Oh! This is—
Possessing an exceptionally keen battle intuition, Anastasia instantly perceived her opponents’ true intentions.
No matter how relentlessly they attacked, they found themselves utterly incapable of penetrating her formidable defenses.
Consequently, these adversaries had resorted to exploiting a subtle loophole in the rules, deliberately coaxing her into a state of disarray.
Undoubtedly, it was a remarkably shrewd maneuver, yet…
“Do you truly believe such a paltry trick will bring me down? You’re not nearly skilled enough!”
Even with her vision temporarily compromised, Anastasia launched a swift, piercing punch.
It connected squarely with the forehead of Xia Hua, who had been covertly using Alice as a human shield while attempting to stab Anastasia with a small knife.
The strike’s force was meticulously controlled, just enough to induce a mild concussion, rendering Xia Hua unconscious without inflicting any lasting harm.
“Eh? Take this!”
Observing Xia Hua’s failed assault, Alice, who had just bitten her tongue and lips to ingeniously mislead Anastasia with her own blood, lunged forward without hesitation.
She wrapped her arms around Anastasia with all her strength, firmly pressing her ample bosom against the other woman’s face.
“Ugh… these vulgar things…”
Beyond the crushing pressure and the sudden suffocation, Anastasia was struck by an unfamiliar surge of inferiority.
As her mother’s most triumphant creation, she had never once felt herself lacking compared to others in any facet of her existence.
Yet, owing to the fact that all her nutritional intake had been meticulously directed towards sculpting muscle tissue, her pectoral fat reserves were notoriously sparse!
To make matters worse, ensnared within this soft, yielding mass, she found herself utterly baffled, momentarily unsure of how to proceed.
After all, not a single martial art in existence provided specific countermeasures for such a peculiar predicament!
Nevertheless, even amidst such an unfavorable predicament, Anastasia’s primal instincts remarkably allowed her to foresee the impending danger.
In a critical instant, guided solely by her intuition, she unleashed a sweeping leg kick.
This sent Shijō Yurizumi, who had opportunistically charged forward to attack, tumbling backward onto the ground, utterly losing her balance.
Yet, just as Anastasia prepared to forcibly tear herself from the embrace with brute strength, a faint, sharp sting suddenly shot through the very tip of her tail.
“Mrow! What in the—”
“I-I’ve won.”
Once Alice finally released her, Anastasia found Ji Bingyao, the one she had previously incapacitated, sprawled directly behind her.
From Ji Bingyao’s mouth, a small tuft of orange-yellow fur, along with… a faint smear of blood, was expelled.
“A single drop of blood, you yourself declared…”
“Hmph… what truly masterful coordination.”
At this realization, Anastasia was utterly dumbfounded.
Her initial disdain for these otherworldly high school girls had ultimately led to this small, yet significant, defeat.
The surprise attack on their own comrade, designed to capture her attention, was merely the opening gambit.
They had even shrewdly anticipated that, given Anastasia’s exceptional abilities, she would undoubtedly perceive and react to any impending assault.
Consequently, both Xia Hua’s initial strike and Shijō Yurizumi’s sudden charge had served purely as diversions.
The truly decisive blow, however, had been flawlessly executed by Ji Bingyao.
Having already endured a formidable blow earlier, Ji Bingyao was, in Anastasia’s assessment, effectively incapacitated and thus required no further vigilance.
More significantly, despite her formidable feline predator physique, Anastasia’s combat instincts remained fundamentally human.
While her powerful, elongated tail undoubtedly aided in maintaining balance during intricate movements, she had never consciously trained herself to defend against attacks directed at it.
In the brutal reality of true combat, a tuft of fur torn from her tail and a few drops of blood would scarcely register as a significant concern.
Yet, within the strictures of this particular contest, the rules unequivocally pronounced Anastasia’s defeat.
“So, Lieutenant General?”
After expelling the fur from her mouth, Ji Bingyao, still panting, posed the question, “Do you admit defeat?”
“Mrow hahahahahahahahahaha—I concede!”
Anastasia erupted into a sudden, boisterous laugh.
“Furthermore, I find myself genuinely intrigued by Mother’s current circumstances.”
“What?”
“I retract my previous assertion.
You are not the naive simpletons Mother can effortlessly manipulate; rather, you possess a modicum of intelligence.
