Hundred Weapons

Unexpected reinforcements stormed into the battlefield, the lingering crimson light making the scene seem almost dreamlike. Larkspur blinked, making sure she wasn't hallucinating, before speaking with some surprise:

"Morning Glory? Is it really you?"

She had no idea whether this was the "reinforcements" Emerald had mentioned; if so, it would be incredibly surprising. She had never imagined this person would be Hong Siyu.

After all, it hadn't even been a month since the Full Moon Festival incident, Hong Siyu had only been sent to the Kingdom for treatment this month. It was indeed unexpected for Larkspur to be able to return to Fangting City at this time.

More importantly, Hong Siyu should no longer have the ability to become a magical girl.

As a retired magical girl, her Mana Source should have long since fallen into slumber, and her magical girl powers should have been returned. Moreover, she was previously controlled by Moss and even transformed into Aberrant Beast. After all that, it's impossible for her to become a magical girl again.

However, facts prevail. The hand supporting the Larkspur's legs was so real, and the face so close to her was so vivid. The girl who should have only existed in her memory had indeed appeared here.

"It really is me, senior."

The girl in the purplish-red dress slowly released her grip on the Larkspur, letting its feet touch the ground. She lowered her head slightly and said, "I'm back, and I'm sorry I'm late."

"Why are you able to..."

"Shh, let's leave the reminiscing here for now. I'll explain everything to you after it's all over."

Perhaps because of their slightly intimate actions earlier, Hong Siyu seemed a little uncomfortable. She placed the book in front of Larkspur, gently interrupting her before she could speak:

"Now, we need to take care of the enemy in front of us first."

As soon as she finished speaking, she turned her head and looked at the kite not far away, her expression changing from gentle to tense.

"41422..."

However, Yuan didn't seem to be moved by the newcomer's words. Instead, she thoughtfully recited the code name Hong Siyu had given her. "Have code names started with 4 already?"

"Your focus is so weird! Concentrate on the battle!"

Semi corrected him from the side, saying, "Besides, numbers starting with 4 are at least forty years old. Didn't you notice that many magical girls inside the Claw Mark have this number?"

"Normally, who would bother to listen to someone else's Certification Card number?"

Yuan waved her hand dismissively. "As for focusing on the battle, there's no need to remind me."

"Be careful. If your opponent uses Letter Card, and pulls out some strange Wonderland, you might be caught off guard and suffer a setback."

Semi emphasized with considerable concern, "Let's finish this quickly, or things will get complicated if reinforcements arrive."

"Don't worry, I've never underestimated my opponent."

Yuan slightly adjusted her posture, her eyes, which had been slightly unfocused due to lingering effects of the alcohol, refocused and became somewhat sharp. "Even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit."

The atmosphere in the reception room became slightly tense, and neither side spoke. Then, with a loud bang, Yuan's figure vanished from her spot. Her fist reached out at a speed completely invisible to ordinary people, Hong Siyu the wall behind her, which had been intact, was destroyed in an instant.

Glass, concrete, bricks, steel bars—all the building structures that made up the walls were shattered into dust, which drifted in the air like smog and slowly fell to the ground.

Before her fist stood an incredibly thick Magic Barrier.

Describing this Spell Formula as Magic Barrier would be an inaccuracy, because from the outside, it is essentially a magic wall. Its thickness of over half a meter completely blocked the power of Yuan's punch, leaving the space behind the Magic Barrier intact in the entire reception room.

Hong Siyu opened her hand, revealing an open notebook in her palm. On the pages made of magic, lines of runes shimmered with an unusual light. This light formed a wall in front of her, thus blocking Yuan's attack.

"Not bad."

Before her punch had fully landed, Yuan was not alarmed but rather delighted, a hint of predatory joy shining through her lingering drunkenness. She stepped back slightly, raised her hand, relaxed her fist, and slightly lowered her wrist, then suddenly struck again, hitting the barrier squarely. But just before hitting the barrier, she twisted her wrist, suddenly adding force within a tiny space.

Whoosh!

With a single punch, the seemingly indestructible barrier was breached, creating a huge gap. After throwing one punch, the kite followed with another, delivering several blows in quick succession, all striking the same spot, causing the thick wall of magic to collapse with a deafening roar.

