Chapter 199 – One Against Three

Lin Xi blinked and found herself inside the other vehicle at Point A.

“Who… who are you?!” The Countermeasures Bureau employee inside stared at her in shock.

Three Magical Girls had just passed through the Teleportation Array. So where had this stranger in a black hood suddenly come from?

Lin Xi gave him no time to react. She threw open the door and leaped out.

The area’s disaster alarm had long since begun wailing, warning of a Dark Realm Disaster.

Just as Lin Xi had expected, Thor had assumed her Dragon Form and was fleeing through the sky with Qin Ling and the others on her back. Yet no matter how desperately she beat her wings, she could not shake the three Magical Girls pursuing her.

They had spread out into a triangle around the Giant Dragon.

Xia Xun held one point of the triangle, blue frost gathering in her palms. Even her breath crystallized the instant it left her lips.

At another point, electricity crackled around Misaka Shirai’s body, lifting her short brown hair into the air.

At the third, Su Tang floated silently while the space around her rippled like water.

“You have nowhere left to run!” Xia Xun stepped forward, ice crystals spreading beneath her feet. “Surrender now, and you may still live. Keep resisting, and you die here!”

“Surrender? Never!” Thor answered with a deafening roar. Her metallic green scales flashed beneath the sunlight.

The two sides stood poised for battle.

Then a blazing Fireball traced a dazzling arc across the sky.

Everyone was startled.

Thor’s group knew at once that Lin Xi had arrived.

The Magical Girls understood just as quickly: the Super-Grade Disaster was here.

Lin Xi opened with fifty-percent output. The Fireball hurtled straight toward the three Magical Girls-not to injure them, but to cover Thor’s retreat.

“Perfect. I was worried you wouldn’t show yourself!” Xia Xun reacted immediately.

“Absolute Defense: Ice Wall!”

Xia Xun thrust both hands forward. A massive wall of ice rose in the air, meeting the Fireball head-on.

The collision erupted in a deafening hiss. White steam billowed outward, swallowing half the sky.

Misaka Shirai and Su Tang turned at once. Their gazes locked onto a masked figure standing atop a distant building.

“Over there, on the rooftop!” Misaka Shirai pointed. “That person is wearing the same kind of black hood as the people on the Giant Dragon!”

Su Tang gave a cold snort. “Then I’ll finally get to see what the person who kidnapped my sister really looks like.”

Thor moved before either of them. Qin Ling had restored communications, allowing Lin Xi’s call to come through.

The Giant Dragon shot toward the rooftop like a cannonball, practically desperate to hurl herself into her Master’s arms.

One ominous beat passed.

“Thor, you had better stop in time! Don’t smash me and this entire building to pieces!”

“Master!”

Thor spread her wings and beat them backward with all her strength. A violent gale swept over the rooftop as she barely managed to brake in time.

“Qin Ling! Get everyone off Thor while you can,” Lin Xi said urgently. “I’ll ride her and keep Xia Xun and the others occupied!”

“Understood!”

Qin Ling and the others knew they could do little to help while sitting on Thor’s back. They would be far more useful once they returned to the ground.

Thor rolled sideways in the air, bringing one flank level with the roof. Qin Ling and the others jumped down in quick succession while Lin Xi sprang up onto the dragon’s back.

“Be careful!” they called after her.

Misaka Shirai and Su Tang were already closing in.

Misaka Shirai pulled a coin from a pocket in her skirt and flicked it with her thumb.

“Railgun!”

Electromagnetic force accelerated the coin to its limit in midair. It became a blue-white bolt that screamed toward Lin Xi at astonishing speed.

A bead of cold sweat slid down Lin Xi’s temple. She swept her left hand outward, transforming the Fireball she had summoned into a Flame Shield.

The Railgun slammed into the Flame Shield and erupted in a burst of blinding light, but the shield held.

Thor’s eyes blazed with fury. She opened her jaws and spewed a pillar of fire more than five meters across at Misaka Shirai and Su Tang.

The heat was so intense that windows in the surrounding buildings softened and ran like wax.

Unlike Lin Xi, Thor had no intention of holding back.

Su Tang raised one hand.

“Spatial Sever.”

A black fissure split open in front of them. The entire pillar of dragonfire vanished into the crack as though it had been swallowed by the void.

“Thor, run!” Lin Xi ordered.

Su Tang drew a slow breath. “After them.”

Misaka Shirai nodded and shot forward beside her. She had already contacted the Captain. The ground team would deal with the people who had jumped off; she, Su Tang, and Xia Xun had only one target-the Super-Grade Disaster.

They had to capture that person today.

Thor had barely flown a hundred meters when an intense chill surged up ahead.

Xia Xun had intercepted them.

Frost spread through the air beneath her feet. Countless ice spikes rose in every direction, forming a glittering forest that sealed off the route ahead.

“We finally meet again, Super-Grade Disaster.” Xia Xun pointed at the masked Lin Xi. “Do you know something? Every day, aside from thinking about the girl I like, I think about how I’m going to catch you.”

Lin Xi stared at her in silence.

The girl she liked and the quarry she wanted to catch were the same person. Xia Xun had been thinking about her all day, every day.

What a terrible sin she had committed.

Lin Xi still could not bring herself to strike Xia Xun in earnest. She summoned another Fireball and hurled it ahead to blast open an escape route.

Attacking without saying a word only made Xia Xun angrier. It was not that Lin Xi had nothing to say-she simply could not risk speaking when Xia Xun was certain to recognize her voice.

Was the Super-Grade Disaster looking down on her?

With a sweep of Xia Xun’s hand, the forest of ice spikes tore free and shot toward Lin Xi in a brilliant rain of arrows.

Lin Xi raised both hands. A Fireball more than ten meters across took shape before her, its surface already burning hot enough to resemble plasma.

The ice barrage crashed into it.

Vast clouds of vapor burst outward, but the Fireball continued on, forcing its way through the storm of ice.

At that moment, Misaka Shirai and Su Tang caught up from behind.

“Xia Xun, we’re here!” Misaka Shirai called.

Su Tang stared at the enormous sphere of flame. “What a powerful Fireball! As expected of a Super-Grade Disaster. We’ll have to fight with everything we have!”

No, please do hold back, Lin Xi pleaded silently.

She wanted peace. She was even willing to trade ten years of her lifespan for it.

Unfortunately, all the cuddling she had done with girls so far had only earned her two and a half years. If she wanted to pay ten, she would have to take out a loan-assuming there was anywhere that offered lifespan loans.

Misaka Shirai stretched out her right hand, shaping her fingers like a gun. Electromagnetic energy compressed at her fingertips until the surrounding air began to tremble.

“Railgun: Thunder God’s Arrow!”

Thor immediately climbed. If they stayed at the same altitude, they would be caught between Xia Xun in front and the other two behind. Gaining height was their only chance to evade the attack.

Su Tang clasped her hands together.

“Spatial Restraint.”

The space around Thor suddenly turned viscous. Her wings dragged as though trapped in invisible glue, and her ascent slowed to a crawl.

The restraint would last only a few seconds.

But that was more than enough.

Thunder God’s Arrow was already upon them.