Sky Striker Princess, but the swan song of Valkyrie.

Although she wanted to believe that she had guessed wrong, based on her understanding of Zero, Finney took action on the premise that her guess was correct.

Waaaaaah—waaaaaah—

But the moment she took action, a familiar and ominous alarm blared across the sky—an alarm signaling the arrival of noise.

"There's still noise at this point... wait, the Babylonian Treasury can still be opened... Is that right? Has Zero arrived?!"

Upon hearing the alarm, Chris, who had just taken out the communicator as instructed by Finney, realized the truth after a moment's thought. Immediately, she dropped the communicator, opened the door, and rushed out.

"Wait, Chris, the most important thing right now is to gather our forces and avoid being attacked by Zero..."

Seeing Chris's incredibly fast movements, Finney wanted to say something, but Tsukuyomi regained control of her body and stopped her from speaking.

“Fini, I know your concerns, but I’m sorry, as the players, we cannot shirk our responsibility to clear the noise.”

Pressing her hand to her chest, Tsukuyomi expressed her apology to the soul of Finny within her, then followed Chris out the door with a serious expression.

"Hmm, I'm a little confused about the current situation, but anyway, we need to do the same as before: first, take down Noise, Death!"

After Tsukuyomi was summoned, Akatsuki thought for a long time but still couldn't figure it out, so she also rushed out after Tsukuyomi.

“Hey, then I…”

"What's wrong, Chris? What happened?"

A short while later, the once lively private room was left with only Elfnein, who was powerless to fight, and a communicator that had been dialed but had not yet been used for further communication.

"Um, Mr. Fengming, the thing is, before, Carol and I..."

Thinking that she could do what she could, Elfnein began to communicate with Kazanari Genjuro on behalf of Chris.

Chapter 5 Automata

On the street, after Chris came out, the once bustling street was now full of people evacuating in an orderly manner. Noise was present, but not only was its movement slower than that of the zombies, its numbers were also very sparse.

"She's not attacking humans, is she controlling things...? What is her purpose?"

After noticing Noise's strange behavior, Chris made this guess in her mind.

[Killter Ichaival tron]

Regardless of the other party's purpose, Chris must take responsibility for annihilating all the noise. Grasping the pendant, the magic bow's incantation began to be chanted, and red lightweight armor replaced Chris's original clothes.

Then, Chris unleashed a barrage of bullets, wiping out the noise on the street. But soon, several emerald lights flashed, and new noise appeared, this time targeting Chris.

[Various Shulshagana tron]

[Zeios igalima raizen tron]

One hymn after another resounded, and Chanju and Cuilian donned their respective costumes on Tsukuyomi and Akatsuki, instantly dismembering the incoming noise like a sickle spinning top and a yo-yo with a pink saw.

"Death!"

"Are you alright?"

Xiaoqiege and Yuedu Diao acted as guards, protecting Chris from the noise's attack.

"It's okay, but we need to find a point to release the noise, otherwise this fight will just go on forever like last time."

Chris realized this as she watched the sporadic, sleepwalking noises reappear on the street.

“Then let us cover Death!” “Miss Chris, go find the source of the noise.”

After understanding the situation, Xiaoqiege and Yuedu Diao volunteered to take on the task of providing cover.

"Please, then, use this to clear the area first!"

Under the cover of the two men, Chris was able to concentrate on firing in order to find the source of the fire.

Soon, the four crystal pillars were cocked and launched, unleashing a rain of crystal needles that targeted all the noise in the area. After a violent explosion, all the noise was cleared away once again.

This time, while launching the attack, Chris paid special attention to the direction from which the noise was released, and she quickly found the source, which was some distance away from here, seemingly on the roof of a building at the end of the street.

"Is it over there? Destroy it with this one strike."

Having locked onto her target, Chris began to change her weaponry.

The red crossbow in his hand extended its barrel, and the armor on his forehead extended downwards to form a single-lens visor, while camera sticks for aiming assistance extended to both sides.

