Chapter 126: Volume One Finale: Night, Dawn, and the Magical Girl

Volume One Finale: Night, Dawn, and the Magical Girl

"Weaver of Fate" is a very weak magic armor.

This was once the consensus of the Fang Ting City Magical Girl Squad in the old days.

As the magic armor Senior Cuique obtained during her Bud stage, Weaver of Fate was initially just a cluster of magic threads that seemed nonsensical. Scarce in number and lacking toughness, even using them to entangle enemies appeared exceptionally weak.

At that time, whenever facing a powerful enemy alongside her companions, as her companions each drew out their own magic armors, Senior Cuique could only wave those few meager threads, serving merely as a distraction and a meat shield.

Precisely because of this, in the early days of her magical girl life, Senior Cuique never relied on her magic armor to fight.

This did not mean she had given up developing her magic armor. After all, magic armor evolves alongside the growth of the magical girl; this is the consensus of everyone.

And as the saying goes, hard work pays off; Weaver of Fate indeed underwent evolution. Initially, when Senior Cuique was fifteen years old, upon reaching the Bud stage and awakening her own Mirage Realm, a small pair of tailor's scissors inexplicably appeared in her magic armor.

This pair of scissors was far too tiny, so Senior Cuique did not realize its purpose at first, thinking only that, like her threads, it needed time to grow.

But after waiting several months, she finally discovered that the form of the scissors seemed fixed in this appearance. Several attempts finally revealed the true use of these scissors—they must function together with the threads.

Seemingly because of this discovery, she soon obtained the third form of Weaver of Fate—a ruler.

Threads, scissors, ruler; a combination that sounds like a sewing kit, yet when combined, they unleashed combat power so powerful that no one could have imagined. Therefore, at that time, Senior Cuique could even challenge Remnant Beasts with strength far exceeding the average Bud stage at the Bud stage level, and even emerge victorious.

But even so, the abilities of the Bud stage have limits, while the strength of enemies knows no limits.

At the age of sixteen, during the Garden Defense War in the Magical Kingdom, Senior Cuique encountered an enemy of unprecedented strength. Her entire escort squad was trapped in a stalemate battle; multiple members of the squad were on the brink of death, and the Capital of Wisdom of the Magical Kingdom—Runore—was on the verge of being breached.

In that battle, Senior Cuique used a technique that should not have been used for the first time.

It was a technique said to be usable only once in a magical girl's life; once used, it would shatter her True Form, or even cause death.

Senior Cuique used it; she defeated the powerful enemy.

She even survived, but the price was her True Form and her magic armor—her scissors were almost scrapped, rendered in a state where they were nearly unusable.

Just a minor injury—Senior Cuique told herself this; she even completed another ability sublimation afterward, formally entering the Flower stage.

She continued to be active as a magical girl, continuing to fight.

Although due to some effects of the Garden Defense War, she voluntarily distanced herself from the center of power in the Magical Kingdom, this did not stop her from still having a heart for battle.

Thus, when she turned seventeen, in the year known as the Great Calamity Celebration, a century-unseen Great Beast Calamity erupted in the Material World. The Fang Ting City Magical Girl Squad encountered a terrifying Remnant Beast that no one, even together, could possibly repel.

Seeing her companions in danger, Senior Cuique, though somewhat hesitant, used that technique that should not be used once again.

She became very strong, gaining power far beyond the ordinary. She won again, and even after going this far, she still did not die. But the price this time was still her magic armor—her ruler shattered.

Unlike the scissors, the ruler could not even retain its own form; it simply turned into a pile of fragments and completely disappeared from this world.

Accompanying this was an extremely strong side effect: the Soul Gem cracked, the True Form appeared incomplete, the abilities as a magical girl greatly regressed, using even a relatively large amount of Qi caused severe headaches and further damaged the Soul Gem, and the Mirage Realm, which should have been wielded as easily as one's own arm, became a huge burden.

With such a state, participating in the Fang Ting City Squad's battles, she had become a burden.

Even though she had earned the honor of a Lifetime Magical Girl in the Kingdom, and even though the Wang Ting had once invited her to become the final Sapphire Scepter, on the Magic side, without power, unable to fight, all honors are just empty talk.

Thus, disregarding her teammates' protests, Senior Cuique chose to retire.

Her teammates were already stronger than her; Anya was even progressing at a rate of one new level per day; there was no one left who absolutely needed her help, no one left who absolutely needed her protection.

She was also very tired; after fighting hard for three years, defeating unprecedented powerful enemies, and saving the city in crisis... she believed her short magical girl career had made sufficient contributions, so perhaps ending it like this was enough to be complete.

Heroes in comic stories always obtain happy and fulfilling lives after saving the world, and the world is so vast that it will not stop turning just because someone is missing; the retirement of a magical girl will not have such a profound impact.

She used to think so.

