Give children a little self-destruction shock to their worldview.

Although it took some time, the magician still found the location of the Despair Monster, namely Mayumi Haga's house, ten hours before dawn.

The moment Mayumi Haga spotted her, the blue-haired magician appeared with a smile in the entryway behind her.

She even skipped the knocking step and teleported herself directly into the barrier.

For a magical spirit like her, the barrier's blocking function is truly useless; she can come and go as she pleases.

"Wouldn't it be better for both of us to give up the resistance?" she said.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the Abyss Gentleman.

He clutched his right arm, which he couldn't lift, and staggered away from the now-ruined house of the strange man.

Since the damage caused by magical combat could be automatically recovered, he didn't look back. After dealing with the Star Tower mages who came looking for trouble, he left directly.

As he moved, his originally thin, matchstick-like limbs gradually swelled up to a normal level, and his body proportions moved closer to those of a real person than a cartoon character. The tuxedo he wore was stretched taut by his increasingly full muscles, while the facial expressions faded until they disappeared completely.

The faceless youth, dressed in a suit, put on white gloves and hurried towards a corner of the city under the cover of night.

Main Text: Chapter 133 Forbidden Techniques

"It would be better for both of us if you gave up resisting," the mage with long, blue-purple curly hair advised.

She stood at the door of Mayumi Haga's house, her shoes already on the shoe rack, wearing disposable slippers provided for guests, standing on the wooden floor, looking just like an ordinary guest.

However, both Mayumi Haga and Hitomi Tono, who were present, felt an immense suppressive force emanating from the mage.

Because of her high magical aptitude, the latter could intuitively sense the other party's unfathomable power, which made her uneasy. If the magical users that Tohno Hitomi usually encountered were like gentle rivers, then the other party was like the air, which was even more elusive yet omnipresent.

Almost the moment the magician appeared in front of her, Hitomi Tono felt breathless.

Seeing Hitomi's surprise, the magician paused for a moment, then considerately suppressed his uncontrolled magic power.

From the moment she became a Star Tower mage, she was no longer an ordinary human. Her magical attributes were indeed qualitatively elevated. For ordinary magical girls, her mere presence had a level-suppressing effect.

Even though Mayumi Haga has no magic power, she still receives pressure from the magician... which makes things even simpler.

Because she always maintained a high level of awareness of crises.

To be honest, this is incredible for someone who fights by self-destruction and has superhuman healing abilities.

In many works, if a character doesn't die and recovers completely from injury within seconds, then that character is often insensitive to potential crises that could cause pain, and may even maintain a dismissive attitude.

It's like playing a game with an invincible cheat. You can move freely through a crowd of enemies without taking damage or being stunned when hit. But if you play in this mode for a while, your reaction speed and control will decrease.

Mayumi Haga was well aware of this.

Because of the nature of her abilities, she is more prone to losing her sharpness in the face of danger than other guardians. Therefore, she tries her best to hone her reflexes, to not become numb to pain so quickly, and even occasionally wears amulets that amplify pain to stimulate her nerves.

Although she had stopped this routine training after the calamity, Mayumi Haga was much less frequently injured after coming to this world, and her previously numb sense of pain was finally restored.

She maintained a high level of vigilance and sensitivity, and through her experience fighting against calamities, she developed a strong intuition to seek advantage and avoid harm, as well as a certain level of insight.

For example, right now, just by looking at the magician in front of her, she could tell from his expression that he was different from ordinary magic users.

No matter how powerful magical girls and other magicians are, they cannot escape the lives of ordinary people. However, this magician, Mayumi Haga, sensed certain qualities of a person from another world from her.

She had seen such people in her own world before.

To be precise, it is the embodiment of the will left behind by a certain guardian.

The other party lived thousands of years before Mayumi Haga, and strictly speaking, the other party was a distant relative of Mayumi Haga.

That guardian was a wizard from the Elven race.

Powerful enough to alter terrain at will, reverse time, and freely traverse various sky islands... possessing power approaching that of a god.

In ancient times, wizards were far more powerful than wizards are today. Countless forbidden powers were gradually sealed away in some corner of the continent as wizards declined, perhaps underwater or underground. Even the temples created by ancient wizards, which embodied human wisdom and were once everywhere, are now hard to find.

The difference between ancient races and later humans was not only in appearance, but also in the fundamental difference in their abilities. Those ancient races had transcended the realm of ordinary creatures and were closer to mythical beings.

To give an analogy, if the guardians like Mayumi Haga, who lived in later times, were ferocious beasts like wolves or tigers, then the ancient races would be fantastical creatures like dragons that only lived in legends.

They are different in terms of their structure.

Mayumi Haga had only met the guardian's avatar once, and the other party seemed to feel that he and Mayumi Haga were destined to meet, so they chatted for a few more minutes.

"The dragons of this era have been banished by wizards and no longer interfere with human affairs?" the ancient elven guardian remarked, her golden hair and silver eyes revealing an unbelievably exquisite appearance.

