So that’s why it needed an advance force to set up the Teleportation Gate first; only then could it smoothly cross the vast distance and arrive at the star system it intended to destroy.
“These guys are coming a lot faster than we expected.” Long Wen gently stroked the silver dragon beside her as she let out a soft sigh, gazing into the endless dark Starry Sky.
Behind her, the Blue Planet was already cloaked in a faint, almost invisible protective shield—the Planetary Protective Shield painstakingly established by the Magic Department.
With it in place, at least the Mother Star wouldn’t be so easily invaded.
“The attackers aren’t Royal-class Magic Beasts; letting the kids get some practice against these is not a bad thing.”
Next to Long Wen, the Soul Summoner Princess looked considerably more relaxed.
The attacking monsters were only King-class, which wasn’t too difficult for the Magical Girls to handle.
In fact, they could use these monsters as a way to help the younger girls get accustomed to the battles ahead.
First, gain experience fighting some scattered space monsters, then take on the big battles later—gradually increasing the difficulty step by step is better than throwing inexperienced juniors into a desperate fight right away.
“Let’s just hope they can perform well in this first battle,” Luo Shuangyue said.
Her squad had encountered a King-class Magic Beast with a damaged shell, which seemed to be the leader of a small monster team.
Five General-level Magical Creatures followed closely behind it.
Seeing this formation, the Full Bloom-class senior quickly flew aside, clutching her chest with an unmistakably clear attitude: “This batch of monsters is all yours to practice on.”
Glancing at the somewhat creepy-looking King-class beast, Luo Shuangyue rested her Phantom Scythe on her shoulder and said to Xia Mo and Crimson Core, “You two take care of this King-class monster.”
She had fought such monsters a few times before and was somewhat experienced, whereas Crimson Core was facing a monster like this for the first time.
So Luo Shuangyue didn’t mind leaving this King-class beast to her teammates.
Crimson Core nodded knowingly; she, of course, understood the meaning behind Luo Shuangyue’s words.
“All right, we’ll finish it off quickly and cleanly!” After entrusting the toughest King-class beast to her teammates, Luo Shuangyue raised her Crimson Blade and charged at the General-level monsters behind the King-class beast.
At first, the General-level monsters hadn’t realized Luo Shuangyue’s target was them.
By the time they sensed danger, Luo Shuangyue’s blade had already fallen upon them.
The distance between them was just a small step to Luo Shuangyue.
The sharp scythe tore through the monsters’ bodies, and the black mist clinging to the blade, like a living creature, shredded and devoured them.
This mist was the power of Phantom Scythe, which was currently floating lazily nearby, staring greedily at the King-class beast on the other side.
A classic case of “the grass is always greener on the other side.”
After all, these General-level monsters weren’t even considered snacks by the gluttonous Phantom Scythe; the King-class were merely fancy appetizers.
Only Royal-class Magic Beasts were recognized by Phantom Scythe as true delicacies—though sadly, those delicacies tended to bite back, so from Phantom Scythe’s perspective, the monsters might be the ones enjoying the meal.
The General-level monsters weren’t strong; Luo Shuangyue cut them down one by one in a few swings and then devoured whatever remained.
Oh, she left the Original Magic Power intact—that was now a strategic resource, and she wasn’t selfish enough to hog it all.
By the time she finished clearing the General-level monsters, the King-class beast on the other side was already struggling.
Most of the Magical Girls preferred ranged attacks with Magic Artillery as their primary combat method.
To deal with the monsters’ tough shells, nearly all of these Magical Girls had learned how to increase their artillery’s penetration.
This King-class monster had become the target for Initial Bloom-class Magical Girls to test their training results.
All kinds of Magic Artillery continuously bombarded it, chipping away pieces of its already cracked shell.
These fragments floated into space, stealthily snatched up by a few tendrils of mist.
