Cold wind echoed throughout the treasury space.
As Snow Maiden activated the power of Heart of Profound Winter, centered on the base, she drove Antarctica's endless cold cyclone. Fierce winds stirred clouds gathering overhead, torrential magical power vertically piercing the dome toward the battle center—this strike coordinated with vast phenomena.
The pale torrent destroyed Erina's flames, crumbling instantly before magnificent nature, energy pouring through the breach into the center to rage unchecked.
Holy Relics could still withstand it, but ordinary soldiers could only desperately grab onto any fixed objects.
This was an avalanche triggered by magical power. The user stopped magical input midway, otherwise the continental shelf-sized ice sheet would completely collapse, melting into the sea and potentially causing irreversible effects on world climate. Fortunately, it was essentially elemental magical power without actual snowflakes entering the treasury—everything subsided.
"You're quite impressive."
Snow Maiden stepped over rubble and debris, as composed as if she hadn't just unleashed a technique comparable to natural disaster, even having the leisure to examine her collection with bright eyes.
Erina supported herself against broken walls, half-kneeling and gasping, her left half completely gone, her entire form dimmed.
But she still stared directly at her powerful enemy without yielding, standing up again after a moment through gritted teeth. This body had no skeleton, but it had backbone. The girl in the painting represented not only herself but also her creator behind her—she absolutely couldn't lose face.
"I'll deal with the Holy Medicine later. Now I must be strong—this is her expectation."
At the same time, the pen and ink bottle quickly repaired her form, even adding a line of blurred text...
Snow Maiden's eyes sharpened as she instinctively raised her arms to block, simultaneously blowing out cold air to form a barrier, but the opponent charged at her with desperate determination.
Now she finally saw clearly: "Nine hundred thousand tons hypothetical mass!"
Staggering energy poured into Snow Maiden's embrace all at once, her petite body instantly flying backward, carving a trench as she smashed through treasury fortifications. This strike lifted the dome open to reveal Antarctica's sky—mountains bearing snow, cold wind howling. The shockwave prevented surrounding soldiers from even lifting their heads. No one dared imagine what nine hundred thousand tons of mass felt like in a direct collision.
Erina's right arm shattered from the elbow joint, flowing ink like blood, unable to recover quickly. Before her, Trident and Witch's aura had already enveloped her.
Simultaneously, the mental power of Holy Relics guarding four positions swept over, though they didn't intend to act—things weren't finished yet.
At the trench's end rose a broken figure, pieces of ice and snow reconstructing flesh, ice fragments crackling off the skin surface. That was actually a layer of nearly imperceptible armor—even after taking such a hit, Snow Maiden's aura remained undiminished, a smile appearing on her pretty face like glacial melting.
"Being shut in too long really does make one sluggish." She flexed her wrists and joints. "Aren't you going to use this chance to escape? Otherwise there won't be another opportunity."
"Hey, you said I have no heart, right?"
"Of course."
"It doesn't matter—I've figured it out. It doesn't matter at all. You with your non-beating heart find solace in dead objects—what meaning does this vast treasury have? I came to save, with a burning life waiting for my return. So what if I have no heart? Snow Maiden, I've investigated you. As someone cultivated to be compatible with relics, have you ever worried day and night? Ever felt your heart race? Ever been willing to disappear just to save someone? You don't understand."
With each word Erina spoke, her aura grew stronger, like an incantation. Sacred aura awed the entire scene, those determined eyes surveying the area, flashing with soul's color.
"—This is love. Even without a heart, it can be felt, existing among all things."
"You said my transformation is fake? Yes, Magical Girls aren't strong just because of their hearts, but also because of their all-encompassing emotions."
Erina raised her left arm skyward in summons. Instantly the ink bottle and pen transformed into flowing light, weaving around her to form magnificent, colorful robes.
Regalia reequipment!
At this moment her incompleteness was restored and she radiated dazzling light. Facing thousands of troops, her aura remained vigorous, unshakeable. The Holy Relic before her was indeed unfathomably deep, but the protagonist under Erina's brush was never cowardly.
The next moment the girl's form disappeared from where she stood, water bullets and chains striking empty air, leaving only a deep pit.
"You don't need to act—leave everything to me."
Before Snow Maiden finished speaking, she sidestepped to dodge another punch of nine hundred thousand tons, but unexpectedly Erina used an incredible movement for a shoulder strike. The violent force transmitted over, but at the critical moment, layers of ice barriers deflected and dissolved the impact.
