"Wait, wait! Let's talk this through calmly!" Moriya Shushei stammered, his face a mask of panic. But his plea was met only with a crisp crack.
It was the sound of his shoulder bones shattering under Firefly's grip. In truth, she hadn't exerted much force; she had simply tightened her hold. With a sudden leap, she smashed through multiple ceilings in succession, dragging Moriya Shushei into the open air outside the school building.
Even before Firefly could land a punch, Moriya Shushei was already half-dead.
If Moriya Shushei had managed to fully summon the white bone arm, it might have posed a challenge for Firefly, given its extraordinary hardness.
Though Firefly had only thrown a standard punch, without using any of her more powerful techniques, she had still put nearly eighty percent of her strength into it. Yet the arm remained completely unscathed, a testament to its incredible durability.
Beyond its defensive capabilities, the fully summoned skeleton would undoubtedly be colossal. These two factors alone made it a formidable opponent.
Not to mention, the skeleton likely possessed other skills.
But even if the skeleton proved somewhat troublesome, it was merely a summoned creature. Moriya Shushei, its summoner, lacked comparable defenses. The moment Firefly seized him, the battle would essentially be over.
Instead of immediately finishing him off, Firefly hovered in mid-air, her voice, modulated by SAM with a mechanical timbre, echoed, "You claim this is retaliation for the Martyr Incident?"
As someone directly involved in that incident, Robin had a right to know. She vaguely recalled the matter being resolved through private negotiations with the White Eagle Eight.
Of course, Robin wasn't privy to the specifics; she only knew the outcome. But now it seemed the matter hadn't ended so neatly after all.
After all, the Martyr was one of the eight leaders of the White Eagle. It seemed perfectly plausible that they might have outwardly agreed to a resolution while secretly dispatching their ally—the Sakura Nation—to carry out retaliatory actions against the Dragon Nation.
Moments ago, Moriya Shushei had seen Firefly's Lightsaber vanish, assuming she had given up and that victory was assured. He confidently revealed the crucial information, completely unaware that Firefly had a second transformation. She had merely retracted her Lightsaber as a prelude to her final form.
In response to her interrogation, Moriya Shushei, held captive by Firefly, coughed up a mouthful of blood. His earlier panic vanished, replaced by a grim determination. Gritting his teeth, he snarled, "I never expected you to have such a trump card. I've lost this time, but don't think you'll get any more information from me!"
One had to admit, the man's facial expressions were quite the spectacle. Arrogant and boastful at first, he had descended into panic and terror upon witnessing Firefly's transformation, only to now adopt this deathly resolve.
Through her helmet's sensors, Firefly clearly detected the rapid deterioration of Moriya's vital signs. Within seconds, the man in her grasp had become a lifeless corpse.
A trickle of pitch-black blood leaking from the corner of his mouth strongly suggested that he had taken poison to end his own life.
Everything happened too quickly. Firefly didn't have time to react, or perhaps she simply hadn't figured out how to stop him before he was already dead.
Still, Firefly could only describe the scene as both unexpected and perfectly logical. Being caught and immediately taking poison? Classic.
"ROAR—!!!" A furious roar suddenly echoed across the deserted, dimly lit schoolyard. "Which class are you from?! Look what you've done!"
Firefly followed the sound to see a neatly dressed middle-aged man with a receding hairline standing on the empty field, his face livid. She could even see the bulging veins on his neck and forehead.
Then, like an inflating balloon—or perhaps more accurately, a pufferfish—the man began to swell rapidly, bursting through his clothes and even tearing apart his very skin.
A monster, long confined within him, had finally been unleashed.
Without a doubt, this man was likely the school principal—the final boss of this instance.
The mass continued to grow, swelling into a crimson sphere of flesh over ten meters in diameter before Firefly. The exposed muscle tissue twitched incessantly, sending shivers down her spine.
But the transformation wasn't finished. Tendrils sprouted from the fleshy orb, but Firefly had seen enough.
Dropping Moriya Shushei's corpse, she shot upward, positioning herself above the grotesque "Principal." With a textbook Knight's Flying Kick, she slammed her armored boot into the pulsating mass.
BHF-Heavenly Fire!
The moment her leg connected, SAM's leg armor erupted in a torrent of flames, granting her a sudden burst of secondary acceleration. This abrupt surge of force, akin to a martial artist's inch punch, amplified the kick's destructive power tenfold.
BOOM!
The outcome was inevitable. Unlike the previous bone-armored monstrosity, this fleshy sphere offered no resistance. Under the force of Firefly's kick, it shattered like a watermelon dropped from a great height, sending chunks of meat splattering in all directions.
The meat chunks didn't even reach the ground. Incinerated by the intense heat, they burned in mid-air, filling the courtyard with a grotesque, charred stench.
After a few seconds, Firefly didn't feel the familiar "blurriness," indicating that the Dimensional Rift hadn't closed. Did this mean the Boss was still alive?
Her gaze swept across the battlefield. After a long search, she finally spotted a fist-sized piece of meat, slightly darker in color, pulsating rhythmically like a living heart.
She slowly descended. The moment she picked up the grotesque object, the familiar blurred sensation washed over her, momentarily stunning her.
So, is the Principal really dead? Or did the Dimensional Rift deliberately leave me some time to loot?
Firefly hastily ended her transformation, exiting SAM mode. Instantly, she felt a clammy, sticky sensation in her palm. The thing was wriggling, as if she were holding a live octopus barehanded—or something even more revolting.
"Ugh—"
A cold shiver ran down her spine. Reflexively, she flung the "heart" away.
Splat!
P.S.: If you die within a Dimensional Rift in an Otherworld, your body won't be ejected; it will simply vanish within.