Chapter 37: The Three Calamities and the Missing Youth

Dressed in a loose white tracksuit, Polaris jogged into the conference room, pushing the door open.

Several gazes within the room immediately shifted towards the doorway, then converged downwards onto her.

These glances held a mix of curiosity, scrutiny, and calm.

Among them were familiar old faces, as well as new, unfamiliar ones.

One thing was certain: everyone present was at least capable of serving as a squad captain, representing the core strength protecting Jingping City.

“My apologies, everyone, for keeping you waiting.”

“Alright, everyone’s here now; let’s stop dawdling and get started.”

The speaker was Xirang, who leaned back in her office chair with a languid, almost indulgent posture.

Beneath the weight of her heavy protective suit, the chair’s backrest groaned in a series of protesting creaks, clearly struggling under the burden.

Once Polaris quickly settled into her seat, a glamorous magical girl with an alluring face, seated opposite her, nodded in greeting.

“It truly is a reunion after a long time, Polaris.”

“Indeed, long time no see, Zhuohua.”

Noting that everyone summoned had arrived, Liang Sicheng, seated at the head of the table, illuminated the screen behind her.

“Alright, let’s save the catching up for after the meeting.”

“Although we still have a few minutes until the scheduled time, since everyone is already here, we might as well start our meeting early.”

“This emergency summons is not for any other reason, but primarily concerns the ‘Three Calamities’ who have been frequently active within the city recently.”

“We need to explain their activities to you all and simultaneously solicit your opinions.”

The Three Calamities, in other words, were the three Epidemic-level Corrupted Entities currently entrenched within Jingping City.

As Polaris listened to Liang Sicheng’s explanation, she picked up the few pages of material placed before her and quickly flipped through them.

Sure enough, she found the report detailing Black Mirror’s battle with herself and Baoyu.

The next page contained the record of a mission failure, where a squad dispatched by the Demon Surveillance Department had been obstructed by Rainbow.

So that was it.

If two Epidemic-level Corrupted Entities were working together, then this matter certainly warranted the Demon Surveillance Department’s serious attention.

“Rainbow… after all these years, that juvenile clown still enjoys playing these roundabout, tedious games.”

Maintaining her nonchalant posture, Xirang carelessly flipped through the papers, glanced at the battle report involving Polaris and Baoyu, then casually set the materials aside.

In stark contrast, the magical girl known as Zhuohua meticulously read through the documents.

As Liang Sicheng spoke, Zhuohua even made several annotations with a red pen she held.

Meanwhile, a scholar-like magical girl seated beside her never once picked up the materials given to her.

Instead, she kept her head bowed, engrossed in a thick book resting on her lap, occasionally turning pages as if utterly captivated.

As Liang Sicheng’s narration of the two incidents drew to a close, Zhuohua finally voiced her question.

“Rainbow and Black Mirror went to such great lengths to snatch these two young people from right under our noses; what exactly is their background?”

“That’s precisely what I’m about to address,” Liang Sicheng said, gently tapping her computer.

She projected photos and basic information of three young people onto the screen behind her.

Two of them were the individuals who had been abducted by Corrupted Entities and were currently missing.

Wen Qiusheng, Ji Lanxin, who was the same age as him, and Liu Tianze, who was three years their senior.

“Two sixteen-year-old minors, and a boy who just turned adult, all from Jihai City—how did they end up here?”

“The critical point is this Wen Qiusheng; the report mentions he actively transformed into a Corrupted Entity and attacked our people.”

“What exactly happened? Could he also be an Epidemic-level Corrupted Entity?”

“Since Black Mirror and Rainbow abducted two of them, the remaining youth is in a highly dangerous situation.”

“Is there any news regarding him?”

Waiting for the murmurs within the conference room to subside, Liang Sicheng continued, changing the content on the screen as she spoke.

“As you all must have noticed, Rainbow and Black Mirror’s target this time was precisely these three young people.”

“Their circumstances present suspicious points that greatly concern us.”

“According to the intelligence we’ve gathered from contacting Jihai City, Wen Qiusheng and Ji Lanxin are classmates from the same school.”

“Liu Tianze is the son of a restaurant owner near the school; he has currently dropped out and is helping at the family restaurant.”

“The three of them frequently hung out together in their daily lives.”

“Regarding their disappearance, only Wen Qiusheng’s parents actively reported it, seeking help.”

“Ji Lanxin’s mother and Liu Tianze’s parents claimed to have no knowledge of it.”

“Among them, Liu Tianze apparently had a history of running away from home multiple times.”

