My Superpower Is Piloting Magical Girl Corpses?

"I was indeed a bit angry at the time… no, I was very angry, because you wasted a full fourteen days of my time. I could have used that period to do more things, to be better prepared."

Her staff rained down like a violent storm against the black sword. Through the cracks in the mask, she stared straight into Airwen's pure black pupils, speaking word by word: "But now it seems, since everything starts with you and ends with you, then whether I prepared or not, the result wouldn't have been much different."

"Because I only know one thing."

"If I give up on you, if I let you exchange your own despair for a future where everyone else is happy…"

"Then I can absolutely never become a true magical girl."

—The crimson girl's Soul Gem, which should have been clouded and murky, was now blazing hot and radiant, shining brilliantly.

But the cracks on Airwen's mask were spreading.

They crawled from the edges all the way to the center, like a layer of ice collapsing under heavy pressure and sunlight.

She gritted her teeth and lunged forward again, wildly slashing her black sword at Lin Guang.

Her sword stance no longer carried the precision of before; every strike seemed like she was pouring something out.

It was something stuck in her throat that she couldn't voice, yet it all seemed to have been melted into the sword in her hand, transforming into chaotic sword light that filled the sky.

And the magical girls' offensive surged to its peak at this moment.

Lin Guang didn't retreat a single step. Her staff clashed densely with the black sword in close quarters, sparks and magical fragments flying everywhere. She swept the staff horizontally, striking the flat side of the black sword, knocking the blade off balance.

Airwen's defense was completely exposed.

Now was the time.

Showering pink star bullets sealed off all of Airwen's escape routes.

The click of a shutter sounded as Su Fang's sniper shot descended once more, arriving alongside the purple slash.

Several attacks converged at the same instant, sealing off the last gap in her movements.

And in that moment, Lin Guang's slender left fist had already broken through the Spirit Outfit's force field, slamming fiercely into that pure black mask that was already covered in cracks.

"Crack—"

The mask shattered into pieces under the flames clinging to her fist.

Black powder was swept up by the residual magical energy, scattering profusely into the void.

Beneath the mask, that familiar, beautiful face was finally exposed to everyone.

"..."

Having taken this heavy punch, Airwen staggered back a few steps before steadying herself.

It was still that flawless girl's face, a perfect blend of heroic spirit and beauty.

But those pitch-black eyes, which had remained dark even after transformation, now showed unprecedented wavering—as if under that blazing gaze, everything within them could no longer hide.

The crimson magical girl did not step forward again, nor did she launch another attack. She didn't speak either.

She just stood there quietly, several meters away, watching the other girl.

And then…

She extended her right hand toward her.

The three meteors in the sky also remained silent, just watching them quietly, their eyes filled with complexity.

But more than anything, there was a sense of relief.

Perhaps Airwen had learned many desperate truths.

Perhaps Airwen's identity had been complicated from the very beginning.

But she was still the Airwen of the past—that magical girl who was everyone's senior.

That was enough.

So they absolutely couldn't let her destroy herself, just as they had promised Amber and Phoenix before the battle.

"I…"

Airwen's lips trembled slightly.

Her authority was still there. The Truth was still there. Her magic power was inexhaustible.

The Abyss's corrosion of the Sacred Tree continued, and she was growing stronger, while the girls' Full Bloom was only a fleeting moment.

But under the gaze of the dazzling red-haired girl before her, there was even timidity and wavering in her expression.

—If even this final compromise I could secure is shattered… then where can you go? What will become of your happiness?

Yet somehow, in those black eyes, alongside that wavering, something else was stirring.

It was… specks of silver light.

She seemed to want to say something to the girl before her.

"I…"

But the next moment.

Her eyes suddenly turned pitch black.

Like a bottomless abyss.

"!!" x4

In that instant.

In Lin Guang's abruptly widened eyes.

Under the astonished gazes of the three magical girls in the sky.

The endless black fog beneath the water's surface seemed to boil over, suddenly surging upward, breaking through the boundary between life and death. It then wove together into a colossal vortex that pierced heaven and earth, enveloping the silver figure within.

Boom—!

The moment the anomaly occurred, Lin Guang had already reached out her hand, trying to grab Airwen.

But in the next instant, she was violently sent flying by that overwhelming wave of black fog, forced to watch helplessly as the black fog coalesced into the shape of a giant cocoon in front of the Sacred Tree.

…

In the endless darkness.

The silver-haired girl looked at the black-haired girl before her, who was identical to herself.

The other's expression could be called serene, even wearing a smile. But that smile was too precise, too perfect—perfect to the point of being bone-chilling.

Like an AI, an artificial intelligence, or something that tried to imitate humans but was fundamentally and essentially far removed from them.

She looked at Airwen and spoke softly.

"You… how can you still have the nerve to feel hope?"

Her tone wasn't aggressive; it even carried a certain manufactured, delicate tenderness, reminiscent of the deliberate responses of old-era AI that proactively catered to and pleased users.

But her words were filled with nothing but the densest malice.

"Because of your meaningless hope, so many magical girls have vanished in despair in this world."

"You deceived everyone from the very beginning. Your very existence is the original sin."

"And you even stubbornly hurt that girl, maliciously hoping she would dissipate and no longer get in your way."

"Do you really deserve her goodwill?"

The Witch King smiled, opening and closing her lips, following the most standard conversational process, delivering the most direct, most incisive conclusion.

"It's all your fault, Airwen."

The silver-haired girl tried to lower her head, but found that the black fog had already coiled around her body, leaving her unable to move, forced to stare back at her counterpart.

Countless images uncontrollably flashed before her eyes.

They were… the magical girls from her past memories, their pained and sorrowful expressions at the moment of death.

And also, the posture of herself looking down from above at that cherry-haired figure, speaking those unbearably cruel truths.

"…"

"You don't deserve happiness at all."

"And now, because of some unrealistic hope, you want to destroy the Bond between us, erasing the only possibility of happiness for them?"

"…"

Airwen's eyes gradually darkened once more.

The Witch King smiled. "Just obediently hand everything over to me.

"My pitiful, pathetic shadow."

The next moment.

She sank completely into the boundless darkness.