Because Luo Shuangyue had ordered that the Phantom Scythe not interfere with the Magical Girls’ merciless assault on the King-class monster, it could only sneakily eat some leftovers.
During the battle, Luo Shuangyue witnessed Crimson Core’s true strength.
This Magical Girl was worthy of her genius reputation, dealing the highest damage to the King-class beast.
Every shot of her Magic Artillery triggered violent explosions on the monster’s body, preventing it from mounting a decent counterattack.
Whenever the monster tried to charge the Magical Girls, the red artillery shells arrived right on time to blast it flying backward.
As for the monster’s ranged attack… it was also a kind of Magic Artillery, but how could a monster compare to a Magical Girl in artillery mastery?
Its cannon barely fired twice before Ye Lin precisely detonated it with an armor-piercing Magic Artillery shell.
At this moment, Ye Lin had combined Xia Mo’s four Floating Cannons into one extremely long-barreled sniper cannon—or Sniper Cannon—each shot dealing considerable damage to the monster.
Xia Mo, meanwhile, didn’t do anything; she just stood there watching Ye Lin fire relentlessly at the monster.
She felt quite idle, as if her Spirit Weapon was far more useful than she was.
Every shot from the pale purple Magic Artillery pierced through the monster’s body.
After being repeatedly pierced, the monster finally exploded into a Great Firework under the combined assault of several Magical Girls.
Its total survival time was less than a minute.
This result looked decent but brought no joy to the senior leading the team.
After all, this was a King-class beast already injured beforehand.
In the future, there would be many more like it.
If each one could delay the fight for that long, humanity’s pressure would be enormous.
How vast was the Monster Army? How many King-class monsters were in that army?
No one knew.
Even Yi, who had lost her entire clan to the monsters, couldn’t give an exact answer.
The Elves had never inflicted effective damage on the monsters; all they could offer was a vague concept.
Such monsters were usually elite monster squad leaders within the Monster Army.
Even the most optimistic estimate put the number of King-class monsters in the army several orders of magnitude higher than the current Initial Bloom-class Magical Girls.
After all, this was an army roaming the star seas.
Humans were still just life confined to a tiny little planet.
“Sigh, the outlook isn’t good.” The senior sighed softly.
But she knew well that expecting Initial Bloom-class Magical Girls to slaughter King-class monsters as easily as slaughtering chickens was wishful thinking.
Although Initial Bloom-class Magical Girls could generally hold the upper hand in one-on-one battles against King-class monsters and sometimes even land a killing blow, their strength was ultimately on the same level.
There were always highs and lows, which was normal.
In non-ideal situations, the Magical Girls could only hold an advantage one-on-one.
Once faced with multiple enemies at once, there was basically no solution.
And unfortunately, humanity currently faced a situation where Initial Bloom-class Magical Girls had to defeat monsters one-on-many.
Tap, tap, tap.
Monice’s fair knuckles lightly tapped the table as she sat with a cold expression.
In front of her on the hospital bed lay a cat-eared girl with her eyes tightly shut.
The girl was hooked up to various monitoring devices, her vital signs displayed on several large screens in the room.
This second modification on Jiu Ye was Monice’s biggest step forward in years.
She had applied all sorts of modification methods, many with unknown consequences, onto Jiu Ye’s body.
If the modifications succeeded, all would be well.
If they failed… no, she didn’t want to consider failure.
Perhaps because she had undergone one modification before, Jiu Ye’s second modification was extremely difficult, with multiple unexpected incidents.
The newly injected magic power clashed with her original power; the overwhelming force damaged her body—various problems, both foreseen and unforeseen, emerged.
It took Monice five full days and nights to complete the second modification.
Since completion, Jiu Ye had fallen into a deep coma that had lasted four whole days.
Her body indicators were all within expected ranges; even her brainwaves read as normal, yet she refused to wake.
Monice couldn’t understand why.
The Magic Department had urged her repeatedly to provide a definite answer, but she simply couldn’t.
