Chapter 81: Black Ash Dawn (4k)

A Wonderland is an ability that a Magical Girl only masters after reaching the Bud rank.

As the true manifestation of soul and will, it is inextricably linked to one's Magic Gear.

In Sparrow’s imagination, as a Magical Girl who had once blossomed and reached the Bud rank, Cornflower undoubtedly should have mastered this ability.

And since she had already demonstrated the ability to suppress Cornflower when she wasn't using her Wonderland, there was no reason for Cornflower not to deploy it under these circumstances.

This undoubtedly confirmed a rumor she had once heard: that during the "Garden" defense battle, Cornflower had used her power beyond its limits, causing damage to her Heart Gem, and after persisting in combat for another year, she chose to retire. As for the location of her retirement, it was the city she had once guarded—Fang Ting City.

Such a rumor sounded unreliable at first: damage to a Heart Gem should be a near-crippling injury for a Magical Girl; if the source of magic was severely damaged, one might even become a mentally disabled invalid, so how could she have retired safely and soundly?

But if one followed this logic, the rumor seemed to have its own rationality.

Because everyone knew that Cornflower’s teammate, also a lifelong Magical Girl and the "Strongest Flower Card" Magical Girl, Cherry, had also been active in Fang Ting City. If Cornflower were indeed living in seclusion somewhere in the material world, Fang Ting City was undoubtedly the most likely place.

Now, every piece of information in the rumors Sparrow knew was gradually being verified, making her start to believe: perhaps the final point, that Cornflower’s Heart Gem was damaged, was also true!

Coming to Fang Ting City, Sparrow’s original purpose, besides gathering some information, was to conduct a transaction with those lunatics who called themselves the Black Ash Dawn.

Because she learned before coming: a squad of the Palace Guard from the Black Ash Dawn had arrived in Fang Ting City and intended to stay for a period of time.

The Black Ash Dawn was a strange organization that began operating in the material world about ten years ago. Most of its members were human magic users from the material world, along with a few outworlders who had defected from the Kingdom or the Inter-realm. They gathered together, refusing to acknowledge the rule of the current Royal Court of the Magic Kingdom, while secretly researching the power of Remnant Beasts.

And to achieve their goal of resisting the Royal Court, their actions could be described as having no bottom line: slaughtering or even torturing civilians, carrying out terrorist attacks on city public facilities or even the municipal government, and privately trafficking various prohibited items were all common occurrences; they could be said to have done every evil thing.

Their conduct was so rampant that it naturally attracted vigorous suppression from the Investigation Bureau, but they were like rats that could not be wiped out; one batch was caught, and another came, blossoming everywhere in the world and committing crimes on the run.

As someone who started as a Magical Girl and prided herself on having a legitimate power system, she had always looked down on this group of freaks, but she had to admit that among the rare magic materials in the material world, besides those still in service, this group of lunatics possessed the most.

If she were still in service, she naturally wouldn't need to use such gray channels to obtain materials. But having defected from the Kingdom for many years, since joining Claw Mark, she had to realistically consider the costs of her daily research.

Arriving in Fang Ting City and gathering some local intelligence, she suddenly remembered the rumors she had once heard.

This city was the place where that "Cornflower" had retired.

Two years ago, the Kingdom’s strongest Flower Card Magical Girl, Cherry, died for unknown reasons. This event caused a strong shock among many Magical Girls on the magic side, and even a small group of people—who were also Cherry’s fans—went to Fang Ting City to investigate.

These visitors turned Fang Ting City upside down, conveniently killed all the Remnant Beasts around Fang Ting City, and also sought out Cherry’s teammates and husband to ask about the situation, but did not get any useful information.

Among them, it was not that no one believed the rumors, believing that Cornflower was living in seclusion in Fang Ting City, and wanted to question her about Cherry’s death.

But no matter how they searched, no one ever found where Cornflower was.

It was as if the rumor was truly just a rumor, like the unrealistic imagination of some people.

