The Girl Who Hacked The Magic System-Chapter 236: The Blade in the Bubble

The world below is a silent sphere of land, shattered by the veins of black, muddy mana.

From up here, it looks peaceful.

It's a lie of geography, though. One wounded continent, one exhausted ocean, a thin veil of atmosphere like the last breath of a dying patient. You'd never guess the centuries of stagnation, the buried wars, the rot beneath the temples.

You'd never guess that the goddess floating twenty meters in front of us has been slowly strangling this place with rituals disguised as salvation.

And you'd never guess that I, of all people, am about to fight her head-on.

The bubble around me hums with the familiar buzz of mana-charged air. Mom sustains it like it's nothing, preventing the air from flowing out in the vacuum of space, which would kill us if it happened

A second bubble floats at a distance, glowing faintly with draconic enchantment. Inside it, the angels and two mortal heroes watch from behind Nurtawalladi's protection.

Their expressions hover somewhere between shame and numbness. They made their choice to not fight for the goddess. I guess this is just desserts for someone who betrayed a person who loved her so much.

Lovelace, the one who was betrayed, stands at my right, just behind me, monitoring and ordering the System around. The same Adventuring System she developed under Juno's orders and that was stripped from her.

And Nurtawalladi is coiled across from Juno, a heavenly serpent painted in the colors of a forgotten empire. Rings glint in the starlight where no starlight should reach.

His body is almost as big as a moon, showing just how powerful it is in front of any of us. He said he would only watch.

Which, in dragon terms, means that Juno doesn't get to cheat.

"Administrator. I need you to keep your thoughts clear. Her domain is active, and she'll try to overrun your senses with implicit directives."

Lovelace's steady voice snaps me back. Years have passed, and I still haven't lost my habit of getting lost in my own thoughts.

'Administrator,' she called me. Still so surreal.

Though not as surreal as fighting a goddess, to be honest. At least my hands shake only a little.

Juno's face is so pure and immaculate as she watches over us. The kind of beauty sculptors starve for. The kind you put in temples so peasants can feel small.

"There are rules. There were always rules. And you have broken them all."

She means me.

Not Mom. Not Lovelace.

Me.

"You're one to talk…" I say.

Not my best comeback, but sarcasm is the only thing keeping me from screaming.

Nurtawalladi tilts his massive head in our direction, speaking with the weight of a true god.

"Begin."

The world explodes into light.

A pillar of divine radiance tears across the bubble, aimed straight at my chest. It's not fire, not lightning, not plasma. It's a command. A metaphysical imperative. A statement written as force:

'Obey. Kneel. Die.'

I try to move, but my body refuses my orders.

That command is written in a kind of logic the world recognizes. It's not a spell, but a divine ORDER. You don't dodge an order.

I hear Mom snapping her fingers, and a soft glow spreads outward, enveloping me in a warm veil. It feels like standing inside a sunbeam filtered through old curtains.

The divine beam slams into her shield with the force of a collapsing star and dissolves.

Juno blinks, thrown for a moment off-script.

Mom lets out a soft chuckle, but her eyes don't leave Juno.

"You cannot harm her with those."

Juno snarls.

"Stay out of my way, Lillian."

She raises her hand again, beginning another smite.

She doesn't get to finish.

I feel lightning roaring under my skin, crackling.

The System echoed its bursts, heightening the blessing Oyá gave me, the mastery over the element.

I don't even need to think consciously about it anymore. A simple intent, and my body turns into lightning itself, traversing space in an instant to reappear behind the goddess.

Juno turns just in time to block with her arm. My fist clashes against a divine guard, sending a shockwave across the bubble. The sound cracks like thunder trapped inside a bottle.

"Hehehe. Surprised, bitch?"

I leap back, the space folding under my feet.

The bubble curves in response. My control over gravity and space aren't as precise as the one over lightning, but it's still enough for me to do some fun stuff.

"You are nothing more than a child playing with fire."

"Is it frustration that I see in your face, o mighty goddess?"

Her expression twists in anger.

She flicks her fingers.

Golden sigils blossom in the air, crisp geometric lines that slice through my gravity field, trying to snap the bubble back into perfect symmetry.

She's rewriting the geometry of the battlefield with divine authority.

Lovelace's voice sounds inside my head.

"She's forcing an override. If she stabilizes the space, your distortions will fail. Don't let her anchor it."

