Chapter 143: Weighing One Gain Against Another
Directly plunging into the body of a magical beast from the Ocean of Magical Power was, of course, impossible. Let alone the magical power fluctuations that the beast continuously emitted, if she were to enter its body and reveal her original form, wouldn’t her body just overlap with the beast’s?
That would be no different from suicide.
So what Luo Shuangyue needed to do was to sneak her attack inside, and conveniently, she really had that ability.
A sealing card was in her hand, and with a flick of her wrist, the card was enveloped in starry magical power as it stealthily approached the magical beast.
Meanwhile, she detached herself from the Ocean of Magical Power and began to attract the beast’s attention.
Once she returned to the real world, the magical beast immediately launched an attack on her, with countless missiles locking onto her position and rushing toward her at high speed.
Luo Shuangyue was not hesitant; there was no intention to counterattack, and she chose to flee.
A massive wave of missiles followed behind her, while more missiles were coming from the front and surrounding areas to block her escape route. Luo Shuangyue’s wings almost tore from the effort as she narrowly evaded this deadly trap.
You Lian wanted to rush back to help Luo Shuangyue, but Luo Shuangyue rejected You Lian’s good intentions, telling her not to worry about her and to focus all her efforts on attacking the beast.
Trying to take Luo Shuangyue down with just these missiles was still somewhat challenging.
Luo Shuangyue had not yet needed to use teleportation to evade a swarm of missiles, and once she did use it, the missiles would be even less likely to catch her.
Unless the beast could predict Luo Shuangyue’s position after she teleported and set traps there, it would succeed in capturing her.
After You Lian transformed into a dark mist creature and charged at it, the beast’s attention was clearly diverted heavily by You Lian.
Now the beast was multitasking in battle: chasing Luo Shuangyue, suppressing the magical girls with its magic cannon, and exerting strength to deal with You Lian’s consumption.
Its current level was indeed royal-class, but compared to You Lian, a genuine royal-class beast, it was somewhat inflated.
Its magic cannon could force You Lian back, but a large part of the cannon’s energy would be absorbed by You Lian, and using missiles to explode would hardly cause significant damage to You Lian.
When You Lian’s dark mist touched its main body, the beast was terrified to discover that its seemingly impenetrable shell could be eroded by the mist, rendering it extremely vulnerable.
The dark mist was like countless mouths, constantly gnawing at its body, which made the beast unusually anxious.
But soon, it had no opportunity to worry about such trivial matters.
Despite You Lian’s significant threat, its current size was larger, and by using the method of attacking You Lian with its magic cannon, it could reduce her threat to a minimum.
At least for a short time, You Lian’s consuming threat would not affect its foundation.
However, when an unfamiliar force erupted within its body, the beast truly experienced what it meant to suffer internal injuries.
A surge of deathly power erupted violently from within its body, instantly transforming part of its interior into dark grey.
The flesh tainted by deathly magic became animated in the next moment, turning into repulsive little worms that gnawed at the beast’s internal organs, creating even more worms.
The anomaly inside its body had to be dealt with; the beast had to relax its firepower suppression on the magical girls and focus on controlling its internal magic to eliminate the little worms that had appeared out of nowhere.
“Its firepower has weakened; it seems to be distracted by something!” The magical girls immediately noticed the reduction in the beast’s attacks. They had just been suppressed, but now it seemed they had a chance to counterattack.
“It’s You Lian attracting its attention; we can’t let You Lian’s efforts go to waste!”
“Can that first cannon be fired again? Do we have other ways to harm that magical beast?”
The magical girls started chattering about what to do next.
While talking, their hands didn’t stop moving; the few magical girls who had just enhanced the magic cannon resumed preparing for the fusion magic cannon again. Each of them was responsible for one part of the fusion magic circle, and after completing their portion, they would merge the four parts of the magic circle together.
“Rosemary, do you still have enough spiritual power for another shot?” The leading senior looked at Xia Mo, whose face was slightly pale, with concern in her voice.
The previous shot of the fusion magic cannon had achieved such good results; Xia Mo’s contribution was significant… or rather, Ye Lin’s contribution was significant.
The successful fusion of that magic cannon relied on Ye Lin harmonizing the magical girls’ magical power; without Ye Lin, it would be a miracle if that shot didn’t explode before being launched.
After firing that round, both Ye Lin and Xia Mo had basically entered a state of depletion, with their mental and magical power nearly exhausted, making it hard to produce another magic cannon like the last.
“We can give it a try.”
Even though Xia Mo was constantly reminded by the weakness in her body that she was reaching her limit and could no longer unleash a magic cannon as powerful as the last, she still responded affirmatively.
Her beloved was fighting alone against the magical beast; even the smallest mistake could plunge him into an abyss. Could she just stand by and do nothing?
No!
Absolutely not!
I am a magical girl too; I can contribute my share to this battle!
Facing a magical beast that had reached royal-class, an initial bloom magical girl was insignificant and would be unable to harm it. However, if everyone combined their powers, they could surely turn the tide!
And the key to this was her!
For Luo Shuangyue, for everyone around her, Xia Mo had to believe in herself and break through her limits.
“But your body…”
“Senior, we are fighting for the entire world right now; as long as we can achieve victory, it doesn’t matter if I can never transform again,” Xia Mo said, her eyes shining as she looked at the senior beside her, “You Lian is desperately buying us time; how can we let her efforts go to waste?”
“I am also a magical girl, so I cannot accept standing by and watching. This is the only way we have to help You Lian.”
Clenching her fist tightly, Xia Mo’s gaze fell on the small dot of light in the distance. Luo Shuangyue was finding it increasingly difficult to kite the magical beast’s missiles; with the growing number of missiles, sooner or later, Luo Shuangyue would run out of space to evade.
