A short while later, Silvia pushed himself up from the snow pit, his knees trembling.
Mana surged through his upper body, igniting the illusionary guise magic within him.
The snug, belly-hugging white shirt abruptly relaxed, its fabric flowing freely.
The collar now lay slightly open, a clear sign that the shirt was simply too large for him.
His skirt, however, remained a comfortable fit, and accustomed as he was to wearing them, he saw no reason to change it.
At that moment, his gaze swept over the women scattering from the snow pit, particularly those he knew had captured the scene on their phones.
Every twitch of their fingers on their phones registered acutely in his awareness.
Silvia mused.
‘Before making his exit, it was imperative to erase the recordings from those phones.’
An additional complication arose from the numerous surveillance cameras positioned near the East Gate of Acacia Plaza.
This incident, above all else, could not be allowed to leak to the public.
Whether it was his dramatic arrival from the heavens, the initial surveillance recordings, or his recent emotional unraveling that almost led to an accidental death, should any of it circulate online, the repercussions would be catastrophic.
After all, the uniform he wore was unmistakably that of Qinghe High School.
Given the time and location, his silver hair and violet eyes would undoubtedly lead Qiye, Weizhan, and Xincheng to connect the dots.
Silvia truly dared not imagine.
‘If they were to know he was a man…’
The Three Primary Colors Squad, and especially Xia Naxin, would undoubtedly abandon him.
After all, heterosexuality was unheard of in the Iris Feather Kingdom!
****
With that resolved, the next steps would be straightforward.
‘Delete the recordings…’
In the past, Silvia would have been plagued by concerns of mana turbulence, forcing him to conserve his power.
But now, he was no longer afraid.
Moreover, he was merely contending with a handful of mortals.
A flash of violet light sparked in his eyes, and he softly, almost imperceptibly, whispered, ‘Halt.’
Time Magic—Super Stasis.
The next moment, everything around him… stopped.
Yet, time still possessed a peculiar ‘meaning’; the upraised phone screens continued to glow, displaying their active recording interfaces.
And the women who had previously gathered to watch were frozen in place.
The effect encompassed a staggering radius of one thousand meters.
Immediately after, Silvia instantly materialized beside the nearest person recording, his hand outstretched to snatch their phone.
First, he tapped to stop the recording, then opened the photo album.
If verification was needed, he would scan their face or try their fingerprint.
After deletion, he would navigate to the album’s recycle bin to ensure a complete and irreversible purge!
‘That was the only way to be absolutely certain, after all.’
And so, Silvia proceeded, phone by phone, erasing the evidence.
With time frozen, he was truly free to ‘act with impunity.’
Nevertheless, expediency remained paramount.
After all, the longer time was stopped, the greater the risk.
Sooner or later, those outside the one-kilometer radius would inevitably notice.
****
Yet, after systematically purging the recordings from more than fifty devices, a sudden shift occurred.
A prickle of icy dread traced Silvia’s nape.
This was… pure malice!
His Good and Evil Judgment was sounding an alarm.
He perceived a formidable, piercing aura hurtling towards him from the distant horizon.
He spun around, his eyes locking onto a sight: a sword, its blade trailing a deep violet aura!
It rent through the snowy dusk and cloud cover, utterly disregarding his time magic, and cleaved through the air with an undeniable, fierce sword intent.
Seeing this, Silvia’s brow furrowed slightly.
‘This was an aggressive approach indeed.’
As a precaution, he pressed a hand to his face, allowing the swirling wind and snow to coalesce, forming an intricate mask of ice flowers.
‘Just in case, it was best not to reveal his true identity.’
Silvia thought to himself.
Among the extraordinary beings he knew, this distinctive method of sword-riding…
It was clearly Lingguang Yixian, the Special Grade Magical Girl from the neighboring Xianghua City.
To his astonishment, the reinforcement dispatched by the Association was none other than her…
The situation had undeniably grown rather precarious.
Despite her status as a Special Grade from the adjacent city, Silvia held no real familiarity with her, having only crossed paths on a handful of occasions.
‘So, should I retreat first?’
Silvia glanced towards the other side, mentally tallying the remaining devices: an estimated one hundred and seventy-odd phones still held incriminating recordings.
To cease his efforts now would invite endless future complications.
Ephemeral Flower City was hardly a small place.
He couldn’t be certain he would be able to track each woman down, one by one, and retrieve the footage later.