—"But, it is not like that."

Senior Cuique slightly closed her eyes: "Life is not a comic story, and I am not the hero in the story; I failed to truly solve the problem, I was merely self-satisfied with my own efforts." Reading books

From the day he learned of Anya's death, he, who was only Lin Yun, felt guilt and blamed himself without cease.

If he had not retired and fought alongside Anya, would things have become different?

He did not know the answer to this question; perhaps there would never be an answer. Anya's death was like a blazing flame, burning the originally fairy-tale-like story to ashes.

And he could only recall those pages of burned books, endlessly blaming himself.

He wanted revenge, but he was not without attachments; he knew how powerful Anya truly was, and could even imagine how dangerous the enemies who killed Anya were. If something happened to him during the process of revenge, what would his daughter do?

But if he did not seek revenge, that poisonous fire would burn his heart without cease.

Countless times embracing past illusions in his dreams, countless times feeling around the empty pillow after waking, anger and grief had almost become a curse that could not be shaken off, locking him firmly in the past.

In the end, he could only helplessly tell himself that he was just an ordinary person, that he could not, and should not, think about these things anymore.

Then he should just focus on work and focus on raising his daughter; as an ordinary single father, perhaps this was the most normal choice.

If everything truly ended here. If his daughter had not stepped into the world of the Magic side.

But when all this happened, when the shadows lurking in Fang Ting City, and even within the Donghua State Domain, surfaced and even threatened his daughter, then so-called "normalcy" was not worth having.

"I have no grand ideals; what I want to do is simply protect those around me well. But previously, I escaped, I failed, I failed to fulfill my promise, I failed to follow my own wishes."

"Then, this time, I will absolutely not allow such a thing to happen again."

"Black Ash Dawn, I have already learned of your actions, understood what you have done, and seen the ugliness you have displayed. Regardless of what you did in Anya's death; regardless of what you are still plotting in this Material World; regardless of what hatred you hold toward the Material World. I have only one attitude toward you."

Senior Cuique raised her head, her pupils overflowing with Qi shining like the full moon in the night sky:

—"From today on, get out of Fang Ting City, or I will personally drive you out one by one."

Silver-blue threads descended from the night sky, weaving layer upon layer around her, overlapping densely; the outline of a massive building gradually took shape within the network of threads, enveloping the entire central district of Fang Ting City.

Like a fairy tale story, magnificent, shining with pure light, a sapphire-blue castle stood towering.

This was Senior Cuique's Mirage Realm.

It was as magnificent as the castles of princes and princesses in fairy tales that every child once imagined, yet it was not built of bricks and stones, but was a wonder woven together from countless, fine threads of Qi.

The night sky, originally dyed purple-black by Qi, was instantly cut off by the massive castle; whether magical girls, Mo Si, or even the Remnant Beasts on the ground, all were contained within the castle.

Moreover, outside the castle, countless endless threads extended outward in all directions, stretching across the entire Fang Ting City.

The chaotic districts, the shattered houses, the people originally fleeing—all involuntarily looked up at the sky, gazing at this scene as miraculous as a miracle. Those Remnant Beasts, which had formed disasters in swarms, fierce and irritable, also strangely quieted down.

It was not because they were also admiring the thread-rain in the night sky, but because those threads crossing the night sky were targeting them.

Endless blue threads descended from the air, immobilizing every Remnant Beast roaming the city, and then, connecting them to the castle through the threads.

"Saved?"

Someone in the crowd asked this; at first, it was just a tentative, soft cry, but soon, the bold walked up to the mutilated beasts and reached out to touch those ferocious, terrifying creatures.

Those mutilated beasts that had been destroying and killing just moments ago now stood utterly motionless, like sculptures. Thus, people realized the attack by the mutilated beasts had truly ended.

"Saved! We're saved!"

"Magical Girl! It must be a Magical Girl!"

People began to cheer; people began to weep. The disaster had come so suddenly, yet ended so swiftly, like a miracle, leaving the survivors immersed in the relief of having lived.

And this scene did not happen only in the city. In the Alien Strategy Bureau, now a ruin unnoticed by anyone, those "mutilated beasts" that had once hung from the ceiling but now lay prostrate among the broken walls and rubble also slept peacefully, quietly.

— "Lost control? No... their magic power has become inactive. Why? This shouldn't be; there's no reason for it."

Inside the silver-blue castle, Moss felt the changes occurring in the magic power within these mutilated beasts. A strange unease rose in its heart. It turned toward the figure nearby, wrapped in threads, and asked, "What did you do?"

Senior Cuique did not reply immediately.

It was not that she did not want to ignore Moss—although that was indeed the case—but because she felt her body was almost no longer her own.

Violent, intense pain filled her consciousness. The agony, as if tearing her soul apart, made her clench her jaw tightly, terrified that opening even a crack would cause her to scream.

