Even if you're a corrupted magical girl, you still have to try to redeem yourself.

The instant Msisha's vertical pupils changed, the two magical girls moved simultaneously. The shattered space blossomed everywhere in mid-air, and each slight cracking sound was accompanied by a clash between the two girls.

Meanwhile, in front of the sanctuary.

"The Lava Lantern has been temporarily taken away from the battlefield, and Xiaoyuan is holding off Xuken Mashiro." Nishio Reki glanced at the two girls colliding above out of the corner of his eye: "This place can only be left to the three of us."

"I see it! I see it! Let's think of a way to break this turtle shell first!" Helica waved her fists, the crackling electricity on them seemingly manipulating the thin strings of a puppet, connecting to an electric fist in mid-air that was a hundred or eighty times stronger than her arm.

With each punch Helica throws, her fists slam into the moving sanctuary with the force of a thunderbolt. In this way, Helica herself, who manipulates her lightning fists, seems more like a puppet.

The sanctuary with its enormous ram's hooves raised its head, which was covered in gnarled tentacles, and opened its massive mouth full of sharp teeth and mud, letting out a deafening roar. The roar was sharp, like fingernails scraping against a blackboard, forcing Helica to take a few steps back to avoid its attack.

Seeing that his roar had worked, the monster that the Holy Temple had transformed into shook its round, eyeless, noseless head a few times, and its huge mouth revealed a twisted smile.

"Ugh, that's disgusting." Helica shook her hands in disgust, as if she had just come into contact with that repulsive thing, and shook her huge fists along with it.

What disgusted Helica even more than coming into contact with the thing was that no matter how she hit it, it wouldn't budge, which gave Helica, who was known for her attack power, a strong sense of frustration.

"So annoying, so annoying, so annoying!" Helica roared a few times in a fit of rage, and then slammed her fists into the Sanctuary, sending it staggering back several steps—each step covering several meters.

"This awful thing! How can I break it?!"

Chapter 197 The Price

The silver-haired girl with tanned skin lightly touched the empty space where nothing existed, yet it was as if ripples spread across the surface of water, with magical energy and spatial fluctuations spreading outwards simultaneously.

The girl, whose skin shimmered like stardust, was positioned in the very center and became the absolute core.

"Hey." Mushisha revealed his sharp little fangs, his expression exactly the same as Inuyama Baqi's.

Immediately afterwards, the girl's figure disappeared from the spot.

As a ripple reached the side of Genken Mashiro, the girl, who was rushing forward with her body bent, raised her arms, leaving spatial cracks that looked like earthworms swimming where her fingertips passed.

Within the space torn open by Mushisha, countless tendrils seemed to writhe and squirm within the dark purple wounds.

Different colored blocks, like putty filling gaps, covered the wounds and cracks in the dreamscape, melting quietly and then merging into them, filling all the dangerous fissures.

However, Mashiro Gorky himself appeared several meters away in an instant.

Mushisha could see clearly that during the brief pause, Genki Mashiro, like a ghost, dodged the extremely dangerous claw attacks and drifted to safety behind her.

"Using your abilities like this, aren't you afraid that the Primordial One will beat you up when he wakes up?" Mushisha arched his spine, revealing his sharp teeth like a small animal with its fur standing on end.

However, once you see the distorted spatial vortex surrounding her, no one would see her as such a cute thing.

Genki Mashiro flicked her fingers, and the paintbrush danced around her body a few times, the colored paints forming a band of light that was poised to strike beside her.

Genki Mashiro seemed to get a little serious, yet also seemed to have an expression of certainty, which, in the girl's eyes, was as if she were saying, "Can't you see that?"

Whatever, I can indeed stop time, but I can't act when others stop.

"Stop her first, don't let her join up with Asahimi. Their actions are forced upon them. Asahimi said she needs my strength, so Genki Mashiro's strength should also be indispensable. As long as we hold out until the battlefield is decided, their plan will fall apart on its own."

Yuki Yuki's voice entered Inuyama Tomoe's mind directly, instructing her on the next steps.

"I understand, don't worry, I'm not the same person I was in Rainbow Leaf City now!" Baqi replied confidently, her thigh muscles suddenly tensing up.

Mushisha transformed into a streak of silver-white light and charged forward. His long silver-white hair trembled in the turbulent airflow, and his sharp claws tore through every strange color blocking his way as if tearing a sponge cake, further shortening the distance between himself and Genki Mashiro.