Having destroyed the Magic Barrier created by Hong Siyu, Yuan's face remained expressionless. She simply beckoned with her finger, slightly raising the corners of her mouth, Hong Siyu:

"Again."

As soon as she finished speaking, she noticed that the space around her suddenly distorted, and several magical spears of unknown origin grazed past her.

These shaped spears appeared and disappeared suddenly, unlike ordinary Spell Formula that leave no trace. Their attack trajectories were quite tricky. However, Yuan simply moved her body and easily dodged them.

Having dodged this attack, she looked at Hong Siyu again, but before she could say anything, countless turbulent currents of magic suddenly fell from mid-air, engulfing her.

Boom!

The blinding magical light nearly made the Larkspur, who was watching, unable to open its eyes.

And this was just the beginning. After the turbulence came spatial distortion; after spatial distortion came soul rays; after soul rays came hypnotic curses; after the curses came sealing and binding... The dazzling Spell Formula seemed to bombard the small reception room without any pause, turning the surroundings into ruins in an instant.

However, the kite moved very quickly, seemingly boneless, weaving between Spell Formula in all sorts of unbelievable postures. While dodging the various Spell Formula, she rushed out of the reception room and flew towards the outside of the Bureau of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau building, speeding through the sky.

Faced with this situation, Hong Siyu gripped her notebook tightly, her expression slightly restrained, but her hands moved with remarkable speed. She flipped through the pages rapidly, and with each page turn, a magical Spell Formula far exceeding ordinary specifications would suddenly appear. There was no chanting, no gestures, and not even the need for rune recording; these Spell Formula seemed to have always existed, allowing her to execute them at will.

And Larkspur knew that this was Hong Siyu's Magic Armament —the ability of "Memory Record".

The "Memory Record" notebook looks just like the one Hong Siyu holding. It is an ordinary-looking notebook that doesn't even have any special abilities when it is first obtained. All it can do is allow users to record text in it.

However, this does not mean that it is a useless Magic Armament. On the contrary, the Memory Record ability is actually very promising: everything that the user records on the pages of the notebook can be reproduced with magic as long as the user has enough magic power.

The so-called "things" include, but are not limited to, small objects in daily life, such as stones, pencils, and lipsticks; they also include extraordinary magical Spell Formula. As long as the Spell Formula is recorded in Hong Siyu's Memory Record, it can be instantly reproduced by activating magic.

Of course, this kind of reproduction is not without limitations. The reproduced things can never exceed the intensity of what the user remembers and records. If the magic provided is insufficient, the realism of the reproduction will be greatly reduced. It may result in something that is similar in form but not in spirit, or similar in spirit but not in form, or simply a pile of mud.

This also meant that Hong Siyu was unable to exert much combat power during the initial period after acquiring the Magic Armament: her magic power was too weak at that time, and she couldn't reproduce anything decent at all.

It wasn't until the time when the Larkspur was nearing retirement that the role of Memory Record in Hong Siyu's hands underwent a transformation.

As Hong Siyu advanced to the Leaf Rank, she gained the ability to learn and construct Spell Formula. In an instant, her Memory Record became an extremely powerful spellcasting cheat: with it, the process of learning Spell Formula for Hong Siyu was much simpler than for other magical girls. Compared to others who used an incredibly tedious process to construct and fix their commonly used Spell Formula, Hong Siyu only needed to record the Spell Formula she had learned and understood, and she could use Spell Formula with a level of proficiency and efficiency far exceeding that of others.

Furthermore, she could continuously optimize her Spell Formula. Take that seemingly exaggerated Magic Barrier as an example: if she used one percent less magic power to release the Magic Barrier today, it could be recorded in her Memory Record, breaking the original record; if she released the Magic Barrier five percent thicker than before tomorrow, it could also be recorded in her Memory Record... Over time, the Spell Formula recorded by Hong Siyu in her Memory Record were far beyond ordinary specifications, products optimized to the extreme in every aspect.

Magical girls who use high-powered Spell Formula like ordinary Mana Beam have a common name in the Kingdom: turrets.

Hong Siyu, or rather, Morning Glory, is one of the best among the "turret" magical girls.

