Chapter 67: The Brutal Training and a Desperate Return

While the three experienced adult magical girls had anticipated this development, the other probationary magical girls were utterly stunned.

Upon witnessing and hearing the Bat Serpent unleash its visibly potent magic, a profound shock rippled through them all.

Their shock intensified particularly after they bore witness to Su Ling, caught in the very epicenter, engulfed by two bursts of crimson mist.

Su Muxue nearly tumbled over the barrier, her body leaning precariously.

‘Mama!’

She instinctively cried out for Su Qingyao, desperately hoping her mother would intervene and rescue the magical girl imperiled by the attack.

‘If it were Mama, the Blue Witch, then surely…’

‘I’m afraid not,’

Su Qingyao’s eyes shimmered with a fleeting light, yet ultimately, her magic staff remained unraised.

‘Because their training isn’t quite finished yet,’

A flicker of reluctance crossed Su Qingyao’s face as she averted her gaze, turning instead to the magical girl suspended mid-air, her expression impassive, yet her fists tightly clenched.

‘Confronting setbacks, or even outright enduring failure, is an equally vital part of their training.’

****

On the distant battlefield, Liu Huayun’s magic arrived belatedly, yet precisely, pulling Lin Xiaoxiao, who had suffered the second-most severe impact, and the semi-conscious Su Ling out of the immediate danger zone.

Witnessing this, the three remaining Second-Tier probationary members gritted their teeth, compelled to push to the very front lines.

The Bat Serpent’s magic inflicted more than just physical harm; it directly dispelled the probationary members’ own spells.

For a terrifying instant, their connection to their magical cores was severed, sending the magical girls plummeting helplessly from mid-air.

Thus, the Second-Tier probationary members who were in relatively better condition had no choice but to steel themselves and continue their arduous task of suppressing the Bat Serpent.

Even so, a profound doubt gnawed at the probationary members, questioning whether they could truly manage to suppress the creature.

Yet, they were afforded no luxury of time to ponder such uncertainties.

Having unleashed its magic, the Bat Serpent, now seemingly driven to a frenzy, granted the magical girls no time for contemplation.

Even Lin Xiaoxiao, consumed by worry for Su Ling, found only a brief moment to wipe the blood from her nose before she, too, was forced to plunge back into the fray.

Regardless, the battle unfolding beyond the barrier had, in a single terrifying instant, completely overturned the balance of power.

****

In a daze, it felt as though everything had reverted to a distant memory—

The day she first encountered Lin Xiaoxiao, after being rescued from the fiery inferno by Aunt Lin and subsequently adopted as an orphan.

Past memories, like a rapidly spinning top, whirled before Su Ling’s eyes, swiftly flowing from distant days to this very night, to the battlefield where she now contended with the terrifying, grotesque demon beast.

‘Buzz—buzz—’

A piercing tinnitus accompanied the intense pain, as though a steel awl had been driven into both her temples, relentlessly churning within her skull.

‘Ahhhhhh!’

The soul-wrenching agony compelled Su Ling, a mere junior high student, to cry out in anguish.

Pushing herself up from Liu Huayun’s lap, Su Ling furiously flung the thick layer of leaves that had covered her face, now matted with viscous, foul blood, onto the ground.

‘I— *gasp* —I’m still alive? How much time has passed?’

Su Ling gulped down mouthfuls of the metallic, blood-tinged air, then shakily rose to her feet, her gaze fixed on the relentlessly warring battlefield.

‘You were only unconscious for three minutes.’

Seeing that Su Ling was at least lucid, Liu Huayun immediately exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

She then strived to maintain a composed demeanor as she recounted everything that had transpired during those brief three minutes to the grim-faced Su Ling.

Her unique magic was adept at healing grievous wounds, and in the intervening time, Liu Huayun had poured her entire focus into providing emergency aid to Su Ling.

Consequently, on the main battlefield, the burden of desperately stalling the enemy had fallen entirely upon the remaining three Second-Tier magical girls and Lin Xiaoxiao.

As Teacher Xu Yanqing had not yet declared the battle over, it meant they had not entirely succumbed to utter despair.

Su Ling’s vision still swam with a disorienting dizziness, forcing her to squint fiercely, struggling to discern the unfolding chaos of the battle.

After a few agonizing seconds.

