Chapter 457: Chapter 277: Subjugating Julius—Storm and Lightning (Bonus 3/10)
"The White Crow Travel Brigade... seems different from what I imagined, not just insects."
Julius smiled coldly, lifting his eyes under the brim of his hat towards the Bloodline and Jack the Ripper.
He slowly took off his military cap and raised his cane, then lifted his head again.
In an instant, the ground beneath his feet suddenly split in two. Immediately from within the vast chasm, a silver rocky mountain rose suddenly, carrying him skyward, as if a deity was looking down on the world from high above.
In the blink of an eye, Jack the Ripper’s figure vanished; she flashed like lightning down to the base of the mountain and leapt up, running sideways on the surface of the mountain as if defying gravity, speeding upwards;
The Bloodline wielded black wings forged from dragon blood, ascending like a great demon to the sky. She descended from above, and the blood pouring out from her pores at this moment formed streams of black and red light, raining torrentially behind her.
From afar, it seemed like a falling meteor.
The two attacked Julius from above and below simultaneously.
Violence flashed in Julius’s eyes as he raised his hands simultaneously.
With a thunderous crash, two massive, sharp rock fragments emerged abruptly from the mountains beneath him, thrusting upwards and downwards, meeting Jack the Ripper and the Bloodline.
The former rushed upward like a reverse waterfall, stabbing towards the rapidly ascending Jack the Ripper; the latter thrusting like a spear of doom from the earth’s core towards the swiftly diving Bloodline!
The Bloodline’s fingers overflowed with black blood, and the dragon blood gathered into a massive mandala flower, twisting and whirling forward, shattering the enormous rock spike into pieces;
Jack the Ripper stepped on the mountain’s surface, propelling herself backward to create distance from the rock spike. In her view, the giant spike drew endlessly closer, seemingly about to pierce through her pupils!
Yet at this moment, she spun a circle mid-air, her school uniform skirt billowing, and suddenly made a drawing-the-sword posture.
The Demon Blade unsheathed. The dark red blade light swept out like a slashed crescent moon, cleanly and swiftly dividing the incoming rock spike in two.
Julius laughed maniacally, each time he raised his hand, a massive rock surged upward, sharp as a divine spear being hurled!
Enormous rocky mountains rose one after another, crushing countless iron-grey buildings, chasing the two’s figures. The mountains gathered from all directions, encircling the Bloodline and Jack the Ripper in mid-air. A slight mistake in this situation would result in being compressed by the overlapping mountains instantly.
The Bloodline vibrated her dragon wings, creating a deafening sound, ascending to the highest point of the sky, hanging directly beneath the sun.
Jack the Ripper stepped on the surface of the rocky mountain, utilizing the force to propel herself out, capturing gaps amid the advancing mountains, jumping through them.
She twisted her body, gracefully traversing the spaces between the mountains, where light and dark alternated in her vision. Her long black hair fluttered, her school uniform skirt flying chaotically.
Finally, she leapt up, seemingly passing through a crevice of the world, landing on the back of a paper dragon flying toward her.
Indeed, Ayase Origami had joined the battlefield. She retrieved an endless manuscript from her sleeves, letting grey-white paper pages fly, further filling the skeleton of her paper dragon, perfecting the bone dragon’s details.
This paper-page dragon, far from becoming heavy, erupted unprecedented lightness and speed, diving, flying close to the ground, and threading through the rising mountains, never being shot down.
"His kind of superpower, how many would die if unleashed in a city?" Jack the Ripper commented expressionlessly.
"Thirsty. I want some orange juice after the fight," the kimono-clad girl said calmly.
"I’ll treat you after the fight. Just focus now, don’t get distracted," Jack the Ripper said.
Underneath them, the grey-white paper dragon suddenly flapped its wings upward, simultaneously, the endless manuscript wildly flipped open, thousands of paper pages whirling upward, gathering into an unstoppable storm.
Ayase Origami raised her hand, a strange light flickering in her dazzling yet hollow pupils, the paper-page storm sweeping forward destructively, tearing through the towering mountains, even absorbing shattered rocks within.
The entire world trembled.
The storm grew larger. Dust, paper pages, fragments combined, engulfing flocks of crows, soldiers’ corpses, and ruined prison buildings within it.
The New Leaf Village, hailed as a military-base-like superpower prison, roared like a flag in the cold wind. The storm swept through, ravaging the iron-grey buildings, leaving behind a riddled ruin almost instantly.
"Interesting... interesting!" Julius’s eyes glowed as his elderly figure remained upright in the oncoming violent winds, with white hair swirling upward.
He laughed maniacally, extending his arms straight, as if wanting to embrace the all-encompassing paper tornado.
Suddenly, the prison’s ground opened up another giant chasm, swallowing vast buildings into it!
Sand and pebbles fluttered, next a pyramid, seemingly from the earth’s crust, floated upward like a slowly rising sun.
This gigantic pyramid, constructed from golden rocks, rudely blocked the path of the tornado.
The pyramid collided violently with the tornado! Paper and sand rubbed, producing light and fire. The entire world seemed to fall silent at this moment.
In a dim space, everything was in dead silence. The Hokkaido Prison trembled, sinking into the earth’s chasm.
"He built a pyramid from scratch?"
The Bloodline still flapped her wings, suspended below the sun. She lowered her crimson eyes to observe the incredible scene, unable to suppress a smirk.
"So this is the strength of a veteran Catastrophe Level..." she sighed.
