A faint glow of yellow light emits from the black-robed figure's hands and seeps into the musket. The moment the black-robed figure points the musket at the leader and pulls the trigger, the bullet flies out of the musket toward the head of the leader, followed by a "whoosh!" At the same time, the same yellow glow emits from the back of the musket. Under our dumbfounded gazes, the bullet pierces the leader's head, and then, "Bang!" it explodes, completely blasting the leader's head into pieces.
Wait! Is this thing really a musket? There was no gunpowder explosion sound, no smoke. It also doesn't seem to have a reloading mechanism. So maybe, it isn't a musket at all. It just looks similar to one. This isn't important right now; Shiro will take a look at that weird musket later.
After a shot, the black-robed figure throws off the robe and hangs the musket on her back. Beneath the black robe is a young-looking human female, roughly 20 years old, or even younger—surprisingly young, given that she is already at the yellow level of the mortal realm. Her face is refined, with delicate features and a pair of sharp blue eyes. A combination of joy and pain flashes in her eyes as she maintains an icy, determined expression. She has golden hair that is tied into a simple ponytail, reaching a little below her shoulder.
The mysterious woman opens her right hand; the yellow glow of her magic power flows into her right fingerless glove, lighting up complex patterns on it. Then, a sword made entirely of metal materializes on her right palm. She immediately grips its hilt. Wow! Another interesting toy!
A faint glow of yellow light emanates from her entire body, its intensity varying across her body as she shoots toward the cultists at a speed that would make her appear blurry in the eyes of an ordinary human. When she arrives in front of the first cultist, she swings the metal sword. In the instant before her sword touches the orange-level cultist in front of her, her magic power surges from her hand into her sword, causing it to vibrate at a high frequency.
The cultist, completely powerless to resist, is effortlessly sliced in half, yet the sword's relentless momentum does not stop. Under the mysterious woman's control, the blade flows fluidly through a few nearby red-level cultists, cutting them horizontally. At this point, the remaining cultists have already gathered around the statue, under the leadership of 11 orange-level cultists.
The cultists' reaction is perfectly reasonable; if they don't gather together, the mysterious woman will simply harvest their lives one by one. Unfortunately, the gap between them and the mysterious woman is simply too vast. Not only did they already expend a large amount of magic power to feed the statue earlier on, but the disparity between orange and yellow levels is not something that can be overcome by sheer quantity alone.
Seeing the cultists grouped together, she stops radiating magic power from her body and cuts off the supply to her right glove. The glove's complex patterns dim, and the metallic sword in her right hand dissipates.
Then, she presses her left hand against the ground, pouring her transparent, faintly glowing yellow magic power into her fingerless glove. The complex patterns on the glove instantly flare to life, burning brighter than the right one's did moments ago, before it begins to smoke and the light fades.
Moments later, hundreds of metallic pikes erupt from the ground beneath the cultists' feet, skewering most of them where they stand. Red-level cultists, unable to react in time, are hoisted into the air on the sharp spikes. A few who manage to dodge the worst are left with deep, bleeding wounds. Most of the cultists lose short-term combat effectiveness.
The orange-level cultists don't fare much better. Although they are not injured, the mysterious woman's goal isn't to injure them; it is to trap them. The metallic pikes sprout around each cultist, forming cages and trapping them inside.
In prime condition, they might have been able to escape. But they've already expended too much magic. Now, they don't have the power to break free in time.
As for the transforming cultists, they died moments after the cult's leader was shot dead. Evidently, without the leader to control it, the 'metamorphosis ceremony' is quite a high-risk endeavor.
After dealing with all the cultists, the mysterious woman doesn't finish them off. Instead, she walks toward us, lowers herself to our level, ...lifts both of us over each of her shoulders, and runs off?!
Wait! Where is she taking us?! Is this considered kidnapping? We struggle to no avail, since we have nowhere to exert our strength while being lifted by our waists. We don't feel any hostility from her, so we dare not use our draconic power. We can't control it precisely enough to ensure we will not accidentally hurt her, especially when she is completely unguarded against us.
"Don't be afraid, little ones. I will take you out of here right away. Don't struggle, or else you might fall." Her tone is quite gentle, but it's a pity we are facing her back, so we can't see her expression. Shiro wants to tell her that Shiro and Kuro's strength is not weaker than hers, but on second thought, she decides against it. She thinks that since this mysterious woman has so many interesting gadgets, going with her doesn't seem like a bad idea.
We stop our futile struggle. "We are not afraid, big sister. We will not struggle anymore. Where are you taking us?" Shiro replies. Kuro nods in agreement, but since we are facing the mysterious woman's back, Shiro doesn't think that she will be able to see Kuro's nod.
"I'm taking you two to the surface. We will talk about your other questions when we reach the surface, alright? I need to concentrate on navigating this... maze-like tunnel." The mysterious woman replies. Shiro gets the feeling the mysterious woman wants to curse when she pauses just now, but she resists the urge. Perhaps it's because we are here?
We pull off our hoods. After all, we'll have to take them off later when we talk to the mysterious woman anyway, so what's the point of still wearing them now? Isn't it better to remove them? The hoods are not part of our bodies like our mini-dresses, nor can they integrate into them like our masks, so they aren't the most comfortable to wear. Of course, they aren't so uncomfortable either; otherwise, we will not wear them at all.
