Give children a little self-destruction shock to their worldview.

And in the sky, a blood-red moon appeared out of nowhere.

"Blood Moon." Sugiyama Rika heard Haga Mayumi murmur in a very soft voice. Although she didn't know what the Blood Moon specifically represented, she had an ominous premonition.

Without realizing it, Mayumi Haga raised her head and looked up at the moon in the sky, a moon she knew all too well.

The scarlet, high-hanging full moon resembled a wound in the sky, continuously dripping blood onto the earth.

The blood dripped onto the ground, from which countless reptiles and monsters she recognized emerged, scattering in all directions or waving clubs and emitting piercing cries.

If Sugiyama Rikka hadn't used this barrier to cover the city, countless things would have been destroyed by now.

Meanwhile, the Abyss Gentlemen within the spiritual veins were in no better condition than the others outside.

He saw the light of the spiritual veins dimming at an unusual rate.

Having entered quietly, the Abyss Gentleman hurriedly began inscribing a magic circle within the spiritual vein. However, just as he was about to finish the last stroke, he discovered that the originally bright magic was mixed with a hint of gray-black.

Actually, he and Sugiyama Rika discovered this thing last time when they were in the spiritual vein, but at that time, after the Calamity Dragon was defeated, these gray-black corrosion spots disappeared completely.

...So it wasn't the dragon's negative influence after all?

To be precise, it wasn't the dragon that brought the crisis, but rather the crisis that brought the dragon...?

The Gentleman of the Abyss sensed something was wrong, but he was only one stroke away from completing the giant magic circle, and his hand had not yet fallen—

--"Varied……!"

His body was enveloped by a crimson miasma that had appeared out of nowhere. In just a moment of contact, the Abyss Gentleman's magic was drained by more than half, and the surroundings suddenly darkened.

What on earth is this thing? The speed at which it devours magic power is unprecedented…

The Gentleman of the Abyss frowned.

But now, there's no going back.

The Abyss Gentleman stood up and lightly rubbed the last stroke with the tip of his leather shoe. As magic was injected, the magic circle beneath his feet lit up layer by layer.

Suddenly, magical pipes emerged from the ground and brutally pierced the Abyss Gentleman's body.

Back of the neck, both sides of the shoulders, lumbar spine, arms and thighs.

At first, there was a slight, needle-like pain, but as the magic power of the spiritual vein continued to flow in, even the Abyss Gentleman, who was accelerating his assimilation with the spiritual vein, couldn't help but gasp.

His body began to tremble involuntarily as a power that did not belong to him was continuously injected into him. The high-purity magic produced a violent rejection reaction in his body, but as long as he could overcome and adapt, he could forcibly pry open a portion of his authority.

He calculated that the time was the sunrise when the spiritual veins were most active.

That is, the dawn time that he and Mayumi Haga had agreed upon.

With the time fast approaching, the Abyss Gentleman began his plan, but Mayumi Haga and the little bear were nowhere to be seen.

But he was already unable to stop.

No problem.

It's fine to do my own work first. As long as Mayumi Haga can eventually reach the Spirit Vein with Little Sorrow, then everything I've done will have been meaningful.

The Abyss Gentleman's plan was simple: he would use the power of the spiritual veins to forcibly break the restrictions on his own core and gain the authority to communicate with the gods.

He wanted to strip the concept of "despair" from the little bear... Originally, this attribute was incompatible with that child, and if the two attributes appeared in the same strange person, it would put a great burden on the core.

It's like having a dual personality.

The Abyss Gentleman didn't want his Little Sorrow to dissipate like the previous Despair Monster, so he decided to use the magic of the spiritual veins to separate Little Sorrow's core from the Despair attribute.

The despair attribute after separation will be sealed deep within his spiritual veins, or left to a mage to resolve.

This is what the Gentleman of the Abyss thinks.

However, plans often encounter unexpected changes.

For example, right now.

That ominous power, known as calamity, touched the very foundation of the spiritual veins.

