Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

The next second, a blood-red light emanated from the girl's hand swept across a distant building, slicing it in two horizontally and sending the blood-red figure flying. The pink-haired girl then flew into the air and disappeared from her spot at supersonic speed. The blood-red figure chased after her, and a violent explosion rang out in the distance.

Is this the set of some superhero movie?

Having witnessed this scene firsthand, Liang couldn't help but feel this way.

"That was... Pochi-chan?!"

It was only then that Hongxia belatedly realized what was happening, and subconsciously muttered something to herself.

"What?! Pochi-chan appeared just now? She's here too?!"

Xingge, who hadn't seen anything, stared wide-eyed. She really hadn't noticed anything. It was only when she heard Hongxia speak that she belatedly realized that she might have missed something.

"Yes, that's right, that was it just now... Lie down!"

Ryo took a deep breath. Witnessing Goto Ichiri's true power firsthand had a profound impact on the young girl. Especially when she recalled Ichiri's performance when they formed the End Band together, and then looked at his superhuman form now, she felt as if she had entered some strange parallel world, a world from which there was no going back.

However, these thoughts were interrupted by the intense sense of crisis that suddenly amplified.

In that instant, Liang, sensing something was wrong, screamed almost hoarsely, and then suddenly tackled Hongxia and Xingge to the ground.

Rumbling sound as it stores—

A violent blast of air swept in at an instant.

A crimson light flashed past with incredible speed through the crumbling walls.

"Whoa!"

Amidst her cries of agony, Hongxia and Xingge tumbled together, then were thrown by the blast wave and crashed into the wall on the other side.

"Uh--"

Liang, who was even less fortunate, was thrown into the air by the blast wave, flying more than ten meters before crashing heavily to the ground. He saw stars and couldn't even stand up.

A chilling aura was approaching.

His heavy breathing was abruptly interrupted. Feeling the terrifying thing approaching, Yamada Ryo's eyes widened. He could barely breathe, but he still struggled with all his might to move his stiff body, turned over, and looked at the thing that had appeared behind him.

What is that...?

Blood-red mist, and within that mist, an amorphous, eerie creature that vaguely resembled a human.

It is more powerful and more terrifying than any monster I have ever seen before.

Just sensing the other person's presence gave me a terrifying feeling that I was about to die, and I couldn't even muster the thought of running away. The limit was that I could struggle to move my body even slightly.

It saw me.

Although the monster simply stood still and didn't even turn its head, Liang was very clear that she had been seen by it. This twisted and terrifying monster was fully aware of her existence.

whoosh-

The next second, the monster disappeared from the girl's sight.

"Hey?"

It was not attacked.

She could clearly sense the bloody aura emanating from that thing, confirming it was a ruthless, demonic being. Yet, even after being discovered, the monster showed no intention of harming Yamada Ryo, leaving without even glancing at her.

Why didn't they attack me?

"Cough cough... ooh cough cough..."

It wasn't until the terrifying aura disappeared that they realized the injuries inside their bodies and felt the pain spreading throughout their bodies.

Liang suddenly coughed, spitting out large mouthfuls of fresh blood.

Having just been resurrected, she was still enveloped in a strong aura of death, and the lingering corruption and curses from the unseen entity were still eroding her life force. In fact, if a high-level player with heightened anxiety were to investigate, they could easily mistake Yamada Ryo for an unseen entity and attack. After all, her aura didn't seem human at all. Of course, this was only an appearance; a closer examination would eliminate any such misunderstanding.

However, Ryo was unaware of this, and had no way of knowing anything about it. She simply found it strange that the unknown monster had spared her. Especially considering Goto Ichiri's fierce battle with that monster, she was absolutely certain that the monster was a terrifying enemy that posed a tremendous threat to all living beings, one that was impossible to communicate with or understand. So why would such a terrifying being spare her, a living human, during the battle?

Is it because after locking onto a target, the opponent must kill that target before they can attack the next target?

Or was it because I was unable to meet the monster's killing rules for some special reason at the time, which is why it ignored me?

Regardless, what happened at that moment cannot be ignored.