Since we have nothing to do now, Shiro simply closes her eyes and continues to analyze the information gathered by [The Eyes of Deconstruction] about the transforming cultist and the statue. As for Kuro, she simply stares expressionlessly at Shiro's face as always.
After a while—30 minutes, to be exact—we are still being carried through the tunnel by the mysterious woman. Her speed is constantly at the level of an ordinary human running at full speed—about 10 meters per second, according to Kuro. This is completely different from the ten-minute walk when the cultist was leading the way.
This 10 meters per second is, of course, not her limit. What normal person would run at full speed while trying to navigate an unfamiliar, maze-like tunnel? But that isn't what is important right now. Shiro has finally completed her analysis of the cultist and understands what the so-called 'metamorphosis ceremony' does.
The essence of the 'metamorphosis ceremony' is to haphazardly fuse the essence's glyph of other species—in this case, a fish—into humans. The designer of this ceremony is indeed a genius: despite possessing a very limited amount of knowledge, that person managed to come up with a method to modify the essence's glyph—even if such a method is extremely reckless and ultimately has a very low success rate.
Shiro is now quite interested in meeting the designer of the 'metamorphosis ceremony.' Of course, she will not recruit the designer; after all, Kuro would not want such a dangerous individual near Shiro. At most, she will just have a friendly exchange of ideas with that person before sending them to the 'Underworld.'
The cult's leader was also excellent; he managed to keep the transforming cultists alive and well even when they underwent such a haphazard modification of their essence's glyph. If it weren't for the sudden interruption of the mysterious woman, those 12 transforming cultists might not have died and might have even successfully transformed. It's a pity he is dead now, but it doesn't matter, as Shiro believes his secret lies in that weird statue.
"Found it!" The mysterious woman shouts. Her voice contains an undisguised sense of joy. Shiro thinks she must be smiling happily right now, but because neither of us can see her face, we don't know whether she is smiling or not. It seems she has been quite frustrated by the tunnel.
After leaving the exit, the mysterious woman pulls out a metal rod with complex patterns on it from her belt, points one end to the sky, and injects her magic power into it. A ball of glowing green light shoots out from the rod's end that points to the sky. After flying some distance above the town, it explodes into a dazzling green light.
"Whew!" The mysterious woman exclaims as she lowers us to the ground. She is finally going to put us down! Looking closely at the mysterious woman, she wears shiny silver knight armor, which perfectly fits her. It's definitely customized. How did she manage to blend in with the cultists while wearing such shiny armor in the first place? Are all the cultists blind?
Even after that bright green flare, the town still shows no reaction. Yep, something is definitely wrong with the residents here. By the way, what's that flare for anyway?
"Alright! We're good for now." She just plops directly on the ground without any knightly demeanor. No, we haven't even sat yet. Why are you already on the ground? Where did your reliable image go?
"I am Alice, Alice Pendragon. What's your name, little ones?" She introduces herself. Pendragon? Why don't you just say your name is Artoria directly? Is it because your eyes are blue instead of green or because you can't shoot a giant beam of light from your sword?
"I am Shiro, and she is Kuro." Shiro points at herself and then at Kuro. Kuro nods in agreement. The mysterious—no, Alice looks at our faces, stunned. No wonder she didn't seem stunned by our explosive adorableness before; it turns out she hadn't looked at our faces until just now.
"Your eyes... If only I had come earlier..." A combination of pain and guilt flashes in her eyes as she looks at Kuro's eyes. Why? Hasn't she seen vertical-slit pupils before? Her reaction is so weird. Has she misunderstood something?
"Kuro's eyes won't change even if you come earlier." Shiro says. "This is how Kuro is."
"I appreciate it, but you're not required to console me." She says. Shiro isn't comforting her. Shiro just tells the truth.
Shiro continues, "I—"
"No need to continue, Shiro. I am sorry..." Alice cuts in. She isn't listening at all! Forget it; just let her think whatever she wants!
Kuro's eyes are vertical-slit pupils. She prefers them that way. The inherent essences in the dragons' eyes can freely transdifferentiate between cone inherent essences and rod inherent essences. This process can be automatic according to the light or manual. This means as light increases, dragons' rod inherent essences will automatically transform into cone inherent essences, and the other way around when light decreases.
To fully transdifferentiate our eyes' inherent essences takes around an hour. Of course, actual time will not be that long, as we will most likely only need to transdifferentiate some and not all. This is also why Shiro can read after the sun sets.
Muscles in dragons' eyes are different from other life forms. They can adjust the shape of our pupils between round and vertical-slit pupils according to our needs. We also have a reflective layer in the back of our eyes, but it, too, can adjust its reflectiveness according to the light level.
Kuro prefers to maintain a large amount of rod inherent essences and adjust her pupils to vertical-slit pupils, as they suit her style of preferring close combat. Meanwhile, Shiro lets her eyes adjust the amount of cone and rod inherent essences by themselves without interfering while adjusting her pupils to round.
Suddenly a legion of soldiers storms into the town and captures all the people in the town. The people in the town don't even put up any resistance; they are all easily subdued by the soldiers.
Upon seeing the soldiers, Alice instantly springs up from the ground and returns to the original demeanor.
"Your Highness." The knight leading the army greets Alice with a respectful bow. Your Highness? According to the books, this title is just for princes or princesses, isn't it? Is she a royal princess? Wow, this is getting super interesting!