Mu Xi stared blankly at the girl before her, who looked exactly like herself except for hair as black as ink.
Silver and pitch-black hair fluttered slightly in the blood-scented wind, forming a strange mirror image.
“You… Are you the Magical Girl persona born from pollution?”
Mu Xi’s voice was dry, trembling with disbelief and a hint of cold certainty.
The black-haired girl didn’t answer.
Instead, she reached out with slender, unnaturally textured fingers and kept poking Mu Xi’s dust- and blood-stained cheek, her motions filled with childlike curiosity and playful mischief.
“So it’s you! You want to corrupt us completely into a witch, don’t you! Disaster-Class Broodmother!”
Mu Xi suddenly slapped her hand away, a flame of anger and despair intertwined in her eyes.
The black-haired girl didn’t deny it.
On the contrary, she grew even bolder, cupping Mu Xi’s cheeks in both hands and squeezing hard.
Her ruby-like eyes flickered with a bizarre, bewitching light.
“Hmph, weren’t you already a witch long ago?”
Her voice was syrupy with mockery, her fingertip sliding past the corner of Mu Xi’s eye.
“Look at your… no, look at my eyes. Haven’t they already become as ‘brilliant’ as rubies?”
“What do you want…”
Mu Xi tried to break free, but was bound by an invisible force, left with nothing but rage in her glare.
The black-haired girl leaned in closer, her warm breath brushing Mu Xi’s ear as she whispered temptingly, “Transform, hmm? How about it? That way, you can survive… and save your beloved little sister.” She deliberately stressed the words “little sister”.
“Even if the price is unleashing a demon?!”
Mu Xi gritted her teeth.
“Oh dear, describing me that way will really make me sad~”
The black-haired girl immediately released her, exaggeratedly clutching her chest with one hand and dabbing at imaginary tears with the other, her posturing theatrical and chillingly strange.
“Don’t even think about it!”
Mu Xi refused with unwavering resolve.
“Is that so? What a pity…”
The fake tears on the black-haired girl’s face vanished in an instant, replaced by icy indifference.
“Because we can only die here together, then. Sigh, that poor little Yurou… Let’s meet again in hell.”
She spread her hands, as if stating an immutable fact.
In the distance, the roars of monstrous beasts and the thunder of collapsing buildings drew ever closer.
The shadow of death pressed down, nearly tangible.
“Wait!”
Mu Xi’s voice betrayed a trace of imperceptible compromise.
“Let’s… talk a bit more.”
A sly smile instantly curled the black-haired girl’s lips, like a cat who’d just stolen a fish.
“Sure!”
She twirled nimbly in place, her black hair tracing a graceful arc as her tone grew lighter, “Then transform! Let me out! Let me feel this long-lost sunshine!”
She paced back and forth like an eager child yearning for an outing, her bare feet stepping on the cold rubble, utterly unconcerned.
“We must make three rules!”
Mu Xi forced herself to stand, staring intently.
“First, you cannot harm people recklessly! Second, you cannot reveal my identity! Third, you must save my sister!”
“Hehe, deal~”
Mu Ming extended her pale pinky, head tilted, her innocent yet cruel smile bright.
“How can I trust you?”
Mu Xi didn’t move.
Her smile deepened, a dangerous glint flickering in her red eyes.
“Do you… have a choice?”
Mu Xi’s chest heaved violently.
With trembling hands, she yanked from her inner garments a seemingly unremarkable Crystal Necklace.
She pressed hard on a hidden button.
With a soft click, the diamond-shaped case sprang open, revealing a pure White Crystal the size of a dove’s egg.
Within the crystal, wisps of ominous black energy slowly swirled and coiled like living things, radiating a chilling sense of dread.
“Hoo…”
Mu Xi exhaled long and heavy, as if trying to purge every ounce of struggle and fear from her lungs.
Was she really going to transform again?
Transform back into that “Crystal Orchid” whose hands were stained with her comrades’ blood, shouldering endless guilt?
After that rainy night, she had sealed herself and this power away, never touching it again.
Each time she tried to stir up magic, the terrifying presence deep within her spine, restless and yearning to break free, left her shuddering with cold.
Her instincts screamed at her: once that thing broke the Seal, it would unleash a disaster more terrible than death itself.
A gigantic Mutated Insect burst through the shattered walls, its slimy mandibles dripping with saliva.
Its cold compound eyes locked onto the isolated, helpless Mu Xi, and with a roar, it pounced!
There was no time to hesitate!
Resolve flashed in Mu Xi’s eyes as she clenched the White Crystal, filled with light and darkness, hope and despair!
The icy touch stabbed into her palm.
“Hoo, all right then, trans—”
She forced out the opening syllables of the incantation.
“Whoosh—splurt!”
A dazzling starlight lance ripped through the air, its purifying aura slicing through filth like a meteor from the heavens, striking with unerring precision straight through the head of the monster lunging just meters before Mu Xi!
Foul green ichor and shattered chitin exploded instantly!
The black-haired girl’s figure flickered and became ethereal the moment the starlight burst, clicking her tongue in annoyance.
