Sister, Transform!

The Bloodthirsty Stitching Beast hit the ground hard enough to plow through the entire shopping street.

Hundreds of tons of flesh crashed into the middle of the street, sinking the ground half a meter. The shock rolled through the foundations, shaking every building within two kilometers. Storefront windows shattered in sheets, lampposts snapped in half, and parked cars flipped onto their roofs.

A magnitude-six earthquake would have been no worse.

More than a dozen barbed tentacles emerged from the mountain of flesh and swept across the ground. Anything they caught was dragged toward its pustules. People who fled too slowly had suckers clamp onto their ankles and were hauled screaming over the rubble.

Air-raid sirens sounded across the city.

"Warning! Abyssal Sea-class energy detected in the shopping district! All citizens, take shelter nearby—"

On the Monster Hunting Bureau's command channel, the dispatcher's voice cracked.

"The main force is stuck at Riverside Bridge! The Rift collapsed the roadway, and the engineering vehicles can't get through!"

"How long until the nearest mobile unit arrives?!"

"Four kilometers away! At least eight minutes!"

Eight minutes. Enough time for this C-rank calamity to devour three whole streets.

At the edge of the ruins, a barbed tentacle had already reached Su Xiaoxiao.

Its suckers opened and closed. Venom ran down the barbs and hissed against the rubble.

Su Xiaoxiao knelt there with the manual in her arms, too stunned even to dodge.

The tentacle rose and curled toward her neck—

BOOM!!!

Deep in the ruins behind her, a pillar of violet-gold light erupted into the sky.

It was brighter than the midday sun. Tons of concrete, rebar, and shattered glass vaporized inside it without leaving so much as ash.

A wave of heat knocked Su Xiaoxiao forward. She caught herself on her hands and looked back.

At the center of the pillar, a tall figure hovered in the air. Violet-gold hair streamed behind her, a dark-gold Great Scythe rested at an angle in her hand, and flecks of starlight fell from the hem of her skirt.

The Magical Girl, Ziwei.

The tentacle reaching for Su Xiaoxiao was barely half a foot from the back of her neck when the pillar's aftershock scorched it. It recoiled with a sizzle, white smoke rising from its barbs.

"L-Lady Ziwei..."

Su Xiaoxiao sat back on her heels amid the rubble, looking up with tears still on her face.

Ziwei did not turn around. Nor did she help her up.

Hovering in midair, she flicked her hand behind her. Ten fierce magic sigils flew out and embedded themselves at ten points around the district. Arcs of light linked them, and a pink curtain of light rose from the ground, closing overhead.

The light swept past Su Xiaoxiao, leaving her outside.

She lunged at it and slapped her palm against the surface. All she could see beyond it was shifting pink.

The Starlight Barrier. The entire shopping street, along with that mountain of flesh, was locked inside a cage cut off from reality.

"Master, the Barrier is up," Kabi said. "People outside can't see in, and the Monster Hunting Bureau's scanners won't get through either."

"Mm."

Ziwei hovered at the center of the Barrier and glanced down.

The mountain of flesh was moving.

Hundreds of clouded eyes turned toward her at once, packed densely together, every one fixed on her.

There was no fear in them.

Instead, its enormous body began to tremble. Pustules swelled and shrank, spilling even more foul-smelling slime. A sticky Psychic Wave rippled outward and sounded directly in Ziwei's mind, its echo wet and clinging.

"So fragrant... a body of pure, flawless magic..."

"Only the great being beyond the abyss deserves to feast upon it..."

Ziwei tightened her grip on the scythe.

"Master, it says you smell delicious," Kabi whispered.

"Shut up."

A rain of venom sprayed from the top of the flesh mountain and splashed against the Barrier's inner wall, eating into it and raising a cloud of white mist. The stitches across its belly snapped one after another, opening into a maw large enough to swallow a heavy truck. Rows of backward-pointing teeth spiraled deep into its throat.

"Give up your pointless resistance."

"I'll make you the warmest womb of flesh. The corpses of countless monster hunters will nourish you..."

Goosebumps rose all over Ziwei.

She did not want to stay another second.

Magic? Special effects? She needed none of those flourishes for this stomach-turning lump of rotten meat.

She swung the dark-gold Great Scythe and brought it down from midair on brute strength alone.

The sonic boom rolled around the Barrier.

