“Huh?!”
The moment those words left her mouth, things immediately went awry.
Scarlet Feather Flame Princess and Mysterious Dawn almost transformed at the exact same moment, looking as if they were about to tear Luo Shuangyue limb from limb.
Especially with that nearly two-meter-long broadsword in Scarlet Feather Flame Princess’s hand—she was just short of pressing it against Luo Shuangyue’s neck.
“Calm down!” Luo Shuangyue quickly raised her hands. If this misunderstanding wasn’t cleared up fast, she feared she’d be sent to the afterlife right here.
Scarlet Feather Flame Princess stared at Luo Shuangyue with a probing gaze, staring for a long time.
After a full minute of contemplation, she finally put her blade away.
“You can’t be that Royal-Class Magic Beast. She wasn’t that stupid,” Scarlet Feather Flame Princess said.
Luo Shuangyue’s behavior just now was too bizarre. If she really were that Royal-Class Magic Beast, why would she ask about Molin, and then why ask that question in the end?
Was she trying to show off her identity to those around her?
“But we still need an explanation. Why did she say you’re her master?”
“I can explain. You know that Royal-Class Magic Beast died in our Xinghai City, right…”
Luo Shuangyue briefly explained her current situation.
In short, she’d consumed something impure, resulting in an unclean aura about her—most likely that was what led the Royal-Class Magic Beast’s subordinate to mistake her for the Royal-Class Magic Beast.
Xia Mo also brought out Long Wen’s testimonial to back up Luo Shuangyue’s explanation.
With such a distinguished senior’s endorsement, Luo Shuangyue’s story became all the more credible.
At least, it was enough to convince Scarlet Feather Flame Princess and the other two.
“There’s actually something like this? What were you thinking, eating stuff like that so recklessly…” Mirror Farewell muttered quietly, stroking her chin.
“I didn’t eat it on purpose! The moment I touched it, it fused into my body! What was I supposed to do?!” Luo Shuangyue stomped her foot in protest.
Standing beside her, Xia Mo watched this scene, her gaze growing a bit odd.
She wondered if Luo Shuangyue realized just how girlish her actions had been—no one would ever suspect that someone who always insisted she was male would do something so feminine.
And when she made that move, Luo Shuangyue did it completely subconsciously, utterly unaware that there was anything odd about it.
It was strange. Far too strange.
“Ahem. Anyway, as long as Master of Butterflies asks questions, this Molin will answer, right? Then let’s not worry about the rest for now and just get to the bottom of this!” Mysterious Dawn forcefully brought the conversation back on track.
“Oh, then I’ll keep asking…”
Ten minutes later, the five of them gathered around a large round table, all staring intently at a phone lying on it, powered off.
After a few seconds, Mirror Farewell was the first to speak, “Do Demons have some special tech that lets them make calls from dead phones?”
This phone had been out of power for days, not just today. It seemed like it had never been charged—it only had any use as a brick to hit someone with, nothing else.
But Molin insisted that all her orders had been transmitted to her through this phone.
If the phone was broken, how could she have received any messages?
“Then she must be lying to us.” Scarlet Feather Flame Princess frowned.
“Looking at her mental state, and the readings from the instruments, there’s no sign of lying.” Mysterious Dawn shook her head.
Molin’s vital signs had been flat the whole time, as steady as a straight line.
And her mental state? Like a dead pond—no hatred for her mortal enemies, no fear of impending death after being captured; her heart was empty, devoid of anything at all.
Just like a puppet. A moving puppet.
“Don’t look at me, I don’t know anything. I just arrived at your Jidong City yesterday.” Noticing the others turning to her again, Luo Shuangyue quickly made it clear not to count on her to solve the mystery.
She wasn’t smart, nor did she have the makings of a detective.
“We should go check inside the city to see if there’s anywhere that needs our help.” Standing up, Luo Shuangyue felt like she could finally slip away.
Leave these brainy problems to the professionals—she was just a combatant, as long as she could fight, she was satisfied.
“Wait!” Scarlet Feather Flame Princess stopped her, “Even if we’re willing to believe you’re not the Royal-Class Magic Beast, we still need to take necessary precautions.”
Luo Shuangyue did have something very sensitive about her.
It was fine when they didn’t know before, but now that they did, as the usual leader of Jidong City’s Magic Department, Scarlet Feather Flame Princess couldn’t just let things be.
She turned and walked to a storage locker not far away, taking out a small, high-tech box.
