise to herself. No matter what happened, she won’t break that vow. She would keep her word, even if it killed her.

“I don’t know what I should do,” Luxinna answered honestly. “Hell, it took me a long time to accept my entire existence is a cosmic joke of epic proportion. After what I have been through, I’m not even sure being a knight is right for me. The world is such a tangled mess that not even the gods could fix it. But I do know one thing: I don’t want to see people cry in front of me.”

Luxinna sighed.

“Maybe everything will end, maybe it won’t, but I don’t want to see anyone in front of me suffer as long as I can still fight,” the elf said. “Rem put it better than anyone. I don't want to see my history repeating on someone else, so I will be the hero I never had. Someone who leaps in and shows them everything will be fine."

“You can’t do that,” the girl replied flatly. “You are powerless.”

“I know.”

To the girl's surprise, Luxinna offered her hand.

“That why I am asking you to lend me that power,” Luxinna said. “As a knight, no, as a powerless mortal, I ask you to give me the power to avert those tragedies. You're an aspect my True Magic, aren't you? If you are my Legend, then you must have that answer. Please, give me that miracle; the power to save everyone in front of me.”

The girl blinked, mouth agape with surprise. A moment passed before she started laughing.

“How shameless!” the younger Luxinna guffawed, her charcoal hair shaking with laughter. “You believe I will lend you power just because you say so!? What arrogance!?”

“It sounds selfish,” Luxinna laughed, her golden highlight contrasted with her twin's pure black-hair. “But I sign on to fight the world, so yeah, I’m arrogant enough to believe I can save everyone. Only now, I want it to be we.”

“This is magnificently idiotic,” the younger Luxinna concluded in a deeper voice. “But if you dare ask, I shall dare to answer. Be proud, young one, you have surpassed my trail. You truly believe what you sell.”

The girl took Luxinna's hand, and the shower of gold obliterate the misty jade court in one blast.

…

Ebony felt the presence before she saw it.

A falling star of multicolor light rocketed from the sky. The ceremonial blessing succeeded, but this power wasn’t like any elemental forces or high-ranking spirits. It was something much more powerful, so powerful that its collision created a gravitational singularity. Such an event would usually crack the continent in half, but instead of shattering the earth, the excess energy flew to the sky in a storm of flying stars.

Inside the singularity, a woman dressed in rainbows was giving the sword its finishing touch. Ebony wouldn’t like it this. The demoness hated it when someone butted in when she was working, but Satholia didn’t have a choice. Horizon Dawn was on a timer. It took her many subterfuges to infiltrate the world as a blessing and finished the blade, grinding and shaping it to the ideal quality.

“Your name is [Historia],” the goddess of Center told the blade. “Now, do what you must.”

The blade righted itself and flew toward its target much to Ebony’s chagrin.

Meanwhile, inside the fading singularity, Satholia smiled.

Let see how evil dealt with her counterattack.

…

Illma breathed a sigh of relief. That roach just ate her strongest attack head-on. Even if she somehow survived, that masked cockroach would be too injured to move. Illma eyed the screaming kid with a grin. Now it was time to continue with her business.

That was the moment a wave of cold wind sent a shiver down her neck.

Out from the row of flattened houses, an elf stepped into view. The girl's mask had broken off, revealing the sky-blue eyes laced with golden light. Blood tainted her hair, turning her golden highlight copper. Her clothing ravaged with slash marks and blood. The elf looked like a blood-spattered walking dead. Nobody should be alive after that much punishment.

Illma stared and subtly changed her mind. 

That bitch couldn't be related to cockroaches. She was probably their distant, time-traveling ancestor.

“Wow,” Illma feigned her confidence, trying to stop her opponent undying resilience from freaking her out. “You survive. Excellent! I will be damned if you aren't here when I reduce these trash to burnable garbage.”

Luxinna stepped closer.

“Be careful. You are inside my [Field of Pain]. It would be boring if you died from brain death rather than my direct attack!" 

Then Luxinna disappeared, and Illma’s shield sparked from the collision with the elf's fist. The blow sent the Untouchable rocketing into the building behind her, demolishing it into a pile of wood.