She gripped the threads in her hand tightly, as if trying to conduct the pain outward. Amidst waves of excruciating agony, she slowly raised her head, eyes wide, staring fixedly at Moss.

Then, she slightly lifted the scissors in her hand, which were on the verge of shattering.

This movement made Moss feel extremely dangerous.

After transforming into a mutilated beast, as a fully evolved form of the Shed, it could not only retain the rationality it possessed as a human but also utilize the instincts and intuition of a mutilated beast.

Ordinary mutilated beasts lack rationality and cannot understand what a survival crisis is, but that does not mean their intuition is not sharp. It was precisely this perception and intuition that made Moss understand that whatever Senior Cuique was about to do was absolutely extremely dangerous.

"Don't even think about it!"

It could not allow the opponent to use a move that threatened itself, so it shouted fiercely and activated its own rules, attempting to act upon the magic power surrounding Senior Cuique and cover it once more.

This was exactly what it had done before; it had successfully eliminated Senior Cuique's magic power, stolen her masterpiece, and was able to stop the opponent's further actions.

It had thought this time would be the same process, never expecting its attempt to fail.

The dense threads within the castle were not affected in the slightest, still existing there intact and undamaged.

"Impossible!"

Moss exclaimed in shock: "How could there be magic power that my rules cannot affect!"

"... Because... this is simply not magic power."

Senior Cuique barely opened her mouth and ground out these words through clenched teeth. Then, without waiting for Moss to act further, she resolutely swung the scissors in her hand.

Click.

The motion of her swinging the scissors made no sound, yet Moss seemed to hear a noise from the void, like the crisp friction sound of scissors closing.

In that instant, it felt as if it had lost something.

What had it lost? There was no physical sensation, no abnormality in its spirit at all; it had no idea what changes had occurred to itself when the scissors swung down.

But when Moss looked at its own body with its compound eyes and began to observe the changes within itself, it froze.

The six legs that had been sharp arthropod limbs had vanished at some point, replaced by a pair of human hands.

They were an incredibly tiny pair of hands, attached to the massive body of the mutilated beast, fine as down, yet it could not fail to recognize them, for they were its own hands from when it was human.

"What did you do?"

It asked again, but the meaning this time was completely different; the words hid a terror it could not restrain even within itself.

It now knew what Senior Cuique had just cut away with the scissors: not its flesh, nor its soul, not even its magic power, but the part of itself that was a mutilated beast.

The scissors had not crudely severed limbs; they had erased the "mutilated beast's arthropod limbs" from its body.

"Impossible. Your magic power could not possibly affect me; your magical armor could not possibly be effective against me..."

It muttered to itself, retreating continuously because of the overwhelming sense of threat: "I will cover your magic power. I can cover your magic power. I can snatch that strange pair of scissors away, and I will use it to take revenge on you..."

Click.

The crisp friction sound rang out once more.

Moss lowered its head almost reflexively in response to the friction sound, and this time, its lower body as a mutilated beast vanished.

"Impossible!"

It howled in anger and futilely. Seeing that retreating was useless, it turned its direction and activated its rules once more, this time targeting the pair of scissors in Senior Cuique's hand.

The scissors in Senior Cuique's hand were part of the magical armor and were indeed formed from her magic power, so when Moss used its rules to cover Senior Cuique's scissors, it was possible to snatch them away.

And it indeed succeeded.

As the rules took effect, Senior Cuique's scissors vanished in an instant and then appeared in Moss's hand.

"Hahaha, I have found the solution!"

Seeing the deed done, it could not help but laugh wildly, then grabbed Senior Cuique's scissors with its disproportionately comical hands: "I can do it too! Watch me use your magical armor to... uh! Gah! Aaaaaaaah!"

But before it could even finish speaking, the moment Moss touched Senior Cuique's scissors, it let out a wail of unspeakable misery: "It hurts! Aaaaaaaah—!"

Screaming like ghosts and wolves, it desperately worked the scissors in its hand with sheer ferocity, only to find they had no effect at all. It quickly threw the scissors aside. But even after tossing them away, the pain did not ease; the excruciating agony made its entire body tremble, leaving not even a shred of room for thought.

From beginning to end, Senior Cuique had not spoken a single word. She merely covered her head, watching expressionlessly as the scissors appeared in Moss's hand, waited until Moss threw them away, and then picked them up again.

"You can't use them," she said.

"... Impossible! Why is this happening! How could you possibly wield such magical armor! That soul-tearing pain, do you feel absolutely nothing?"

Moss looked up and roared in fury: "You knew I would do this all along, so you tampered with the magical armor, didn't you!"

"I don't need to."

Senior Cuique inserted her fingers back into the ring of the blade and opened the scissors' sharp edges: "I'm used to it."

"Used to that kind of pain? What nonsense are you talking!"