And by the time Sparrow arrived in this city, this craze had long since faded. Whether it was Cherry’s teammates or her fans, they all unanimously believed that the murderer had fled and gone to other cities to pursue their tracks. Having lost multiple elite-level Magical Girls in one go, Fang Ting City seemed to have entered a gap period for magic-side forces, and the Magical Girl squad stationed here had a trend of failing to replace the old with the new.

Under such circumstances, Sparrow made contact with the local Black Ash Dawn squad.

She didn't know why this group of lunatics chose to linger in Fang Ting City, nor did she know where they got their information. In any case, regarding the transaction with Sparrow, they put forward an exchange requirement: that was, to have her eliminate the current Magical Girl squad in Fang Ting City on a specific day.

It would be best to kill these few Magical Girls, but if she couldn't, she must at least hold them back, and the key target among them was a Magical Girl wearing navy blue clothes with long blue hair.

According to them, this Magical Girl demonstrated the ability to use spells, at least at the Leaf rank, far beyond the other two rookie novices, and she must absolutely not be allowed to disrupt their plans.

Sparrow had long since defected from the Kingdom and crossed swords with her former colleagues; she had no resistance to the act of killing Magical Girls, so she naturally agreed to their request.

Then, she began her observation of the "Blue Magical Girl."

At first, she waited near the scene where Remnant Beasts appeared to confirm what the target actually looked like.

Because she was worried about being sensed by the other party and alerting the enemy, she always let her accompanying little sparrows observe from afar. Later, based on the locations where Remnant Beasts appeared, combined with the time and direction of the Blue Magical Girl’s appearance, she had the sparrows track her to deduce the other party’s starting point.

To confirm the other party’s route, she specifically lured some Remnant Beasts to attack the crowd she had marked as suspicious. Then, during an attack on a light rail train, that Blue Magical Girl really appeared.

She was thus convinced that the daily activity area of this Blue Magical Girl was inevitably the Luoming District of Fang Ting City.

And with further tracking, she not only gradually determined the place where the other party usually operated—an office building—but also gradually discovered one thing: this Blue Magical Girl seemed to have many similarities with the "Cornflower" in the rumors.

Without telling anyone else this news, she turned to collect some photos from twenty years ago, and without even needing to compare them, she could confirm that this Magical Girl was Cornflower!

And so, there was this carefully prepared battle today.

Sparrow’s plan was to defeat Cornflower here, and it would be best to capture her alive. This would not only achieve her own fame but should also allow her to make a profit: she remembered that many years ago, someone in Claw Mark had said they were very interested in this former legend.

And when she used her semi-beast form, she even once thought she was about to win.

She could pierce Cornflower’s magic barrier, could knock her down from the air, and could even attack the turtle shell the other party wrapped in silk threads as if beating a sandbag. It was just that as the battle dragged on, she discovered a very serious problem: the other party had not been injured from beginning to end.

Even, because of the difference in the precision of magic planning strategies, although her magic had been consumed in large quantities, Cornflower was still hiding in her Magic Gear turtle shell and unwilling to show her head.

This wouldn't do; she realized this point.

Although she was unwilling to admit it, if Cornflower kept a defensive posture, then before her defensive means were completely shattered, her own magic would definitely be the first to be exhausted.

She had to force the other party to expose herself from her defense.

"I don't really mind, but you, do you really intend to keep shrinking behind your turtle shell?"

So she spoke, waving her Magic Gear: "If you don't deploy your Wonderland and keep dragging it out like this, your little companions might be in danger."

This sentence was actually made up. Or rather, she herself was very curious about where those few rookie novices were. But as the saying goes, all is fair in war; if just casually spouting two sentences could disrupt the other party’s footing, that was undoubtedly a very cost-effective strategy.

Her casually fabricated provocation had an unexpected effect. As soon as the words fell, Cornflower behind the Masterpiece had a tense expression.

Hearing Sparrow’s words, she almost instantly thought of the unanswered phone call earlier, and then thought of the whereabouts reported by Xia Liang and Lin Xiaolu not long ago.

They went to the Lixing District to find Moke; could there really be something wrong with this matter?

