Chapter 212: Intensification

As Semi unfolded its nest, Lin Xiaolu suddenly realized that, somehow, she was the only one left around her.

The reason she could notice this so quickly was that Mu Baihe had just been talking nonsense, but her voice vanished along with the rise of that blue moon.

Unknowingly, all the companions who had stood beside her mere seconds ago had vanished without a trace, leaving only the lonely rustling of tree shadows.

This made Lin Xiaolu, who had been stunned by the fact that "fairies turn into remnants," quickly snap to her senses; she stopped thinking about trivialities and began to carefully observe her surroundings.

Her combat experience against remnants of Egg-rank and above was not great, and she had actually seen very few so-called "nests"; if the opponent hadn't truly said the words "nest," she probably wouldn't have realized what she was facing right now.

As for the disappearance of her companions, she had her own suspicions, and the first thing that came to mind was the rules.

She did not believe the opponent had eliminated her companions; after all, if the opponent possessed such strength, the one who blocked Cuique and the others on the road earlier should not have been that woman, but this remnant before her eyes.

But if the current phenomenon was indeed related to the rules, it was far from reassuring—this meant she was now facing a remnant equivalent to the "Molting" rank. The last time she encountered an enemy of this level or higher was that fellow named Moses.

Could her current self survive against Moses from that time?

Lin Xiaolu did not want to think about this question, nor did she have time to think.

Because although her companions had vanished, the enemy was still there.

Semi, now transformed into a remnant, sat on the sand dune, its huge single eye staring at her.

Night, forest, facing an enemy alone—this was a scene too unforgettable for Lin Xiaolu; she still remembered the night she met Senior Cuique, and now and then, it unexpectedly felt strangely similar.

And that night, if Senior Cuique had not lent a hand, she probably would have already died under the claws of that Caterpillar-rank remnant.

Even now, recalling that feeling of facing death still made Lin Xiaolu's back crawl; if a Magical Girl's body did not require the heart to pump blood, her heart rate would probably already be exceeding the limit.

"Your scent is very similar to Cornflower's."

Semi had not completely lost its reason upon becoming a remnant; although its huge single eye was brimming with ferocity, it still retained some sanity: "What is your relationship with her?"

"... No relationship at all."

Lin Xiaolu had grown accustomed to these enemies always referring to Senior Cuique as "Cornflower," but that did not mean she would reveal anything related to Senior Cuique to the opponent: "Just a teammate in the same squad, that's all."

"Teammate, huh... heh, what a convenient and light word."

Semi did not know why it was laughing, but it did not seem to intend to pursue this question further; it simply slowly arched its body and raised its head: "If you don't want to say it, then die with this answer."

"Whoosh!"

With its movement, pitch-black magic instantly gathered over its entire body, and its massive form shot toward Lin Xiaolu like an arrow leaving the bowstring.

Lin Xiaolu was prepared for this; although the opponent's movement was faster than she had anticipated, it did not hinder her from springing out along her pre-planned flight trajectory, dodging Semi's pounce, and taking cover behind a relatively thick tree.

However, when she turned her head to confirm Semi's next move, the sight she saw made her pupils shrink slightly.

She saw that at the spot where Semi had just pounced, all the trees along the path had been severed at the waist, leaving only half-trunks still standing on the ground, while the upper parts of the trunks had all been shattered into countless wood fragments scattered everywhere.

She reached out and caught a piece of wood debris falling from the air; she saw that all four edges of this fragment were smooth cuts, as if cut by a machine. Moreover, the color at the cut edges was slightly whitish, looking as if they had withered long ago.

And such a piece of wood debris was merely a byproduct of the opponent's path; the entire process produced no particularly loud sound, enough to prove that these trees were not smashed by force, but directly sliced apart by some invisible power.

In the felled forest, Semi pushed up with its front legs to stand, turned its head, and made no motion of searching for a target, as if it had already known where Lin Xiaolu was and locked onto her position.

A strong sense of danger rose in Lin Xiaolu's heart.

Without any hesitation, she employed the technique of Turbidity, quickly changing her magic into white light-flame, then, following her instinct, solidified the white light-flame into a thrown weapon and hurled it forward.

Then, just as she began to act, Semi in the distance leaped up.

After Lin Xiaolu threw the spear made of light-flame, she subconsciously began to move sideways, but in her line of sight, Semi, which had already been in a pouncing motion, seemed to violate the laws of physics; without any leverage, it suddenly turned again toward Lin Xiaolu.

This time, Lin Xiaolu had no space left to dodge; she clearly realized this, so she hesitated no longer, gritted her teeth, steeled her heart, and directly mobilized all her magic, charging fully toward the attacking Semi.

Boom!

Then, only the explosive roar produced by the magic impact remained.

Approaching midnight, the blue moon rising at Shanfeng was very conspicuous; even several li away, it could be seen clearly, naturally escaping no one's gaze among the crowd on the mountainside.

Although they did not know what this blue moon was, it did not prevent Senior Cuique and the others from recognizing the fact that the battle on the other side was escalating.

"That moon, is it related to your companion?" Amidst the entangled fight, Asano Enka spoke somewhat as if making conversation.

The Mirage Realm, originally resembling a bar, had been destroyed into pieces during the chaotic battle, yet it still maintained its existence, signifying that Asano Enka's rules still applied. Moonlight unexpectedly spilled onto the roof with a hole in it, unexpectedly adding a touch of poetry to the scene.

"You ask about the moon? Yes, are you interested in knowing?"

Standing on the debris of broken tables and chairs, Yuan smiled cheerfully in response, while mercilessly chopping with a blade in hand: "But this story is a bit long; I'm worried you won't have the chance to hear it all."

"No need for you to worry."

Protected by Hong Siyu, she dodged the opponent's attack, knocked over one of the few intact tables beside her, and Asano Enka swirled the wine glass in her hand, narrowing her eyes: "I just think it looks better with a moon in the sky at this time; I have no interest in listening to an old person ramble on with stories."

"Ho, quite eloquent."

Yuan did not know what meaning she heard in that, but nodded as if understanding perfectly: "Indeed, a good time matches a beautiful scene; one should focus on the battle rather than telling old stories no one wants to hear. Having hung a bright moon on this dark sky, isn't that precisely an omen of the battle entering its finale?"

"Entering the finale? Indeed."

Asano Enka agreed quite readily: "After all, the wine in your cup is already only half full."

During their conversation, neither had put down the wine glass in their hand. Compared to not long ago, the wine in their cups had been consumed to varying degrees. However, Yuan's consumption rate was obviously far greater than Asano Enka's.

Moreover, if the densely packed layers of wine in her cup before were so numerous they were hard to count, now the layers of wine in the cup had gradually become distinct and visible; at most, there should be only a few dozen layers.

And this consumption of layers coincided with Senior Cuique's earlier proposal—that hitting Yuan would consume the layers of wine in her cup.

Since separating from Lin Xiaolu and the others, the group had been locked in combat until now; although Senior Cuique and the others each sustained injuries during the process, they also truly returned the favor, causing immense exhaustion to Yuan.

With Senior Cuique's threads controlling the entire battlefield, Hong Siyu's spells providing carpet-style fire coverage, and Asano Enka interfering with and weakening Yuan's state, the three's coordination was as skilled and harmonious as if rehearsed countless times; their combined combat power was far beyond what simple addition could describe, forming some kind of qualitative change.

This, Yuan, standing on the opposite side, felt extremely deeply.

She had fought against many Magical Girl squads before, including some with long-standing fame; those Magical Girls indeed had quite intimate coordination, and some even developed high-level spells requiring several people to combine forces. But no squad had ever given her the feeling she felt now.

The coordination of the three in the Fang Ting City squad had transcended mere combination of techniques; it was a coupling of tactics and cooperative awareness.

If you wanted to attack Asano Enka, you would be blocked by Hong Siyu's spell fire and possibly led by the nose by Senior Cuique's thread layout; if you wanted to eliminate Hong Siyu, you would suffer Asano Enka's close-range interference and the layers of traps Senior Cuique set in the intervening space; if you wanted to eliminate Senior Cuique, you would similarly be interfered with by the other two in the same manner.

