One-way traffic

"It's actually the ground?"

The two looked down in surprise. Originally, that should have been the endless horizon, and that should have been hundreds of meters above the ground.

But all those phenomena were completely overturned.

Now, Accelerator and Alice both landed on the ground, standing in place with their feet on a floor that seemed to be nothingness.

Space has been reversed.

Upon entering the cave, the world the two found themselves in underwent a dramatic change, as if it were no longer the Gensokyo they remembered.

What they saw was not just pure nothingness and darkness.

The two of them turned their heads and looked at the area directly in front of them.

It is an invisible staircase that shares the same color as nothingness.

The steps were so high that you couldn't see the top even if you looked up.

"...This is it."

"The staircase those three fairies mentioned must be here... So, the cherry blossoms must be drifting from here, right?"

Sure enough, when Alice looked up at the sky, all she could see was a flurry of cherry blossoms drifting by.

Delicate, snow-like petals drifted slowly down from mid-air.

Moreover, the higher you look up the stairs, the more petals there are, and by the time you reach the top, they are no longer just simple petals.

Near those steps were countless white spheres.

These spheres appear to be about the same size as balloons, except that they are in a flame-like shape and are entirely pure white.

Alice couldn't help but squint her eyes.

"what happened to you?"

"If I'm not mistaken, these should all be undead."

The dead... spirits?

The abrupt use of the words startled Accelerator for a moment.

But before he could think any further, other things began to emerge from the vicinity.

The entire staircase seemed to be trembling.

Besides the white spheres that Alice called ghosts, a series of red and black objects also seemed to fly out from nearby.

They stopped on the steps along with the ghosts, turned around, and faced directly at the two of them.

Those were faceless humanoid monsters.

Even though they possessed bodies, those bodies were nothing more than twisted lumps of flesh, moving erratically up the stairs, occasionally letting out indescribable roars from the only thing with a weapon in its mouth.

Accelerator and Alice both know these monsters.

correct.

"These guys... are they all the things we encountered back in the Human Village?"

The monsters that were so bizarre and inexplicable by the laws of physics that we encountered back then have reappeared here.

And there's more than just one.

That quantity is comparable to a grove of cherry blossoms fluttering in the air.

Alice and Accelerator both focused intently, because they saw that the monsters had completely locked onto their direction.

For an instant.

Several monstrous, fleshy masses, immediately began to contort their bodies.

Click click click click click—!!

A sound that seemed to pierce through the air roared up.

Under their watchful eyes, the monster's body transformed into a blade formed from a mass of flesh, falling downwards at an extreme speed, like a flying knife.

Despite this incident, no one was injured.

Before that, a white figure, moving faster than any of those sharp blades, blocked everything.

Bang——! !

A strange sound exploded out all at once.

Just before the blades were about to pierce their bodies, one of them stretched out his arm and intercepted all the attacks.

That was the primary reflection.

Subsequently, control of the power was taken away, and the blade returned along its original path in an irregular manner.

They pierced through the bodies of those monsters, causing them to explode into a cloud of gore.

The fleshy mess flew down, and Accelerator stood directly in front of Alice, yet nothing could touch his body.

"It's absolutely disgusting."

He spoke with genuine disgust, stomping his foot on the ground, causing the flesh to shatter from the invisible impact.

Nevertheless, the number of enemies will not decrease as a result.

The white sphere of light that appeared in mid-air exploded into countless smaller spheres in one go, and then hurtled towards the two of them at an extreme speed.

"Quickly dodge their attacks."

Alice's sudden voice caused Accelerator to act instinctively.

Instead of using his reflexes to withstand the attack, he, like the girl behind him, manipulated his supernatural power and leaped into the air as if flying.

Countless orbs of light then exploded where they had been.

Next, the combined attack of the monsters and the undead continued to assault the two of them.

"Hey! I can somewhat understand the monster thing, but what are these ghosts you're talking about?"