Their time was running out.
So, should they gamble on everyone coming up with a new solution in such a short time, or should they bet on herself giving everything she had to unleash the fusion magic cannon?
This was not a dilemma for Xia Mo.
For Luo Shuangyue, for everyone, she could and must give her all.
“You can’t always be the little girl hiding behind her and trembling,” Xia Mo said, gazing into the distance, her purple eyes seemingly ablaze with flames.
Seeing Xia Mo like this, the senior knew she had made up her mind, and she was willing to trust Xia Mo’s decision.
Determination is the most powerful weapon of a magical girl!
With a heart like this, Xia Mo would surely be unstoppable.
“Alright, then everything depends on you, Rosemary!”
…
Swish!
Boom!
A gray light collided with a missile, resulting in mutual destruction with the spear missile fired by the magical beast.
Luo Shuangyue held several butterfly-shaped magical daggers, constantly turning around to strike at the missiles that had come close to her, creating a path for herself.
This was a temporary strategy she devised, aimed at compensating for her lack of long-range capability. While its power wasn’t particularly great, it was enough to detonate the missiles launched by the magical beast.
While fleeing, she also didn’t forget to infiltrate the Ocean of Magical Power and deliver a few small gifts to the beast. She didn’t have many items, but she had an abundance of sealing cards.
After confirming that her method could indeed inflict effective damage on the magical beast, Luo Shuangyue kept changing how she sent magical attacks into the beast’s body.
The beast wasn’t foolish. After enduring several blows, it realized where those unknown attacks were coming from and immediately redirected its firepower from suppressing the magical girls to suppressing Luo Shuangyue, concentrating all of its wave of suppression from the Ocean of Magical Power onto her location.
Although this could not restrict Luo Shuangyue’s teleportation, it would greatly increase the consumption required for her to enter and exit the Ocean of Magical Power.
Now every time Luo Shuangyue entered or exited, she consumed nearly half of a major spell’s power, which was why she could only lure the hatred with her physical body.
Precious magical power was to be used for attack, not on inconsequential escapes.
“Fortunately, You Lian doesn’t need me to supply magical power right now; otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to endure this consumption with just two of us…”
Usually, in her small girl form, You Lian consumed Luo Shuangyue’s magical power in battle, and after devouring the remnants of opponents, she would return some of it.
But now it was different; the monster form of You Lian no longer provided Luo Shuangyue with magical power, nor did she absorb any from Luo Shuangyue. Other than their minds being connected, they were much like two independent beings.
And this might be the most terrifying aspect of a spirit weapon.
It was equivalent to having captured a Demon Lord into the magical girl’s camp, though its strength was certainly no match for its past, this back-and-forth comparison provided the magical girls with a net gain of a Demon Lord rather than just crushing it into dust.
In the battle against the real Demon Lord, a spirit weapon like You Lian might not contribute much, but facing off against this blown-up magical beast, You Lian’s role would be immensely significant.
The magical beast now faced a dilemma: to monitor You Lian or ignore her. It had only its magic cannon to block You Lian’s advance, but firing the magic cannon meant powering up You Lian.
Just with the brief moment it used its magic cannon to obstruct You Lian, You Lian had grown in size again by devouring its magical power. If the current You Lian were to leap onto it, the outcome would be quite dire.
Thus, the beast had no choice but to continue using its magic cannon to obstruct You Lian’s approach; this was a vicious cycle.
Even worse, that other little fly it had been chasing was somehow grasping a strange ability to bypass its shell and inflict damage to its body.
After several such instances, the interior of the beast’s body was already riddled with wounds. If it weren’t for the fact that the beast was not a true biological entity, it would have already collapsed.
The distant purple figure once again vanished from the encirclement of the spear missile, only to reappear not far away the next moment.
The beast immediately prepared itself, knowing it would soon experience another internal explosion of attack.
As expected, just ten seconds later, it felt a knife-like pain surge from within, as if a blade had suddenly been inserted into its body.
Letting out a low, anguished roar, the beast shattered the internal attack with magic power. Even its soft interior would not be completely destroyed by a single sneak attack.
Besides, the beast wasn’t afraid that a great deal of damage would impact its future; regardless of how severe the injury, it could restore itself by absorbing large amounts of magical energy, without any downtime for recovery.
The most important thing was that this magical beast no longer had a future. After this battle, it would completely vanish from the world due to the burning of its magical power.
Even if so many powerful royal-class magical beasts fused into one, they would have to pay with their lives to gain a semblance of royal-class power.
This magical beast was fighting with its life on the line.
The magic cannon suppressed the dark mist creature, and the missiles hunted down that pesky little fly. The magical beast felt that it still held a significant advantage.
It couldn’t stop the dark mist creature’s attack, but the dark mist creature would have a hard time defeating it in a short period.
As for that little fly, it was nearing its end. With every missile tracking and blocking its escape routes, and its powerful magical energy tumultuously stirring the Ocean of Magical Power, the fly’s demise would undoubtedly arrive sooner than being consumed by the dark mist creature.
As for the ones it had been suppressing, the magical beast sensed that no more magical power fluctuations were coming from over there. Perhaps they had abandoned that little fly and fled this way.
Hmph, what a foolish creature! Let it first kill off that little fly and then go help its master, winning the final victory of this battle!
The beast was filled with arrogance and excitement, completely unaware that the absence of magical power fluctuations might not mean that its opponent had fled.
It could also mean that the other side was deliberately masking the magical power fluctuations that should have been perceptible.
Compared to the arrogant beast that considered victory assured, Luo Shuangyue had already realized what her companions were doing on the other side.
“Another fusion magic cannon? It seems the only way to defeat this guy is through that method.” Luo Shuangyue understood very well that her own power alone was insufficient to kill this magical beast.
