Chapter 237: Do You Want to Close Your Eyes?

Amber tilted her head up, the golden radiance of the tree reflected in her eyes:

"Perhaps... this is what the Sacred Tree and this world originally looked like."

Everyone bathed in this blessing, suddenly feeling a drowsiness rising from the depths of their souls.

The next moment.

Zihan yawned first.

She raised her hand to rub her eyes, but her arm drooped halfway up, and her whole body swayed.

"How strange... why all of a sudden..."

Phoenix's wings flapped twice, then went limp against her sides. Her voice was muffled as she muttered: "In other words... I finally don't have to be a bird anymore..."

No one answered her.

That drowsiness welled up like warm water, gentle and comforting.

Everyone's eyelids grew heavier and heavier, their bodies feeling light and floaty, as if about to melt into this radiance.

Close your eyes, and when you open them again, it will surely be the New World.

Su Fang's head kept drooping lower and lower.

—Should I close my eyes?

She was in a daze, as if about to fall asleep.

But for some reason.

Ever since entering this space, Su Fang had felt something strange, an inexplicable sense of dissonance she couldn't quite put into words.

She suddenly recalled something.

It was the final moment before entering this space—the look the Cherry-Haired Girl had given her.

Because she had never seen Senior wear such an expression before, she couldn't quite decipher its meaning.

But now, two words suddenly rose from her intuition.

Farewell.

"..."

(BGM: Sis puella magica)

A faint trace of dissonance stirred in her heart.

Su Fang forced her eyes open and suddenly noticed something flickering.

She saw that the silver gem pendant on her chest had, at some point, begun flashing at an alarming frequency.

As if it were screaming hoarsely, trying to convey some concealed truth.

Su Fang reached out and gripped the pendant, somewhat bewildered, but no matter how she tried to sense it, she couldn't decipher any specific message from the frantic flashing.

The dissonance in her heart grew heavier, followed by a terrible foreboding.

Her emerald-green eyes flew wide open.

No.

No!!

This was the premonition of losing something, a declaration like an eternal parting, the regret of never seeing someone again.

She instinctively looked up and reached out toward that figure.

But someone spoke before her.

"Mengmengxiang!!"

Accompanied by Airwen's urgent cry that reached everyone's ears, that phantom-like silver silhouette suddenly solidified into view.

Everyone instinctively looked forward.

She seemed to have barely manifested herself through sheer will and the magic power of this place, then staggered as she rushed toward the Cherry-Haired Girl beneath the Sacred Tree.

Yet the distance seemed impossible to close—no matter how far she advanced, it felt like she could never reach.

"..."

Airwen's voice trembled with panic: "What exactly are you trying to do?!"

She had once wielded an incomplete Domain, and she was the Pride Witch's other half, so her understanding of Domains far surpassed everyone else's.

What was about to happen next was absolutely not a reconstruction of the world.

It was something completely opposed to the ritual.

In that instant, it wasn't just Su Fang—Tang Keren and Zihan also snapped awake, eyes flying wide open.

Tang Keren stared blankly at the Cherry-Haired Girl before her: "Mengmengxiang...?"

—Just as they had once, without any memories, instinctively walked to the door of the Happiness Peace Committee.

At this moment, their intuition was screaming a frantic warning: if they obeyed that drowsiness and closed their eyes, they would lose something.

Something they could never accept losing.

Lin Guang merely watched them all with those cherry-red eyes, but didn't answer.

Yet the moment they met those eyes.

Zihan suddenly pulled off her eyepatch.

Tang Keren had already drawn her phone from the void.

And Su Fang had already touched the brooch on her chest.

They each gripped their own Soul Gems, which began to radiate dazzling, mesmerizing light in that instant.

This wasn't an ordinary transformation... This was the precursor to a Full Bloom, burning their very souls.

Zihan's voice was already laced with magic power, spreading in layered, reverberating echoes—resolute and solemn: "Stop! Or I will fight you until my soul burns to ashes to stop you!"

"..."

Lin Guang was silent for a moment.

She finally withdrew her right hand from the Sacred Tree.

With her movement, the resonance gradually subsided, and the drowsiness that had lingered over everyone's hearts faded considerably.

"Mengmengxiang, what are you doing?!"

Even Phoenix, slow as she was, snapped back to reality, realizing something was wrong, her feathers bristling all over.

Amber gazed at the Cherry-Haired Girl, her lips slightly parted.

Lin Guang turned around, her cherry-red eyes gazing at the girls encircling her, and said calmly:

"I do intend to open the gates of the New World."

"However, not within Utopia."

"I'm going to send you all out."

Out?

Those two simple words froze the expressions of everyone present.

Phoenix couldn't help but ask: "You mean, out there... that..."

Lin Guang nodded.

In that instant, shock and disbelief flooded every face.

But what followed was an even deeper unease.

Su Fang's vision suddenly blurred.

That dream from over ten days ago... when she had stayed with Senior at the hot spring inn.

That dream which had been so uncomfortable, yet left no memory upon waking.

And this moment now gave them all a sense of... déjà vu.

As if this had happened before.

"What exactly are you talking about?!"

Tang Keren's golden eyes stared at the Cherry-Haired Girl in disbelief, her mind short-circuiting: "That witch herself said it—we can't get out!"

Everyone else stared at her just as intently.

—This world was a cradle of despair where one could enter but never leave; any being that entered was ultimately just nourishment to gestate the final victor.

That was the cry the Pride Witch had let out with her very soul in her final moments.

What She said back then couldn't have been a lie.

So the truth was probably really like that.

Yet at this moment, the Cherry-Haired Girl looked at them and shook her head: "No, we can get out."

"Not just you—all the Previous Magical Girls still alive, and everyone in Kazenari Town... all of them can leave."

Everyone's eyes flew wide in that instant.

Everyone?

Including those citizens who were supposed to be mere illusions, those Previous Magical Girls reduced to nothing but remnants? Including themselves?

Reason told them this was madness.

But emotion told them... no matter how unrealistic the Cherry-Haired Girl's words were, she was always serious about them.

She truly believed she could do it.

Yet what followed was an extremely ominous premonition.

Airwen was still trying to break through the wall that had already unfolded around Lin Guang, but she couldn't advance an inch, and had to shout: "What exactly are you trying to do?!"