Their offensive methods coordinated with each other, rising and falling in turn; defensively, they could support and watch out for one another, making one almost suspect that these three shared a single brain.

Even she had to sigh; the opponent was indeed a legendary team once renowned for its fame. Had there not been only three of them, and one of them, Cornflower, in poor condition, she herself would likely have already lost.

Even now, she was actually already on the brink of defeat.

Senior Cuique's guess was not wrong. Yian's Beast Heart Liberation, the ability of Hundred Forces Forming Martial Arts, was actually "directly stacking one's own force to its maximum state, directly activating the 'Great Force' that can ensure one's victory."

As one of the core abilities of martial arts, "Force" naturally had many wonderful applications. The so-called "borrowing force to suppress others" and "moving with the force" meant that as long as one possessed sufficient force, one could naturally occupy more advantages in a duel.

Combined with the Magical Girl Fan Kai, this ability became something even more miraculous, akin to a tangible substance. It could not only greatly enhance one's own mana, speed, and strength, but also directly affect the opponent's performance, obstruct the enemy's mana flow, and influence the enemy's action precision.

Originally, Fan Kai still needed to accumulate one's own advantages step by step, entering this state only after the advantage reached a certain degree. Beast Heart Liberation, however, completely discarded the process of accumulation, directly reversing cause and effect with the "Great Force," maximizing one's combat power at the very moment of transformation.

Such a change could be described as turning a righteous technique into an unorthodox one, yet in terms of practicality, it actually saw a substantial improvement.

However, such an overdraft of power was not without its flaws.

As the price for being able to display the strongest form from the very beginning, every time Yian took damage in this form, she would lose a portion of her "Force." Once a certain critical value was reached, she would completely lose her "Great Force" and fall out of the Beast Heart Liberation state.

This process was even irreversible; she would not regain "Force" by inflicting more damage on the enemy. Once lost, it could never be regained.

Regarding this, Yian held no complaints.

In her view, martial arts were precisely such a thing. Only what was obtained through step-by-step accumulation was truly grounded and belonged to oneself. For instance, her original Fan Kai was the strongest posture that would never fail, accumulated through every tiny victory in battle.

Beast Heart Liberation, as a form that directly overdrafted the future and achieved the strongest posture from the start, deserved to be the one to lose if it failed to sweep away the enemy with its invincible form and instead suffered frequent setbacks during the fight.

In fact, with the strength she possessed after Beast Heart Liberation, it was harder than climbing to the sky for ordinary opponents to even touch her, let alone cause her harm. Even if they could wound her twice, they would feel despair because Yian appeared completely unaffected on the surface, unable to persist until the side effects manifested.

In the vast majority of cases, the current Beast Heart Liberation was certainly more useful than Yian's original Fan Kai.

But this time, she had finally met an opponent capable of countering her Beast Heart Liberation.

They could withstand this gap in strength, injuring themselves by exchanging wounds; they could see through her ability, knowing that what they were doing was not futile; they could maintain the closest cooperation, ensuring that no combatant was ever lost from their own formation.

And this, finally, in the face of Yian's form that was originally considered "invincible," had found hope for a turnaround.

Regarding this, Yian felt tension, felt pressure, but felt absolutely no regret.

Rather, she felt unparalleled excitement precisely because she had exerted every ounce of her strength, held nothing back, and yet was still being driven step by step into a desperate situation by the opponent.

"Hahaha, Half a Cup of Wine. Indeed, I have only half a cup of wine left."

Feeling no anger at Asano Enka's provocation, she instead laughed aloud: "But what you see as 'only half a cup of wine left,' I see as 'still half a cup of wine!' Does this not mean that this delightful, exhilarating battle is far from over?"

"Come on! Continue to display your strength! Let me see all your moves, all your methods, all your determination!"

She spread her arms, standing suspended in mid-air beneath the blue moon, her expression joyful: "I am still far from satisfied!"