“I brought someone back!” Luo Shuangyue strode into the Eternal Night headquarters, carrying a large, pitch-black cocoon slung over her shoulder as she called out to Monice and the Soul Summoner Princess, who were gathered around Xiao Yi.
Hearing her voice, Monice looked up and gave Luo Shuangyue a glance that said, “Impressive.”
“Already dealt with it so quickly?” Not long ago, Monice had detected an outbreak of emperor-level demonic energy in the city, but soon after, the alarm vanished.
It seemed Luo Shuangyue had taken down that Demon in an incredibly short time.
Not only that, but she had captured it alive.
“Well, how should I put it? This guy felt a bit weak,” Luo Shuangyue said as she gently set the large cocoon on the ground and, with a swipe of her scythe, pulled the Demon Girl out.
The Demon Girl now looked completely stripped of the arrogance she’d shown before, her face full of disbelief.
Black Thorn spread from within her body, fully controlling her movements. These thorns clung to her bones and muscles, constantly inflicting unbearable pain.
But Demons don’t fear pain. She only frowned slightly, and that discomfort wasn’t from the pain but because her power was being continuously siphoned off by the Black Thorn.
The thorns were like real plants, drawing nutrients from her body and transforming them into heavy, ripe fruits that hung on the thorny branches.
Once these fruits matured, a small hand would pluck them one by one, devouring them quickly.
Phantom Scythe sat on the Demon Girl’s shoulder, using a black mist arm to hold her scythe at the girl’s neck, while her real hand greedily ate the dark fruits.
Bite after bite, it made one wonder where all the food was going.
How could such a tiny figure have such a huge appetite?
“Xixi?!” Xiao Yi, lying on the hospital bed covered in monitoring devices, widened her eyes. She instinctively wanted to rush to the Demon Girl but was held back by the Soul Summoner Princess.
“Stay calm, she’s not the person you know.”
“Right, and I also found this on her. She seems to be influencing Xiao Yi through the connection between these two pendants,” Luo Shuangyue said, pulling out another pendant.
The two pendants were nearly identical except for slight differences in design.
The Soul Threads—fine lines of soulfire previously released by the Soul Summoner Princess—still flickered between the pendants.
“This state… it’s so crude.” Monice approached the Demon Girl, examining her carefully.
Or rather, her body.
Because of the thorns, most of the girl’s clothes were torn to shreds, giving Monice a clear view beneath.
Aside from the thorns belonging to Luo Shuangyue, the Demon Girl’s body looked quite similar to Xiao Yi’s—at least from the front.
But from behind, the difference was stark.
Black fleshy masses clung to the girl’s spine, and thin black tendrils extended from these masses, piercing deeply into her body.
Even more tendrils had burrowed into her skull, giving off a disgusting feeling.
“Is she a cyborg? This modification method is way too crude,” Monice said with disdain in her eyes.
Luo Shuangyue nodded. “They modified Xiao Yi’s body. The original consciousness should’ve been swallowed by her…”
“No, it hasn’t,” the Soul Summoner Princess interrupted before Luo Shuangyue could finish.
Her words caused the Demon Girl’s pupils to shrink, but before she could react, the Soul Summoner Princess drew her Spirit-Cutting Blade from her waist and swung out a fiery slash at the girl.
“You won’t get the chance to silence anyone!”
Purple flames burned across the girl’s body, eliciting a miserable scream.
Xiao Yi curled up, covering her ears as if she had been transported back to that day—the nightmare that never truly ended in her heart.
She had abandoned everyone, even her own sister, running alone into the escape pod.
After setting a course for the nearest Life Planet, she left the fleet under attack by Demons behind.
The fleet was swallowed by flames behind her.
The last voice she heard from her own kind was her sister’s, transmitted through the pendant: “Sister, save me…”
“The girl’s consciousness is still in her body! If we can expel her consciousness, the girl can regain control of her body!” the Soul Summoner Princess shouted.
Luo Shuangyue knew little about mental powers, so she believed what the Demon Girl said.
