Magical Girls Exposed!

They had been "kidnapped" by the Magic Barrier!

Xiao Bai Comes to the Rescue!

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

Besides the magical girls, He Xuan at the lantern festival entrance was the first to notice something was wrong.

Just a moment ago, she had lost contact with the other teams. Nothing but static came through the radio, and changing channels did nothing.

When she checked the other communication devices and monitoring software in the vehicle, they had all become nothing but noise and static.

Electromagnetic interference!

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

And as far as He Xuan currently knew, aside from weapons specifically designed for electromagnetic attacks, there was only one other thing capable of disrupting all electronic equipment in an instant.

A barrier!

A Nightmare Barrier, or a Magic Barrier!

"Attention, everyone! We've encounter...ed..."

He Xuan was about to give orders to the others around her when dizziness suddenly overwhelmed her. Before she could finish a single sentence, she collapsed limply to the ground.

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

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

Chen Xiaoxia had prepared this flare for He Xuan.

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

After doing all that, He Xuan could no longer hold on. She fell to the ground and slipped into an unconscious sleep.

Fang Ming and the others around him suffered the same fate as He Xuan.

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

He also began imitating the passersby, letting his legs buckle as he fell backward.

"Brother Fang Ming!!"

But Xiao Chun caught him at that moment and carefully placed him onto a chair at a nearby stall. She anxiously called out, "Brother Fang Ming? Are you okay? Brother Fang Ming!"

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

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

Xiao Chun was startled and hurriedly checked Fang Ming's breathing. Only after confirming that his breathing was steady and his heartbeat normal did she finally let out a breath.

"Thank goodness... he's only asleep."

Fang Ming had actually been among the last to fall asleep. Before him, countless passersby had already collapsed to the ground.

But before confirming Fang Ming was safe, Xiao Chun had only had eyes for him. It was not until now that she noticed all the passersby around them were also lying asleep on the ground.

From a distance, it looked like a field of corpses sprawled across the street, a terrifying sight.

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

Far away, fireworks forming Chen Xiaoxia's smiling face blossomed in the sky. It was the flare He Xuan had carried.

The firing of the flare 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 run off somewhere long ago, finally arrived at the scene using flight magic.

Both had already transformed and were in their magical girl forms.

Nino the cat hung from Xiao Qiu's body as she landed with the two of them, standing before 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 at Fang Ming, who was snoring away on the chair.

Chen Xiaoxia rushed to Fang Ming's side in two quick strides. With a grave expression, she placed a finger beneath his nose. Only then did she relax and pat her perfectly flat chest.

"Thank goodness, thank goodness. Brother Fang Ming isn't dead."

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

Xiao Chun retorted speechlessly.

Are you seriously checking him like he's a corpse?

If the situation had not been so urgent, Xiao Chun would have liked nothing more than to grab Chen Xiaoxia by the ears and lecture her. Unfortunately, this was hardly the time for that.

She could only take a deep breath, suppress her emotions, and ask Nino:

"Nino, what is going on? Why did this Magic Barrier pull in ordinary people without magic power?"

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

Anything without magic power would simply be repelled by the barrier. It was also a form of protection for ordinary people.

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

And Nino, a magical creature from another world, was an expert in magic. She was the right one to ask.

"Someone... deliberately allowed ordinary people into it!" Nino concluded.

Yu Muqiu's expression gained a trace of disbelief. "Who... who would do something like that?"

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

Chen Xiaoxia frowned as well, excluding Xiao Bai from suspicion.

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

So in Chen Xiaoxia's view, Xiao Bai could not possibly have done something like this.

"But if it wasn't Xiao Bai... then who was it?" Xiao Chun began to ponder.

Nino suddenly let out a cry. "N-no! This is... this is a Nightmare!!"

"What?!"

The three magical girls were all shocked and turned toward Nino at once. Nino immediately raised a cat paw and pointed at the sleeping passersby.

"Look at their foreheads!"

Following the direction of Nino's paw, the three froze again.

Black vapor was rising from the foreheads of the passersby sleeping within the barrier. The black vapor gathered in the air, changing the surrounding environment.

It was turning this Magic Barrier, created with magical girls as its foundation, into a Nightmare Barrier that only Demons could form!

Yu Muqiu stared for a moment before exclaiming:

"They're having nightmares!?"

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

Chen Xiaoxia became anxious as well.

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

Aside from Nightmare Seeds accelerating the catalysis of Demons, the fundamental origin of Nightmare Demons lay in people's dreams.

The countless desires of humans... or intelligent beings, once triggered by certain factors and gathered together, could 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 a planet without any magical foundation whatsoever, there was simply no basis for Nightmare Seeds to form.

The fact that ordinary people had no magic power was one reason. Another was that ordinary people's dreams could not possibly connect with one another!

If dreams could not connect and desires could not merge, the desire of a single person alone could never form a Nightmare Seed!

But now, someone had connected everyone's dreams. That person had awakened the desires within those dreams, merged them all together, and created a new Nightmare Seed!

So... who was it?

As the three magical girls stood at a loss, a cool voice suddenly came from the sky:

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

"Xiao Bai!"

Yu Muqiu looked up at the sky in delight.

On the Chains strung between the buildings, a silver-haired magical girl dressed in black stood above them, looking down at the three with an expression as though they were idiots.

It was the magical girl Xiao Bai.

She had come to support them.

The Target Was Actually a Cat?

"Xiao Bai!"

Yu Muqiu looked delightedly at the magical girl standing on the Chains in the sky.

The silver-haired magical girl ignored Yu Muqiu. Instead, she swung the Chains, wrapping them around the unconscious passersby below.

The passersby caught in the Chains vanished one after another, sent outside the Magic Barrier.

As Xiao Bai continued her work, she lectured Yu Muqiu and the others.

"You've already experienced plenty of battles. Do I still need to teach you what to do at a time like this? Since they're the source of the nightmares, wouldn't it be enough to simply teleport them away?"

As Xiao Bai spoke, her hands never stopped moving. With the help of Chains she seemed able to create without limit, the lantern festival's passersby were rapidly teleported away.

As if recalling something, Xiao Chun immediately turned to look behind her.

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

Perhaps noticing Xiao Chun's reaction, Xiao Bai's slightly cool voice reached her.

"You're looking for Fang Ming? I teleported him away first thing. After all... he seems rather important to you."

"Th-thank you."

Xiao Chun turned and thanked Xiao Bai.

Because Xiao Bai had come to support them, even Chen Xiaoxia did not bicker with her this time. Instead, she said openly:

"Thanks, Blackie! By the way, do you know what's going on here?"

"I don't."

Xiao Bai descended from above, directing her Chains toward the more distant crowds who had collapsed and sending them outside the barrier one by one. Then she turned to the others.

"But obviously, this incident must be connected to the Toy Bear you encountered last time to some extent."

"The Toy Bear..." Yu Muqiu pondered. "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 at Nino.

Nino instantly broke out in a cold sweat and hurriedly defended herself.

"How could that be possible! Didn't I say that contracting with three magical girls is already my limit? Xiao Bai's appearance alone was surprising enough. How could there possibly be a fifth... Come to think of it, Xiao Bai, how did you become a magical girl?"

Only now did Nino remember to ask that question.

They had known Xiao Bai for so long, and 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 directly:

"...The possibility of a fifth magical girl does indeed exist."

"Hey, Blackie, did you just skip right over that?"

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

Xiao Bai looked toward the more distant passersby.

Chen Xiaoxia stared daggers at Xiao Bai and complained: