Chapter 19: Things Falling Like Rain

The battle between the Remnant Beast and the Magical Girls is a process of mutual ebb and flow; after the two Magical Girls expended a vast amount of stamina and mana on low-level coordination errors, the Remnant Beast, seizing the chance to catch its breath, gradually gained the upper hand.

The slime on the surface of the Cavity-Type Remnant Beast and its amorphous body grant it strong regenerative abilities, allowing it to recover slowly even while under attack. Thus, although this Remnant Beast remained in a passive state of taking hits, it never suffered a fatal wound.

And as the Magical Girls' suppressive fire gradually became less dense, the beast, having preserved its combat power, began its counterattack.

The sign of this was that Lin Xiaolu, who had been constantly dodging around the Remnant Beast, suddenly felt the range of the beast's ground-slamming impact expand. She began to find it somewhat difficult to dodge its attacks.

She raised her head to scrutinize carefully, only to discover that the Remnant Beast had covered its claws with a large amount of slime, increasing the contact area during the slam. This way, even if she wasn't struck by the claws, once the slime splashed onto her, she would be stuck immediately.

Furthermore, as the Remnant Beast's attacks frequently struck the ground, this slime quickly soaked the area around it, making its crawling movement speed faster; its massive body began to display unusual mobility, making it difficult for Xia Liang, who had been conducting long-range suppressive fire from the air, to hit the target.

If their mana were sufficient, both Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang could squander their mana freely, forcibly accelerating to keep up with this Remnant Beast's movements. But in the current situation, wasting mana pointlessly without achieving a quick victory would only plunge the battle into an even more disadvantageous position.

Thus, the two Magical Girls, who had previously been fighting on their own, were forced to begin considering a plan for cooperation.

"Hey, you over there!"

While dodging the Remnant Beast's slams, Lin Xiaolu shouted up at Xia Liang in the sky: "Is your mana still sufficient?"

"Mana?"

Casually firing off another mana beam that splashed against the Remnant Beast's head, Xia Liang asked with a puzzled expression: "I have some, but what do you have in mind, Xiaolu?"

"Don't call me so intimately; our relationship isn't that close!"

Pushing off the Remnant Beast's claw, which had sunk into the asphalt, Lin Xiaolu returned to mid-air: "If you have mana, I will draw it out to expose a weakness next, and you find an opportunity to blast it with full force."

"Let me do the attacking?"

Xia Liang blinked her eyes, then revealed a knowing smile: "Ah, so you mean your mana isn't enough to attack?"

"You are truly the most annoying person!"

Lin Xiaolu retorted with considerable annoyance but did not deny it; although she disliked Xia Liang very much, she knew that matters must be prioritized. She immediately turned direction and flew toward the area outside the Remnant Beast's slapping range.

The Cavity-Type Remnant Beast possesses strong self-regenerative abilities, but it is not without weaknesses; its common weaknesses lie in its mouth and abdomen. Moreover, since this type of Remnant Beast generally maintains a prone posture, attacking the abdomen is not easy, so the most tactically valuable target is actually the mouth.

And to lure it into exposing this weakness, the most direct method is to make it use its cavity to attack.

Once it uses the cavity, due to the cavity's location, it must inevitably raise its head and open its mouth, and stop moving.

Adhering to this line of thought, both Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang restrained their mana usage, reduced their attack frequency, and ceased pointless consumption. At the same time, they lured the Remnant Beast into attacking more frequently.

This strategy quickly took effect; when the Remnant Beast realized it was taking little damage, its attack frequency increased, and its self-protection became increasingly careless.

Until it completely abandoned defense, and when Lin Xiaolu deliberately exposed a weakness, it chose to use its cavity.

Raising its head high, the cavity on the Remnant Beast's chest contracted in unison, pumping fluid from the organ like a powerful pump, mixed with a large amount of mana, converging toward the nozzle at its lower jaw.

"Guo-wo-wo-wo-oh-oh-oh!"

Accompanied by a ferocious roar, several massive liquid shells were fired from its lower jaw.

Thud! Thud! Boom!

