Rat-a-tat-tat!
Gunfire echoed throughout the laboratory headquarters hall, including but not limited to tear gas, armor-piercing rounds, high-explosive shells, tranquilizer darts, high-voltage stun guns and other weapons all greeting the dragon-robed girl. Yet she neither dodged nor avoided throughout, her scales becoming ever more brilliantly radiant, her speed, strength and reflexes only increasing.
Jin Yulu faced an entire special forces unit's excessive firepower while simultaneously suppressing Dennis, Gallup and Quincy—three men—unleashing all her magic power without regard for consumption.
Both sides were holding back strength, yet it was enough to demonstrate magic's power.
Supreme Commander Hibiscus's tactical deployment philosophy for this operation was "the right person in the right position." For direct confrontation, mythological magic was strongest, especially with T0-level World Serpent presiding—no matter what strange weapons or tools, they would all be adapted to and recorded.
What happens when your commanding officer understands your abilities better than you do? The result was Jin Yulu's exceptional performance.
Clang!
She punched Gallup with a crisp sound—this familiar power had a nostalgic feel, but the next moment Jin Yulu turned her fist into a blade, slicing open her opponent's shoulder as blood spurted everywhere.
Stuck—her hand was fixed by the alloy body and couldn't be pulled out. The masked man spat blood and said: "Little girl, don't be too arrogant."
At the same time Dennis and Quincy came to support.
Jin Yulu, already in three-headed, six-armed form, had no concept of a back side. She spat flames to block Dennis while punching away the other man.
However, they too went all out, forcibly taking a hit while almost simultaneously producing chains to bind the tall half-beast body. The three men were pleased—the enemy was too fast, but with just slight movement restriction they could use their pre-arranged traps to turn the tide, knowing the area stored the most relic power.
Unexpectedly, the chains slipped off Jin Yulu's body—her skin was covered in slime, making it slippery.
"I hate snails, but this ability is really useful."
The moment the chains hit the ground, Jin Yulu tensed her waist and threw a punch with tiger-like force, her arm like a truck slamming into Gallup's face.
The alloy body couldn't withstand even half a second before shattering inch by inch, blood spattering, internal organs bursting as he vomited black blood.
Magic Power Internal Compression!
The girl once captured at Changfeng Group Headquarters was no longer the same person. Life-and-death training and special drills had forged this body through countless trials, able to adapt to any sudden situation and withstand various attacks. A mere turtle shell target was nothing. If Jin Yulu hadn't mastered new-stage Origin techniques it would indeed be troublesome, but internal magic explosions let her kill through ceiling-level defenses and defeat Gallup.
"Fool, don't expect your defense to work against these people."
Quincy's rebuke came with powerful sound waves—carrying no special properties, just brute impact force forming a storm that sent the dragon girl flying. The brief burst proved he still had reserves.
At the same time, water seeped from the experimental building walls—super-concentrated anesthetic prepared with magic technology. Not only that, the Disaster Beasts' coordinated pressure came in waves stronger than the last, making the targeted magical girls feel heavy all over and unable to muster strength.
Rumble.
Suddenly walls automatically decomposed and separated, revealing surfaces covered with magic crystals that even blocked magic shockwaves.
Disaster Beast remains could occasionally yield this solid material that preserved power—equivalent to magical insulation, used extravagantly today to catch them all in one net.
Jin Yulu's forehead was covered with fine sweat. Though she appeared to be slaughtering on the surface, her magic consumption was extreme. She had wanted to reduce magic operation power to catch her breath, but now didn't dare. If she relaxed even slightly she would face traps and enemy encirclement, likely defeated within a few moves.
Eagle Company originally never planned to decide victory on personnel combat power—a wise judgment.
Quincy sneered: "Next you'll jump into prison yourselves."
The Prophecy Book was complete.
The first three events: kidnapping Minase Kaori, the controlled councilman's murder, company headquarters under attack—all completed, accumulating causal inertia to be reversed by the Oracle Book.
He had already brought out the highest specifications, since many times the human faction could accomplish much just with Prophecy Book guidance. Using the Oracle Book to forcibly guide results consumed too much unnecessarily—why use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
However, many higher-ups wanted to test the Salvation Church's capabilities, responding with Catastrophic Disaster Beast specifications. The target would undoubtedly lose.
