Chapter 10: The Self-Cultivation of a Cosmic Ghost Girl

After whispering in Mangzhong’s ear, Ren Huazhi quickly slipped away, not giving her a chance to turn her head and discover she was really there.

She had once seen some behind-the-scenes videos of game development, which featured a peculiar technique: using simple, crude methods outside the camera’s view to achieve an excellent, yet completely different, effect on screen. For example, an enlarged character model suddenly appearing under the scene, a first-person protagonist with only two hands, and so on.

Ren Huazhi found these techniques fascinating. If adapted into a novel, the closest method would probably be an unreliable narrator.

The two-headed wolf’s claws and huge mouths were all occupied by Mangzhong, and Mangzhong, exerting all her strength, had no time to look back. The two had formed a fragile and delicate balance, allowing Ren Huazhi to tiptoe over and disguise herself as a hallucination.

From Mangzhong’s perspective, it was probably as if in a desperate situation, she had faintly heard the advice of her deceased senior.

Like a space ghost.

But Ren Huazhi had to do it. If she had appeared as the white knight, her words would not have carried the same weight as those of the already canonized The Flower Arranger.

—Why stop Mangzhong from switching weapon modes?

Because she hadn’t even charged the shield yet.

Forcing a switch to axe mode in this state would only expose her to the two-headed wolf’s attacks. The trade-off of injury for injury wouldn’t be very profitable.

Still too young, too naive, sometimes even innocent.

But she couldn’t blame Mangzhong too much. It wasn’t as if Ren Huazhi could have inexplicably lent her the Hunting Gear for practice “before her death.”

Ren Huazhi circled back behind the little yellow duck statue in a corner of the atrium and ran out of the commercial plaza through an emergency exit. Before she was even out of the Anti-Civilization Field, she took out her phone and began furiously typing:

[When will the belt be fixed?]

As soon as the signal returned in the top right corner, she hit send.

[What’s wrong?] Meng Qiuxu responded quickly.

[Mangzhong is fighting the two-headed dog, didn’t you know? Didn’t she post about it on the forum to log it?]

A moment of silence seemed to convey the shock on the other end of the chat.

[No! She didn’t tell anyone!]

Meanwhile, inside the shopping mall.

‘If your heart is filled with doubt, do not pull the trigger… I understand.’

Mangzhong suddenly released her force backwards, using the pressure from the two-headed wolf to slide underneath its belly.

The straight sword scraped against the porcelain tiles of the floor, sending out a shower of sparks that suddenly ignited on the blade.

As they crossed paths, Mangzhong rose to her feet behind the two-headed wolf.

The flaming sword swung outwards and was pressed against the top edge of the shield, like sharpening a blade, like drawing a bow across a violin—

Screeech—.

The heavy shield, which had withstood the attacks of dozens of Nightmares over the past year, also burst into flames, turning the fiery red of molten iron.

“Unceasing by day, unslumbering by night,”

“All Nightmares,”

“Shall burn to ashes in hell.”

She stomped heavily on the ground!

Scorching magical power swirled, transforming into floating candle-lights that filled the entire mall atrium. For a moment, it was as if they were in a brilliant river of stars, and the air began to heat up.

If Ren Huazhi or the veteran agents of the Nightmare Countermeasures Division were here, they would recognize this as Mangzhong’s blessed ability. It wasn’t a worthless, blank-slate ability like The Flower Arranger’s, which could only spray a little water. It even had visual skill effects and an ultimate move name!

“‘Three Thousand Candle-Lit Night’!”

Five large characters, formed from burning petals, appeared in the air above the human and the Nightmare!

The two-headed wolf looked around in confusion at the sudden appearance of the orange-red candle-light effects. With its intelligence, it soon discovered that these lights were just hanging there and would not harm it. As if it had been tricked, it let out a loud roar and lunged at Mangzhong again.

This time, Mangzhong did not raise her shield.