Furthermore, if they were to upload the recordings online the moment they were freed, wouldn’t all his efforts be for naught?
In a flash of desperation, a new idea sparked in Silvia’s mind: why not simply destroy the phones?
‘Alas, if they have cloud albums or automatic network drive backups… then I’m just out of luck.’
Having made up his mind, Silvia raised a hand.
Instantly, invisible tendrils of mana snaked out, lifting the phones into the air, one after another.
Suspended in mid-air, they first succumbed to the biting wind and snow, encasing themselves in ice, before being violently shattered into a myriad of fragments by his surging mana!
This, he mused, effectively destroyed the ‘incriminating evidence.’
After completing this step, Silvia breathed a sigh of relief.
Now only the surveillance cameras remained.
Just then, the figure from the heavens finally descended.
‘It really is Lingguang Yixian…’
Silvia mused, yet he knew he couldn’t simply depart; this ‘reinforcement,’ after all, was his own summons.
Before she even landed, her voice cut through the air:
“Such a large-scale time stop, you’re endangering the public now…”
The female voice was ethereal.
Hum—
The moment the long sword landed, with a surge of sword energy, she effortlessly cleaved through and annihilated the invisible temporal mana that had enveloped a full kilometer radius!
Silvia’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
He immediately unleashed a ‘counterattack,’ a faint snort escaping his lips.
An invisible, potent wave of mana shock rippled outwards, surging directly towards the newcomer from the sky.
It was devoid of intricate technique, a mere unbridled release of raw power.
To flaunt such power in Ephemeral Flower City—had she even bothered to consult him?
****
Meanwhile, Le Feiying, mid-flight on her sword, nearly lost her precarious balance, the mana shockwave striking her with unexpected force.
It had, quite literally, brought her to an abrupt halt mid-air!
“Hmm? This level of mana…”
Le Feiying heard the insistent beeping of her mechanical orb, retrieving it to examine the display.
[Warning: Dangerous mana source detected three kilometers ahead…]
[Match successful]
[Analysis confirms: this mana signature belongs to Special Grade Magical Girl Zhennu Yibai…]
Immediately after, the mechanical orb brought up the archived data for Special Grade Magical Girl Zhennu Yibai.
Le Feiying scrutinized the ‘sample’ data, which corresponded to the mana shockwave she had just experienced.
After comparison and calculation, the mechanical orb produced this set of data:
Mana magnitude, 20:1…
[Special Grade Magical Girl Zhennu Yibai’s mana magnitude… conservatively twenty times greater, significantly exceeding the promotion standard for transcending Special Grade…]
“Twenty times? Interesting… Zhennu Yibai, I’ll have to see what this is all about.”
Le Feiying resumed her flight, soaring forward on her sword.
****
At the East Gate of Acacia Plaza, people regained their mobility, and screams erupted once again.
At this moment, Le Feiying touched down, dismounting from her long sword.
Her eyes, veiled behind black silk, fixed intently on the figure below.
Silvia was sitting on a pile of stones, looking at his phone, browsing the Iris Feather Kingdom’s largest short video platform—Lily Garden.
He specifically checked the ‘Local’ channel for the newest videos, noting with a slight hum that nothing had been posted yet.
Concurrently, Le Feiying re-examined her perceptions, doubt creeping into her spiritual senses.
‘How could she possibly detect such a potent masculine aura emanating from this individual?’
‘Could this be correct?’
‘Yet, the signal source displayed on her mechanical orb pointed directly to the figure before her… a man?’
There was no mistaking it.
‘What a preposterous notion! Zhennu Yibai, a man? A man clad in women’s attire, moreover, wearing a mask sculpted from ice.’
‘Could this be the ‘male maiden’ type, as rumored across the internet?’
However, the immense mana surging within the individual was undeniably real, its fluctuations aligning perfectly with Zhennu Yibai’s known signature.
“You… are Zhennu Yibai?”
Her voice, though not raised, effortlessly carried a great distance, borne on the biting wind and swirling snow.
Hearing this, Silvia instantly grasped Lingguang Yixian’s intent: her words were deliberately meant for the women frozen in place to hear.
As expected, the scattered, fleeing crowd halted, their attention now drawn to the exchange.
However, before the hundreds of onlookers could even begin to question, refute, or admonish Le Feiying for what they surely perceived as utter nonsense—Silvia moved first, preemptively raising a hand as silence and confinement magic instantly enveloped them all!
