"The comet has vanished!"
Inside the command vehicle, all the noisy instruments fell silent.
Many people climbed down from the vehicle and looked up. The comet that had been growing larger and larger was already gone.
Not only could instruments no longer detect it, it had disappeared from naked-eye view as well.
Only a girl in a pure white magical outfit remained in the sky.
The one who removed the comet was a disciple of the Azure Cloud Sect.
The magical girl Dandelion.
Jincha stepped down from the vehicle, looked around, and smiled gracefully at the gathered crowd whose expressions ranged from stunned to awed admiration for Dandelionâs strength.
Good thing Iâve been to Beihai before, she thought, and already had some idea how absurd the Azure Cloud Sect could be.
Otherwise, under so many eyes, itâd be easy to lose oneâs composure.
"Look at you all, like youâve never seen the world," Jincha chided, lifting her teacup and taking a small sip;
sheâd been drinking more milk coffee lately on Winterâs suggestion.
Her weight had crept up recently, so sheâd gone back to teaâone that helped with slimming.
"If the Azure Cloud Sectâs magical girls see you, they might think our Disaster Control Bureau is a bunch of country bumpkins, so pull your faces together."
At Jinchaâs rebuke, the Disaster Control Bureau staff and a few temporarily assisting magical girls, including Hongmian, composed themselves.
Many staffers were still excited, shouting and waving at Dandelion.
A magical girl this powerful attracted a lot of attention.
Yet the girl who had casually blown the comet away now looked like a startled rabbit under worshipful shouts.
She tugged her hood down, hiding her face, then flew off toward the distance without looking back.
"Ugh, I didnât get a photo."
"Dandelion rules!"
"I want her autograph."
"Shy like that is so cute~"
"Hope the Magical Girl Idol Project adds her;
I want to roll for Dandelion..."
Listening to coworkers whispering around her, Hongmian bit her lip in irritation.
She had always opposed cooperation with the Azure Cloud Sect.
It wasnât that she looked down on the sect. At the Heart Image Remnant incident, the Azure Cloud Sectâs performance had already been impressive, and later when Shion defeated the Magical Girl Killer, most objections inside the Disaster Control Bureau had disappeared.
Hongmian herself acknowledged the Azure Cloud Sectâs strength and that it was a fine organization with formidable power.
But she absolutely could not accept the Azure Cloud Sect replacing the Disaster Control Bureauâs role.
This was not about right or wrong, it was about dignity!
No matter how powerful the Azure Cloud Sect was, they were a free association of magical girls, not an official agency.
Joint operations on certain missions were fine, but long-term cooperationâwith official documents issuedâwould inevitably weaken the Bureauâs official standing.
She had already heard many unfriendly remarks, and with the Witch Association working hard to mislead people, many regions still misunderstood the Azure Cloud Sect. Formal cooperation documentsâintended to make other branches coordinate with Azure Cloud Sect disciplesâwere meant as a gesture of sincerity.
But such documents would be used as ammunition by the Witch Association and the uninformed.
Hongmian wanted to prove that the Disaster Control Bureau was no worse than the Azure Cloud Sect and didnât need such formalized cooperationâat least, it didnât need official files that would humiliate the Bureau.
Yet all her resentments and frustrations vanished the moment Dandelion blew the comet away.
She was competitive but not stupid.
Although she had seen Winterâs and Bai Meiâs exaggerated strength before, ultimately it had only been two people, at most plus Shion. Other disciplesâdisaster control personnelâwerenât necessarily inferior.
After all, QingluĂĄn had reported she was close to entering the inner ranks;
judged by QingluĂĄnâs baseline, even if the Seven True-Transmission were a bit stronger, having numbers could still compensate.
But when Dandelion acted, Hongmianâs hope broke completely.
If each of the Seven True-Transmission possessed that level of power, the Disaster Control Bureau simply couldnât compete!
"How many of us could push this comet away?" someone muttered.
The Disaster Control Bureau employees fell silent.
How many?
Not a single one.
As she ground her teeth, Jincha came over and patted her shoulder. "Crisis averted. You should be happy, Hongmian."
"I canât be happy! Didnât you see what that brat can do?"
"Oh, Dandelion is impressive, but now the Azure Cloud Sect is our ally. You should be gladâweâre partners, not enemies."
"The problem isnât that. With such a gap in power, who will call the shots? Whoâll be the vassal or the master will be unclear!"
Jincha tapped Hongmianâs temple. "Isnât it fine if the Azure Cloud Sect leads?"
"Youâ"
As Hongmian tried to argue, Jincha shook her head. "They arenât constrained. Maybe they can open a new path for magical girls, so we wonât have to worry about Full Bloom anymore, right?"
