Chapter 24: Desperate Stand and Frigid Revelation

“After exchanging rings, skipping classes, eloping, and going on dates, is there truly a need for such formality between us?”

With the tip of her blade angled, she stood poised, her body turned sideways.

Ling Xing’s fingertips brushed across her neck, delicately wiping away the crimson that had seeped onto her skin.

No one had anticipated that their infiltration mission would culminate in an encounter with a Magical Girl who was not only prepared, but seemingly lying in wait.

As a thief and combatant, Ling Xing was never one to excel in direct confrontation, always preferring to evade open battlefields. Yet, in this moment, evasion was no longer an option.

“I can’t help but be distant, can I? You *did* reject me, didn’t you? And after I so rarely initiate a date myself.”

There was only one path forward: to fight.

Why did their opponent possess foreknowledge of the dark organization’s plans? Why had she appeared here alone? How had she managed to ambush them with such pinpoint accuracy? And how had she so perfectly anticipated their objective?

The answers remained elusive.

But it no longer mattered. Whatever the reasons, now…

Only one imperative remained.

“My sincerest apologies then, but I still believe that emotions should, to some extent, be reserved for people. One shouldn’t develop feelings for a pet, should one?”

A provocative retort, delivered with calculated disdain.

Simultaneously, her finger found the trigger.

A sharp *bang*—

The gun barked.

Exploiting the brief opening created by her provocative taunt, Ling Xing, her hand deftly concealed beneath her coat, fired three rapid shots from her pistol while maintaining her sideways stance.

Her sole objective: to kill. She unleashed every ounce of her skill with ruthless abandon.

This was the only task at hand.

And it was precisely what both individuals were engaged in.

A sharp *clang*—

The whistling bullet was deftly parried and sent careening away by a short sword.

Almost in the same instant the trigger was pulled, the girl, Hane, surged forward, her toes barely grazing the ground.

She spun, her sword a blur, moving with a speed that defied the trajectory of the bullet itself. One short sword effortlessly deflected the projectile aimed at her face, while the other, held in her dominant hand, plunged directly towards Ling Xing’s abdomen.

It was only then, by retreating a swift step and leveraging the full length of her weapon, that Ling Xing managed to barely parry the strike with a desperate horizontal slash.

Another *clang*—

Another deep gash marred Ling Xing’s blade, a fresh wound upon its surface.

This lightning-fast exchange, though initiated by Ling Xing, concluded with her forced retreat of several steps, her blade now visibly fractured.

“Heh, Ling Xing, don’t flatter yourself. We are all nothing more than the Young Lady’s pets!”

Her short swords crossed, their blades twirling with deceptive ease in Hane’s grasp.

Hane offered Ling Xing no quarter, no moment to recover. Just as Ling Xing had used her provocative words and feigned bravado to mask a surprise attack, the Magical Girl named Hane now employed the very same deceptive artistry.

She wove a dazzling flurry of sword strokes, advancing with an unsettling, silent grace.

In the fleeting blink of a single flickering light, Hane’s twin swords executed more than a dozen consecutive slashes.

Her speed was blinding, almost beyond the capacity of the eye to follow. The twin blades crossed, providing seamless cover; no sooner had one strike been deflected than another was already launched.

There was no window for counterattack. Even a successful parry would instantly be met by a swift, angled counter-slash from the opposite direction, catching her off guard.

It was a relentless, one-sided barrage, a whirlwind of strikes that offered no opportunity for reprieve, let alone retaliation.

The air filled with a furious *clink-clink-clink-clink-clink-clink*————

Retreat was her only option.

Parry was her only defense.

The clash of metal on metal rang out, a percussive symphony as dense and rapid as a blacksmith’s hammer.

Ling Xing’s humble, ordinary steel blade was gouged with more than a dozen uneven nicks, and a spiderweb of cracks began to spread across its surface.

In mere moments, Hane had advanced a dozen paces, forcing Ling Xing to retreat an equal distance, their desperate struggle carrying them almost from the cold storage chamber to the elevator bank.

Where their battle raged, the thick concrete walls – walls capable of withstanding heavy artillery – now appeared like tattered rags ravaged by a hurricane, crisscrossed by a dozen radial, tearing fissures.

Such was the sheer destructive force that the mere residual impact of the Magical Girls’ clash was enough to shatter the very foundations of the building.

