"Will someone really attack us tonight?"
Louise asked worriedly at that moment.
"I don't know. But didn't that shinobi say it before? Their main mission this time is to take you back."
Lelei leaned on her long staff and spoke softly.
"If no one comes, then we'll just get some sleep here."
"By the way, are you sure their Byakugan can observe up to a distance of one kilometer?"
Louise nodded seriously.
"I'm certain. Back at the World Gate Base, I heard those shinobi mention it."
"That's good."
Lelei let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Just then, the door swung open and Dr. Hartley hurried in. Under the gaze of everyone present, he spoke gravely: "That shinobi was rescued. Dr. Amato and the other three masters are all dead in the laboratory!"
The room instantly fell into dead silence.
Louise tightened her grip on Saito's arm nervously.
"They've made their move," Tabitha said in a low voice.
The next moment, everyone's eyes turned to the virtual screen.
They were certain the shinobi would go there.
When that happened, the mages who had been positioned nearby in advance would step in to capture them.
Yet as time slowly passed—
The image still showed only the two of them, sound asleep in each other's arms.
Thirty minutes later, the impatient Kirche finally blurted out, "Well—"
But before she could finish, a sudden burst of rapid gunfire erupted outside!
Startled, she immediately leapt behind the "salamander."
"Lelei, protect them! I'll go check it out!"
Itami Yōji's face changed drastically.
At once, he seized the Type 64 Assault Rifle slung on his chest and strode quickly out of the room.
Lelei did not hesitate either, raising her staff to conjure a hemispherical magic barrier around everyone present.
Outside the front door below—
The ever-optimistic, prank-loving Katsumoto Wataru was expressionless as he unleashed a storm of bullets on his comrades.
"What are you doing?!"
"Are you insane?!"
Further back, Kuribayashi Shino and Kuwabara Sōichirō reacted quickly, finding cover and shouting in fury.
But Wataru remained silent.
"Damn it!"
"If that's how it is, don't blame us!"
Kuribayashi Shino clenched her teeth and made her decision.
Using her comrades' fire as cover, she leapt out from behind the wall, rolled twice on the ground to dodge incoming bullets, and fired three shots that blasted the rifle clean out of Wataru's hands.
Then she rushed forward, intent on smashing him across the forehead with her rifle butt.
She wanted to capture him alive, to force out why he had done this—
And then kill him with her own hands!
But what happened next shocked this woman.
For Wataru actually discarded the rifle in his hand—
And then, with masterful skill that belonged to no known martial art, he not only blocked her rifle butt, but smoothly wrested her weapon away, spun sharply, and drove the bayonet mounted beneath it straight into her chest!
In the final moment, she saw Wataru's back riddled with a dozen bullets—
Kuribayashi Shino collapsed to the ground, dead, her eyes wide open in unwilling disbelief.
Before her lay the corpse of Katsumoto Wataru.
"What the hell happened here?!"
Itami Yōji, rushing down, froze for a moment at the sight of his comrades' bodies strewn everywhere.
Then he demanded sharply of the survivors—
"Kuribayashi!!!"
Right behind him, Kurokawa Mari—
The instant she saw, she stumbled forward in panic, kneeling beside Shino to check her wounds.
But when she caught sight of the bloodied bayonet lodged in her heart, she covered her mouth in disbelief.
Not long after, mages emerged one by one around them, attempting to heal the fallen with magic.
Though in their hearts, they knew there was little hope.
[BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!]
At that moment, explosions suddenly erupted all across the city of Rondel, one blast after another, fireballs lighting up the night as countless buildings were reduced to rubble.
In an instant, the entire city was thrown into chaos.
This chaos flushed out the mages who had been hiding in the shadows; unable to restrain themselves any longer, they appeared in the streets.
There, they clashed with shinobi darting along rooftops, moving at high speed, and setting off explosions as they went.
Yet the shinobi showed no intention of engaging in a direct battle. Instead, they evaded and withdrew, occasionally hurling kunai tagged with explosive tags to keep the mages at bay.
Their plan was simple: to cause more explosions, to throw the city's magisters into complete disarray.
