Magical Girls? There's No Going Back Now!

Ahhhhh, my King's Power!!!

"Death, what a wonderful word. If someone could bring it to me, I'd be willing to pay any price."

Hearing Yao's edgy declaration, the girl in leather pants walking ahead suddenly wore a sorrowful expression. Her voice was somewhat hoarse, carrying an intense sense of loneliness.

"Hah? Are you mocking me? I'll bring death to you right now, how about that? Trash~ small fry~ If you lose, why don't you give up the lead singer position?" Yao drew her blade, only for a powerful hand to press it back into its sheath.

"Lost lamb, may the Heavenly Father forgive you." With a compassionate expression, the nun carefully pinched Yao's small hand around the hilt between two fingers, as though afraid that using too much force would crush it.

"Felia! Stop pretending to be the peacemaker. Everyone knows you've killed the most people out of all of us!" Though Yao's words remained unforgiving, she still gave Felia face and sheathed the blade she had drawn halfway.

"Felia~ Felia, can't finish it... help..." The little girl hiding behind the nun tugged at the hem of her habit.

"No problem." Felia smiled lovingly and turned around to take the ice cream cone from the little girl's hand.

"Ice cream, for Felia. Cone... for Black Cat." The little girl hurriedly added.

"Okay." Felia answered simply. She carefully pinched the cone between two fingers, tipped her head back, and dropped all the ice cream into her mouth before handing the cone back to Black Cat.

"If you like it that much, why not just buy more?" The girl in leather pants impatiently walked over to the ice cream machine, grabbed the stack of cones beside it, glared at the shop owner who tried to stop her, tossed down a banknote, and turned toward the little girl.

"Here, eat as much as you want." Saroye said, handing over a cone nearly as tall as Black Cat herself.

"Can't finish it... Saroye, wasting food... your sin will become worse." Black Cat fearfully hugged the nun's leg and hid behind her, peeking out to softly accuse her.

"Rejected... Felia, give me the bass. I want to write a song." Saroye froze for a moment, then wore a heartbroken expression and reached toward Felia for the instrument.

"Want to put on a street performance? Too bad there's no drum set or piano here—Yao, are you interested? Want the guitar?" Felia turned and asked.

"Who the fuck would be in the mood in this weather? Go settle our accommodations first before asking such stupid questions!" Yao said, suddenly drawing her long blade and severing the stack of cones in Saroye's hand with a flash of steel.

"Didn't you hear? Black Cat said we can't waste food." Felia swiftly caught the falling cones and stuffed them, along with the ones in Saroye's hand, into her mouth. She crunched through them as effortlessly as an ordinary person eating corn chips.

"Felia, good. Yao, bad." Black Cat said, raising her two pink little fists before her chest.

"One day, I'm going to kill every last one of you." Yao sheathed her long blade and fiercely glared at Felia.

"Yao, the cones smell of fresh blood. Did you kill someone again?" Felia asked with a frown.

"Didn't kill him. I only removed one of his arms." Yao said indifferently.

"What did that poor person do? We were just walking down the street. We hadn't offended anyone." Felia asked in confusion.

"He looked at us through binoculars."

"He looked once? You chopped someone up just because he looked once? Maybe he was just a photographer gathering material on the street? Heavenly Father, this is truly..." Felia looked utterly distressed.

"Cut the act. When a performance failed before, didn't you fire a heavy machine gun into the audience? When it comes to indiscriminately killing innocents, I'm not even worth one of your fingers." Yao said, unable to endure it any longer.

"That was onstage! Firing into the audience is part of rock and roll, something that must be experienced. Besides, they threw mineral water bottles first. How could that be called indiscriminately killing innocents?" Felia argued.

"Felia, you really were in the wrong that time. Using a heavy machine gun was excessive no matter how you put it. Next time, just use my handgun." Saroye said as she pulled a revolver from behind her leather pants.

"The trigger guard on a handgun is too small. My fingers won't fit inside..." Felia explained.

While the four continued arguing endlessly, Li Xuan had already opened a portal and fled back into the Delusive Badlands. This skill required only mental power and involved no Evil Energy at all, so it had not been detected by Yao's senses again.

"Ahhhhh, my King's Power!!!"

Li Xuan clutched his severed arm, and a line of dialogue involuntarily flashed through his mind.

No, was this really the time to be thinking about that? The enemy was way too strong, wasn't she? And she was completely unreasonable. She clearly hadn't seen through his identity, yet she had still slashed at him. That meant she didn't care about civilian casualties at all. Tricks like taking a hostage as he had with Xu Rou to force them to surrender were nothing but empty talk.