Opening the box revealed a shiny, silvery object resembling a bracelet.
“This is a Tracking Bracelet. It can monitor your vital signs and location in real time, and in an emergency, it can briefly restrict your movements.” Passing the bracelet to Luo Shuangyue, Scarlet Feather Flame Princess explained its function.
“Master of Butterflies, you can choose to wear the bracelet and go outside, or stay here and act with us. I won’t force you.”
Luo Shuangyue took the bracelet and examined it curiously. She’d never seen something like this in Xinghai City.
As for Scarlet Feather Flame Princess’s words, she didn’t really care. She had a clear conscience, so what was the harm in wearing a bracelet?
Given her current situation, even she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t lose control, so having a safeguard wasn’t a bad idea.
Without any hesitation, she put the bracelet on her right wrist. As it tightened and shifted color to match her gloves, Luo Shuangyue couldn’t help but exclaim, “That’s some high-tech stuff.”
Seeing this, Scarlet Feather Flame Princess looked genuinely surprised.
In the past, whenever she’d asked someone to wear this, there’d be strong resistance nine times out of ten.
Yet this time, Master of Butterflies just put it on with no complaint, so agreeable it was almost uncanny.
She actually put it on without a word.
Are all magical girls this easy to handle nowadays?
“It’s on. We’ll be going now.” Luo Shuangyue showed off the bracelet on her wrist to Scarlet Feather Flame Princess.
“Alright, I’ve already sent the mission location to your phones. But for now, don’t act rashly. As long as the Demons aren’t causing trouble for the city, just monitor them.” Scarlet Feather Flame Princess reminded them again.
After Luo Shuangyue and Xia Mo left, Mysterious Dawn gave Scarlet Feather Flame Princess a puzzled look.
“You’re just letting her go? That’s not like you.”
“Her eyes are very clear. I’m willing to believe her. Alright, enough of that, we still have a mess to deal with.”
Jidong City was unusually quiet today.
Because of the widespread Demon phantoms, all the residents had been evacuated to shelters.
Now, only Magic Department staff and those ghostly Demons remained on the deserted streets.
Standing atop the tallest building in her assigned zone, Luo Shuangyue gazed at the streets shrouded in black mist, feeling a faint sense of dread in her heart.
She didn’t know where this feeling came from, just that this scene filled her with an instinctive sense of aversion—and her magic seemed more restless under the influence of these things.
From Xia Mo’s perspective, Luo Shuangyue looked as if a thin, black membrane had settled over her body.
That membrane would swell out into spikes, then retract, only to appear somewhere else after a few seconds.
It was a constant crackling, like a spiked ball—impossible to approach.
“I remember there’s a term here in Jidong City called ‘Phantom Parade.’ Seems like this scene fits that word perfectly,” Luo Shuangyue pressed her brow in annoyance, searching for something to talk about.
There was nothing else to do—just standing here, watching these mindless Demons, was too dull. She’d rather they materialized and attacked her.
At least that would be interesting.
“It really is a Phantom Parade. So where did the Great Mage who can handle a Phantom Parade go?” Xia Mo, sitting atop her Floating Cannon, swung her purple boots lightly.
There was probably only one person in Jidong City worthy of being called Great Mage—the Soul Summoner Princess. But she’d disappeared.
Dusk was approaching. In a little while, the Soul Summoner Princess would have been missing for a whole day.
What could make a blooming-level magical girl disappear for an entire day? Surely there couldn’t be another Royal-Class Magic Beast, right? In that case, Jidong City really was “lucky”—not one, but two Royal-Class Magic Beasts, all for it alone.
The sun slowly sank, blood-red afterglow painting the mist-shrouded city and making it look like a ghost town.
In stories from Jidong City’s eastern district, this moment was known as Twilight of Demons.
The dim, mingled light signaled the barrier between worlds weakening, causing a spike in supernatural occurrences.
But that was just a story.
Wasn’t it?
Crack!
A sound like shattering glass rang in Luo Shuangyue’s ear.
“What was that?” She turned toward the source of the noise. The previously unblemished space now looked like shattered tempered glass, riddled with cracks.
Black mist and violet light seeped slowly from those fissures.
Something didn’t feel right.
The Floating Cannon behind Xia Mo had already locked onto the abnormal space.
Luo Shuangyue gripped her scythe, ready to face whatever battle might erupt at any moment.
Boom! Boom! BOOM!
