A marigold disc symbolizes the summer sunrise, spreading eternal brilliance across the bend of the eastern coast.

To the right of Gwynn is the coastal path, where emerald shrubs give way to frothy jagged ochre, milky shallows that bubble like milk on the ochre cliffs. The South Pacific Ocean stretches farther afield, changing color from light green to ultramarine, and then suddenly descends into the dark depths of the continental shelf.

To her left are broken hills and muddy lakes, the result of the passing of myths and legends, leaving behind a trail of bloody back-flowing dirt. Even now, trees have fallen into newly formed ravines, and underground reservoirs have emerged from the pressure of crushing sandstone from hidden caves.

Elvia.

Pleased.

All of them

Gwen wasn't sure if it was anxiety that made her nauseous, or if it was the vertigo of flying a hundred meters freely in the air.

Did Elvia succeed? Her mind was churning with pain, and even the adrenaline of traveling through high and low altitudes could not distract her.

"Alesia...... What do you think......" Gwen tried to speak, but her voice was barely audible in the moving air.

A message spell popped into her ear.

"I'm activating a private message spell. Alessia's voice echoed in her ears. "What's wrong with the tiger?"

"I'm worried about Elvia and the others," Gwen replied, noting that the spell was a two-way street. The equipment at her school was so simple that it was impossible to perform complex divination calculations.

Alicia squeezed Gwen's hand comfortingly, hoping it would take the pressure off Gwen.

Before they knew it, the two accelerated, and Alicia's uncertainty injected more mana into the flying spell. The boost drew a curious glance from Jonas, who then matched their new speed.

"Gwen, I know you're worried about those girls, but you also have to think about your situation," Alexia replied solemnly. "Promise me that you won't tell anyone, not even girls, about snakes and your new elemental abilities, which will only put them in danger. ”

Gwen noticed the weight behind Alicia's proposal.

"I promise," she replied to her mentor.

Alicia hovered beside her protector, thinking about her troubles over and over again. Although the immediate crisis seems to have been resolved, the problems left to them are far beyond their ability to solve them.

Alicia recalls that in the final moments of her encounter, the mythical figure had little interest in entering the city further. Instead, it has retreated to the last site in Gwen. In hindsight, Alicia speculated that it might have something to do with Gwen harming the mage who claimed to be Edgar. As for Edgar's character, rituals provide clues. In the case of sealing mandalas, rituals are elaborate and require esoteric arcane knowledge.

There is also the fact that the wounded mage fled with the loss of half of his body and two limbs. Setting up a teleportation emergency ring on vital signs is very precious. Alicia has one herself, although she doesn't like equipping it, as once triggered, it brings her back to the tower from the fight. When the electronic form drained her vitality, it would be ridiculous if she teleported out at the start of a storm. That's why she prefers emergency healing rings and disposable items like dimension gate gems.

In addition, a remote conveyor ring with an emergency trigger costs just over 5,000 HDM companies, enough to buy a building in the heart of Sydney's CBD. Ironically, this is not the worst, as there are very few wizards in the world who are capable of making such an item. For Alexia and her brother, their emergency ring was an heirloom brought from Europe. Therefore, a mage with such a thing could not be anyone.

In the end, there is no face - but what is a terrorist like him doing in such a place? is he chasing her? is he involved in the atrocities of poisonous snakes?

There were too many unanswerable questions plaguing Alexia at the same time, but now, another one stung her chest.

How will her owner receive the kitten she just picked up?

The base camp comes into view.

Now bathed in the dawn, the devastation caused by the night before speaks for itself. The bunker collapsed like a crushed tent, its iron supports bent and twisted. The main building, where the instructors last met, is being dug up by a man who looks like a U.S. Army engineer.

Three people went ashore: Alessia and Jonas gracefully, Gwen pounded his knees heavily.

A mage wearing a fluorescent high-visible vest detached from the group to intercept them. Jon beckoned to him in a jacket.

The look of bureaucratic exasperation on the mage's face immediately turned into a wary one.

"Hello," the magician twisted his hands, and then said "Sir!" nervously.

Gwen noticed, "Foreman, give me a quiet representative," Jonas and Alexia were the other when they weren't talking.

