A Debut Teaser Goes Viral

Taiping Prefecture time: 9 p.m.

After dinner, Mo Zhen and the other two squeezed onto the sofa to watch a classic old horror movie: "The Conjuring."

Mo Zhen had originally sat in the middle, with Bai Xiaoxiao and Mo Xiaochuan on either side.

But as they watched, both of them independently edged closer to Mo Zhen and eventually crawled right under his blanket.

"Aren't you scared, bro?"

Mo Xiaochuan was so tense that his clenched palms were sweating.

Mo Zhen sipped his cola. "It's all right."

You've already awakened superpowers, and you're still scared of this stuff?

Bai Xiaoxiao, meanwhile, was genuinely terrified of these things. She clutched Mo Zhen's short-sleeved shirt so tightly that she wrinkled it.

Meanwhile, a piece of surveillance footage was spreading like wildfire across the internet.

The account that posted the video was Colossus Media - Moon Studio.

As one of the largest magical girl studios under Colossus Company, Moon Studio had over ten million followers on each platform.

Tang Wenjie had personally edited the video and titled it "Newly Signed Magical Girl: Debut Teaser."

The first half of the video showed Ripper and Scarlet Spider fighting normally.

At this point, the bullet comments were perfectly normal:

"Scarlet Spider? A dream crossover! Didn't expect to see him here. He really is Tianhe City's friendly neighborhood hero. You're everywhere!"

"A dream crossover! Fans of both are eating good!!"

"So Ripper ran off to Taiping Prefecture!"

"For those who don't know: Ripper is the C+ supervillain who dismembered Medium Mage in England and committed Black Monday."

But... just as Ripper was about to defeat Scarlet Spider, both of them suddenly froze in place.

Thump!

Tang Wenjie had manually added the sound of Scarlet Spider's and Ripper's heartbeats to the video.

The surveillance camera behind Ripper suddenly turned slightly.

The camera turned along with his gaze, focusing on the gray-haired girl slowly descending above the high-rise behind Scarlet Spider.

The video was utterly silent. Only the girl's long hair swayed gently in the evening breeze as she slowly raised her deep crimson eyes toward them.

Her cold gaze looked down from above, displaying her arrogance and confidence to the fullest.

Even without being there, viewers could clearly feel the oppressive force of the magic bearing down on Scarlet Spider and Ripper.

The bullet comments instantly surged:

"A gray-haired magical girl?!"

"Yay, a new waifu! Suki!"

"Such a cute, adorable face... and she's an ice queen beauty too?"

"My favorite: cute girls with cold faces!!"

"Hello, marry me!"

"Yes, that's it, look at me like I'm trash! Waifu, please insult me a little, I'm begging you."

"Thick black pantyhose! prprpr~~"

"Mommy!!"

"Fire the cameraman! Would it kill you to point it a little lower?!"

"If I can't date someone like her, I don't want to live."

"Ah, watching a pretty girl's teaser after work and having a late-night snack. How can life be this good?"

Just as the bullet comments flooded the screen,

the girl raised her hand and flicked it lightly.

Splat!!

Ripper's blood splashed onto the ground, and a severed arm flew high into the air.

"Wait, she went that hard right off the bat?"

"Did you see a staff or weapon on her?"

"How did she cast that spell?!"

"I've never seen a Magic Cursed Technique like that!"

Without giving the viewers time to react, a storm of slashes rained down from the sky, and the music rapidly quickened the pace of the entire video.

Because the surveillance camera was positioned right behind Ripper,

the people watching the video experienced his terror and despair as though they were right there with him.

The invisible slashes, seemingly from beyond the world, cut into Ripper and drove him back again and again, blood spraying everywhere.

At that point, the assault ended, and the view suddenly switched to a surveillance camera on another high-rise.

The viewers looked down as the gray-haired girl landed and walked past Scarlet Spider as though he were just another passerby, giving him nothing more than a faint glance without even greeting him.

"Scarlet Spider: ???"

"Run, little spider! That's a bad woman!"

"I'm crying, little spider even raised his hand to warn her at a time like this."

"I'm just a magical girl passing by. Remember that."

"She's asking for trouble doing that. Even Scarlet Spider was no match for Ripper in close combat, so why is a magical girl getting right up in his face?"

When they saw Ripper charge at Hell, the bullet comments filled with confusion and curiosity.

As the two crossed paths, the video suddenly skipped frames, as though the surveillance footage had suffered electromagnetic interference.

This was an effect Tang Wenjie had deliberately added.

A second after the frames skipped, Hell instantly appeared behind Ripper, blood dripping from her wrist onto the ground.

Drip...

Ripper's body was severed at the waist and fell to the ground.

Two more slashes immediately followed, chopping Ripper's head to pieces and splattering a long trail of blood across the ground.

The video ended abruptly.

There was no MVP results screen afterward, no shy, cute self-introduction from the magical girl, and certainly no finger hearts or goodbyes.

The screen was full of bullet comments, yet no one said a word. Everyone just kept typing question marks.

Some people even forgot about the cigarettes in their hands or the late-night snacks they had brought to eat while watching.

