"This was the designation used when a Void Beast possessed lord-level strength. Based on the quality of its Demonic Aether, they were divided into seven ranks: Soldier-class, General-class, King-class, Ghost Grade, Dragon-class, God-class, and World-Destroying-class."
A Soldier-class Void Beast could be easily defeated by a magical girl who was somewhat skilled in combat, while a General-Tier Void Beast required a magical girl with extensive combat experience to handle.
A King-Tier Void Beast required at least three experienced magical girls to form a party before they could clear the dungeon.
The Void King Serpent Ando Meiko had encountered last time was a King-Tier Void Beast. Though it had not yet reached its complete form, Xiphias alone had easily dealt with it.
It was easy to imagine just how powerful Xiphias was as a magical girl.
A Dragon-class Void Beast required more than ten, perhaps even twenty magical girls working together just to have a slight chance of winning. To defeat one completely, they would still have to endure an extremely draining battle.
God-class, also known as Domain-class. Void Beasts of this level had already mastered the ability to use Demonic Aether to seal off space and create a combat domain.
Without magical girls of a corresponding level to fight them, no matter how many people joined the battle, they would only end in total annihilation.
After all, Void Beasts at this level could no longer be measured by numbers alone.
As for World-Destroying-class, those were existences worthy of becoming legends. If one of those things truly appeared, it would probably take those strongest old monsters to deal with it.
The more Kajieliena explained, the stronger Ando Meiko's unease became.
Ghost Grade... Huh? W-wasn't that a fourth-rank powerhouse? I-I really shouldn't go, right? How could this possibly be something I could handle?
"Still... I want to go take a look..." Though she did not want to stir up trouble, seeing Rin disappear into the alley had given her a bad feeling.
"If that's what you say, I won't stop you. Let me come with you."
"You're not going to attack me, are you?"
Kajieliena shook her head. "You are my observation and research subject. I will not lay a hand on you."
Those simple words were not reassuring at all, but they showed Kajieliena's resolve. Though she was a witch, judging by her usual words and actions, she could be considered trustworthy.
With Kajieliena's personal guarantee, Ando Meiko no longer had to worry about being stabbed in the back.
Volume One: How I Got Scammed Into Becoming a Magical Girl: Chapter 50: Ghost Grade Void Beast
At Kajieliena's side, though she could not communicate directly with Ruby, she could still transform into a magical girl through her necklace.
Accompanied by a flash of red light that vanished in an instant, she completed her transformation, opened the door to the Void World, and entered alongside Kajieliena.
"Come to think of it, why do I feel like something affects me whenever I stand next to you?"
"You mean the Isolation Field. Just in case, any target that gets close to me is covered by my Isolation Field, cutting off all conceptual communications."
An Isolation Field... As expected of the Space-Based Weapon System. It even had protective measures like this, and it looked like a passive skill at that.
"Can you turn it off when I get close to you in the future?"
"Of course."
[Stupid woman! How dare that stupid woman get so close to Master? I'll make a voodoo doll of her and curse her!]
When Ruby's familiar voice reached her mind, she knew that although Kajieliena had not made any obvious movements, she had already lifted the Isolation Field.
[All right, Ruby. Stop complaining. We can't beat her anyway.]
[Huh? Master? Master! Waaaah, we can finally talk again?]
She did not waste time chatting nonsense with Ruby and went straight to what she wanted to know.
[We've entered the Void World and are about to look for a Ghost Grade Void Beast. Can you sense where it is?]
[East. With Demonic Aether this intense, Master should be able to sense it even without me, right?]
After receiving Ruby's confirmation, she immediately set off. Just as she left the alley to head in that direction, Kajieliena grabbed her and pulled her back.
"You're not going up?"
"Up? I can't fly!"
Hearing that, Ando Meiko looked overhead. The alley was surrounded by two skyscrapers at least forty stories tall. If they had to climb the stairs, even as magical girls, they would probably waste quite a bit of time.
Yet Kajieliena did not answer Ando Meiko's question.
She took out her magic wand, then swept a tarot card with nothing but a capital S on its face upward.
In the blink of an eye, she had completed her transformation.
"Huh?"
The next moment, the transformed Kajieliena slung Ando Meiko over her shoulder and said calmly, "Clench your teeth."