Just a second before the Gentleman of the Abyss, enduring the pain, was about to enter the depths of the spiritual vein, the spiritual vein suddenly stopped operating.

The world seemed to be paused at that moment; the clouds in the sky stood still, the wind froze, and the surrounding colors faded.

The Abyss Gentleman's mind went blank due to the intense pain.

Such magic was a great burden for him. The damage caused by forcibly stopping a normally functioning spell at a critical moment was horrifying.

At the moment when the pain reached his nerves, the world finally began to function again, but the scene before the Gentleman of the Abyss began to become bizarre.

The world started to drop frames.

Calamity surged forth from the depths of the spiritual veins like cockroaches. The Gentleman of the Abyss tried to dodge, but his previous injuries slowed his reaction considerably, and he was nearly pounced on by the insects.

Then, he realized something and looked toward the end of the spiritual vein.

That cocoon-like giant object, enveloped in countless streams of magic, was originally the place where the gods slept.

Now, a gigantic parasite has appeared on top of it.

It was a horribly disgusting queen insect with a tiny head and a fat tail. It looked like a crushed tail that kept dripping disgusting slime. Insect eggs flowed out from it and quickly hatched and grew on the ground with the help of the magic of the spiritual veins.

The tiny figure of the Gentleman of the Abyss was reflected in those compound eyes.

He rubbed his vocal organs, making a mocking sound.

Before the Abyss Gentleman could react, he saw the insects that had fallen to the ground spread out their soft wings, and after they hardened slightly, they flapped their wings and flew densely towards the top of the spiritual vein!

The sight of the swarming flying insects was terrifying, but what was even more frightening was that they were gnawing at the connection between the spiritual veins and the mortal world.

Originally designed to prevent the outflow of magic and the entry of external threats, the fortress was actually very difficult to breach. The Gentleman of the Abyss had to go through countless hardships to enter the spiritual vein.

But leaving through the spiritual vein is much simpler.

All that could be seen was these flying insects launching an attack on the "sky," causing the magical clumps that covered the sky to crumble and disintegrate.

It was at this moment that the Gentleman of the Abyss sensed a familiar presence through the gap that had been pierced.

...What is that?

A blood moon descends.

Yuga Mayumi instinctively drew her weapon and became alert to the approaching monsters and insects, but before the first insect could even pounce on her, the ground beneath her feet began to tremble.

Sugiyama Rika immediately used her magic to lift her up and placed layers of shields on Haga Makoto while the magician beside her stood in the air, looking around with a serious expression, and at the same time raised the vines to bring Tono Hitomi out as well.

But then, an unexpected change occurred.

Raindrops of monsters and death worms rained down from the sky, while countless worms crawled out of the ground before their horrified eyes, forming a putrid, black wave on the ground.

Their goal is quite obvious.

It was Haga Mayu, who was holding the fire.

These calamity tentacles maintained a keen sense of smell for the scent of fire, and the moment Haga Mayumi entered the attack range, they swarmed forward, howling in a frenzy.

These mindless undead corpses piled up densely, forming a giant hand that reached out to grab at Yuga Mayumi.

The next second after the giant hand reached out, two magic cannons pierced its palm from the left and right, grazing around Mayumi Haga and striking the swarm of insects in an attempt to repel them.

But what happened next changed everyone's expression.

The swarm of insects scattered immediately upon being hit, then quickly reformed and enveloped Yuga Mayu, completely covering him.

Of all the people with a grim expression, Sugiyama Rika's was the one who looked the worst.

Because she could feel that the layers of shields she had placed on Yuga Makoto were completely ineffective against these tiny, magicless insects.

The insect landed directly on Mayumi Haga.

Mayumi Haga felt the pain of being devoured; she was engulfed by the swarm of insects and pulled downwards by an immense force.

The skin on my face was being gnawed away bit by bit by the tiny, sharp mouthparts, and then the pain penetrated deeper, along with misfortune spreading with the agony.

Through the crack, she saw Sugiyama Rika, who had come to her rescue nearby, her complex expression frozen between shock, anger, and sorrow.