When confronting individuals of sharper wit, Mother rarely resorts to exaggerated theatrics to portray herself as a pure, innocent ‘white lotus’… for such a facade would be easily pierced, particularly when in constant proximity,” Anastasia declared with earnestness.
“Instead, she would adopt the guise of a taciturn, prodigious girl, minimizing her words to avoid betraying any flaws.
Yet, all of you genuinely perceive her as a benevolent soul…”
“Shirley is unquestionably a good person!” Alice declared, thrusting out her chest emphatically.
“That, then, signifies that Mother has indeed undergone a subtle transformation,” Anastasia acknowledged with a nod.
“Moreover, the fact that you devised such a meticulously effective plan demonstrates your commendable adaptability and strategic acumen.
I can escort you to New Ravenna… but you must brace yourselves.
For even I cannot vouch for the inherent safety of such an undertaking.”
“We shall,” Ji Bingyao affirmed.
“It’s a binding agreement.”
****
Three days later, in New Ravenna, atop Honorius Palace, lay the Sky Rose Garden.
From her slowly advancing electric wheelchair, Shirley gently stretched her limbs, simultaneously savoring the rich, fragrant air of the garden.
This expansive rose garden, crowning the palace’s uppermost terrace, spanned a full two acres.
Within its bounds, roses of every conceivable hue were not merely cultivated in traditional flowerbeds; they were also cunningly integrated by the gardeners into the surrounding trees, rockeries, fountains, sculptures, and various other garden elements.
Alongside grapevines, wisteria, olive trees, and hollies, they collectively formed the lush tapestry of vegetation within the grounds.
Beyond this, while roses of every imaginable shade flourished here, the overwhelming majority displayed hues of pale lavender and vibrant magenta.
Shirley understood implicitly that this distinct palette was undoubtedly a direct reflection of Helios’s personal inclinations.
With Honorius Palace’s rooftop soaring over sixty meters above ground level, the Sky Rose Garden commanded an exceptionally breathtaking panorama.
From this vantage, one could survey the vast expanse of New Ravenna—presently the largest city-state under the Human Revival Council’s dominion in Europe—along with the surrounding verdant forests, all laid out beneath.
One could even discern the distant Adriatic Sea, its surface shimmering with the dancing reflections of sunlight.
While the colossal devastation unleashed by the decades-long Portal Cataclysm had undeniably reshaped the world’s physical topography, it had, surprisingly, left the natural environment largely untouched.
Both the sprawling forests and the boundless oceans seemed remarkably similar to those Shirley remembered from Italy in her original world.
The urban landscape, however, presented a dramatically different picture.
Though Shirley had never set foot in Ravenna in her original parallel world, she had, nonetheless, experienced numerous major cities across developed nations.
In her memory, no conventional modern metropolis bore any resemblance to New Ravenna.
This stronghold of Helios VI was primarily structured as concentric circles, defined by two imposing walls, evoking a striking similarity to the cities portrayed in *Attack on Titan*.
Enclosed within the central wall lay the ‘Castle’ district, a compact zone spanning no more than two square kilometers.
This vital core area contained Helios Tech’s cutting-edge research facilities, crucial storage installations, military barracks, and the residences of ‘significant personages.’
Major administrative bodies and essential public amenities were also housed within its confines.
Beyond the central Honorius Palace, the ‘Castle’ district boasted structures imbued with a distinctly modern technological aesthetic, alongside expansive, verdant boulevards and serene artificial lakes meticulously transformed from natural swamps.
In essence, this district presented an image of remarkable beauty and serenity.
The singular caveat, however, was that access was strictly limited to employees of major corporations under the Human Revival Council holding a rank of Level 6 or higher, or those possessing special entry permits; securing permanent residency was an even more arduous endeavor.
Beyond the formidable fifteen-meter-high central wall, which encircled the ‘Castle’ district, sprawled the ‘Upper City,’ a sprawling expanse housing 350,000 inhabitants.
This district was populated by the ordinary employees of various large enterprises and temporary workers who had managed to acquire permanent work permits.
A system of six isolation field generators operated in continuous rotation, guaranteeing that rogue spatial portals would not spontaneously manifest within the city, thereby preventing the infiltration of otherworldly monsters—most notably the exceptionally perilous parasites.
Regrettably, despite the isolation field generators proving to be remarkably effective technological marvels, their sheer numbers and operational reach remained severely constrained.
The influence of these generators extended across a mere twenty-five square kilometers, encompassing only the ‘Castle’ and ‘Upper City’ districts.
