“Magic Cannon-san! What are you doing?! Move, Magic Cannon-san! Why aren’t you moving!”

That’s the art of a combat roar—whether in a beam clash or a blade duel, a shout can tilt fate like a gust tipping a hanging scale.

It isn’t baseless bravado; it’s a trick with bones and blood behind it.

The fight’s already a wildfire; add a bellow, and adrenaline surges like a spring flood, letting you roll over the foe like thunder over hills.

So of course Ling’s Magic Cannon caught a buff, a tailwind under its fire, and in a blink it shoved the other beam back like a tide.

BOOM—!!

His own beam’s collapse met Ling’s surging shot, and together they drove the Dragon King back a great step, a thin crack sketched across his snout like dry clay.

The Dragon King shook his head; in those huge draconic pupils he could see the wound on the tip of his nose, a thorn on a rose of scales.

He stared at Ling in disbelief, as if seeing frost in summer.

“This… this is word‑spirit magic!”

He clearly took Ling’s shouting for a spell, a rainbow mistaken for a bridge.

But it was just a casual yell; she’s not some World Consciousness, where words become law and wishes sprout like bamboo after rain.

Ling thought that, but didn’t say it; mischief bloomed like a fox’s grin, because he’d shown up so high and mighty at the start.

Left hand in her pocket, right forefinger leveled at the Dragon King, she stood like a street cat flicking its tail, contempt bright as cold moonlight in her eyes.

“Sodayo~,” she chimed, sing-song, like wind bells teasing a porch at dusk.

The language didn’t land; the Dragon King didn’t understand, yet he didn’t care, like a mountain unbothered by sparrows.

He’d seen word‑spirit magic before, but seeing it in a not-quite-human human girl was as odd as snow on a hot river.

His body leapt back; his vast jaws opened and closed, yet his voice carried clean as a bell through clear air to Ling’s ears.

“Mighty one, I wronged you; I took you for a third‑rate wild monkey throwing a fit on my doorstep.”

“So what? Dragon King, don’t tell me you plan to surrender just like that,” she said, her tone a blade with a laugh tied to the hilt.

“Surrender is impossible; it’s just that fighting you in this shell feels ill‑fitting, like winter fur in summer, so I’ll change.”

Black smoke gushed off his body like storm clouds spilling from a gorge, and thick magic pressed in it like weighty rain.

So this is what a transformation looks like, she thought, curiosity fluttering like a moth near a lantern.

Ling didn’t interrupt; she stood still as a stone lantern and waited, a patient fox watching a cocoon split.

The smoke thinned like morning mist, and the Dragon King’s huge, lean bulk was already gone, a mountain erased from the horizon.

“Yo~ What’re you looking for?”

A strange girl’s voice blossomed behind her without any warning, like a flower opening in the dark.

Before she could turn, warmth and velvet softness wrapped both sides of her neck, like a clamp of petals snapping shut.

She hadn’t named the hold yet when her sight flipped; the sky slid under her feet, and her crown pressed against the earth like a pillar.

Once Pangu split heaven and earth; today a little loli props the sky with her head—handstands are just that, a joke written in dust.

Good thing the little gremlin’s head is iron; even a head-first drop won’t raise a mountain, just a ring in the dirt like a coin print.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught the legs choking her neck—a pair of girl’s thighs smooth as jade and long as a willow’s sway, the kind you could drag close and admire for years.

So even if someone scissored her over and stamped her head into the ground, carving a loli‑head‑sized pit in the soil, those killer legs soothed half her ire like cool rain.

The ambusher didn’t press the attack; after the strike, she hovered like a wren on a branch, watching with a smile.

Ling planted both palms, popped herself upright, and with a few little loli hops she skipped back several meters, light as a sparrow.

Only then did the tiny terror see her assailant clearly, the picture sharpening like frost on glass.

Hip‑length black hair spilled down her back like a night river, loose yet neat, not a single reed out of place.

Her clothes covered most of her, yet a bare navel gleamed like a coin, and an S‑tier bust lent her a sultry heat like summer noon.

Right hand on her hip, head tilted, she regarded Ling; in those golden eyes flickered a familiar spark, like seeing an old fire in a new hearth.

That curious light beneath the gold felt known, a lantern seen before on a foggy road, a déjà vu that tugged like a tide.

Then again, if it’s a beauty, Ling always feels she’s seen her somewhere, a magpie heart hoarding faces like shiny things.

Truth be told, her mind offered no file for this girl; the bright, sun‑charged smile and that tiny exposed fang made a lively onee‑san sketched in sugar.

And that exact flavor, Ling was sure she’d never tasted, a first snow that didn’t match any old footprints.

“Hey! Who are you? Why butt into our fight? And where’d that heavy, clumsy Dragon King run off to?” she called, mood first, words like pebbles skipping water.

She didn’t link the Dragon King with the girl before her, because a male dragon and a female human match like thunder and silk.

For all she knew, this well‑stacked stranger had dashed through the smoke and killed him—one‑in‑ten‑thousand odds still count when clouds look wrong.

Obviously, Ling was overthinking; the world loves to make the unbelievable true, like fish learning to climb trees when you look away.

The girl straightened up and, using the gift of height, looked down at Ling, a playful smile curling like a cat’s tail.

“Little one, I’m the Dragon King you’re looking for~”