[Some hours ago.]

​"What is my order, Master?" Jessica asked, standing rigidly on top of a gothic roof. The chilling wind whipped at her uniform, but her silver eyes remained utterly devoid of emotion. She was staring at Master Teacher Nadia, whose calculating gaze was fixed on the sprawling expanse of Galaxy City.

​"You know there are Galaxy cities in the first, second and third worlds?" Nadia asked, a small, chilling smile on her face, viewing entire realms as mere squares on her chessboard.

​"I have never been to the Third World, so I don’t know." Jessica answered respectfully, her voice hollow.

​"That’s understandable... Anyway, this is a side mission from your main mission." She said, turning around to face Jessica, the dark robes swirling in the updraft.

​"Side Mission?" Jessica tilted her head to the side, a bit confused, her mind trying to process the sudden deviation from their parameters.

​"Yup... Make sure to reach the final round. You will encounter Mirabella. I want you to destroy her core, can you complete this mission?"

​Jessica paused, thinking for a moment, running thousands of combat simulations against the Dragon Academy’s Captain. "Mirabella is powerful, if she drops any summon, I won’t be able to win." She said, assessing the raw limits of her current host body.

​"Don’t worry." Nadia snapped her hand, and the spatial fabric warped. A jagged villain crystal appeared, hovering above her palm. This was far different from the normal, mass-produced villain crystals the demons used to artificially increase their strength; it was a deep, cursed red, glowing with pure, concentrated death energy that sought to devour the energy in the air.

​"Master, if I reveal this in the competition, I will surely be disqualified, I won’t even have the chance to use it." Jessica said, staring warily at the red crystal in Nadia’s hand. The tournament’s detection arrays were forged by the world’s greatest mages to prevent exactly this kind of corruption.

​"Of course I know that... The death energy will be sealed by me. As long, I am close by, no one will be able to sense anything." The Crystal floated gently to Jessica, who slowly caught it, feeling the freezing chill of the abyss bite into her palm.

​"This crystal takes away the ability to use Spirit energy... Don’t worry, it already marks Mirabella as a target, so her spirit energy will be sealed. Without her spirit energy, she won’t be able to use any skill... That’s your perfect opportunity to deal with her." She said, her eyes gleaming with malicious anticipation, and added:

​"Take note of the time. This will be effective in five minutes... You can use whatever excuse on how you acquire it, I will cover up your excuse."

​Jessica looked up at her from the crystal, a flicker of true, human confusion bleeding through. "Why all these trouble for that girl? We already achieved the first stage of the plan. I can simply quit the competition, and we start the main stage."

​"Are you questioning me, girl?" Nadia asked, a slight frown on her face, her aura flaring dangerously.

​"I will never." Jessica said, immediately bowing her head in perfect submission.

​"Little child, as long Mirabella has her strength, we can’t accomplish the second stage without issues. Besides... You don’t have to worry, Carl destroyed Ethan’s core, and he goes unpunished due to the competition’s rules, same will also work for you." Nadia rationalized, brilliantly twisting the tournament’s own brutal legal loopholes to authorize an assassination.

​Jessica stared back at the cursed crystal, feeling its heavy, dark weight, then looked back at Nadia. "I will try my best."

​"Don’t try your best!! Remember, this mission isn’t for you to win the competition!! Try to go for one strike!" She snapped at her, her facade breaking to reveal the ruthless conspirator beneath.

​Jessica swallowed, her throat dry, seamlessly storing the crystal away into her spatial storage. "I will give my all! I won’t stop still I accomplish this goal! If I can’t, I will die--"

​"--Don’t fucking die!! You’re still important to me, very important... If you can’t complete this mission, simply redraw! Do you understand?!" Nadia ordered, unwilling to sacrifice her most precious biological key just yet.

​Jessica exhaled softly, the perfect, unfeeling puppet once more: "I understand, Master."

__

​[Present.]

[Arena.]

​The air inside the heavily shielded coliseum was thick enough to cut with a blade. Underneath the three protective barriers, Mirabella stood perfectly still.

​Mirabella stared at Jessica, moving her golden gaze on the lady’s body, easily reading the tensions in her muscles.

’Sorry, I plan to destroy your core... And nothing will stop me.’ She thought, her resolve absolute.

​’Mirabella, you have crossed my Master countless times without even knowing. Today, I will destroy your core and settle the score.’ Jessica thought, entirely unaware Mirabella could hear her deepest thoughts through.