The incident happened so suddenly that the other party was not in a good enough state to make a proper shout or show any expression.

But Mayumi Haga's mood remained completely unchanged.

She didn't open her mouth, but since her lips had already been bitten clean and her gums were showing, it didn't matter.

The guardian's golden eyes suddenly lit up, emitting an unusually dazzling golden light, and this golden light not only came from the eyes, but also burst forth from every corner of the body.

This is a typical self-destruct animation. After emitting unstable and blinding light from his body, he looks pained and then becomes the center of the explosion in the next second, surrounded by white light.

But Mayumi Haga self-destructed so quickly that she showed no signs of pain on her face, remaining as calm as if she were trying out a new way to escape.

With intense light that turned the sky into daylight, waves of light and heat swept over everyone.

Main Text: Chapter 144 The Feathers of the World

...?

what happened?

Something happened in front of Sugiyama Rika that she could not understand.

She was such a big, healthy girl, physically frail, and would never do anything dangerous like her students. She was someone I could trust completely... How could she suddenly turn into fireworks and explode right in front of me?

Calling it fireworks isn't entirely accurate, since Mayumi Haga's self-destruction was never aesthetically pleasing; it was purely functional.

She couldn't see the beautiful flames of light, only the sight of flesh and bones turning into fragments and scattering everywhere. There was even a golden eyeball that broke through the layers of heat and flew straight towards her face.

In that instant, Sugiyama Rika's vision went into slow motion.

The eyeball struck the magical shield a few centimeters in front of her face, deforming, squeezing, and exploding...

...and then it turned into a familiar orange liquid.

Deep within Sugiyama Rika's memory, something that should have been forgotten for far too long suddenly resurfaced.

She remembered the soft, bouncy, sticky thing she had touched one day, and the bottle she had brought home...

Sugiyama Rika:......

Sugiyama Rika:? ? ? ? ! ! ! !

.................................................. .................................................. .

This wasn't the first time Mayumi Haga had escaped by self-destruction.

Generally speaking, when she completely destroys her body, her core will temporarily lose consciousness until a new body is formed. Because her regeneration speed is so fast, she herself is rarely aware of the consciousness gap between self-destruction and rebirth.

However, this time is different.

The second after she confessed, she noticed that her hand was being held tightly by a stranger.

Yuga Mayumi looked down and saw a small, glowing hand holding her left hand.

A child with an indistinct face is looking up at her.

The two stood before a large stone wall, with a deep lake reflecting the full moon behind them, and a forest stretching out around them, radiating a soft light, with fireflies as numerous as stars among the vegetation.

The stone wall was carved with images that Mayumi Haga couldn't understand, a completely black expanse, but in one corner of the image, there were familiar, childish handwriting.

【Haga Mayumi】.

It was exactly the same handwriting she used when she had just learned to write her own name.

It was carved in stone, and she could even recall the feel of the contract when she signed it.

Meanwhile, she was still holding the stone in her right hand that she had used to carve her name when she signed the contract, a stone she had picked up from the lakeside.

She remembered this... she recalled it.

On the night she became the guardian, she fell into the lake.

When she opened her eyes again, she was standing by the lake, soaking wet. Her figure had shrunk to the size of a seven or eight-year-old. She had forgotten that she had a home to return to, and although she looked at the unfamiliar surroundings, she didn't feel uneasy for some reason.

That child with the indistinct face was also there at that time... Yes, they were playing together.

They picked up stones from the lake and skipped them across the water, competing to see who could throw them the farthest. They splashed each other in the shallows and ran wildly through the forest.

Because of her physical condition, Mayumi Haga had never played so freely.

When both of them were exhausted and lay on the ground to rest for a while, the child pointed to the glowing river in the distance and said, "It's time to go, Mayumi."

Mayumi Haga felt a little strange because she had never told the child her name.

This was also the first sentence the child uttered.

“My home isn’t over there.” Mayumi Haga sat up, a little nervous. “I have to go back to my own home.”