Against a backdrop of azure sky clear as if freshly washed, Yue'er strolled barefoot on tiptoe through the void, surrounded by pink-purple butterflies and flower petals, like a dreamlike princess who had stepped straight out of a fairy tale.
"Big brothers, big sisters, uncles and aunties, you all have to stay right here like good little ones, and don't go causing trouble for everyone in Belobog, okay~"
Her voice was crisp and pleasant to the ear, gentle and playful.
Just like the girl next door making a sweet, pitiable little plea on a scorching summer noon, when her family had all settled into deep naps, to some passerby who happened to pass by the door and make a great racket.
The magical ruby still glittered brilliantly, radiating a gorgeous light brimming with girlish charm.
In an instant, the air seemed to congeal, and the temperature plummeted at terrifying speed.
As though that miracle from seven hundred years ago—when the First Grand Guardian, burning his bridges, entrusted the Stellaron with the hope of saving the world and froze the Antimatter Legion—had come again: the Eternal Freeze descends once more!
The Eternal Freeze of Six-Phased Ice, with Yue'er at its center, surged and billowed outward in every direction.
Shard after shard of crystal-clear ice condensed out of the void, and with the force of toppling mountains and overturning seas, firmly encased every single guard.
The employees of the IPC—even those fully armed, well-trained guard soldiers—appeared so tiny and powerless before this sudden onslaught of extreme cold.
The front-row tactical squad leader's pupils shrank abruptly; in his wide-open mouth, the white breath of his unfinished 'Fire!' command froze solid.
One armed guard, his right hand still poised in the act of pressing the drone summon button, was turned wholesale into an ice sculpture.
Inside the barrel of a heavy laser cannon, the blue-white energy flow formed coral-like crystalline structures at the instant of freezing; the energy-charging halo at the muzzle displayed shattered, neon-colored ice cracks.
Six-Phased Ice—Yue'er's power, amplified by the fusion and the magic staff, was magnified who-knows-how-many times over.
In a single moment, the IPC employees and the guards were all transformed into exquisite ice-sculpture artworks, standing silently beneath the blue sky, their poses and expressions perfectly preserved.
Thus, one could clearly see the disbelief and absurdity that had leaked into their gazes in the moment before they were frozen.
They had never imagined that in a civilization which had only just survived a catastrophe of extinction—fledglings who couldn't even fly off their home planet—someone would actually dare to raise a hand against them!
They had the IPC behind them, after all!
The IPC—which could effortlessly destroy another civilization with a single starship!
What's more, the starships that had come following Lord Bryce were hardly limited to the single one that had arrived at Belobog.
To have risen to senior officer, Bryce's shrewdness and capability were beyond doubt. This project had been pushed over by the Strategic Investment Department; to guard against being swindled, coupled with the importance of Jarilo-VI's Geomarrow ore, and taking into account such factors as the need to display force should negotiations reach a deadlock—
Bryce had brought several starships, which at this very moment were standing by in near orbit.
How dared these natives!?
How absurd, how laughable!
However, they soon realized that their thinking seemed to be somewhat mistaken.
First of all, against the girl from this native planet who had suddenly attacked them, the armed guards had no power to fight back whatsoever!
The absolutely overwhelming power made certain veteran employees' pupils contract, their faces pale as paper.
This girl!
Could she possibly be...
Above the battlefield where the cold mist had not yet dispersed, under the terrified gazes of the IPC employees and the guard regiment, Yue'er smiled and waved at them.
Her exquisite figure underwent quantum decomposition; her form disintegrated into butterflies shimmering with quantum radiance, their pink-purple-blue wings fluttering.
Dispersing like a quantum probability cloud—collapse!
"Target acquired~"
Yue'er appeared in near orbit, bouncing and skipping, the residual quantum light still leaping along the hem of her skirt. She raised her index finger, and the ruby wand spun a gorgeous arc at her fingertip:
"One, two, three, four~"
She'd originally been counting the number of starships, but once she actually said it aloud Yue'er suddenly found something off—it sounded so familiar—and a cutesy, cheeky scout popped up in her mind.
