Chapter 190: Darkened by Despair, Silenced by Pride

The dazzling barrage surged like a torrent, erupting from the high-speed pink meteors, bearing a blinding brilliance as it hurtled straight toward Airwen and the black fog behind her.

Tang Keren’s voice followed immediately.

“If you can still stand here and talk, doesn’t that mean you haven’t stopped thinking yet?!”

“Why act like you’re already staging your own self-annihilation?!”

“What could be worse than this right now?!”

At the same time, the tidal wave of blue projectiles burst forth from the muzzle of that azure figure and slammed forward.

“Senior Airwen!! Why give up? If you come back, there will definitely be a way!”

The gorgeous two-colored meteor shower instantly swallowed that area and Airwen’s figure whole.

But Lin Guang, wrapped in crimson magic, froze slightly.

Because at the moment of impact, she saw Airwen’s silhouette ripple like a reflection on water, then dissipate.

The next second, Airwen seemed like an omnipresent ghost, emerging unscathed and calm from the other side of the barrage’s blind spot.

The purple meteor reacted just as quickly, collapsing into a purple-black shadow in an instant and skimming across the liquid magic’s surface to close in.

The instant Airwen appeared, Zihan leapt from the shadow, her massive scythe of judgment slashing through the air with terrifying purple streaks, brutally aiming at Airwen’s flank.

“Silver of Judgment! Snap out of it!”

The next instant.

Without even turning her head, Airwen casually flicked the pitch-black long sword backward.

The blade struck the side of the scythe.

It seemed like a random, powerless swipe, yet the purple figure was struck as if by lightning.

Boom!!

Accompanied by an irresistible force, Zihan let out a muffled groan as her whole body was slammed and sent far flying.

But in that very moment,

the crimson meteor seized the opening left by her sword and slammed in, forcefully penetrating her absolute domain.

The crimson silhouette swung the staff, the massive blaze roaring up like a red dragon.

“…”

Airwen’s sight behind that black mask was indistinct.

Yet at that instant, her figure transformed into a dreamlike bubble without pause.

The dragon of flame cut across where Airwen had previously stood.

Lin Guang almost without hesitation turned, spinning like a dancer to dodge the black sword that had lightly struck by, her eyes burning with fierce flame.

The next instant,

in Tang Keren’s, Su Fang’s, and the barely composed Zihan’s eyes,

the fierce blaze and the illusory shadow intertwined.

The silver-and-black phantoms did not vanish with smoke but reappeared, while the flame-wreathed silhouette danced like the most passionate performer.

Two figures, impossibly beautiful, seemed to perform a perfectly synchronized duet beneath the Sacred Tree—gorgeous and graceful, with no hint that they were fighting at the most dangerous range.

Heady music echoed through the whole space, magic gathering under their lead as though accompanying their dance.

Yet at the battlefield’s center, Lin Guang felt an indescribable, terrifying pressure.

—It was completely different from their previous clash.

If last time the two had been evenly matched,

then at this moment Airwen… was no longer of the same dimension.

Even though Lin Guang could sense that Airwen had devoted most of her energy to the Sacred Tree behind her, there remained a sense of danger beyond everything, winding tightly around Lin Guang’s heart.

“It’s useless.”

Amid such intense entanglement, Airwen still had the leisure to form words, her voice resounding in the minds of everyone present.

She murmured, “Mengmengxiang, you’re truly remarkable—the most remarkable magical girl I’ve ever seen.”

“Outside, a sufficient number of C-Rank extraordinaries could indeed fight a B-Rank.”

“But… in this world, that is impossible.”

“Because this world has only two divisions: Illusion and Truth.”

“Illusory things, however powerful, can never contend with Truth.”

At that moment,

Lin Guang’s voice answered as well.

“So… where are your wings?”

Though the question was absurd, Airwen’s movement registered the slightest, imperceptible pause.

At this point she was inconceivably powerful, yet she alone lacked the silver double wings that would appear behind her when she gave her all.

The wings were gone.

The next moment, Lin Guang’s words carried a sharp rebuke: “Is this the true magical girl you wished to become?”

“Did your dream come true?”

Her words bore a rare sneer: “Or have you personally abandoned the last sliver of hope?”

“…!!”

In an instant,

those words seemed to trigger something; a crack appeared on Airwen’s otherwise flawless mask.

The black phantom blade imprinted on the staff Lin Guang barely parried as if without any process.

The microphone staff, formed from condensed magic, was split into two pieces in an instant.

Lin Guang grunted, and like a crimson meteor she was flung backward.

The music abruptly stopped, and silence fell.

“……”

Airwen still stood in place.

But beneath that pitch-black, silent mask, the voice that had been cold and deathly quiet finally showed a trembling inflection.

She muttered, “Give up… hope?”

Looking at the crimson girl—who, despite being struck hundreds of meters away by a single blow, did not give up and again drew her staff from the void to fly at her—Airwen suddenly lifted her head and cried out, voice ringing sharp: “There was never hope from the start, don’t you see!”

She seemed to shout and yet sound like a tender admonition: “Mengmengxiang, stop dreaming impossible dreams! Give it up!”

It seemed that only this crimson magical girl’s words and existence could provoke a visible emotional fluctuation in her.

“Whether it’s you, or me, or them—”

“But Senior Airwen, as long as we’re together…”

Su Fang’s eyes reddened, her cerulean twin guns spitting fire madly, countless sapphire-like magic bullets weaving into an impenetrable net, trying to lock down Airwen’s movements.

“Stop talking, Su Fang!”

The black sword before Airwen slashed a pitch-black half-moon in the air.

The moment those azure bullets touched the blade’s edge, they were all annihilated, as if they had never existed.

“I didn’t give up in pessimism from the start, nor did I quit halfway…”

“It’s that the effort itself is meaningless, and only brings more sacrifice.”

She whispered, “The hope we were waiting for never existed in this world.”

“The ridiculous part is, it took me three thousand three hundred and thirty-three attempts to realize that.”

The black phantom sword in her hand held a Soul Gem at the hilt that gave off no gleam, only an endless, deep darkness surging within.