He was in a bad mood now.
He had no desire to endure any more senseless babbling from others.
They would all ‘shut up’ and ‘stand still,’ obediently.
“What does not speaking mean? And you’ve sealed the mouths of the public… What, you’re not that wary of me, are you?”
As she spoke, Le Feiying raised her hand, displaying the mechanical orb for Silvia to see.
On the screen, the mana waveform perfectly matched Zhennu Yibai’s archived data.
Similarity percentage displayed: 99.3%.
This constituted irrefutable evidence, coming as it did from the authoritative, certified records of the Magical Girl Association.
Seeing this, Silvia offered no verbal response, wary that the sound of his true voice might only deepen Lingguang Yixian’s suspicions.
His only recourse was to communicate via mana transmission:
“You arrived too late… There’s nothing for you here.
Please leave; I’ve already resolved all the trouble.”
Le Feiying, however, remained utterly bewildered.
‘What did ‘nothing’ mean?’
The Association headquarters had specifically instructed her to hasten to Ephemeral Flower City with utmost speed to provide support for Zhennu Yibai.
‘And this was the result? Was he making a fool of her?’
However, the very next moment, both of them instinctively turned their heads in unison, their gazes drawn to the snow pit.
From within it, a peculiar, discordant surge of mana emanated?
At this, Silvia recalled something.
He immediately waved his right hand, then made a hooking gesture.
The dark ring, deeply buried beneath the snow pit, flew out, just as it was about to land in his hand.
Le Feiying intervened, subtly controlling the sword still plunged into the ground.
It neatly intercepted the dark ring, pulling it back into her own hand.
“Lingguang Yixian, what is the meaning of this?”
Silvia still used mana transmission.
‘How could he have forgotten about this?’
‘He should have realized sooner.’
‘Alas, he had indeed spent too much mental energy on this gender issue.’
The dark ring, which had escaped its mana containment during his fall, had already dropped into the snow.
“Oh, this is something from the witches… Is it yours?”
Le Feiying examined the dark ring in her hand, even weighing it a few times.
“Give it back to me…”
Silvia frowned, a hint of anger stirring within him, and the wind and snow around them stilled in response.
He no longer feared even mana-blocking devices, so he certainly wouldn’t be intimidated by Lingguang Yixian.
Yet, if they were to engage in combat, not only would he face disciplinary action from the Association, but the safety of Ephemeral Flower City would also be jeopardized.
As the saying went, when gods fight, mortals suffer.
“Oh~”
Le Feiying remained unconcerned.
She had also noticed the barely conscious woman in the snow pit.
Being a mortal, she truly wouldn’t have noticed her without a closer look.
“I’ll ask you a few questions, and if you answer them, I’ll return this to you… How about it?”
Le Feiying wouldn’t back down so easily.
She needed to at least clarify the situation.
She was certain that the man before her was indeed Zhennu Yibai.
She just couldn’t understand why ‘she’ had suddenly become a man.
‘Could changing one’s gender drastically increase one’s mana?’
However, the Iris Feather Kingdom strictly prohibited males from setting foot within its borders.
And so, Le Feiying’s eyelashes fluttered.
“Where did this dark ring come from? Why are you targeting these innocent civilians? And, your gender… and this masculine aura, uh… are you still a woman?”
Faced with this barrage of three questions, especially the third one, Silvia rubbed his temples.
Unless he had lost his mind, there was no way he would admit to being a man.
‘How was this any different from a prisoner about to escape being questioned by a guard about what they were doing, and replying, ‘Officer, I’m breaking out of jail’?’
“I told you… it’s none of your business.
Return the dark ring to me.
This is Ephemeral Flower City, and it’s not for you to manage… Please leave.”
Upon hearing Zhennu Yibai’s mana transmission, Le Feiying let out a soft laugh.
She finally understood: Zhennu Yibai was afraid of exposing his gender, wasn’t he?
“Heh heh~ And what if I say… no?”
“Then you are welcome to try…”
Silvia’s anger flared.
‘Was she not clearly trying to antagonize him?’
****
This, after all, was part of her duty, compounded by the Iris Feather Kingdom’s strict law: no men allowed.
Le Feiying, being a person of integrity, could not possibly harbor a ‘man.’
Thus, she mercilessly exposed Zhennu Yibai’s ‘true face.’
“Heh heh~ You’re a man, aren’t you?