Although she also knew it might be verbal deception, she still divided a part of her mind during the battle to sense her spell. Immediately after, she was stunned to find: the positioning spell she had set on Moke had failed.

"You have accomplices?" Her gaze began to turn cold and heavy.

"Accomplices? Forget it, I am not an accomplice with that group of crazy freaks."

Sparrow laughed disdainfully and continued to provoke: "But you're right, your little companions aren't here; maybe they are fighting a group of vicious guys? Without your help, can they really win?"

Setting aside the content she was spouting earlier, this sentence was not a lie.

Although she didn't know what that group from the Black Ash Dawn wanted to find, once they found it, given their habits, a bloody and brutal blood sacrifice would likely be inevitable. And in this process, if the other few rookie novices in Fang Ting City clashed with them, the chances were high that they would be in grave danger.

"If you deploy your Wonderland now, maybe you can beat me and go support them, right?"

Feeling that her words had indeed taken effect, she began to add fuel to the fire, trying to further incite the other party’s emotions: "Of course, this is the best-case scenario; if things develop too quickly on that side, these few seedlings you've worked so hard to raise might already be dead, who knows?"

Then, and she didn't know if it was an illusion, the surrounding air seemed to freeze suddenly.

Immediately after, it was as if the air pressure had dropped, making people feel somewhat unable to breathe.

"Indeed, it's about time to end this."

The tense fingers gradually relaxed, the Masterpiece shield that had been gathered in front of her dispersed back into a network of magic threads, and Cornflower gave up all defense just like that.

She shook her somewhat stiff palms, and her somewhat cold gaze focused on Sparrow:

"The origin probably can't be asked; strange black magic, suspected to be a characteristic of the entire organization; semi-beast form, a special state that seems to have some connection with Remnant Beasts; purple-black magic gem, the base color of the magic source has changed... It looks like that's all there is."

Following her self-talk, the azure magic that had originally shown a downward trend around her also gradually faded, dimming like a flame that had lost its heat.

"Oh? You actually came out just like that? It seems that although you've been retired for many years, you still have a bit of courage."

The calm attitude suddenly displayed by Cornflower made Sparrow feel a bit strange, but she didn't know where this inexplicable sense of incongruity came from. She felt satisfied with the success of her provocation, and then said loudly: "But bluffing is useless; I can feel it, your current total magic amount isn't even as good as an average Bud rank!"

"Hmm, you're right." Cornflower suddenly admitted calmly.

"Huh? What's right?" This frank attitude instead made Sparrow somewhat surprised, "Are you out of your mind?"

"As you said, my current state is very poor."

As if she were talking about something unrelated to herself, Cornflower’s tone was calm: "Under the superposition of various reasons, I must admit that the current me cannot reach the strength of my peak period."

"Saying this now? Are you admitting defeat?"

Her heart skipped a beat for no reason, and she even felt a little uneasy, but Sparrow couldn't figure out where this feeling of unease came from: "Telling me you can't deploy your Wonderland and can't defeat me, are you trying to beg for mercy?"

"No, I just want to clarify one thing."

The long hair behind her head rose without wind, and strands of soft hair danced in the air. The sound of rustling airflow arose, and the magic threads around Cornflower also rippled together, drawing soft waves as if chasing the traces of the wind.

Looking at the figure not far away wrapped in pitch-black magic, she was calm and natural, as if she were saying something that was a matter of course:

"To beat you, I don't need a Wonderland at all."

The next moment, the azure magic erupted again, but this time, it went against the previous momentum. Her magic no longer appeared in a regular shape, but spilled out to the surroundings as if overflowing, so powerful that it made people unable to open their eyes.

If the magic previously displayed by Cornflower was just a trickling stream, then now it was as surging as a rushing river, endless and magnificent.

Cornflower held her head high, and her eyes flashed with azure light; the Heart Gem under her neck also seemed to be filled with magic, becoming incomparably bright.

She stretched out a hand, and even the nails on her fingertips looked like they had been painted with fluorescent nail polish, showing an azure glow:

"That's enough, let's finish this quickly."