The tornado ravaged everything in the world, absorbing all the light and heat, sand and dust; the surroundings seemed to turn into a desert, with yellow sand and waste paper covering the ground.
At this moment, Ayase Origami was already struggling, blood trickling from her nose and staining her fair skin like red beans on paper.
After all, she wasn’t a Catastrophe-level superpower user; she merely used the advantage of endless pages from the replica book to forcefully create such a magnificent scene. Yet, controlling so many pages wasn’t simple; the burden on her spirit and body was unspeakable.
However, at the center of the paper storm, the pyramid still stood tall, shielding the core building within the prison, like the only reef amidst the surging tide.
Julius laughed triumphantly, his pale eyebrows and handlebar mustache trembling in the wind, full of vigor.
Meanwhile, at another corner of the prison, Xia Pingzhou commanded the Queen’s Statue to initiate nihilization to avoid being swept away by the storm, running through the iron-gray building clusters and finally evacuating outside the prison’s ramparts.
"Enough...don’t force it." Jack the Ripper supported Ayase Origami’s shoulder, and the girl in the kimono collapsed into her arms, slightly gasping.
Without Ayase Origami’s control, the paper-built tornado disintegrated in an instant like a car running out of fuel. The previously raging dust and waste paper, now like a torrential downpour, plummeted downwards, crashing into the prison with a swish.
The Paper Dragon also dissolved into pieces of grey-white paper, like dandelions blowing towards the sky under the sunlight. Jack the Ripper hugged Ayase Origami, spiraling down from a height of a hundred meters.
She held the katana in reverse with her right hand, piercing the surface of a rocky mountain to slow her descent, finally landing safely.
Soon, that rocky mountain was cleaved from top to bottom, splitting in half and falling to the ground.
Bloodline was not inactive; she had been observing the scene beneath the sun while squeezing out a large amount of blood from her body, forming a massive hammer that seemed to overshadow the sun’s rays, casting the world in shadow.
"Which side are you looking at?" She grinned, swinging the huge blood hammer, descending from the sky.
Golden hair fluttering, the red dress soaring like the evening sky, the vampire girl swung the hammer with full force, smashing onto the enormous pyramid.
At that moment, the world fell silent; then, the deafening roar spread.
The entire pyramid cracked from top to bottom. Every crack on the tower allowed sunlight to penetrate through.
In the end, beams of sunlight streamed down from the riddled pyramid, illuminating Julius’s head; the pyramid crumbled into countless chunks, pelting down onto him like a rainstorm.
Exhausted, Julius stood atop the rocky mountain, gazing at the disintegrating pyramid, rooted to the spot.
He suddenly laughed. He closed his eyes, as if awaiting death.
But at that moment, the deafening roar echoed, and black arcs suddenly formed in the air; a streak of black lightning shot up from the base of the rocky mountain, taking Julius from the summit into the prison.
Gu Qiye knelt on one knee, looked through the eye sockets of the mask at the unconscious Julius, then lifted his head to gaze at the sky above the prison.
At this moment, You Ruirui, clothed in black tight-fitting attire, was sliding upward on an expanding icy surface, her white hair flying, her figure as graceful as a supreme ice dancing performer.
She swiftly glided, like riding the wind and waves, arriving beneath the collapsing pyramid, then raising her hand, suddenly creating numerous massive ice spikes, intercepting the chunky pyramid fragments in mid-air.
With the thunderous sound of "Boom Boom—!", the ice spikes shattered all the rocks, replacing them with sky-fulls of ice dust flying in the sunlight, dazzling like stars.
On the ground below, Jack the Ripper set the kimono girl down from her embrace and handed her over to Xia Pingzhou, who passed Ayase Origami to the Queen’s Statue.
Afterwards, Jack the Ripper lifted her head, her pitch-black eyes like the polar night fixated on You Ruirui.
"The Rainbow Wings’ people?" she conjectured.
"Seems like it..." Xia Pingzhou murmured, "How did they end up here?"
You Ruirui slid along the ice, descending from the ice-blue cliff top, stopped beside Gu Qiye.
Bloodline folded her dragon wings, slowly descending, landing beside Xia Pingzhou and Jack the Ripper.
"Whoa... and who are these guests?" she tilted her head curiously.
"Seems like Rainbow Wings’ people, don’t let your guard down," Jack the Ripper said, "The captain should soon rescue people from underground; we can retreat at any moment."
Xia Pingzhou remained silent, thinking that due to failing to exchange information with his brother earlier, he was unaware that Rainbow Wings showed up at Hokkaido Superpower Prison.
This trouble just got big. Ji Minghuan initially intended to capture Julius alive, relying on the strength of the White Crow Travel Brigade in this mission, bringing this damned Salvation Society officer back for interrogation using Black Cocoon’s Restraint Truth, but now it seems difficult. To bring back Julius, at least first pass the hurdle of my brother and the Ice Woman.
Fortunately, there was still some good news; Ji Minghuan had a backup plan.
Yesterday at noon, Ji Minghuan pondered deeply, worried that the Salvation Society might have stationed a batch of reinforcements in the prison, thinking the brigade alone couldn’t capture Julius alive; hence he had to call some "reinforcements" over.
At this moment, his Third Body "Yaguba" was en route from Sapporo City.
And the First Body "Black Cocoon" naturally caught a ride. However, due to the possible presence of the Salvation Society, Black Cocoon couldn’t directly engage in combat, merely hanging around a tree casually.