"Are you draining your magic power by attacking me like this all the time?" Genki Mashiro swung her paintbrush, and a row of light orbs were reshaped into arm-thick spikes under her brush, shooting out in all directions like exploding sea urchins.

"Don't worry, I have plenty of magic power." Msisha revealed a confident smile. The distorted space around him swallowed the heterochromatic spikes, causing them to shoot out from behind him. Then, he raised a claw and tore apart the afterimage of Xu Yan Zhenbai.

Missing his first attack, Mushisha curled his lip in displeasure: "Tsk, they can really run."

"Is this what Yuuki Yui means?"

"Hey, you're meddling too much."

Mushisha continued his pursuit, while Genki Mashiro continued to dodge. Space collided with space, like dazzling fireworks exploding silently in the air. As the two struggled, the battle line was stretched even longer.

"What reason do we have to fight?" Genken Mashiro asked, and she was genuinely asking seriously.

"Aren't the things you did in Moonsea City enough of a reason? Or is it that wanting to kill the original magical girl isn't a reason?" Musisha retorted, his movements becoming even more cunning and sharp, forcing Genki Mashiro back a little further.

"Killing the original magical girl is the only way to completely eradicate this cancer that has existed in Moonsea City for thousands of years. If I want to end the tragedy of Moonsea City, this is the only way I can do it."

As Genken Mashiro spoke, his gaze swept over the devastation of Moonsea City outside the rapidly closing space.

"As for those who were hurt because of our plan, some had their own faults, but for the rest, I'm sorry, they can only be the price to pay."

"cost?"

This is also what Yuuki Gen wanted to ask in return; the word "cost" made both Tomoe and Yuuki Gen uncomfortable.

"It's like removing healthy flesh and blood during surgery when removing a lesion; I can't be perfect, so I can only say I'm sorry." Mashiro Gorgen paused for a moment.

"bad!"

Mushisha cursed and then disappeared again.

A golden-red explosion cloud bloomed on Genki Mashiro's left shoulder, and rusty chains and purplish-black tentacles wrapped around Genki Mashiro's feet. A huge katana, so large it seemed to reach the sky, crashed down from the hands of a phantom figure clad in samurai armor.

At the spot where Mushisha had once stood, Yuuki Yuki and Inuyama Tomoe simultaneously raised their hands.

"Gleipnir!"

"Disgusting shadow!"

Then, both hands simultaneously clenched into fists and then tightened.

The explosion illuminated the dark dreamscape as if it were daytime, and the colorful starry sky seemed to have been scorched with a large hole. A large section was clearly missing from the center where the magical girls had attacked. The billowing smoke obscured the girls' vision, but it could not hide the rich magical aura within the smoke.

brush.

Surrounded by smoke, Genji Mashiro suddenly waved his hand, wiping away the obstructing smoke as if it were chalk erasing writing on a blackboard.

"Otherwise, do you have any good ideas? Good enough to completely solve the problem of magical girls occupying Moonsea City?" Genken Mashiro continued to ask, still with the same sincerity.

“No!” Baqi said matter-of-factly.

"However, we have been searching, and I will definitely find a way to make magical girls no longer a problem for Tsukimi City." Yuuki Yui's aura was in no way inferior to Inuyama Tomoe's, and she spoke with unwavering certainty.

Genjiro's eyebrows drooped, and he used his lowered eyelids to cover his gaze.

"I have already laid out a path for you. As long as you follow this path, everything will end here."

"So, what is the price?" Yuuki asked.

She knew that what Urobuchi Mashiro wanted to do was to kill the original magical girl and solve the problem at its root, but she didn't know how Urobuchi Mashiro should operate, or how to conceptually kill an existence that almost didn't exist in this world.

Perhaps Genki Shinshiro could achieve this, but such mysterious and unrealistic ideas will inevitably come with a price, and usually a hefty one at that.

Those black muds, those nuns crawling out of them—the chaos in Moonsea City so far has come at a price far greater than this.

It will only get bigger, and it will only become more horrific.

"Sufficient power, sufficient magic, sufficient souls, and the insignificant lives of a few magical girls." Genken Mashiro closed her eyes once more.

Sufficient power, unsurprisingly, refers to the Three Pillar Gods; sufficient magic is the literal meaning, while the phrase "sufficient soul" is somewhat intriguing.

