The wind howled, and snow fell heavily.
Silvia gently pushed away Xincheng’s hand, which had reached out to grasp hers, and spoke softly:
“My dear, perhaps another time. I need to handle this first.”
“Then I’ll come too…”
Weizhan and Xincheng stepped forward in unison, even untying the ribbons from their hair, ready to transform at a moment’s notice.
Xincheng, in particular, had been far too ‘well-behaved’ during this outing.
‘If I were to get injured and hospitalized,’ she mused.
‘Would I receive special care from Senior Silvia?’
‘Even if I made some slightly suggestive requests, Senior would surely indulge me, wouldn’t she?♥’
‘Yes, Senior absolutely has to feed me porridge… and gently blow on it, then take a mouthful herself before passing it to me.’
However, Silvia, without a second thought, refused, shattering Xincheng’s fanciful dreams.
“No, I can manage alone. You two should evacuate the citizens. Acacia Plaza is bustling with people, and as this is the city center, we absolutely cannot allow the Mimic Beasts to cause any destruction.”
After a brief consideration, Silvia took out her phone and pressed a button labeled ‘Request Assistance’.
She was calling for aid from the Association.
After all, with Qiye absent, Weizhan and Xincheng alone couldn’t possibly cover every direction.
Furthermore, such a grand display, summoning five Mimic Beasts at once, could only be attributed to Grand Witch He’s Dark Ring… unless another witch was behind this mischief.
The Little Witch’s Dark Ring was still in her possession.
To be safe, requesting assistance from the Magical Girl Association was the most prudent course of action.
Even if Grand Witch He were to make a move, it would buy enough time for her to return.
Silvia refused to believe that Grand Witch He would have no further plans.
Whether it was the malevolence she’d sensed at Qinghe High this morning, or Xia Naxin’s warning…
****
Immediately after, Silvia transformed into a streak of silver light, soaring straight into the sky, pursuing them.
Five colossal eagle beasts circled high above, their outstretched wings spanning an impressive three hundred meters.
Their feathers, black as night, sliced through the curtain of snow like sharpened blades.
Each beat of their wings unleashed blizzards that blotted out the sky.
Yet, the moment they spotted Silvia, their reddened eagle eyes locked onto her.
A piercing shriek echoed.
The sharp cry vibrated through the air, causing it to hum.
Flapping their wings, they unleashed snow whirlwinds, each laced with icy shards, that swept towards her.
This was, by all accounts, an irresistible pulling force!
However, Silvia’s form remained unyielding; possessing a wind-walking barrier, how could she be harmed by mere wind and snow?
Thus, she ascended another hundred meters, then clenched her hand in the air, drawing forth air currents from a kilometer radius.
With her at its epicenter, a colossal silver storm began to form.
The howling snow whirlwinds, upon touching the edges of the vortex, were utterly shredded, ice crystals and snowflakes exploding in the air, creating a dazzling display of shimmering light and mist.
“Come here…”
Silvia’s clear cry resonated as her magic materialized into visible chains, ensnaring the wings of the five eagles.
The force tore at them, throwing them off balance.
One of the eagles, however, used the momentum, letting out a furious roar as it plunged downward, its talons gleaming with a chilling light, aimed directly at her body with the intent to shred her.
In that instant, the eagle’s shriek was still caught in its throat, its sharp talons hovering a mere three inches from her torso.
Seeing this, Silvia simply raised a hand, and the colossal beast froze mid-dive, suspended in the air.
Even the waves of snow lifted by its wings hung motionless, like ice sculptures.
Reflected in its wide, unblinking pupils was Silvia’s serene, undisturbed form.
Time Magic—Stasis.
Immediately after, she plunged her five fingers into the eagle’s scale-covered chest, her magic pouring in through her fingertips.
Within, she crushed its intricate network of magic circuits.
With a muffled explosion, spiderweb-like dark patterns fractured across the eagle beast’s body.
It disintegrated into countless black particles, which rustled down through the curtain of snow.
Empowered by her immense magic, Silvia had utterly crushed it with her bare hands!
Naturally, the underlying principle was to overwhelm and destroy its internal magic circuits with her own magic.
After all, these eagles were Mimic Beasts, inherently artificial constructs.
Once their magic circuits were destroyed, they would simply dissipate.
Yet—
“Ugh~”
Silvia wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of her lips.
Her internal magic, overused in that brief moment, now pulsed with a stinging pain.
She looked up, her gaze falling upon the four remaining eagles, still circling and struggling against the magic chains.
In truth, with her power, she could easily have gathered a magical shockwave and annihilated them all from a kilometer away.
This remote ‘detonation’ only required disrupting their internal magic circuits.
However, a bout of coughing seized her, and as she clutched her aching chest, flecks of crimson seeped through her fingers.
This was a precursor to magic disruption.
Her own constitution, prone to magic imbalance, meant that excessive use of magic would tear through her meridians, leading to minor symptoms like coughing blood and qi reversal.
In severe cases, her magic would leak uncontrollably, like a flood breaking through a dam, potentially devastating the entire Tanhua City.
At this critical juncture, with the magical aura flickering erratically around her, Silvia hesitated no longer, opting for a swift resolution.
She dashed towards the nearest eagle, intending to use the most reliable method: to individually halt them with time magic, then approach to touch and destroy their magic circuits with her bare hands.
This way, she would eliminate them within her controlled parameters.
****
The biting wind howled past Silvia’s ears.
Her silver hair cascaded like a waterfall as she moved effortlessly between the colossal eagle beasts.