Even though he didn't know what the monster was, Yamada Ryo, relying on his instinctive intuition, knew that the fact that he was not attacked by that thing was crucial information, and he had to find a way to communicate this to Takami so that the other party would know.

"Liang, are you alright?!"

Hongxia's voice rang out from not far away. Only then did Liang realize that she had broken her leg after being thrown into the air and crashing into the wall. At this moment, her entire left foot was in an abnormally twisted state, and even the slightest movement would cause extremely intense pain.

“I’ll carry her on my back. We finally got out of here, so we have to seize this opportunity.”

Next, Xingge rushed forward first, helped Liang up and carried her on his back, and then planned to escape from the collapsed area of ​​the corridor.

zizi...

Before they could actually take any action, a flash of pale white light appeared, and the three of them discovered that the dilapidated corridor had instantly returned to its original state, becoming a clean, spotless white corridor once again.

"How is this possible? What is this? It's a foul!"

Completely unexpected that the space would close again so quickly, Xingge opened her mouth wide and stood there stunned for a while before stomping her foot angrily through gritted teeth.

"Hmm...can't we get in touch with them for the time being?"

Liang wasn't too concerned about the failed escape. She had anticipated from the beginning that it wouldn't go so smoothly, especially after discovering that Gao Hai hadn't responded yet, realizing that he was definitely paying attention to other things. The girl leaned on Xing Ge's back, sighed softly, and stopped talking. She simply opened the intranet built by the Crimson Domain again, trying to find something that might be related to the Crimson Humanoid Monster.

It didn't take long for Liang to focus his attention on the "Surgeon" profile, thanks to the online platform Alice had set up.

Is this the monster we just saw?

"Sister, let's try to get back to the main hall we started in. It's too dangerous to stay in the corridor. We might end up in the same situation again."

Although she really wanted to ask Ryo about Goto Ichiri, seeing Ryo's current miserable state and looking at herself and Hoshika, who were also covered in injuries, Nijika knew that what the three of them needed most right now was a safe place to rest. So she suppressed her curiosity and instead spoke to Hoshika with a serious expression.

While the three on this side were struggling to survive, in the ruins of the city, Goto Ichiri wiped the blood from his cheek and swooped out once again. With the power of the blessing, he summoned various weapons and clashed with the roaring [Surgeon] once more.

boom--

Amidst the deafening explosion, a street was torn to shreds by the clash of forces.

Death is the true salvation!!!

The monster roared and howled, desperately unleashing its power, trying its best to kill the girl before it.

Goto Ichiri, on the other hand, constantly probed the enemy's strength during the battle, searching for its weaknesses and looking for a way to truly defeat the enemy, or at least weaken it.

So far, her attempts have yielded no results. This terrifying "surgeon" seems to never tire. Even though she, Kita Ikuyo, and Shinomiya Kaguya took turns fighting it in a tag-team style for several hours, it showed no signs of fatigue. On the contrary, it maintained its full energy, making her side struggle to keep up and almost exhausted.

This won't do. Probing each other during battle will likely be pointless, no matter how much time we waste.

As long as it is in combat, this monster is, in a sense, invincible. Any attempt to find its weakness in this state is very likely to be futile.

I wonder if my dear has come up with any results yet. On the front lines, she really can't think of any solutions. All she can do is keep this thing occupied to prevent it from killing the evacuating survivors. That's the limit of what she can do right now.

"Phew... Again..."

As I pondered, that distorted figure once again came forward.

In the midst of the fierce battle, Ichiri, who hadn't noticed Ryouka and the others and was focusing all her attention on the enemy in front of her, also gripped her guitar tightly and once again mobilized the power of blessing and good fortune to meet the opponent and start a new round of confrontation.

Still not working? What's the problem...?

At the same time, Gao Hai, who had not discovered that three survivors had almost been caught up in the battle of the gods, was also in a state of great distress.

"This feeling... is very strange. The information about that [doctor] seems to be blocked by some kind of force. Although we have tried many ways to break through, it seems that if we cannot obtain any valuable clues or information and are only trying to force a breakthrough, it will probably take even more time."

