Shortly after Lin Luo left the Second Ceremony site, before he could even return to the hotel, he encountered his second interceptor on the road... Sitting atop a wall constructed of rock, clad entirely in black, was the beautiful young woman, Aozaki Aoko, her long, shapely legs encased in black stockings, swaying gently.

Lin Luo looked up. Though he still couldn't glimpse the hidden charms from this angle, the sheer density of youthful vitality and the sight of her absolute territory alone elicited his high praise, and he gave a light, mocking whistle toward the girl.

Crash!

Aozaki Aoko leaped down from the high wall, landing directly opposite Lin Luo. Unmoved by his flirtatious gaze, she stated seriously, "Speak plainly. What are you concealing from us?"

Lin Luo shrugged. "Am I concealing anything?"

Aozaki Aoko's lips curled into a knowing expression, the look of someone who understood everything. "It’s fine if you treat others as fools, but thinking you can fool me is far too naive... The moment I arrived in this city, you deliberately appeared before me, even engineering coincidences to meet me. While I initially thought it was chance, continuing to believe so now would be an issue of intelligence."

"You mean that all our encounters were planned by me?"

"Even if you didn't plan them, they were certainly within your expectation. Do you dare deny it?" Aozaki Aoko countered.

"You're overthinking things. What good would planning something like this do for me?"

"That is my question right now." Aozaki Aoko stared intently at Lin Luo, as if trying to excavate all his secrets. "Since meeting you in this city, everything has become bizarre... No, wait!"

Suddenly, Aozaki Aoko tapped her chin, a thoughtful expression crossing her face, and she began to speak slowly: "If we trace it back, my return to Misaki City, Yuuzu's hometown, was the first unexpected event, as it wasn't part of my itinerary. Then, Yuuzu being selected for the Holy Grail War was the second, as it violates the rules of the war. Meeting you in Fuyuki City afterward was the third. Following that, the anomalies within the Holy Grail War and the appearance of the Fourth Demon Lord were the fourth and fifth unexpected occurrences... Such a multitude of accidents, while seemingly unrelated to you on the surface, are they truly unrelated?"

"Impossible!" Aozaki Aoko's eyes were filled with sagacity. Without waiting for Lin Luo's reply, she continued, "Though I don't know the specifics, combining everything happening in Fuyuki City now, all these seemingly isolated incidents can be connected. They are like a tangled thread. Although parts are hidden in shadow, making things look chaotic, in reality... there is only one thread!"

"And you," she concluded, "are the one holding the end of that thread!"

Faced with Aozaki Aoko's piercing gaze, which seemed to see through everything, Lin Luo felt a headache coming on. He rubbed his head and managed a wry smile. "Have you achieved Sage Mode? To think up all that."

"You can see it that way," Aozaki Aoko replied noncommittally.

Aozaki Aoko possessed both violence and the sage nature; the Sage Aoko and the Violent Aoko—both were her. The Violent Aoko appeared as an ignorant, brutish woman whose mind was clouded by her large chest, only capable of charging blindly. But the Sage Aoko possessed a depth of wisdom incomprehensible to ordinary people, often discerning the truth of complex matters from the slightest detail.

In general circumstances, she existed somewhere between these two states—an ordinary traveling girl.

This is why Aozaki Aoko often presented a deeply contradictory impression, making her seem elusive, like the wind that vanishes without one knowing when it departed.

This was not merely a trait of the Aozaki lineage, but an inherent characteristic of her being the Fourth Magus.

(Perhaps I miswrote this before; Aoko is not the Fifth Magus, but the Fourth Magus who uses the Fifth Magic... To put it simply, this setting is like the difference between Feng Jing and Ma Liang—easy to confuse if you aren't careful.)

The concept of 'Void,' perhaps, was precisely this: not truly nothingness, but concealing an overwhelming 'something' to create the illusion of emptiness... including her own existence and her abilities.

"It seems I can no longer deny it," Lin Luo conceded. The play he had directed and starred in had too many bugs. While an ordinary high-IQ individual might be fooled by calculated ambiguities, it was impossible to deceive Aoko now that her Sage Mode was engaged. Thus, he offered no outright denial, using ambiguity to neither confirm nor reject her claims.

"You could try to defend yourself," Aozaki Aoko maintained her relentless pressure.

Lin Luo shook his head calmly. "And then? If I admit all this was my doing, what do you intend to do?"

"That depends entirely on what your objective is." As she spoke, Aozaki Aoko's gaze sharpened, as if ready for battle at any moment. "Depending on your goal, I will take corresponding action."

"Very well. Since it has come to this, I suppose I have no choice but to speak the truth," Lin Luo sighed, radiating helplessness.

