197: Chapter 197 Mirror Showdown! Black Mud Funina Appears

For the tens of thousands of black mud pterosaurs circling above Tokyo Bay, searching for prey, the world turned into an absurd joke in an instant.

The air currents that originally supported their gliding suddenly became shackles dragging them downward—or rather, "upward" toward that inverted ocean.

The wings they were so proud of now became a burden; countless monstrous birds let out terrified screeches, like a flock of kites with severed strings, defying biological instinct as they "fell" straight into the shimmering azure sea above their heads.

No splash rose.

When their black bodies touched that water mirror named "Judgment," there was no muffled sound of entering water, but instead the sizzling sound of red-hot iron being dropped into ice and snow.

That was not ordinary seawater, but a cage formed by Furina using her authority as the "Master of All Waters" to materialize the concept of "Justice."

Once one enters the stage, they are a sinner.

Beneath the water's surface, countless transparent chains composed of pure magic snaked out.

They ignored the monsters' struggles, precisely entwining the necks, wings, and ankles of every pterosaur.

Those were the materialized restraints of "lies and sins deep within the heart"; the more the monsters struggled, the tighter the chains pulled.

In just three seconds.

A silent black snow began to fall over Tokyo Bay.

Over ninety percent of the black mud pterosaurs didn't even have time to let out a final wail before the chaotic energy from the abyss within them collided violently with the absolute order inside the barrier.

Their bodies disintegrated at a microscopic level, turning into black carbon powder that drifted across the sky.

This was the true power of the A+ Rank Anti-World Noble Phantasm [End of Comedy]; on this stage, all falsehood must make way for the truth.

The remaining ten percent of massive elite individuals were still trying to resist, frantically devouring the remains of their disintegrated companions to try and reassemble even more hideous limbs to combat the water pressure.

But before they could complete their evolution, a massive shadow had already enveloped them.

"Miss Xebelda, cleanup time!"

Accompanied by Furina's shout, that heavy armored crab leapt into the air, its giant claws—capable of snapping an Aircraft Carrier's keel—waving into a blur in the water.

Crack! Crack!

Those wriggling chunks of meat were like substandard props, ruthlessly snipped and crushed by this strict "stagehand."

When the last trace of black dissipated in the water, the inverted water mirror covering the entire Tokyo Bay also collapsed into billions of light points, the world returned to normal, and gravity was restored. A brief, ear-ringing silence fell over the previously clamorous battlefield.

Only a thick layer of black powder remained on the coastline, proving that the massacre just now was no illusion.

"Did... did we win?"

On the deck of the USS Ford, a young sailor with a face covered in oil grime lowered his binoculars with trembling hands.

However, before he could fully breathe a sigh of relief, a tooth-grinding high-frequency hum came without warning from the end of the western horizon.

Amidst the alarms of all the radar screens flashing red, the black powder on the coastline that was supposed to be "dead" actually began to reliquefy as if it were alive.

They seeped into the ground through cracks, merging into that massive abyss network.

Then, the earth split open.

In the ruins fifteen kilometers from the coastline, two hundred thousand newborn black mud monsters surged out like erupting volcanic lava.

They squeezed, trampled, and roared, forming a black wave dozens of meters high, crashing toward the Tokyo Bay defense line with a momentum that threatened to swallow everything.

"Fire!! Don't let them get close!!"

All the main guns of the joint fleet fired at their maximum rate at this moment.

Dense clusters of high-explosive shells blasted huge gaps in the beast tide, but in the face of such massive numbers, these gaps were like throwing a stone into the ocean; they couldn't even be maintained for half a second before being filled by the monsters surging from behind.

"Pfft—"

At the bow of the Aircraft Carrier, the cross-legged Old Celestial Master Zhang Ruoxu suddenly leaned forward, spitting a mouthful of stale blood onto the golden formation map.

The previously brilliant Bagua light pattern beneath him instantly dimmed, but his withered palms were still pressed firmly against the nodes of the array core, his fingernails cracking as blood flowed along the patterns of the deck.

This defense line had leaked after all.

The front row of black mud monsters rushed into the blind spot of the naval guns' range.

They didn't slow down, but instead jumped frantically into the sea, using their bodies to build floating bridges on the water's surface.

Their kin from behind stepped on the corpses of their companions, like a swarm of crazed fleas, leaping directly onto the decks of the outer escort ships.

Boom!

An Arleigh Burke-class destroyer of the US Third Fleet suffered heavy damage to its port side.

It wasn't a shell hit, but kinetic damage caused by thousands of monsters slamming into the hull simultaneously; on the deck tilted at thirty degrees, seawater poured in, and alarms blared shrilly.

"Get lost! You scumbags!"

The CIWS gunner on the ship desperately held down the trigger, the thousands of tungsten-core armor-piercing shells per minute tearing the monsters rushing onto the deck to shreds.

But a black mud giant beast with only half a head left braved the hail of bullets and rushed to the gun position, opening its giant mouth to bite the red-hot barrel, and with a surge of its neck, it actually ripped the entire Phalanx turret out by its roots and threw it into the surging sea.

Just as the monsters were about to rush into the bridge to massacre the command staff, a string of massive rainbow-colored bubbles fell from the sky.

It was Madam Heivima.

The bubbles spat out by this elegant seahorse did not burst, but instead precisely enveloped the dozen or so monsters rampaging on the deck.

No matter how they tore with their claws, those seemingly thin bubble walls were as tough as glue, carrying them as they slowly floated away from the deck and sank into the high-pressure zone of the deep sea.

But this was just a drop in the bucket.

Behind the monster tide, the endless black mud did not continue to charge, but instead began to eerily stack and bulge.

Under the gaze of countless horrified eyes, a hundred-meter-tall black teardrop-shaped building rose from the ground.

The twisted dome, the sharp pillars, and the entrance that seemed to be laughing—it was clearly a replica of the [Eternal Theater] that Furina had just summoned!

The heavy doors slowly opened with the nauseating sound of stretching slime.

A figure walked out.

It was a girl, wearing that iconic iris top hat and those elaborate clothes, twirling an exquisite cane in her hand.

Only, she was black all over.

Like a sculpture cast from the filthiest oil, even those eyes that should have been lively heterochromatic ones were replaced by two balls of burning purple ghost fire.

black mud Furina.

Behind her, three giant shadows crawled out, wriggling.

A black mud version of Lord Uther, his size doubled; the originally round and cute ball octopus form was now covered in bone spikes that would trigger trypophobia, his tentacles whipping up a foul-smelling hurricane.

A black mud heavy armored crab, its shell dripping with oil-like mucus, its claws large enough to snap the bridge of a destroyer.