Beside the throne in the high seas, Yotsuya Miko, sitting on the ground, closed her eyes and remained silent for a long time before opening her golden eyes, sighing and speaking softly.

The attempt to unravel the nature of the Surgeon's power has not gone smoothly.

Even with Miko Yotsuya using her powers without restraint under Takami's protection, she still couldn't find the monster's weakness during the hours-long decryption operation.

Such a failure was obviously very rare for Miko, and she herself was looking for the reason. The final discovery of the investigation was that the [Surgeon]’s own power and information adopted a completely different method of blocking than other strange things. Even if Miko could break through the outer blockade to a certain extent, she could not keep up with the process of this thing updating its own information lock. Often, she would have to start from scratch when she had broken through about one-tenth of the process because of the information lock update.

It's hard to imagine that such a monster could possess such complex and bizarre methods of information security. This power, in a sense, can be understood as a strong tendency in its lifetime to refuse others from prying into its secrets and to forbid anyone from entering its inner world. But how could such an extremely withdrawn and self-isolated personality trait transform into the "Surgeon," a madman who believes in killing everything?

[…Keep trying. Even if we don't get any results for now, at least we can cause trouble for the "hospital" and keep them from diverting their attention, giving the various evacuation teams more time to act.]

After a brief moment of contemplation, Gao Hai slowly spoke, and Jian Zi nodded in agreement, before resuming his mostly futile attempt to crack the code.

The current situation can be described as a stalemate, but the evacuation operation is proceeding smoothly. It is certain that it won't be long before the hospital runs out of options.

Although dragging things out like this wasn't his intention, since it guaranteed absolute victory, Gao Hai wouldn't risk trying more aggressive methods. Despite being forced into high-level matches by the black watch, Gao Hai has always been a cautious person, so he would choose to maintain the status quo, slowly consolidating his advantages in order to completely crush his enemy.

However, judging from the hospital's reaction, it's been investing more and more resources in the field of surgeons.

If this continues, the surrounding area will lose contact due to severe energy and spatial disturbances. It's likely that only Kita, Ichiri, and Kaguya, who have established a mental link with the black watches, will be able to maintain communication, while others in that area will be unable to establish stable communication.

In that case... wait, aren't there still a few unlucky guys trapped in that area?

Recalling Liang, Hongxia, and Xingge, the three people trapped nearby, Gao Hai's lips twitched slightly. He realized that getting the three of them out safely now would be much more difficult than before.

There's nothing we can do but hope they survive. Anyway, as long as we keep a close eye on them, getting their souls back shouldn't be a big problem.

Well, they shouldn't be that unlucky; they probably won't run directly into the battlefield.

With that in mind, Gao Hai quickly turned his attention back to the battlefield of the "surgeon" and the various areas in Tokyo that needed support, no longer paying much attention to the three people in the subway station who were temporarily out of contact.

Chapter Ninety: The Spread of the Invisible and the Intensifying Situation.

Something is slowly brewing.

In this pale white corridor under the stark light, behind the tiles that reflect human shadows, within the cement and concrete impermeable to the naked eye, something is gradually spreading, occupying more and more of the space.

Liang couldn't see the thing, but she could feel it—a chilling sensation that made her whole body feel like it was freezing.

"Sister...you, can you feel it?"

Hongxia swallowed hard, and the girl, who clearly sensed something, looked up at Xingge, who was standing with her back to the cold, with a hint of panic.

"Feeling? Feeling what?"

Hoshika, who was originally planning to carry Ryo, who had difficulty moving, and run quickly, saw that Hongxia suddenly had such a panicked expression. She realized that something bad might have happened, stopped and turned around to ask with a frown.

“There’s something… I don’t know how to say it, but… there’s something here…”

The girl opened her mouth, trying hard to describe her feelings, but she didn't know how to put it into words, and she was extremely anxious.

"...Back up, there's something unseen ahead, it's dangerous, and it's getting closer to us, back up."

At the crucial moment, Liang, who was in a very weak state, spoke up. Xingge, who finally understood the situation, nodded and, together with Hongxia, headed away from the unknown thing, quickening their pace as they ran down the white corridor.