"Begin full counterattack." Quincy's voice carried magic power throughout.
Previously hidden fusion warriors surged forth under Dennis's command, first targeting the outer shell of the Small Universe domain, followed by explosions and fierce attacks.
"Report, observer position discovered, engagement commenced." As soon as the earpiece words finished, the starry sphere shattered and collapsed.
The domain had to be dismissed.
Maintaining it this long had already been extremely draining, especially with the main body now engaged in combat with elite forces. The opponent's choice was understandable—the situation had changed. After losing domain isolation, mercenaries flooded into the ward area, and as expected, fierce combat erupted with Minase Kaori and Jin Ruochu, the commotion echoing throughout the laboratory building in chaos.
Quincy pointed at Jin Yulu while all subordinates spread out and set up long-range firepower.
"Do you believe your domain companion will appear here?"
"What do you mean!"
The next moment the domain reappeared, expanding all the way to the command hall. Nan Zhiyi, whose magic had advanced further, could achieve ultra-high-speed movement within range, having left the suburban battlefield. Then the magic dissolved, revealing the dandelion girl: "The situation on my end isn't good—"
She realized the atmosphere was wrong—why was everyone staring at her? Then Jin Yulu, with battlefield-honed instincts, firmly embraced her companion, shielding her form.
"Be careful."
"All seemingly personal judgments are merely inevitable directions sketched by the Oracle Book."
As Quincy spoke, he unleashed his strongest destructive sound wave yet. In an instant all things collapsed, heaven and earth overturned, gathering rolling energy with Disaster Beast pressure to blast a huge crater in place. All magical girls fell into the pit—though only human-height deep, it was filled with magic crystals for shielding. At the same time, Gallup, fused with surrounding metal, sacrificed all relic power, creating a super-high-strength alloy forest crisscrossing within to fix their bodies densely, making movement difficult.
One strike's power gathered Jin Yulu, Nan Zhiyi, Jin Ruochu, Minase Kaori and other girls in one place. Worst of all, the paralysis effect thoroughly erupted.
Even the most resistant World Serpent magic had to restrain its power.
They hadn't even emerged from shock—setting aside Quincy's word-spirit relic, why had they actively accepted the trap without mustering even a trace of fighting spirit?
The outcome was already predetermined.
Quincy looked down coldly at the magical girls, who under various stacked abnormal statuses fell unconscious one by one, losing resistance. Though the Salvation Church attackers had indeed held on, their capture was only a matter of time—everything was under control.
Wrapped in various alloy spikes, Jin Yulu, Jin Ruochu and Nan Zhiyi temporarily dared not act rashly, but pressure and drugs made their physical condition increasingly worse...
This was bad—Origin consumption was too great, no time to resist.
And why had their bodies disobeyed their thoughts and actively stepped into the trap despite sensing danger? Was this a top-level relic?
Eagle Company's strategy was quite correct—when necessary, use home field advantage to bind targets. Combat was just to exhaust the prey's stamina for the final decisive strike. As they say, fortune favors the bold—even suffering heavy losses was acceptable. Rather, the higher the causal price endured, the greater the reversal power.
"Is it over?" Gallup, having witnessed the Salvation Church's power, was surprised by the contrast.
Quincy said proudly: "Still within the 48-hour effectiveness range. The enemy indeed fell into the trap according to the Prophecy Book's contents. It's over, as you can see."
Mercenaries brought out special shackles with clanking sounds.
Nan Zhiyi asked calmly: "Mr. Quincy, in your view you've captured all of us?"
"Yes, your operation number is three people, the plan was to split into three routes, leaving through some spatial means, right?" The masked man was happy to demoralize enemies through words. "Everything was anticipated from start to finish. Don't underestimate human foundations—it seems the Church is nothing special."
"That's right, we are indeed a three-person operation. We're both correct."
Somehow the white-green dressed girl's smile gave Quincy an ominous feeling, but he maintained vigilance without relaxing for a moment, until the opponent's magic reactions kept dropping, removing the threat.
The mercenaries were patient, maintaining layers of guard while letting the magical girls' condition deteriorate. Similarly, those in the pit also maintained calm composure.
"About time. Dennis, go put electronic locks on them." Quincy ordered.
"Yes, sir."
