A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

Five minutes ago, in the night sky above the port.

The night wind blew past. The flames of the Wind and Fire Wheels shifted and faded like candlelight, scattering a few sparks down toward the pitch-black sea.

Red Lotus hovered in midair on the Wind and Fire Wheels, holding the Fire-Tipped Spear vertically behind her back.

Looking down from above, she stared at the eleven imposing figures in the distance, thinking:

'Just as White Jack said, the people from Death Crow are here. Even their arrival time was calculated perfectly... Just who is he? How does he have such a clear grasp of a criminal organization's internal movements?'

Red Lotus didn't act rashly. Instead, she immediately scanned the port, and before long, spotted the magical girl Ember.

The next moment, however, Death Crow's eleven members scattered. Two of them rushed toward her at extreme speed, flanking her from the left and right in a pincer maneuver. It seemed they had no intention of letting her leave.

Red Lotus raised a delicate eyebrow, her gaze sweeping downward through her mask.

What caught her eye was a girl with platinum-blonde hair in a white dress suit. She wore a veil over her face. Her nose was elegant, but the corners of her eyes and lips bore the marks of being stitched together with thread, making her look like a repaired ragdoll.

Bai introduced herself, lifting the stitched corners of her mouth in a smile.

"White tight-ass, 'White Jack.' That's my name. You lackeys better remember it," Red Lotus mocked, cradling her long spear in her arms as she glanced sideways.

She looked at the Italian young man in a black-and-white butler's uniform, complete with blond hair and blue eyes.

"I won't bother introducing myself." Cosimo stood with his hands in his pockets, a faint smile curling his lips.

He pondered for a moment, then turned to look at Bai. "Miss Bai, I've actually always been curious about what your puppets look like. I haven't seen them since I joined Death Crow."

"Oh, you want to see?" Bai smiled. "Then stick up your wolf tail first and show me your sincerity."

"Please don't say such things to a reserved butler... I'll get embarrassed," Cosimo said, covering his face like a little boy.

His body then underwent a terrifying mutation. The butler uniform tore apart as his muscles swelled. His blond hair darkened, pushed up by sprouting wolf ears, and black fur covered his entire body.

Just like that, a werewolf burst into existence. As the ocean surged, its black fur rippled in the sea breeze like rolling waves.

He slowly raised his crimson eyes, meeting Red Lotus's gaze.

Red Lotus blinked. "So the movies were real?"

Bai's white dress fluttered fiercely in the night wind. She raised her right hand, her fingertips tangled with nearly invisible threads. The moonlight illuminated two of those silk strings.

The ends of the threads connected to a puppet boy and a puppet girl.

The puppeteer, Bai, flicked the threads. The two small puppets vanished. In their place appeared a black-haired boy in a white hospital gown and a brown-haired girl in a hemp dress.

The boy and girl stood side by side, their heads and shoulders drooping slightly. Their hollow, eerie gazes made them look like replicas of the twins from The Shining.

"Puppets?" Red Lotus frowned.

"People always find the things they couldn't have or the things they lost in childhood especially unforgettable. So, after I grew up, I went to the cemetery in my hometown... and brought back my childhood friends," Bai said casually. "The two of them died very young. In order to have them stay with me forever, I could only dig up their corpses and turn them into puppets."

She paused, continuing to speak as if to herself:

"This boy is named Joel, and this girl is named Valli... Coincidentally, the important people in my life always share something in common in their names."

"Sick tastes... I don't have time to play with you," Red Lotus commented. Stepping on the Wind and Fire Wheels, she prepared to fly away.

If the opponents were just ordinary criminals, it would be fine, but these people were Death Crow—the most dangerous and powerful criminals in the world!

Xia Ningzhi wasn't stupid, nor was she a muscle-brained idiot overflowing with a sense of justice. So, she knew her most pressing priority was to use the Huntian Ling to bundle up her own muscle-brained sister and brother and get them out of there!

"She's getting away. Are you just going to watch?" the werewolf asked hoarsely, scratching his ear.

"Alright, alright, I know you can't fly. How does that make you any different from a big dog?" Bai said. Raising her right hand slightly, she used the puppet strings to pull the boy in the hospital gown, Joel.

