“Ah!”
The sharp sword sliced through a mass of muddy flesh, but Lin Wan was still trapped at the center of the calamity’s vortex.
The carousel she had once fantasized about as a child, filled with playful innocence, had now transformed into the most grotesque monster. Each horse was entwined with pitch-black tentacles, which wrapped around the entire figure. The horses seemed to come alive, lunging at her from all directions, gnashing their teeth.
Lin Wan gritted her teeth, clenching her fists tightly, her mind focused to the extreme.
“Get away!”
The seven flying swords she controlled turned into silver streaks, weaving an impenetrable web of blades around her.
The sword light howled as each strike precisely severed the tentacles that attacked her.
Black slime splattered everywhere, writhing on the ground as it tried to regroup and fuse back together.
Fragments of broken tentacles scattered all over, clinking against the now-stopped music box and flickering lights.
Yet these carousel horses, corrupted by the calamity, seemed to have endless energy, attacking in relentless waves, giving Lin Wan no chance to catch her breath.
The ground beneath her feet was already stained with thick black filth. Lin Wan’s breathing grew rapid, and the delicate control of seven flying swords was a tremendous drain on both her spirit and Magic Power.
“This can’t go on… Sister Su Li is still waiting for me!”
Lin Wan wiped the sweat from her brow; she had to finish this quickly.
Suddenly, she raised her hand, unleashing all her Magic Power without reservation. The metal folding fan on her back hummed, and all seven flying swords swiftly retracted to hover before her, their tips pointed directly at the frenzied calamity horde ahead.
With a forceful thrust of both hands, the seven flying swords shot forward like bullets!
Though there were only seven blades, Lin Wan unleashed the feeling of countless swords converging as one.
Hundreds, even thousands of blue sword shadows fell like shooting stars, radiating from Lin Wan in all directions with indiscriminate ferocity!
“Ssssss––!!!”
A dense volley of piercing sounds that made her scalp tingle erupted instantly!
The gnashing tentacles and twisted carousel horses were all pierced through by countless blue sword shadows in Lin Wan’s final desperate strike!
The calamity collapsed like it had been thrown into a meat grinder, massive chunks disintegrating, the piercing screeches and shattered horses’ laments echoing together, then quickly settling into silence.
Seconds later, the sword shadows dispersed.
The entire carousel area was left in ruin; all the horses were shattered into broken pieces scattered across the ground, leaving only the dilapidated structure behind.
“Hah… hah…”
The flying swords dropped to the ground, and Lin Wan collapsed.
“Ugh…”
***
After a moment, Lin Wan propped herself up with her folding fan, her face pale, breathing heavily.
That last strike had drained most of her Magic Power, and her head throbbed as if pricked by needles, but she couldn’t afford to rest. She forced herself to stand despite the weakness and pain.
“Sister Su Li…!” She anxiously scanned her surroundings but found no sign of Su Li anywhere.
Sister Su Li… where did she go?
Lin Wan closed her eyes, but the silence around her was terrifying. She couldn’t hear anything.
No contact… Damn it.
Rubbing her forehead, she tried to clear her mind. The current situation was that she was alone.
No matter what happened next, she had to complete the mission.
First, she needed to find Lian Xue. The last hint from Tian’ai Star indicated an anomaly at the haunted house, and Sister Su Li’s previous target was there as well.
Without hesitation, Lin Wan dragged her exhausted body and headed toward the haunted house.
***
“Hah… hah…”
Lin Wan stood at the entrance of the haunted house.
The entrance looked extremely run-down, perhaps deliberately decorated that way, its wide-open maw seemingly swallowing all the light.
Normally, Lin Wan wouldn’t dare enter a place like this, even if she knew there were no ghosts inside. But now, despite knowing the danger within, she didn’t feel any of her usual fear toward haunted houses.
This was no longer about courage.
She had to go.
However, just as Lin Wan was about to step into the darkness, her sharp hearing caught a faint sobbing sound.
It wasn’t coming from inside the haunted house.
It came from a narrow corner beside the entrance, cluttered with cleaning tools and discarded decorations.
