The Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor had an enormous appetite.
A truly enormous one.
It was like a bottomless pit, ravenously devouring Luo Shuangyue’s magic power, even though its body was already covered in ashen-black Death Markings.
Yes, those Death Markings spread across its body should have meant it was already on the brink of death.
Yet it still gaped wide, absorbing Luo Shuangyue’s energy. How was that possible?
Luo Shuangyue shifted her gaze upward.
The battle in the sky had inexplicably ceased sometime ago.
The three avatars of the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor stood motionless, their bodies marked with gray streaks much like the one on the avatar she was facing.
She understood now—completely understood. Those four avatars shared an unknown method of energy transmission between them.
Killing the avatar before her by poison alone wasn’t enough; she had to poison the other three as well.
“To poison all four to death… what a nightmare…” Luo Shuangyue felt like crying.
She had already exhausted herself to poison the one in front of her, and the other three? Even if they squeezed her dry, she couldn’t feed all of them!
Thankfully, the three Full Bloom-Class Magical Girls were reliable. While the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor remained still, they relentlessly unleashed their attacks on the three distant avatars, quickly reducing them to fragments.
The Soul Summoner Princess’s assault was especially effective.
Wherever her purple flames licked, the black mist turned to blue smoke and vanished.
Before long, the avatar targeted by the Soul Summoner Princess was completely destroyed.
But at the moment the black mist dispersed, over a dozen pitch-black crystals, no bigger than grains of rice, transformed into streaks of black light that darted toward the avatar Luo Shuangyue was bombarding with her Magic Artillery.
The Soul Summoner Princess was too late to stop them; she could only watch as those fragments of Original Magic Power returned to the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s body.
The other two Full Bloom-Class Magical Girls faced similar situations.
Though they demolished the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s forms, they couldn’t prevent the Original Magic Power from retreating to the remaining avatars below.
Even with prior preparation, they still couldn’t stop the return of the Original Magic Power.
“Running all the way here won’t help. Let’s combine our strength and annihilate it completely here!”
The Soul Summoner Princess didn’t seem overly concerned. These fragments of Original Magic Power only fled back into the weakest avatar; after all, they hadn’t escaped the Magic Department’s Barrier.
It was just like Xun Yan’s last gasps—only prolonging the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s life by a few seconds.
The final avatar could be resolved with a single strike.
Or… they might not even need to lift a finger.
After the other three avatars were destroyed one after another by the Full Bloom-Class Magical Girls, the last avatar finally succumbed to the overwhelming withering magic coursing within it.
The black mist that formed its body began peeling away in layers, turning into black smoke that Xia Mo purified with her Bladed Light.
But the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor seemed completely unaware it was about to perish.
It joyfully devoured the magic power Luo Shuangyue sent its way, feeling as though the missing pieces of itself were slowly being restored.
Its fragmented consciousness was uniting under a fresh, newfound force.
The more it consumed, the more perfect it could become!
The body formed of black mist crumbled bit by bit, revealing the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s true form before everyone’s eyes.
This was a creature unlike any Demon before. It was artificially created, a Demon forged from countless residual Demon consciousnesses compressed together.
Thus, its real form was a fragmented mass.
Dozens of pieces of Original Magic Power of various sizes were forcibly compressed into a space the size of an egg—these fragments served as the anchor for the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s consciousness.
“This form of existence explains why it can create such avatars…”
The Soul Summoner Princess immediately understood upon seeing this, realizing why the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor could split its body without hesitation.
Because from the start, the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor wasn’t just one being—it was many.
Each piece of Original Magic Power contained the consciousness of a Demon, some clear, some chaotic, forcibly fused together by the immense strength of the Royal-Class Magic Beast to form the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s main consciousness.
But this main consciousness didn’t resemble what a main consciousness should. It hadn’t even considered itself a whole.
“Are they… merging now?”
The Soul Summoner Princess narrowed her eyes. The tiny fragments of Original Magic Power were slowly fusing together, driven by Luo Shuangyue’s magic power.
Perhaps it was because Luo Shuangyue’s magic contained the power of that former Royal-Class Magic Beast, or some other origin. In any case, after absorbing Luo Shuangyue’s magic, the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor began a process of rebirth and death simultaneously.
Its body was being eroded by Death Attribute magic, dissolving completely, yet its consciousness was undergoing a new birth within that death.
The fragile, weak consciousnesses were wiped out by the power of death, while the strong ones were pressured by a familiar force to begin true fusion…
“Should we just end it now?”
One Full Bloom-Class Magical Girl clasped her hands together in the shape of a blade, gesturing in front of her neck.
“I actually want to see what this thing will fuse into in the end. Let me add a little fire to it.”
The Soul Summoner Princess’s opinion differed.
She was a Magical Girl specializing in consciousness research, and this process of the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s consciousness merging was a domain she had never ventured into.
To simply destroy such precious research material—she couldn’t bear to do it.
Besides, the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s consciousness without a body was no longer a threat.
Destroying it outright was less beneficial than preserving it for study.
With that in mind, the Soul Summoner Princess slashed toward the Original Magic Power fragments.
Purple soul flames spread, burning the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s Original Magic Power alongside Luo Shuangyue’s Death Attribute magic.
The other two Full Bloom-Class Magical Girls shook their heads helplessly at the Soul Summoner Princess’s actions.
Since she had made her decision, they would just observe for now.
After all, she was their senior. Respect had to be given.
“Then let’s go outside and finish off those Demons.”
“Senior sisters, the Demons attacking Jingan Palace just vanished!” Xia Mo reminded them.
At the very moment the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s body shattered completely, the Demons besieging Jingan Palace dissolved into black mist and disappeared.
It was likely because their summoner, the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor, was effectively dead now.
“I say… can I take a short break? My magic power is almost gone.”
A weak voice came from nearby.
Luo Shuangyue thought that once the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor was dealt with, the battle would be over.
But judging from the Soul Summoner Princess’s expression, she was clearly expected to keep firing the Magic Artillery.
At this rate, Luo Shuangyue doubted she would last until the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s consciousness fully merged before running out of magic power and collapsing.
What had to disintegrate would disintegrate in the end.
Even after taking a magic recovery potion, Luo Shuangyue almost blacked out and collapsed after completing her task.
Only after being held by Xia Mo for a while did she barely regain consciousness and cast a glance toward where the Soul Summoner Princess was.
The Sensory Link Rune between her and Xia Mo had already broken when she disintegrated earlier. After all, with her magic power exhausted, she couldn’t maintain the rune.
That had spared Xia Mo a disaster, as collapsing from magic depletion was far from pleasant.
However, after exhausting all her magic power, Luo Shuangyue’s Hedgehog Spirit constitution ceased to function.
All her magic was spent, including the protective layers of magic.
This was why she could lie quietly in Xia Mo’s arms without pricking her and causing a mess of blood.
“Is this the thing we created?”
Looking at the black diamond-shaped gemstone wrapped in the Soul Summoner Princess’s purple flames, Luo Shuangyue felt the gem was oddly familiar.
Didn’t the Magical Girls’ transformation gems look something like this?
“This time, little Die, you really saved us. Without you, resolving this crisis would have been far more difficult.”
The Soul Summoner Princess approached Luo Shuangyue, holding the black gemstone and sincerely thanking her.
“There seems to be a new consciousness budding inside this gem. I can sense that its awareness differs from the usual brutality and bloodlust of Demons. Perhaps it will be a good child.”
The Soul Summoner Princess herself found this hard to believe.
A gemstone shaped from the Resentful Spirit Demon Emperor’s Original Magic Power containing a good consciousness?