The soul is a symbol of longing, a vessel of magic and consciousness, and an entity capable of carrying desires.

Yuuki Yukino came up with some possibilities.

Or perhaps, Mashiro Gorgen wants to directly access the massive cycle that Sumireko Yumehara once encountered.

Or, there is an even more terrifying conclusion—what Mashiro Goraku needs is not the souls trapped in the cycle, but the souls of the living citizens of Moonsea City.

As for the insignificant lives of a few magical girls...

Upon hearing Mashiro's words, Tomoe, having grasped the key phrase, could no longer contain herself: "You want Yui to die?!"

“That’s right.” Genken Mashiro readily admitted, “We will all die, becoming the foundation stones of the future.”

Both Yuuki Yuuki and Genki Mashiro are the type who try their best not to involve ordinary people, but Yuuki Yuuki wants to avoid involving innocent people, while Genki Mashiro thinks it's unnecessary.

Yuuki Yukino's initial assessment of Gen Urouge, and the reasons for her fear of Gen Urouge, were once again firmly affirmed in her heart at this moment.

Because Mashiro Gorgen is an absolute, terrifyingly meticulous, and reckless madman.

From the moment Yuuki Yuuki first met Mashiro Urokin, when Mashiro Urokin stirred up a massive Black Demon Mark in Nijiha City to achieve her certain goals, she knew that Mashiro Urokin was a madwoman.

Because Mashiro Goraku is a madwoman, she also has her own unique bottom line, her own unique way of thinking, and her own unique values.

This also means that if it's something Mashiro Goraku wants to do, she will do it at all costs.

The delinquent girls in Nijima City can become the price for Genki Mashiro, as can the people who believe in magic and are deceived by the so-called "Witch Lady," the ordinary girls who are infected and parasitized, and even herself, and even Genki Mashiro herself, can become part of the price.

“You…” Baqi wasn’t stupid, and of course she understood what Genki Mashiro meant.

For someone who is willing to sacrifice themselves, it is only natural that they don't care about the lives of others. Baqi couldn't find any way to refute this.

“Yuki Yui, your power is necessary, but you are not necessary, nor are your companions. I am seeking your consent, but if you are afraid, I have other ways to continue to achieve my goal, but at that time I will have to pay a higher price, as will you and your companions.”

Genken Mashiro spoke in a completely consultative tone, placing all lives on a scale both equally and unequally, using her unique values ​​to complete an equation that, according to common sense, could not possibly be balanced.

"Otherwise, even if you stop me, how can you let go of the burden that the Three Pillar Gods have placed on you along with the power they have given you? In that case, you will also become a burden to your companions and even the entire Moonsea City."

Yes, Mashiro Gorky knows that too.

While wielding the power of the Three Pillar Gods, Yuuki En has also been controlled by the ever-deepening filth, and has lost control more than once, each time more severe than the last.

If that filth is impartial, then it's impossible for Gorgen Mashiro to remain unaffected by it.

As Xiao Li said, if her future self goes berserk, she will either lose to Sheng Qi or defeat Sheng Qi but lose to the awakened Lin Jiezi. But no matter which outcome, it will bring irreparable damage to Yuehai City.

If we consider our companions and the future of Moonsea City, perhaps following Genken Mashiro's arrangements is the right thing to do.

The fact that she would put her life on the line like a bullet shows that she had complete confidence in what would happen after she pulled the trigger.

"Perhaps, perhaps you are right." Yuuki Yui sighed, putting away the grimoire in her hand and the tentacles coiled around her, and looked at Urouge Mashiro with an extremely indifferent gaze.

"Xiao Yuan!" Ba Qi called out, her face showing extreme surprise and urgency. She clenched her teeth tightly, but couldn't say anything for a long time.

On the contrary, Mashiro Gorgen didn't change much, as if she had already guessed the answer Yuuki Yui was going to give her.

That's right, Yuuki Yukino's answer was already decided from the very beginning.

"But I refuse!"

"The path I choose can only be decided by myself!"

Chapter 198 The One Who Unifies All Things

Inuyama Tomoe once imagined that Yuuki Yuuki might actually agree to Genki Mashiro's plan for the sake of more people's future, sacrificing herself to bring happiness to more people.

If someone's sacrifice could save the future for more people, Yuuki Eri would be the type to choose the trolley problem by sacrificing a small number of people or even sacrificing herself.