"W-wait, you're not planning to... Eek! Aaaahhh! No! P-put me down!"
While Ando Meiko was still stunned, Kajieliena jumped from where she stood, using the explosive power of her body to launch them both more than a hundred meters into the air.
Too fierce, too intense, too violent... Ando Meiko felt as though her body were swaying like seaweed, as if she might fall at any moment, even though the whole process lasted less than a few seconds.
Once they reached the rooftop, Ando Meiko was put down. The feeling of solid ground beneath her feet made her appreciate the beauty of the world, and the beauty of being alive.
"Don't solve everything with brute force, okay?! Your theme is Orbital Weapon!"
Kajieliena shrugged. "Orbital Weapon functions somewhat like a sniper rifle. Its attack method is aerial guided strikes after ultra-long-range targeting, so I do not have many close-combat options. Once someone gets close, all I can do is run."
"Hey, hey! Is it really okay for you to reveal your weakness so casually? I haven't joined any organization, but we're still enemies!"
"It's fine. You couldn't beat me anyway."
It was true. That was absolutely true! But could she not say it so bluntly? That hurt so much she was practically about to cry.
[How dare she insult Master! Master, let me out! I'll show her what for.]
Show her what for? Didn't Ruby see that Kajieliena could carry her and leap over a hundred meters into the air? If Ruby went over there, Kajieliena would probably beat her black and blue. Then perhaps Ando Meiko would get to see some truly bright colors on Ruby's face.
"Over there." This building was very tall, and the view was therefore extremely broad. At Kajieliena's reminder, Ando Meiko looked toward the source of the dense magical power.
T-this was a Ghost Grade Void Beast?
It was a giant spider over twenty meters tall, built like a small mountain. Yet every movement it made displayed both agility and immense strength.
Each of its legs was as sharp as a blade. If someone were pierced by one of those legs, it would surely be a fatal blow to any living creature.
And it seemed to be fighting something. Magical girls?!
Five magical girls surrounded it, unleashing all sorts of skills against it, but its tough hide absorbed every attack.
"I see. So it's them."
"You know them?"
"The magical girl organization Divine Shield. They are all members. I have fought one of them before."
Kajieliena pointed at the girl in yellow and said to Ando Meiko, "The Stars Magical Girl, Three Purities. Her theme is the Three Purities Dao Arts, but her inheritance comes from the China branch and does not belong to our side."
One Divine Staff and one Divine Shield. These two hostile organizations had even made their names opposites. Looking at them as weapons, weren't they the classic spear and shield?
"Do you think they can win?"
Kajieliena shook her head. "Three Purities is fairly strong, but against a Ghost Grade Void Beast, she is the only one who can really fight. The others are somewhat of a burden. In a few more exchanges, victory or defeat will... Hmm?"
"What is it?" The questioning tone that suddenly appeared in Kajieliena's voice made Ando Meiko curiously follow her gaze. "Huh? What's that?"
The open center of the shopping complex was wrapped in spider silk so white it made her sick, and where those strands converged were three enormous cocoons.
"There's something inside the cocoons."
"N-no way?" After all, Kajieliena had said that her combat style consisted only of guided attacks after ultra-long-range targeting. It was not strange for her to have such eyesight, or some method of enhancing her vision.
But seeing something inside spider cocoons meant there were eggs inside? Void Beasts laid eggs?
"They look like they will hatch soon. If they are left alone, quite a few Void Beasts capable of growing to Ghost Grade may be born."
"W-we have to destroy them... don't we?"
Kajieliena shook her head and said calmly, "Not my responsibility."
In those few short words, she had made her meaning clear—she would not intervene.
As they spoke, the spider suddenly leaped up. When its massive body crashed onto the ground, it unleashed a violent shockwave that spread outward.
Even Ando Meiko, some distance away, could feel the tremors traveling through the ground, let alone the magical girls around the spider.
Three Purities retreated, while the other magical girls fled the combat zone in time. However, they could not resist the Demonic Aether shockwave created by the spider and were blown backward.
The worst-off among them was slammed into a wall and lost consciousness.
The gap in combat power was revealed in an instant.
Compared to the pressure of this Void Spider, the Void King Serpent she had faced before was like an immature little brat.
