My Superpower Is Piloting Magical Girl Corpses?

She still didn't understand what those words meant, but the fluctuation emanating from the fragment in her hand made her eyes snap wide open.

Because she suddenly saw many silhouettes standing behind the red-haired girl.

Those were the final traces left behind by the seventy magical girls who had been completely obliterated in the past, imprinted upon the Fragments of Hope, brought here by Lin Guang.

"Airwen."

"Airwen?"

"Airwen..."

Those were their voices, their calls, their gazes.

They seemed to be looking at her with sorrow and disappointment.

But it wasn't grief over her deception, nor sorrow over her concealment, nor sadness over her true identity.

It was...

Disappointment because of her despair, grief because of her surrender.

Ethereal, intangible voices howled past Airwen's ears.

"Your face was already sour enough, why do you have to look so gloomy now?"

"...This... isn't good..."

"It was you who taught us how to be magical girls."

"That expression isn't rock and roll at all!"

"Why did you stop? What are you doing?"

One after another, silhouettes of the past flashed before the silver-haired girl.

Airwen stared blankly at their shadows.

Those previous magical girls she believed she had dragged into the Abyss.

"Everyone..."

"Still don't get it?"

Lin Guang stood there, speaking calmly: "Being born from a witch might indeed be your original sin."

"But what your efforts carved onto the Fragments of Hope isn't just the mark of a witch. It's theirs too."

"Are you going to deny all of that? Deny the efforts they've always made, and let the meaning of their existence vanish completely?"

"Then why did you go to such lengths to remember them?"

Lin Guang looked at her: "If you really choose to do this on your own, then you're just as arrogant as that witch outside."

"I..."

Airwen's eyes trembled violently.

And at that moment, Lin Guang spoke again:

"Let's keep things separate, shall we?"

"!!!"

In that instant.

The figure and face of a red-haired girl suddenly overlapped with the Lin Guang of now, making her willpower waver uncontrollably.

- That was the first-generation Prophecy Maiden, the girl who had passed down that catchphrase to her.

Lin Guang spoke again: "You did do something wrong, and you do need to atone for it, but despair and inaction are just forms of escape."

"Only by facing it head-on can you truly honor them."

"..."

"But..."

The silver-haired girl looked at Lin Guang, her eyes brimming with tears, yet still filled with confusion, choking out: "At this point, what can we even do?"

"I..."

Slap!

In that instant.

Another forceful slap landed on her left cheek, a burning sensation spreading across it, stunning her into a daze.

Airwen instinctively clutched her cheek, looking at the red-haired girl before her with confusion.

Lin Guang said seriously: "That slap was for myself."

"..."

"You think I don't know what you're about to say again?"

Even though her expression remained impassive, her fist was already clenched tightly: "The people I hate the most are those who tell me we can't win, we can't do it, it's meaningless."

- For a high-end player who treats the world as a game, that kind of talk is the ultimate insult.

Damn it, if it wasn't to win, why the hell would she even start this game?

To win, to give it everything, to absolutely never give up - no matter the outcome, that's the highest form of enjoyment!

Airwen was stunned for a moment, as if she finally understood why the girl before her had said all this.

From start to finish, she had never changed.

"I'll fight against fate, and I'll win for you to see."

Lin Guang stared intently into the girl's eyes, speaking word by word: "So, what do you choose?"

Airwen said nothing.

In her black eyes, silver began to appear.

Along with it came large teardrops welling up at the corners of her eyes.

"Ugh..."

Drip, drip.

One drop, two drops, and then a torrential downpour.

And at the same time, a resolute and bright silver radiance finally lit up in her eyes.

The outline of wings silently appeared behind her once more.

The next moment, crimson flames burst forth from the fragment of hope in her hand, filling the entire interior of the birdcage.

Like blood dyeing the entire world crimson.

............

Origin Space.

The chaotic radiance of intertwining fire and fog finally dispersed.

The next moment, everyone saw the two figures still locked in confrontation.

A lock of the red-haired girl's bangs had been neatly sliced off.

On the Witch King's flawless face, a barely perceptible trace of blood had also appeared.

- It seemed to be a draw.

However.

Everyone's gaze seemed to dim.

Because at this moment, in the origin realm space, the great Sacred Tree no longer existed.

