She knew her mother’s temperament very well.
Once her mother gave that kind of look, she definitely would not have a good time afterward.
And this time, it seemed she really was at fault. If she hadn’t made a slight error in the placement of the Teleportation Gate, this awkward situation wouldn’t have happened.
She had protected the monsters her mother wanted to kill; wasn’t that like stabbing her mother in the back?
“Shuangyue, the Teleportation Gate seems a bit unstable… Huh?!” Xia Mo poked her head out of the starlight gate and was immediately shocked by the tragic scene outside.
“Go back first. I’ll kill the Path Creatures on this side first.” Luo Shuangyue quickly told Xia Mo to retreat.
The battle here was no longer something a low-level Full Bloom-Class Magical Girl like Xia Mo could get involved in.
Even though more than half of them had been wiped out by White Night’s sword, the remaining monsters were still enough to exhaust a Magical Girl like Xia Mo, who had insufficient Magic Power reserves.
Therefore, she had to solve the trouble she caused herself.
Luo Shuangyue gripped her large Scythe, intending to send these surviving Path Creatures to join their departed companions.
The tiny Scythe fairy emerged from Luo Shuangyue’s Scythe.
Once Luo Shuangyue gave the internal command to kill them all, Phantom Scythe could not wait to give these monsters some “warmth.”
She turned into a streak of black mist and lunged straight into the monsters, beginning a one-sided slaughter.
Yes, it was one-sided, because the monsters did not resist at all. On the contrary, they were even cooperating with Luo Shuangyue’s movements.
‘Something’s wrong… Why aren’t they fighting back? Wait, why is Phantom Scythe absorbing the black mist left by these monsters?’
Luo Shuangyue quickly realized something was amiss.
While Phantom Scythe was killing these monsters, she was also devouring the black mist they left behind.
This mist caused Phantom Scythe’s body to grow rapidly, which in turn accelerated her slaughter of the monsters.
If this continued, once Phantom Scythe devoured all the Path Creatures in this area, she might become just like the massive monster currently fighting White Night.
“Phantom Scythe, don’t eat those things! Come back quickly!” Luo Shuangyue hurried to call her back.
Phantom Scythe, who was having the time of her life, paused her movements upon hearing the call and quickly flew back to Luo Shuangyue’s side.
After flying back, she also realized the problem.
“Huh? I can’t change back?” The three-meter-tall pitch-black Path Creature let out a raspy, coarse voice.
Originally, Phantom Scythe could enhance her combat power by devouring the flesh and blood of demons during battle, but once the fight ended, she could actively separate from that Demonic Energy to return to her original state.
This time was different. Phantom Scythe found that the black mist was stuck to her like superglue; she couldn’t peel it off no matter how hard she tried.
Even more terrifying, the surrounding drifting black mist seemed to sense that a powerful individual had appeared and began swarming toward her.
“I don’t want to be wrapped up by them!” Phantom Scythe let out a wail.
Luo Shuangyue could not think of a good solution immediately, so she could only drag Phantom Scythe back into the Starlight Tunnel. At least the black mist could not follow them inside.
“What’s going on?”
Seeing Luo Shuangyue drag the unrecognizable Phantom Scythe into the tunnel, Xia Mo was first stunned and then showed a wary expression.
Phantom Scythe looked truly hideous now, the kind of creature that clearly looked like trouble, so Xia Mo’s reaction was only natural.
Xia Mo could recognize Phantom Scythe in her little girl form, but she certainly could not recognize her in this battle-state original form.
After all, Phantom Scythe’s Transformation was originally a cluster of amorphous black mist with no identifiable physical features.
“It’s Phantom Scythe,” Luo Shuangyue briefly explained what had just happened outside.
Hearing the explanation, Xia Mo curiously poked Phantom Scythe’s body with her finger, causing the black, misty Path Creature to shudder uneasily.
“It feels soft, like cotton… Have you tried using your power to help her strip away the things on her body?”
“Not yet. If she can attract the black mist, then the scene of me using my power out there would be even more spectacular,” Luo Shuangyue shook her head.
When she had used her Barrier to block White Night’s Sword Light earlier, the swarming black mist had terrified her.
If that Barrier hadn’t also separated her from the mist, she might have ended up just like Phantom Scythe.
It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Luo Shuangyue felt it was unwise to let these things of unknown origin stick to her body.
Luo Shuangyue had never had any good feelings toward these uninvited guests.
This was true for the evil intent, and it was true for this black mist.
However, within the undisturbed Starlight Tunnel, she could boldly try to help Phantom Scythe remove the substances.
