“So, sis, do you like our secret weapon?”

Sin Ling’s voice rang like a bell; a little sister flashing her treasure. The tentacles behind her swayed like seaweed in a playful current, echoing her bright mood.

“Uh… my adorable sister… Play with tentacles and you’ll wet the bed tonight. Put it down, okay?” Her words fluttered like a nervous sparrow.

“Ehh— Mr. Tentacle is super cute…”

Ling touched the sweat that wasn’t there on her brow; a cold stream slid down inside her. This kid felt different, like a shadow crossing the moon.

“No. Mr. Tentacle isn’t a toy. Put it down.” Her tone was flat as winter stone.

Sin Ling puffed her cheeks and crossed her arms, a tiny general guarding his paper fortress. “No way! Mr. Tentacle isn’t a bad guy!”

She clapped, hands flicking like sparrow wings. “I get it! Sis hasn’t tried Mr. Tentacle, so she can’t see how cute he is. Let him keep you company!”

—Absolutely not. I refuse any tentacle ‘experience.’ The thought crawls like centipedes under bark.

Sin Ling pointed her right hand at Ling, an arrow loosed from a bow. The black tentacles behind her caught the command and whooshed forward like a night tide.

Ling saw the tentacle charge. Goosebumps rose like frost on her arms. Black, thick, and long, its bumps looked like diseased bark; disgust pooled like stagnant water.

It closed in, her nausea cresting like a wave on rock.

She swallowed down the retch, set her gaze dead and flat like a fish in a bucket, lifted a finger, and said, cold as iron, “Die.”

The Magic Cannon lanced through, a sun-hot beam covering its girth. The whole thing vaporized with a hiss, steam lifting like mist—no indecent scene left behind.

Ling exhaled, relief falling like cool rain. At least these tentacles weren’t indestructible like in those adult comics.

Sin Ling watched without anger, calm as a pond. First-timers resist; that’s normal, like a colt shying from a stream. Once sis tastes the fun, she’ll love it, as surely as spring trusts the thaw.

“Sis, stop resisting, okay? Mr. Tentacle is really cute. If you never try, how will you know it’s fun?” Her persuasion flowed like honey.

“No way! I’d rather die than play with that. Things like tentacles should vanish from this world like mist under noon sun.”

Ling couldn’t explain the hatred. In her last life, she’d liked tentacled species. Maybe becoming a girl came with a hidden aversion, like a curse seal under silk.

“Dear sister, I’ll make you understand the joy of tentacles!”

—For the last time, no. That thing is a hard no, banging like a drum.

Hundreds of tentacles surged in. Nausea rose like locusts clouding the sky; a corpse stink drifted like rot from a swamp. Her resolve to erase them hardened like lake ice.

“Magic Cannon: Simulated Light Dome!”

She shaped heavy mana into a hemispherical shield, ten meters wide, a green lantern covering her like a half-moon bowl.

Outside, tentacles hit the high-temperature mana and sizzled like bacon; frying sounds popped like rain on tin. She had zero interest in eating tentacles.

“Sis, I forgot to tell you. My Mr. Tentacle is highly intelligent.”

?!

Sin Ling’s voice slipped in like wind through paper walls. More urgent was this: the tentacles had minds, clustering like a hive.

There’s a story. When ants face a river they can’t cross, the rank-and-file wrap their queen at the center, a black ball rolling like a storm cloud. The outer ones drown, the queen survives, and the colony passes like a dark raft.

That was exactly what Ling faced.

Several tentacles twisted together, sealing the core one without a gap, coils tight as rope. They formed a bigger limb, then punched through the green shield. The outer layers died like burnt leaves; the inner one got through.

A pitch-black tentacle, knobs rough as old stone, lunged at Ling. Her face stayed cool as winter glass. She lifted her right hand, green mana coiling around her palm like ivy, and set it in the tentacle’s path.

Despite its high intelligence, it never thought to swerve. Maybe it judged that small hand harmless. It charged like a brute and slammed into Ling’s delicate palm.

Mana climbed from her petite palm to its surface, webbing it in a blink. Bright green lines etched across it like glowing vines under moonlight.

“Die.”

Voice-activated magic—you gotta have it.

The green lines pulsed crimson, and the tentacle shattered like clay. Black, turbid fluid splashed out like ink on snow.

Good thing clever Ling had laid a thin protective film over herself, a clear skin like dew. The liquid never touched her. If it had, she might have sworn to wipe out every creature that grew tentacles, like a cleansing fire.

The others saw one of their own breach the green shield. They didn’t care about dying; they copied at once, courage wild as wolves. Some even “innovated”: spirals like conch shells, drill tips like augers, and one tied up like a Chinese knot.

Sin Ling was wasting their talent by not entering these mad geniuses in a contest; their ideas spun like fireworks.

Ready, the geniuses rushed into the dome like arrows from a war bow.

Ling watched the flood of tentacles. She felt no grand emotion, only a clear, sharp wish like a knife of ice. She wanted to string Sin Ling up like a lantern and spank her, hard, and keep going until the willow branches begged for mercy.