Endless black fog had completely covered the Sacred Tree that had once shimmered with warm radiance.

The resplendent trunk was dyed black inch by inch, the lush branches and leaves devoured by deathly gray decay, and even the countless Fragments of Hope floating in the sky above had been polluted by thick ink-black color, their radiance extinguished.

- It was a form identical to the withered giant tree in the reflection.

A faint blue light was brutally squeezed out from the trunk, reassembling into Su Fang's form mid-air.

She collapsed weakly onto the water's surface, gasping for breath, looking at the Sacred Tree before her with unwillingness.

Tang Keren lowered her head, her pink bangs covering her eyes.

Zihan bit her lower lip hard, letting the taste of blood spread in her mouth.

Phoenix and Amber stood side by side, both lowering their eyelids, silent, their fingernails deeply embedded in their palms.

The millions of people outside, the magical girls of past generations, all watched this scene together, everyone holding their breath at this moment.

The next instant.

The darkness suddenly boiled, and endless black fog surged rapidly, erupting from the Witch King's body like a volcanic eruption, forcefully pushing the red-haired girl back.

The tiny wound on her cheek healed in an instant, as if time had reversed, not even a single white mark left behind.

As if everything that had just been done was only this much.

It was only at this moment that the Witch King, standing high above, viewing all things in the world as mere bubbles of nothingness, with eyes only for the Sacred Tree, finally lowered her pitch-black eyes slightly, for the first time truly looking at the red-haired girl before her.

No anger, no humiliation from being scratched, nothing at all.

Only pure curiosity.

At this moment, the authority of the Sacred Tree and the Abyss had almost completely merged into one.

In her hands, she already held ninety-nine point nine percent of the complete authority.

As for that sliver of authority the girl had refined, it was at most a thousandth of it. Losing it wouldn't matter.

Because after the ritual was complete, everything would return to one.

With the binding with Airwen concluded and devouring her own shadow, she would be able to complete the ritual.

At that time, by denying the entire world and all existence within it, she would be able to truly be born into that outside world.

Only one step remained to the final step of the divine ascent, achieving true [Forbidden Species].

At this moment, holding the vast majority of Utopia's authority, she was equivalent to this world itself.

The girl before her, and the other ant-like existences, no matter how hard they tried, had stopped nothing, changed nothing.

And that pitiful shadow... even though their spiritual connection had been severed for an instant, and she had broken free in that brief moment, truly ready to burn her bridges and resist, she could still do nothing.

It was just that the red-haired girl's eyes still held not a single trace of despair, and her twin wings remained bright, shimmering with a strange radiance.

This stirred some impulse within her.

An impulse to communicate.

And so.

For the first time in this world, she spoke to other lives she deemed false, asking with curiosity.

"Is it meaningful?"

- Why resist?

- Wasn't happiness promised to you all?

She looked at the red-haired girl before her, who remained silent as if lost in thought, and quickly lost interest, raising the pitch-black phantom sword in her hand.

She was about to end everything.

But just then.

The Witch King's brow suddenly furrowed slightly, an extremely faint sense of incongruity appearing in her eyes.

The Sacred Tree had been completely eroded.

But that barrier of light protecting Kazenari Town outside... why hadn't it collapsed?

However, this sense of incongruity existed for only a moment before being erased by the boundless pride in her heart, and she didn't pay it much attention.

It didn't matter.

Everything was over.

The strongest witch had already inscribed her existence upon Utopia.

In other words... she had won.

However.

Just at that moment, the moment representing the end of everything, the complete extinguishing of all hope.

Whoosh-

Everyone suddenly froze.

Because something unbelievable had happened.

The Witch King in the scene, standing high above and raising her phantom sword...

Her body, upper and lower halves, along with the surrounding black fog, suddenly separated.

As if something extremely sharp had instantly sliced through her perfect body, without even giving her time to react, that slender black figure tilted slightly in the incredulous gazes of everyone, including herself, as if about to fall.

She had been silently cut in half along with the entire world.

And before the Witch King, the red-haired girl also looked into her eyes, and that calm, sweet voice suddenly rang out, echoing in everyone's ears:

"I was too busy staring at the skill list to remember to smack you."

- From now on, four minutes and eleven seconds later.

- Lin Guang's Imaginary Technique: Purple will carve a new battle scar into the Origin Space.