Moss shrieked in rebuttal, but when it saw the ice-cold expression on Senior Cuique's face, the words that should have burst forth stopped.

It realized Senior Cuique might not have been lying.

Having overdrawn her own self twice, her true form is damaged, and the cost of the cracks in her Heart Gem goes far beyond mere weakening of ability; at this stage, whenever Cuique uses her Magic Gear to fight, she is almost constantly in soul-deep pain.

Even in such a state, Cuique can still remain calm, even maintain her thoughts, to analyze the battle situation and defeat her enemies. But precisely because of this, she shows no expression in battle and has always championed efficiency.

"Are you human or a machine..."

Mo Si asked, somewhat breaking down: "What kind of monster are you, you guy!"

"I am a Magical Girl."

Cuique waved her scissors expressionlessly: "Exterminate monsters, protect everyone."

Click.

With the crisp sound ringing out once more, what vanished this time was Mo Si's head as a Remnant Beast.

The face of the aged woman appeared once again upon the Remnant Beast's body, but at this very moment her hair was disheveled and hanging over her shoulders, her face filled with panic: "Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! Is there a flaw in my rules? What is strange about your Magic Gear? Why can you use your Magic Gear to hurt me? Why!"

In its panic, it tried to mobilize its perception to find the dissonance within this space, wanting to stop this terrible process, but it could find no loophole whatsoever.

In its desperate, chaotic attempts, its consciousness even began to branch out to those Remnant Beasts it controlled outside the Mirage Realm; it saw those Remnant Beasts standing motionless like statues within the city; it saw those Remnant Beasts sleeping quietly amidst the ruins of the Hetero Strategy Bureau, and it also saw Hong Siyu lying amidst the Remnant Beasts, sleeping soundly.

Then it discovered that all the Remnant Beasts were just like itself.

They had lost their claws, lost their legs, lost their heads. Only those Remnant Beasts originally stitched together from humans had revealed their true forms, while the true Remnant Beasts had completely turned into corpses.

And on all the Remnant Beasts, threads were connected. Threads of magical power generated by the Mirage Realm, emanating from this huge castle.

The Mirage Realm is spawned by the power of the soul will within the true form, not formed by magical power, so its rules cannot affect the Mirage Realm.

It was precisely these threads of the Mirage Realm that connected her to the huge castle, indirectly linking her with all those Remnant Beasts, and then all of them were affected by some unknown rule.

"This is your rule, this is your rule!"

Shouting loudly, Mo Si was like a madman: "What is your rule? What exactly is it doing!"

Although it had already manifested a human head, Mo Si's roar at this moment was still as ghastly as a ghost's; it frantically approached Cuique, wanting to stop Cuique's actions.

But Cuique did not give it that chance.

"Shared Fate."

Gently opening and closing the scissors in her hand, she said to Mo Si in a calm tone: "Our lives are connected; we lose together, we gain together."

And only when approaching Cuique did Mo Si finally see clearly what Cuique was actually doing.

Countless tiny threads connected the huge blue castle, and within the castle, all the thread ends hung down from above, all converging before Cuique.

Every thread connected to an existence within the Mirage Realm, whether Magical Girl or Remnant Beast; one thread corresponded to one life.

And Cuique simply raised her scissors and gently placed them upon one of the threads.

Mo Si could feel what that thread corresponded to; it corresponded to an Egg-class Remnant Beast in the corner of the Mirage Realm, a mere filler among the Remnant Beast army.

Cuique had never intended to use her Magic Gear to directly affect Mo Si; what she wanted to do was simply cut the threads corresponding to the other Remnant Beasts.

Just as she said, gain together, lose together.

Under Cuique's Mirage Realm rule, all lives within the Mirage Realm are connected by life; as long as one individual loses something, all other individuals will lose the same thing. Including Cuique herself.

And because life was linked to the threads, Cuique only needed to use her scissors to trim the threads to directly affect the other's body.

At this very moment, what Cuique cut with her scissors was "the Remnant Beast's body."

With the concept named "Remnant Beast" attached, this was undoubtedly a calamity for the Remnant Beasts, because this was the entirety of their lives; once cut, they would naturally die.

But for those humans who had been transformed into Remnant Beasts, this was like the most precise surgery; all parts of "Remnant Beast" within their bodies were excised as Cuique waved her scissors, and what remained in the end was their original appearance as humans.

And because within the Mirage Realm all lives are connected, as long as one individual undergoes such a change, all individuals will undergo a change accordingly. If a Remnant Beast lost its "Remnant Beast claws," all Remnant Beasts would lose their "Remnant Beast claws."

This naturally included Mo Si.

"The final cut."

Gazing coldly at Mo Si rushing toward her, Cuique closed the blades in her hand with utter calm, letting the scissors' sharp edge finally act upon the thread before her.