The persistent double vision finally receded, allowing Su Ling to gaze upon the four streaks of light that circled the Bat Serpent.

From her vantage point, she finally perceived the demon’s true nature; every action and maneuver in its current battle seemed to have been fundamentally altered by that single spell.

It was far more complex than the Bat Serpent merely gaining a moment of respite.

Instead, it exuded an air of greater ease and calculated control:

‘It’s toying with Lin Xiaoxiao and the others,’ Su Ling gritted out, her teeth now stained with blood as she slammed her fist violently onto the ground.

She lifted her gaze, staring up at the Bat Serpent still suspended in mid-air, poised to unfurl its wings once more.

It extended its forked tongue, spewing four black arrows of demonic energy directly at the four magical girls.

This was a fighting style that defied all logic and reason.

‘I have to go back now,’

Su Ling declared, even as her spirit attire, now appearing somewhat ethereal and tattered, materialized around her.

With a flash in her eyes, Liu Huayun offered no protest, simply nodding her assent.

‘Very well. Just remember not to let go of my vine.’

After Liu Huayun chanted a few brief incantations, a vine as thick as a wrist snaked out from the soil near her feet.

Only after it had coiled around Su Ling’s hand, weaving itself into a bracelet on her wrist, did Liu Huayun nod in satisfaction.

Concurrently, the vine’s visible ‘tendrils’ deliberately snapped away near her wrist, ensuring they wouldn’t impede Su Ling’s movements.

Flexing her wrist, Su Ling braced herself to return to the battlefield that awaited her.

However.

Whether this was a stroke of good fortune or ill luck, Su Ling could not tell.

Just as she steeled her resolve, preparing to drag her heavily wounded body back into the fray, the entangled struggle between the four girls and the single beast reached its brutal conclusion—

‘Ah!’

He Baimiao’s piercing scream sent a tremor through both Su Ling and Liu Huayun, who had just regained their composure.

They whipped their heads around, their eyes darting to the scene with the utmost speed.

The Bat Serpent’s enormous, razor-sharp claws were now clamped tightly around their companion, holding her captive in its monstrous grasp.

He Baimiao, her magical reserves depleted, had been a mere half-beat too slow in her evasion, a momentary lapse that the demon beast ruthlessly exploited.

With astonishing agility, the colossal demon beast decisively folded its wings, executed a swift dive, and seized He Baimiao.

‘Gaaah—’

The Bat Serpent unleashed a shrill, grating laugh that pierced and tormented everyone’s eardrums.

With a furious roar, Lin Xiaoxiao disregarded her own injuries, poised to unleash another Hidden Flame with every ounce of her remaining power.

Fang Ruxue swallowed the bloody froth in her mouth, then desperately began chanting for her most potent magic cannon, a spell she wielded with unparalleled skill.

However, Wang Sichun, who stood closest to the monstrous creature, found her mind utterly blank.

An overwhelming, boundless stench of blood enveloped her completely.

The horrific sight of He Baimiao, her face contorted in agony as the Bat Serpent’s grip audibly cracked her bones, was seared into Wang Sichun’s mind.

A paralyzing, empathetic terror seized her, clamping a suffocating grip around her throat.

She had to move.

But her body refused to obey.

Her hand, trembling uncontrollably, slowly lifted her magic staff.

Wang Sichun’s heaving chest released shallow, ragged gasps.

‘Will I end up like this too?’

‘I’m so afraid, so incredibly afraid.’

The overwhelmed girl choked out a desperate whimper from her constricted throat.

She twisted her head, casting a gaze filled with desperate hope, bordering on outright pleading, toward the ‘teacher’ who had remained silently behind them, observing their struggle from the very beginning.

Xu Yanqing remained utterly expressionless.

With an impassive countenance, Xu Yanqing slowly raised her magic staff.

Then, a light sigh, like a gentle wisp of spring breeze, brushed past her ear, carrying with it a warmth that quieted her pervasive fear.

A pure white ribbon of light and a cannon of dark, inky magic surged across the battlefield, racing directly towards the demon beast.

The magic cannon tore through the Bat Serpent’s tightly clenched claw-hand.

The pure white ribbon of light followed instantly, unhesitatingly coiling around the waist of He Baimiao, who was on the verge of unconsciousness.

It then swiftly yanked the probationary magical girl back towards the safety of the barrier.