Xiaobai to the Rescue! / The Target Is Actually a Cat?

They had been "kidnapped" by the Magic Barrier!

Xiao Bai Comes to the Rescue!

At that moment, the entire lantern festival venue, a district stretching nearly a thousand meters from end to end, was enveloped by a Magic Barrier.

Aside from the Magical Girls, He Xuan at the entrance to the lantern festival was the first to realize something was wrong.

Because in that instant, she lost contact with the other teams. The walkie-talkie emitted nothing but static, and no amount of switching channels helped.

When she checked the other communication equipment and monitoring software in the vehicle, they had all turned into a mess of noise and static as well.

Electromagnetic interference!

He Xuan froze for only a second before immediately realizing it was powerful electromagnetic interference!

And so far, given He Xuan's current understanding, aside from weapons specifically designed for electromagnetic attacks, there was only one other thing capable of disrupting all electronic devices in an instant.

A barrier!

A Nightmare, or a Magic Barrier!

"Attention, everyone! We've encount—..."

He Xuan was about to issue orders to the others around her when dizziness suddenly overwhelmed her. Before she could finish a complete sentence, she crumpled softly to the ground.

Even in that situation, He Xuan retained a sliver of willpower. She forced herself to pull a flare gun from her pocket, aimed it at the sky, and pulled the trigger.

The magic-infused flare shot straight into the sky and blossomed into Chen Xiaoxia's smiling face.

Chen Xiaoxia had prepared that flare for He Xuan.

When electronic devices could not be used for communication, it could be fired to call for help.

Only after doing all that did He Xuan finally lose consciousness completely, collapsing onto the ground in an unbroken sleep.

Fang Ming, along with everyone around him, suffered the same fate as He Xuan.

When he saw passersby beginning to slump to the ground one after another, Fang Ming understood what was happening.

He imitated them, letting his legs go weak as he fell backward.

"Brother Fang Ming!!"

But Xiao Chun caught him just then, steadily placing him onto a chair beside a stall as she anxiously called out, "Brother Fang Ming? Are you okay? Brother Fang Ming!"

"I'm... fine. I just feel... so... sleepy..."

As Fang Ming spoke, his arms went limp and dropped to his sides. He fell into a deep sleep.

Xiao Chun was startled and hurriedly checked Fang Ming's breathing. Only when she saw that his breathing was steady and his heartbeat normal did she let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness... he just fell asleep."

Fang Ming had actually been among the later ones to succumb. Before him, countless passersby had already collapsed to the ground.

But before confirming that Fang Ming was safe, Xiao Chun had only had eyes for him. It was only now that she noticed the surrounding passersby were all asleep on the ground.

From afar, it looked like a pile of corpses sprawled across the street, a chilling sight.

After checking the unconscious passersby one by one and confirming that they too had merely fallen asleep, Xiao Chun finally relaxed and looked into the distance.

Far away, fireworks in the shape of Chen Xiaoxia's smiling face bloomed in the sky. That was the flare He Xuan carried.

The flare being fired meant that He Xuan herself had fallen unconscious. It also meant that the authorities could no longer provide the Magical Girls with any help.

They could only rely on themselves.

"Xiao Chun!!" Xiao Qiu and Xiaoxia, who had long since run off somewhere, finally arrived using flight magic.

The two had already transformed and were in their Magical Girl forms.

Nino the cat clung to Xiao Qiu as she landed with the two of them, stopping in front of Xiao Chun.

The moment Xiao Qiu arrived, she asked Xiao Chun, "Xiao Chun, are you okay? How is Brother Fang Ming?"

Xiao Chun shook her head. "I'm fine. It looks like the sleep magic in this Magic Barrier only affects ordinary people, so Brother Fang Ming..."

As Xiao Chun spoke, she looked toward Fang Ming, who was snoring away in the chair.

Chen Xiaoxia rushed to Fang Ming's side in a few quick strides, solemnly placing a finger beneath his nose. Only then did she relax and pat her completely flat chest, saying, "Thank goodness, thank goodness. Brother Fang Ming isn't dead."

"Of course he isn't dead! He just fell asleep!"

Xiao Chun complained speechlessly.

Were you seriously checking him like he was dead?

If the situation had not been so urgent, Xiao Chun would have loved to grab Chen Xiaoxia by the ears and lecture her. Unfortunately, this was not the time for that.

She could only take a deep breath, suppress her emotions, and ask Nino, "Nino, what's going on? Why did the Magic Barrier pull ordinary people with no magic power inside?"

Normally, whether it was a Nightmare Barrier or a Magic Barrier, the only beings it could contain were creatures with magic power.

Anything without magic power would simply be rejected by the barrier. In a way, that was also a form of protection for ordinary people.

That was why it was so strange for this Magic Barrier to contain so many ordinary people at once.

And Nino, a Magical Creature from another world, was an expert in magic. Asking her could not be wrong.

"Someone... deliberately brought ordinary people inside!" Nino concluded.

Yu Muqiu's expression filled with disbelief. "Who... who would do something like that?"

"...I don't know, but it probably wasn't her."

Chen Xiaoxia frowned as well, ruling out Xiao Bai as a suspect.

