I raised stunning young ladies, but they all wanted to possess me.

Chiyomiya Hanyu didn't brush her hair aside; she just let it sit there, cool and itchy.

"Mr. Gu's mental strength is truly amazing."

"Every time you touch me, it's like someone has lit a lamp deep within my consciousness."

"It's so warm."

She lowered her eyes, her eyelashes casting two small, faint shadows on her face.

Her voice was so soft that Gu Yan almost mistook it for the echo of the night breeze sneaking in through the window cracks.

I've heard about Miss Lin's situation too.

"She suffered from bipolar disorder since childhood. No one could understand her. Everyone thought she was crazy."

"Until you appeared."

"The moment you touched her, she must have felt a peace she hadn't experienced in a very long time."

"That kind of peace is more addictive than any sweet words to someone who has been trapped in suffering for years."

She slowly moved her hands, which were resting on her knees, to the hem of her nightgown, her fingers gently gripping the edge of the skirt.

"Actually, after being treated by Mr. Gu, my headaches have become much less frequent."

"I just can't sleep tonight."

She looked up, her deep brown pupils shining brightly in the moonlight.

There was no shyness or coyness in his eyes, only the honesty of someone he had waited so long for and could no longer bear to miss in the dead of night.

"So I came up with an excuse to come here."

I want to see you.

Just then, a sharp alarm sounded outside the window.

The sound shattered the silence of the entire mountain forest, like a thunderclap exploding in the night sky.

Then came the second sound, and the third sound, each one more urgent than the last.

Gu Yan suddenly stood up and pushed open the window.

A dark red rift tore open the distant horizon, its edges flashing with ominous lightning.

He turned to get his coat.

Yuzuru had already picked up the pheasant sword leaning against the door, the dark red runes on the scabbard flashing intermittently with the alarm sounding.

All that gentleness and frankness from before had vanished, replaced by the chief priestess's usual composure and sharpness.

She stood barefoot on the wooden floor, her fingers already gripping the knife handle.

Gu Yan and Yu Sheng walked through the corridor one after the other.

The wooden floorboards creaked rapidly underfoot.

The alarm outside the window continued to sound, one after another.

It was as if someone was repeatedly cutting through the silence of the night with a dull knife.

They pushed open the paper door to the lobby.

Elena was already standing there.

She was still wearing that minimalist white robe.

Barefoot on the wooden floor, the golden bell on my ankle swayed gently to the sound of the alarm.

The television screen in front of her was lit up.

The scene shows a coastline shrouded in dark red lightning.

Her long, silver hair gleamed under the television light.

She turned around when she heard footsteps, her gaze lingering on Gu Yan and Yu Sheng for a moment before she spoke.

"Don't worry."

"This alarm isn't for Kyoto's defenses, it's for England."

"The third line of defense in the Nordic theater has just been breached."

Gu Yan suddenly stopped in her tracks.

Nordic theater, England.

He walked quickly to the television.

Yuzuru followed behind him, his fingers already gripping the hilt of the pheasant sword at his waist.

Aerial footage is playing on the screen.

It was a coastline completely enveloped in dark red lightning.

The white cliffs of the Dover Strait, once England's proudest natural barrier, now lie bare of sand on the beach below.

The remains of bone-eating worms, fragments of steel colossi, skeletal warhorses, and charred armored vehicle frames piled up the entire coastline by a full two meters.

But the defensive line no longer exists.

The camera slowly zooms in, revealing a burning city in the frame.

Tower Bridge broke in two, with half of the bridge crashing into the Thames, and the resulting waves swept away all the armored vehicles on the bank.

Big Ben was corroded into a blackened skeleton, and the exquisite Gothic carvings on the clock face were all melted into mud by the poisonous fog.

The statue of Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace broke in half and fell to the ground, shattering an entire cobblestone square that had been paved for over a hundred years.

The whole city is on fire.

Thick smoke coalesced into a massive column that shot straight into the sky, dimming the dark red lightning.

Meanwhile, at the edge of the aerial view, even more distant cities were burning simultaneously.

Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh.

Those names that had shone brightly in history books for hundreds of years have now all turned into billowing black smoke, forming an endless sea of ​​fire under the dark red sky.

Then the camera cut to a ground view of the core defensive position.

That was the last footage a war correspondent sent out before he was killed in action.

The screen was shaking violently.

The camera shows a steel wall that has been blasted open with three breaches.

The city wall was originally silver-white, but the special alloy plates used to resist the impact of supernatural powers were now covered with layers of solidified black blood.

The city wall was densely covered with bone spikes from bone-eating worms, and each bone spike was adorned with the corpse of a human soldier.

Some were wearing British Royal Army uniforms, some were wearing French Foreign Legion uniforms, some were wearing Russian Federation snow camouflage, and some were wearing combat uniforms of the Great Xia Special Forces.

They come from different countries, speak different languages, and have different skin colors.

But they died in the same place, hanging on the same wall.

Their blood flowed down the bone spikes, gathering into countless dark red streams on the city wall.

The stream flowed to the ground, forming a lake of blood that reached above ankle height.

The camera shook slightly.

The photographer stepped on a severed hand.

She glanced down, covered her mouth with the back of her hand and gagged, then looked up and continued patting.

"This is the core position of the third line of defense in the Nordic theater."

"I am war correspondent Emily Watson."

"It's 3:47 a.m. now, and we've been holding out here for four whole days."

"The reinforcements haven't arrived yet, and we only have one batch of ammunition left."

"The heavy armored units were completely wiped out, the mech units were completely wiped out, and the air support was completely wiped out."

"S-rank barrier master dead, S-rank rune master dead, S-rank holy healer dead."

"I don't know how many people are still watching this live stream, but I hope someone will remember these scenes."

She turned the camera toward the breach in the city wall.

The final hand-to-hand combat is taking place there.

A young soldier whose name I don't know was covered in blood, his shoulder insignia torn off, making it impossible to discern his rank or unit.

His rune rifle had emptied its magazine, so he used the barrel as a club, standing in knee-deep black blood, and smashed it against the surging black tide.

His helmet was cracked, his bulletproof armor was shattered, and a bone spur pierced his left arm from the elbow.

He then gripped the barrel with his right hand and continued smashing.

Behind him lay a mountain of soldiers' corpses; all his comrades older than him were dead.

The medics, communications soldiers, and cooks all died in the pool of blood at his feet.

He smashed things while roaring, his voice so hoarse that it was almost impossible to hear what he was shouting.

"The third line of defense is still in place!"

"We are not backing down!"

"us."

A colossal steel golem crashed through a gap in the city wall behind him, smashing through the entire wall.

Bricks and alloy plates rained down, burying the soldier and a dozen or so infantrymen who were still holding out in the ruins.