Chapter 210: Semy

"Positioning... complete. Circuit... normal. Magic power... sufficient."

A faint murmur like sleep-talking rose at the peak of the mountain. A petite black cat fairy crouched atop the towering stone tower, constantly probing the patterns on its surface with her claws, as if confirming something.

She swished her tail, her slit-pupiled eyes flickering with a distinctly intelligent glint. Pitch-black magic particles drifted around her, making her already inconspicuous form even more hidden.

"... Almost done."

Finally, she drew this conclusion.

The ritual used to destroy the city's defense grid was ready. For her, the upcoming action was far easier than the preparations beforehand; she only needed to channel external magic power to shatter the defense grid directly above.

As a fairy who had no need to abide by human morals, she felt no psychological burden regarding the disaster that "shattering the defense grid" might cause.

Glancing toward the distant mid-slope, red-black magic power still flickered alongside fluorescent blue and orange-yellow, with strange noises occasionally drifting over. She nodded and unconsciously sighed, "Yuan may be talking about backing out, but she still does her work without cutting corners."

"Well, since she has held out for so long, I should finish my own task quickly."

Lowering her head, she gazed at the patterns on the stone tower and, addressing no one in particular, said, "... If you wish to resent me, then resent me. I am simply a bad fairy."

As she spoke, the magic power around her rippled with an unusual fluctuation.

Just at that moment, before she could officially initiate the ritual, a pale white flame shot straight past her side.

"Stop right there!"

"Meow!"

The sudden attack and shout startled Semy. Ignoring the few singed whiskers on her body, she kicked out with all four limbs and leaped from the stone tower to the ground.

After landing, she immediately rolled twice to extinguish the fire burning on her fur, then stood up, quite annoyed: "Who is it! So uncultured!"

Before she could utter another word, a series of "whoosh whoosh whoosh" flashes appeared, and a group of magical girls, each with a different form, landed before her.

She widened her eyes, counted casually, and discovered there were actually as many as six magical girls standing before her.

"Stop your actions immediately and surrender! Otherwise, do not blame us for using force!"

The lead magical girl in sky-blue did not respond to Semy's question but solemnly declared, "If you have other accomplices, call them out now. This is your final ultimatum!"

She spoke with righteous indignation, like an embodiment of justice. After making her proclamation, she lowered her head to confirm what the enemy she had just encountered looked like.

But she quickly discovered that no one was standing before her anymore.

Looking up again toward the distance, she saw a tiny black shadow darting between the trees and bushes, already fleeing in the direction of the cliff.

"She's escaped!" cried Wood Lily beside her.

"Chase her!" Lin Xiaolu, behind her, had already grabbed her wand and rushed forward.

"Wait, I think we should first confirm what that strange device over there is for..." Bai Ji tried hard to stop these two hotheads, but her movements were a step too slow; after shouting those words, the two of them had already charged out.

After a chaotic commotion, two more belated magical girls took flight and joined the messy rush. In the end, only Bai Ji and Xia Liang remained on the spot, not rashly pursuing.

She wordlessly turned her head, exchanged a glance with Xia Liang, and received only a shrug and a helpless smile in return. Thus, they could only sigh at each other.

Semy, currently darting through the bushes, knew nothing of these events.

At this moment, she was sprinting while frantically cursing Yuan and her ancestors down to the eighteenth generation in her heart, simultaneously feeling deep regret for having praised the other's "work without cutting corners" just minutes ago.

Only nine people came in total; could six of them have slipped past me?

If she hadn't been so clear that Yuan was not a scheming person, Semy would have suspected the other was using others to kill her—was this number something she could handle?

However, after running for a while, her thoughts gradually calmed. Confirming that the commotion behind her was growing fainter, she could not help but stop her steps.

Because she knew she could not simply run away like this.

The stone tower prepared for the ritual was still left behind. Although those magical girls might not know the stone tower was the key to the ritual, there was no guarantee someone wouldn't see through it.

And Yuan was still fighting the remaining three magical girls at this moment. Judging by the fluctuations of magic power within the forest, they must be the strongest among this group of magical girls; in other words, the enemy was still buying time for her actions.

If she ran away like this, leaving the stone tower to those magical girls to destroy at will, then even if she survived, the action was destined to fail. Worse, Yuan might not even be able to escape. At that point, it would truly be losing both the lady and the soldiers.

At that stage, the Leader would certainly be extremely dissatisfied. Once the Leader held her accountable, it would be her sole responsibility, and the punishment and discipline she would receive would only be extremely severe.

And thinking of the Leader's possible punishment...

Semy silently turned around, looking in the direction she had come from.

Rather than being punished by the Leader for incompetence, it would be better to fight those magical girls right from the start. At least there was a chance of victory in a fight; facing the Leader meant only a dead end.

After she stopped, not long after, the four magical girls who had been following closely appeared before her.

And when Semy and the several magical girls clearly saw each other's faces, they both uttered different questions.

"... A fairy?"

"Only four people?"

On the side of the magical girls, they had perhaps truly never imagined the enemy they faced would be a fairy, and for a moment, they dared not believe it.

On Semy's side, upon discovering that only four had come, she knew things were bad. Because with just a guess, she could figure out where the other two were—definitely remaining below the stone tower.

Although she had previously added a protective spell to the stone tower as a precaution, there was no guarantee the enemy wouldn't use some strange method to destroy the core of the ritual.

Thinking of this, Semy felt as if she were about to suffocate.

But she also knew that in such a situation, she could not show fear. Once she appeared anxious, the enemy would surely realize the stone tower was the core of the ritual, and that would be truly the end.

So she strove to remain calm, trying to make her movements appear composed and elegant, and spoke in a pretentious tone: "Very good. This place is open enough; it is truly a suitable place for battle."

"Are you with that magical girl with the claw marks?"

Lin Xiaolu, standing at the very front, looked suspiciously at the black cat fairy before her: "You are the one responsible for destroying the defense grid of Fang Ting City?"

"Hmph. I have no obligation to answer your questions."

Semy swished her tail and replied quite coldly: "Unless you defeat me here, you will definitely get no answers."

"What is this thing? So arrogant!" Lin Xiaolu couldn't help but smack her lips.

"Exactly. Just a mere fairy, and we have four people here!"

Wood Lily, standing nearby, also shouted: "And you talk about defeating you? Don't say later that we are bullying you!"

"No... something is strange."

Only the Mimosa, with a solemn expression, tugged at the sleeve of Wood Lily beside her: "It is a fairy."

"Hmm? What's wrong? It really is a fairy." Mu Baihe looked at the Mimosa, her face clouded with confusion.

"Sister said fairies never betray the Wang Ting."

The Mimosa looked toward Semy, enunciating every word: "But claw marks are always from traitors."

"Ah, you mean fairies like this are very rare?"

Mu Baihe nodded, understanding now: "Because hardly any fairies betray the Wang Ting, so one like it counts as a rare fairy?"

"I didn't say that!"

The Mimosa seemed somewhat annoyed, pouting as she yanked hard on Mu Baihe's sleeve, nearly pulling her to the ground: "Sister said it's not about wanting to or not, but about being unable to!"

"Not wanting to? Unable to?" Hearing the Mimosa's words, Mu Baihe looked utterly baffled.

"You mean there might be some secret hidden on its body?"

Lin Xiaolu had naturally overheard their conversation, so she turned back to Mu Baihe: "Normal fairies cannot betray the Kingdom, so it must have grasped some kind of secret?"

"... I don't know." Yet when it came to the true answer, the Mimosa could only shake her head: "As for fairies, I've only seen Polly."

The Polly she spoke of was the Sower of Ba'an City, and knowing only the Sower fairy of one's own city was actually the norm for most magical girls.

"A secret?"

Hearing their conversation, Semy, who had only been pretending to be arrogant, could no longer maintain his expression: "Hah? So the little brats these days don't even know such things?"