Finally going to tell the truth... Aozaki Aoko's heart stirred, and she quickly pressed, "Why did you bring so many of us to Fuyuki City, and even orchestrate this Holy Grail War?"

"There is only one reason..." Lin Luo took a deep breath, locking his gaze onto Aozaki Aoko's pupils, and said gravely, "I want you to become my woman!"

"I see... Huh?!" Aozaki Aoko nodded, but immediately realized something was terribly wrong. Her expression shifted, and she instinctively took several steps back, her speech faltering, "Y-you... What did you say?"

She had considered countless possibilities: conquering the world, reaching the Root, or grasping the ultimate truth of existence. After all, the motivations for such powerful beings pursuing strength usually boiled down to those reasons. But... she had never imagined Lin Luo's goal would be so absurd!

Was this... a joke?

A bewildered Aozaki Aoko scrutinized Lin Luo’s face, searching for any hint of jest, but regrettably, there was none. His expression was serious, reaching a level of profound solemnity, which only made her more flustered.

"I said my goal is for you to become my woman," Lin Luo repeated, his tone utterly sincere.

"N-Nonsense!" Aozaki Aoko snapped, masking her inner tension.

"I am not talking nonsense. I swear it to the heavens..." As he spoke, Lin Luo raised his hand toward the sky. "If a single word I just said was a lie, may I be struck down by lightning!"

Such oaths were, in Lin Luo’s opinion, utterly meaningless. Heaven was busy with wind and rain, constantly burdened by human curses like "damned sky" or "curse that heaven," having no leisure to attend to human vows. If Heaven struck down lightning every time a falsehood was uttered, it would exhaust itself completely.

Thus, Lin Luo viewed swearing to Heaven as utter bunkum. Unless one was Heaven's illegitimate child, it would never spare the time to notice. Furthermore, when boyfriends declared their love by swearing to the sky, it was merely sweet talk. Any girl who turned and walked away in that situation was a rational person; any girl who blushed and believed it... well, in love, the IQ of both parties tended to equal Cirno's.

Of course, though Lin Luo didn't believe it, he knew how to blend in with the masses. If Aoko's current high intelligence wasn't disrupted by the shock of 'romance,' things would become very troublesome.

Naturally, upon hearing Lin Luo's oath, Aozaki Aoko became even more frantic.

He even used an oath to Heaven—this greatly increased the credibility!

But at that precise moment, completely unexpectedly, the sky, previously clear blue, was suddenly shrouded in thick, dark clouds, accompanied by rumbling thunder. Both looked up instinctively, and in the next second... Kacha! Kacha!

Over a dozen bolts of lightning, thick as pillars, descended straight toward Lin Luo.

"Oh, blast it all!" Lin Luo's face instantly darkened. Dodging this lightning was trivial for him; he could even stand still and be struck without harm, but... damn it, must it arrive that promptly?!

His attempt to look cool had utterly backfired into looking like an idiot!

Fumbling to avoid the direct strikes, Lin Luo immediately pointed at the sky and roared, "Which bastard is messing with me? If I ever find out, I’ll make you suffer endlessly!"

Heaven having the spare time to care about his oath? He wouldn't believe such nonsense even if beaten to death. There was only one possibility: someone was deliberately setting him up. And looking around Fuyuki City, very few people could manage such a feat.

"Heh heh," Aozaki Aoko across from him laughed happily, her previous tension completely gone. She teased him mockingly, "It seems you really were lying to me all along."

"Ugh!"

Lin Luo broke into a sweat. He desperately wanted to claim the lightning strike was just a coincidence and shouldn't be believed, but if he did that, his oath to Heaven would also be exposed as a lie... He wouldn't commit the folly of shooting himself in the foot.

However, it seemed his foot was already thoroughly wounded!

"Hahahaha! Serves you right for bullying me, look at that retribution!" Meanwhile, in the hotel, Sanae, monitoring Fuyuki City, pointed at the screen showing Lin Luo with an expression of schadenfreude. She then turned to a girl behind her. "Iku, excellent work. Give him another one later... Huh? Iku, where are you going?"

This girl was none other than Kaku's envoy, Yagokoro Eirin, who possessed the ability to manipulate the environment—summoning lightning or rain was relatively easy for her... Naturally, the reason Lin Luo was struck by lightning was entirely her doing, an instruction initiated by Higuchi Sanae.

PS: I don't know if it's too much air conditioning or what, but I haven't been feeling well lately, constantly groggy. And the current plot development is quite tricky, so the pace might be slow. I will adjust as quickly as possible, please bear with me. (To be continued) RQ