I never would have thought… The renowned Zhennu Yibai, stripped of his disguise, would look like this.”
Le Feiying spoke not only for Silvia’s ears but also for the hundreds of women nearby.
Though they were unable to move or speak, their hearing remained intact.
****
“Hmph~ Spreading rumors is easy, but refuting them is exhausting…”
Silvia’s face darkened, and he spoke aloud, this time abandoning mana transmission.
He leaned slightly forward, mana gathering in his fists and feet.
The next instant, his figure blurred into an afterimage, cracking the stone pile beneath his feet.
He lunged towards Le Feiying in mid-air, the power of his punch aimed directly at her face.
As for why a magical girl would fight without magic?
He was a man now, full of vigor.
He couldn’t very well be a ‘magical male maiden,’ could he?
Furthermore, he was enraged.
This punch carried no intricate incantations, only pure fury, brute force, and a massive surge of mana amplification.
Shattering a thousand-meter-class beast with a single punch would be child’s play!
Where his fist wind passed, the wind, snow, and accumulated snow were all pulverized into dust.
Le Feiying reacted with astonishing speed, her longsword humming as she brought it horizontally before her.
“Clang—”
A deafening explosion rang out, unleashing a shockwave that turned the curtain of snow into a swirling white mist.
Just as Silvia was about to deliver another punch, he was startled to realize that the mana he had poured into his strike was draining away along the sword’s blade!
Le Feiying… had parried Silvia’s punch.
Moreover, Silvia felt that the sword itself was absorbing his mana?
It had completely siphoned off the full power of his punch.
“Rebound!”
Le Feiying yelled coldly, and the sword’s blade erupted with blinding white light.
Silvia was too slow to dodge, crossing his arms in a desperate block.
The torrent of mana slammed into him.
The sound of tearing fabric mixed with dull bone-cracks exploded simultaneously!
It wasn’t over yet.
Le Feiying’s mind stirred, and another long sword appeared in her hand.
“Watch closely, this is Zhennu Yibai’s… true appearance!”
Le Feiying flicked her wrist, unleashing three sharp sword energies through the air.
The sword energies precisely grazed Silvia’s clothing.
Again and again, almost tens of thousands of scrapes and strikes per second.
In an instant,
“Rip—”
The white shirt, his upper and lower inner layers, the pleated skirt, white stockings, along with the skirt itself, and even the ice flower mask… all disintegrated into flying shreds in the turbulent air.
Silvia was stripped of his clothes, landing on the snowy ground to break his fall.
His firm chest and long legs were exposed to the cold wind, as were his… male characteristics below the waist!
Witnessing this scene, the crowd fell into a moment of utter silence.
No, they couldn’t speak in the first place.
This ‘silence’ referred to… their psychological state!
The women closed their eyes one after another, and even under the silence magic, muffled wails of anguish escaped them.
This alone showed the profound impact this had on their minds!
“Wuwuwu (Ahhh—he really is a man!)”
“Wuwuwu (Quick, catch him! There’s a man here!)”
“Wuwuwu (So disgusting, so disgusting, my eyes are burning…)”
Silvia’s veins bulged with shame and fury.
‘Damn her!’
‘Was Lingguang Yixian some kind of pervert?’
However, his lower body felt chilly.
Though Silvia wasn’t afraid of the cold, it wouldn’t be good if ‘it’ got frozen, would it?
And so, he reapplied his illusionary guise magic, reverting to his previous school uniform: pleated skirt and white shirt.
At this, Silvia looked around at the disgusted stares of the women.
In that moment, he felt as though everything he had ‘painstakingly built’ was collapsing around him.
The fans who once adored and admired ‘her,’ the juniors who had fought alongside him and stayed by his side, and that shining identity as Zhennu Yibai… all dissolved into a fleeting illusion.
A bitter taste filled his mouth.
‘It seems my life is about to be shattered.’
Silvia had never imagined that the moment he revealed his true self, his body and mind would feel such ‘humiliation.’
Then, Silvia glared at the ‘culprit’—Le Feiying.
If not for her, none of this would have happened.
“This is all your fault!”
Silvia roared.
“If not for you, none of this would have happened!”
He had lost all the elegance and composure he once possessed as a magical girl.
He was utterly like a cornered beast, driven to a frenzy.
Perhaps his humanity had been subtly changing ever since he had transformed into a male body.
It was just now, stimulated by Le Feiying, that his primal, masculine nature had been fully provoked.