Watching the girls’ figures step through the gate and disappear, the forced optimism and relief in Phoenix’s eyes suddenly evaporated.
“Damn it…”
“Damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it!!!”
Amber quietly watched her friend as she ranted, showing not a hint of surprise in her gaze, as if she could understand this outburst.
Outside, the sky was the color of blood.
In the distance, buildings in the city were continually being torn down by demon beasts and earthquakes.
On the battlefield, the Previous Magical Girls fought on without rest.
Civilians trembled.
Countless messages came from inside the barrier, yet none of them could erode even a fraction of the unconquerable resentment in her voice.
Then.
She choked, looking at Amber, “I really… I really want to go too…”
—She had known for a long time that everything would end, so why did this unwillingness and anger surge so strongly now?
Maybe because even now she could not leave the Happiness Peace Committee birdcage and fight side by side with the magical girls outside?
Or because the last sliver of heavy hope and responsibility would be placed on the only four innocent girls left in this world?
Those reasons might be true.
But Phoenix actually knew what she resented most.
Across three thousand three hundred and thirty-three cycles… three hundred years, the close friends who had supported one another.
She and Amber were the ones who most wanted to confront that silver-haired girl who had betrayed everyone and ask that why in person.
But… reason told her she could not.
She knew that if she entered that place she would inevitably become a hindrance, her authority would most likely be taken away, and without the two of them Kazenari Town would certainly be utterly destroyed.
So she and Amber could not go.
They could only stay here and guard their last home for them.
But the kind of resentment that seeped from bone and soul—how could it not constantly scorch and lick her heart?
At that moment.
Amber looked at her, suddenly lifting the corner of her mouth slightly, and spoke softly.
“Not necessarily.”
“…?”
Still in her transformation state, Amber bowed her head a little and looked at the potted plant at Phoenix’s feet.
“I can feel it. Aside from the coming doom of annihilation and fear, the Sacred Tree actually has another kind of inexplicable tremor.”
Phoenix was a little stunned.
“I only just understood what that was, Mengmengxiang guessed it.”
“If the vast authority has been taken, that means…”
Amber’s expression shifted strangely, the light in her eyes growing brighter and brighter, “Among us, the one most suited to rebuild a world—”
“His soul has been freed.”
Phoenix froze for a few seconds, her eyes as if filled with innumerable data and shimmering streams of light.
“You mean, you want to—”
………
A brief dizziness, heat at the chest.
The moment Lin Guang stepped into here, the world blurred and spun like rippling water, like a dreamlike vortex.
Before his vision fully returned, Lin Guang suddenly felt a trace of resistance and a liquid touch around his ankles.
A shallow layer, just covering the ankles, with a strange, ethereal quality.
Water?
Lin Guang blinked, his sight restored, and looked down.
No.
It was condensed magic power in liquid form.
Like a colorless mirror, it reflected the girl’s sweet, indifferent face and those ever-burning, vividly red eyes.
Behind the girl in the reflection was a profound darkness, as if standing in a midnight wilderness.
The next moment, everyone lifted their heads at the same time.
Su Fang murmured softly, “Wow.”
The boundless night spread in all directions, so quiet it seemed one could hear the turning of the stars.
But it was not actually dim here.
Ahead stood a giant tree with lush branches and leaves, radiating golden light.
It seemed to span the world, stretching from earth into the sky like a vast opened umbrella.
The trunk, branches, leaves—every detail was blurred in golden radiance; no single leaf’s shape could be seen, and no bark texture was discernible.
Above the sky floated nearly a hundred small, dazzling fragments, varied in shape and jagged in edges, set against the dark canopy like stars in a galaxy—brilliant and dense.
Fragments orbited the countless crowns, slowly rotating, bathing everything in flowing light and gleam.
“It’s so beautiful up there, it really shines.”
Tang Keren said softly.
Zihan’s left eye reflected the sight, replying the same, “Yeah.”
There was no need to elaborate on what these were anymore.
Countless observations and close touches had made them intimately familiar with it all.
The true body of the Sacred Tree.
And…
the Fragments of Hope representing its authority.
The fruits the Previous Magical Girls had fought desperately to bring back.
Yet at this moment, not a single girl smiled.
Because seeing the Sacred Tree also meant they could see the other truth reflected beneath this mirror-like surface.
The surface was like a mirror.
In the reflection stood a dead tree.
Same trunk, same crown span, but with not a single leaf—only bare, twisted, pale branches; the whole tree shrouded in pure black fog, like charred remains left after burning.
The black fog had condensed into chains, wrapping every branch and turning it into a silhouette of darkness.
In the reflection’s sky there were no fragments, only endless black mist.
Two trees, one above and one below, one light and one dark.
And now, that water surface was no longer an isolating boundary.
Pure black fog surged through the surface like tides, rising from below and curling around the roots of the upper giant tree, showing a tendency to erode upward.
The golden light at the giant tree’s roots dimmed bit by bit under the surging black fog.
There was no doubt; this image represented the Abyss corroding the defenseless Sacred Tree.
And everyone could see…
in front of the black fog at the tree’s base stood a familiar slender figure.
Black suit, white shirt, black tie, long silver hair.
That was Airwen.
Only now the girl’s face was not exposed but covered by a pure black mask.
Her stance seemed as if she was looking at the four girls in the distance, but the mask held nothing, like a non-reflective black hole.
Black mist rolled behind her, like faithful attendants and servants.
And for some reason.
Su Fang, Tang Keren, and Zihan’s magic perception were as if they sensed nothing at all, as if facing a mute void.
“……”*5
There were so many things everyone wanted to say, yet seeing this person in reality, they did not know where to begin.
A multitude of emotions swelled in the girls’ hearts.
And the next moment…
The first to break the silence was Su Fang.
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