Chapter 204 – Ten Thousand UFO Bombs

“Tongtong! Tongtong!”

Yang Shanshan’s face was bright red, and she could barely contain her excitement as she told her little sister everything that had happened between her and Lin Xi.

“Mm-hm. And then?” Yang Tongtong calmly took another bite of her favorite strawberry cake.

“Then I came back.”

“Huh?! You didn’t tell her who you were?!”

“Of course not! How could I possibly do that?”

“You saved her! It wouldn’t have been too much to reveal your identity and ask her to repay you by marrying you, would it?! I thought the two of you would head to a love hotel and go a round, but that was it?!”

Yang Shanshan had no defense.

In her eyes, she had already taken an enormous step forward.

Yet to her sister, it barely counted as anything at all.

And that was far from Yang Tongtong’s only disappointment. Her sister had transformed into the Queen of Lust, yet she had neither taken Lin Xi for herself nor killed any of the girls in love with her.

What kind of Queen of Lust was that?!

Yang Tongtong carefully hid her displeasure. She silently resolved to transform this pathetic Otaku loser of a Sis from the ground up.

…

Seven floors beneath the headquarters of the Dark Realm Disaster Countermeasures Bureau, the elevator doors opened to the shriek of an alarm.

Xia Xun staggered out first. The sole of her uniform boot left a trail of ice crystals across the floor.

Her long hair had lost its usual smooth luster. Several sweat-soaked strands clung to her pale cheeks.

“Scanning vital signs,” a mechanical female voice announced from the ceiling as red light swept over the three Magical Girls. “Severe mana depletion and Lust Corruption detected. Initiating Level-Three Purification Protocol.”

Misaka Shirai gritted her teeth and shoved away the medical robot trying to support her.

“Help Su Tang first.” Her voice was hoarse, and tiny electric arcs still danced through her short brown hair. “She suffered the worst backlash from her spatial magic.”

Su Tang’s face was white as paper. Strange pinkish-purple patterns had surfaced along her right wrist-the residual mark of the Queen of Lust’s mana.

Her pupils dilated and contracted at random, as if she were still caught in the aftershocks of spatial disorientation.

Yang Shanshan had not killed the three of them in her Queen of Lust form, but neither had she shown mercy to the Magical Girls who had made Lin Xi suffer.

Su Tang had attacked Lin Xi most ruthlessly, so she had endured the harshest punishment.

Disinfectant mist blasted in from every direction. A frigid cloud of nanobots spun around the three girls, neutralizing the Dark Realm energy left on their bodies.

Xia Xun shuddered. It felt as though countless tiny insects were crawling across her skin. The purification process was supposed to be imperceptible, but the Queen of Lust’s mana contamination clearly exceeded the standard protocol’s capacity.

“Take us straight to the disaster analysis room,” Xia Xun ordered, forcing down her discomfort. “We need to report the contact between the Super-Grade Disaster and one of the Seven Monarchs of Desire immediately.”

The corridor’s LED lights came on one by one as they passed, casting warped shadows behind them.

Electronic runes flashed continuously across the walls, showing the Bureau’s internal alert level climbing from blue, Routine Monitoring, all the way to purple, High-Risk Alert.

When Misaka Shirai swiped her ID card across the analysis room’s blast door, chaos was already in full swing inside.

More than a dozen analysts crowded around the central holographic table. It was replaying the scene of their battle with Lin Xi, looping the crucial three seconds in which the Queen of Lust had appeared.

“You’re finally back!” The technical supervisor hurried toward them, streams of changing data reflected in her glasses. “The Bureau Chief has been waiting in the emergency conference room for an hour, and the Central Council is demanding an update every ten minutes-“

“Give us thirty minutes,” Xia Xun interrupted, walking straight to the analysis table.

She did not raise her voice, yet the entire room fell silent.

Even in such a battered state, a Magical Girl’s authority could not be questioned.

Su Tang was placed inside a recovery pod in the corner, where two medical officers used a Spatial Stabilizer to treat the chaos in her mana.

Misaka Shirai tore off the ruined outer layer of her uniform, revealing the close-fitting electromagnetic protective suit beneath it.

She pressed both hands to the holographic table’s data interface, closed her eyes, and released a faint electric current.

“Electromagnetic Memory: Scene Reconstruction.”

