She was being hunted down, so she became a magical girl.

Death is not scary; death is like a cool summer night, allowing one to sleep peacefully without worry.

The cult leader has always been deceiving his followers in this way.

The reason why the Doomsday Cult can stir up trouble is that all people suffer, and the cult leader tells believers that death is a good place to go, and they believe it.

But the cult leader didn't believe any of these words.

What's so good about death? Death is the most terrible thing in the world!

Love, hate, joy, pleasure, indulgence, domination, existence itself... Once you die, all these things will slip through your fingers!

But death was unstoppable and approaching him.

Even his physical body was destroyed by Xu Ting's "suicide order," and the cult leader's remaining consciousness was sustained only by Luo Ruowei's blood.

He struggled to eat people, but was pinned to the spot by Xu Ting's new orders.

The more disadvantaged he was, the more fearful he became.

The more fearful you are, the less likely you are to defeat your opponent.

This ability is just too overpowered...

brush!

Xu Ting grabbed Luo Ruowei's right hand and plunged the knife into the last drops of blood.

An invisible sense of liberation rose from the bottom of Xu Ting's heart.

"The spatial distortion has disappeared."

The crow immediately spoke.

"Moreover, the cult leader also revealed some good stuff."

Good stuff? Xu Ting turned his head to look behind him and saw that the corpses controlled by the cult leader had all turned to ashes like his blood.

The viper's corpse was also gone, as was the cult leader's, and even the automated robots disappeared along with it.

Such a thoughtful feature.

If only the enemy's corpse could disappear like an evil beast after Xu Ting kills them.

After the body disappeared, a luminous crystal formed in the original location of the cult leader's body.

It eagerly flew towards Xu Ting and offered itself to him.

"What is this?"

Xu Ting took the crystal, feeling its cool touch in his palm.

"【Evil Beast Crystal Seed】".

"There is a low probability that the evil beast will reappear after it is killed."

"It can absorb the [resentment] accumulated by magical girls after they use their powers, preventing their abilities from going out of control."

Upon hearing what the crow said, Xu Ting immediately understood.

Isn't this just a magical girl version of a prosthetic suppressant?

The human body is made of flesh and blood, while prosthetics are metal machines. Although using prosthetics can grant superhuman strength, it will increase mental burden and physical rejection.

This is especially true for more powerful prosthetic bodies.

To suppress the side effects of using prosthetics, expensive prosthetic inhibitors must be used.

Once the supply of prosthetic inhibitors is cut off, the prosthetic body may become disabled and unusable, or it may turn into a cyberpsychotic who kills anyone in sight.

Like Xu Ting in the past, although only an implanted prosthesis was installed in her right arm, she still needed to use prosthesis inhibitors every week.

Even so, she often felt nauseous and occasionally experienced inexplicable murderous intent and hallucinations.

After transforming into a magical girl, her brain and prosthetic body detached from her body, the aftereffects completely disappeared, and she no longer needed prosthetic body inhibitors.

But who would have thought that magical girls also have their own prosthetic body suppressants...

Moreover, it can only be obtained by killing evil beasts, making the acquisition method too limited.

Sensing Xu Ting's unease, the crow promptly spoke up to comfort him:

"You don't need to worry too much."

"Newly born magical girls don't have such a high need for evil beast crystals. As long as you maintain a healthy mental state and don't accumulate too much stress, you won't generate much [resentment]."

"You have a great advantage in this respect. Your experience as a mercenary has forged a strong heart in you. As long as you don't encounter a major event that makes you despair, you can at least survive for a year with this evil beast crystal seed."

"A year from now...we'll think about it a year from now."

With the crow's assurance, Xu Ting was no longer worried.

Within a year, she will definitely clash with the magical girls from the Tianyi Group. They must have the evil beast crystal seeds distributed by the Tianyi Group, so she can just snatch them when the time comes.

After collecting the gradually fading demonic beast crystal, Xu Ting looked at Luo Ruowei's family.

Luo Ruowei has regained her strength and no longer needs her brother's support.

Her sister also came over, not daring to look directly at anyone on the field, and silently helped Luo's mother up.

The family of four stood together in silence, not saying a word.

What a troublesome atmosphere.

Xu Ting sighed and removed the gag from Luo's mother's mouth.

She just managed to push Luo Ruowei away in time, saving Luo Ruolan from being devoured by the cult leader, which can be considered a slight improvement.

However, considering her previous erratic behavior, Xu Ting did not untie her from the chair.

Having regained her freedom to speak, Luo's mother's first words were of concern for her daughter:

"Ruolan, are you alright?"

"Don't take it to heart if Mom said something harsh before."

Luo Ruolan nodded without speaking.

Luo Ruowei hesitated for a moment, intending to say something, but was silenced by her mother's next words.

"Don't misunderstand, I was just saving my obedient daughter, it has nothing to do with you, an outsider."

"That monster only had the opportunity to attack Ruolan because it was connected to you."

"Heh, why doesn't that monster eat you first?"

Hearing her mother's vicious words, Luo Ruowei's already pale face turned even whiter.

She stared wide-eyed, as if she were about to burst into tears.

But not a single tear fell; perhaps she had already cried them all when she ran away from her family.

"Mom, how could you say that about my sister—"

"You're no better than me," Luo's mother attacked Luo Ruoshan with words full of resentment.

"If it weren't for you... if it weren't for you..."

Seeing this, Xu Ting couldn't hold back any longer.

"Do you still believe in this bullshit gift-giving religion?" Xu Ting asked, tilting his head.

"Didn't you always refer to your beloved cult leader as 'that monster'?"

"Do you still think the cult leader can resurrect your husband?"

Xu Ting's three questions left Luo's mother speechless. She lowered her head and her body trembled uncontrollably.

Seeing this, Luo Ruowei mustered her courage and said hopefully to her mother, whom she had once loved, feared, loathed, and worried about:

"Mom, the cult leader is dead, and all four of us are still alive."

"The future is long, perhaps we can—"

The strange phenomenon on Luo's mother stopped Luo Ruowei from speaking.

A large amount of blood flowed from her mouth, trickling down her aged skin and staining her black clothes red.

"She bit her tongue and committed suicide!"

Luo Ruoshan immediately rushed forward in a panic and pried open his mother's mouth, quickly removing the blood and severed tongue.

But it was all in vain; with brain-computer interfaces, suicide became much easier than before.

A single crazy command can kill you.

Luo's mother bit off her own tongue not to kill herself, but to firmly demonstrate her determination to die.

Xu Ting saw through everything.

Luo's mother is dead. Before her death, she was filled with immense fear, so much so that Xu Ting could easily force her to live with Luo Ruowei using his fearful gaze.

But this fear did not stem from a fear of death.

Luo's mother was the only believer present who did not succumb to Xu Ting; for her, death was probably just a way to reunite with her deceased husband.

What she feared was... the future that Rosie was trying to depict.

Luo's mother had already invested too much sunk cost in the false dream fabricated by the Confucian ethics, and although she had realized that she had been deceived, she was unwilling to admit it.

If she chooses to reconcile with Luo Ruowei, then she must admit that it was all her fault. She was the one who caused the family to fall apart, the one who drove away her eldest daughter, tormented her son, and caused her youngest daughter to be disfigured and follow the same wrong path as her.

So she committed suicide out of fear.

"Scumbag."

Based on his own perspective, Xu Ting gave Luo's mother his final evaluation in his heart.