Mayumi Haga felt that this senior elf looked familiar, but she couldn't remember where she had seen that face before.

The ancient elven guardian hesitated before asking, "Do you know where that most beautiful, silver-purple dragon went?"

It should be said that it is the dragon of wisdom, and only it has such beautiful silver-purple scales.

“In the far north,” Mayumi Haga answered truthfully.

The ancient elven guardian, satisfied with the answer, smiled and said, "The far north is quite nice. There aren't many people there, so it shouldn't affect people's lives too much... Besides, I've never seen snow before! It's too hot in my time."

Mayumi Haga didn't know what the connection was between the ancient elf guardian and the dragon of wisdom that the snow hadn't seen. Her doubts were noticed by the other party, who changed the subject.

“Little one, did you know? There’s a forbidden technique that can make a guardian forever lose their human heart, facing death in another sense,” the ancient elven guardian chuckled. “But only guardians of ancient races can use such a technique… Would you like to know what it is?”

Haga Mayumi was bewildered as to why the other person would bring this up with her.

"You have the same blood as me flowing in your veins, but it's too diluted. Even if I taught you, you probably wouldn't be able to use it. But since you're the only junior I've seen in so long, I should teach you a little something you should have learned anyway." The ancient elf guardian patted Mayumi Haga's head with a smile, then brushed his hand down over Mayumi Haga's ears.

Her ears were pointed, but you couldn't tell at all from Mayumi Haga's.

Yuga Mayumi has a pitifully thin supply of ancient elven blood. One of her ancestors was an elf who mated with a human and had a difficult child, a fact that even she herself was not entirely aware of.

But the ancient elven guardians could tell at a glance.

At first glance, she and Mayumi Haga even look somewhat alike. Some people might actually believe they are distant relatives.

"The forbidden technique is..." She taught Mayumi Haga the simplest way to use it, but after hearing it, she felt that she might never need to use this technique, so she put it out of her mind.

Returning to the Star Tower mage before her, Mayumi Haga knew very well that she had no chance of winning.

In Mayumi Haga's eyes, the wizards and guardians living in that era possessed the same aura as the Star Tower mage before her.

For a powerful being who is no longer on the same level, even escaping is a very difficult task, let alone resisting.

Main Text: Chapter 134 Survival by Amputation

Mayumi Haga stood behind the sofa, confronting the magician from the Tower of Stars.

Despite knowing that she couldn't defeat her opponent even if she spent all her life force, Mayumi Haga's expression remained completely calm.

"Not planning to surrender? You clearly have no magic left, you're already so depleted, and you still want to hold on?" The mage only glanced at Yuga Mayumi and immediately saw her weakness.

Although it's the other way around.

As an eccentric, Mayumi Haga's magic power is so weak that it is difficult to detect. In the eyes of magicians, the power within Mayumi Haga lacks sufficient magic power to suppress it and has gone out of control. It has begun to devour her own life force and will eventually devour her completely, leaving not even bones behind.

The magician couldn't help but feel a pang of pity.

Rather than painfully watching herself slowly weaken and die because of such an ominous power, she would rather let her give her a quick death now.

Magical seals do not cause pain, making them perhaps the gentlest method of putting someone to sleep.

Moreover, I might be able to find a way to transform the Despair attribute into a harmless one. In that case, even if it's sealed away, there's a possibility of revival.

So she persuaded Mayumi Haga to give up the resistance.

Yuga Mayumi pursed her lips tightly, not backing down an inch.

Meanwhile, the creature that had just been placed on the table to get some fresh air was actually quietly put back into her backpack the moment she took a step forward, her gaze fixed on the magician.

This proves that she was actually already thinking about how to escape, but she was not quite clear about the magician's fundamental magic, so she could not take any further action.

Most of the magic in this world is difficult for her to decipher.

Whether it's magic tied to rules, such as Kirino's Word Magic, or enhancement magic like Tohno Hitomi's that simply relies on brute force, Mayumi Haga has a hard time finding a way to counter it.

When fighting an unfamiliar mage, acting rashly and running away is the worst strategy; one must plan carefully before acting.

Mayumi Haga noticed the magician's fingers, hidden in his wide sleeves, twitch slightly before he raised them.

In that instant, a chilling sense of crisis, as if my blood were about to freeze, washed over me.

At the same moment, Urzana's blessing was triggered three times in a row. A blinding blue light flashed in front of her. With a shattering sound, Urzana's core hanging inside her collar suddenly became scorching hot, burning dark marks on the fabric of Mayumi Haga's chest before dimming and entering the charging phase.

Yuga Mayumi was attacked three times the instant her opponent raised her hand.

The magician's magic didn't have the exaggerated, light-pollution-like effects sometimes seen in magical girls; in fact, it grabbed Mayumi Haga's arm without any warning.

She felt an invisible hand touch her left arm, and then something strange happened.