Joel abruptly raised his head, veins bulging on his forehead, and reached out toward Red Lotus.

In the night sky, Red Lotus's body suddenly stalled. The Wind and Fire Wheels sank slightly, their flames flickering.

She glanced down at the Wind and Fire Wheels, feeling as if they had suddenly grown heavy... But she quickly realized the anomaly was in her own body.

The gravity weighing down on her seemed countless times heavier in that instant, making every movement exceptionally sluggish and difficult.

'Is it that boy's ability...?'

Red Lotus wondered, her gaze falling on the hospital-gowned boy in the distance.

"Nice block, Miss Bai... And for the record, a flying werewolf wouldn't be called a werewolf," Cosimo spoke up again, though his voice had already transformed into a hoarse bestial roar.

Using all four limbs, he shot forward and scaled one of the port's wooden cabins, twisting his body at the edge of the roof. His paws shattered the roof as he launched himself into the air toward Red Lotus.

Under the effects of the multiplied gravity, Red Lotus's movements had become incredibly slow.

In a fleeting second, a flash of fire ignited. A line of blazing fire swept fiercely from the spear's shaft, scorching the Wolf Butler's claws.

Then, a glint of cold light flashed as the girl spun the long spear, thrusting it toward the werewolf's throat with unstoppable force.

The Wolf Butler was flying through midair. With nothing to push off of, he naturally couldn't change his trajectory mid-flight.

So, braving the scorching flames, he pushed forward and grabbed the crimson spear shaft. Relying on his extraordinary brute strength, he yanked Red Lotus toward him and slashed his other claw at her abdomen.

"Roar—!" A feral howl slammed into her face alongside a gale-force wind. Red Lotus's tied-up hair was blown loose, cascading down like a waterfall.

"You have bad breath..." the girl muttered darkly. A strip of red silk fluttered out from above her head, wrapping around the werewolf's body.

In the blink of an eye, the three-meter-tall, burly werewolf was wrapped up like a red dumpling.

"Get lost."

Red Lotus glared at him fiercely. The Huntian Ling sent the Wolf Butler spinning and plummeting downward, kicking up a gust of wild wind.

With a loud bang, the werewolf smashed a massive crater into the ground.

"So focused on teasing the big dog, did you treat me like air?" A spectral voice suddenly drifted from behind Red Lotus. Realizing with a start that she had forgotten to keep an eye on the puppeteer, she snapped her head around.

At that moment, Bai was already standing on the roof of the wooden cabin behind her.

The puppeteer tugged at the threads in her hands. Countless invisible silk strings wove together in midair, forming an inescapable net.

Red Lotus froze, glancing around, but couldn't see a single gap to slip through.

In the few short seconds she had spent fighting the Wolf Butler, this puppeteer named Bai had laid such a trap. It gave her a secret jolt of shock.

'This woman is more dangerous than that big dog,' she judged.

The next instant, she tried to flourish her spear and sweep out a curtain of fire to burn the threads away. But due to the multiplied gravity, her movements were ultimately a step too slow.

As Bai clenched her fingers together and yanked the core thread, thousands of strings rapidly tightened, catching Red Lotus and dragging her off the Wind and Fire Wheels toward the ground.

"Your turn, Valli."

Bai murmured softly. The puppet girl in the hemp dress suddenly raised her hand.

A flock of pitch-black sheep manifested beneath the night sky. Like a dark cloud, they drifted across the port grounds, surging toward Red Lotus.

The moment Red Lotus hit the ground, she swept out a curtain of fire to incinerate the strings binding her, finally breaking free. But it was too late to dodge the black sheep.

Though she didn't know exactly what was happening, her instincts screamed that these sheep were absolutely lethal.

She unraveled the Huntian Ling wrapped around Cosimo, and the silk fabric formed a red veil in front of her, blocking the flock of black sheep.

But then, an unimaginable scene unfolded—the black sheep dissolved, turning into a rolling tide of black mud that spread out and submerged both Red Lotus and the Huntian Ling.

For a moment, she couldn't move at all, and the silk cloth was firmly glued in place.

Bai slowly floated down from the wooden cabin, landing beside Valli and Joel.