Like a startled shadow, she rapidly dissipated into the air, leaving only a regretful whisper echoing in Mu Xi’s ear: “Tsk, looks like someone interrupted our deal~ How disappointing.”
Startled by the sudden change, Mu Xi staggered back half a step.
She stared at the monster’s corpse pinned to the ground, then abruptly looked up.
There, a Magical Girl clad in white starlight battle attire and wielding a Lily of the Valley Staff landed lightly from midair and hurried over.
“Ci… Citizen! Are you all right?”
The girl’s voice was tinged with genuine concern and an undercurrent of anxious urgency as she tried to compose herself.
“This place is too dangerous! Please leave immediately!”
Mu Xi ignored her concern, her eyes sweeping anxiously over the chaos beyond.
“No, I have to find my sister, I’m so worried about her!”
She forced herself up, gasping as pain tore through her shoulder, cold sweat beading on her brow.
She didn’t spare the Magical Girl who’d saved her another glance, instead enduring the pain as she staggered forward, trying to walk right past her.
“Thank you for saving me,” Mu Xi’s voice was weary but undeniably resolute.
“But, ha… I still need to find my sister.”
With every step, the wound in her right shoulder burned like a hot iron.
She gritted her teeth and thought darkly: If things get any more desperate… I’ll have no choice but to use that forbidden power.
Passing right by Lily of the Valley, Mu Xi didn’t notice that the sister she worried for, the one she most wanted to protect, now stood right before her—dressed in Magical Girl battle attire, full of worry and lingering doubt.
“Wait! Don’t go!”
Mu Yurou reached out anxiously to stop her, but recalling her identity, forcibly drew her hand back.
She pleaded, “Um, please don’t worry! All the teachers and students at Honghai First School have already been evacuated to the shelters! Your sister will be fine!”
“Is that so…”
Mu Xi halted but didn’t turn around, slowly raising her head to look toward the city center’s despair-filled sky.
There, a mountain-sized Abyssal-Class Behemoth was locked in fierce battle with several Magical Girls!
Violent energy beams collided with acidic sprays and shockwaves from the monster, unleashing deafening thunder and blinding flashes!
The Magical Girls darted and dodged through claws and energy blasts, looking so small by comparison.
“Ha…”
Mu Xi winced as stabbing pain shot through her shoulder.
“Please trust us! Citizen!”
Mu Yurou hurried forward, gently supporting Mu Xi’s uninjured left arm and helping her sit on a relatively flat piece of rubble.
“We can do it! Reinforcements have arrived!”
Dandelion chimed in immediately, her tone firm, trying to inspire confidence in this “ordinary citizen” so worried for her sister.
Huang Xi also stepped closer, her amber eyes full of sincere reassurance.
“In any case, please join the evacuation right away! Honghai First School really has been evacuated—I personally guided everyone! Every single person is in the most secure underground shelter! Your sister is absolutely, absolutely safe! I promise you!”
Mu Xi let Lily of the Valley tend to the wound on her shoulder—cut by rebar, torn further by insect claws—receiving quick starlight-powered hemostasis and bandaging.
At their words, she suddenly turned her head, her pale face showing an odd calm, her gaze sharp as she looked at Lily of the Valley:
“I never said… I was going to Honghai School to find my sister… How did you all know…
Just then—
BOOOOOM——!!!
A cataclysmic roar, as if the very sky had shattered, erupted from the center of the battlefield!
The Abyssal-Class Behemoth reared its monstrous head, and deep within its fanged maw, a mass of unfathomably black, ominous energy was wildly condensing!
The next moment, a torrent of pitch-black energy as thick as a giant pillar burst forth with unstoppable force, like the Styx itself overturning, blasting straight at the Magical Girls forming a defensive array in the sky!
They reacted instantly, joining forces to raise a colossal energy shield shimmering with seven-colored light!
WOOOOOOM——!!!
The black torrent slammed hard into the shield!
The thunderous crash of clashing energies echoed to the heavens!
The shield shuddered and warped violently, its rainbow glow flickering madly like a candle in the wind!
It lasted barely three seconds.
CRACK—BOOM!!!
Like the hardest glass struck by a sledgehammer, the massive energy shield shattered, scattering into countless glowing fragments!
The horrifying shockwave surged out like an invisible tsunami, blasting the arrayed Magical Girls out of the air like cut kites!
Their bodies, trailing wild streams of magic, plummeted toward the city like meteors, crashing into the ruins and raising clouds of dust!
Though the shield had absorbed most of the devastating torrent, the remaining shockwave still swept through half the block!
Gale-force winds whipped up dust and debris, forcing Mu Xi and the two Magical Girls to squint against the blast.
As the dust thinned, the immense Abyssal-Class Behemoth slowly turned its grotesque, armor-plated head.
Countless cold compound eyes swept the ravaged street below like searchlights.
In the end, most of those gazes locked with pinpoint precision onto a single figure amid the rubble and smoke—a petite silhouette, hair white as snow, eyes red as blood—Mu Xi.