With this cut, the object she severed was "the Remnant Beast's torso." This was also the last part of Mo Si that belonged to the Remnant Beast.

"Stop! Stop immediately! You must stop!"

Mo Si screamed madly, shrieking, reaching out with her hand to try to use a technique to block Cuique's action: "I told you to stop, didn't you hear me! Stop! You madman! Stop!"

—Click.

The scissors closed, the thread severed.

It seemed as if something happened, yet also as if nothing happened at all.

With the crisp sound, the huge Remnant Beast body in the air, the motionless Remnant Beasts in the city, and the "Remnant Beasts" sleeping in the ruins of the Hetero Strategy Bureau all vanished.

Along with the blue castle that originally covered the city center, they all disappeared into the night. Just like the spell Cinderella received from the Fairy in a fairy tale, all the magical, dreamlike, extraordinary things all turned to nothingness with that single, light crisp sound.

Cinderella, whose ball had ended, became Cinderella again; all things that should return to reality restored their true forms.

People looked at each other, unable to understand everything happening before their eyes—if not for the damage on the streets and buildings that still remained, they would even have suspected the Remnant Beast attack was merely their own hallucination.

No one noticed that with the disappearance of those Remnant Beasts, some humans who did not previously exist among them had mysteriously appeared in the ruins, sleeping quietly.

As the instigator of it all, on the scorched earth of the city center, Cuique held her scissors, quietly looking at the Mo Si before her.

The huge moth Remnant Beast no longer existed; only an old woman in black robes remained, kneeling on the ground in a daze, staring blankly at her own hands.

Except for a small purple-black crystal, nothing remained there.

"My experiment, my plan, my power, my revenge..."

She raised her head, looking at Cuique: "What have you done? Having lost these, how am I supposed to take revenge on the Magical Kingdom? How am I supposed to kill all those high-and-mighty ruling Magical Girls?"

"On what basis can you do these things... You are just a former Flower Card who suffered heavily, whose Magic Gear is already damaged, who cannot even fully use her abilities; on what basis did you take all this away from me!"

"Such a terrible rule, such an unreasonable rule; on what basis can you use it at will!"

"Gain together? Lose together? What nonsense! Limiting it to the concept of Remnant Beast, don't you Magical Girls need to pay nothing for anything?"

"Using such an ability, why do you pay no cost at all?"

She roared hysterically: "This is unfair! Why! On what basis!"

Cuique continued to look at Mo Si calmly.

"You are right."

She spoke slowly: "Everything has a price."

—Crack, crackle.

As her words fell, the small pair of tailor's scissors in her hand, already covered in cracks, finally gave a brittle sound from being unable to bear the weight. The cracks on the scissors spread wildly, finally piercing completely through the blade, turning the scissors into countless fragments.

Then, under Moss's gaze, Cuique's scissors shattered.

Just like the ruler she had once lost, as another form of Weaving Fate, the scissors seemed to have completed their mission, turning into countless shards after doing all this. They vanished completely.

"Rules are rules, and Demon Armors are Demon Armors. If you use a Demon Armor to pry open the rules, then you must inevitably pay the corresponding price."

As if she did not feel the dissipation of the scissors in her hand, Cuique said to Moss with a blank expression: "Now, neither you nor I have any rules left."

Moss ignored Cuique's words. She stared at the shattering of the scissors, her eyes wide open, as if confirming whether this was real. When she discovered that Cuique truly could not reassemble them, she let out a "Heh" in some collapse.

"Demon Armor? The price is actually your Demon Armor! Hahaha!"

She propped herself up on the ground and stood up shabbily, her head of golden messy hair covered in the bodily fluids of the residual beasts, sticking to her cheeks: "You are truly a madman! You monster! You actually destroyed your own Demon Armor to weaken my power! How can there be such a crazy Magical Girl? Is there something wrong with your brain?"

"Between the Demon Armor and this city, between power and one's own juniors, I know which is heavier and which is lighter."

Cuique shook her hand, looked at her own palm in some daze, then raised her head again: "It is just a pair of scissors. In exchange for a miracle to turn all this around, I have already earned far too much."

"Madman... madman..."

Moss murmured, straightened her body: "Hahaha! Madman! You mentally unstable masochistic madman!"

"It is truly laughable to hear these words from your mouth."

Cuique let out a sigh, took a step, and walked toward Moss: "I admit, that is the funniest thing you have said tonight."

"Still bluffing!"

Moss glared at Cuique with venom, bared her teeth, and revealed a manic smile: "You can no longer use the Mirage Realm! You have lost your Demon Armor! Your mana is almost gone! How do you still intend to win against me now?"

"Even without the Beast's Viscera, I still have mana, and I still have my spells. My mana reserves are far greater than yours, and my condition is much better than yours!"

"Ace against Ace, Joker against Joker. When all the high cards are used up, what is compared is who has more high-quality cards in hand, you Bai Chi! What capital do you have left to exchange now? Admit it, you have already lost!"