Lin Wan abruptly stopped and looked cautiously toward the sound. Having depleted much of her Telekinesis, she barely managed to keep one flying sword floating by her side as a guard.
“Who’s there?” she whispered sharply, slowly approaching.
The corner was piled with a few dirty sacks and a toppled cartoon standee, and the sobbing came from behind it.
Lin Wan carefully prodded the fallen standee with the tip of her sword.
What she revealed wasn’t a terrifying monster, nor was it Chen Lianxue.
It was a little girl who looked no older than seven or eight, wearing a filthy little dress, her blue pigtails messy.
She was curled up in the corner, her face covered in dust, her eyes swollen and red from crying, clutching her mouth tightly with small hands, staring at Lin Wan and the hovering flying sword with fear.
“A child…?”
Lin Wan stared at the girl.
This was clearly an ordinary child.
Lin Wan was momentarily stunned.
She looked into the girl’s terrified eyes and at this fragile life so out of place amidst the hellish scene surrounding them. For a moment, she even forgot where she was.
“Don’t… don’t be afraid…” Lin Wan instinctively dispersed the flying sword beside her, trying to make her voice sound gentler despite her own trembling hands from exhaustion and residual fear. “Sister isn’t a bad person… Why are you here?”
“I… I snuck in to play… It’s all full of… monsters here… sob sob.”
The girl’s words were broken and trembling.
Lin Wan’s heart tightened at the sight of the little girl’s helpless terror.
She suppressed her own fatigue and tried to sound as gentle and reassuring as possible. “Don’t be afraid. The monsters have all been driven away by Sister. What’s your name? How are you here all alone?”
The little girl hiccupped, stammering, “I-I’m Xiao Ya… My mom said I can’t play in the amusement park… So I got mad and crawled in from under the fence to play… And then…”
“And then those horses came alive! They became so scary! I-I hid here… I didn’t dare to go out… sob…”
She looked like a child who had snuck in secretly to play.
Lin Wan was momentarily dazed. She suddenly felt the child was a lot like herself when she was young—only she had never been this rebellious.
But kids will be kids. A little rebellion isn’t bad.
Lin Wan crouched down and tried to continue comforting the frightened child.
***
“Tap… tap… tap…”
Light footsteps sounded from the pitch-black entrance of the haunted house.
Lin Wan’s head snapped up, her heart instantly rising to her throat. She instinctively shielded Xiao Ya behind her and raised her sword, her gaze fixed on the darkness.
A figure slowly emerged from the blackness. The person’s face and clothing gradually became visible.
She was wearing a Magical Girl Combat Suit…
Pink hair…
A familiar face.
“Lian Xue?!”
Lin Wan recognized the visitor and couldn’t suppress her surge of joy.
Found her! She really was here!
Lin Wan instinctively wanted to rush forward.
But the next moment, her feet froze. Something was off about this Chen Lianxue.
Something wasn’t right!
Chen Lianxue was indeed a quiet girl, but now her eyes were hollow and empty, like a puppet drained of its soul.
Her face bore no expression—not fear, not joy—just numbness. She stood there holding a dagger in her hand.
What shocked Lin Wan even more was the metal collar tightly locked around Chen Lianxue’s pale neck, faintly glowing with a weak red light. The collar’s front had a clear numeric keypad.
It was obviously a collar that required a password to unlock.
“Lian Xue?! What happened to you? Who put this on you?!” Lin Wan’s voice trembled. Her instincts told her the collar on Chen Lianxue’s neck was very likely a bomb.
Yet Chen Lianxue gave no response. She just stood quietly like a robot awaiting orders.
Then, from the darkness behind the first “Chen Lianxue,” a second, a third, the tenth, the twentieth… countless figures slowly emerged.
They all wore identical pink dresses, had the exact same face, and each wore that damned bomb collar around their necks.
Countless pairs of empty eyes stared unblinkingly at Lin Wan and the trembling Xiao Ya behind her.
They made no sound, uttered no threats, but their silent gaze was far more terrifying than any roar.
Lin Wan was completely stunned. Her mind went blank, unable to process what was happening before her eyes.
She had indeed found Chen Lianxue.
***
But it was as if she was also staring into countless graves of herself.