Illma was unharmed, but she couldn't help blanching. That punch was a league above the elf’s original power-level. Then she realized a more distressing fact: the elf was inside the [Field of Pain], and she was still standing.

“Impossible,” for the first time in the fight, Illma’s confidence broke. “You should be screaming on the ground right now? What type of trick is this?”

“Sorry, the pain dispenser won’t work on me anymore,” Luxinna said. Glass weaved around her body, creating her shining combat gear; arm-guard, tiara, breast-plate, and greave. All the instruments shone with grace and refinement from the enhanced gliding.

“Shut up!” Illma yelled, raising her hand toward a man groaning in pain. Crimson ribbons of light whipped across the air and churned around her palm, creating the spiral of red energy as the blood-red pool beneath her surged to life.

[Sacrificial Rite: Bloodstain Judgment]

Luxinna disappeared, much faster this time.

The spiral of destruction fired true at its target. But contrary to Illma’s expectation, the destination wasn’t the crying civilian. Something yanked her hand away at the last possible moment, diverting the spellwork toward the wide-open sky. 

Illma barely registered what happened until the current coursed through her body.

“Well, it appears the table has turned,” Luxinna said, gripping Illma's arm and glaring at her with a chilling eye. “Are you planning to knock yourself out, Illma? Or should I do it for you?”

Illma didn’t even register the question. Pain immunity didn't mean her body wasn't scorching from the discharge. Several questions flashed into her head as her brain attempted to cope with the elf sudden transformation. How did the elf pierce her barrier? How did she move so fast? So many questions, yet no helpful answer.

“What the hell are you?"

Luxinna said nothing. She was a horrendous lair. The truth was the recent developments were the result new subset of her True Magic: [Serene Glass].

True Magic could evolve into a higher form. If [Static Glass] was the power to create electricity-generating glass, then [Serene Glass] is an ability to take the material further beyond. With property ranging from impossibly high tensile-strength, ridiculous biocompatibility, and electrical superconductivity, [Serene Glass] was the ideal electrical-fiber engineer could only see in their dream.

To an untrained eye, this might not sound like much. However, the [Serene Glass]'s practical usage already turned a hopeless fight into a definite victory. Bundles of microscopic [Serene Glass] wires could be weaved into armor boasting the durability, strength, and power output that left Luxina's original [Static Glass] armor in the dust. Furthermore, [Serene Glass: Armor] also magically replicated computing functions in CPU, increasing Luxinna's processing ability to the level a mortal being shouldn’t reach.

But the real death bell sealing Illma’s fate was the [Serene Glass]'s control over Central-Nervous-System. Due to its biocompatibility, Luxinna could augment her nervous system with [Serene Glass] as magical super neurons she could control at will. Luxinna named this technique [Overdrive]. 

[Overdrive] in all intense and purpose was a broken ability. With it, Luxinna could overclock her muscle, linked with her armor to perform complex calculations, accelerated her reflex to the point the world practically stop and much more. One of these new perks allowed her to tune her sensory input, and thus dampened her pain.

It all translated to simple math, Illma's [Pain Transfer] wouldn't work if her opponent could disable the pain function in her nervous impulse.

Illma's confident facade broke as she realized her pain transmission could no longer work, but she still refused to surrender.

“[Sacrificial Rite: Bloodpulse]!”

Illma glowed red as an epicenter of a crimson explosion emerged from her chest.

In Luxinna's mind, the world slowed.

She registered a groaning man behind her. Two houses away in front of her, on the ruin of a second-floor building, was an injured woman. The children she pushed away from harm during Illma's initial attack was still in the red.

The explosion barely moved as she solved each problem with [Overdrive] elevating her precision, and speed, to the realm of absurdity. 

A triple-stacked [Savage Lotus] emerged to protect the man. Another [Savage Lotus] formed behind the children for quick mobility. Luxinna also put two more [Savage Lotus] as a stepping stone in the sky to finish the job.

Time resumed. 