She couldn't move her fingers or lift her arm. She still had sensation in her arm, but it was fixed in mid-air and she couldn't move it.

This is……

A hint of surprise flashed in the Guardian's eyes.

"My magic has pinned your hands down. You'd better not move, lest you hurt yourselves." The "you" in the magician's words included Tono Hitomi, who was standing behind Haga Mayumi.

Her magic possesses the property of "nails," capable of fixing a person in a specific space, reference point, or even a point in time.

The last spell is learned after entering the Tower of Stars and should not be used lightly.

Now, she has casually secured Mayumi Haga and Hitomi Tono in this room, making it impossible for ordinary people to break free.

To break free, she would have to unleash a magical power exceeding the limit set by her nail spell this time, which is several times that of an ordinary magical girl. This is almost impossible for a monster without magic and a magical girl whose transformation is restricted.

Unless they lose their arms, or are geniuses who can unleash magical power several times greater than that of ordinary magical girls even when their transformation is restricted.

However, this means that the total amount of magic power must be at least a hundred times the average.

How could this child in front of me be... huh?

The magician suddenly realized the problem.

From her perspective, Tohno Hitomi appears to possess only a normal amount of magic power, looking like an ordinary magical girl who has been bewitched by the enemy.

The magician could tell at a glance that the child was on the side of the strange man in front of her. As a magical girl, she was protecting a strange man, and might have even come to inform him earlier... Although she was dissatisfied, she wouldn't do anything to Tono Hitomi. At most, she would imprison her here and then take the strange man away herself.

This is just a simple binding spell and won't harm anyone; it's enough to deal with the two people in front of me.

"..." Yuga Mayumi tried to struggle, but her arm, which was fixed in place, remained motionless.

The magician said calmly, "Don't try to struggle, you'll only hurt yourself...?"

Before the words were finished, a crisp cracking sound was heard behind Mayumi Haga. An invisible nail shattered into pieces of light feathers on Hitomi Tono's shoulder. Then, the pink-haired girl stepped past Mayumi Haga and stood in front of the magician, looking tense and anxious.

"Senior, you must have made a mistake somewhere!" Tono Hitomi stubbornly stood in front of Haga Mayumi, her eyes fixed on the mage's movements: "The true... Guardian won't do anything bad, she's not dangerous at all."

...How could that be?

The magician exclaimed inwardly, but this was not a denial of Tohno Hitomi's words.

She finally understood why she had sensed something strange about the girl in front of her.

This sealing magic, which could almost fool me... no, it actually did fool me, was actually set up by that guy Sugiyama Rika.

Concerned that Hitomi Tohno might not be able to fully control her immense magical power, Rikka Sugiyama sealed the power that Hitomi couldn't currently manage. Because Rikka Sugiyama was a half-elf with abilities comparable to a mage, the mage didn't even immediately recognize Hitomi's potential, mistaking her for an ordinary magical girl.

The price of misjudging Hitomi Tono was that she easily broke free from her nail magic.

But it doesn't matter, even if the child breaks free, he can't take the strange man in front of him with him.

Tohno Hitomi's abilities stirred up a small ripple in the magician's heart. She became somewhat interested in this pink-haired magical girl. Perhaps, if the other party encountered some further opportunities, they could meet again deep within the spiritual vein... But now was not the time to consider that.

We need to take the weirdo away first... Hmm?

The magician heard only a very faint sound; the target of the nail spell vanished instantly. The white-haired guardian's dark figure was hastily carried away by Tohno Hitomi, who had used flight magic in her haste, and they fled at breakneck speed, leaving only...

...half an arm?

Doubt and fear filled her mind in equal proportions at that moment.

Main Text: Chapter 135 Tono Hitomi's Fury

Ugh...it hurts a little.

Although the transformation ban has not been lifted, in her emotional turmoil, Tono Hitomi forcibly activated a part of her Mystic Code, using the Mystic Code's built-in flight protection field to grab onto Haga Mayumi and escape quickly.

Without the protection of her costume, a rocket-like flight speed like that of Tohno Hitomi would not only harm her, but would also cause even greater damage to Haga Mayumi.

In a moment of desperation, Hitomi Tohno disregarded the prohibition against transforming.

Having not channeled magic like this for a long time, Hitomi Tono felt an indescribable throbbing pain in the places where magic flowed throughout her body. Fortunately, the pain was very mild; it was just that magic had forcibly opened up the originally closed channels of magic flow, and she could recover after a short rest.

Tono Hitomi used the most exaggerated speed she had ever experienced in her life, and in less than two breaths, she crashed headfirst into the clock tower where they usually gathered, carrying Haga Mayumi on her back.

When Hitomi Tono crashed into the glass window, she realized that her magic was somewhat out of control, and when she tried to slow down, it began to accelerate erratically.

She gritted her teeth, ignoring the slowdown issue, and focused all her magic on the shield, trying her best to protect the two of them from harm.