Li Xuan thought gloomily.

"Master? What happened?!" The magical girls sensed Li Xuan's presence and hurried over. Seeing his severed arm, all of them were immediately shocked.

"Who hurt you?! I'll kill his whole family!" Xu Rou carried her giant axe over her shoulder, looking ready to murder someone.

"Forget that for now—Qi Mo, heal me." As Li Xuan spoke, he pressed his severed arm back against the wound.

"Yes! Tang Xi, could I ask you to help hold the arm in place? I can only cast one spell at a time." Qi Mo asked.

"Of course." Tang Xi hurried forward and used a seal to secure the severed arm while Qi Mo focused on casting healing magic.

Because of his monster traits, Li Xuan possessed some natural healing ability as well. However, an injury as severe as a severed arm was nearly impossible to heal through self-recovery alone.

Thinking of this, Li Xuan could not help feeling fortunate that he had not exposed his identity as a monster earlier. Otherwise, what would have been cut off probably would not have been his arm, but his head. At that point, even immortals would have been unable to save him.

Still, the trip had not been entirely without gains. Li Xuan had at least identified information on one of the magical girls. The information would be stored in the system like an archive, available for review at any time.

"Yao? What a strange name. But why does her data show two different types? Could it be that she possesses both the perception of a Sealing Type and the powerful physical abilities of a Battle Type?" Li Xuan pondered to himself.

"Master, did a very strong opponent appear outside?" Wu Yan asked worriedly from the side.

"Yes. There are four enemies, and they're all Grade A. None of you are allowed to transform outside, or you could lose your lives at any moment." Li Xuan warned.

"Four Grade A?" Everyone was shocked by the news, while only Tang Xi fell into thought.

"That's right. The Church hired them to deal with me. This arm was cut off by one of them, a shark-toothed delinquent with a katana." Li Xuan said.

"Master, it's already amazing that you came back alive after encountering Grade A magical girls. Have an orange slice to calm yourself down." Wu Yan said, stuffing an orange segment she had somehow brought with her into Li Xuan's mouth.

"Shark teeth and a katana... Master, could the enemies you mentioned be the Witch Band?" Tang Xi suddenly asked after thinking for a long time.

Tang Xi's Intelligence and a Rotten Idea

"Oh? Do you know something?" Li Xuan asked in surprise.

"It really was them? When I was researching the principles of 'curses and blessings' at Guardian Abbey, I worked with them briefly. Honestly, it was an unpleasant experience. Aside from one nun who was somewhat polite, the others didn't treat us researchers like human beings. I never thought the Church would be so short on manpower that they'd actually hire scum like this." Tang Xi shook her head.

"Tell me everything you know about them. I'm severely lacking intelligence on them right now, especially information on their fighting styles and magic." Li Xuan hurriedly said.

"I don't know that much either..." Tang Xi scratched her head. "All four have nicknames, like some band of outlaws. The bassist and lead singer is called Undying Saroye; the drummer is called Peaceful Felia; the keyboardist is called Lost Black Cat; and the guitarist is called Puppet Yao. Their nicknames actually reflect their abilities and styles to some extent."

"That's right, this arm was cut off by that Yao. What an obscure name. What decent person would give someone a name like that?" Thinking of that terrifyingly fast slash, Li Xuan's severed arm began to ache faintly again.

"I'm not very familiar with her. My research subjects were Black Cat and Saroye, the two people cursed by the world." Tang Xi shook her head.

"Curses? You magical girls really have all kinds of tricks. What is that supposed to be?" Li Xuan asked curiously.

"It's actually not difficult to understand. Whether it's a curse or a blessing, it's essentially a permanent buff granted by the 'world.' And Master, you've actually seen one before." Tang Xi explained.

"I have? When?" Li Xuan asked curiously.

"Bing Rui has the blessing Immunity to All Mental Attacks. Otherwise, facing Alice in a dream would be no different from suicide." Tang Xi reminded him.

"I remember now! That did happen." Li Xuan suddenly understood. He recalled that the file Li Sijie had given him seemed to mention that there were only three magical girls in the world immune to mental attacks, and Bing Rui was clearly one of them. He had once used Mind Interference on her to induce Demonfall, but it had had no effect whatsoever.

Come to think of it, could Bing Rui's ability to hold on for so long without falling be due to the effects of that blessing as well?

Li Xuan felt that he had gone a little off-topic, so he quickly continued, "Then what about the curses on those two? Could they become weaknesses we can exploit?"