​’Oh?’ Mirabella turned her gaze subtly to the high Sword Empire’s royal room, her blue eyes turning ice-cold as they locked onto the Master Teacher’s silhouette.

​’Nadia, seems you know my plan. Anyway, I will surely clash with you if I want to rescue Jessica.’ She thought, accepting the inevitable war. She blinked her focus back to the stage as a hyper-compressed, razor-sharp red string abruptly appeared directly before her eyes, humming with lethal force.

​"....?!"

​Mirabella slowly turned her head towards Jessica, seeing the deadly strings materializing all over the place, weaving a flawless, inescapable web; surrounding her completely.

​"Using the same moves against me? Are you that stupid?" Mirabella asked with a slight, almost disappointed frown. She had literally just watched this technique dismantle the Azul clan’s heir.

​"That’s the skill she used against me!!" Hitachi exclaimed from the Dragon section.

​"Be careful Captain!!" The rest of the vanguard team yelled in panic, knowing that a single touch meant instant defeat.

​"Piff! What can these things do to my Big sister?" Carl said with a relaxed smirk, crossing his arms and leaning back, completely unfazed by the attack.

​".....?!"

​The rest turned to him in profound surprise, not knowing why he was so incredibly confident when Mirabella was trapped in a meat grinder.

​"Pathetic, using an ability that doesn’t belong to you..." Mirabella’s voice echoed with supreme authority.

​BOOM!

​A massive, overwhelming wave of pure golden energy violently burst out from Mirabella’s core. The shockwave didn’t just push the strings; it instantly shattered the laws binding them, instantly cutting the whole strings into harmless, dissipating pieces of magical dust, completely shocking the whole Arena into silence.

​’Is the gap between us fundamentally this big?! I couldn’t even twitch a muscle, or move with those things around me.’ Hitachi thought in absolute disbelief, his pride taking another catastrophic hit as he witnessed the true apex of their generation.

​"Haha! You guys haven’t seen anything." Carl laughed out loud, his absolute faith validated once again.

​Jessica raised a silver eyebrow, failing to calculate how her attack was neutralized through sheer brute force. She immediately adapted and shot forward like a fired cannonball, drawing her sword to close the distance.

​BAM!!!

​"....?!"

​Absolutely everyone watched in horror as she violently flew backward mid-dash, smashing heavily on the reinforced stone ground, violently vomiting a massive mouthful of dark blood before she even reached the twenty-meter mark around Mirabella.

​"What just happened?!" Rose asked in deep shock, her eyes failing to track any counterattack.

​"The Captain didn’t even move a single inch?! Why did Jessica flew back and even vomited blood?!" Austin asked, his jaw dropping.

​"What is this?!" Nirvana was entirely speechless, her eyes wide opened in pure disbelief at the phantom strike.

​"Mirabella didn’t even move? But knocked down Jessica, how?" Captain Eve of the Eagle Academy was entirely dumbfounded.

​Up in the VIP booth, Master Teacher Hayatobi leaned forward, his soul eyes spinning wildly.

’Are those her guardians?’ Hayatobi thought in genuine surprise. For a fraction of a microsecond upon impact, he stared at the massive, golden armor of a lone clone which violently appeared before his eyes to strike Jessica, and then seamlessly vanished into the ether again.

​’Wait... Something isn’t structurally right here.’ He thought in profound disbelief, his knowledge of the skill failing him:

​The standard function dictated that summoned guardians should be completely invisible to anyone below Lv500, while those strictly at or above that level should be able to perceive their energy signatures. He also distinctly remembered they weren’t clad in any armor. But now... The Ten guardians were fully encased in heavy golden armor, and they appeared only at the exact moment they attacked, even to his Lv500 vision.

​In utter shock, he realized the guardians were now completely invisible to even Lv500 masters, existing outside normal spatial dimensions, and would only briefly flash into reality to deliver a catastrophic physical blow.

​’How did she upgrade such a complex skill to this terrifying degree?!!’ Hayatobi yelled inwardly, a cold sweat forming on his brow.

​In the Sword Empire’s box, Nadia’s composure was completely fracturing.

’Was that a clone? Or an advanced summon?’ Nadia thought in pure shock, entirely unable to read Mirabella’s baseline. She violently clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms:

​’What the hell are you waiting for! Use the crystal I gave you!!’ She snapped inwardly, already leaning dangerously at the absolute edge of her velvet seat.