"The excavation is almost complete," the foreman replied, but there were bodies underneath. We're waiting for the coroner. ”

"Corpses?" Gwen's voice trembled. "What corpse, whose is it?"

The foreman stares at the teenage girl, challenging her presence before meeting Jonas's eyes.

"Let's go out for a walk. Jonas pressed his head to their left. The two then walked to the excavation site.

Gwen wanted to follow, even though Alexia's tugboat held her back.

"No," her teacher's hand is tight, you don't need to look at this. ”

"But......" Gwen felt her stomach knot Sergeant Boone... Mr. Thomas and Mr. Dylan ......"

"I'm sorry," Alexia insisted, her hand clenched like a vice. She already felt guilty for dealing with Gwen and Edgar. In the future, as a battle mage, the girl will most likely be familiar with the sick reality of mutilated corpses - and for now, she prefers a protector who is less damaged.

However, despite Alessia's good intentions, Gwen struggles to reconcile with the reality in front of her. The teachers had been teaching her for half a year! She knew their names, their quirks, their mannerisms, their likes and dislikes! Mr. Boone liked to talk about his military career, Mr. Thomas had two cats, and Mr. Dylan had a fiancée

"You don't want to know if Yue and the others are safe?" asked Alicia ruthlessly.

Gwen nodded.

"Then let's look it up. "They're in the air again, your friend should be safe now. ”

Jonas caught up with them a few minutes later.

"Alesia ......" he consulted his partner.

"You can tell her, Jonas," Alessia asserted that she was a strong girl. ”

"Four people died," Jonas said solemnly Boone, Evans, Thomas, Dylan. ”

"Five," Gwen added after a moment of silence.

Alicia saw that the girl's knuckles were tense and white. Of course, Gwen was right. Alicia recalled Mr. Crusoe's mutilated body.

"Five," Alexia confirmed that Doucloo Cruso was still somewhere in the woods. ”

"Oh my God. Jonas spat and bit Gwen again, are they chasing the kids?

"Probably. "She didn't want to reveal more information to her partner until she had a chance to talk to her master.

Jonas nodded and said no more. His leaders are clearly on the run.

They flew silently until the Emerald Sea suddenly stopped. Below, the landscape changes to the low and low bushes of the plateau. From a distance, they could make out it. B。

About two kilometers away, the trio were intercepted by an Air Mage unit wearing a digital combat jacket and winged boots. Jonas opened one more of the flaps of his coat, and then they could go over.

Gwen glanced around the camp until she spotted a spot where dozens of black, white, and gray plaid figure-shaped dots were clustered.

"I see it!" she said breathlessly.

"I'll get you off. Gwen was eager to be with her friends right away, which made Alexia smile.

"Jonas, can you take Deborah to the triage center?"

Jonas walked out without complaint.

When Gwen and Alicia got out of the car in the courtyard, they surrounded themselves with a circle of students, and their faces turned blue with excitement.

"Oh my God, did you see that?"

"She's flying in!"

"I wish I could fly. ”

"You have to be a shapeshifter!"

"Wow, Coach Alesia looks as great as ever. ”

"Is it Gwen?!"

"Well, she's gone, stealing the sun. ”

Gwen's chest suddenly developed a disgust for his peers. Don't they think about anyone but themselves? Your friend, Deborah almost died! Your teacher lies under the cement slab!

"Gwen!" for the past twelve hours, the voice she wanted to hear most echoed through the leveled dirt of the makeshift base.

"Eve!!" Gwen broke free from Alesia and sped past a group of gnashing students.

"Ahh

"She stepped on me!"

"That bitch!"

The girls each gave half.

The last three! the last three! Gwen's heart pounded.

"For one man!" she cried out excitedly.

"We miss you so much!" Xiao Yue hugged Wen's waist and stuck her head into her chest. "Oh my God, I'm so worried! Elvia told me what happened, you wanted to save her, and you were fighting that Crusoe bastard alone!"

Elvia couldn't control her emotions any longer, tears streaming down her bright blue eyes, "I'm sorry Gwen... Whimper... Whimper... I ran ... I ran away with Gwen... I'm scared ......."