Only when the cigarette ends fell onto their thighs did they suddenly come back to their senses. Then, netizens watching the video all over the world erupted.

"Holy shit!! That was murder, wasn't it?! She even dismembered him!"

"A magical girl killed someone!"

"She's a murderer, desu!!"

"How the fuck is this something you can post?!"

"Where's the Ministry of Magic? Get out here and do something! One of your magical girls killed someone! That's a fucking witch, isn't it?! Someone like that can debut?"

"Even so, Moon Studio? You actually dared sign a murderer?!"

"Tang Wenjie, are you fucking insane?!"

In less than ten minutes, the video had claimed the top spot on social media worldwide without a single paid promotion.

Its average view count across platforms instantly broke one million, then continued to soar toward ten million.

Meanwhile,

Mo Zhen curled up on the sofa and gently closed his eyes.

Judging by the time, it should be about now.

He knew that once the video was released, a flood of abuse would instantly drown him, and accusations from righteous citizens would come one after another.

But this world had always been gray.

While one group was cursing him out, another group remained silent, sitting in front of their computers as their breathing grew heavier.

In a private chatroom:

"Oh my god! Have you guys seen that video?!"

"Yes, yes! My god, she's the first magical girl to dare kill someone in a public video! Granted, she killed a criminal, but she's also the first to dare publicize it so widely!"

"She really did it, without hesitating for a second!"

"Honestly, I was never interested in magical girls before, but now I have to admit, I've fallen for her."

"A magical girl who kills without blinking! Turns out there's a character setup this cool in real life too. I love her so much!"

This was just one chatroom.

In thousands upon thousands of private chatrooms around the world, Moon Studio's video was being shared like crazy.

On the dark web, on a social media site called Arkham Asylum,

Joker Man, a top dark-web celebrity who had been quiet for a long time, suddenly logged into his account and shared Hell's video with the caption:

"I think I'm in love. Does anyone know her name and address? I'm planning to propose to her before the year is out. I've even picked the place: in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre."

"When the time comes, would you all do me the honor of attending our wedding ceremony? I'll treat every criminal in Taiping Prefecture to dinner!"

Attached was a wedding photo, with Joker Man's selfie and an image of the gray-haired girl taken from the video pasted onto it.

The comments below came one after another:

"Fuck you! Joker Man, you filthy rat, why the hell are you back again? Didn't Peacemaker's laser eyes burn you to death?"

"Fucking hell! Joker Man, you shameless piece of shit, can you leave her alone?!"

"A wedding? Dream on, you creep!"

It wasn't just Joker Man. The entire criminal underworld had begun discussing the magical girl who had killed someone because of this video.

The killing itself wasn't even the point. The point was that, as a magical girl, she had not only killed someone but also dared to release the video publicly. That was brazen beyond the ordinary.

Every supervillain had a dream of overturning the established order.

As such, Hell's rebellious publicity stunt and her disregard for the Ministry of Magic's long-standing rules and authority had hit their G-spot.

In particular, the scene where she cut Ripper in half at the waist, paired with the question marks filling the viewers' screens, gave the criminals an instant mental orgasm.

"So good, so good, so good!"

"It's even better than getting high!"

"Fucking hell, that's how you should kill! If I've got the power, why the fuck can't I kill? I'll kill whoever I want! Do whatever I want!"

As for who had died, the supervillains didn't care. They had always believed in the law of the jungle.

Ripper had died in the course of committing a crime, so he was trash, and trash wasn't worth remembering.

Their new object of admiration was the magical girl who dared openly challenge the Ministry of Magic's order and authority.

Meanwhile, in a small witch chatroom:

"Hee-hee, Moon Studio's video got taken down on some platforms. They really couldn't keep their cool."

"Superhuman criminals don't have human rights anyway. Ripper used human heads as bowling balls back in England, yet the video still got taken down. I wonder who got upset. What a mystery."

"Hahaha, the Ministry of Magic definitely did it. They're rattled! They're rattled! I've always wanted to see that look on your faces, Ministry of Magic!"

"Nice work! Who says magical girls aren't allowed to kill? Those criminals got what they deserved. You're not upset, are you, Ministry of Magic? You're not upset, are you?"

"The thought that you might not be able to control magical girls with your moral rules and restrictions in the future must be keeping you up at night, right? Ministry of Magic higher-ups, lol."

"What's this little sister's codename? She seems to be active in Tianhe City, and I just happen to be in Tianhe. If the Ministry of Magic tries to hunt her down, I'll help her even if it costs me my worthless life."

"If it weren't for the Ministry of Magic back then, how would I have lost control? It's all their fault. It's all their fault."

"Count me in. I haven't wanted to live for a long time anyway. Worst case, I'll take some Ministry of Magic people down with me. Killing one is a huge win, killing two means I don't lose out."

"Count me in too."

Unlike the vast majority of supervillains who liked to talk big, the Witches' Association had one particularly notorious trait that had once terrified even the most vicious criminals.

They always did what they said they would.

The witches, every one of them mentally unstable and paranoid, had never deigned to lie.

When they said they would kill someone's entire family, they really would kill the whole family, even crushing the eggs in the house.