“In Liu Tianze’s recent consumption records, we found information about a rented vehicle.”

“He is the only one among the three with a driver’s license, so they likely traveled to Jinghai City in a car rented by Liu Tianze.”

“We are currently tracing the whereabouts of that vehicle and investigating their purpose for coming to Jinghai City.”

“Furthermore, regarding the earlier speculation about them being Epidemic-level Corrupted Entities, another crucial piece of intelligence is needed to support that argument.”

Under everyone’s gaze, Liang Sicheng brought up reports of three separate accidents.

The manner and locations of these accidents appeared entirely unrelated.

The only commonality was that all individuals involved were young people under the age of twenty.

“These three reports are the versions released to the public.”

“Our city’s Demon Surveillance Department only received the versions detailing the true circumstances this morning.”

As Liang Sicheng clicked to the next page, the images displayed on the screen plunged all the experienced magical girls present into silence and astonishment.

They saw a black monster, possessing mostly human features, hanging upside down like a bat beneath a bridge; its hands were gone, replaced by sharp, blade-like structures.

They saw an obscure, dim environment filled with many glowing, unknown flower clusters, and in the center of one cluster, a slender black humanoid appeared.

Its chest was adorned with a massive flower bud, while its lower body resembled the structure of some carnivorous plant, with a huge gaping maw on its rotund, spherical torso.

Finally, they saw the incomplete remains of a gigantic moth.

Repulsively, many eyeball-like organs clung to the moth’s wings, and its head, by all appearances, seemed to be that of a mutated human.

As for what they originally were, discerning the answer was not difficult given their obvious human characteristics.

No one spoke; they merely observed and scrutinized the images, each lost in their own thoughts.

This continued until Xirang slowly sat upright, adding unhurriedly, “If we’re always eliminating such hideous things, it would be simply unreasonable not to give us a bigger year-end bonus.”

Next, Liang Sicheng played a video.

Everyone present clearly saw the moth-like Corrupted Entity battling a magical girl.

During the fight, it displayed clear consciousness and thought, speaking human language, which was distinctly different from the conventional Corrupted Entities they knew.

Once the video concluded, Liang Sicheng looked at the grim-faced assembly and began to explain the situation.

“Approximately half a year ago, the domestic Demon Surveillance Department began successively discovering the special Corrupted Entities mentioned in these documents.”

“Initially, due to their conscious awareness and ability to communicate, the Demon Surveillance Department believed they might help us research the origins of Epidemic-level Corrupted Entities.”

“However, through tentative communication and combat, the Department gradually ruled out any direct correlation between them.”

“Currently, the Corrupted Entities appearing in these three reports have exhibited a threat level no higher than Infiltration-class.”

“According to the magical girls involved in the battles, they more closely resemble ordinary people who have just adapted to the power of a Corrupted Entity.”

“They gradually master their abilities as combat progresses, becoming more threatening, but they also develop a desire to retreat after sustaining certain attacks, becoming timid and full of openings.”

This description first brought to Polaris’s mind newcomers like Baoyu, who had only recently become magical girls.

Immediately afterward, she thought of Black Mirror—or more accurately, the Black Mirror she first met, before she even had that name.

Back then, she had been so fragile, she felt as though she might shatter at a touch.

“…”

Polaris shook her head, trying her best to clear the irrelevant memories from her mind.

The meeting was still underway, and it had now been mentioned that with the successive appearance of special Corrupted Entities, the Demon Surveillance Department had begun consolidating these cases for investigation.

They had ultimately determined that certain commonalities existed among them.

Therefore, to corroborate the Demon Surveillance Department’s conjectures and acquire further clues, ascertaining the whereabouts of these three young people had become an urgent mission, especially given that two of them had already been taken by Corrupted Entities.

Based on the available intelligence, one of the magical girls present raised a question.

“I have a point of confusion: since the subjects in these incidents are capable of communication, why do we only have the information in our hands?”

“There’s no mention whatsoever of the crucial information regarding the reasons why they can transform into these types of Corrupted Entities.”

“Regarding that…” Liang Sicheng’s expression seemed troubled.

“Is it really that hard to understand?” Xirang interjected again, her voice tinged with disdain.

“It’s because even at this stage, those above still wish to keep things hidden from us.”

As soon as these words were uttered, an unusual tension immediately permeated the atmosphere at the table.

Everyone fell silent once more.

Before Liang Sicheng could offer further explanation, the magical girl who had been reading a book beside Zhuohua made a move.

She let out a soft breath, closed the book on her lap, and then mercilessly refuted Xirang’s conjecture.