Although she and Xiao Bai did not get along and always bickered when they met, Chen Xiaoxia did not think Xiao Bai was a bad person.

So in Chen Xiaoxia's view, Xiao Bai could not have done such a thing.

"But if it wasn't Xiao Bai... who was it?" Xiao Chun pondered.

At that moment, Nino suddenly cried out, "N-no! This is... this is a Nightmare!!"

"What?!"

All three Magical Girls were startled and turned toward Nino. Nino immediately raised a paw and pointed at the sleeping passersby, shouting, "Look at their foreheads!"

Following where Nino pointed, the three of them froze again.

Black vapor was rising from the foreheads of the passersby sleeping within the barrier. The vapor began gathering in the air, changing the surrounding environment as it did so.

It was transforming this Magic Barrier, originally created around Magical Girls, into a Nightmare Barrier that only Demons could form!

Yu Muqiu stared for a moment before crying out, "They're having nightmares!?"

"Damn it! Is that why they had to be put to sleep? Damn it, who is it?! Who is doing this?!"

Chen Xiaoxia grew anxious as well.

They were no longer rookies. During their battles with Demons, they had learned where Nightmare Demons came from.

Aside from Nightmare Seeds accelerating the creation of Demons, the most fundamental factor behind the birth of Nightmare Demons lay within people's dreams.

Once the many desires of humans... or intelligent beings were triggered by certain factors and gathered together, they would form new Demons!

Demons came from Nightmare Seeds, and Nightmare Seeds came from the dreams buried deep within people's hearts!

But under normal circumstances, on this planet with no foundation of magic power whatsoever, there should have been no basis for Nightmare Seeds to form.

Ordinary people lacking magic power was one reason. More importantly, ordinary people's dreams should not have been able to connect with one another at all!

If dreams could not connect, Desires could not merge. The Desire of a single person alone could never form a Nightmare Seed!

But now, someone had linked everyone's dreams together. That person had awakened the Desires within their dreams and merged them all, giving birth to a new Nightmare Seed!

So... who was it?

Just as the three Magical Girls were at a loss, a cool voice suddenly came from the sky.

"I say, shouldn't you hurry up and move these people outside?"

"Xiao Bai!"

Yu Muqiu looked up at the sky in delighted surprise.

On the chains strung between the buildings stood a silver-haired Magical Girl dressed in black, looking down at the three of them as if they were idiots.

It was Magical Girl Xiao Bai.

She had come to support them.

The Target Is Actually a Cat?

"Xiao Bai!"

Yu Muqiu looked at the Magical Girl standing on the chains in the sky with delighted surprise.

The silver-haired Magical Girl ignored Yu Muqiu. Instead, she swung her chains around the sleeping passersby below.

Then the passersby bound by the chains vanished one after another, sent out of the Magic Barrier.

As Xiao Bai continued working, she lectured Yu Muqiu and the others, "You're all Magical Girls who have been through plenty of battles already. Do I still need to teach you what to do at a time like this? Since they're the source of the nightmares, couldn't you just teleport them away?"

As Xiao Bai spoke, her hands never stopped moving. With the help of chains that seemed endlessly producible, the passersby at the lantern festival were rapidly teleported away.

Xiao Chun seemed to realize something and immediately turned to look behind her.

Sure enough, Fang Ming, who should have been lying there, had already disappeared.

As if noticing Xiao Chun's movement, Xiao Bai's cool voice drifted over. "Looking for Fang Ming? I teleported him away first thing. After all... he seems pretty important to you."

"Th-thank you."

Xiao Chun turned and thanked Xiao Bai.

Since Xiao Bai had come to support them, even Chen Xiaoxia did not bicker with her this time. Instead, she said bluntly, "Thanks, Blackie! By the way, do you know what's going on?"

"I don't."

Xiao Bai descended from above, controlling her chains as they raced toward more people collapsed in the distance and sent them outside the barrier one by one. Then she turned to the others and said, "But clearly, what happened this time has some connection to the Toy Bear you encountered last time."

"The Toy Bear..." Yu Muqiu thought aloud. "That Toy Bear also seemed to be a creature powered by magic, not a Demon..."

Chen Xiaoxia blinked and asked, "Then does that mean a fifth Magical Girl has appeared?"

As she spoke, everyone looked toward Nino.

Cold sweat instantly ran down Nino's face, and she hurriedly defended herself. "How could that be possible?! Didn't I say that contracting with three Magical Girls is my limit? Xiao Bai's appearance was already surprising enough. How could there possibly be a fifth one... Speaking of which, Xiao Bai, how did you become a Magical Girl?"

Only then did Nino remember to ask that question.

After knowing Xiao Bai for so long, they could be considered comrades who had fought side by side. Yet even now, they did not really know how Xiao Bai had become a Magical Girl.

Unfortunately, faced with such a sensitive question, Xiao Bai simply skipped over it and said, "...The possibility of a fifth Magical Girl does exist."

"Hey, Blackie, did you just skip the question?"

"Anyway, before that, let's get these survivors out first."

Xiao Bai looked toward the passersby farther away.

Chen Xiaoxia, meanwhile, stared fixedly at Xiao Bai and complained,