"Good, you can rest now." She reached out and patted the two puppet children on the head, and they vanished.

The furious werewolf exhaled heavily through his nose, his chest and snout heaving violently. Having completely lost his mind, he launched himself at the mud-trapped Red Lotus and violently tore off her metal mask.

With a sharp crack, the mask shattered. The tip of his claw carved a deep gash into the girl's forehead. Blood poured down, dyeing her right eye red.

"What a rude big dog."

Xia Ningzhi raised her lively, clear eyes, wrinkling her nose slightly as she glared at the Wolf Butler.

In an instant, blazing fire erupted from the Fire-Tipped Spear, incinerating the black mud beneath her feet.

As the werewolf roared within the sea of fire, Xia Ningzhi stomped lightly on the butt of the Fire-Tipped Spear, sending the weapon spinning up into her hands. Girl and wolf danced amidst the flames. Claws and spear shaft clashed repeatedly, sending out sparks of cold light that shone brighter than the roaring fire.

"So annoying, so annoying! I'll show you, stupid dog, the spearmanship I learned at the youth center!" Xia Ningzhi said, her expression turning sharp. She snapped her wrist and shouted:

"Flick!"

The spear tip struck outward from the bottom up, deflecting the wolf's claws.

Sparks scattered like debris, falling into the sea of fire.

Then, the girl spun and lunged forward, aiming straight for the werewolf's throat. "Thrust!"

The werewolf leaned back to retreat, but a charred, bloody line was still scorched across his dark throat. Finally, Xia Ningzhi delivered a clean, decisive horizontal sweep, smashing into the werewolf's temple. His wolf ear tore open in a nasty laceration, oozing blood.

"Sweep!" Xia Ningzhi's expression was icy. She had never been this angry before. Her younger brother and sister were clearly still waiting for her, yet she was trapped here by a stupid wolf.

"I already said I don't have time to walk the dog! Get lost!" Xia Ningzhi said coldly. The next instant, the Huntian Ling crossed the sea of fire, wrapping around the wolf's waist like a crimson python.

Controlling the silk ribbon with her left hand and gripping the spear with her right, the girl was just about to pierce the Wolf Butler's chest with a single thrust.

However, right at that moment, countless tough silk threads reappeared in midair, flattening the Huntian Ling in the sky while simultaneously binding Xia Ningzhi's arms.

"Crap!"

Xia Ningzhi stiffened, her body paralyzed as she stood in the sea of fire.

"To think someone would fall for the same trick twice. You must be the kind of woman with no real cunning in her daily life. Men don't like girls like that, you know." Bai tilted her head, speaking to Xia Ningzhi from behind.

Following closely behind, the werewolf leaped across the sea of flames, throwing himself at her. He slashed his claw forward, piercing straight through Xia Ningzhi's abdomen.

With a sickening squelch, blood sprayed outward. The moment it hit the sea of fire, it boiled into white steam.

Xia Ningzhi's face twitched. Muffling a groan, she coughed up a mouthful of blood.

'How are Xiao Li and A-Qing doing?' she wondered in a daze, lifting her eyes from the flames to look toward the distant shipping container area.

At that moment, she witnessed a baffling scene: a beam of blue lightning flashed with a roar. Then, taking the place of a girl in a gothic dress, a figure in a blue combat suit was pierced through the back by a silver bullet.

Blue Pigeon slowly collapsed to the ground as the gothic-dressed girl stared blankly at his figure.

"...A-Qing?"

Amid the flames, Xia Ningzhi's eyes went wide, and she murmured hoarsely in a daze.

"Oh my, you still have the free time to care about others?" Bai asked.

"Let me go! Let me go, my brother is still over there!" Fighting through the agonizing pain in her abdomen, she screamed hysterically, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.

"Don't torture a girl. Just kill her directly." Tilting her head slightly, Bai asked the mindless werewolf in a cold voice, "You are a butler, after all, aren't you?"

"I know, I know." The Wolf Butler panted heavily, raising a claw to clutch his forehead. He had already regained his sanity. Wrapped in blazing fire, his claw swung toward Xia Ningzhi's chest.

