Apocalypse, then transforming into a magical girl

"Okay!"

Beside her, the pink-haired girl excitedly pressed the switch on the laser pointer.

The two then quickly covered their ears and hid behind the wall.

A bright green beam of light shot out again from the second-to-last window of the high-rise building.

At this moment, the world was filled only with the sound of continuous rain.

The green laser beam pierced through the crimson rain curtain, precisely targeting the white cloud formed by the mixture of ether and liquid oxygen.

A pure white sphere of light appeared in the center of the ruins and expanded rapidly at a speed of milliseconds.

Its brightness suddenly increased, illuminating the entire rusty world in an instant.

Inside the sphere of light, the temperature instantly rose to thousands of degrees, and flames surged violently within.

The once invincible giant toad's massive silhouette was quickly obliterated in the light.

Its enormous body twisted, dissolved, and vaporized rapidly at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye.

The dense ant colony, and the queen ant who never appeared, didn't even have that qualification.

The moment the light swept across their bodies, they vanished without a trace—it was less that they were burned to death and more that their existence was erased.

After that, a few tenths of a second passed before the shockwave reached the survivors' location from the battlefield.

Xiao Lü and Bai Shuyuan were on an elevated platform hundreds of meters away. Before the explosion, Xiao Lü instinctively conjured several thick ice walls in front of her.

When the shockwave arrived, the first ice wall shattered instantly, and cracks of varying sizes appeared on the subsequent ice walls as well.

Bai Shuyuan calmly observed everything unfolding ahead.

On the second-to-last floor of the high-rise, an invisible, immense force slammed into the window. The entire building—in fact, the buildings within hundreds of meters of the epicenter—saw all its windows shatter instantly.

With a loud crash, shards of glass rained down into the room. Fortunately, the two had taken cover behind a wall, thus avoiding the fatal blow.

However, the two were still thrown to the ground by the violent shockwave.

"Lie down, don't look up!" the veteran shouted hoarsely before the shockwave hit.

Then, the group instantly felt a violent shaking of the ground beneath their feet. The survivors dared not move, waiting for the shockwave to subside.

Sasha secretly raised her head, her eyes wide with curiosity, looking at the ball of light. She thought it was very bright and beautiful.

Subsequently, she was forced to grow two eyes back.

On the other side, the mall's two modified bread carts also shook violently under the impact of the shockwave, almost being overturned, and the metal on the carts groaned in pain.

Ignoring his underlings' exclamations, the square-faced man lightly applied the brakes, gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands, and his arm veins bulged.

After everyone had experienced the powerful physical impact of the shockwave, the thunderous explosion finally arrived.

Like a death knell.

Even after the explosion subsided, the overpass remained scorching hot.

At the epicenter, the reinforced concrete bridge piers and the metal parts of the tanker truck, hollowed out by termite monsters, were twisted and melted under the high temperature of thousands of degrees, flowing with reddish-brown molten iron.

The accumulated water boiled instantly, vaporized violently, and billowing steam clouds, carrying black smoke from the explosion, shot into the sky.

This cloud of steam carried terrifying temperatures. The rusty-colored raindrops in the sky were instantly evaporated by the intense heat radiation before they even reached the ground.

The temperature difference caused by thermal radiation makes the air in this entire area appear to be fluctuating and quite distorted.

The bridge piers, which were once teeming with ants, are now nothing but charred blackness, except for the flowing molten metal.

The monsters had vanished without a trace, completely disintegrated by the high temperature and shockwave, leaving not even a trace of remains.

All that remained was lingering smoke and dust, rolling heat waves, and the pattering sound of rain.

Looking outwards from the epicenter, the Zuoan Interchange, once a massive transportation hub and a four-way interchange on the northwest side of the city, has now been completely reduced to ruins.

The once complex interchange structure is gone, leaving only some twisted steel skeletons pointing helplessly towards the crimson sky.

The survivors from each team crawled out from behind their bunkers, covered in dust and dirt, and checked on each other. Fortunately, there were no casualties.

Square-faced man wiped the cold sweat from his face and cursed wildly at his underlings, marveling at the immense power of the explosion.

The veteran stared silently at the ruins, and after a long while, he managed to squeeze out a single word through gritted teeth.

"……Cool."

The magical girls gathered in the sky.

Looking at the masterpiece below the city and feeling the impact of the previous shock, Xia Zhaozhao was stunned for a while before excitedly waving her fist and cheering.

"Wow! Little Green, so cool! This is art! Art is an explosion!"

Xiao Lü stared silently at the scorched earth, feeling the lingering heat in the air, deeply shocked.

"...I never expected it to be so powerful."

"Although the tanker truck carrying ether did have a high explosive energy, its power is still far less than that of a real thermobaric bomb," Bai Shuyuan said calmly.

"It doesn't matter, it's already exciting enough!"

The room where the two girls were in the high-rise building was in a mess.

After their ears were ringing for a while, the two finally got up from the ground.

They immediately began to check on each other's injuries with concern.

After confirming that both of them were safe and sound, the two suddenly realized what had happened, exchanged a glance, and quickly ran to a corner of the room.

They began to carefully examine the rather valuable-looking astronomical telescope.

"Thank goodness! It's not broken!" The pink-haired girl finally breathed a long sigh of relief after carefully checking it over.

Just then, three magical girls flew in through the broken window and landed in front of them.

"This place... seems uninhabitable now," Xiao Lü said, looking at the messy room. "Come with us."

"Okay." The pink-haired girl looked at the place with some reluctance, but still nodded.

She then pointed to the astronomical telescope in the corner, as well as the equatorial mount and laser pointer that had come in very handy earlier.

Her tone held a hint of pleading: "Um... can we bring these things with us?"

"Wow! What a huge telescope!" Xia Zhaozhao was immediately attracted by this big thing and curiously went closer.

"Yes, it's a pretty good telescope," the chestnut-haired girl explained. "We... are astronomy enthusiasts, and we bought it two weeks ago."

"However, then this disaster struck," the pink-haired girl added, but she quickly rallied.

"I hope we can see the stars again after the disaster is over!"

"No problem, we don't mind," Xiao Lü said.

Bai Shuyuan also looked at the telescope thoughtfully, and she seemed to have some ideas about how to use it.

……

On either side of the ruins of the Left Bank Interchange, two groups of survivors stared at each other, separated by dozens of meters.

"...Square face," one of the henchmen spoke first, "We've met him, but it seems like we can't get over there."