The iron claws and sharp teeth of a beast-type Nightmare originate from one of the deepest corners of the dream world, forged from human imagination of being torn apart by beasts, and the instinctive fear of the cruel natural world that has been passed down for thousands of years.

Swinging at high speed, it seemed to tear through the air, leaving a black cutting trajectory as it raked across the magical girl’s body!

The sound of flesh being torn, of bones breaking…

All of it appeared and disappeared in an instant, like a fleeting illusion.

The two-headed wolf’s keen beastly ears only caught a soft sound:

“Puff.“

It was the sound of blowing out a candle.

One of the countless candle-lights in the sky was extinguished.

“—Is it you? The bad child who killed Sister Hua.”

Mangzhong raised her head.

Her princess-knight style outfit was burned to a hideous dark black. She was now face to face with the two-headed wolf, their foreheads almost touching, and black flames burned in her eyes as well.

She trapped the two-headed wolf’s front paw between her body and the inside of her shield and thrust her longsword into the gap of the armor plate on its chest.

Switching her grip, she was about to use brute force to pry the armor plate off its embedded flesh!

“And… it’s really suspicious…”

Creak—creak—

The screech of metal under strain was enough to set one’s teeth on edge.

“Reality has its own logic, dreams have their own logic… and the nightmare that created you, what kind of logic does it follow? Hmm? Good doggy, would you please tell me?”

“Awoo…”

The magical girl’s gritted-teeth questioning even made the two-headed wolf let out a wary growl, flinching for a moment.

Nightmares are generally illogical.

A stick figure that knows martial arts, a burning, crashing helicopter, a ceiling fan suddenly falling from above—all things that should not exist in reality. But humans cannot imagine something that truly does not exist; beneath the surface of chaos and absurdity lies an internal connection.

She just needed to confirm it with her own eyes.

Perhaps some obsessive-compulsive person, even in their dreams, would want their ferocious two-headed demon wolf to be properly clad in chest armor, but they certainly wouldn’t have the excess focus to imagine a complete set of internal organs for the beast.

“Good boy, let—me—see—!”

—Swish!

It was the sound of a sharp weapon cutting through flesh. Blood spurted between the human and the wolf, but no candle-lights in the atrium were extinguished.

Mangzhong released her shield. A front paw, covered in black fur like steel needles, fell from her grasp. Before it could hit the ground, it dissolved into a thick cloud of black smoke and quickly dissipated.

The two-headed wolf had actually used Mangzhong’s longsword to sever its own trapped paw, just to avoid having its chest armor destroyed!

The Nightmare, having lost a limb, turned and fled!

“As I thought, something’s wrong.”

Mangzhong did not give chase. She stared intently at the two-headed wolf’s retreating back, standing still with her sword in hand.

Puff—the candle-light above her left shoulder went out.

One, and then another.

When she used the gunblade, the extinguished candle-lights, caused by attacks on Mangzhong, would be converted into waste magical power and recycled by the cylinder, much like a character in an action game accumulating rage to unlock an ultimate move.

Dr. Meng Qiuxu customized the most suitable Hunting Gear mechanism for each magical girl based on their abilities. Therefore, the moment she abandoned the gunblade and picked up the sword and shield, Mangzhong was prepared to become weaker.

Since she could no longer recycle it, she would actively absorb the candle-lights.

Forging the blessing of the dream world’s protection into a sword of fire!

The fiery red longsword burned brighter and brighter, like a wildfire—

“Idiot, are you trying to destroy this building?!”

—Clang!

A bolt of lightning shot out from behind, grazing past Mangzhong’s cheek. The unexpected impact knocked her Hunting Gear out of her hands.

“Who’s there?”

Mangzhong looked back to see the silhouette of a twin-tailed girl standing against the light on a balcony protruding from the third-floor corridor, where the afternoon sun streamed in.

“I am ‘Jingzhe’. I heard you inherited The Flower Arranger and became the leader of the Tea Party… but to think you’d be such a reckless person!”