Only when the last Calamity Beast vanished with a furious roar did Yinlian finally breathe a sigh of relief and descend from the sky. Deafening cheers and celebrations rose from the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau on the mountain below.
None of them had been particularly powerful Calamity Beasts; there had not even been a B-rank among them.
But Yinlian was in such poor condition now that even clearing out a few C-rank Calamity Beasts had proved somewhat strenuous.
When she flew back to the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau, quite a few employees wanted to come over and welcome her, but Yinlian merely waved casually and forced a smile without stopping.
Only when she had flown straight to the Inspection Section did she land, bracing herself against the wall and coughing violently.
It took her a long time to straighten up. Wiping a little blood from the corner of her mouth, Yinlian took out her Miracle Seed for another look.
Half of it had already turned black.
What exactly was going on-
When had it been contaminated?
I should undo my transformation as soon as possible. If I keep using magic, my Miracle Seed will be ruined.
But I still haven't found my sister.
Forcing herself onward, Yinlian pushed open the Inspection Section's door. As soon as she entered, she spotted several Incubators bustling about,
operating the machines, while the employees originally assigned to handle the electronic equipment were now lifeless, placed against the wall by the Incubators.
The entire Inspection Section was steeped in a bloody air of death and the ominous stench of filthy magic.
Seeing Yinlian enter, a pink Incubator flew over. "Yinlian, Yinlian! You're finally back! I thought I was going to die-"
Yinlian stared at the bodies and drew a breath. "What happened? What's going on?"
"We don't know! When the Calamity Beasts attacked, the whole Disaster Countermeasures Bureau descended into chaos. By the time we noticed something was wrong with the Inspection Section, it was already like this-"
Her heart practically leaped into her throat, and Yinlian struggled to breathe. "My sister. Where's my sister? Have you seen her?"
The pink Incubator shook its head repeatedly. "We don't know! There was nobody left in the Inspection Section when we got here."
Yinlian turned and rushed out the door. "I'm going to find her."
"Wait!" the pink Incubator immediately called. "Something's wrong with your magic, Yinlian. You need to undo your transformation and get some proper rest."
"Once I find my sister! It won't take long!"
"Yinlian! Come back!"
Watching the girl fly away, the pink Incubator scratched its head and sighed.
"Oh dear. Another seed going to waste."
In the silent grove, Yinluo stared blankly at the purple magical girl, only stirring after a long while.
"A man turned into a magical girl?"
Her voice was so dry that even uttering those words seemed difficult.
Then Yinluo burst out laughing. "Even men can become magical girls!"
There was something crazed about her laughter.
Even Susan felt a little pity rising within her.
Perhaps only someone who knew how much effort Yinluo had put into becoming a magical girl could understand her anger and madness now.
Even men can do it, so why can't I-
Her laughter gradually faded, and Yinluo's gaze turned icy. "You really made fools of us, Miss Ziyuan, Mr. Jiang Si.
"As a man, aren't you ashamed to fight in a magical girl's body?"
Susan had no idea whether Jiang Si would feel embarrassed.
She only knew that recalling how frantic and sour with jealousy she had been over Jiang Si and Ziyuan's date already made her want to find a hole to crawl into.
Her toes were practically digging a whole apartment into the ground.
Thankfully, she had not jumped out during the date to threaten Jiang Si or anything. Jiang Si probably did not know what she had been thinking then, either.
If Jiang Si knew how she had felt and teased her about it now, Susan was certain she would find a wall and bash herself to death against it.
Whenever she thought of how the girl who had saved her that night was actually a boy,
countless feelings welled up in Susan's heart.
"Tell me where the captain is."
Yet Ziyuan had no interest in answering Yinluo's question.
Power was power. Men or women, Calamity Beasts or witches, there was no difference.
How could anyone in this world feel ashamed of the power they had obtained?
Yet Yinluo likewise had no intention of answering her.
"At the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau, you played innocent and tricked me into defending you; out in the suburbs where you fought Du Juan, you showed up pretending to know nothing, checking the results of your battle and tricking me into thinking you strengthened yourself with contaminated magic; then you even staged a whole performance, going on a sweet little date with yourself-"
Yinluo grew more agitated as she spoke, her voice turning shrill by the end, as though filled with boundless resentment and humiliated anger. "You really played me for a fool! You sick, deranged lunatic!"
She remembered her own wishful assumption that Jiang Si, like her, trained so desperately and pursued other powers because he could not obtain a magical girl's power.
