Friends who have played Overwatch know that when a long-range Soldier: 76 proactively gets in your face to trade shots, he is either doing it to taunt you or because he is forced to contest the point.
Did an elite high-level Abnormal Demon possess the intelligence to ‘deliberately taunt’ a Magical Girl?
It was hard to say; perhaps it was possible. For instance, some animals would toy with their prey for a while after catching it before finally eating them.
However, the current situation was far from settled. The Abnormal Demon had not caught the Magical Girls yet, nor had the outcome been decided. Would it really dare to toy with its prey already?
Yin Lin and the people at the Countermeasure Center knew that the Abnormal Demon had changed its behavioral pattern and closed the distance because it had received some kind of order, not to taunt them in close quarters.
It preferred long-range attacks, and Yin Lin preferred long-range attacks as well. It should have been a passionate exchange of fire between two battleships.
As it drew closer and closer, the difficulty for the two Magical Girls to dodge increased significantly.
It even began to predict Yin Lin’s movements, and several Light-Slaying Cannons grazed her magic shield.
They were also trying to save themselves, separating slightly and lowering their altitude to use the trees in the forest as cover.
Obstructing its line of sight did not do much, as the Abnormal Demon could also sense mana.
Still, slightly increasing their survival rate was much better than staying in the air and waiting for death.
The Abnormal Demon had eyes, which meant it still relied on them to make at least some of its decisions.
Another Light-Slaying Cannon fired. Even though the distance was much shorter now, there was a slight deviation.
The projectile hit the ground nearby, triggering another violent explosion.
Though it did not strike her directly, the explosion still caught her in its wake.
The damage it caused her was much smaller than a direct hit would have been; her magic shield barely shattered, but she was not seriously injured.
However, the deafening roar of the explosion still left her ears ringing for a while.
By then, the Abnormal Demon had closed the distance to within several hundred meters, and its accuracy had improved to a terrifying degree.
Of course, at this distance, Lu Ye could also easily sense the changes in its mana.
When it tried to use the Light-Slaying Cannon again, Lu Ye concentrated her mind and gave a sharp tug. She actually managed to pull the Abnormal Demon out of its stance from a distance with her long whip. Its hand jerked, and the firing angle shifted severely, striking a spot over 100 meters away.
Lu Ye struggled to control the whip. Maintaining its current length and strength required a continuous expenditure of mana.
To buy just a little more time for Yin Lin, she had no choice but to extend its length further.
She coiled it around the Abnormal Demon’s neck as well, which allowed her to restrict its breathing while providing a point of leverage.
Tightening the segment of the whip between its arm and neck, she engaged in a contest of strength with the demon once more, trying to snap its arm or neck—or at least wrench them into a position that made it difficult for the creature to use magic.
Delayed for a moment, the Abnormal Demon began to struggle even more violently. It stopped its long-range attacks and attempted to break free from Lu Ye’s control with all its might.
Lu Ye was finally reaching her limit.
She could not help but think of Jin Luan. ‘If she were here, she could have taken this opportunity to launch conventional attacks on the demon. We wouldn’t have to wait for Yin Lin’s slow-charging attack.’
Regrettably, Jin Luan was not always around, especially here in the forest outside the city—a place where almost no Magical Girl was willing to go.
To resolve the situation with that Abnormal Demon, they could only rely on themselves now, which meant relying on that Full Power Magic Cannon with its excessively long charge time.
There was only a tiny bit of time left. The long whip likely would not hold; the demon was about to break free.
Seeing this, Lu Ye sighed and gave a bitter smile. She then increased her altitude and flew toward the Abnormal Demon, which was several hundred meters away.
The Abnormal Demon’s posture had been forcibly shifted, making it inconvenient to fire its Light-Slaying Cannon, but it did not flee. Instead, it proactively lunged toward her.
This was another move that defied common sense, clearly indicating it was being commanded.
It accelerated frantically in a very short time. Even though Lu Ye hurriedly tried to dodge, she could not avoid it completely. She was struck from the side, and her cracked magic shield shattered instantly. She felt as if every bone in her body was about to fall apart; this hurt far more than being hit by a truck.
Claws.
Lu Ye was not sent flying, however. She tenaciously gripped the handle of her whip and was dragged into the air as the Abnormal Demon flew.
At such close range, she finally got a clear look at the state of this Abnormal Demon.
After entering its berserk state, this demon stood 4 meters tall. Its muscles were not particularly well-developed, being somewhat inferior to those of lower-level Abnormal Demons. It had a small head, narrow shoulders, and thick legs. It also had things like gliders on its arms—not exactly wings, as they were too small to flap and lift such a massive body.
It did not need wings to fly; it used mana.
This fellow had a headset-like collar around its neck. It really was being commanded.
Furthermore, this creature was protected by a magic shield. It was truly an Abnormal Demon specializing in magic; its self-protection was extensive.
Lu Ye gripped the whip with everything she had. The Abnormal Demon’s flight speed grew faster and faster as it tried to shake her off.
An ordinary person would have been thrown off long ago; this was a level of speed that no human could endure.
Lu Ye held on for dear life. Once her hands moved closer to the wand part of the whip, her level of control increased by another stage.
The whip contracted tightly, letting out a series of creaks and groans. It was the sound of the whip compressing the magic shield, as well as the sounds of the demon’s bones and skin being constricted.
That was not all. Green Fire ignited on the whip, continuously scorching the demon’s magic shield. This move had clearly been developed to toy with Magical Girls rather than to deal with Abnormal Demons.
Many ripples appeared on the demon’s magic shield, but it likely could not be destroyed in a short amount of time.
The Green Fire was probably just a small trick to test the strength of the demon’s shield. After burning it a few times and concluding that the shield’s strength was very high, she retracted the Green Fire and went back to focusing on tightening the whip.
The Abnormal Demon continued to accelerate. Its body was nearly being squeezed into a pole, with only its two hands still fighting back.
The strength of this whip was too high; there was almost no possibility of it being destroyed. Lu Ye was utilizing her magic wand to its absolute limit.
Suddenly, the Abnormal Demon changed its behavior again. It must have been ordered by the mastermind once more.
It turned and slammed violently toward the ground. Lu Ye urgently let go, trying to brake, but she could not stop completely and crashed into the earth. It hurt immensely, leaving her covered in injuries and her head bleeding.
As for the Abnormal Demon, the impact even caused cracks to appear in its own magic shield. It carved a deep trench several hundred meters long into the earth, snapping countless trees in the forest.
It had also temporarily escaped Lu Ye’s annoying control. It scrambled to its feet, finally breaking free from the whip’s constraints.
It now finally understood how terrifying the techniques Lu Ye had trained to capture Magical Girls were. Even an elite high-level Abnormal Demon had almost been unable to break free. Although it was a long-range demon with weak melee capabilities and relatively low strength, its ability to hard-crowd-control the creature was still frightening.
Having regained its freedom, the Abnormal Demon roared, seemingly preparing to finish off Lu Ye, a prey who had lost her ability to resist.
Little did it know, time was just about up.
A crisp, loud voice rang out from the sky: “PIERCE THE SEA OF STARS!”
Lu Ye lay on the ground, shielding her head. Her mind drifted back to the first time she had seen Yin Lin’s video. It was exactly that cringey, chuunibyou line that had moved Lu Ye’s heart.