Let the Grand Show Begin

A hundred meters above Xinghai City.

The night wind shrieked around the tower.

Magical Girl Ziwei held a dark-gold scythe, her long legs clad in black stockings planted firmly on the tip of Xinghai Tower's highest lightning rod.

Below her, a bustling city district was gradually swallowed by red light.

The wind whipped her violet-gold hair. On her beautiful face was none of the dread or fear that should have accompanied a catastrophe—only the focus of someone taking inventory of the soon-to-be-dead's assets.

"Master, I must remind you of the facts one more time."

Kabi's plump spirit form hovered close to Ziwei's shoulder, his beady black eyes fixed on the dark-gold scythe in her hand.

"A high-grade Abyssal Core dropped by a D-rank, ninth-tier Monster contains energy of such purity that it's almost liquid. If you don't control your brute strength and cause even the tiniest bit of physical damage to the core's shell..."

Kabi raised two stubby fingers and made a chopping motion.

"Those picky old fossils in the Monster Hunting Bureau's recovery department won't hesitate to cut the purchase price in half!"

Ziwei said nothing.

Her fingers silently tightened around the scythe's long shaft.

Half.

One hundred and fifty thousand, gone!

That was absolutely unacceptable. She would rather use one less move than fail to carve the cores out of those two beasts whole, with the cleanest cuts possible.

"Mint has reached the designated position. I can channel magic power whenever you're ready."

Xia Ning's voice came through the communication Beacon in Ziwei's pocket, her excitement barely contained.

"Cherry's in position too!"

Lin Guoguo's breathless reply followed.

"My lady, the wind is really strong over here, but I'll hold this formation point! I won't let a drop of magic power leak out!"

Ziwei raised a hand and pressed the Beacon by her ear.

"Keep your magic power dormant. Wait for my command. The moment you get the signal, activate the Starlight Barrier."

She delivered her final instructions in the cool, commanding voice of a Magical Girl.

"No matter what you hear, do not leave your posts without permission. Understood?"

"May the wind be with you!"

"Cherry accepts her orders!"

The two girls, thoroughly carried away by their own ideas about her, cut the connection without another word.

Ziwei lowered her hand and turned her gaze back to the oppressive sky overhead.

The "Red Tide" clouds above Xinghai City began to churn wildly.

The concentration of free-floating Deep Space particles in the atmosphere shot off the charts. The air turned thick and reeked of ozone.

Then came a deafening crash that seemed to tear the sky apart.

At the center of the clouds, a spatial rift a thousand meters long burst open above the entire city, violently tearing through the physical boundary of reality.

The rift glowed a deep bloodred.

It was as though a giant, bleeding eye had opened in the sky.

Then two furious howls erupted together from its depths, shaking the clouds apart.

A monster with an exposed skeleton and black storms of annihilating lightning wrapped around every bone spike thrust its hideous beak out first.

D-rank, ninth-tier. Lord-Class. The Bone Colossus Owl!

Beside it, the torn space was forced wider by something of even more terrifying size.

A behemoth as large as a small mountain range slowly squeezed its broad, chitin-armored back through the Rift, emitting a low, penetrating hum.

D-rank, ninth-tier. Lord-Class. The Deep-Space Giant Whale!

The two terrifying beings, whose Magic Power Scales were both closing in on the absolute limit of 2,000, began shoving and ramming each other at the mouth of the Rift as they fought for passage.

And the tiny fraction of force that escaped when their enormous bodies collided—

That terrifying pressure became a physical shock wave, crashing down toward the city with the Rift at its center.

CRASH—

Across the downtown commercial district, tens of thousands of glass panels on every high-rise shattered at once under the sudden change in air pressure.

Glass shards poured from the sky in a deadly downpour.

At last, the piercing air-raid sirens sounded, wailing through every district of Xinghai City.

"They're here! They're about to come all the way through!"

Kabi shouted in Ziwei's ear, the light of his spirit form flashing red at high frequency with fear.

Ziwei lowered her eyes slightly. The lace hem of her dress billowed high behind her.

"And so is the money," she murmured.

Several hundred meters below her.

Three heavy Psionic Weaponry attack helicopters bearing the Monster Hunting Bureau's black eagle insignia fought through the violent air currents, trying to reach a position directly beneath the rift.

"Aircraft One has the target! It's the Bone Colossus Owl!"

