Choir and Dancer

"Boom—splash"!

A violent commotion echoed through the underground cavern.

Fleshy tendrils fluttered down from above, crashing heavily into the water and blasting up columns of spray several meters high.

At the center, the fish-shaped Aberrant Beast writhed, opening and closing its maw as though performing a bizarre, ominous dance, while directing the surrounding flesh to attack Larkspur with an impassioned song.

Larkspur skimmed low over the water, circling along the cavern walls and dodging the tendrils that lashed at her from time to time. Raising her wand, she tentatively fired several Mana Beams at the Aberrant Beast in the center.

Yet when the Mana Beams struck the Aberrant Beast, they vanished without a trace, like stones sinking into the sea. They provoked no reaction and caused no damage.

From Larkspur's perspective, she could see that the Mana Beams automatically broke apart the instant they touched the Aberrant Beast's surface, dissipating silently.

"Does it really have a Pupa Shell?"

For the first time since entering this place, surprise showed on her face. "It has already evolved this far?"

A Pupa Shell was a physical ability developed by Pupa Rank Aberrant Beasts as they continued accumulating nutrients and advancing toward higher forms. It allowed an Aberrant Beast to dissolve and defend against pure mana attacks within certain limits.

Aberrant Beasts were already extremely difficult to injure physically. Once they evolved a Pupa Shell, it meant their defenses had virtually no blind spots, making them even harder to harm. The thought alone was enough to make most people despair.

Fortunately, the word "shell" in Pupa Shell revealed its nature—for magical girls, it could be broken.

There were generally only two ways to harm an Aberrant Beast through a Pupa Shell. The first was to continuously attack with mana beyond its tolerance, overwhelming it with brute force and forcibly shattering the shell. The second was to use abilities that dealt neither physical nor pure mana damage.

The first method meant a group assault, and it had the lowest requirements. One only needed enough magical girls; even a group of Seed Stage newcomers would suffice. If enough magical girls swarmed forward and attacked with mana, the sheer volume of mana could directly break through the Pupa Shell and strike the Aberrant Beast.

Of course, if an exceptionally powerful magical girl arrived, it was not impossible for her to crush a Pupa Rank Aberrant Beast with mana that completely overwhelmed it on an individual level.

The second method offered more options, but its requirements were correspondingly higher. The most common was a Magic Construct. A Magic Construct drew its power from a magical girl's True Form, the product of soul and mana becoming one. It naturally had a certain restraining effect on an Aberrant Beast's Pupa Shell.

Therefore, when their numbers were insufficient, every magical girl participating in the extermination had to be at least Bud Rank.

Tilting her head as she flew at high speed and watching the Aberrant Beast at the center, Larkspur calmed herself again. The existence of a Pupa Shell surprised her, but it was not beyond her expectations, because that was precisely why she had come alone.

Even now, Fangting City had only three magical girls. That number was certainly not enough to break a Pupa Shell. Considering that the other two had not mastered Magic Constructs, they would not be able to inflict effective damage even if they came, so Larkspur had decided not to involve them.

And now, perhaps because it knew there was only one enemy, the fish-shaped Aberrant Beast was especially unrestrained. After receiving Larkspur's counterattack, it danced even more wildly, summoning more tentacles from every direction toward her.

Larkspur's expression remained calm. Her robes snapped in the wind, her hair streaming through the air, as she parted her lips slightly.

"Magic Construct, extrude."

She murmured, and the wand in her hand dispersed into mana. Countless glowing threads of mana spread out, linking together the entire space of the cavern.

Fleshy limbs were stopped. Tentacles were severed. The Aberrant Beast's blood splattered everywhere, yet not a single drop touched the corner of her clothes. She continued flying, and in an instant, the space around her became empty, without the slightest trace of an enemy.

But this grand choral symphony was far from over.

The enormous cavern was the stage. The Aberrant Beast at its center was the conductor of this concert, as well as its own choir. The fleshy limbs hanging throughout the cavern were its orchestra members and accompanying dancers.

As long as its performance did not stop, neither would its attacks.

As one wave of attacks was dissolved and severed tentacles littered the ground, its song shifted, changing into a mournful chant entirely unlike before.

As though answering some summons within the song, a string of bubbles suddenly rose from the dim yellow pool below. Countless objects surfaced from beneath the water and shot high into the air.

Larkspur had yet to see what had emerged from the water, but her instincts made her flight path change sharply.

"Boom"!

At the instant she changed course, a cannonball of filthy water streaked past her previous trajectory and slammed straight into the cavern wall with a thunderous crash.

A water cannon.

Larkspur understood. As her thoughts raced, she already knew what lay in the pool below. Looking down from above, the densely packed objects had revealed their true forms—they were all heads of Aberrant Beasts.

—Heads of Cavity-Melting Aberrant Beasts.

The choir's song was mournful and heartrending, yet its pitch climbed and its rhythm intensified. High notes rose and fell, while heavy chords drove the music's emotion to its peak, as though the performance had entered its climax.

"Boom, boom, boom"!

Water cannons fired one after another in time with the beat, launching from the pool below toward Larkspur's position.

"Swish, swish, swish"!

Tentacles cracked down from high above like whipping blades, slicing toward the figure in the air with shrill winds.

Larkspur twisted her body in mid-flight like a bullet and accelerated once more.

Such dense and dangerous attacks would have made it difficult for any Leaf Rank magical girl to escape unscathed, but Larkspur was different.

Like a solo dancer who had broken into a symphony orchestra pit, Larkspur darted and weaved between every section. Her light footwork and intense movements were unconventional yet strangely harmonious, as if she had become part of the performance herself. Constantly dodging attacks and retaliating with her Magic Armament, the solo dancer leaped forward from the edge of the orchestra pit, charging toward the central conductor's platform.

She easily passed the brass section, and the woodwinds could not impede her steps. The violinists were held to the side by her threads, and their music could not hold back her dancing figure.

The singer on the conductor's platform felt challenged.

It was the singer, and it was also the conductor. This concert should not escape its control. Outsiders should quietly appreciate it from beneath the stage, rather than barge in and disrupt its performance.

The grand welcome was over. Now, it was time to drive away the troublesome audience member.

Thus, it closed its mouth.

As the fish-shaped Aberrant Beast at the center shut its enormous maw, the thunderous song abruptly stopped as well.

The strings of bloody flesh bunting suspended in the air wriggled and swelled. The chunks of flesh hanging above split open one after another, revealing maws full of sharp teeth that stretched out their tongues. Below, the Egg Rank Aberrant Beasts also retracted their Dissolving Cavities, ceasing their unending water-cannon bombardment as they opened mouths that should have been their weakness.

Larkspur's pupils contracted slightly.

She abruptly raised a hand and made an unusual gesture toward the dense web of threads in the air.

Then, explosive sound waves erupted from every direction, piercing through the cavern walls, blasting apart the accumulated pool, and nearly shattering every foreign object in the entire space.