“Xia Mo, you try first. I want to see if a Magical Girl’s power can work against this black mist.”
“Okay.”
Xia Mo summoned her Floating Cannon. Under Ye Lin’s precise control, several miniaturized cannons began using Magic Power to cut away a small piece of black mist from Phantom Scythe’s body.
Once the cluster of mist left Phantom Scythe, it instantly turned into a wisp of Demonic Energy, which Luo Shuangyue immediately confined.
She did not want these unknown bad things interfering with the spatial channel.
“It works, but the effect isn’t as good as I imagined,” said Ye Lin, who had more authority on the subject as she stared at the wound that was already being recovered by the black mist.
Compared to the Magical Girl Xia Mo, who only knew how to fire cannons, Ye Lin, as a Spirit Weapon, had a better grasp of such detailed aspects.
To put it bluntly, Xia Mo was essentially just a “Ye Lin generator.” The powerful one wasn’t Xia Mo, but the Spirit Weapon.
Xia Mo did not feel ashamed of this; she was happy to admit her shortcomings.
After all, she had not held this power for long, and it was normal for her to be ignorant of many things.
Besides, if a Spirit Weapon could not perfectly control a Weapon, then what would be the point of its existence? Everyone had their specialties.
Spirit Weapons were specifically designed to enhance a Magical Girl’s control over her weaponry.
Could anyone deny that Xia Mo’s control and development of her weapon were now much stronger?
“If we want to strip the black mist from Phantom Scythe completely without hurting her… it would take at least one day. Xia Mo’s Magic Power might not even be enough.”
“Don’t worry about hurting Phantom Scythe. She’s a Spirit Weapon just like you. As long as I’m fine, she’ll be fine,” Luo Shuangyue reminded her.
“Then that saves some time, but not much.”
“What about clearing the black mist off her through brute force?”
“About the same. With Xia Mo’s current Magic Power reserves, it would be very pushing it.”
The three exchanged words quickly in the tunnel, eventually reaching a conclusion that left Luo Shuangyue somewhat helpless.
Even though Phantom Scythe had only absorbed the black mist for a short while, it would take the full effort of a Full Bloom-Class Magical Girl like Xia Mo to defeat that mist, provided Phantom Scythe offered no resistance.
While Xia Mo’s Magic Power was not as high as a standard Full Bloom-Class Magical Girl, one had to remember that Phantom Scythe was not resisting. Furthermore, after being beaten back to their original form, the black mist didn’t die; over time, they would make a comeback. That was the truly terrifying and despair-inducing part.
“This is difficult.” Luo Shuangyue let out a sigh and then reached her hand into Phantom Scythe’s misty body.
Yes, she simply reached her hand inside.
This scene stunned Xia Mo and Ye Lin, and even Luo Shuangyue herself was surprised.
She had only wanted to touch Phantom Scythe to see how she felt; how did her hand just go right in?
What surprised her even more was that when she reached into the mist, Phantom Scythe suddenly let out a joyful cry.
“I think I can come out!”
As she said this, a small bulge appeared on the surface of the black mist, and then a pair of small hands tore the surface open, and she climbed out.
A few specks of black mist still clung to Phantom Scythe, but after she left, those remaining bits quickly separated from her and returned to the larger mass.
It was like a little pet that heartlessly abandoned its original owner after finding a better one.
After Phantom Scythe left, the mass of black mist quickly began to shrink, eventually condensing into a tiny ring that hung from Luo Shuangyue’s pinky finger.
It was… quite personalized, even changing its appearance based on the person it followed.
But Luo Shuangyue did not want this thing’s allegiance.
She reached out to pinch the ring and tried forcefully to pull it off her finger.
In doing so, Luo Shuangyue finally understood why Phantom Scythe could not break free from the mist.
Even a powerhouse who was arguably the third strongest in the world had to use a great deal of strength just to pull this tiny ring off her finger.
The Black Mist Ring was like it had been coated in superglue, firmly sticking to her finger.
If an ordinary person encountered this situation, there would only be one way to remove it: cutting off the finger.
Even cutting off the finger might not work.
This ring would not stay still; it would likely act like a fungus, digging its roots into the host’s body to complete a deeper binding.
It was only because Luo Shuangyue’s physical strength was so high that these small maneuvers could not break through her skin’s protection.
Even so, the Black Mist Ring displayed various traits of being an annoying parasite that disgusted Luo Shuangyue.
She was now very glad she had retreated in time.
Otherwise, if she had been hounded by these things, even she would have found it a massive headache.