“Are you a dance student?” Xia Shiyao asked, her curiosity piqued when she saw Yin Lynn perform a back bridge.
Even when Yin Lynn was being played with, she could still perform the splits. Looking at her now, gracefully doing gymnastics with such a lithe and supple body, she looked nothing like a stiff old man who had spent more than ten hours a day sitting in an office.
Xia Shiyao naturally assumed the most likely possibility.
Looking at Yin Lynn’s age, her stunning beauty, and her snake-like flexibility, it was only natural for her to be an art student. In fact, with those conditions, it would be a waste of talent if she weren’t one.
Since the question had been asked, Yin Lynn took the opportunity to use the excuse and admitted, “Yes.”
Xia Shiyao smiled and didn’t push the topic further.
They chatted casually for a bit. Shiyao told her to take care of herself and mentioned how much she should look forward to the Joint Training Camp tomorrow.
Xia Shiyao seemed very excited when mentioning the event. She talked incessantly about the scenery in the area but refused to reveal the specific location, successfully whetting Yin Lynn’s appetite.
After dinner, Yin Lynn started her shift. Xia Shiyao didn’t leave; instead, she went to Table Three and ordered a large amount of juice.
She sat there, sipping her drinks while resting her head on her hand, watching the busy Yin Lynn with a sweet smile occasionally crossing her face.
When she saw Yin Lynn standing on her tiptoes at the bar because she wasn’t tall enough, Xia Shiyao’s smile grew even sweeter. She had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
Work ended at 8:00 PM today. Yin Lynn’s body hadn’t fully recovered yet, so it wasn’t convenient to keep working.
Xia Shiyao drove her halfway there in that black luxury sedan.
There wasn’t much to say along the way.
When it was time to get out, Shiyao dropped Yin Lynn off at the roadside — the spot Yin Lynn had falsely claimed was “near home.”
Through the window, Xia Shiyao asked, “See you tomorrow?”
Yin Lynn nodded. “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”
As she watched the silver-haired girl’s departing back, Xia Shiyao felt a strange sense of unease. She wanted to call out to her, but in the end, she refrained, watching until the girl’s figure disappeared into the night.
—
Yin Lynn was still quite a distance from her actual home.
After walking for thirty minutes, the foot traffic grew increasingly sparse. This time, she hadn’t intentionally sought out a deserted area; she had been here a few times before, and there were usually plenty of people at this hour. Why were there so few today?
As she continued walking, the spots that should have been occupied by street stalls were empty. No vendors were in sight, leaving behind only patches of grease on the ground and discarded trash.
Yin Lynn slowed her pace. She took out her phone, only to find it had no signal.
She stopped at a deserted intersection. The streetlights shone down on her like spotlights.
She gripped her staff tightly, cast her magic shield, and began charging her Mana Cannon.
Suddenly, a sound erupted from a nearby rooftop. Something had been launched. Magic fluctuations also rippled from further down the street.
When she looked up, she saw a massive net descending toward her, intended to scoop her up like a fish.
The net was electrified, emitting a crackling sound. It was clearly high-voltage.
Yin Lynn realized what was happening. People from the Failure Team had set an ambush here. This Electric Net was a weapon the Failure Team had showcased before.
However, the voltage was much higher than what had been demonstrated on television. Now, it was truly being used to deal with a magical girl, rather than for a mere demonstration.
Such voltage was clearly not enough to defeat Yin Lynn. Ripples appeared across her magic shield, but it remained intact.
However, it did temporarily trap her. Entangled in the massive net, she couldn’t walk.
She hurriedly forced herself to take flight while still carrying the net; she could fly even if she was wrapped in a bundle.
A second, third, and fourth net were fired in succession, forcibly slamming her back to the ground. She was wrapped up almost like a spider’s cocoon.
They still couldn’t break her shield, but they made it increasingly difficult for her to move.
Dealing with these nets was simple enough.
She fired the Mana Cannon she had been charging, now at 8% capacity, detonating it point-blank. The blast hit her, causing a few cracks to appear in her magic shield, but it also destroyed the nets wrapped around her.
Seeing that she was about to escape, the Failure Team finally deployed more of their weaponry. Several photon rifles opened fire, raining a dense hail of bullets upon her. This caused massive ripples across the magic shield, and the cracks began to multiply.
Yin Lynn refreshed her magic shield with ease.
The Failure Team should have been feeling desperate by now. With their firepower, they shouldn’t have been able to break through her magic shield by force; using nets to capture her might have actually been easier.
But this was their ambush, and they naturally had other preparations.
A light was glowing at the end of the dark street. A Failure Team Vehicle-mounted Cannon seemed to be brewing something. It had been charging for a long time and looked ready to fire an incredibly powerful photon shell.
Yin Lynn noticed it.
She could actually sense mana coming from that thing.
That was likely their trump card. If it was designed specifically to target her, that one shot might be enough to deal with her invincible magic shield.
Several more massive electric nets were launched from the rooftops, hitting her once again and hindering her flight speed and balance.
In that moment, she understood the Failure Team’s strategy for capturing her.
With her shield protecting her, she was immune to the electric shocks of the nets. Therefore, they needed to break her magic shield first to let the electricity reach her.
The Vehicle-mounted Cannon down the street, once charged to its limit, was likely meant to shatter her shield in one shot, creating a seamless control chain in coordination with the Electric Nets.
There was no telling how many times they had rehearsed for this moment. Their execution in actual combat was incredibly smooth; they had suppressed Yin Lynn in just one minute and were nearly on the verge of success.
At this moment, they were indeed celebrating. They had expected her to break free from the first round of nets.
The key was the second wave, which hit Yin Lynn perfectly, delaying her right as the Vehicle-mounted Cannon finished charging and was about to fire.
Right now, Yin Lynn’s second Mana Cannon hadn’t charged enough yet and likely wouldn’t be sufficient to break the nets.
She was about to be hit.
She increased her output, pulling against the massive electric net with all her might as she flew, attempting to dodge that unknown shot.
Suddenly, she sensed more mana — a stranger had appeared. She heard the sound of an impact from down the street. The Vehicle-mounted Cannon had been struck by something, causing the vehicle to veer off course. The glowing shell hit something else, striking an empty shop nearby.
A small hole was blown into the wall, followed by a small explosion only slightly stronger than a fragmentation grenade. Once the glowing shell burst, it released an extremely dense amount of mana, which was very strange.
The mana contained within was far higher than when it had been a sphere before detonating. This was clearly a move with extremely high magical damage but very low physical damage.
Furthermore, the technique was strangely sophisticated. Even Yin Lynn’s sensory abilities couldn’t see through how the move functioned.
What was even stranger was that the thing contained mana. Obviously, only magical girls and heteromorphs could manipulate mana, so why could the Failure Team’s Vehicle-mounted Cannon fire mana?
Her mind was filled with questions.
Yin Lynn fired another Mana Cannon, now charged to 7%, detonating it point-blank to destroy the nets tangled around her once more and crawling out from within.
She was very annoyed right now. She hadn’t provoked the people of the Failure Team, yet they had set an ambush to capture her.
‘I might not be able to deal with my supervisor or the director, but do you really think I can’t handle your Failure Team?’