Their exchanges were even more intense than before. The girl with further advanced Regalia shot forward like flowing flame, engaging Snow Maiden in ultra-high-speed combat that whipped up blizzard disasters.
Rumble rumble!
Antarctica echoed with war drums. The heat from high-speed friction melted ice and snow into flooding waters. The two leaped from the treasury dome, causing countless glaciers to push and tumble into the sea, whirlpools responding to earth-shaking sounds. Even now Erina still hadn't caused substantial damage—was she moving too slowly?
Somehow frost aura surrounded the battlefield, even automatically helping its master block attacks. Pure physical attacks became increasingly inadequate.
She swept her foot, sending out cold air that froze Erina into a glacier whose massive volume extended from the treasury to connect with a distant hill, then mercilessly struck to shatter the target.
Ink scattered and was quickly frozen and captured, ultimately only half forming the girl in the painting's body.
Full power?
Erina looked at Snow Maiden, still composed, and a trace of unwillingness flashed across her face. This rootless, drifting body truly couldn't hold out much longer—even Regalia couldn't rewrite that.
"Spouting grand principles? You're at most a relatively active shell."
Suddenly the pen and ink bottle appeared again on the girl in the painting's shoulders, intersecting to draw out a thick album—no, more like retrieving it from some space. It fell into her hands, radiating boundless energy. Instantly Snow Maiden frowned, making the glacier turn pitch black. She was now using a second relic to release Knowledge Poison, truly going all out to suppress her.
It had been a while since she needed to bring out one hundred percent of her state. This thing was very wrong, seeming to come from some profound mystery's massive toxicity.
Erina held the album but made no extra movements, her large eyes rolling before smiling. "I'm hollow?"
"Yes."
"How's my fighting?"
"Looks varied but actually lacks imagination. You could have been more excellent."
Erina slowly opened the album. Inside were clearly drawings of herself, but with different outfits, different appearances, even childhood periods. The handwriting notes ranged from childish and awkward to mature, ability settings varied without consistency, as if unable to decide.
It wasn't that Snow Maiden and others wanted to look at a child's doodles, but this thing seemed to emit some fatal attraction that forced their attention, or they might suffer curse poisoning.
"Since I can't control imagination, let imagination control me."
Erina's album automatically decomposed into countless pages that floated into her body like snowflakes. Each page made her aura more solid and substantial—representing the creator's heartfelt devotion during her brief life's most imaginative years, with boundless fantastical settings pouring into her body.
[Indestructible]
[Immense Strength]
[Catching Up to Light Speed]
[Can Absorb Solar Power]
[...]
Countless words poured into her body. Those shocking settings appeared so blatantly—children don't care about logic. The monster born from this entire treasury, the place filled with countless terrifying relics fell silent. They had a premonition that life's final song was about to play.
At this moment, the girl poured all the ink maintaining her existence into the album, then manifested through text—equivalent to sacrificing the energy maintaining her existence, betting everything on this strike and the cover objective.
No matter what, this attack had to be unleashed to create opportunity, or all previous efforts would be wasted.
In the blink of an eye she drained herself, becoming a thin doodle stick figure form—just a pile of lines, but behind her were countless circular text settings, densely packed without end. This appearance gave off a sacred, religious feeling, the text seeming to recite ethereal songs. The girl before them was neither human nor beast—at this moment she became some vast, magnificent existence, light shining across the ice plains.
Text gathered in her palm to form a sphere. Pressure alone made countless people bow in submission, only Snow Maiden stepping onto the ruins' peak.
"Come on, let us two inhuman things test each other's mettle."
Before finishing, her body suddenly shattered into a giant snow-white humanoid shadow—actually the outward product of Knowledge Poison, with contamination used as the deadliest weapon.
Then both sides unleashed full firepower, colliding together. The spreading shockwave ripples tore through clouds and sky, meteor showers falling down set the earth ablaze, all phenomena crumbling. At the critical moment, Erina's ink body was consumed beforehand, Holy Relic power pushing back.
Swoosh!
A simple, honest penetrating strike shattered her body into black torrential rain washing over the treasury building complex.
Snow Maiden, sensing no target aura, returned to normal form—not because she'd reached her limit but because many soldiers had been left blank-minded by that appearance.
"Could you really be gone just like that?"
