Chapter 39 – Seoul battle (4)

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I had some idea that Shining White wasn’t in her right mind.

…However, I never expected it to be this extreme.

No matter how unhinged she was, I never would have thought they’d so casually pierce the stomach of a junior magical girl.

As soon as I regained control of my body from Shining White, I saw Sparkling Blue, who was drowning in unmistakable despair.

“Sky, Sky! Wake up! Sky!!”

“Blue, get a hold of yourself! It’s not over yet, it’s coming!”

Sparkling Blue, who had caught Sky as she was thrown by Shining White, held the unconscious girl in her arms, her stomach dyed red, and kept calling out her name.

Sky’s stomach was red.

…Almost as if my own hand had pierced through it.

I looked down at my right arm, barely hanging on by a thread.

Radiant White’s beam had burned right through my elbow, leaving only a thin layer of flesh connecting it.

…Was it really my hand that pierced her?

Was the blood on my hands mine? Or Sky’s?

I knew. I knew what it felt like to tear through someone’s stomach. I had done it before. That’s why this made no sense.

That sensation just now—it wasn’t the feeling of piercing a person’s body. Sky’s stomach being stained red was just from my liquefied arm brushing against her clothes.

Shining White must have drained something else from her—something like starlight, not blood.

Logically, I understood that. But my heart refused to accept the situation before me.

If I didn’t pierce her stomach, then what exactly did happen?

How was I supposed to explain what I was seeing?

As I stood frozen, struggling to make sense of it all, I heard something burst near my head.

A sharp pop.

Blood. A spear of blood had shattered.

The blood-forged spear Shining White had been about to throw at Sparkling Blue had collapsed before it could maintain its form.

The splattered blood stained my right side a deep crimson.

…I never meant for this to happen. All I wanted was—

“You dared to attack Sky?!”

Just as I was about to finally accept what had happened, Blazing Red’s flame-cloaked kick came hurtling toward me.

I instinctively raised my right arm to block, but since it was barely attached to begin with, it was severed instantly.

There was no pain, but watching my own arm fly past my vision sent an icy chill down my spine.

At this rate, I was going to die.

For the first time, the gazes of the magical girls—who I had once faced so effortlessly—felt suffocating.

They felt terrifying.

…No matter what, I had to escape.

The situation had spiraled completely out of control. There was no way I could just laugh this off and smooth things over.

I only came here to play a little prank.

So how had things gone so horribly wrong?

I felt like crying.

As I was sent flying by the kick, I stretched out tendrils of blood to retrieve my severed arm.

Just as I was about to crash into the ground, I managed to reattach my arm in time. I also healed the countless wounds that littered my body.

I reactivated my acceleration ability, which had been disabled when my consciousness had shifted, narrowly dodging the pure white beam that crashed into the spot where I had landed.

Radiant White stood there, her expression utterly blank.

That was the face she made when she was so furious she had lost all reason.

In other words, Shining White had done the one thing that could truly enrage Radiant White.

She claimed to care about her sister, yet she was the one who had pushed her into a blind fury. What a joke.

But I didn’t have time to dwell on that thought, as fire and lightning rained down on me from above.

Though my acceleration ability gave me a slight edge in speed, dodging all their attacks was impossible.

Desperately weaving through the attacks, sometimes even taking hits directly, I fought my way toward where the Tiger had been left behind.

I needed more blood if I wanted to escape.

Because of Shining White’s reckless use of blood magic and acceleration, the supply of blood I had painstakingly stored up was nearly depleted.

I had to extract every last drop of blood from the discarded monsters.

Then, I would pour all that blood into my acceleration ability and flee at top speed.

That was the plan I had just come up with.

But when I reached the place where I had abandoned the Tiger, there was nothing there.

Why was it gone?

The answer came to me almost immediately.

The Rat’s ability must have helped them escape.

Even when I searched for the Ox, I couldn’t find them either. That meant any of them who still had their heads intact had been taken away by The Rat.

All that remained was The Pig.

…Would that be enough?

Rather than confidence, doubt crept in.

Even though The Pig was massive and still full of blood, it didn’t seem like it would be enough to satisfy my needs.

But I had no other choice.

To buy a few seconds, I grabbed some of the abandoned cars and hurled them into the sky.

Then, I reached the still-bleeding body of The Pig.