While this area might have marginally surpassed the Ravenna of Emperor Honorius’s era, it was by no means substantially larger.
The wall enclosing the Upper City stood considerably lower than its ‘Castle’ counterpart, a five-meter-high concrete barrier crowned with menacing razor wire.
Yet, it proved more than adequate to segregate the vast majority of the city’s populace from within its bounds.
After pressing a button, guiding her electric wheelchair a short distance towards the perimeter of the Sky Rose Garden, Shirley subtly reclined the chair’s backrest.
This afforded her a clearer, unobstructed view of the Lower City.
Despite encompassing three-fifths of the city’s total expanse and housing over eighty percent of its populace, this district received virtually no investment in infrastructure or municipal services.
Within its sprawling chaos, the few marginally respectable structures were confined to an area within a hundred meters beyond the second city wall—the outermost reach of the isolation field’s protection, and consequently, a comparatively safer haven.
The remaining vast expanses, however, were utterly consumed by sprawling shantytowns, festering like fungi upon decaying sustenance.
In her original world, Shirley had only ever encountered such anarchic, municipally deprived, and utterly chaotic shantytowns through news reports.
They typically materialized in impoverished Third World nations, where urban development failed to keep pace with explosive population growth, certainly not along the shores of the Adriatic Sea.
When juxtaposed with the advanced technological prowess she had observed in this new world, the entire situation became even more profoundly ironic.
While this locale conspicuously lacked the classic hallmarks of cyberpunk, and indeed, the penetration of internet and automated technologies lagged even behind her original world, the stark reality of ‘high tech, low life’ was not merely prevalent but utterly pervasive.
Naturally, the Human Revival Council vociferously declared all of this to be a temporary state, an unfortunate ripple effect of the devastating Portal Cataclysm.
They promised that once they successfully repelled the invasion of otherworldly parasites and a myriad of other chaotic entities, thus achieving the resurgence of the human race, everything would, without fail, ‘get better.’
However, with a mere casual glance downward from the pinnacle of Honorius Palace, Shirley instantly recognized these pronouncements as nine-tenths, if not outright complete, fabrication.
She even harbored profound suspicions as to whether the Council genuinely desired the cessation of the Portal Cataclysm at all.
After all, when the colossal corporations forming the Council could effectively monopolize the supreme privilege of ‘being impervious to harm from randomly emerging otherworldly monsters,’ leveraging that power for any desired outcome became remarkably simple.
Shirley released a soft sigh, guiding her electric wheelchair to continue its slow progression along an artificial stream that meandered through the rose garden.
To date, while Helios had outwardly presented an image of utter compliance, granting her every request without hesitation, two significant exceptions persisted.
Firstly, whenever Shirley expressed a desire to meet the captive Salome, her requests were invariably denied.
Helios adamantly maintained that Salome was ‘excessively dangerous,’ refusing even to divulge the location of her imprisonment.
As for the second matter, it concerned her limbs.
The bionic and bioengineering technologies in this world far surpassed those of her original one, yielding prosthetic limbs of superior quality.
However, Helios had consistently withheld high-quality artificial limbs, citing ‘potential health hazards requiring further observation,’ and instead provided her with a set of outwardly exquisite but functionally mediocre prosthetics.
With her current limbs, Shirley could barely manage short walks through halls like a delicate noblewoman of old, or perform simple tasks such as eating and writing unaided.
Yet, any activity requiring even moderate exertion remained exceptionally challenging.
Indeed, even for a simple stroll through the rose garden, relying on her wheelchair proved far more convenient than walking herself.
Naturally, just as she harbored no faith in the Human Revival Council’s pledge of ‘human revival,’ Shirley dismissed Helios’s absurd claims of ‘potential health hazards from high-quality artificial limbs’ as utter drivel, not believing a single punctuation mark of it.
She understood intimately that Helios’s perverse controlling nature instinctively compelled him to restrict her mobility, fearing that his ‘pet,’ now in his grasp, might slip away.
However, at least for the short term, she had no intention of letting him realize she was aware of this.
After all, there were still some matters she needed to uncover.
As her electric wheelchair arrived beside a small fountain, Shirley was suddenly enveloped by a chill.
Of course, at this very moment, the Sky Rose Garden was bathed in the warm breezes from the Adriatic Sea; by all accounts, she should not have felt cold.
The source of this cold sensation, in truth, was a pair of eyes fixed intently upon her.
They were not human eyes.