So in less than five minutes—
Rondel was ablaze on all sides.
Every quarter of the city seemed under siege, as though being bombarded by a massive enemy assault.
Meanwhile—
Beams of light streaked across the night sky like shooting stars.
They shone from the staves beneath the feet of mages flying through the air.
Almost all of them were masters.
"I never thought those otherworldly shinobi would dare launch an assault of this scale!"
On the roof of the Great Hall—
Sage Magnus and Sage Mimoza stood together, their expressions grim as they surveyed the city.
"What are they trying to do? Do they think they can defeat a city with nearly one hundred thousand mages?"
But Sage Mimoza frowned in thought.
"Something doesn't feel right… but if they want to conquer this world, they would indeed have to eliminate us mages first."
"Could it be they're planning to abduct Louise while suppressing us at the same time?"
Hearing this, Sage Magnus's face darkened with anger.
"So they look down on us, do they? Then let's show them just how terrifying the power of magic truly is!"
[BOOM!!!]
"ROOOAAAR—!"
Yet before his words had even faded, a thunderous blast erupted in the west of the city, billowing thick white smoke into the sky.
And from within the smoke came a mighty, resonant roar that pierced through the night and echoed across the entire city.
The two sages, along with the mages guarding them, turned their heads at once—only to be stunned by the sight of a massive crimson-scaled Fire Dragon.
An ancient, fully grown Fire Dragon!!!
In the next moment—
That Fire Dragon opened its gaping jaws and gathered a blinding mass of firelight.
"Not good!"
Sage Magnus wasted no time. A pale green whirlwind surged around him as, under countless eyes, he shot skyward.
Rising to a certain height, he leveled his staff at the Fire Dragon.
In an instant, with magic power surging—
A massive, horizontally whirling tornado condensed before him.
With terrifying force, it hurtled straight toward the Fire Dragon.
But the distance was too great. The dragon's fiery breath had already descended upon the city below, and as its head swung, it carved a sweeping arc of flame across the surroundings.
In an instant, the raging sea of fire devoured every house and street in its path, leaving who knew how many dead and wounded.
[BOOM!!]
Not long after, the tornado of green light, like a spiraling column of wind, came crashing down from the sky.
It struck the dragon's massive body, blasting it bodily toward the city's edge.
The beast crashed heavily into the ground, throwing up a towering plume of black smoke.
At the same time—
The wild winds snuffed out the nearby infernos that had been blazing out of control.
Even so—
Despite the overwhelming force of Sage Magnus's spell, it barely harmed the Fire Dragon.
For its scales were born with an extraordinary resistance to magic.
"Damn it! Those otherworlders truly know no bounds. Unforgivable!"
Sage Magnus was consumed by fury.
Yet he could only grit his teeth and charge once more to meet the dragon as it soared toward him again.
No matter what, he had to hold it outside the city.
Meanwhile—
The "safehouse" where Louise, Saito, and the others were hiding had also come under shinobi attack.
...
At the front doors stood Dr. Hartley, gripping a staff tipped with a diamond-shaped piece of gold. His cold eyes fixed on Uchiha Teru and Yamanaka Kōsuke, who appeared at the far end of the corridor.
"Brutes from another world—your lives end here!"
As soon as the words fell, he tapped the floor with the staff's butt.
A dazzling golden magic circle flared beneath his feet, ornate and resplendent.
The sight immediately put Teru and Kōsuke on guard.
In the next instant—
From the floor and walls of the corridor, countless sharp metallic spikes burst forth, lancing toward them with terrifying speed.
With no choice, the two quickly retreated, avoiding the worst of the onslaught.
This magic was no weaker than a kekkei genkai—and clearly, the man's strength far surpassed that of the other magicians.
Inside the hall beyond the doors behind Dr. Hartley—
Uchiha Tekka and Yamanaka Inoichi wore grim expressions.
Just moments ago, they had watched helplessly as Louise and the others stepped through a "door" and vanished without a trace.
No matter what ninjutsu they tried, they couldn't break through the magical barrier conjured by a little girl, Lelei.
This made the two squad leaders realize that capturing Louise was far harder than they had anticipated.
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