A burst of white light flashed. Sudden, pure magic within the garden transformed into an endless stream of chains, all of them lashing out to pursue Wei Yang. She barely reacted in time, raising her hand to squeeze a portion of the Divine Power from her body. Gathering it at her fingertips, she aimed at the oncoming restraints.
“EXCALIBUR!”
Under the force of the invisible slash, the chains were completely severed, but more chains followed in quick succession.
‘Tsk, this isn’t a long-term solution. My current Divine Power reserves… are only enough for two more slashes.’
Just before several streaks of white light could seize her, Wei Yang raised her hand and unleashed a second slash. It cut through the chains, buying her a little more time, but new chains surged from multiple directions simultaneously.
The sheer number of chains couldn’t be exhausted by one or two slashes, especially since they seemed to replenish themselves.
Wei Yang prepared to take a gamble. If she used one more slash, her mana would be entirely depleted. At that point, she would have no other means of resistance. A magical scale of this magnitude was practically a feast; she couldn’t possibly cut her way through it all. Her only option was to find a way to escape.
Wei Yang had no clue whose incantation or which artifact’s effect these chains belonged to. Yu Tu would certainly know something, but she had disappeared ever since Wei Yang woke up in Lu Ran’s house. For now, she had to rely on herself.
“Quite the grand gift.”
After a brief, sarcastic comment, Wei Yang immediately began to consider a counter-strategy.
Every extreme ability had a corresponding flaw. Generally speaking, a caster could control the intensity of a spell by limiting its range.
Take Wei Yang’s EXCALIBUR as an example. She could sacrifice the intensity and damage of the move in exchange for a wider attack range—an equivalent exchange.
As for the current magic scale of these chains, while it was high, the fact that she could cut through them meant the caster must have sacrificed the durability of the chains themselves to expand the search area. Furthermore, the spell had only activated after Galio left the garden. This meant the target was specifically her, and the range was the entire garden.
She only had enough mana left for one final slash. Whether she could escape the garden in the fraction of a second after that last strike severed the chains was the point she had to gamble on.
Although as an angel, her potential ceiling far exceeded her former self as the Divine Lady, that wasn’t the case right now. Her divine superior had no followers and no faith, which meant she, as a subordinate angel, was also incredibly weak. Right now, she was just a small cabbage for others to trample and stir-fry as they please.
Thinking of this, Wei Yang gave a self-mocking laugh.
‘Thinking dejectedly really isn’t like me.’
Wei Yang mobilized all the remaining Divine Power in her body. To deal with the chains attacking from all sides, she further sacrificed the power of EXCALIBUR to increase its effective range.
She extended her palm, then clenched it into a fist!
*Clang!!*
A ring of light expanded, severing all the chains on all four sides. The white magic, like snapped strings pulled too taut, dissipated into dots of starlight before they could even hit the ground.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Wei Yang successfully fled the garden during the brief window before the chains could regenerate. The moment she stepped past the garden gate, the eerie white light vanished instantly.
Wei Yang had guessed correctly; she won the gamble. However, her Divine Power was exhausted, and her angel halo popped out. The incident, however, was far from over.
“This is so annoying… Who did this? Anna? She’s the only one it could be.”
The words she had said to Anna during the day—”I’ve seen through your secret”—were too obvious. Although her face hadn’t been seen that night, those words were a blatant declaration that ‘I am the angel who injured you last night.’
However, this also indirectly proved that Anna was the one summoning the Nightmares. Now, she was very likely waiting nearby.
As Wei Yang sat on the ground panting, a massive shadow gradually fell over her, covering her small frame.
She looked up.
That familiar figure with purple twin-tails, riding atop the Magic Wolf Alpha, was looking at her in shock.
‘Oh no. I don’t want to admit it, but she really appeared at the exact moment I least wanted to see her.’
Unlike their last meeting, Wei Yang didn’t have a hood over her face this time. Her features were clearly visible, so she absolutely couldn’t let the girl go. Wei Yang understood the importance of taking the initiative; even if she was bluffing, she had to strike first to intimidate her!
“Thinking you could catch me with magic chains of that level… you’re truly delusional! Tonight, I will definitely bring you to justice!”
This actually managed to intimidate Xiao Zimao.
“Eh? No, wait! What’s going on! You’re—”
“You’re a bad person!”
Even though she had no Divine Power left and couldn’t resist at all, Wei Yang maintained her momentum perfectly.
“Ah, seriously! Why won’t you communicate at all? Have mercy~”
Faced with Wei Yang’s aggression, Xiao Zimao ordered the Magic Wolf Alpha to turn around and prepare to flee. But just then, a discordant sound suddenly appeared.
“Ugh… roar…”
A strange groaning sound reached both of their ears.
“Xiao Zimao, is that the sound of your wolf?”
“N-No, it isn’t!”
With synchronized movements, both of them turned their gaze toward the road leading out from the garden. From that direction, a *patter-patter* sound echoed from the garden walls.
The sounds were being made by several entities that were beginning to take humanoid shapes. Their damaged bodies were composed of pure gold-and-white magic. Like drenched chickens soaked by the rain, the gold-and-white substance that formed their shapeless bodies continuously dripped onto the street.
Behind them, more of the same golden sludge crawled along the garden walls. Some had already formed half a human body and were clinging to the top of the wall, while others fell onto the street, becoming a puddle of mud that struggled to reform into a humanoid shape.
“Xiao Zimao, what on earth are those things? Did you make them?”
“I didn’t do it! This should be the ‘Binding’ effect of magic, but I don’t know the details because I didn’t pay attention in class!”
“Why didn’t you listen?”
“Is that the point right now?! Uh, but if I have to explain, I can only say that even if I listened, I didn’t understand. It was a waste of time, so I’d rather go play with the unicorns…”
Binding was a high-level operation. An incantation or artifact that applied Binding would not stop operating. Even if the target escaped the range of the effect, or if the effect wasn’t enough to influence the target, an unknown existence would be born from its magical core.
Wei Yang looked at Xiao Zimao beside her. Seeing the other girl’s bewildered expression, she didn’t seem to be lying.
‘Could it be that this girl really isn’t the caster of the chains?’
Wei Yang felt her mind becoming a bit muddled. If that were the case, her assumption that the opponent was Anna wouldn’t hold up. But if it wasn’t Anna, who else could it be?
What surprised Wei Yang even more was that Xiao Zimao drove Alpha to stand in front of Wei Yang, separating her from those magical puppets.
“Anyway, they’re dangerous. Don’t go near those things!”
Wei Yang blinked her eyes repeatedly in the face of this unexpected situation.
The girl clearly could have taken this perfect opportunity to just run away. She was truly a strange person—someone who summoned Nightmares to scare the townspeople every day, yet was now worrying about her.
At that moment, the bodies of those gold-and-white magic puppets began to twist. Their chests repeatedly cracked open, emitting bursts of red light.
More gold-and-white substance splashed onto the ground, and the light generated by the magic grew increasingly dazzling.
“AWOOO!!”
*Thump! Thump! Thump!*
The puppets charged toward the two of them one after another.
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