"Do you have something to say?" At this critical moment, Lin Xiaolu was unusually calm; she didn't interrupt the other's words but continued to ask.

Because even she had a premonition that the other's subtext was likely information of vital importance to them.

"... Sigh, never mind. If you don't even know my origins, fighting you really wouldn't be very interesting."

Semy licked his paws, straightened his body slightly, and looked with bright eyes at the group of magical girls before him: "Then let me introduce myself. My name is Semy, and as you can see, I am a fairy."

"However, unlike those pets kept in cages by the Kingdom you speak of, I was not born in the Magic Kingdom, but come from the Interstice."

"In this world, fairies have never existed only within the Magic Kingdom."

His words undoubtedly sparked surprised reactions in several of the magical girls.

"The Interstice?"

"There are fairies in the Interstice too?"

However, the specific points of their surprise differed from one another.

And regardless of what caused the surprise, it didn't matter in what followed; at least, Bai Jingxuan, standing at the very back of the group, had already gripped the Magic within her hand with a Solemn expression.

"... There's the scent of a Remnant Beast." She spoke, quietly reminding everyone.

"Correct, very sharp perception." Semy, meanwhile, swished his tail and picked up her words: "If you can perceive that, then at least you won't be caught off guard."

"What?" His words naturally made Lin Xiaolu and the others feel something was wrong.

And just a moment later, they all understood where this feeling of wrongness came from.

Because Semy's form, which had originally looked quite petite, about the size of a pet cat, had somehow swollen up.

It was as if cotton were being stuffed endlessly into a doll; the originally neat shape expanded in a terribly twisted manner, and when the doll didn't burst from too much filling but instead grew larger and larger, that became Semy's current form.

Of course, it wasn't just getting bigger.

Fangs, sharp teeth, fur—these things also became more conspicuous as Semy's body swelled; the black down on his body grew longer and longer as he expanded, protruding outward. His original two eyes somehow drew closer and closer until they merged into a single, massive cyclopean eye.

A swishing cat tail also split, becoming two thick, long tails that shot straight up toward the sky, like the branches of two dead trees.

Sinister patterns climbed over his fur, merging with the patterns until they were indistinguishable from one another, as if they had grown on this monster since birth.

Undoubtedly, what stood before the crowd was no longer a fairy, but a Remnant Beast.

Its shape still retained a faint shadow of a feline, but that massive single eye and dual tails were nothing like creatures of the conventional Material World. Whether by appearance or by the underlying hue of its magic, it was nothing but a Remnant Beast.

"Fairies... can also become Remnant Beasts?" For Lin Xiaolu, this was something she had never seen in her life.

She had seen humans turn into Remnant Beasts, and had even seen magical girls who had dipped their toes into the power of Remnant Beasts—what Yian looked like—but she never expected to now see a fairy turn into a Remnant Beast.

And in fact, this reality struck her far harder than the previous two.

Although she had now done her best to purge the influence of magical girl anime on her understanding, and had come to see clearly that real-life magical girls and those in anime were two different things, the fairies in her mind should still be "pure, kind, cute little animals." Even a good-for-nothing like Moko at least followed this rule.

One could even say that in Lin Xiaolu's understanding, fairies and "combat capability" had always been parallel lines, seemingly never meant to intersect.

And now, that understanding was shattered, and in the most brutal way possible.

A fairy had turned into an enemy of the magical girls right before her eyes—a Remnant Beast.

"I didn't originally want to use this form in a place like this; it's too conspicuous."

The cyclopean Remnant Beast opened its massive maw, and magic surging like ink erupted from its mouth: "But since you've delivered yourselves to my door, then leave your lives behind."

It raised its head, it took a step, its tails twisted like twin serpents, weaving a pair of interlocking spirals in midair. And the ends of the spirals pointed straight at the dark sky.

On this moonless night, where there should have been no moon, a pale blue full moon had now risen.

—"Or rather, sink into my nest."