"You are finished. I will definitely trample you with the most cruel methods. I will make you regret everything you did tonight. Those stinking brats over there won't escape either. I will make you..."

Boom!

"Awooo!"

Accompanied by a dull thud and Moss's strange cry, she flew out heavily.

Cuique retracted her fist, raised her hand with a calm expression, rolled up the sleeves of her western-style dress, revealing slender and white arms, and a pair of fists that looked like they had no deterrent power.

But just now, it was precisely such fists that landed solidly on Moss's face.

"Have you finished speaking?" she asked indifferently.

"What on earth are you doing!" Moss covered her face and angrily climbed up from the ground.

"I no longer want to hear your nonsense. Let's finish this quickly."

Cuique raised her chin with a blank expression and lifted the fist in her hand: "Next, I will use my fists to smash that stinking face of yours, scum."

"With fists..."

Moss listened to her words somewhat blankly, then bared her teeth again: "Hahaha! With fists? If you can, come at me! You neurotic!"

But before she could straighten up again, she saw blue mana suddenly surge before her. A blue trajectory flashed past her face, and Cuique had already approached her again.

Then, a fist hammered heavily on her face once more.

Boom!

This time, Moss was like being hit by a large vehicle, soaring into the air from her spot, then directly crashing into a nearby building that was only half-standing, exploding into a ground of broken bricks and tiles.

Cuique raised her fist, emerged from her previous position, and looked at the broken building with a blank expression: "Good."

Then, the trajectory of mana lit up from beneath her feet, and she flew out again at an extremely fast speed, as if she had suddenly disappeared.

Moss would never figure out why a Magical Girl would be so skilled in hand-to-hand combat.

What she did not know was that when she first obtained Weaving Fate, in order to compensate for the weak combat power of her Demon Armor, the method Cuique thought of was—martial arts.

If the Demon Armor cannot function, then mana is at least solidly present. As long as appropriate auxiliary spells are used to block ranged attacks, the rest can be solved by close-quarters combat.

Therefore, hand-to-hand combat is actually an area Cuique is extremely skilled at.

The blue mana trajectory constantly shuttled and flashed within the building. Moss was like a ping-pong ball, repeatedly hammered in the air, flying everywhere, with no power to fight back at all.

Every punch smashed heavily on her face. Every punch struck hard on her nose bridge. Moss only felt dizzy and confused, unable to distinguish direction at all.

At first, she was somewhat disdainful of Cuique's attacks, which were like acrobatics, but as the fists struck her face again and again, and her gums and nose bridge made sounds of being unable to bear the weight, she finally felt some fear.

She realized the fundamental reason why Cuique chose to fight in this way—venting anger.

Punch after punch, striking heavily on her face, not for any purpose, but only to pour out anger.

Teeth were knocked out, the nose bridge was shattered. With Cuique's heavy punches one after another, even if Moss's physical constitution was extraordinary, she could not withstand such damage at all.

"Ah! Is it enough!"

So she struggled to start fighting back, dodging while trying to strike back: "You Bai Chi like an ox!"

She also punched Cuique's arm and roared hysterically: "Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are, a force of justice? A stray dog abandoned by the Kingdom!"

"The ruthlessness of Wang Ting and your own ruthlessness have led you to this state. You still claim to be justice and want to judge me here?"

"Look at your current wild and ugly appearance. Have you thought about what those truly high-and-mighty Gem Scepters are doing now? While you fight to the death here, they are enjoying red tea, fine wine, and comfortable sleep!"

"I want to declare war on those people. I want to crush their rule, but you have destroyed everything! It's all gone! I have nothing left!"

Hit heavily on the face by Cuique again, she fell to the ground, but climbed up once more, her emotions extremely agitated: "You simply do not understand my hatred! I am right, I am justice, I have no reason to lose!"

"Mortals simply do not have the power to resist the Kingdom. Only by borrowing the power of the residual beasts can one take revenge on the Kingdom. If I had not reached this point, how could I have the strength to fight back against the Kingdom!"

"You Magical Girls simply do not understand the helplessness and pain of mortals. You were chosen by the Kingdom at such a young age, possessing power far beyond mortals, while we Mages, no matter how we train, cannot catch up to you even a little! This is simply unfair!"

"How despairing! A mere mortal wanting to take revenge on those high-and-mighty Magical Girls. What else can I do? Besides the power of the residual beasts, what else can I choose?"

"You say I am evil? Say I am scum? Then tell me—if you also had a daughter, if your daughter also sacrificed herself in vain and was treated coldly by the Kingdom, with no profit before her death and no fame after, what would you choose?"

"When you can only silently attend your daughter's funeral, unable to vent any of your anguish, what other method of revenge do you have but to choose the power of the Beast?"