She opened with a diagonal slash. The scythe blade cut through the monster's prized Keratin Armor—that hard shell, which even a Monster Hunting Bureau Standard Battleship-Cleaving Blade would have taken ages to chop through, gave way like warm tofu. The cut ran from its left shoulder to its right hip.

She followed with a sweeping return stroke! More than a dozen barbed tentacles were severed at their roots. Before the poisonous blood from their stumps could hit the ground, her blade pierced straight through the great maw.

Two moves.

A C-rank Abyssal Sea-class calamity with a Magic Power Scale reading above ten thousand—on par with a Sun Herald, and capable of wiping out an entire Monster Hunting Branch force—had been hacked into pieces strewn across the ground.

The mountain of flesh collapsed with a crash—no, it simply slumped flat. Hundreds of eyes went dull at once.

Ziwei landed among the chunks of its corpse and hooked her scythe tip beneath something.

A basketball-sized Abyssal Core flew from its chest cavity, dark purple with light flowing across its surface. She caught it, hefted it, and stuffed it into her backpack.

"A C-rank Abyssal Core, ninety-nine percent intact!" Kabi sounded giddy. "Master, Black Crow would quote a price on his knees for this!"

"The spine and tentacle barbs are valuable too." Ziwei put away her scythe. "We'll settle the accounts when we get back."

Outside the Barrier, in the real ruins.

Su Xiaoxiao knelt before the curtain of light, her palm still pressed against the pink surface.

She could not see the battle inside. All she had seen was her brother buried in the rubble, with not even a corner of his clothes showing.

"Bro..."

Ye Qingqing dragged her scraped leg along the edge of the ruins, digging through the rubble until her hands bled.

"Xiaoxiao! Rescue is almost here! Don't—"

"Dig!" Su Xiaoxiao turned, her voice cracking. "He's buried in there! He pushed me into a corner and didn't make it out himself!"

She turned back, pulled the Magical Girl Super Transformation Manual from her arms, and pressed it to her chest.

Blood covered its plastic-wrapped cover. Her blood. The gold-foil stars glimmered faintly beneath its red sheen.

"You said... the Will of the World would hear a girl with a pure wish..."

Her tears struck the cover, one drop after another.

"Well, I have a wish right now."

"I want my brother to live. I want to dig him out. I want to stand in front of him and protect him for once—"

"Is that wish pure enough?!"

The Deep Space Particles in the air erupted.

With Su Xiaoxiao at the center, Free Particles within a hundred meters were ignited by her conviction. They boiled and poured into her. The manual in her hands lit up, its pages turning without a breeze. Its words, doodles, and gold-foil stars lifted from the paper and became tiny motes of light.

The manual dissolved into a cloud of glowing dust in her palms and entered her body with every breath.

Inside the Barrier, Ziwei had just put the last valuable piece of spine into her Storage Magic Device.

"Master, time to go," Kabi warned. "The Monster Hunting Bureau's helicopters will be here in ninety seconds."

"Drop the Barrier."

All ten sigils went dark at once. The pink curtain dissolved from the top down, breaking into drifting stardust.

Night wind rushed in.

The helicopters' roar drew closer, and their searchlights were already sweeping the edge of the district.

Ziwei glanced up and was about to leave—

She froze.

Where the Barrier had vanished, a dazzling pink starburst rose from the real ruins.

It was too bright to look at.

At its center, Su Xiaoxiao floated above the wreckage. Broken motes of light swirled around her and drew together, weaving a brand-new set of Magical Armor over her body. A pink skirt, star-shaped shoulder ornaments—and the old, crudely made hair clip on her head was enveloped in light and reforged into a crown shimmering with starlight.

She opened her eyes. Deep in her pupils, starlight turned.

"M-Master..." Kabi stammered. "That energy... is that Xiaoxiao?!"

Ziwei hovered in midair, scythe in hand, and did not move for a long moment.

She had imagined countless possibilities. Guidance, instruction, refining a Star Seed—she had taken Ye Qingqing through the entire process, personally overseeing every step.

But this.

No guide. No Star Seed. Not a trace of her own source magic infused into her.

Just a manual she had made up, a cheesy incantation, and a fierce desire to protect her brother.

"She..."

Ziwei stared at the pink starlight and forced out the rest.

"She awakened as a Magical Girl all on her own?"

She had been bluffing for so long.

This time, the bluff had actually worked.