Lin Xiaolu ran continuously near the ground, whipping the water cannons behind her; the missed shells struck the surrounding roads and sidewalks, smashing out massive craters.

She turned her head and shouted to Xia Liang in mid-air:

"Now! Fire the mana beam into its mouth!"

"Got it! Hmm... but, it feels a bit hard to control?"

Having already found her position, Xia Liang raised her wand high; mana far exceeding that of an ordinary Class-Seed Magical Girl gathered before her, forming a light sphere that looked extremely unstable: "Anyway, let's just try it."

Seizing the timing of the Remnant Beast's water cannon spray, she pressed down her wand; while the Remnant Beast had just finished its attack and its mouth was still wide open, she aimed directly at it and fired the mana beam before her.

The magenta-purple mana beam traveled extremely fast; before the Remnant Beast could react, it suddenly shot to its front and then heavily struck its body.

Precisely because of this, only at the moment the mana cannon hit did the few of them realize the hit location was not quite right.

Their original plan was to strike directly into the Remnant Beast's mouth, thereby damaging internal tissues to cause irreversible harm.

But after the hit, the few of them realized that this attack, which had expended nearly all of Xia Liang's mana, seemed to have missed the intended location.

"Ah, it seems I missed?"

Looking at her wand, Xia Liang smiled somewhat sheepishly.

It missed, but it didn't miss.

This was the judgment made by Senior Cuique standing nearby.

Because this mana beam struck near the Remnant Beast's cavity.

The Remnant Beast's cavity is covered with thick, tumor-like flesh and constantly secreting slime to serve as protection, so it is not a weakness of the Remnant Beast.

But this mana beam struck in a very strange location; it did not attack the exterior of the Remnant Beast's cavity, but ultimately shot directly at the nozzle.

The cavity's nozzle, because its target is relatively small and difficult to hit, is not considered a conventional weakness, but in reality, it is indeed the most fragile part of its body.

So it died.

A violent flow of mana poured directly backward into the nozzle at the Remnant Beast's lower jaw; the magenta-purple mana emitted a blinding light, piercing straight through its body and completely penetrating it.

The Remnant Beast did not even have time to make any reaction; this mana beam directly destroyed its entire body's tissues, taking its life on the spot.

Undoubtedly, although it deviated from the original target, the effect it produced was still extremely critical.

Senior Cuique, standing nearby, thought thus.

Even if there was a slight accident midway, the Remnant Beast was successfully defeated in the end, so missing the mark is understandable... right?

Her thoughts suddenly stalled.

As the mana completely pierced through the Remnant Beast's cavity, she suddenly remembered something:

The fluid within the cavity is normally compressed inside the body by the cavity's physiological activity and the Remnant Beast's mana; so once the Remnant Beast dies and the cavity is damaged, losing its original physiological function, what will happen next?

Her pupils gradually contracted, and a look of almost uncontrollable disgust appeared on her face; Senior Cuique immediately shouted at the two Magical Girls in the air:

"Idiots, get away quickly!"

Having spoken, she did not pause; her mana scattered, and she leaped upward; accompanied by a sound of tearing through the air, she retreated dozens of meters in almost an instant.

But the two Magical Girls beside the Remnant Beast were not so lucky.

Xia Liang had just expended a large amount of mana to fire the mana beam and had not yet regrouped her rhythm; Lin Xiaolu had been running near the ground the whole time, not only failing to react to what Senior Cuique was saying but also not understanding the current situation.

Thus, in the next moment, the beast corpse pierced by Xia Liang exploded.

It exploded literally, its entire body bursting apart like fireworks.

Following closely was the foul slime, long stored and compressed within its body, which also sprayed into the air before falling from the sky like a rainstorm.

This slime itself possessed no killing power; only when compressed and fired by the beast corpse could it form an effective attack. Thus, even if it landed on a human body now, it would cause no harm.

The only problem was that this slime was, after all, a mixture of undigested biological tissue and the beast corpse's bodily fluids, so it had one characteristic: it was truly foul-smelling.

"Aaaaaaaah—!"

Under the scorching midday sun, the foul slime splashed onto two magical girls, triggering a chorus of miserable screams.