“Don’t even dream of stalling, Ling Xing! As long as I remain undefeated, that novice Magical Girl will be left to freeze into an isolated ice sculpture in the cold storage, all alone!”

Ling Xing had been driven to her absolute limit, with no further ground to yield.

The flickering lights pulsed erratically, accompanied by the ominous hum of straining electrical currents.

Proclaiming her inevitable victory, the purple-haired girl reversed her grip on the long sword, raising it high above her head.

****

Cold.

Unbearably cold.

A cold that transcended the normal, seeping into her very bones.

Having only just entered the cold storage, Chao Wu already felt her limbs growing numb, as if the frigid air itself was threatening to peel away her sensations.

Numbness, trembling, and a profound shiver wracked her body.

Chao Wu huddled into a tight ball, painstakingly inching her way deeper into the frigid chamber.

And there it stood, silently, the experimental device secretly transferred by the Magical Girl organization—the very genesis of all their troubles, the root cause of every problem they faced.

It appeared as nothing more than a mundane machine, its purpose inscrutable, betraying not the slightest hint of its extraordinary nature.

“This… this is it, then…”

This experimental apparatus, designed to integrate the powers of Magical Girls, had seen tens of thousands of test subjects, yet not a single one had succeeded. For years, there hadn’t been a single instance of successful synchronization, pushing the project to the brink of abandonment.

Yet, during its clandestine transfer to this remote, unassuming town, the conditions for synchronization were, against all odds, unexpectedly met.

The combatant who had ambushed their convoy, Ling Xing, proved to be the qualified synchronizer the device had so desperately sought.

This was why the organization had attached such paramount importance to the device, specially dispatching two D-class Magical Girls to ensure they could successfully secure Ling Xing, their invaluable experimental subject.

Their mission was to guarantee the smooth operation of this machine’s experiments. Therefore… should the machine face potential destruction, the Magical Girls themselves would be hesitant to act with unbridled recklessness.

This had been Ling Xing’s original plan: by gaining control of this machine, she would acquire a crucial bargaining chip against the Magical Girls. Leveraging this leverage, even a superficial peaceful coexistence, one that would allow Chao Wu to return to school as an ordinary student, was not an unattainable condition.

Such was the intention.

However, now, a Magical Girl stood just beyond the door.

And Chao Wu, aside from huddling there, shivering uncontrollably, found herself utterly powerless.

If Ling Xing failed to win, not only would any hope of a bargaining chip vanish, but Chao Wu herself would be seized, destined for endless, torturous experiments.

And Chao Wu would be left in this cold storage to freeze alive into an ice sculpture, her demise then conveniently attributed to a pre-arranged accusation by the Young Lady.

“……”

With trembling fingers, Chao Wu retrieved her phone, her gaze darting to the time displayed.

Two-ten… time was no longer on their side.

Was prayer truly her only recourse now?

Could she truly do nothing, achieve nothing, merely cower here in futility… expecting Ling Xing to once again, against all odds, accomplish the impossible, to once again drag her, who had done nothing, towards victory?

Don’t be ridiculous!

She was… she was Chao Wu, an official combatant who idolized Ling Xing! How could she simply surrender here, leaving everything to fate?

Still shivering, Chao Wu laboriously extended a finger.

Unable to move the machine, and unaware of the precise situation, the girl, guided by pure instinct, rashly activated the apparatus.

A soft blue light bloomed.

A frigid, mechanical voice resonated, its tones spreading through the intense cold.

[Qualified synchronizer detected. Welcome, Synchronizer – Chao Wu.]

“Hiss… ha… Tell me, please tell me! How can I possibly help Ling Xing? You, on whom the Magical Girl organization has placed such immense hope, you, into whom they’ve poured so much effort—what inherent magic do you possess that makes you so critically important to them—”

Chao Wu’s skin, already pale from the severe hypothermia, now seemed almost translucent.

Her fingertips had long since surrendered all sensation, and the words that escaped her lips, each breath visible as a plume of white frost, emerged as a chaotic, desperate jumble.

If this were merely a device for transferring Magical Girl crystals… it wouldn’t warrant such an elaborate, high-stakes operation.

There had to be something more; something beyond its superficial purpose. A core function, deeper, more advanced, hidden within the apparatus itself.

Something that could finally unveil the truth behind Ling Xing’s acquired power, that could link every encounter they had faced thus far, and that could underpin the very principle of crystals integrating into a body—