That his relationship with Keke was so poor because, like her, he envied his younger sister for possessing a magical girl's power and surpassing him.
So much so that she had felt a kinship in their shared affliction and genuinely wanted to recruit him into the Witch Association.
Yinluo was furious and distraught!
How many times had he laughed at her behind her back?
When she had sincerely been thinking of him, considering his circumstances, and even planning to risk recruiting him,
had he already laughed a hundred, a thousand times in his heart?
From beginning to end, she alone had been the clown!
"Was toying with me that much fun?!"
Ziyuan still did not respond, merely continuing, "Tell me where the captain is-"
"Go to hell!"
The contaminated magic filling the entire grove surged, spiraling inward like a tornado and trapping Susan and Ziyuan together within it.
It continued contracting and pressing inward, intent on grinding them both to pieces!
Yinluo was not acting rashly. Naturally, she had considered the risks. Ziyuan's reputation preceded her; however angry Yinluo was, she could not possibly afford to be overconfident.
But ultimately, hadn't Ziyuan only built such a fearsome reputation in Beihai because no Full Blossom magical girl had emerged there?
As a member of both the Witch Association and the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau, Yinluo knew Ziyuan's abilities better than anyone.
Both the Disaster Countermeasures Bureau and the Witch Association agreed that another Full Blossom magical girl would be enough to keep Jiang Si in check.
But Ziyuan was not alone. She had the Azure Cloud Sect behind her, so a single Full Blossom magical girl still would not suffice. To deal with Ziyuan, they had to find a way to uproot the Azure Cloud Sect behind her as well, or it would be meaningless.
It would only invite fiercer retaliation.
Now that the Calamity Beasts in the city were tying down most of the Azure Cloud Sect's members, she had no fear of facing Ziyuan one-on-one!
Because the Miracle Seed she herself used was Full Blossom level!
As the crude contaminated magic pressed inward, flecks of purple light began appearing at its center.
Then the purple light grew brighter and brighter, dyeing the entire tornado purple!
Then it exploded with a thunderous boom!
Purple flames scattered like fireworks, dotting the entire forest. Withered trees burst into roaring flames, yet the fire refused to spread, clinging tightly to their trunks in the wind like festering sores gnawing at bone.
Once the trunks burned away, it quietly dissipated.
Such beautiful magic, such a beautiful magical girl.
Even Yinluo, consumed by fury, stared in a brief daze.
Especially amid those scattered purple fireworks, that lovely figure raised the scenery to another level.
It even lent it a touch of poetry.
She lowered her head and glanced at her own black, sticky magic and dress, like sludge.
For a moment, her throat tightened.
Why-
As that thought rose in her heart again, she abruptly looked up, intending to pour out her magic once more.
Yet the moment she raised her head, she froze.
The purple magical girl who had just been standing in front of Susan dozens of meters away was already before her in the time it took her to look up.
She had only just raised her arm to block when that small, fair fist smashed into her face with terrifying force!
Wrapped in purple flames, a ring-shaped shock wave blasted outward! Yinluo shot away like a cannonball, becoming a meteor that slammed straight into a distant building. By the time the shock wave vanished, only a long contrail remained in the air.
Even though she had prepared herself, Ziyuan's sudden burst of violence still startled Susan.
Then she could not help marveling that Lady Ziyuan truly deserved to be the sect master.
That strength, speed, quantity of magic, and precision of magical control.
Forget the Azure Cloud Sect; even across the entire world, few magical girls could compare-
"Ziyuan!"
With a scream, Yinluo charged out of the ruined building.
Then she stopped in midair, watching Ziyuan from afar.
The contaminated magic surrounding her grew wildly as her anger and hatred swelled.
Although this was her first transformation, she had maintained it for quite some time, and she had just seen how two magical girls used their magic.
Yinluo was no fool. Rather, she had been a genius since childhood, a genius who far surpassed her younger sister.
Quickly imitating the two of them, she drew in the magic she had been recklessly scattering and unleashing, condensing and shaping it.
She actually managed to mold something resembling the beginnings of a javelin.
But shaping magic demanded far too much precision in its control. The crude javelin she had barely formed kept shifting, sometimes becoming a rod, sometimes stretching out, sometimes beginning to disperse again.
Only by exerting all her strength could she barely keep the magic compressed within that hazy, shifting javelin. The terrifying magic it contained made even Yinluo's own heart tremble.
"Ziyuan."