After all, for a Demon, keeping Xixi’s consciousness was useless; this body was merely a puppet.
A puppet doesn’t need consciousness.
It couldn’t be that the Demon was some sick sadist wanting to savor the taste of her sister’s consciousness bit by bit, right?
That would be too cruel, not to mention un-Demon-like.
Look at Phantom Thorn, another emperor-level Demon she had encountered. That one focused purely on efficiency, never wasting time on unnecessary drama or useless emotions.
All the emperor-level Demons Luo Shuangyue had met were like that, so she never expected this Demon Girl to trick her.
But this kind of deception didn’t work on the Soul Summoner Princess, who immediately saw that there was a weaker consciousness sleeping inside the girl’s body—completely different from the one controlling her.
They were even located in different places.
One was inside the girl’s head, the other nestled within the black flesh mass on her spine.
“Phantom Thorn, cooperate with me!”
“Ah?” Luo Shuangyue blinked. Was this suddenly her problem?
“I need to suppress the girl’s mental power from the outside, while you enter her Spiritual Space and expel the consciousness lodging in her head.”
Luo Shuangyue was dumbfounded. What was all this about?
She wasn’t a mental power expert like the Soul Summoner Princess.
How was she supposed to know what to do?
“Or, to put it simply, take control of this body first, expel the Demon’s consciousness from inside.”
“I don’t know how!” Luo Shuangyue stamped her foot. She was a combat-type Magical Girl; this mystical stuff was beyond her!
“You have the talent for this. Just try bit by bit,” the Soul Summoner Princess said nonchalantly.
“The resistance isn’t strong. I can easily suppress her, but to completely clear the lingering consciousness inside the girl requires teamwork from inside and out.”
“Now, follow my instructions step by step.”
Forced into the role, Luo Shuangyue shot Monice a helpless look. Who could explain this to her?
Then her dear leader smiled and said, “Just do as she says.”
There was something deeper behind that smile, something Luo Shuangyue couldn’t quite grasp.
Could it be that Monice was selling her out again? No way.
With that thought, Luo Shuangyue gritted her teeth and approached Xixi.
Following the Soul Summoner Princess’s guidance, she slowly extended her Mental Power into the black thorns growing throughout the girl’s body.
Mental Power needed a medium, and these thorns were perfect—they had spread into every corner of the girl’s body except the head, which Luo Shuangyue hesitated to touch, fearing something might go wrong.
Now, she had no choice but to reach into the forbidden area.
Thinner thorns sprouted from those wrapped around the girl’s neck, crawling along the earlier black tendrils toward her brain.
Luo Shuangyue felt the will of resistance within the black threads, but it had no effect on her.
Closing her eyes, she imagined herself sinking deeper and deeper into the girl’s consciousness.
Soon, she felt a vivid sensation of falling.
When she opened her eyes again, the scene before her had changed.
“How did you decide to teach her these skills?” Monice asked the Soul Summoner Princess, watching Luo Shuangyue, who seemed as calm as a meditating monk.
“A necessary experiment. Her soul is very peculiar. I wanted to see just how far she could go,” the Soul Summoner Princess said with a light laugh.
Deep in Luo Shuangyue’s consciousness were three distinct awarenesses.
One was Phantom Thorn, the emperor-level Demon’s consciousness.
Another was Phantom Scythe, once the Resentful Spirit Demon King.
And then there was herself.
The Soul Summoner Princess had asked before how the three coexisted, and Luo Shuangyue’s answer was that they got along fairly well.
This was an extremely strange situation—three completely different consciousnesses, including a Magical Girl and a Demon Emperor, sworn enemies by nature, living in harmony.
Unless Luo Shuangyue was dreaming, the Soul Summoner Princess had no choice but to conclude that Luo Shuangyue was extraordinarily gifted.
Plus, Luo Shuangyue’s Mental Power was far stronger than that of an average Magical Girl, so it was not a problem for her to learn some Spirit Spells.