Hongmian deflated like a popped balloon. "You really trust them that much?"
"Who else would you trustâthe Witch Association? Or those old world watchers?"
"Hmph..."
Though still displeased, Hongmian couldnât find a rebuttal, and looked up again. "Just donât regret this later."
"It wonât get worse."
Jincha signaled the remaining team to pack up for withdrawal.
Now that the comet had vanished, the rest could be left to the Azure Cloud Sect and the local Disaster Control Bureau.
"You know," Jincha said suddenly as she prepared to get into the vehicle, "when I reached an alliance with the Azure Cloud Sect, a strange sense of peace and calm came over me."
"Why?"
"Because even though I became a councilor and someone others rely on, I know there are many things I canât accomplish. The Incubator knows it too;
Iâm not truly reliable. Iâm afraid of making the wrong call someday and getting everyone killed. I canât shoulder that kind of consequence. Every day I live in terror."
For the first time, Hongmian heard a senior reveal such vulnerability.
After a moment of silence she hugged Jincha. "Iâm sorry I didnât notice how hard youâve been working, Senior Jincha..."
"Itâs fine. I donât want you to worry." Jincha bumped her head lightly and smiled. "Now you donât need to worry. With the Azure Cloud Sect backing us, we have confidenceâwhether against the Old World or the Incubator."
"And the Witch Association?"
"Hmm, even without the Azure Cloud Sect we can still deal with them..."
Mention of the Witch Association lightened the atmosphere a little.
They started talking about who the Azure Cloud Sect might send to participate in the Heart Image domain trials.
Suddenly, the sky above them shattered.
Hongmian and Jincha looked up. Others followed their gaze.
From the cracked sky a flood of purple mana gushed out like a discharge!
It painted the heavens a deep purple!
Hongmian gaped and asked blankly, "Can we really feel reassured, Senior?"
"It should be fine... I think."
...
She had once been the Emperor, the pinnacle of power in the Curse Realm.
Before her, the Curse Realm had no Emperor;
after her, the Curse Realm never saw glory again.
She conquered the world, saved the world, and bore the world on her shoulders.
She possessed the greatest power and wealth in the world.
Because she had owned everything, she knew the limits of human strength.
Brute force alone could only achieve so much.
Her greatest disdain had always been for those who relied solely on brute force.
Such people could not think;
brains were just ornaments. They could never anticipate the consequences.
If brute force failed, what would they do?
She had seen countless reckless brutes stumble and then stand shocked and unbelievingâso stupid she found them detestable.
She absolutely refused to associate with musclebound fools...
Boom!
With spatial tremors, the overflowing mana even leaked beyond the space.
The Emperor stared numbly at the purple-haired girl. She pressed a hand down on the Living Planetâeven though that planet was unimaginably larger than her.
Yet when the Emperor seized it with one hand, the Living Planet could not move, only struggling wildly while curses and polluted mana splashed outward.
Then the purple girl brought down a punch.
The Living Planet, already half-smashed by the comet, split apart in an instant!
The Emperor had seen this scene many times before.
What should have been an indescribably massive planet fell into a rhythm of being pinned, roaring, struck to pieces, then regeneratingâonly to be struck again. The terrifying regenerative ability should have been utterly despair-inducing.
Yet before the purple girl, the regenerating Disaster Beast looked more desperateâlike early death would have been better.
Watching the rhythmic repetition, she felt dizzy.
Was she dreaming an idiotâs eternal fantasy?
Remember, the Emperor had been dead for well over a thousand years... maybe hundreds. She had been dead for far too long, long enough to hallucinate.
Suddenly a notion surfaced in her mind:
"A powerful magical girl appears, defeats Death, and saves the world."
Her long-defunct mind felt bewildered.
She couldnât understand why the girlâs small, pale hand, when pressed on the massive Living Planet, rendered the Disaster Beast immobile.
Why did a seemingly light fist make the entire planet crack?
Gazing at that tiny silhouette, every burst of power felt absurdly out of scale.
Under the Living Planet she was so small she could be lost with a slight shift of view.
She remembered her former national strategist and advisors, her tutors and guides.
Forgive me, everyoneâsorry for the worldview you built for me.
It was about to shatter.
Brute force does not decide everything;
one must think, use wisdom to win...
No, teacher, friends, brute force can decide everything.
It just hasnât been enough yet...
That presence who had plunged the Curse Realm into despairâthe embodiment of curses, Death itself, the ultimate Disaster Beastâwas now being pounded by a little girl.
The Emperor smiled until tears came.
She recalled the holy beasts and comrades of old.
