Yang Mo swung the Paper Blade, inflicting wound after wound on the Bad Demon.
However, the Bad Demon showed no sign of collapsing at all; every injury it suffered would quickly heal as if nothing had happened.
So even though Yang Mo was clearly in control, she couldn’t end the battle immediately.
As she looked at the mask atop the Bad Demon’s head, a sudden thought came to her.
Could that be its weak spot?
Seizing an opening, she slashed her blade toward the mask.
At that instant, where the Paper Blade struck the mask, there was a crisp “puka” sound.
Astonishingly, the collision resulted in the Paper Blade being torn apart by the impact.
“Huh?!”
A gasp of surprise escaped Yang Mo’s lips, and at the same time, she retreated swiftly, intending to regroup while keeping her distance.
But the Bad Demon’s reaction was even stronger than hers.
Even though the mask only bore a single scratch, it panicked like a startled bird, leaping and using its vines to cling to the wall, then fleeing in the opposite direction.
This only confirmed Yang Mo’s suspicion, and she hurried after the Bad Demon.
The Bad Demon kept leaping between walls, never giving Yang Mo a chance to get close.
So she commanded the book pages to gather into a giant origami crane, then stood atop its back, gripping the crane’s neck with one hand to steady herself.
“Fly!”
With her shout, the paper crane really did lift off the ground, carrying her into the air.
The Bad Demon realized she was pursuing, and, just as before, shot out vines mid-movement to intercept her, but Yang Mo blocked them with extra book pages she controlled.
That’s when she noticed another change.
Those attacks weren’t like this before, were they?
This time there were only three vines, and they seemed weaker too, making them easier to deal with than before.
Just as she was wondering, the plants on the wall began to grow wildly, sprouting thick vines in mere seconds.
The newly grown vines on the wall lashed out at Yang Mo in midair with rapid strikes.
Seeing this, Yang Mo immediately directed the crane to dive. The vine swept right over her head.
“Whoa, that was close… I nearly lost my ears!”
She clutched her hat, still shaken.
Of course, the ears she meant were the pair of cat ears on her hat.
As she spoke, the paper crane ascended to the right, dodging another vertical lash.
Even after putting some distance between them, the vines on the walls kept coming, proving even more dangerous than the Bad Demon itself.
With this, Yang Mo understood.
“Did it allocate its power to other parts?”
In a sense, these plants created by the domain were also the Bad Demon’s clones; it was no surprise it could do such things.
Yang Mo had no choice but to fight back as she drew closer, but this wasn’t the most troublesome part.
The real trouble was that some of the vines began attacking bystanders.
In Yang Mo’s field of vision, one vine smashed through a glass door, wriggling into a shop on the third floor.
The ordinary people hiding inside screamed in terror.
She was finally about to catch the Bad Demon, but if she stopped now to rescue people, it would achieve its goal of buying time—dragging this out could only be to her disadvantage.
Yang Mo ultimately chose to continue pursuing the Bad Demon.
But it wasn’t because she was indifferent to the danger facing ordinary people; she’d sensed through her magic that a reliable ally was already hurrying to the scene.
“Qian Ling! I’ll leave that side to you!”
She shouted loudly.
In response to her request, the other party answered in a flat tone, “No problem.”
The sound of swift, rhythmic footsteps drew closer to Yang Mo.
It was Qian Ling, crouched low, sprinting down the third-floor corridor.
Once she activated her Stealth Magic, not even her partner Yang Mo could find her, so to prevent such situations, she always carried a slip of paper Yang Mo had given her.
Qian Ling fired her Iron Thorn at the vines ahead; the thorn’s tip burrowed into the vine, dragging her forward at an even greater speed as the chain retracted.
Just as she was about to reach her target—
“Form change.”
Qian Ling coolly uttered these words, and in an instant, the tip of the Iron Thorn transformed into a short sword.
Using the recoil as she drew out the sword, she flipped forward and slashed downward, slicing the thick vine clean in two.
The people hiding inside the shop hadn’t even registered what happened before the crisis was over, and the severed vine quickly withered into a bundle of dry grass.
Qian Ling leaned out over the third-floor railing and reported her results to Yang Mo: “I’ve cleared the ones ahead. Go after it without worry!”
“Thanks!”
Yang Mo replied with a smile, then resumed her pursuit of the Bad Demon atop the paper crane.
From the direction she had just come, there were still vines writhing on the walls, attacking the surroundings. Qian Ling didn’t pause, continuing to sever the Bad Demon’s clones.
Yang Mo now came within five meters of the Bad Demon. It tried to defend itself with its vines once more, but at this point, its attacks posed no threat to her.
She sidestepped and struck the Bad Demon head-on with her Paper Blade.
The Bad Demon, mid-leap, crashed down to the first floor of the mall with a loud boom.
Yang Mo swiftly landed the crane beside it.
After enduring countless attacks and having all its clones destroyed, the Bad Demon finally began to show signs of weakening.
The intervals between vine creation grew longer, and their movements slowed. It even seemed too exhausted to run.
From here on, Yang Mo was able to attack it single-handedly.
But the Bad Demon still struggled desperately, using vines to shield its mask and twisting its body to avoid a direct hit.
If things continued like this, Yang Mo could simply exhaust its magic power to win, but she didn’t want things to end that way.
“I just feel… hacking at it is getting so tiring.”
As she spoke, she couldn’t help but let out a breath.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to finish this alone.
“Need a hand?”
A flat voice rang out above her head again.
Looking up, she found Qian Ling lying atop the fourth-floor railing, watching everything below. It seemed her own work was done.
Yang Mo immediately said, “Yes, yes! This Bad Demon is a real pain!”
“Then use the first move you tried, right above its head!”
“The first move?”
She thought for a moment and understood Qian Ling’s intent.
“Ah… Got it!”
She waved her paper knife, and pages began to gather above the Bad Demon.
Her opening move in this battle had been to assemble the pages into the shape of a funnel.
To make things more spectacular, she used as many pages as possible, and what formed in the end was less a funnel than a giant vortex of book pages.
The vortex spun as it slowly descended, and everyone still watching the battle assumed this was Yang Mo’s ultimate move.
This included the Bad Demon directly beneath the vortex. It raised all its vines above its mask, trying to defend against the coming attack.
But the real attack came from someone else.
Yang Mo and Qian Ling exchanged a knowing glance and both understood the time to strike had come.
The vortex suddenly spun faster and plummeted with unstoppable force, just as Qian Ling jumped down from above into the vortex.
Inside, her Form Change transformed the Iron Thorn into a long, whirring drill, “zzzz”-ing as it spun in her hand.
This was the true killing blow hidden beneath the spectacle; the vortex was only a distraction.
With the added force of gravity, the drill’s power multiplied, shattering the mask into pieces effortlessly.
As the pages scattered, the Bad Demon’s body began to wither; soon after, even the fragments of the mask turned to dust, dissolving into the air.
“The Magical Girls win!”
“We’re saved!”
“Thank you, Magical Girls!”
The ordinary people on site broke into cheers.
Qian Ling had already landed from the vortex, standing calmly at Yang Mo’s side. “Nothing beats a drill for breaking through.”
As she spoke, she raised a hand in a triumphant “Yay” gesture to the cheering crowd, looking rather pleased with herself.
Unfortunately, with Stealth Magic active, no one could respond to her but the orange Magical Girl beside her.
She paid the crowd no mind, instead curling her finger to her lips and giggling quietly to the empty air at her side.