Dennis took a deep breath, tensing his whole body in alert, approaching step by step under his battle-hardened teammates' covering fire. Everything was normal, but suddenly the uniformed man appeared directly beside the pit as if teleporting, with one cuff ring already locked on Jin Ruochu's hand. She widened her eyes and muttered: "Dude, what's with you? How'd you suddenly learn to teleport?"
The person involved looked shocked, while everyone noticed that somehow all the previously sealed hall's protective doors were now wide open.
"Something's wrong!" Quincy felt chilled all over. "Something must have happened!"
What was wrong? Everyone felt tense but couldn't understand why, raising guns in bewildered helplessness without finding any target. Even the magical girls looked confused—everyone was perplexed.
Click!
They felt their consciousness flicker for an instant, then discovered the three girls standing unharmed outside the pit, the pink-haired one looking puzzledly at her empty wrist.
Dennis, who should have been holding shackles, had cuffed thin air, breathing heavily but still tense, then found everyone staring at him.
"What..."
Looking down, he saw a cross-section—bisected at the waist, internal organs spilling everywhere, taking his life.
Though partly due to intense combat exhaustion, the strength to instantly kill one of Eagle Company's ace mercenaries in a single encounter was terrifyingly powerful. Moreover, the opponent still hadn't appeared while casually rescuing companions from the pit trap, unseen yet deeply intimidating.
Quincy was about to speak when he discovered silver sand covering the ground beneath his feet. All mercenaries retreated toward the main door, dragging out trails of afterimages like frame drops—grand and eerie.
A girl with the same silver hair as the sand grains walked out of the breeze.
Holding a corner of parchment, she said quietly: "The Oracle Book's priority level is quite high, even enough to be the mastermind behind the scenes. But dealing with mechanisms doesn't require head-on confrontation—circumventing is the best policy. I've already resonated with its power, and the force guiding predetermined futures can induce another accompanying phenomenon—deleting unwanted futures... See, the gaps produced during this period are filled by inertia, so those mercenaries are still acting."
"...I don't understand."
"Because I'm conversing with the Prophecy Book, writing my power into the new future when changing it to legitimize it and avoid correction."
"Impossible, I should have destroyed all the pages."
"But I found fragments anyway, so wouldn't you think—this too is part of fate?"
Hibiscus continued controlling the Sands of Time flowing rapidly. As long as she didn't stop magic power supply, this mysterious frame-drop phenomenon would continue—a byproduct of leaping time. Using beginning and end as reference frames, she launched attacks in between, automatically correcting event content through inertia, thus bypassing causal relic interference.
I see.
Essentially still time stop, just fine-tuning reference coordinates. It seemed restrictive everywhere yet provided a magical salvage foundation—truly worthy of the series' strongest name.
Time Slash had two uses: First, targeting time itself—profound and mysterious, possessing conceptual destruction, able to resist relic influence. Second, invincible cutting—actually stopping time in "one line's" range and throwing it out.
The former caused time leap phenomena, with affected targets able to pass through objects unobstructed, like rescuing companions.
The page in Hibiscus's hand turned to ash as the time leap phenomenon ended, replaced by rolling pressure sweeping all directions. Glass shattered, steel beams broke, mere flesh and blood immediately fainted, even fusion warriors had to prostrate themselves. The Sands of Time's new technique represented another level increase in her comprehensive strength.
First Time Slash—targeted the nearest threatening Dennis, eliminating him.
Second Time Slash—targeted concepts, causing leap phenomena that freed Jin Yulu, Nan Zhiyi and Jin Ruochu from imprisonment.
Third Time Slash—completely terminated relic influence.
—Magic power exhausted.
The silver-haired girl showed no fear, instantly taking mana recovery potions to expand the pressure further, taking stance with unstoppable sharpness—magical girl Hyacinth at full power.
Quincy sweated profusely, gritting his teeth. He truly couldn't understand why his meticulous calculations were easily broken by the opponent. Things had come to this—if he didn't fully mobilize relic power, he would certainly face mortal danger.
"All non-relic or Disaster Beast fusion personnel evacuate, as far as possible."
"You take those junior magical girls and leave quickly. I'll buy time—"
Before finishing, Hibiscus and Quincy's two figures collided, the shockwave from the world's first true collision between magical girl and Holy Relic sweeping in all directions.