"That's hard to say. Black Cat's curse is Eternal Wandering. According to the test results, she seems to get lost anytime and anywhere, and she can't remember anything related to 'home.' Other than that, there's nothing particularly unusual." Tang Xi answered.

"And the other one..."

"The other one is much simpler. Just like her nickname, Saroye's curse is Undying. It means exactly what it sounds like: no matter how you kill her, she won't die. She heals wounds at an astonishing speed. Beheading, suffocation, burning, even nuclear radiation—none of it can make her stop breathing. But experiments in that regard were very inhumane, so even though she requested them herself, we didn't conduct much testing." Tang Xi continued.

"Then isn't she invincible? How the hell are we supposed to fight that? Shouldn't an ability this ridiculous belong to some final boss type of character?" Li Xuan asked three questions in a row, dumbfounded.

"You can't put it that way either. If her body is damaged beyond a certain threshold, she'll still lose the ability to act. And once she loses consciousness, she recovers much more slowly than usual." Tang Xi said as she recalled the details.

Li Xuan nodded and firmly committed that intelligence to memory. By then, Qi Mo had already reattached his arm. He tried moving it and found that there was no serious problem—thanks in part to Yao's blade being sharp enough that the severed surfaces fit together tightly.

"Master, what should we do next? If we can't beat them, why not surrender?" Tang Xi suggested, relapsing into an old habit.

"Shut up—Qi Mo, tell me what you think." Li Xuan slapped Tang Xi's butt, then turned to Qi Mo.

Among all the magical girls, only her strategies were worth considering.

"Master, the gap in strength between us and the enemy is truly difficult to overcome. In my opinion, it would be better to hide in this space indefinitely. They have no way of finding us here anyway, so why not simply wait them out until they leave?" Qi Mo carefully suggested.

"Hide until the end? If all we wanted was to survive, that would certainly work." Li Xuan smiled. Qi Mo's proposal did not surprise him. The Delusive Badlands was a safe place; even Li Sijie had been amazed by it.

Besides, over the past week, he had stored quite a few supplies here. There was food, entertainment, and a whole group of cute and charming magical girls to keep him company. To anyone, it would undoubtedly seem like the perfect comfortable nest.

However, retreating into a corner was not Li Xuan's style. He could accept hiding temporarily, but he absolutely could not watch magical girls wander around outside his doorstep without trying to conquer them.

But how exactly was he supposed to do it? Yao alone had already given him a massive headache. Her Sealing Type traits allowed her to easily sense his location, while her Battle Type traits gave her the ability to kill him instantly. Detection and elimination in one, without a single flaw. He had not even had time to place a mark before coming under attack.

"Master, if surrendering won't work, I have another plan." Tang Xi said mysteriously.

"Oh? You have a plan too? Let's hear it."

Li Xuan had read Tang Xi's books long ago and knew that she actually had plenty of ideas. She was simply too lazy to think most of the time. But in a life-or-death crisis like this, perhaps she really could come up with a strategy to turn the situation around.

"Monsters live longer than magical girls. Some monsters have even survived for thousands of years while sealed away. So my idea is that we should simply have children here and pass things down generation after generation. With Master's excellent genes, we'll eventually produce descendants powerful enough. Then we can send them out to avenge our humiliation and rule the world! At that time, I'll be one of the demon realm's mothers, wahahaha!!!" Tang Xi became more excited the more she spoke, as though the world were already in her grasp.

"Enough, take her away!" Li Xuan said, rubbing his forehead as he waved at Wu Yan.

"Take her away? Where's someone to take away?" Tang Xi continued playing dumb, but Wu Yan had already opened a portal and shoved her butt-first into the mana-draining tentacle wall in the wine cellar.

Li Xuan naturally knew that Tang Xi had only spouted that nonsense because she wanted to stay in the rear and slack off, so he granted her wish.

"Master, please don't worry. No matter how strong the enemy is, we'll fight to the end." Wu Yan said firmly.

"No, you're wrong. Fighting to the end isn't enough. What we want isn't mutual destruction, but victory." Li Xuan said, swinging his reattached arm as Evil Energy erupted from his body, making him look rather imposing for a moment.

"Everyone! There's no need to be discouraged. Do you really think I've been driven into a corner? No, I was merely testing you. As long as I get serious, what Witch Band? I'll make sure they never return! Come, shout with me: We will win!"

"We will win!" The magical girls were infected by Li Xuan's inexplicable confidence and shouted in unison.

Li Xuan knew full well that this was merely the blind loyalty brought about by Fallen Blood. Yet at this moment, he truly needed that loyalty to support his resolve and maintain his invincible image as their master.

