With a soft "thud," Lin Sanjiu's feet left the ground again. The marble floor cracked under the pressure of her feet. Dust and fragments of fine-grained marble stirred from the ground. With the additional momentum from leaping up, Lin Sanjiu flew up and did a half-twist before she gathered her full body strength in her left fist and hit the woman with another attack.
"So, you are really not giving up?" Faint laughter came from under the hooded cape. As an earth-shattering attack came toward her, the south wing woman stood still as before. "You don't believe what I say?"
She finished her sentence but her voice quivered very slightly on the last word as if she had been interrupted—she had indeed been interrupted by yet another punch Lin Sanjiu had delivered to her abdomen.
The punch disrupted the woman's blood, breathing, and organs. Lin Sanjiu could feel that only a thin, seemingly very weak, layer of muscles and fats was the only thing between her fist and the woman's abdominal cavity. If she tore through it, she would be able to plant her fist right into the woman's organs. However, in a split second, Lin Sanjiu felt a force hit her so hard she nearly passed out for a second. Her body flew backward once more.
"Nothing will change no matter how many times you try." The woman smiled from under the shadow of her hood.
It took some effort for Lin Sanjiu to steady herself in mid-air and land on the ground again. Lin Sanjiu stared at the woman and wiped her face before grinning with resolution.
"Ah, now I know I have become this powerful. That's good news to me." After she said this, she coughed, "I guess you're just going to stand there and let me hit you?"
"Well, if you can stand it, I don't mind," the caped woman said with a drawn-out voice, as if she was amused. "I'm really curious about what you plan to do. With my reflective ability, you might just accidentally kill yourself."
Lin Sanjiu replied her with another charged attack.
The moment Lin Sanjiu rushed at the woman, the caped woman made a slight movement involuntarily despite her [Mirror] ability. Her opponent's attack was filled with aggression, like a fierce tiger that was bound on devouring its prey. It was just too threatening. However, the caped woman took a moment to overcome her instinct to run. She stuck her chin up slightly and took another blow from Lin Sanjiu.
Even though it was only a single blow, Lin Sanjiu fully understood the feeling of feebleness when she received the reflected attack. Luckily, she was just made of higher consciousness. And, thankfully, she could recondense and recover the scattered higher consciousness. If she still had her own real body made of flesh and bones, half her torso would have exploded into a bloody pulp with blood spraying everywhere.
Even so, Lin Sanjiu was still hurt by the attack. She curled up in mid-air and couldn't move for a long time. The pain she felt reminded her of "Mankind's Bane." On a lighter note, it was funny that the most powerful attack she endured in Kisaragi Station was actually her own.
"To be honest, I am starting to feel a little bored," an unhurried voice came from under the woman's hood. "With my [Mirror]—"
Before she could finish her sentence, she already lost her chance to speak, because, at that time, Lin Sanjiu had already recovered and did not waste any time to plant the third, no, fourth punch at her.
If her previous attacks were threatening, her current attack was vicious enough to make someone just stop thinking. It was like a tsunami wave or a huge monster that was going to swallow a city. She knew very well that her opponent was just a woman with a normal built, yet when Lin Sanjiu loomed high above her, the caped woman felt like she had been pinned to the floor by that woman's shadow. She couldn't even move.
"No matter what, I—"
She had only managed to say this when her body was violently struck by a blow like a tsunami. The library shook from the force and clouds of dust fell from the ceiling.
This time, it was the caped woman's turn to fly backward. When her body first left the ground, it was as if she still had not processed what had happened. The caped woman was still mouthing the word "would" when she finally let out an alarmed cry instead. The opponent in front of her had stopped and she could see her sharp, collected silhouette against the dim light.
When the caped woman landed on the ground, her body splattered on impact, her bones shattered into powder and her body was in a mash.
Her abdomen, which had received the main brunt of the force, all the way to her chest and down to her pelvis bone was now just an empty red mess. With her skeleton shattered, her pairs of legs had detached from the torso due to the force and were nowhere to be seen. If it wasn't for the blood and the grounded flesh, it was also impossible to tell that the woman even had a body to begin with.
The only part of the woman's body that was still intact was her head that was still attached to her neck. The woman's cape had been shredded by the razor winds from the blow, revealing a sheet-white face. No one could tell whether it was because the woman still had lives left or because she still had that last bit of consciousness, but the woman with a mediocre face was still alive.
"It is… it is impossible…" she said as her eyes widened. From the looks of it, her eyesight was already failing, as her pupils started dilating, but she was still unable to find Lin Sanjiu's position, "My… my… mirror…"
Lin Sanjiu wiped her face and walked next to the woman.
As her body lay in broken pieces, the pale woman's gaping mouth stopped moving. She finally showed no sign of life.
"You certainly didn't forget your mirror even till the bitter end," Lin Sanjiu eyed the woman's head and felt a sudden wave of emotions. "So, even at your deathbed, you fail to understand the essence of your ability?"
The metaphor that the woman used, about attacks being reflected like light off a mirror, was clear enough but it wasn't exactly right.
"Indeed, you can reflect my attacks back to me… However, you forgot something," Lin Sanjiu bent over, picked up a scrap from that woman's clothes and tossed it at her face. "You are not a mirror. And... my attacks are not just light."
When Lin Sanjiu attacked the woman the second time, she confirmed that she could really feel the movement of the woman's organs and her trembling muscles through her fist when her attack connected. Even though the woman received the blow directly, she didn't feel anything weird because the attack was successfully reflected. Therefore, she remained calm all along.
"Even if you are a real mirror, there is a moment in time that the light hits you before it gets reflected."
In any case, whether the caped woman's ability involved herself changing into a mirror or if she still maintained her physical body of flesh and blood, there must be a certain upper limit to the amount of damage she could reflect. Lin Sanjiu attacked the woman harder and harder each time because she wanted to find that upper limit.
Once Lin Sanjiu broke through the upper limit, the caped woman would be shattered before she could even reflect the attack.
Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath and did not throw another glance at the woman on the ground. She turned around and ran back to the siblings.
The two teenagers had already noticed that the fight had ended. They were jumping and cheering loudly for Lin Sanjiu with flushed faces. When Lin Sanjiu rushed over, she was relieved to see that the kids were alright. When she looked around the library, she suddenly realized that there was something a little off.
The library was too quiet.
She did not see any remaining duoluozhongs from the south wing. She also did not know where the West Wing team, who were fighting with the duoluozhongs, had run off to. Silvan wasn't around either. At that moment, in the empty central hall, she only spotted Siri, who was just sitting motionlessly without making a sound, and the siblings. Hearing their cheers echoing through the library was rather strange.
"Where are those people?" Lin Sanjiu couldn't help asking. "Where did they go?"
The siblings' expressions froze for a moment.
"That…" Reno seemed to be tongue-tied as he showed a complex expression. "Well, about that…"
"As expected. You won," a pleasant male voice rang out from an unknown direction, interrupting Reno's sentence. Reno and Rena seemed relieved that they did not have to explain the situation. They turned to the voice, along with Lin Sanjiu.
Lin Sanjiu was sure that Siri's work desk was just empty a few seconds ago. However, Silvan was now leaning lazily against the desk with his hands in his pocket. His golden hair, his uniform, and half his body were dark red, apparently stained by a massive amount of blood.
When he grinned, his teeth were still sparkling white as before. "We got all five books. Let's go verify them."
Lin Sanjiu stared at him and did not move for some time.