The next moment, a curtain of air spread out instantly, centered on Chen Qinyao.
Blood seeped from the girl’s skin, and the brutal crimson, influenced by magic, began to condense into a red dress.
Her heart pounded violently, pumping large amounts of blood throughout her body and boosting her physical functions several times over in an instant.
Ba Hui was quite familiar with this outfit. Six years later, when this girl became her archenemy, she’d be wearing the same thing.
But compared to the strongest human six years from now, Chen Qinyao was still a pathetic rookie.
Forget learning to use the Abyssal power that filled the air around her; she didn’t even know what she was supposed to do.
She’d transformed, sure, but this wasn’t a game.
There was no smart casting, and she couldn’t just press R to unleash her ultimate.
A black wave of monsters surged toward her, and Chen Qinyao had no idea how to respond.
She even forgot to run and simply raised both hands in front of her face on instinct.
Even so, she was a genuine Magical Girl now.
The magic flowing from the Anchor Point belonging solely to Chen Qinyao responded to its owner’s will, and a barrier formed in an instant, colliding with the black wave!
“Boom!”
The impact roared like thunder.
E Qiong could feel its opponent gradually learning to control the power of the Abyss. It couldn’t give her that chance.
“Die!”
The monster’s attack came crashing down like an avalanche.
An ordinary newly awakened Magical Girl would probably already be dead by now.
But all Chen Qinyao felt was anger.
Her extreme emotions only made her magic surge, and magic driven by will could better understand such blunt, frenzied thoughts.
The monster’s tidal wave was about to strike again.
A second before the fragile barrier shattered, the girl instinctively raised her hand and clenched her fist.
Countless drops of crimson blood condensed in midair into a sharp sword, which shot toward the monster!
“Die!”
E Qiong’s eyes turned a brutal crimson, and its power surged again.
Like a towering wave, it came crashing down!
With a thunderous boom, the barrier shattered, and the crimson sword collided with the black wave!
The surging magic intertwined and clashed, and the explosions rang out like a continuous roll of thunder, sending thick clouds of white vapor billowing into the air.
Even the monster was surprised by how quickly the girl’s power had grown.
But her time was short, and years of malnutrition had left her physically weak.
The crimson sword soon faded for lack of magic, and the black flood swept in less than a second later, swallowing the newly awakened Magical Girl whole.
This one was dangerous. But it didn’t matter. So what if she was powerful? She’d still end up as its meal.
Just as E Qiong congratulated itself on its good luck and prepared to tear the human trapped inside it to pieces, it suddenly heard footsteps.
E Qiong was one of the monsters with exceptionally sharp senses.
Worried that the commotion would draw Esper agents from the Abnormal Phenomena Management Bureau, it stopped moving and listened quietly to the footsteps in the distance.
There shouldn’t have been anyone out near the edge of the Inner Ring at this hour, but the footsteps weren’t fading into the distance.
They were getting closer.
What was going on? Had an Esper detected its magical energy?
The curtain it had spread was completely invisible to ordinary people, like ultraviolet light.
To keep anyone from noticing, E Qiong had even added a psychological suggestion to drive people away.
Ordinary humans who encountered the curtain would instinctively avoid it.
They shouldn’t come near.
Unless they were Espers who could see the curtain, or some other nosy Magical Girl.
“Damn it!”
Staying alive was what mattered most. By all rights, E Qiong should have abandoned its meal and fled immediately.
But monsters could get greedy too.
What if it wasn’t an Esper?
It already had a human full of despair and terror in its grasp, practically ready to eat.
If it gave up now, it’d have to go hungry again.
Think it through. This was the very edge of the Inner Ring.
Almost nobody paid attention to this place.
With that in mind, E Qiong decided it wouldn’t leave until it had eaten its fill.
It spread its claws, and its body, which had turned into a black wave, gathered back into a sturdy shape.
It opened its gaping jaws and stared at the distant corner with blood-red eyes.
“Tap.”
A slender silhouette stepped out of the shadows around the corner, meeting its crimson eyes.
Was that… an ordinary human?
E Qiong stared at the woman in the distance.
No matter how much it expanded its senses, it couldn’t detect the slightest trace of magic.
And with those thin arms and legs, she didn’t look like an Esper at all.
What the hell? Had hunger made it a little paranoid lately?
E Qiong found the whole thing amusing now that it realized there was nothing to worry about.
An ordinary human had actually managed to scare it.
It stretched its body out again and stood upright.
Standing at over 3 meters tall, E Qiong still wore its eerie smile as it looked down at the woman below, who hadn’t even turned to run.
Looks like its luck was really good today. It was getting a bonus meal, too.
The woman didn’t run.
Instead, she walked toward it as if it weren’t there, pointed at its body, and said in a casual tone, “Please spit out what’s in your stomach. Then I can leave your corpse intact.”
What the hell is this woman talking about.jpg
Was this human insane?
But the woman spoke so seriously, with an expression as if she were saying something perfectly reasonable.
E Qiong could even see a trace of impatience in the human’s eyes.
“Die!”
Its gaping jaws, wide enough to crunch an entire human head, opened as it lunged.
The bite came with a gust of wind, and it was more than enough to chew an adult human into pieces!
It moved at blinding speed.
An ordinary human couldn’t react in time.
E Qiong decided to kill this insolent human and be done with it.
It had already wasted plenty of time tonight.
“Snap—”
It was an incredibly faint snap, so quiet that even E Qiong would normally have ignored it.
A vast curtain of air spread like the sky itself!
Black malice and crimson rage mixed together, and a rain of blood filled the space in an instant.
Monsters saw differently from humans.
They could directly see the power of the Abyss.
To them, ordinary humans looked like blank white spaces, empty of everything, while humans with supernatural abilities had a hint of color within that blankness.
But what E Qiong saw now was an ocean of Abyssal power like a tsunami, like a frog at the bottom of a well looking up at the moon, like a mayfly gazing at the sky.
“Goodbye,” the woman said calmly.
She was in a terrible mood, but she wasn’t going to take it out on the monster in front of her, any more than a person would take it out on an ant. She gave a casual wave.
The air inside the curtain seemed to grow incredibly thick, as if they were underwater.
Even gravity felt like the crushing weight of the deep sea.
Even with all its strength, E Qiong could barely stay upright.
Its feet had already sunk into the ground.
“Y-You… who are you?!”
Ignoring the monster’s question, the woman walked up to it and reached out casually, sticking her hand right into its body.
She felt around, then gave a hard tug.
With a wet splash, she yanked Chen Qinyao, still undigested, out of its body.
Holding the unconscious Chen Qinyao, Gu Tong didn’t even bother to look at the monster.
She turned and walked away.
With another snap of her fingers, the monster struggling behind Gu Tong was instantly crushed into bloody mush, bones and all.
It couldn’t even let out a scream.
The monster’s soul, along with the fear it had caused, was devoured completely by Gu Tong.
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