Chapter 36: The Fireworks Gambit

Standing atop the warehouse, her feet amidst a sea of fireworks. Brilliant flashes of light brought with them plumes of gunpowder smoke, which diffused throughout the surroundings. Ling Xing crouched, meticulously adjusting the arrangement within the warehouse amidst the constant reports of explosions and the spray of stray sparks.

‘But why fireworks, of all things?’

‘They were neither decisive nor covert enough. As a tool for a breakthrough, they were an undeniably poor choice. Even if they could temporarily suppress the few guards, the moment reinforcements—regular troops and armored vehicles—were mobilized, these mere toys would prove utterly useless. Lacking both lethality and stealth, they precluded any chance of a swift victory that would leave the enemy no time to react. By all accounts, they were a terrible choice of equipment.’

Yet, Ling Xing, an elite combatant, had still chosen them.

[“Fireworks? Are you underestimating me, young lady? I could provide you with heavy weaponry aplenty; what use are these toys?”]

That was the young lady’s assessment. She believed Ling Xing, accustomed to her homemade gadgets, had developed a path dependency, unable to envision proper military armaments, and thus only dared to request such inferior civilian explosives.

To this…

[“No, fireworks are sufficient. Or rather, it *must* be fireworks.”]

Ling Xing had responded thus.

‘It simply *had* to be fireworks.’

After meticulously arranging the fully prepared fireworks launchers, Ling Xing ignited the fuses.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

—BOOM!

Dozens of fireworks soared skyward, trailing vibrant streaks of multicolored light. On either side of the towering structure, brilliant pyrotechnics erupted.

From a distance, it appeared as if an array of meticulously arranged, dazzling artillery pieces were firing in staggered volleys towards the upper floors of the tower. Even though night had not yet fallen, the vivid colors illuminated the city shrouded in the tower’s shadow, painting the entire urban sky.

“What is the meaning of this? Do they intend to attack the Great Tower with such paltry toys? This is madness, such—”

In the kaleidoscopic summit conference room, bathed in the brilliant hues cast through its windows by the exploding fireworks, a woman in a formal gown frowned deeply, murmuring to herself as she rested one hand against her cheek.

Naturally, explosions of this magnitude posed no threat whatsoever to the Great Tower itself. Not only would they fail to damage the tower’s structure, but they wouldn’t even cause a single crack in its extensive bulletproof glass. Even ten times this amount wouldn’t cause the Great Tower any issue.

Nevertheless, the intruder, having discerned the tower’s sparse defenses and seized this rare window of vulnerability, was still squandering a precious opportunity with such an inexplicable act.

The woman bit her finger, her expression fluctuating between light and shadow, and she narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. Then, she suddenly reacted, throwing her hand out.

“No, that’s not right! It’s not for attack, this is—”

“A means to attract attention!”

‘It’s utterly dreadful as a breakthrough tool, but what if its purpose was never to break through in the first place? What if the objective, from the very beginning, was to draw attention, to capture every gaze? It creates a massive commotion and a striking visual display, yet it’s relatively non-lethal, preventing passersby from scattering in terror and instead encouraging them to stop and watch. In that case, everything makes sense!’

The woman frantically pulled out her phone. Local news, live broadcasts, and citizen footage—the incident of the sacred Magical Girl Organization’s Great Tower, a supreme military stronghold, being attacked by fireworks had rapidly escalated. The public and media swarmed, scrambling to capture this explosive news in what was typically a dull little city.

The city’s vital institutions were inherently built around the Great Tower, and media outlets were just a street away, able to witness the spectacle directly upon stepping outside. Some had even taken advantage of the chaos to infiltrate the camp, live-streaming from this forbidden zone that no one had ever dared to breach.

The live broadcast now captured the figure of the instigator amidst the swirling smoke and confusion. A spirited young woman, her jacket half-draped, revealing an expanse of pale waist between her shorts and bra, her white hair streaked with deep blue, and her fingertips adorned with blue nail polish—

That was Ling Xing, whose appearance had subtly changed due to her new crystal transformation.

“Oh, citizens of D City! I am an elite combatant under the Dark Cadre, and I stand upon the land seized by the Magical Girl Organization! I show you that we, who were long declared extinct, shall, at this very moment, defeat the wicked Magical Girl Organization and expose their crimes to the world!”

Ling Xing, visible on screen, raised a small hand, making her grand declaration as if she had already conquered the Great Tower.

The outrageous truth, however, was that within the Great Tower, there was indeed no army present at that moment capable of stopping her.

“Tch… that wretched brat!”

‘I had thought even this momentary vulnerability would be inconsequential, and that anything she might destroy would have already been moved. But this brat, who had always just pretended to play house, had actually seized this opportunity with such keen insight, daring to slander the Magical Girl Organization! Fool! Did she think the Magical Girl Organization was so easily dealt with?! Communications, information, networks—the Organization’s power controls everything, dominates everything!’

“What are you standing around for?! Cut off communications! Control the network! Eliminate all witnesses!”

‘With just a few lines of code, everything this brat was doing would be rendered utterly futile. This was the Organization’s power; it was simply not something a few isolated individuals could shake. There’s no need to panic; this is merely a minor interlude…’

The woman let out a long breath, raising her teacup to her lips. Yet, she never managed to sip that hot tea.

“—We-we’re already doing it, Branch Chief! But, but there’s no response! Our internal network has been compromised! Someone intimately familiar with the internal network and servers has destroyed it, and we have surveillance footage!”

“What?”

The teacup clattered to the floor, shattering into countless pieces and splashing hot tea everywhere. The woman, referred to as the Branch Chief, gaped in astonishment as she seized her subordinate by the collar.

Then, she saw the footage on the computer, reflected in her subordinate’s face, which was uglier than a cry.

It was surveillance footage of the servers. The screen showed a low-level combatant, wearing a brainwashing visor, inexplicably strolling with practiced ease directly into the room housing the core servers. They blew open the door, then proceeded to wildly smash and destroy the expensive equipment, thus physically dismantling the server’s internal network and preventing them from connecting to the Organization’s system for the time being… At the end, they even waved at the surveillance camera.

“Destroy everything, ruin everything! Long live the Dark Organization!”

“…”

‘Everything had been recorded, yet it seemed utterly useless. Watching it made no difference at all. Just an ordinary low-level combatant, ordinary destruction—no information whatsoever, save for the fact that they knew the server’s location like the back of their hand. That wretched brat… always pretending to be a useless idler, yet secretly she’d begun training combatants, gathering intelligence, and plotting the Dark Organization’s restoration… I was actually fooled by her!’

The Branch Chief gnashed her teeth as she stared at the phone screen, where Ling Xing’s figure in the live broadcast was already captured by local media cameras.

‘It was already too late. Even if repairs were completed immediately, this was no longer a problem that could be resolved solely through online methods.’

“Branch Chief, what should we do? Should we send Lady Qi Teng Shen Xue to deal with her? Or…”

“No, tell Shen Xue to stand by and not engage. Although the timing isn’t ideal, we have no other choice now. Immediately proceed with the experiment ahead of schedule! We absolutely cannot let that brat truly unearth anything and expose it on camera!”