In the ruins of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau room, Hong Siyu's gaze was fixed on Yuan, watching her every move. Countless Spell Formula of all kinds bloomed in the air like fireworks, and the overwhelming firepower bombarded the area, causing passersby on the ground to stop and watch.

Even though Yuan considered herself to be exceptionally agile, she was still struggling to protect herself amidst the continuous barrage of fire, let alone with Semi by her side. This Black Cat Fairy was even more terrified at this moment.

"Think of something, you idiot!"

It clung tightly to the kite's shoulder, narrowly escaping a Spell Formula during flight, its fur being shaved off in the process. "Stop playing! I can't take it anymore!"

"That's what they say... but it's really hard to get close."

As the kite maneuvered repeatedly in the air, it muttered, "You know my Spell Formula level. Asking me to counterattack while simultaneously closing the distance is asking too much."

"Then use Wonderland! Use your Magic Armament!"

Semi meowed loudly, "Just get rid of her quickly! Or I'll go back to the chief and tell him about you!"

"Using my Wonderland to deal with this kind of turret lady is a bit too boring."

Having narrowly escaped a curse that nearly grazed her forehead, Yuan landed diagonally on the exterior wall of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau building. With a gentle push off the glass, she slipped through the encirclement of several Mana Beam: "However, since they're getting this serious, I should indeed retaliate with some strength of my own."

As soon as she finished speaking, a string of jet-black liquid metal spiraled up her arm. The inky black metal flowed like ink, leaving streaks in the air as if painting, and gradually solidified between her fingers and palm.

This liquid metal of unknown purpose had been swirling around Kite all along, but she had no intention of using it in combat, only occasionally using it to defend against attacks. Now, however, she seemed to finally be willing to show its usefulness.

He twisted in mid-air, stood upside down, and hung in mid-air as if frozen in time, his body facing the direction where Hong Siyu was.

She opened her arms, gradually widening the distance between her hands, one in front of the other, and then, the ink-black metal outlined a black bow between her hands.

"Hundred Weapons, draw your bow."

Her lips parted slightly, and as if a stroke of ink had been added to the bowstring of the black bow, an arrow appeared. The arrow, which seemed to have been painted, solidified from the void, and just by solidifying on the bow, it made the surrounding temperature seem to drop considerably.

Then, without the slightest hesitation, she released her grip, and the arrow shot out with a "whoosh" the instant she let go, heading straight for Hong Siyu's throat.

The distance between the two seemed far, but it was actually less than a hundred meters. None of the many Spell Formulas in between could stop the arrow's attack, so in just an instant, the arrow had already flown to Hong Siyu's front.

Although it was just a slender arrow, the ominous magic shrouding its tip was enough to attract anyone's attention. From the Larkspur's perspective, the magic power on this arrow far exceeded the level of the Blossom Rank, undoubtedly reaching the Flower Rank. The terrifying strength of the magic power was enough to make people tremble.

If this arrow hits the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau, then not only will the Bureau's building be wiped out, but the entire block will be left without any survivors; and if it hits a person, even a magical girl, destroying her True Form and taking her life will be no problem at all.

She knew all too well that Hong Siyu was only at the Blossom Rank until her retirement, and there was absolutely no way she could withstand this arrow. If she let it hit her, the result would undoubtedly be fatal.

Realizing the deadly nature of this attack, Larkspur summoned her Magic Armament almost instantly, unhesitatingly placing it in front of Hong Siyu as a shield. At the same time, she used her silk threads to try and pull Hong Siyu aside, thus avoiding this terrifying blow.

However, before the silk thread could touch Hong Siyu, she heard a soft, comforting voice.

"It's alright, senior, she can't hurt me."

Within the crimson magical light screen, Hong Siyu, holding a notebook, turned her head to the side. Her serene smile carried a confidence that Larkspur had never seen before. She looked at Larkspur and said earnestly, "I told you, I'm back, so I will never let you get hurt again."

After saying this, she looked up, meeting the gaze of the incoming black arrow, closed the notebook with one hand, and parted her lips slightly:

"Morning Glory, in Grand Flourishing Blossoming, Hundred Records of the Memory Sea."

Thank you to reader Shili-1005 for the Alliance Leader Meow, thank you to reader Tianshengdiyang for the Helmsman Meow, and thank you Tuhao Meow.