When Chris enters this state, she can snipe from extremely long distances. Even from a great distance, she is confident that she can destroy the source of the noise with a single shot.

Soon, as the camera zoomed in, Chris saw the familiar portal in the distance, constantly scattering green light representing noise.

"Wait, what's that?"

And I saw... a familiar girl sitting quietly on the edge of the rooftop, her legs, encased in black stockings, dangling in the air, her long platinum blonde hair fluttering in the wind.

"Hmm, did you notice?"

As Chris's gaze fell upon her, Zero also noticed Chris's stare.

"However, we've rested enough, and now that all irrelevant people have been cleared out, it's time to get back to work."

Then, after glancing at the current state of the city's evacuation, Lingyi nodded, relaxed her body, and leaped towards the ground below in a leap of faith.

"Attire? Liao Li."

With a simple command issued, flames engulfed Zero's falling body. Like a shooting star, Zero, clad in crimson heavy armor, crashed onto the street amidst the raging fire.

"Evaluate output, evaluation complete, adjustments complete, target locked."

Gripping the crimson longsword tightly with both hands, Lingyi looked ahead, having completed the calculation of the attack path and force.

Immediately afterwards, flames engulfed the streets.

Propelled by eight fiery wings, the Ryouri Armor, like a crimson meteor rising from the ground, traversed an unseen distance and charged towards Tsukuyomi and Akatsuki, who were still covering Chris.

"What? "

-Death?

Completely caught off guard, the two, still focused on clearing the noise, were instantly sent flying into the air by the slash carrying high temperature and impact.

Huh?

By the time Chris realized what was happening, the Symphogear on Tsukuyomi and Akatsuki had already disintegrated, and the two girls fell to the ground, rolling around before finally collapsing to the ground, their mouths agape and their eyes closed in pain.

"What a joke, you managed to cut the song and tune with just one hit..."

Chris could hardly believe it.

You should know that even if they didn't win in their battles with Lingyi in the past, they would at least be able to fight back and forth for a few rounds. They had never been completely crushed in one blow like this before.

[We can't beat them, we can't possibly win. With such a vast difference in strength, how could we possibly win?]

Immediately, she realized that the gap between her and Lingyi had widened to an even greater extent, and as she realized this, fear and unease grew in her heart, to the point that she stood there stunned for a moment.

"Defeat, done, phew... Not planning to attack? Fine."

On the other side, after defeating Tsukuyomi Cho and Akatsuki Kira, seeing Chris's stunned expression, Zero no longer paid attention to her and turned to her target—Finni, who was attached to Tsukuyomi Cho.

[Ha, she doesn't intend to attack me, which means her target is Finney? Great... How could that be good? What am I doing?!]

Seeing Zero ignore her, Chris felt a sense of relief at not having to fight her, but then she felt an intense loathing for that relief.

What has all this effort been for? How can I stand here trembling with fear? Even if I can't win, I will still do my best.

A jumble of chaotic thoughts swirled in Chris's mind, eventually coalescing into the finger that pulled the trigger.

Boom—da da da—

"I will absolutely not give up!"

The fierce artillery fire swept towards Zero. Although her mentality was slightly shaken at first, Chris eventually overcame her fear of the insurmountable gap in strength between Zero and launched an attack.

Although, this attack might not even be considered an itch for Zero now.

"Ugh……"

Simply intercepted the attack with a flash blade, then turned her gaze slightly to Chris, whose face was a mixture of fear, unease, and determination, and sighed helplessly.

Seconds later, crimson flames surged across Chris's body. When the flames subsided, she had already opened her mouth and closed her eyes. Her armor emitted a crackling sound of electricity as it was overwhelmed, turning into specks of light and dissipating into the air.

"Why torture yourself like this, Chris? If you're honest, you'll suffer less."

Zero said this after his armor disintegrated.

"Ugh... I did expect it, but damn it... damn it!"

Kneeling on the ground, Chris could hardly believe she had been defeated so quickly. Unwilling to accept defeat, she wanted to do something more, but the damage from the forced disintegration made it difficult for her to move, and she soon collapsed powerlessly.