Volume One: How I Got Scammed Into Becoming a Magical Girl: Chapter 51: Evolved?
Help them?
Of course Ando Meiko wanted to help, but how much stronger was she than those magical girls who had been blasted away? Wouldn't rushing in be no different from throwing her life away?
After the other magical girls lost their combat ability, Three Purities became the primary target and immediately had to endure the Void Spider's storm-like assault.
Facing the spider legs stabbing toward her, she swung the longsword in her hand and barely blocked them, but she soon could no longer withstand that relentless barrage.
After deflecting a spider-leg strike, she pulled three yellow Talisman Scripts from her robes and threw them toward the incoming attacks. The moment the spider legs pierced them, the scripts instantly swelled into a powerful torrent of magical power and exploded.
The explosion blocked the Void Spider's attack. Taking advantage of that brief moment, Three Purities retreated out of the spider's attack range, reached her unconscious companion, and pulled her from the wall.
Yet she seemed to have misjudged the Void Spider's toughness... While saving her companion, one spider leg pierced through the smoke kicked up by the explosion and stabbed through Three Purities's lower abdomen.
Seeing this, Ando Meiko began to panic, unable to bear watching someone die without helping.
She had to, had to do something. If she kept watching, they would all die...
"There has to be a way... A way... The eggs, right, the eggs!"
What attack method could cross more than a kilometer and hit the spider cocoons in the center of the shopping complex?
Silver Impact's range was far too short, but charging it... What if she changed Silver Impact into another kind of charged attack? She needed an attack method with explosive force while accounting for power, penetration, and range...
A bow... Right, a bow! Why hadn't she thought of that? What a straight line could not reach, an arc could make up for!
That was Ando Meiko's answer.
It turned out that reading more books really did have plenty of benefits in actual combat.
She poured magical power into her wand. Within her imagination, the wand transformed into the shape she wanted: a huge bow taller than she was.
Strange. Wasn't I only supposed to be able to create things I've touched before? Why could Ruby become a bow when I'd never touched any bow or arrow?
Being able to do it was better than not being able to. For Ando Meiko, her goal now was not to figure out this strange occurrence, but to save those living lives.
[Compress the magical power as much as possible and turn Silver Impact's power into an arrow! Ruby, I'll leave the firing angle to you.]
[Leave it to me, Master. Just focus on shooting.]
Her arms alone could not draw the huge bow, so Ando Meiko planted her left foot to stabilize herself, braced her right foot against the bow, grabbed the heavy bowstring with both hands, and pulled it to full draw.
Silver Impact's charging method changed according to her imagination. Magical power materialized a red arrow upon the great bow, and the instant the arrow condensed, it continued expanding, becoming thicker and more solid.
The gem on her chest flashed with an unnatural red light in a short span of time.
"The charge has reached its limit... but it's not enough... nowhere near enough..."
Magical power would dissipate and be consumed while traveling. To strike such a distant target, the magical power condensed within the arrow had to exceed the limit she could bear.
[Master! No, you can't keep forcing it! Magical power beyond your tolerance will tear your body apart and cause irreversible damage!]
[I can't just watch those five people die in front of me while I... do nothing...]
Kajieliena watched Ando Meiko's actions, then slowly shook her head and pressed her magic wand against Ando Meiko's shoulder. "Let me help you."
"I can feel it... Kajieliena's magical power is inside my body..."
As a tremendous amount of magical power poured in, a strange sensation suddenly eased Ando Meiko's burden. The degree of magical power condensation effortlessly broke past the limit her body could endure.
The red light stopped flickering. Light erupted like the sun and instantly enveloped Ando Meiko's entire body, so blinding that even Kajieliena could not help narrowing her eyes.
The gem on her chest changed from a quadrilateral into a hexagon. Her top shortened slightly, exposing a diamond-shaped opening at her navel. The outermost layer of her three-layered stacked skirt transformed into a large trailing overskirt, while the gem behind her detached itself from the ribbon and floated at either side of her body.
Her ordinary twin ponytails became steadier-looking low twin ponytails, while the feather-shaped hair ornaments that had originally bound her hair unfolded into more powerful-looking X shapes.
[Master... evolved at a time like this?]
"Kajieliena, I have a favor to ask... If I manage to draw away the Void Beast, please help me save those people..."
"I..."
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