She fiercely grabbed Senior Cuique's collar, shouting almost face-to-face: "You simply don't understand! Cornflower!"

"... I have a daughter."

Senior Cuique suddenly said this.

She looked at Mo Si expressionlessly and spoke slowly in a voice only the two of them could hear: "She was also a Magical Girl, but a few months ago, when she was just starting out, she encountered your people."

"If one day she dies because of the Kingdom's fault, then I will certainly find the person responsible and settle the score, but for now, it is still the same words: I have only one thing to do."

She looked into Mo Si's eyes: "I will not let her fall into danger; before anything happens, I will use my fists to smash that group of bastards threatening her safety, and beat your kind of beasts' stinking faces into the same dregs as your character."

Mo Si stared blankly at Senior Cuique.

She struggled to understand the meaning of Senior Cuique's words, then, as if finally realizing something, cursed: "So it was you! So it was like this! I understand! I don't understand! How is this possible! This is absolutely impossible!"

"So that's why you weren't affected at all after meeting me! So that's why you can always appear the moment that man is in danger! So that's why you care so much about Ying's death!"

"That bitch Hong Siyu! She actually lied to me, she hid the most important thing!"

She pulled her hand back, using her size advantage to shove Senior Cuique to the ground, then grabbed Senior Cuique's hair and tore at it: "You have a secret! You have a huge secret on you! I must defeat you! I need to know what your secret is, I still have a chance!"

Two figures, one large and one small, rolled and fought on the ground like this.

The two had no manner of a Magus or a Magical Girl at all, fighting each other like the most despicable street brawl. At first, the outcome was unclear, but soon, Senior Cuique inexplicably gained the upper hand, seized control from the chaos, and once again struck Mo Si's nose bridge with a heavy blow.

Squish!

This punch directly shattered Mo Si's already injured nose bridge, and blood gushed out immediately.

Senior Cuique pressed her lips, her eyes red, saying nothing. She just held down Mo Si's forehead, knelt on her body, and began to repeatedly smash the other's face with heavy punches.

Amidst the ruins, only the heart-shuddering dull thuds remained.

Senior Cuique, expressionless, struck Mo Si's face punch after punch; her clean fists were even stained with blood, but she was completely unaware of it.

Mo Si's screams gradually grew faint amidst the splashing blood, until finally she was gasping for breath, unable to make a single sound.

Her face, beaten into a completely distorted shape, showed no trace of humanity; mottled bloodstains covered the entire face, and even the features were impossible to distinguish.

"You will be like me."

In a daze, she suddenly said: "The hatred and killing intent on your face, the brutality you have always hidden, are all the seeds leading you down my path."

"... I won't."

Senior Cuique retracted her fist, slightly wiping the bloodstain from her cheek: "I will not lose myself to revenge."

"You will."

Mo Si's voice was faint: "Someday, you will discover the truth of hatred, you will understand the mechanism of this world; by that time, if you want revenge, destruction will be the only path left."

She swallowed slightly, her voice trembling: "Look at the expression on your face, that expression like a man-eating demon; you will be swallowed by your hatred. The ending of you madman won't be much better than mine."

Bang!

She struck her face with another punch; this time, Senior Cuique didn't hit the nose bridge, but Mo Si's mouth, knocking out several teeth with another blow.

She raised her fist, looked quietly at Mo Si for a while, finally stopped beating, and released the hand pressing on her head, slowly straightening her body:

"What exactly is the relationship between Anya's death and your Black Ash Dawn? Who was it? Or which people participated? Tell me, and I'll give you a quick death."

"Heh... heh..."

Blood overflowed from her mouth; Mo Si also looked at Senior Cuique. She no longer had the strength to howl, only slowly revealing a somewhat strange smile.

She opened her scarlet mouth and spoke with slurred words: "It's too late..."

"What are you saying?" Senior Cuique frowned.

"In this world where the strong eat the weak, if you don't eat others, the only ending is being eaten by others; we are all ingredients on the plate, and all pieces on the chessboard..."

Mo Si widened her eyes, using a faint voice to lure Senior Cuique to focus her attention, then suddenly extended her hand into a claw shape, stabbing toward Senior Cuique's eyes:

"From the moment the Saint-Making Project succeeded and the Holy Child descended, we have all had no other choice but to be manipulated by others—"

In her extremely weak state, her hand instead exploded with swift speed, attacking Senior Cuique like a last burst of life; even at the last moment, she wanted to counterattack, wanted to hurt the other.

But her plan was destined to fail.

At the instant her hand extended, a blade composed of mana had already pierced through her skull, pinning her to the ground.

Senior Cuique killed her with Masterpiece.

Losing the scissors did not mean the threads were gone; as the remaining form of Weaver of Fate, Masterpiece could still exert its effect.