First, she could confirm the opponent's energy reserves were completely exhausted with no threat short-term. Second, insufficient state would be affected by restrictions within the treasury, and any item flowing out would trigger alarms unless taken during chaos.
Just as Snow Maiden was pondering, cheers from the garrison brought her back to reality.
The witch waved glow sticks vigorously, leading enthusiastic cheers, while Trident beside her had already been assigned to civil engineering—they had to hurry repairs for the next transfer.
"Commander, it's too cold outside—come back quickly. Also I heard there's news from the research center that needs you to coordinate."
"Mm."
Snow Maiden floated down from the dome breach. About to leave, she suddenly stopped at the Holy Medicine storage area, looking through glass and barriers at the ceramic jar sitting quietly on the other side. Don't activate it for now, lest it attract sharks smelling blood. With this thought, the group headed toward the office. The disturbance had ended—one of the world's supposedly strongest fortresses had withstood the test.
Not one person present realized they should check the jar's back side, where a cartoon beautiful girl portrait had been carved at some point, her smile growing ever brighter.
❀⋆｡°✿☆❀✿°｡⋆❀
Meanwhile, North America's Hudson Bay, southwest hills behind the research center base.
Salvation Church's Magical Girls were busily setting up temporary magic circle transmission points in the forest, everyone's movements skilled and flowing.
The Commander was Jin Ruochu.
She was also bringing deputy Elsa to learn procedures in advance—after all, the more people who knew, the better, in case of accidents. Plus two major causal magic users could best avoid unstable factors in spacetime transmission.
The monitor was Nan Zhiyi, who had been responsible for long-range support in the Los Angeles battle and was well-suited for this. Domain magic users often possessed broader spiritual perception.
The seemingly most idle person was Hibiscus, who sat with arms crossed, leaning against the hillside with eyes closed in meditation.
Careful observation would reveal the silver-haired girl's Regalia hair ornament glowing brilliantly, representing enhancement of mental power amplification.
She took in the research center's general situation, confirming it matched netizens' intelligence—so the structural weak points, connection points and other vitals were also fine. Inside was indeed filled with massive Disaster Beast auras. If released, it would be chaos.
But there was bad news.
In the 24 hours since the Church arrived, military transport aircraft had been landing continuously as if money were no object. Soon they'd brought in a full army group, even including tanks, missile vehicles and other heavy units, with reinforcements still continuing.
This matched the Mercenary Alliance's intelligence. As Bull launched counterattacks to retake many key areas, the military began focusing on defense rather than spreading thin.
The research center was the top priority—massive scale, hard to move, essentially a sitting target.
Minase Kaori whispered, "Report, Senior Hyacinth. My summoned creatures have made contact with the Magical Girls inside. They're very willing to cooperate and accept the Church's protection. We can act anytime—just waiting for your signal."
The silver-haired girl opened her eyes and handed over a note clearly marking every transformer, signal station, relay station and other positions within the building.
All the detection results from earlier were here.
She smiled, "You're always so eloquent. To convince the Magical Girls inside in just a few moves—well done."
"Just lucky."
"Openly acknowledge your talent and make good use of it. You can do more for me, for the Church." Just finishing, Hibiscus patted Minase Kaori, making her nod with renewed vigor.
Nan Zhiyi withdrew her gaze from observing the research center. Seeing their interaction, she couldn't help feeling uneasy—truly worthy of Magical Girl Hyacinth. She often struck hearts at key moments to capture loyalty, praising others' talents—so what did that make her? Keen intuition let her encourage or supervise at just the right moments. As a subordinate, it was both worry-free and relaxing, inevitably inspiring yearning.
"Transmission circle's ready. Confirmed connection with Miss Beatrice in Antarctica." Jin Ruochu brought good news.
Hibiscus nodded, "Let's wait a bit more. Bull mentioned he'd send a signal."
"What signal?"
"All wireless signals in this region have extensive monitoring, so he said visual would be safe and reliable. We'll know when we see it—I'm guessing something with big commotion."
Rumble! Suddenly the sky turned red, contrails passing through the clouds above. Meteor showers flew from the Arctic direction toward Washington, sonic booms echoing across the heavens. Meteorites from space, far exceeding intercontinental ballistic missile terminal speeds, served as the vanguard.
The Mercenary Alliance had activated the Astral Compass, launching strikes across half the continent. The war had entered white-hot intensity.