“Foolish, retract your preconceptions; the answer to this question is simple.”

Her voice was chillingly cold, carrying a sense of detachment and aloofness.

She turned her head to look at the images of the young people transformed into Corrupted Entities on the screen, her gaze utterly unwavering.

“Because the individuals involved in these three incidents can no longer speak.”

“They are all dead.”

“…”

Dead?

Polaris’s heart plummeted.

She stared blankly at the photographs of the young people, who all appeared to be in the prime of their youth.

Yet, the ugly and twisted forms they took as Corrupted Entities lingered indelibly in her memory.

This stark, jarring contrast left her unsettled for a long time.

“As ‘Quansi’ stated, the individuals involved in the first two incidents were confirmed dead on the scene at the conclusion of the events.”

“The remaining person, after losing consciousness, received intensive care and held on for three days, but ultimately did not survive.”

Seizing the moment while everyone was still processing this information, Liang Sicheng reclaimed the floor and continued.

“Through further communication and interaction with them, the Demon Surveillance Department determined that their transformation into Corrupted Entities did not appear to be a natural occurrence.”

“Instead, it seemed more likely to be artificially induced.”

“Maintaining the Corrupted Entity form subjects their minds and bodies to immense pressure, which was the primary cause of their eventual death and loss of consciousness.”

“In other words, the Demon Surveillance Department suspects that these three, including Wen Qiusheng, like the previous individuals, were subjected to some unknown, artificially manipulated influence that caused them to transform into these special Corrupted Entities.”

“To be honest, such a thing is difficult to believe.”

“The individuals involved lived in different cities, and there were no apparent commonalities in their backgrounds or movements.”

“If this was indeed caused by human interference, then the method must be extraordinary.”

The magical girl called ‘Quansi’ spoke up again at this point.

“If it’s merely about transforming people into Corrupted Entities out of subjective intent, don’t we have a ready example right here?”

She paused, then uttered the name that had surfaced in everyone’s minds.

“Black Mirror. She has personally admitted her involvement in the Corrupted Entity incident that occurred at the school not long ago.”

“And according to the relevant reports, the Corrupted Entity the individual transformed into also exhibited very unusual behavioral patterns…”

“Hmm, it’s truly a pity that such a rare specimen was simply destroyed like that.”

“…”

Evidently, not everyone agreed with Quansi’s assertion of referring to innocent victims as specimens.

However, this minor difference of opinion would not further impact anything.

“Since she possesses similar abilities and has already been proven to be connected to these three individuals we are searching for, we cannot rule out the possibility of her having further links to this series of incidents.”

After articulating her deductions, she suddenly tossed the topic to Polaris, who had remained silent throughout.

“Regarding this matter, Polaris, what are your thoughts?”

Called by name, Polaris displayed the flustered expression of someone whose mind had wandered, only to be abruptly called upon to answer a question.

She blinked in a daze, and seeing everyone’s eyes on her, she understood that remaining silent was no longer an option.

“I…”

She hesitated, her words catching in her throat, but after a moment, she finally offered her perspective.

“I do not believe Black Mirror is connected to this series of incidents.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“No particular reason, it’s just…” She deliberately avoided everyone’s gaze. “It’s merely my intuition.”

“Intuition, then.” Quansi did not expose this transparent lie, for Polaris’s demeanor and expression had already conveyed everything.

“I understand. As the magical girl with the most prolonged contact with the Corrupted Entity Black Mirror, I will take your opinion into consideration.”

****

Finally, based on the conclusions drawn from this meeting, the Demon Surveillance Department deployed tasks to the attending magical girls.

Finding clues about the three young people was the top priority for recent activities, hence the increased frequency of regional patrols for each squad.

Furthermore, to prepare for potential battles with Rainbow and Black Mirror, all squad captains were instructed to operate at a squad level in the near future, striving to prevent members from acting alone.

“I will compile all the suggestions and requests you have raised and report them to the higher-ups.”

“Subsequent arrangements will be communicated to you separately at that time.”

“Today’s meeting concludes here; thank you all for your hard work.”

Amidst the scraping of chairs against the floor, Polaris watched Quansi rise first and quickly depart.

Just as Polaris intended to leave with the others, Liang Sicheng called out to her.

“Wait, Polaris.”

Liang Sicheng approached her, holding a stack of documents in her arms.

She pulled out a page with a sticky note attached and handed it to Polaris.

“I hope you can take a look at this.”

Upon receiving the document and seeing its contents, Polaris’s face registered surprise:

“This is…”