"I can't hear you at all! You call that volume and still want to be magical girls?!" Li Xuan shouted.

"We will win!" The magical girls raised their voices again and cried out together.

"Good! That's the spirit! Qi Mo stays behind. The other three, go to the wine cellar and spank Tang Xi twenty times each. Dismiss after that." Li Xuan immediately ordered.

"Yay!" Xu Rou, who was always enthusiastic about everything, forgot that Wu Yan could open portals and took the lead in flying toward the wine cellar. Wu Yan could not stop her in time, so she and Tan Xiang held hands and teleported over together.

As a result, only Qi Mo and Li Xuan remained in the area.

"Qi Mo, you seem a little worried. Do you lack confidence in our victory?" Li Xuan asked.

"Master, your momentum just now was very good, it's just... it's just..." Qi Mo hesitated, not daring to speak.

"It was just empty slogans without any brains behind them, right?" Li Xuan smiled.

"No, how could I possibly think that?" Qi Mo hurriedly waved her hands in denial.

"It's fine. It's just you and me now. Say whatever you think." Li Xuan encouraged her.

"I still stand by my opinion. Four Grade A opponents are not enemies we can handle right now. Strategy may let us defeat enemies several times stronger than ourselves. But once the difference in strength reaches a certain point, overwhelming force crushes all schemes. No matter how much morale we have, there is absolutely no way we can win." Qi Mo said worriedly.

"I greatly appreciate your strategy, but I want to take it a step further. Since the Delusive Badlands is an impregnable fortress, then conversely, it can also become a trap from which there is absolutely no escape." Li Xuan said quietly.

"A trap? Master means luring them in and using massive numbers of monsters and traps to surround and kill them? That is a good plan, but it also means cutting off our retreat. If we fail, we'll die without a burial place!" Qi Mo hurriedly warned.

"There's no need to consider that. All we need to do is capture magical girls. Capture them! Capture them! Capture them by any means necessary! Every magical girl in this world belongs to me! I'll beat every last one of them to their knees, then add them to my harem!" Li Xuan declared thunderously, spreading his arms wide.

"I understand. A desperate gamble is still better than no plan at all. Qi Mo is willing to follow Master and fight until victory!" Qi Mo was finally moved by Li Xuan's emotions and no longer felt this was a hopeless battle.

"That's good. But we still don't have enough intelligence to make a concrete plan—speaking of intelligence, do you like watching band performances?" Li Xuan suddenly asked.

"Wu Yan likes them. I've accompanied her to a few shows. But at a time like this..." Qi Mo stopped halfway through, then suddenly understood. "Master intends to watch their performance as an ordinary person to gather intelligence?"

"That's right! Yao's perception is sharp, but she didn't distinguish me from ordinary people. Otherwise, she wouldn't have stopped after cutting me once. So my plan is to buy tickets and watch their performance. They're a band in name, after all. They wouldn't come here without putting on a single show, would they?" Li Xuan analyzed.

"Master is wise! Leave it to me, then. I'll definitely get tickets to their performance safely and without attracting attention!" Qi Mo said confidently.

"As expected of you. You understand immediately. Go! Remember, don't take any risks. I can't accept losing even a single person." Li Xuan said, opening a portal and sending Qi Mo into the real world.

While Li Xuan was conducting his pre-battle mobilization, the Witch Band had already arrived at the destination of their trip: a detached villa with a swimming pool.

"We're here! This is the place the Church arranged for us? It looks so luxurious!" Felia, with the broadest field of vision, said excitedly.

"Tch. The style is too conservative. It has none of a band's atmosphere." Saroye said disdainfully.

"Then what do you want? Sleep in a garage without air conditioning? Please, don't be childish. We're successful people who make big money. How could we still live in such shabby places?" Yao sneered.

"You have no musician's soul at all..." Saroye was about to move in for an argument when a wall of flesh blocked her path.

"You two, how about saving the argument for tonight? The Church promised to provide us with a rehearsal and recording room. Black Cat and I want to try out the drum set and piano. Before that, it would be troublesome if either the bassist or guitarist died." Felia stood between them and tried to mediate.

"The one who dies will only be her. I won't die... If only I could die. Why can't I just die?" Saroye painfully clawed at her chest, showing no intention of stopping even as her sharp nails drew blood.

"Self-harm is bad. The Heavenly Father does not wish to see it." Felia frowned, reached out, picked Saroye up, and tucked her under one arm before forcibly leading the group to the villa's entrance.