Illma's explosion burst out at high-speed, but Luxinna's overclocked muscle was faster. She grabbed the two kids in the blast proximity and burst out of range. The elf bounced across the two loti for extra speed, landing right in front of the woman before casting another triple-stacked lotus.

The explosion shook the surrounding area, wiping several buildings in the South-East side of the town.

Illma surveyed the damage with a crestfallen expression. She saw an unharmed man shielded by the lotus, her worse nemesis standing tall, protecting an unconscious woman and two children. There were no casualties despite the demolished building. How could the battle turn this absurd? That last spell should kill something despite people fleeing this area in drove.

Illma procured a healing potion and drank it greedily. The situation was catastrophic. She already chewed out 5 out of 18 [Sacrificial Rite] in her arsenal. Even with those attacks, the elf was still walking. With only thirteen shots left against a monster that shrugged off everything she threw at her, she only had one way out.

“You should be proud, you stupid cockroach!” Illma spread her hands, and out of her high-grand storage device, eight spherical, flying drones appeared. Each of them started glowing with Illma's signature crimson light. The Untouchable tried to hide her grimace. She usually avoided this particular weapon if she had a choice. Experimental prototypes were too risky even for her.

“These robots are cutting-edge spell-casting aid,” Illma proudly boasted. “They are fully armed with my shield and capable of casting my spell! Use any trick you want! You insignificant worm only have yourself to blame for challenging an Untouchable.

Luxinna smiled. Insignificant worm, these words once stung her. But from a mouth a cornered, spoiled brat, it just sounded corny. With her eyes shining gold, Luxinna brought forth her performance.

[Serene Glass: Overdrive I (Nerve)]

Luxinna’s CNS went nova. Every neuron, every impulse, every mental threshold leaped over its limit. Luxinna’s power level doubled, and the world slowed to a stop.

There were two flaws in Illma’s shield. An error in its design that allowed her to bypass its defense. Those same flaws also exist in the drone. Firstly, the barrier must open up to launch an attack. A fast enough pre-emptive counter would be able to strike past the defense.

And Luxinna exploited said flaw with her brand new attack.

[Static Glass: Octuple Serene Lotuses]

Eight lotuses instantaneously appeared in front of each drone. Such precise and fast pre-emptive counter was within the power of Luxinna's newest attack series: [Serene Lotus]. Luxinna groaned. She needed to update all her [Savage Lotus] moveset when this was over, so troublesome.

The lotuses detonated, reducing the drones to smithereens moment the shield switched-off for firing. It was a feat that should be impossible without a transcendent level of timing. Sadly for Illma, Luxinna had that in spade.

Before Illma could react, Luxinna threw her last throwing-knife. Her overclocked muscle sent the projectile flying at sub-sonic speed. Illma, her nerve flayed from the development, panicked. Thankfully for the Untouchable, her automatic shield sprung up in time.

But that brought up its second weaknesses: the shield focused its energy to block the first attack before cycling the matrix toward the next one. This cycling time ranged in a microsecond. If an attack stuck beneath the micro-second window, the shield blocking strength would drop significantly.

Normally, launching multiple attacks in microsecond apart would impossible for most living beings, but Luxinna already surpassed the requirement.

The elf followed the knife, her muscle overclocking, her posture bent to perform the moves she perfected during her intense precision-control training. It was a super speed thrust channeling her power into a single point, a penetrator attack that shattered even steel.

[Serene Glass: Overload Blade]

Crash!

Illma looked as at knife ricocheting from her shield, then at the armored hand crackling with electricity. The hand severed her arm by the wrist, slicing her shield generator into two sparkling halves, and left behind a cauterized stump.

Illma screamed, but her misery was far from over.

Luxinna’s free hand clenched into a ball. Her nervous-system overrode all survival limits, lifting her strength's stats above its written value.

“Grit your teeth, Illma.”

A punch slammed into the Untouchable. The force involved broke three of her ribs and sent flying at the speed of a cannonball. Illma Zoldia Road crashed into a random roof which barely stopped her momentum, and tumbled across the sky before falling out of sight.

After a massive blood loss and agony, Luxinna Latoria of Horizon Dawn stood victorious.