After three booming crashes, the weakened space finally shattered. A girl in a deep purple shrine maiden outfit tumbled out, landing awkwardly.
Her aura was faint, but she still exuded the unique pressure of a blooming-level magical girl.
Black mist chased after her, apparently intent on continuing the attack.
But the moment they left the cracked space, they were cut apart and purified by her violet sword-light.
They seemed unaccustomed to the outside world.
Realizing this, the black mist recoiled and retreated, slowly mending the broken space as if closing their own front door.
“That’s the Soul Summoner Princess, right?” Watching the magical girl in the sky, Luo Shuangyue immediately guessed her identity.
Blooming-level, violet, armed with a blade—it matched Long Wen’s description perfectly. It had to be the Soul Summoner Princess.
“Yes, she should be the senior Soul Summoner Princess.” Xia Mo nodded, then shouted up, “Soul Summoner Princess-senpai, is that you?!”
Xia Mo’s shout caught the Soul Summoner Princess’s attention. The exhausted girl looked down at her two juniors on the rooftop, sheathed her blade, and landed before them.
“You are…” She looked at Xia Mo, then at Luo Shuangyue, a trace of confusion in her eyes.
She knew every magical girl in Jidong City, but not these two before her.
Were they from elsewhere?
This black-violet girl’s magic was agitated, seemingly beyond her control. And her appearance reminded the Soul Summoner Princess of someone from long ago.
“I’m Rosemary, and this is Dark Moth. We’re from Xinghai City.” Xia Mo introduced herself simply.
“Senpai, why did you come out of there? What was it you were fighting?”
There was no time to explain to the Soul Summoner Princess that they’d come to cure Luo Shuangyue. Clearly, something even more urgent was at hand.
Whatever was behind that space had been strong enough to injure the Soul Summoner Princess—it had to be at least Royal-Class.
“Late last night, a friend of mine called to tell me she’d found something strange and asked me to take a look. I went, followed the trail, and found the hiding place of the Demon just now.” The Soul Summoner Princess let out a long breath, a hint of embarrassment flickering across her face.
She’d thought her strength was enough to defeat the Demon, but its power was overwhelming. In that bizarre space, she wasn’t even a match.
If not for the chance presented by Twilight of Demons, when the boundary between worlds thinned, she might have been dragged to her death in there.
“And it’s not even at full power yet—it’s still developing. If I had to give it a name, I’d call it the Resentful Spirit Demon King.”
Yes, that Demon hadn’t fully matured yet. Its strength was great, but it wasn’t a true complete Demon.
For now, its range was limited to its own little pocket dimension. If it came to the outside world, its power would drop to somewhere between King-Class and Royal-Class.
“So all these Demon phantoms across the city…” Luo Shuangyue’s mouth twitched. So it really was a Royal-Class Demon?
“It’s its power projection. It wants to reshape this land so it can walk here freely.” The Soul Summoner Princess nodded gravely. “Someone had been feeding it continuously, but not long ago, that supply was cut off. Instinctively, it started looking for new sources of strength.”
After spending a whole day fighting it in that space, the Soul Summoner Princess had learned a lot about the Demon and nearly unraveled the secret behind it.
The story was simple. The previous Royal-Class Magic Beast had been trying to make itself a companion, and this Resentful Spirit Demon King was the result.
Everyone knew that the emergence of a Royal-Class Magic Beast would make huge waves—it was impossible to keep hidden through normal means.
So, think differently: what if the Royal-Class Magic Beast itself wasn’t normal?
Thus, the Royal-Class Magic Beast set things in motion. Who knew where it found the method, but it carved out a space for itself and placed the embryonic Resentful Spirit Demon King there.
Then, over a long, long time, it gathered the original magic from dead Demons nearby and crammed all of it into the Resentful Spirit Demon King’s body—using a shortcut-like method to make a half-finished product.
If its plan had gone smoothly, a Royal-Class Magic Beast really could have been born in this world without anyone noticing.
Unfortunately for it, its existence was exposed by some minor event a thousand miles away.
The subordinate it sent to collect the White Night Seal Card used Royal-Class magic, which failed to get the job done and caught the attention of the Magic Department, who tracked the source back to its lair.
The creation plan was abruptly cut off, and the Royal-Class Magic Beast was forced to leave Jidong City—ultimately dying in Xinghai City.
But the half-formed Demon King it left behind wouldn’t disappear just because it died. Now, the unfinished product had already…