Right.

I become lightning again, bursting across the curved floor, sparks trailing behind me. My hands sweep through the air, sculpting gravitational folds like ripples on water.

My target isn't Juno, but her sigils. They bend and fracture as the bubble warps around her.

The battlefield isn't stable.

It'll never be stable. Not while I'm breathing.

Tyranny's goal is an imposition of one's order and stability, and that's what makes it so resistant to change but at the same time so brittle.

I slam my palm down, creating an event horizon, curving the space around the goddess.

While my body needs a bubble of air, for I'm still a mortal, she doesn't. For that reason, I target space itself to destabilize her, and not just the bubble.

Her next sigils snap unevenly, the shape warping before activation.

I take advantage.

Lightning surges, arcs branching across the space, tearing into her body.

"What? Can't fight without your minions?"

The weakness of tyrants is that they always rely on others for anything.

They are weak people who project an image of strength to blackmail and manipulate. Yet, their biggest fear is that their underlings will turn against them. And that's the reason they oppress and kill the ones below them.

They fear being overturned because they are incompetent themselves.

That's the only reason I, a mere mortal, am able to wound a deity.

I fracture myself into overlapping trajectories. Nine paths of lightning at once, darting around her divine body.

Juno tries to track me, but each arc bends under the shifting gravity, making it impossible to predict them.

Micro black holes appear and disappear, powerful enough to bend light's trajectory, even though they exist only for a fraction of a second.

I converge behind her.

Her divine armor screeches as the lightning slashes across her side, leaving a burning trail of fractured light.

Her screams are delightful, not gonna l-… what?

The bubble around me darkens as I feel her domain unfurling inside it like a beast clawing the space I've been manipulating.

Radiance fills the space again. Three beams form, orbiting her in a triad.

Obedience.

Judgment.

Purification. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

The beams crash toward me like falling pillars, each one capable of disintegrating a mountain. I can't dodge all three. The angles are too perfect. They're designed to trap.

I brace myself to receive the attack when I feel a mantle covering me, made up of pure compassion.

The beams hit the mantle and melt, making Juno's face contort with fury.

Juno snaps.

She fires another divine bolt, this one thinner, denser. More vicious. Mom's shield absorbs it, but cracks spider across the mantle. Too strong. Too fast.

I can't let Mom tank everything for me.

My body has already become an incarnation of lightning itself, but it's far from enough. I need more. More control. More speed. More power.

"Aurea. Accept the privilege."

Lovelace's voice is steady and cool.

A System window blooms behind my eyes, layered over reality in pale translucent blue. It feels unreal, like someone projected a layer of code across my sight.

BOOST: MAGNETIC SYNAPSE ACCELERATION

OVERCLOCK: MANA-CIRCULATION NODE-5

DEBUFF TARGET: JUNO_DOMAIN [THROTTLED]

PRIVILEGE TRANSFER: PARTIAL ADMIN

EXECUTE? [Y/N]

I breathe out.

"…Yes."

The universe clicks.

A thrill runs through my veins, expanding outwards like a bubble of consciousness. Everything sharpens.

Juno tries to summon a new miracle, forming a golden triangle between her hands.

I flick a finger and crack down the sigil.

I can actually block the flow of mana? That's so cool!

Juno's face goes white with rage.

She pushes, I cut. The divine patterns fray.

And I move.

My body feels both impossibly light and frighteningly precise. Every vector, every angle, every gravitational ripple aligns as if rehearsed.

I have no time to awe at my own abilities.

I raise my arm, compressing space into the form of a lance, and mixing it with lightning to add some spice.

Ohhhh, but what if I…

I throw that spear onto the goddess and immediately begin to create another.

Juno tries to form a divine shield, but I override it.

The second lance has a core made out of pure vacuum, enveloped by compressed space and lightning.

I release the lance.

It hits.

The scream this time is definitely caused by pain. I can see her avatar flickering like a glitching player in an MMO.

"I am the goddess of this world. You are NOTHING-"

"Yadda yadda yadda. Don't you have any other phrase to say? Also, you are not, not anymore. That world rejects you now."

She hurls a miracle at me, wild and desperate. She forms it faster than I can cut it.

A ray that could vaporize a city.

Mom catches it with both hands, groaning under the pressure.

Huh? When did she jump in front of me?