All the pain and heavy sacrifices suddenly looked absurd and laughable in front of the girl beating the Disaster Beast.
For a moment she felt only emptiness.
Until the Living Planet abruptly changed.
It swelled in an instant and swallowed the purple girl whole.
The once agitated world fell silent.
"Ha..."
Breathing out, the Emperor didnât know whether to worry or to feel relieved.
Even such a powerful being still could not match the Disaster Beast before them.
Everyoneâs sacrifices had been unavoidable but meaningful...
Yet she could not resign herself to letting the Disaster Beast continue rampaging without retribution.
Even if the sacrifices had been in vain, revenge must be taken;
that idea burned in her.
She walked to the Golden Throne and stroked it.
She had spent most of her life seated upon it, bearing curses to give the Curse Realm hope and buy time.
But even to the end, no miracle had come.
Now, resuming her seat as a remnant soul, she did not know what consequences would follow.
Perhaps worse than death, perhaps a shame to become a Disaster Beast.
She no longer cared.
"Hey, who told you to touch my chair?"
Before she could sit, an extremely dangerous voice came from afar.
The Emperor turned sharply.
A ring of flame waves rippled across the Living Planetâs body. Towering pillars of fire exploded from within.
She saw splendid, blooming fire lotuses unfold layer by layer.
A terrifying four-color inferno storm shredded the Living Planet to pieces!
The purple girl burst from the Living Planet, flew over in an instant, grabbed the Golden Throne, and pulled it away from behind the Emperor.
The Emperor fell into the air and landed awkwardlyâthough they floated, without ground it was still a clumsy fall.
"This is mine."
Looking at the purple girl guarding the Golden Throne with ferocity, for a moment the Emperor hallucinated a hamster...
She could only force a helpless smile.
"Donât you notice? You canât kill it."
Curses filled the air;
even in the heat of Buddha's Fury Lotus, they kept regenerating.
Broken Disaster Beast pieces reconverged.
An immortal body fused with the world.
"Donât you see? Itâs smaller now."
The Emperor frowned and looked back.
She discovered the Living Planet had indeed shrunk dramaticallyâalmost to one third of its original size.
"Manipulating the rules to reduce its scale and using curses to plunder othersâ fate," Shion said coldly. "The Death Note rule, as pretty as the name sounds, is nothing more than stealing othersâ destiny to increase oneâs own fate. Unfortunately, these rustic demons donât understand that without deep foundational strength, forcing such fate-theft techniques only invites disaster."
"A mere newborn with no cultivation tries to imitate Nascent Soul methods, thinking to transcend by stealing fate. Now the calamity has arrived;
the stolen fate cannot be kept. Beat it a bit and it vomits itself out."
The Emperor was silent for a moment. "What is âfateâ?"
"Though we could finish it off, itâs rare to find a place where so many fate-impressions gather. Fate manipulation is a sidelined path of cultivation, but wasting this chance seems a pity."
Ignored...
Jincha tapped the Golden Throne. "Then weâll need to borrow some of your treasure."
"Do you even know how to use it?" the Emperor said slowly. "I can teach you."
Shion scoffed. "My artifactâdo you think you understand it better than I do?"
...You havenât even held the Golden Throne for half an hour at best.
But Shion paid no heed to the Emperorâs tone.
Around the Living Planet, strange runes began to spread, as if to completely rewrite this worldâs rules!
"It seems different now."
The Emperor was about to warn them but turned and saw the girl holding a Grief Seed.
Dense polluted magic covered her body until it transformed into black scales.
The cute girl instantly became a Calamity Dragon!
The dragon bashed the Golden Throne.
A powerful will pierced the massive seat. The black Personal Reality twisted the worldâs laws;
the throneâs golden surface was overlaid and dissolved by deep purple blackness. The throne trembled and resonated within the dragonâs claws.
Then, a burst of reddish-gold light flared and the throne shattered!
Thirteen jets of reddish-gold energy circled the black dragon, racing along trajectories the Emperor couldnât comprehend.
Dazzled, she heard the dragon cry out:
"God-Inscribed Throne of Doomsday and Slaughter!"
Time seemed to slow. The Emperor clearly saw a purple-red divine light flash over the dragonâs forehead,
followed by an utterly violent aura of annihilation.
The thirteen reddish-gold clusters halted their orbit and became thirteen streams of light that covered the dragon, thenâ
"Full armament, divine awakening!"
They flowed into the scales.
"The God-Inscribed Armor!"
The dragonâs body swelled, armor emerging. The once black scales instantly turned radiant gold, blindingly bright!
"Reddish-Gold Majesty: Golden Armored Dragon King!"