Fighting in a city was different from fighting in the wild; one had to worry about collateral damage.
The primary offensive force consisted of aerial units, and the Special Task Force had brought out the big guns this time.
Massive aerial gunships hovered high in the sky, dropping a dense hail of shells that mostly struck the massive body of the Octopus Tentacle Monster.
Bunker-buster shells, normally used against enemies dozens of meters underground, proved incredibly effective here.
Against a target that was both massive and fragile, they were essentially the tentacle monster’s “natural predator.”
The creature’s skin wasn’t as hard as that of a Demonic Creature, and given its enormous size, the bunker-busters hit easily and dealt massive damage.
The Octopus Tentacle Monster’s blue body was falling apart, the blue substance that composed it scattering further and further away, requiring an extensive amount of time to recover.
The tentacle monster possessed self-healing abilities, but the dense bombardment from the Special Task Force’s aerial gunships was so intense that its regeneration couldn’t keep up at all.
The Eastern Alliance’s Countermeasure Center gradually noticed a problem—even though huge holes had been blasted through the monster’s body, there was no sign of blood or internal organs.
Furthermore, it remained mobile, still capable of coiling around boulders and hurling them at the gunships in the sky.
Its accuracy and strength had declined, however, and it couldn’t come close to hitting the gunships thousands of meters up in the air.
The distance was simply too great.
It could only move with great difficulty, attempting to dodge the high-altitude gunships and the increasing number of multi-rotor bombing drones.
Its movement speed wasn’t particularly fast, and it toppled one low-rise building after another as it crawled across the ground.
Fortunately, the citizens had a strong sense of safety; some had hidden Underground while others had evacuated elsewhere, so no further casualties occurred.
However, the property damage was immense, caused not only by the tentacle monster but also by the Special Task Force and the Defeated Team.
The damage caused by the Special Task Force was likely greater.
After all, they used conventional physical weapons, which carried a high probability of accidentally hitting ordinary citizens.
Unlike the Defeated Team, which possessed specialized weapons for Demonic Creatures and Magical Girls, the Special Task Force had a relatively higher chance of collateral damage.
After ten minutes of bombardment, the Octopus Tentacle Monster finally couldn’t take it anymore and began to dissipate.
This wasn’t a common way for a creature to die; it simply vanished into the air, leaving no corpse behind.
The Special Task Force had secured a major victory.
Of course, the ground was left in ruins, looking like a field that had been plowed over.
Liang Tai filmed the scene after the great battle, which reminded him of the Human Alliance’s accusations against Magical Girls.
They believed that Magical Girls were a disaster on par with Demonic Creatures.
Magical Girls often destroyed buildings and accidentally injured or even killed humans, and yet no one could hold them accountable.
Quite a few people agreed with the Human Alliance’s perspective.
In particular, Yin Lin’s Charged Magic Cannon served as evidence for this claim—her bombardment caused far too much damage to city facilities.
Liang Tai originally wanted to mock the Eastern Alliance in the Live Broadcast Room, but after a moment of thought, he kept his mouth shut.
At least they had killed the tentacle monster this time and protected the people.
However, he didn’t stop the fans in the chat from using the Human Alliance’s rhetoric to mock the Human Alliance in return.
***
Yao Ruoning sat in a Metro carriage, looking out the window at various Underground facilities whose purposes she still didn’t understand.
She had been somewhat interested a few hours ago, but now she was bored and had no desire to keep observing.
She glanced out occasionally, and seeing no issues, she went back to looking at her phone.
There were new messages in the Three Sisters Group.
It turned out Jin Luan and Huan Hong had been driven away.
Huan Hong: [What on earth was that thing? My Mana was completely sucked dry.]
Jin Luan: [I’m okay, I have a little bit left.]
‘I see. No wonder that tentacle monster specifically targeted Magical Girls while ignoring ordinary humans.’
It wasn’t just because Magical Girls were cute and fun, but because they had Mana that the tentacle monster could absorb.
Magical Girls were essentially top-tier power banks or food for the tentacle monster.
Still, that monster seemed exceptionally strange.
Yao Ruoning watched the replay of the Live Broadcast again, carefully observing the way the tentacle monster vanished.
It didn’t look like it had been blown to bits by the Special Task Force; it looked more like it had vanished intentionally.
‘Was the Magic actively canceled by the caster? What kind of Magic is that? When can I learn it? It’s so cool.’
If she could master such a thing, she wouldn’t just be the queen of the three sisters—she could even counter-kill Greenfield and make that girl call her “Papa Yin Lin.”
Bored in the Metro, Yao Ruoning tried it out.
She channeled basic Magic and began to construct a shape, creating a water-based object that looked like a sea urchin.
She had wanted to make a tentacle monster, but she lacked the ability.
The level of fine detail required was too high, and she hadn’t mastered such high-end techniques yet.
It seemed this wasn’t a move she could learn in a short amount of time.
She checked the group chat again.
Huan Hong and Jin Luan had likely left the scene separately, which was why they were communicating via phone.
Both had been forced to retreat due to Mana exhaustion, escaping before their Transformation wore off to avoid exposing their true identities.
Now they were slowly recovering their Mana while researching the tentacle monster from earlier.
They believed the creature might be a type of Demonic Creature they hadn’t seen before, or perhaps something caused by a Transmission Portal.
However, they also raised a point of suspicion—when their Perception was used on the creature, the Magic Signature they felt was different from that of a Demonic Creature.
Thus, they began to suspect that the thing might not have been a Demonic Creature at all.
But if it wasn’t a Demonic Creature, what was it?
Why didn’t it like men?
It killed men immediately upon catching them but ate women; when it caught Magical Girls, it didn’t kill them, but instead absorbed their Mana.
What exactly was that tentacle monster?
Just then, a third person spoke up in the group.
Yin Lin: [Because that guy was a summoned creature.]
Since it was difficult to explain things clearly to them, she used “summoned creature” as a simple term to help her two sisters understand.
Huan Hong: [Summoned creature? What else do you know?]
Huan Hong: [Are you sure?]
Huan Hong: [How do you know?]
Jin Luan: [Lin, what secrets are you still hiding from me?]
Yin Lin: [I heard it from Diamond.]
Yin Lin: [He said there’s a very miraculous type of Magic that can call forth summoned creatures to do one’s bidding.]
Yin Lin: [Isn’t it pretty similar to that octopus?]
It was Diamond again. Even though Diamond was gone, he was still “earning merits.”
While Huan Hong and Jin Luan couldn’t confirm the truth, they didn’t doubt it either.
If it came from a Contract Beast, it was normal to know many secrets.
Jin Luan: [By the way, speaking of Diamond, I have some news.]
Jin Luan: [Old Wang is coming back.]
‘Old Wang? Who’s that? There’s a person like that?’
Yin Lin’s mind was full of question marks; she had never heard of this character.
Huan Hong: [Holy crap, Old Wang is finally coming back! I’ve missed him so much!]
Yin Lin: [Who exactly is Old Wang? Do you guys have another little clique?]