At her murmur, the holographic image sharpened. It even revealed the currents of lust mana that had been invisible to the naked eye, pinkish-purple energy writhing through the projection like a living thing.

Xia Xun leaned closer. Her breath left a layer of frost across the image.

“Stop. Right there.” She pointed to the instant the Queen of Lust raised her hand and broke the Absolute Zero Seal. “Magnify her right hand.”

Once the image expanded, everyone saw it clearly.

As the Queen of Lust released the seal, she had secretly injected a wisp of purple energy into the Super-Grade Disaster.

The flare of light at the time had concealed the subtle movement. Only the slowed Electromagnetic Memory recording could reveal it.

“That wasn’t a simple rescue,” Xia Xun said. “She left some kind of mark on the Super-Grade Disaster.”

Misaka Shirai brought up a second angle, this one recorded by an electromagnetic recorder hidden inside a button on her uniform.

In the footage, the Queen of Lust had one arm around the Super-Grade Disaster’s waist. The gesture was clearly protective, not the guarded posture of two enemies.

“Look at the way they exchange glances,” Misaka Shirai said. “The Super-Grade Disaster doesn’t seem to know the Queen of Lust, but the Queen of Lust acts as though this isn’t their first meeting.”

Su Tang’s weak voice drifted out of the recovery pod.

“The spatial fluctuation records show that aftereffects from a Dark Realm passage were already present around the battlefield thirty seconds before the Queen of Lust appeared.” She struggled upright. “She may have been watching from the shadows before she intervened.”

“A Super-Grade Disaster who can burn through spatial barriers, allied with the Queen of Lust-a member of the still more powerful Seven Monarchs of Desire…” Misaka Shirai continued, her fists clenching unconsciously. “Together, they could turn all of Z City into hell.”

An eerie silence fell over the room. Only the hum of machinery remained.

Everyone understood the severity of the situation. A single Super-Grade Disaster was enough to put the entire Countermeasures Bureau on alert. Two such disasters working together-no, the Queen of Lust was an existence beyond even a Super-Grade Disaster.

Their alliance would be an unprecedented crisis.

“Could it be a temporary alliance of convenience?” Su Tang suggested.

“That’s even more dangerous than a formal alliance.” Xia Xun shook her head. “A temporary partnership bound by no rules could spiral out of control at any moment.”

She suddenly broke into a violent coughing fit. A cloud of pinkish-purple mist spilled from her mouth-the remnants of the Lust Corruption.

The alarm blared through the room again.

“Spread of Level-Three Lust Corruption detected,” the mechanical voice warned. “Initiating isolation procedures.”

Transparent shields slammed down, isolating the three Magical Girls around the analysis table. Purification mist sprayed violently from the ceiling as nanobots formed a silver whirlwind around them.

Misaka Shirai cursed and punched the barrier.

“Damn that Queen of Lust!” Electricity burst from her fist, but the specially designed material did not even crack. “Why is her mana contamination so hard to remove?”

“Because it isn’t ordinary contamination.” Su Tang studied the purple markings spreading along her wrist. “It’s a mark. She left tracking marks on us too.”

The words hit everyone like a bucket of ice water.

Xia Xun snapped her gaze toward the surveillance monitor. On the Bureau’s barrier display, three faint purple points of light were blinking in exact alignment with their positions.

“All personnel, activate the Anti-Tracking Barrier immediately!” Xia Xun shouted into her communicator. “I repeat, this is not a drill! Every department, activate-“

A sudden tremor cut off her order.

The entire underground facility shook violently. Sparks burst from the equipment, the main lights died, and the emergency lighting washed every face in bloodred.

The holographic display automatically switched to the surface surveillance feed.

A gigantic black Spatial Vortex was forming above the Countermeasures Bureau headquarters.

But what emerged was not the Queen of Lust.

It was… an uncountable swarm of drones?!

…

“Lin Xi must have been captured!” Lu Yi reported. “All ten thousand UFO Bombs have been deployed above the Countermeasures Bureau through the Dark Realm Relic-the Spatial Vortex!”

“Understood.” Qin Ling prepared to negotiate with the Countermeasures Bureau.

They had escaped the Bureau’s pursuit and launched their counterattack at the first opportunity.

To their ZERO squad, Lin Xi was justice.

Losing Lin Xi meant losing justice itself.