More skills never hurt.
“More and more things have been happening recently, and I have a bad feeling about this,” the Soul Summoner Princess said quietly.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have come so willingly this time.
When Monice invited her, she only mentioned a non-human for her to check out, never saying it was an alien.
But the Soul Summoner Princess came anyway, driven by a sense of crisis.
“We need more, stronger power. And she… is someone I believe could become a protector of humanity like White Night in the future.”
“Oh? Aren’t the carefully trained Magical Girls from the Magic Department enough?”
“They’re good too, but she’s different. Phantom Thorn is special—so special that even I don’t know why.”
“Really?” Monice looked at Luo Shuangyue with a complicated gaze. “You’re not the only one. I also think she’s a little like that person.”
The white figure who seemed like a god.
Xixi’s consciousness…
Terrifying.
Yes, terrifying in the literal sense.
This place felt like a flesh-and-blood purgatory, scattered with severed limbs and corpses.
The sky was blood-red, and the air was thick with the smell of burning and blood.
Before Luo Shuangyue lay a massive mass of flesh—the only thing in this space.
So Xixi’s consciousness was hiding inside that flesh mass?
As Luo Shuangyue pondered, the flesh mass suddenly trembled, extending countless tendrils to attack her.
Sharp snarls echoed in this mental space, the meaning clear: “Die!”
This was the Demon’s true voice, its real form stripped of any human guise.
Luo Shuangyue instinctively tried to summon her scythe, but no matter how many times she tried, her hands remained empty.
It wasn’t until the tendrils struck her and sent her flying back that she realized mental space combat was different from ordinary fighting.
Crap. The Soul Summoner Princess never told me how to fight!
Now it seemed too late to retreat.
Luo Shuangyue had no choice but to dodge the Demon’s attacks while figuring out how to defeat this enemy.
If I can’t use the scythe, what can I fight with?
Thinking it over, she wondered what form her Mental Power could take…
A sudden idea flashed in her mind, and she grabbed hold of it.
She could fight using Phantom Thorn’s combat style!
With a thought, her Mental Power transformed into thorny vines that flew toward the Demon’s tendrils.
They quickly entangled, becoming an intertwined complex.
Their Mental Powers clashed fiercely.
Here, skill mattered little; victory depended purely on strength.
And unfortunately for the Demon, Luo Shuangyue’s Mental Power was quite strong.
The Demon was now struggling to resist the Soul Summoner Princess’s soulfire burning from outside, while also locked in an intense mental battle with Luo Shuangyue.
This left her scattered and vulnerable.
After all, the Demon’s consciousness here was just a small fragment compared to her main body.
And the distance between this fragment and the main body was far too great.
She couldn’t even transmit memories, let alone receive support.
If she died here, her main body wouldn’t even know!
Piece by piece, the black mass forming the flesh ball was stripped away.
A girl with closed eyes appeared in Luo Shuangyue’s view.
This had to be Xixi’s consciousness, she thought.
A few wisps of black mist floated out from behind Luo Shuangyue, condensing into a small girl no larger than a palm.
She pointed at the large flesh ball struggling against Luo Shuangyue and shouted, “Don’t kill it, it’s useful!”
Huh? The girl actually said something besides “tasty”? Luo Shuangyue was stunned, then realized this probably wasn’t Phantom Scythe’s own thought but Phantom Thorn’s message relayed through her.
Hmm… since Phantom Thorn said not to kill it, let’s see what she wants to do.
Because of this “don’t kill” request, Luo Shuangyue spent a lot of effort pulling Xixi out from the flesh ball, while the Demon’s consciousness was ensnared by thorny vines and tossed to Phantom Scythe to deal with.
Phantom Scythe wasted no time.
She tore into the grotesque flesh ball voraciously, eating it down to a tiny core bit by bit.
During this, the Demon screamed and resisted but didn’t slow Phantom Scythe’s relentless assault even a little.
Soon, only the core remained.
The other pieces of mental power became part of Phantom Scythe herself.