But right at that moment, a bone-deep chill washed over Bai and the Wolf Butler's bodies. Then, the roaring sea of fire froze, turning into a desolate sheet of solid ice.

By the time the human and the wolf realized what had happened, a heavy layer of frost had condensed over their bodies. They were unable to move, as though filled with lead.

Amidst a scraping whoosh, a girl in a pitch-black bodysuit shot over from a distance. Sliding across the ice, she closed the gap in the blink of an eye.

Holding a seven-meter-long ice blade in her right hand, she slashed at the frozen Bai and the werewolf, intending to cut them both in half at the waist.

But in that exact moment, Lorenzo flipped through the Bible in the distance. As the pages faintly glowed, a wooden Door slowly materialized in front of him.

The Pope opened the Door. Behind it was a connection to the distance, revealing the frozen Bai and the Wolf Butler struggling within the frost.

His gaze passed through the two of them, landing on the bodysuit-clad girl who was rocketing toward them across the ice, her murderous intent chilling.

"How troublesome... Why did we have to run into someone like this?"

Lorenzo let out a soft sigh. Reaching both hands through the doorframe, he pulled Bai and the Wolf Butler through the Door from the other side, then shut the wooden Door.

The wooden Door closed, teleporting the two members of Death Crow away. Zero watched the scene, furrowing her brow slightly.

The ice blade in her hand collapsed. She stopped sliding, quickly turning her head as she pulled Xia Ningzhi into her arms.

Zero's face darkened slightly. She ran a hand over the girl's body, instantly freezing the bloody wound on her abdomen to keep the blood from pouring out.

Xia Ningzhi could no longer keep her eyes open.

In her haze, she felt a cool sensation, as though she were being brushed by a cool breeze by a lake on a summer evening. Her mind grew heavier and heavier, until she could hardly think straight.

The next second, a scene suddenly flashed through the girl's mind: the boy in the combat suit, his body pierced by a bullet, collapsing to the ground.

And so, barely conscious, she fought to pry her heavy eyelids open. She saw it—the back of a girl in a pitch-black bodysuit.

For some reason, Xia Ningzhi felt that this silhouette was inexplicably familiar... It was like seeing that girl from her childhood, the one with a personality as frigid as ice.

That cold-faced girl had always held her hand, walking ahead of her without ever looking back.

"...Sis?" she wanted to ask, but she couldn't make a sound anymore. Her throat was incredibly hoarse.

"Just go to sleep..." Zero said, not looking back. "I'll take you away. I'll heal you."

Xia Ningzhi couldn't hear what the person was saying clearly. But her lips twitched. She desperately wanted to scream at her, 'I don't care who you are, just please save my brother and sister.'

But she had no strength left. Her lips moved for a long time, and finally, a frantic tear rolled from the corner of her eye as she managed to force out one or two blurry words:

"Save... save him."

Zero froze, then looked back at Xia Ningzhi.

But by then, Xia Ningzhi had already closed her eyes, losing consciousness.

"BOOM—!!!"

In that very moment, Zero suddenly heard a deafening explosion ring out from afar, sounding like the very heavens and earth splitting apart.

She and the three members of Death Crow all turned their heads at the same time. Over in the shipping container zone of the port, a veil of black-and-blue flames surged into the sky, looking almost like a phoenix undergoing nirvana.

Once the curtain of fire dissipated, a girl with blue flames trailing from the corners of her eyes slowly floated into the sky.

Her torn, black-and-blue dress danced in the wind. A pitch-black longsword had pierced straight through a gorgeous blue umbrella, forming a massive, black-tinged blue umbrella sword.

"What is that now...?"

Not too far away, the puppeteer Bai patted off the faint layer of frost on her body and tilted her head in curiosity.

"I don't know, but it looks really bad." Cosimo, having already reverted to human form, looked at the girl in midair in his tattered butler uniform.

Lorenzo stared at the figure, a ripple passing through his deep, profound eyes. He muttered softly, "A witch...? But it doesn't quite look like it."

Zero fell silent for a moment. Lingering no further, she picked up Xia Ningzhi and rode the spreading ice away, leaving the port immediately.

Lorenzo merely turned his head to glance at her retreating back, choosing not to give chase.

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