The pilot's voice cracked over the formation's communications channel.

"The lightning storm's magnetic field is too strong! All our instruments are down—we have to aim manually, by sight!"

"Aircraft Two, Aircraft Three, stay close! Ignore the whale! Bring down the one with wings first!"

"Thunderclap Formation missiles ready! Fire them all!"

At the pilot's hoarse roar.

More than a dozen heavy antiaircraft missiles, etched with magic-conducting arrays based on an extraordinary Breathing Method, dropped from the helicopters' pylons. Long flames streamed behind them as they roared toward the two lords in the clouds.

But the triumph of industry and extraordinary power in which the Monster Hunting Bureau took such pride looked feeble before these two living catastrophes.

The missiles did not even make it halfway.

The Bone Colossus Owl suddenly turned its massive head. Two beams of deep-purple lightning burst from its hollow eye sockets.

The violent Abyssal magnetic field surrounding it expanded without warning.

CRACKLE—

A visible web of raging electricity swept over the incoming missiles.

It needed no physical contact.

The precision fuses inside the Thunderclap Missiles overloaded on the spot. Hundreds of meters short of the Monster, they broke apart in midair.

An enormous fireball bloomed beneath the clouds.

The magnetic storm's remaining force carried on, slamming into the three heavy attack helicopters.

The helicopters had no time for even the simplest evasive maneuver.

Lightning melted their rotors and burned out every piece of onboard electronics.

The three steel behemoths, each built at a cost of hundreds of millions of Federal Coins, lost all power in an instant. Trailing long plumes of black smoke, they spiraled toward the ravaged ground.

"Bail out! Everyone, bail out!"

Only faint static and screams remained on the communications channel.

In the heart of Xinghai City's commercial district.

The scar-faced captain in charge of the ground cordon held the center of the street with dozens of special-operations elites.

The pressure wave had long since shattered his tactical goggles. Under the red flash of the air-raid warning lights, the scar on his right cheek looked especially vicious.

"All units!"

He drew the heavy psionic Ship-Splitting Blade from his back and drove it into the asphalt, burying more than half the blade.

"Defensive formation! Hold the Thunderclap Protective Formation!"

"Do not let the falling wreckage or shock wave reach the civilian shelter behind us!"

Dozens of special-operations agents drew their blades as one.

They activated the Thunderclap Breathing Technique they had spent more than a decade diligently practicing, driving the rings of magic power within them to their limits.

Dozens of pale-blue barriers rose from the ground and wove together above their heads into a vast hemispherical dome.

The scar-faced captain was a nine-star Star Mark powerhouse.

His Magic Power Scale had reached an impressive 1,800, making him the dome's strongest foundation.

But against the two mountain-sized lords overhead, each approaching the 2,000 mark—

That level of power meant nothing.

In the sky, the Deep-Space Giant Whale finally forced most of its body out of the rift.

It seemed displeased by the cramped space and heaved its enormous body through the clouds.

It was only a careless roll.

Yet a crushing wave of air, carrying overwhelming physical force, spread outward in a ring and smashed down toward the ground.

The instant it struck the Thunderclap Protective Formation.

CRACK—

A sharp breaking sound rang in every agent's ears.

The magic power they had spent decades cultivating was like a match trying to light the night in a gale before this disaster of sheer, overwhelming size.

The pale-blue glow went out without holding it back for even half a second.

The defensive formation collapsed.

Dozens of elite agents coughed up blood as though struck by hammers, their bodies flung backward beyond their control.

The hard asphalt could not withstand the downward force. The road caved in on the spot.

A terrifying crater more than a hundred meters across was smashed into the heart of the commercial district.

Broken water mains sent columns of water more than ten meters high into the air, while underground cables spat blinding sparks.

Dust billowed everywhere.

Agony swept through the captain's body. Several of his bones had broken.

Using the last of his strength, the scar-faced captain gripped the hilt of the Ship-Splitting Blade embedded in the road with both hands. He stayed on one knee at the crater's edge, refusing to fall.

In the sky.

The Bone Colossus Owl beat its skeletal wings. A bolt of annihilating lightning thicker than a barrel had locked onto their position and was plunging straight down with an ear-splitting roar.

The scar-faced captain raised his head. Though his face was covered in blood, there was no surrender in it.

As the annihilating lightning bore down on him, he tightened his grip on the hilt. He would rather die than yield!