Yinluo's eyes were full of madness, and even her thoughts began to grow confused. "Die. Just die!"
"Ziyuan!"
She turned sideways and leaned back slightly, raising her right hand, which tightly gripped the magic javelin, into a throwing stance,
Susan's pupils abruptly contracted, and she immediately shouted, "Watch out, Lady Ziyuan! Her ability is-"
But she was already a step too late. The purple magical girl had taken another step, arriving before Yinluo in an instant.
In terms of height, Ziyuan was actually shorter than Yinluo, reaching only her chest. Yet floating in midair now, looking down with that indifferent gaze,
she actually left Yinluo struggling to breathe beneath its pressure.
Still poised to throw, she had no time to change her motion, but swiftly adjusted her stance and strength.
She aimed at Ziyuan, who had suddenly closed in.
Yet halfway through the throw, her right hand stopped dead in midair. No matter how hard she tried, she could not move it another inch.
Because Ziyuan's small right hand had precisely seized the warped magic spear. The spear formed from contaminated magic surged and roared like a wild beast in her palm, struggling violently, yet that little hand held it fast, leaving it unable to move.
"You-"
As reason and terror gradually returned to Yinluo's eyes, Ziyuan abruptly tightened the five slender fingers gripping the magic spear!
She crushed that terrifying magic spear with her bare hand!
The raging magic even froze for an instant before exploding wildly outward!
The already withered trees around them swiftly turned to dust, swept into the distance by the expanding shock wave.
The originally pitch-black magic produced a dazzling aurora that left Susan unable even to open her eyes. Although she transformed in time and used Mediocre Work No. 3 again, that realm of glass with its vast expanse of rippling blue water lasted only seconds before being annihilated by the raging energy.
Let alone anything else nearby: bricks, tiles, vegetation, even steel all turned to dust within that torrent of power-
Susan thought she would die within it too, yet warm purple flames burned around her, keeping her alive through that terrifying outpouring of energy.
Only after lying on the ground for a long time did Susan crawl out from beneath the earth, shaking dust from her head and body as she surveyed her surroundings.
Her mouth hung open blankly.
The forest was gone, leaving only a wasteland of an enormous crater. She was now at the center of that vast pit, unable to hear anything; even the sound of the wind had disappeared.
Only scorching, deathly silence remained upon this land.
The spreading explosion had stopped halfway through the building Yinluo had crashed into earlier, leaving a building with half of it cleanly erased, shedding all sorts of concrete rubble and tangled electrical wires-
A gust of wind finally blew in, dispersing a little of the heat and bringing Susan slightly out of her stupor.
High in the distance, a pitch-black figure plummeted from the sky and slammed into the center of the deep crater.
Then another figure, purple, slowly descended from the sky, landing gracefully and lightly on a scorched rock at the bottom of the crater.
Susan licked her somewhat dry lips and looked up into the distance. That black figure was Yinluo, who had been so insufferably arrogant only moments ago.
Her magical outfit had been blasted to tatters. As Yinluo struggled to stand, the outfit on her body melted like muddy water, dripping off her.
Before long, her entire magical outfit had dispersed, ending her transformation.
Swaying, Yinluo looked dazed and bewildered. "Why? We're both Full Blossom-"
"A mere early Full Blossom." Ziyuan looked at the white Miracle Seed in her hand, pure and without a trace of contamination, then,
put it away. "Yet you dared contend with peak Full Blossom."
As everyone knew, the gap between peak Golden Core and early Golden Core was even greater than the gap between Golden Core and Foundation Establishment.
Webnovels never lied.
A finger with a pale purple nail gently touched the wound on the blood-red cross on Yinluo's forehead.
A burning sensation began gathering between her brows, and Yinluo suddenly smiled.
"Yinlian. Her love letter, you-"
Before she finished, purple flames pierced her skull, splashing and blooming freely behind her like flowers of blood!
Her body gradually went limp, and she sank to her knees on the floor of the crater. Yinluo's pupils slowly lost their focus, becoming hollow.
Susan's lips moved, but in the end she merely turned her head away.
Then she froze. As she turned, she saw Yinlian behind her, who had arrived at some unknown point.
The captain of the Magical Girl Combat Team stood at the edge of the crater, her expression blank.
Her magical girl outfit was gradually dispersing. She staggered forward, and when the outfit vanished completely, the steep slope of the crater sent her tumbling. She rolled down into the pit, then struggled to crawl toward her older sister.
"Sis-"
"Sis!"