"Oh, Eve... It's the right thing to do. If you don't go, I'll be in even greater danger!"

The three of them huddled together.

"What's wrong with Deborah?" Elvia asked, choking up.

The joyous moment dissipated.

"She'll be fine," Gwen muttered. She hopes that God will use the healing magic of this world to heal lightning.

"I'll come back to you in the evening," Alexia shouted loudly among the noisy teens. Gwen waved to her mentor, wanting to say another word of thanks before leaving. Instead, the deep eyes of her mentor reminded her not to say anything. In the air, Alicia flew to the tent of the command headquarters, and the praying students cooed at the incredible sight of Superman flying.

As the scene ended, the girls retreated to the limited privacy of a makeshift shelter set up by the army engineers. The trio entered a tent with four beds, each separated by a thick curtain.

"How did you get away with that terrible mage?" Elvia asked, her eyes puffy. "You...... Are you ......"

"Coach Alexia saved me," Gwen said in a technical truth.

"I saw that huge battle between Alexia and the snake in the sky!" Xiao Yue said excitedly. "Did you see that, Gwen? ”

"I was already deep in the woods by then. Gwen racked her brains to find the obvious timestamp. "I could only see the fireworks in the trees. ”

"It's incredible!" Yue continued, as if she were the one who had encountered the snake, detailing spell after spell, only a few of which Gwen had heard before.

"Eve, what about you?" Gwen asked, wondering how her friend was doing after their separation.

"I ran along the road we came from...... Elvia recalled. "I saw your lightning spell ringing non-stop, so I ran as best I could until I saw Yue Fei's fireworks return to the clearing. ”

"Is anyone trying to stop you?"

Elvia shook her head, a tousled strand of pale yellow hair.

"There were a few leprechauns and some other magical beasts trying to escape the snake, but they ignored me. ”

"We must have killed more than a hundred more. Yue smiled triumphantly. "The officer who saved us told me that we were doing a good job and that we would be commended for our bravery. My first medal, Gwen!"

"Did you find the instructor?" Elvia interjected suddenly, "Mr. Crusoe turned out to be the evil mage, does that mean?"

Gwen felt a pang of guilt, even though her friends were old enough to face the truth.

"Alesia says Mr. C was dead long before we met the evil Cruzoe......" Gwen replied in a bleak and sad tone. "As for the rest...... Mr. Dylan, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Boone and Mr. Evans, whose bodies were found in the main building. ”

“...”

“...”

After that, the conversation was gone.

Elvia poked her face into Gwen's chest and sobbed silently. Xiao Yue stared at the ceiling, her thoughts uncertain. The three of them lay on a bunk, quietly watching a spinning bird that sucked out the heat from their bodies. Elvia was the first to fall asleep, her constitution too weak to withstand the activity and pain of a day and a night. Yue also closed his eyes, and the nervousness of Gwen's absence finally disappeared.

Gwen looked up at the ceiling, the scaffolding on the ceiling unfolding like a spider's web on the rectangular canvas, thinking of Alexia's warnings, and the uncertain future ahead.

Is this a recurring occurrence in the world, or is it a one-off disaster? In her old world, she had experienced the horrors of 9/11 on television, although as a Sydney bystander, the treacherous moments of 21st-century history felt more like a movie.

Similarly, she doesn't know what violence is. Sydney is a haven for middle-class mediocrity. There were no mass shootings, no serial murderers, no mass poverty, and almost no violent crime except for the occasional family dispute.

To this day, she never thought that someone would die suddenly. Gwen realizes that she has never experienced the death of someone she knew in a private capacity: not a family member, not a friend, not someone in her social circle.

Now all of a sudden, the five teachers who had been teaching her for half a year were suddenly gone, gone, gone, for no reason, without a particular purpose or goal.

They didn't die for some great deed, they didn't sacrifice to save their students, they didn't sacrifice for the last perseverance. They died randomly and purposelessly, becoming collateral.

Will her death be the same? Gwen wondered. An encounter with malevolence - then there is no tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow, then except for dusty death?

Gwen's eyes grew heavy, captivated by the whirlwind bird's constant whirlpool, and slowly closed her eyes until she was enveloped by the shadow trapped in her sleep.