With a flick of her hand, ripples spread through space, and the giant beast, caught by the stasis magic, froze mid-air.
Silvia darted through the air, concentrating magic in her palm, which then pierced the eagle’s chest like a sharp blade.
With a muffled thud, it too exploded into countless black particles.
This was simply an unstoppable tactic: capture, freeze, then touch and crush, all in one seamless motion.
Only three remained.
****
As the fourth eagle burst apart beneath her palm—
a jarring hum suddenly resonated in the air.
The sound waves, like countless tiny needles piercing her eardrums, made Silvia’s body sway slightly.
Meanwhile, black mist surged around the nearby eagle, its massive body beginning to disintegrate on its own?
But by the time Silvia reacted, she… felt her magic failing her in great quantities?
No, her connection to her internal magic circuits… had been blocked!
Silvia realized she had fallen into a trap, most likely orchestrated by Grand Witch He.
Its purpose was to lure her high into the sky.
“Damn it…”
Silvia’s pupils contracted sharply; her internal magic was suddenly almost depleted.
Her connection to her magic circuits severed in that very instant.
Her body, suspended in the air, lost its support and began to plummet rapidly, accompanied by an intense cold.
The howling wind roared in her ears.
Only then did she realize that the hum from high above was the signal for a magic-blocking device activating!
This was Grand Witch He’s trap, specifically designed for her.
High in the sky, without magic to sustain her flight, she would surely fall to her death.
No one could save her!
All magic within a ten-mile radius had been blocked.
Unable to transform or use magic, she was essentially reduced to an ordinary person.
In desperation, Silvia bit her tongue, the metallic sweetness of her blood stimulating her nerves.
Ignoring the tearing pain in her meridians, she recklessly squeezed her internal magic circuits as if her life depended on it.
And it truly had a miraculous effect!
The next moment, the swirling snowflakes seemed to receive a ‘command,’ gathering at a visible speed.
They converged around her, enveloping her, forming a massive snow cocoon.
However, the backlash from her excessive magic use arrived even more swiftly.
Silvia coughed up a mouthful of blood onto the pristine white cocoon, a sudden sharp pain in her chest making her gasp for breath as her consciousness began to fade.
In this final moment, she had still been injured by her chaotic magic.
“Cannot… fall to my death…”
As she plummeted, Silvia struggled to gather her last vestiges of magic, reinforcing the snow cocoon.
However, her chaotic magic… completely overwhelmed her defenses.
Her vision went black.
In her final conscious moment, she saw her reflection on the surface of the snow cocoon, inexplicably glowing?
For—
within the thick snow cocoon, an astonishing transformation was taking place.
Her once soft, flowing silver hair shortened inch by inch, and the delicate contours of her face gradually hardened.
Her prominent, full breasts began to flatten, and a subtle Adam’s apple emerged.
Her slender waist and limbs grew more muscular, their lines becoming increasingly defined.
That Special Magical Girl, Zhennu Yibai, adored by countless maidens in the Irisfeather Kingdom, now shed her disguise, undoing her first mimicry in life, revealing… her true male form.
****
Concurrently, at the distant mountain peak, Qiye knelt beside a brightly glowing magic-blocking device.
The twelve golden stones around the edge of this disk-shaped instrument were now floating above it, moving erratically.
Qiye gazed at her trembling hands… She had truly, all by herself… personally activated it.
Then, she covered her mouth and wept:
“Wuwuwu~ I’ve harmed Senior Silvia… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
Meanwhile, Ling Cheyin, having deactivated her transformation, settled into a kneeling position.
She embraced Qiye from behind, burying her head in Qiye’s shoulder, murmuring softly:
“Sister Qiye~ You did wonderfully, my dear♥. Now you have another leverage point, oh, no, perhaps that’s not the right way to put it.”
“Either way, you’ll be mine eventually, mm~ I’ll have my sister commend you to the Witch Council… to take credit for your efforts.”
These few sincere words from the Little Witch pierced Qiye’s heart like daggers.
‘Once aboard a pirate ship, there’s no turning back,’ she thought.
However, even more bizarrely, Grand Witch He’s magical phantom remained perfectly intact beside them.
She gazed towards the horizon—in the direction of Silvia’s fall.
****
Simultaneously, in an office at Qinghe High.
Ling Qinghe retrieved the piece of paper on which the name ‘Zhennu Yibai’ was written, the very one where she had pierced the character for ‘female’ with her pen that morning.
She looked at the name, now displaying a blank space: ‘Zhen[] Yibai’.
Then, she laid the paper flat on the desk.
Just then, a blank sheet of paper underneath revealed, in that very empty space, the character for ‘male’.
“What the—so you’re a man after all…”
With a look of disdain, Ling Qinghe crumpled the papers into a ball and tossed them into the wastebasket.
****
Elsewhere, the snow cocoon enveloping Silvia was plummeting rapidly.
Its landing spot was, coincidentally, near the heavily populated North Gate of Acacia Plaza.
However, this location narrowly avoided Weizhan and Xincheng, who were stationed at the South and East Gates.
They too had nearly fallen from mid-air, but fortunately, they hadn’t flown too high and had some cushioning to break their fall.
Still, the sudden inability to sense magic left them both bewildered, yet primarily… worried.
‘Senior Silvia is still fighting high in the sky,’ they thought. ‘What if she also loses her magic? Wouldn’t she fall to her death?’
Therefore, Weizhan and Xincheng immediately contacted others via their phones, explaining the situation.
Without their magical protection, they were feeling the cold!
Dressed so lightly, with a blizzard raging outside, they each sought refuge in a warm, heated shop.