Proving one's status starting with magical girls

June 7th, New Dream City, cloudy turning to blood rain.

The drizzling raindrops pattered on the city's dilapidated buildings and streets, shrouding everything in a blood-red veil.

Amidst the ruins, a girl covered in wounds walks aimlessly down the street, her right hand tightly clutching the seed to her chest.

Wreckage, ruins, companions, magical girl.

Everyone collapsed except for the newly arrived magical girl who was still struggling to hold on.

The familiar's voice faintly rang in her ears, but Wu Jia couldn't make it out no matter what she did.

"Tiff, is that you speaking? Where are you?"

The girl frantically searched around, but the streets were deathly silent.

She staggered a few steps and fell heavily to the ground, but she kept the seed pressed tightly against her chest.

She longed to hear the voice inside the seed again, but the seed was silent, with only an empty echo.

"Xiao Jia...run!"

A weak yet incredibly familiar female voice came from the ruins not far away. The girl was startled and immediately looked in that direction.

Lying in a pool of blood was a girl of about sixteen or seventeen years old, her lower body pinned down by a huge concrete slab reinforced with steel bars. A shattered crystal seed rolled from her limp hand and came to a stop in front of the rubble.

Wu Jia scrambled over, grabbing the edge of the concrete slab with both hands and trying with all her might to lift it.

No matter how hard she tried, even as her fingers bled, the heavy stone slab pressing down on her companion remained unmoved.

"Boom—"

Explosions echoed from the sky above, and a golden ray briefly pierced the blood-red rain clouds, allowing a ray of sunlight to fall on the girl's hair.

She slammed her fists on the stone slab in frustration, but it did nothing but make her hands a bloody mess.

"...If...if I could still transform into a magical girl!"

Wu Jia hated her own powerlessness.

If she hadn't lost her transformation ability for her own selfish reasons, things wouldn't have developed to this point!

"Don't...blame yourself, just...live well..."

Her companion's voice grew weaker and weaker. Wu Jia frantically grabbed her hand, tears streaming down her face, and begged her not to leave her.

As the blood mist surged, she heard a voice.

The sound was chaotic and disordered, like blood surging in a throat.

She heard the voice whisper softly in her ear.

"Do you want to...save her?"

In the past, this eerie sound would have alerted her, but the girl couldn't care less at this moment. As if grasping at a last straw in a desperate situation, she hurriedly replied:

"I want to! I want to save her! Whoever you are, please save her!"

The girl's tearful plea echoed through the street. She had already lost so much, and she couldn't bear to lose this precious companion!

After receiving the answer, a phantom figure emerged from the blood mist in just a moment.

The figure, draped in a blood-red cloak, had a blank face. Its withered, tree-branch-like hand gently grasped something in mid-air before handing it to the girl.

It was a gray, seemingly struggling and churning mass of fog.

She heard Him speak gently:

"Eat it, and you will regain the power to transform. After that, you can save anyone you want to save."

The Seed of Hope on her chest began to burn, and her familiar's voice, filled with anxiety, came again, but the girl still couldn't hear it clearly.

She interpreted this as her partner urging her on, a sign that the seed of hope was helping her to accept herself again.

"I can save everyone..."

She murmured as she took the gray wisp of mist from the figure's hands.

The fog churned even more violently, and indistinct sounds came to my ears again.

"I want to...save everyone!"

"Boom—"

Another explosion echoed in the sky as a massive beastly shadow overwhelmed the golden magical girl, causing the blood-red rain clouds to once again obscure the sky.

Clinging to hope, the girl opened her lips and began to bite into the mist, ignoring the shrieking sounds that kept coming from her ears and just kept eating.

The moment she swallowed the fog, everything seemed to quiet down. No more pitiful screams echoed in her ears; only abundant power surged within her.

She easily lifted the heavy concrete slab, picked up her companion who had fallen into a coma due to excessive blood loss, and walked out of the ruins.

But after a brief surge of strength, endless hunger followed.

She lowered her head and looked at the face in her arms, which, though somewhat pale, was still beautiful and retained a touch of childishness.

So she opened her mouth.

Amidst the splattering blood, she vaguely heard the churning of blood and the whispers of the Demon Lord.

"Fallen Angel... Fallen Angel... Magical Girl, my witch..."

"Eat! Devour! Gnaw on everything..."

"Then it transformed into thunder, your tongue into a whip, your lips into a dagger, your teeth into a sword."

"If you are destined to die, you will surely be feasting on food!"

……

"It will surely be a time of great feasting!"

"Clang!"

The witch Wu Jia lowered her head, staring blankly at the sword tip protruding from her chest.

This once resilient body, capable of withstanding a comet's impact unscathed, is now like a mortal's flesh and blood, with a glaring blood halo around it pierced by a longsword.

The girl's knuckles, gripping the sword hilt with excessive force, were slightly white. A faint white light still lingered around her, making her eyes appear even more resolute.

The witch's face was a mixture of shock, anger, and confusion.

"What a joke! You can use it? Why can you use it? What gives you the right to use it?!"

"And you—you dare! You dare use my weapon to kill me!"

However, the girl showed no fear. Taking advantage of the witch's extremely poor condition after being exhausted by the two magical girls and being stabbed in the heart from behind, rendering her unable to move, she looked determined, let out a low shout, and activated all the remaining Taiyin magic power in her body, causing her clothes to flutter without wind.

"The Xuan Yuan Geng Metal possesses sharp brilliance!"

"Golden Light Technique!"

A dazzling golden light appeared, further enhancing the sharpness of the witch's longsword in her hand.

The sharp golden energy exploded within the witch's body along with the sword's edge, as if a thousand needles were relentlessly piercing her heart.

The witch let out a muffled groan, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, and could no longer maintain her defense.

The sword tip then pierced her chest completely.

She tried desperately to suppress the wound, but the demonic sword within her body kept draining her magic power.

When she became a witch, the Blood Duke bestowed upon her three weapons.

A tongue whip to savor flavor, a lip knife for a silent kiss, and a tooth sword to tear apart its prey.

The weapon that was once used to kill magical girls is now constantly eroding the life force within its own body.

The heart is bleeding violently, and magic is rapidly draining away.

The witch Wu Jia unconsciously loosened her grip on the magical rice sprout, her hands trembling as she touched the blood-stained sword blade on her chest.

In her final moments, she remembered the monarch's words.

"I...will die while feasting on food..."

She murmured, then laughed bitterly.

"Hehe, you ate it all..."

The girl decisively drew her sword, and the witch's body fell limply, gradually turning into black specks of light.

A wisp of gray mist emerged from the witch's body, then gently nestled against her chest, turning to ashes along with her in the black light.

Under the night sky, the dark clouds dispersed, and a new moon rose.

Magical Rice Sprout knelt on the ground, staring blankly at the girl holding the sword before her.

The moonlight, like a ribbon, draped over her, making her appear serene and aloof, as if she were a celestial being.