Its grotesque head had somehow reattached itself. The sight of it made me sick.

How could something survive after its brain had been obliterated?

I barely had time to shudder in disgust before the cars I had thrown were obliterated midair, raining down as twisted metal.

I immediately liquefied my body and burrowed into The Pig.

Absorbing its blood with my entire body, it took less than five seconds for the once-plump creature to shrivel into a dried husk.

As memories of The Pig’s miserable life flooded my mind, my head throbbed with unbearable heat.

But even through the splitting headache, I knew one thing for certain.

I didn’t have enough blood.

I wasn’t sure how much I needed, but my instincts screamed that this wouldn’t be enough.

Not enough to escape them.

Not enough to make it to Incheon.

Is there really no way?

The hardened, shriveled-up pig shell was shattering under the combined assault of Red and Blue, gradually revealing my form. But even as it happened, I had no idea what to do next.

Attack a magical girl to obtain blood? No, I couldn’t do that. By the same logic, attacking a civilian was out of the question.

Hunting down villains? That was an absurd notion to begin with.

There was no way.

What do I do? What am I supposed to do?

Should I take down all the magical girls and escape, just like Shining White did?

If I did as Shining White had, I could probably defeat the magical girls without much difficulty, but emotionally, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I only wanted to torment them a little, to toy with them—I had no desire to seriously hurt or kill them.

But if I didn’t, I was the one who would die.

Do I really have to? Me? Maybe I should call Shining White back…

No, absolutely not.

If I summoned Shining White again, she might end up piercing through another magical girl’s stomach.

That was the last thing I wanted.

Then what do I do? What am I supposed to…

I was desperately racking my brain for a solution.

—Chomp… Chomp. Gulp. So, how exactly do you use starlight?

—I already told you. It’s already inside your heart. You don’t have to think about using it. Just wish for it. Then, the rest will come to you naturally.

A memory from the pig resurfaced at just the right moment—the memory of that brat asking the rabbit how to use starlight.

So, I just have to wish for it.

…I doubt anything good will come of it, but I have no other options right now, so I might as well try.

I had gathered starlight from the monsters and Scanning Sky, so at least I didn’t have to worry about running out.

Breaking free from the pig’s shell with my own hands, I soared into the air.

Red and Blue, seeing me, made expressions that all but said, I knew it, before each unleashed their signature finishing moves at me.

But instead of dodging, I closed my eyes.

Whatever happens, let the starlight be the key to breaking through this hopeless situation.

I made that wish, not even knowing the name of the star I had contracted with.

…And then, the demon star answered me.

The starlight, which I had never been able to use for anything, gathered in my hands, taking the shape of a massive crimson-black greatsword.

That was all—but strangely, I was certain it would be enough.

Without even knowing what would happen, I swung the crimson-black blade.

A massive, wide arc of crimson energy shot forward.

“Red, look out…!”

Before they could even react, the slash flew toward the horizon.

“…Huh? Why isn’t anything happening?”

However, the attack had no effect on Red or Blue.

At first, I had no idea what I had just done.

But soon, I understood what my attack had actually affected.

It wasn’t Red or Blue—it was the magical girls and civilians behind them.

From the backs of some of the magical girls caught in the slash’s path, an amorphous something began to slither out.

At first, I didn’t understand what it was. But the moment I did, I scattered the starlight.

Before it was too late.

By sheer luck, the moment the starlight dispersed, whatever had been drawn out of their bodies immediately returned to its place.

But the magical girls who had almost had something extracted from them seemed shaken, their strength leaving them as they plummeted to the ground.

“Guys?! Pink! Yellow! Get a hold of yourselves!”

While Red and Blue panicked, I used the last of my blood to accelerate and make a quick escape.

…No one followed.

They wouldn’t be in any state to.

That one attack must have left the city in ruins.

The wicked. The unworthy. The worthless.

If those struck by the slash fit those criteria, then it would strip them of everything—‘The Demon King’s Strike.’

That was the absurd ability Shining White had gained upon becoming a monster.

The ultimate massacre. A filter.

In other words, if I hadn’t scattered the starlight in time…

It could have led to a massive slaughter.

Shining White, just what the hell are you thinking?

Why did you make ‘selection’ your guiding principle?

As I threw these unanswerable questions into the void, I staggered my way toward Incheon.