Everything was ready. Qu Mengting didn’t hesitate to give the order: Zi Xuan and Zi Lan, who were responsible for frontline combat, were to attack the monster.
A dazzling pillar of flame lit up the night like day. Under the full-force combined attack of Zi Xuan and Zi Lan—the two girls code-named Tabby and Country Cat—the water in the Returning Sea Demon Lizard’s body quickly evaporated. The scorching flames baked every organ in its body. When it tried to escape, it found it couldn’t move. Lu Wanxin and Bai Xiaoxiao had each pinned it down from one side.
But the demon lizard wasn’t about to go down without a fight. It raised a massive barrier around itself, shutting out all the heat and flames. It even managed to break free of Lu Wanxin and Bai Xiaoxiao’s control.
So strong?!
That level of magical power has to be at the very top of B-Rank, doesn’t it?
Bai Xiaoxiao and Lu Wanxin quickly retreated. A vast purple barrier surrounded the monster, like an impassable boundary.
No matter how Zi Xuan and Zi Lan attacked, explosions rang out one after another. Yet aside from wounds that were rapidly healing, there wasn’t a single mark of their attacks left on the monster.
“All squad members, listen up! Focus your attacks on a single point. Its head, its mouth—anything. Aim for its weak spots!”
After urgently relaying the message through communication magic from inside the base, Qu Mengting stared anxiously at the magical projection screen.
Bai Xiaoxiao had A-Rank magical power. How could she be unable to break through the shield of a mere B-Rank monster?
Unless...
A terrifying possibility came to mind. If her guess was right, they’d probably need Magical Girl squads from other cities to come reinforce them.
The monster seemed to be staying on the defensive, as if it were waiting for something.
Ever since a little while ago, the monster’s condition had seemed... like it was about to break through?
Brilliant blue light shone from tiny cracks splitting open across its body. It let out a roar, then scattered lasers blasted wildly into the ground. Back at the base, Qu Mengting strengthened the barrier.
Continuing to pour enormous amounts of magical power into the magic circle would only buy them time. If they didn’t take the monster down, it wouldn’t just be Tianhai City at risk—the several towns nearby would be caught up in it too.
“Explosion Magic!”
She unleashed Explosion Magic with all her strength. The shock wave struck the barrier, sending ripples through space. The monster seemed to realize that Bai Xiaoxiao’s attack was the strongest among them, and began gathering an incredibly powerful beam of light in its mouth—
A shock wave of such immense power, fired while she was airborne, would easily pierce even an A-Rank magical barrier and a body reinforced by a Magical Girl outfit. Bai Xiaoxiao thought to herself.
Luckily, she’d reacted quickly. She used Spatial Leap to fly even higher and narrowly escaped. Unfortunately, no one stopped the brilliant cyan attack. It easily smashed through a high-rise covered by the base’s formation.
The intense heat melted the building in an instant, leaving a pitch-black hole at its center. The five squad members had reached the same conclusion: this monster, rated B-Rank, was probably a whole tier stronger than that.
“Captain, can you hear me? We need backup! We need backup!”
When Qu Mengting received the message, sweat beaded on her forehead. As the core of the formation, she couldn’t leave to fight. Tianhai City’s Magical Girl squad had only two A-Rank members: herself and Bai Xiaoxiao, a rookie who’d only been in the field for a year.
“Understood. I’ve requested backup from the nearest squad. They’ll need about a minute to get here. Do your best to hold out until then.”
Magical Girls could reach them from the nearest base either by using Spatial Leap magic or by traveling through a formation connecting the two locations. Unfortunately, the strongest monster ever to appear in Tianhai City had only been B-Rank, so no teleportation formation had been set up.
The Returning Sea Demon Lizard, glowing cyan from head to toe, didn’t seem eager to fight. Magical power swirled around it as it flew from above the city to a remote forest where few people ever ventured.
Qu Mengting had sensed something was wrong for a while. She asked Bai Xiaoxiao to detect any powerful life force nearby. Bai Xiaoxiao didn’t really understand why—everyone had already been evacuated, so what was there to check? Still, since it was the captain’s order, she trusted her without question.
“Pink Jade here! Let me see... There’s only one life signature inside it... No, wait?! There are two! There’s something in its stomach giving off powerful magical waves!”
Besides the monster’s own magical signature, Bai Xiaoxiao had detected another source of magical power inside it—one just as powerful as the monster itself.
Was it a monster about to give birth? Or...
“I knew it. This monster devoured one of its own kind of the same rank. Its rating has risen from B-Rank to A-Rank. If it finishes digesting the monster inside it, only an S-Rank Magical Girl will be able to subdue it.”
The five squad members had stopped attacking. Against an opponent with such overwhelming strength, even Bai Xiaoxiao, an inexperienced rookie, had lost most of her drive to fight.
The Returning Sea Demon Lizard used its breath to dig a bottomless hole. It leaped down inside, then sealed the entrance with an incredibly powerful barrier.
Well, that settled it. Even the Magical Girls coming from the neighboring city would be helpless now. At this point, they’d have to call upon one of the few remaining S-Rank beings to bring it under control.
Meanwhile, Li Xinghe had followed the crowd into an underground shelter. It was already past 8:10, and he couldn’t help growing anxious. A barrier sealed off the shelter’s ceiling, so no one inside could see or hear what was happening outside. He kept glancing at the time changing on his phone, as if he’d made some kind of decision.
Everyone in the shelter was busy chatting among themselves. No one paid any attention as he quietly slipped away to a corner where hardly anyone would notice him.
“Phew... Honestly, I really don’t want to use this power again.”
Ever since discovering the truth about Magical Girls and monsters eight years ago, Li Xinghe had never transformed into a Magical Girl again.
When he confirmed the truth back then, the first thing he did was kill his contract spirit. In other words, Li Xinghe had lost the power to transform long ago.
And yet—
“If this is the outcome you wanted, then I’ll answer your expectations.”
After murmuring something that made no sense to anyone else, Li Xinghe vanished from where he stood.
On the surface, the Magical Girl who’d come from the neighboring city finally met up with Bai Xiaoxiao’s squad of five. Confused by the empty sky and ground, the newcomer was just about to ask what was going on when the earth beneath them—the place the monster had sealed off—began to shake. The surrounding trees all collapsed underground in an instant, revealing the monster’s complete form, successfully evolved from B-Rank to A-Rank.