She stood up, several light blades condensed beside her, stabbing into various vital points on Mo Si's body one after another, until Mo Si lay motionless with eyes wide open, having lost all breath, only then did she slowly retract Masterpiece.

Gazing at the other's eyes that refused to close, Senior Cuique closed her own eyes and gradually loosened the fist she had been clenching.

The King's Ash Servant of Black Ash Dawn, the Director of the Fang Ting City Anomaly Strategy Bureau, the chief culprit behind the sacrificial events in the Donghua State region over the past two years, Mo Si, also known as Moth, was executed here.

The anger in her heart had not yet subsided, the boiling hatred still churned; she looked at the sky in the distance where the dawn was gradually turning white, feeling inexplicably empty inside.

Moth is dead, and then what?

She took revenge for Hong Siyu and the employees of the Anomaly Strategy Bureau, took revenge for the dangers Lin Xiaolu once encountered, and then what?

【You will be like me】.

The words spoken by Mo Si before death seemed like nonsense, but after feeling this emptiness, Senior Cuique inexplicably understood the emotion in her heart:

She wanted to continue, she wanted to find more enemies, and then, personally take these people all—

"Senior Cuique?"

A sudden call sounded behind her.

This was a voice too familiar to Senior Cuique; even without turning around, she could judge who the voice came from: it was her daughter, Lin Xiaolu.

She slowly turned around, her slightly red blue eyes looking toward the direction the sound came from; she saw Lin Xiaolu and Bai Jingxuan supporting Xia Liang, the three of them limping toward her.

At this moment, Lin Xiaolu was looking at Senior Cuique with some hesitation, her face bearing worry and a little fear.

Fear?

Does my current appearance make people afraid?

Senior Cuique could not help but think so.

She looked at the three girls before her and, for the first time, realized she did not know what to say, because she understood: revenge, or such bloody revenge, seemed something children should not witness.

Even though she knew they would grow up and come to understand these things, she herself did not know how to speak now.

She and Lin Xiaolu gazed silently at each other; for a moment, neither spoke.

How similar.

Senior Cuique suddenly thought this.

Once upon a time, precisely because she, as a father, had been unwilling to tell her daughter anything, unwilling to let her daughter encounter anything, wanting only to bear everything alone, she had ended up in such a state with her daughter.

She had thought this was protection, but to a child, it was actually an adult's arrogance.

If she remained silent now and continued to conceal everything, would she again...

— "Let's go back."

Senior Cuique's tangled thoughts were interrupted, because Lin Xiaolu had suddenly said this.

Her face still bore a trace of bewilderment, yet the gaze she fixed on Senior Cuique was filled with determination, and then she slowly extended her hand toward the one before her.

This outstretched hand seemed to pull Senior Cuique back two years.

Anya had died; she and her daughter had had a fierce quarrel. At that time, her daughter had chosen to run away from home, going silently to a classmate's house and telling her nothing.

At that time, Lin Yun had searched every street and alley; only with great difficulty, because the other party's parents had leaked information, had he found them. At that time, they had seemed just like this. Lin Yun stood outside the door, covered in disarray, while Lin Xiaolu stood inside the door, her face full of hesitation.

But at that time, it was he who had extended his hand.

He had said the same then: "Let's go home."

Gazing at the hand her daughter had extended, Senior Cuique instinctively wanted to grasp it, only to suddenly remember that her own hands were actually stained with blood, looking terribly gruesome.

She did not want her daughter's hands to be stained with blood.

Thus, she silently withdrew her hand once more.

Memory and reality overlapped; in a daze, she seemed to have returned to the entrance of that apartment building, standing outside the door, gazing at the small Lin Xiaolu hiding behind a classmate, the two separated by the doorframe, as if divided into two worlds.

She gazed at that small daughter, but this time, she no longer dared to extend her hand.

Then, she saw that daughter before her move.

Lin Xiaolu suddenly darted out from behind the classmate, running all the way, and her features shifted; in the blink of an eye, she had become the fourteen-year-old Lin Xiaolu. She rushed straight to Senior Cuique's front, disregarding Senior Cuique's attempt to dodge, seized the hand that should have been covered in blood, and clasped it tightly before her own chest.

"Let's go back."

Her daughter, once again, earnestly and solemnly said to Senior Cuique.

In that instant, the cage of past memories seemed utterly shattered; Senior Cuique, pulled by her daughter's hand, was drawn back into reality, standing once more beneath the vigorous morning sunlight.

The girls before her all gazed at her; some expressions were earnest, some worried, and others filled with admiration.

Never mind, let it be.

She thought this strangely in her heart.

Then she opened her arms, lifted the corners of her mouth slightly, and embraced the girls rushing toward her, holding them firmly, tightly.

I didn't want to split the chapter, so I finished the entire 12,000 words in one go and am posting them all today.

Tomorrow I will update the epilogue and the afterword to Volume One.

(End of this chapter)