Without Jiu Ye waking up, Monice had no way to judge whether the new technology was effective.
“Lady Monice, a messenger from the Magic Department has brought a Confidential Letter. It says only you can open it.” Hei Ting entered the room holding a letter.
“Didn’t I already tell them I don’t have any results yet?” Monice’s face flickered with annoyance.
Now the Magic Department was more impatient than she was?
They had scorned her research before, labeling it heretical, but now that trouble had arisen, suddenly they cared about her techniques.
Could they not keep some shame?
This was human body modification—a dangerous job that could cost lives if done wrong!
“Lunar Base has already engaged in sporadic skirmishes with the monsters; the Magic Department probably feels time is running out.” Hei Ting reported all the intelligence she knew to Monice.
Already at war? No wonder the Magic Department was now like a drowning person desperately grabbing at anything seemingly lifesaving.
Among those, Monice’s modification technology was the thickest rope.
Even if they couldn’t mass-produce higher-level combatants, creating a large number of low-level fighters capable of sensing and using magic was still very useful.
With these reinforcements, the Magic Department could hold its ground better.
Monice took the Confidential Letter from Hei Ting and glanced at it; her pupils contracted slightly.
After reading, the letter spontaneously ignited and instantly turned into a wisp of azure smoke, disappearing.
Its contents certainly weren’t something to be made public.
“Using those freaks for experiments? Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Monice sighed.
The letter made clear just how desperate the Magic Department was now.
They had come up with ideas that, if leaked, would utterly destroy their reputation.
If she kept hiding and playing dead, the department would probably send two or three old friends to drag her to headquarters in two days.
Now the Magic Department’s message was very clear:
“You have a high failure rate? No problem!
Use all those damned creatures. Let them contribute to humanity’s survival!”
This wasn’t Monice’s style at all, but she had to admit it was the most effective method now.
“Whew.” Closing her notebook, Monice stood up.
“Hei Ting, I’ll be away for a while. Please handle the organization’s basic operations…”
Before she finished speaking, she saw Hei Ting’s eyes widen.
Through the girl’s pure black pupils, Monice saw the scene behind herself.
The girl who had been unconscious for four days slowly opened her eyes.
“The number of incoming monsters has been increasing lately. I heard that Senior Singularity looked in the direction of the monster attack and saw a huge gate set up deep in the Starry Sky. Those monsters came through that gate.”
Luo Shuangyue stretched lazily and laid her tired face on Xia Mo’s thigh.
The alarms of monster attacks had never stopped these past days, as if trying to make up for the previous quiet times.
These monsters charged at them day and night.
If not for Singularity destroying one Teleportation Gate, the attacks would have been even fiercer.
But obviously, destroying one gate was just a drop in the bucket.
Before Singularity discovered that gate, many monsters had already passed through it and were hiding in the dim, lightless Deep Space.
They could build the same gates anywhere else at any time, guiding the Monster Army to descend.
And the Magical Girls had little way to stop them.
The vastness of space was simply too great, and only Full Bloom-class magic could venture that deep.
Most Full Bloom-class Magical Girls still guarded the Mother Star.
There were very few who went out looking for gates.
Relying on them to destroy the gates one by one was truly wishful thinking.
“When do you think the Monster Army will actually appear before us?” Xia Mo asked softly, her eyes like flowing water gazing at Luo Shuangyue.
“Who knows? It won’t be slow, that’s for sure. Their flight speed is insanely fast.” Luo Shuangyue rolled over to meet Xia Mo’s gaze.
Compared to a few days ago, a faint trace of exhaustion also showed on Xia Mo’s face.
These days, Xia Mo had always been on the front lines fighting monsters.
Her combat record ranked among the top of all Magical Girls in the Magic Department.
She used to find these space monsters a bit troublesome, but now she could defeat them in a very routine, formulaic way.
Her progress was remarkably fast.