"It means the spirits of the dead literally. After humans die, their souls will appear. Most spirits don't even know they are dead. It is because this unwillingness to acknowledge death is too strong that spirits that cannot become Buddhas will appear, which is what is called spirits of the dead."

"...I can understand the literal meaning, but whether I can accept it in terms of values ​​is another matter."

Accelerator instinctively revealed an indescribable expression.

After all, he is a specialist in the field of science.

The sudden realization that something like a ghost, something only mentioned in novels and ghost stories, was actually appearing right before his eyes was a shock that was far too intense for him.

He was no longer the simple guy who only knew science. He had seen magic and other forces that transcended the laws of physics many times, but he never expected that there would actually be such a thing as the undead.

This is merely an instinctive reaction. For people in the scientific field, the existence of the dead is probably the thing that can most easily shatter their existing worldview.

"It doesn't matter what they are, anyway, those guys aren't friendly creatures, are they?"

"You can see that just from the current situation!"

Alice narrowed her eyes. So many undead and monsters had gathered together at this moment... What could be the reason?

But she didn't have time to think further.

The first streak of light tore apart everything around it.

puff-

Then, almost exactly in the same instant.

Most of the undead and monsters in the surrounding area were cut in half by the sweeping attack.

"You are humans and monsters, aren't you?"

The person arrived at the stairs not far away.

She held two blades in her hands, surrounded by a ghostly aura.

as well as.

That head of pure white hair was almost identical to the first one's.

"Just in time."

The newcomer silently raised the blade of his sword.

Then--

"Hand over the last bit of spring you have left—!!"

With an aura that seemed to cleave the world in two, the figure wielding the knife instantly attacked the two.

Chapter 435 The Gardener - Youmu the Soul

The time it all took was so short that it could only be described as an instant.

The girl holding the long sword seemed to transform into an invisible shadow, attacking directly with a truly invisible presence.

The knife he held in his hand was a long blade and a short blade.

But no matter which knife it is, you can always see that when the girl grips it tightly and swings it, even the air itself is being shredded.

An invisible force condenses into an invisible pressure.

then.

That head-on strike, however, failed to achieve any real effect.

The girl's knife was blocked.

"--What?"

It wasn't the sound of striking steel, but rather an indescribable, more abstract sound.

Immediately afterwards, the force rebounded back intact.

The blade was smashed directly onto the target, but instead of creating an effective attack, the force was blocked by an invisible barrier and bounced back like a bouncy ball.

The returned force acted directly on the girl's wrist.

The girl frowned, as if she had been directly hit by an invisible truck and blown away, but her ordeal did not end there.

Her figure was forcibly frozen in mid-air in a very strange posture.

"Shanghai! Penglai!"

Without hesitation, Alice called out her dolls.

At the call of the puppeteer, a nimble and petite figure appeared, and dozens of figures instantly formed an ultimate formation, shooting out beams of light forward without hesitation in a scattering manner.

The light darted back and forth, creating a scene that resembled a spider web.

But the girl did not back down because of this.

She tucked another sword into her waistband and gripped the hilt of the longsword tightly with both hands.

“…Cut it open, Lou Guanjian.”

then.

In an instant, the invisible slashes scattered in all directions.

Crack! It sounded like glass shattering.

But that was actually the sound of the laser being cut off.

The countless lasers that created the barrier-like zone were thus directly and decisively severed by an even more powerful slash.

'It sliced ​​through the bullet hell? Is that sword's special ability? No—'

Alice's mind raced as she considered the situation.

But just as all of this was passing by in a flash, the girl's body had already begun to move without making a sound.

Time seemed to flow by in hundredths of a second.

A flash of light and shadow, so fast that not even a sound could be heard, and the figure, wielding a sword, sped towards them at a speed that even afterimages couldn't keep up with.

The decisive sword fell down.

The magician who controls the puppets doesn't have that level of reaction ability, so no matter how powerful her magic is, it's useless at this moment.

The girl's sword fell mercilessly.