Chapter 206 – The Emergency Meeting

While Lin Xi and her group enjoyed a happy reunion, the Magical Girls were having a miserable time.

First, they mistook the new disturbance for another attack by the Queen of Lust.

The good news was that it was not the Queen of Lust.

The bad news was that it was ten thousand UFO Bombs.

Then the situation changed again just as abruptly. The ten thousand UFO Bombs that had swarmed out of the Spatial Vortex turned around, flooded back into it, and disappeared.

It had been a false alarm after all.

Inside a medical pod on the seventh underground floor of the Countermeasures Bureau, Xia Xun studied her reflection in the mirror. Her fingertips brushed the unnatural trace of pinkish purple staining the ends of her hair.

Two and a half hours had passed, yet the Queen of Lust’s mana contamination remained stubbornly embedded in her ice-aligned Mana Circuit, like a drop of ink poisoning an entire clear pool.

Worse, every time she closed her eyes, the warm sensations she had deliberately tried to forget came rushing back.

Fortunately, thinking about Lin Xi was enough to carry her through it.

“Damn that Queen of Lust!”

She punched the mirror. Ice crystals instantly crawled across the reinforced glass.

The medical pod’s AI issued a gentle warning. “Emotional fluctuation detected. Continued Mental Purification Treatment is recommended.”

Xia Xun simply tore the Neural-Sensing Patch from her temple. Spending a little longer thinking about Lin Xi worked better than any Mental Purification Treatment.

The pod door slid open, bringing a gust of cold air with it. Su Tang entered with a thick stack of data tablets in her arms. A Spatial Stabilizer covered her right eye-a silver device shaped like a monocle, continuously blinking blue.

Her spatial perception had been distorted, leaving her with double vision whenever she looked at anything.

“The conference room is ready.” Su Tang’s voice sounded more distant than usual, a typical symptom of a disrupted spatial ability.

Xia Xun noticed that the purple markings on her wrist had faded since a few hours earlier.

“How far along is your purification?”

“Eighty-seven percent.” Su Tang gave a bitter smile. “The Queen of Lust showed us mercy. Otherwise, we might have been completely corrupted-or even fallen…”

Electromagnetic noise suddenly approached through the corridor. Misaka Shirai strode into the medical pod, tiny arcs of electricity dancing through her short brown hair.

She was purifying herself through Electrotherapy Purification.

“Come on. Let’s head to the conference room.”

Then, more quietly, she added, “The Bureau Chief called this emergency meeting personally. The Council must be putting pressure on her.”

The conference room formed a perfect hexagon. Its walls were made of specially engineered Magic Alloy capable of blocking every form of energy-based surveillance.

The central chamber was embedded deep within the permafrost like a crystal sphere sealed in ice.

When Xia Xun pushed open the door, the cold inside soothed her damaged Mana Circuit slightly. This should have been the ideal place for an ice-aligned ability user to recover-if not for the pinkish-purple markings still writhing beneath her skin.

“Close the door. You’re disturbing the temperature,” Bureau Chief Nangong Qing said without looking up.

The woman appeared to be only in her early thirties. Her fingertips moved slowly over the ice-crystal patterns on the conference table, and ancient prophetic runes surfaced within the crystal wherever she touched.

The ceiling projected an artificial aurora. Beneath its flowing green light, the central holographic table displayed alarming data: the Queen of Lust’s energy readings had risen by another seventeen percentage points over the past hour.

Misaka Shirai had taken the seat on the left and was irritably tapping at an electromagnetic keyboard. Stray arcs continued to leap through her short brown hair.

Su Tang sat in the shadows of the right-hand corner, quiet as a ghost, both hands wrapped around a steaming cup of tea. Xia Xun noticed that the tea level had not fallen at all. Su Tang was clearly still under the influence of lust mana.

“Sit.”

Nangong Qing finally raised her head, revealing eyes that did not match her apparent age. Her irises were the pale blue of glacial ice, yet they carried the weathered patterns of long years.

She pointed to the seat directly opposite her-the chief analyst’s place.

Xia Xun sat stiffly. The scrape of her uniform against her injuries made her frown. Nangong Qing’s gaze lingered on the lust markings around Xia Xun’s neck before she pushed over a cup of steaming, frigid liquid.

“Dragon Breath Tea, with triple Ice Crystal Powder,” the Bureau Chief said calmly. “It will temporarily suppress the spread of Dark Realm contamination.”

Xia Xun drained it in one swallow, savoring the contradiction of freezing liquid burning down her throat. By the time she returned the cup to the table, it was coated in a layer of eternal frost.

Nangong Qing planted both hands on the table. The runes within the ice crystal began flowing faster.

The core meeting of the Dark Realm Disaster Countermeasures Bureau’s seventh underground level formally began. The air in the room felt frozen solid enough to split with a blade.

At the center of the oval obsidian table, a hologram replayed the suffocating scene again and again: the Queen of Lust emerging from the storm of petals, her purple-black skirt writhing like a living thing, then snapping her fingers and dismantling the combined assault of three elite Magical Girls.

Xia Xun tapped one fingertip lightly against the table. Each touch left a frost blossom that vanished almost at once.

Her long hair remained disheveled from the battle. Cold light from the projection shifted across her face, making her beautiful eyes seem deeper and more inscrutable than ever.

“Seventh replay complete,” the AI’s synthetic female voice announced. “Peak energy analysis complete. Threat level recalibrated: Monarch Grade.”

Across the table, Misaka Shirai slammed a fist down in frustration. Her electromagnetic barrier activated reflexively, spitting several arcs of electricity.

“She really is one of the Seven Monarchs of Desire of the Dark Realm.”

The holographic table automatically brought up the battle record. When Xia Xun rose, the wound on her leg reopened, spreading a dark-red stain through her trouser leg.

Her voice remained as steady as if she were reporting on an ordinary training exercise.

“Our original objective was to track and capture the Super-Grade Disaster. During the operation, the Queen of Lust, one of the Seven Monarchs of Desire, intervened and caused the mission to fail.”

Misaka Shirai suddenly punched the table again. Her electromagnetic barrier flared in response, blue light flashing as the monitor before her spat sparks.

“That bastard was waiting for us! The Super-Grade Disaster was connected to her all along!”

“What evidence do you have?” Su Tang asked softly.

Her voice was little more than a whisper, yet the conference room immediately fell silent.

“What we saw was the Queen of Lust rescuing the Super-Grade Disaster, not cooperating with her. There is a fundamental difference.”

The Bureau Chief slid one finger across the holographic control panel. The projection changed to a map of magical disasters across the world.

The scattered red dots that had once marked it now almost formed a continuous sheet, like a spreading plague.

“In the three hours since the Queen of Lust appeared, forty-seven anomalous fluctuations of Dark Realm energy have been detected worldwide. That equals the total for the entire previous year.”

Su Tang continued cradling her steaming cup in both hands.

“Her appearance had that much influence?” Her voice was as soft as a feather touching the ground. “But not every fluctuation matches the energy signature of the Seven Monarchs of Desire. Some of them look more like…”

“A signal,” Xia Xun finished, narrowing her eyes. “Dark Realm Creatures can sense when one of the Seven Monarchs of Desire appears in our world?!”

An eerie silence descended on the conference room.

Only the hum of the ventilation system remained.