..........

The floating unit caught the fallen body and placed it on the ground. Zero's gaze turned to Tsukuyomi, whose main target was Finny.

"Um? "

Just then, Lingyi realized something was wrong.

In an instant, she unleashed a blazing sword at Tsukuyomi's body, but the intense flames only evaporated a bubble made of water.

Immediately following, missiles formed by high-pressure water jets, high-speed golden earth and stone projectiles, and fiery red crystals appeared simultaneously. Under the cover of these three, a deadly blade pierced towards Zero's clothes with the wind.

"Why would Carol's automaton appear in a place like this?"

Flames erupted from her body, repelling all flying objects and sword blades three feet away. Zero quickly realized who had attacked her.

She had seen one of these reactions around Carol before, so she quickly deduced the identity of the person who launched the attack.

The water rippled, and the unconscious Tsukuyomi, Akatsuki, Chris, and the blue-haired automaton supporting them appeared out of thin air.

Also appearing were a red doll with two strange hands, a black-haired doll whom I had met once before, and a green doll with an elegant posture, holding a sword in one hand and lifting her skirt in the other.

"Nice to meet you, little Chris. I'm Garly. Thank you for drawing our attention. Otherwise, it would have been quite difficult to rescue the subject Finny from the terrifying Zero-Clothes."

The blue automaton with shark teeth, supporting the three of them, gave a wicked smile and thanked the weak Chris who was being carried by her.

"Who...you are?"

Chris couldn't understand what was going on with these sudden reinforcements.

"I, Farah, will explain the details to you on the way. Right now, we need to escape."

The elegant sword-wielding doll, Farah said with a smile.

"Tch, he'll keep causing me trouble even when he's dead."

With the sword held level and flames rising, Lingyi was ready to crush all four puppets.

"Mika won't let you pass, hehe."

Then, just as she did so, she saw a doll named Mika erupt in flames of the same high temperature, holding a flaming crystal in each hand, and launching an attack on her with a happy smile.

Oh, saying it was an attack might not be accurate. Mika was just like a facehugger, using her body's heat resistance to brave the flames and hug Zero.

"Well then, I'll leave this to Mika-chan."

Seeing that Mika had begun to move, Gally, Farah, and Rhea turned around without stopping and began to evacuate in an orderly manner along the street.

"I say, shouldn't you alchemists have those teleportation crystals?"

Chris, feeling a bit jostled as Garley carried her along, asked the automaton holding her a question.

"Those require preparing fixed bases in advance, sob sob sob. It's so sad that all those bases were destroyed by Xiao Lingyi long ago. It's so cruel, sob sob sob."

Maintaining her speed, Garly, with her mischievous feigned crying, explained to Chris.

"Furthermore, if we perform spatial teleportation in front of her, it will be easy for her to find our trail and catch up with us, which will make our originally safe base no longer safe."

Farah, who was also running gracefully alongside, further elaborated on Chris's question.

"So, our goal now is to quietly gather all forces capable of resisting Lingyi in a safe place, and then discuss how to defeat her."

With a leaping motion, Rhea indicated the objectives of their current actions at several stages.

"Although there are still many things I don't understand, it's a good thing overall."

Having gained a basic understanding of the dolls around her, Chris temporarily suppressed her doubts and chose to accept their help for the time being.

At this point, the group of people came to a road in relatively good condition. It seemed to be a tourist attraction, as there were few people and relatively few obstacles on the street because it was the off-season.

Meanwhile, next to a black luxury car parked by the roadside, Shinji Ogawa and Elfnein had been waiting for quite some time.

"Hey there, we're here. They're all yours now. It's really heavy carrying three people."

Garly casually stuffed the three people she was carrying into the car and said in a slightly complaining tone.

"We have a basic understanding of the situation. The commander's assessment is that, given the assistance provided, we can temporarily trust a few of them. Also, we should concentrate our forces to avoid being defeated one by one in the face of Zero's attack. We agree with this."