Yue'er pressed the wand against her chin in a thinking pose: "Four ships—let's just call it the repair fee for the Fourth Divine Key. Still short the emotional-damages fee, though~"
"Mm-hmm~!"
The girl nodded with the utmost gravity and gave an adorable salute toward the direction of Goethe Manor, her every gesture brimming with March 7th's liveliness and Caelus-Seele's cheerfulness.
"Yue'er will go scout the path ahead—gotta be swift!"
The girl blinked her starry eyes and, wielding the ruby wand in both hands, took aim at the two nearby starships:
"O Star Emblem of the Eternal Frozen Earth, with quantum butterflies reforge the crown of absolute zero—Six Phases revolve, all things freeze still!"
When a magical girl uses a skill, of course there has to be an incantation—this is the part that boosts the cuteness value~
From the wand's tip burst forth a deep-blue stellar swirl; quantum radiance flowed through the vacuum, and countless ice crystals grew in fractal structures, forming an enormous mushroom-shaped mass of Six-Phased Ice.
As though the entire expanse of space-time had been frozen, the ion tail-flames were locked in place, refracting their brilliance within the ice. The starships were just like the specimens of colossal beasts in a museum, congealed in amber and preserved by eternal time.
The alarms of the remaining two starships shrieked in unison, and hundreds of fire-control turrets lit up with charging light.
"High-energy reaction detected!"
As though a path-scouting scout had spotted the enemy's movements, Yue'er feigned solemnity, her little face earnestly reporting to 'herself.'
Among her composite elements was Caelus; although she was not Caelus, and her vision was not directly linked to his, Caelus could 'see' the situation in Jarilo-VI's near orbit within his own consciousness.
If one were to put it that way, the relationship between Yue'er and Caelus was somewhat similar to that between a clone with independent consciousness and its main body.
"Yes~! Brother Caelus, Yue'er guarantees she'll complete the mission~!"
Yue'er gave an adorable, goofy salute and a playful wink.
At the instant the high-energy beam came hurtling in, she quantized; the barrage passed straight through her afterimage as it dispersed into a swarm of butterflies.
The second wave of energy shells took aim at the starships frozen by the mushroom of ice, but unfortunately it failed to break the ice.
As the third wave of wide-area attack was beginning, Yue'er had already collapsed into being right before the enemy bridge's observation window, flashing a peace sign at the dumbfounded commander:
"Attacks that can't land come with an energy fee, you know~"
Suddenly thinking of something, Yue'er clasped her hands behind her back and tilted her head, smiling charmingly:
"At a moment like this, this is what I'm supposed to say, right~?"
"Magic time is over."
Yue'er clasped her hands together in a praying pose; the staff in her hands broke apart into countless particles, forming a star-ring-like band of constructs around her body.
As these particles reassembled, the girl arched her body and leaned back; at the instant she was about to touch the void, her toe-tip lightly tapped a condensed step of ice and bounced off it, completing a textbook backflip.
The band of constructs condensed once more into a Six-Phased Ice hammer; she gripped the end of the hammer's handle in her right hand and swung it.
Her movements flowed like drifting clouds and running water—cute, playful, and graceful, like a fairy out of a storybook—provided one ignored the savage ice hammer measured in the hundreds of meters in length:
"And now it's... time for a physical attack?"
At the instant the hammer's head met the starship, Yue'er released her left hand and flashed a peace sign; her right arm swung back from the recoil, and her whole body was flung off backwards.
The blue camera belonging to March 7th, long since fixed in the void, recorded this lively, innocent scene.
It captured the classic composition of a true magical girl never looking back at the explosion.
Of course, the starships did not explode—they were merely frozen; these were all Belobog's compensation money!
In the end only one starship remained, and naturally it couldn't get away.
Yue'er's quantum tunneling was even more peculiar than the Herrscher of the Void's imaginary space doors; its drawback was that, unlike the imaginary space doors, it couldn't carry people through space.
As for the advantage—so long as her opponent had no special means, she stood all but invincible, her mobility and agility maxed out!
To stop her, one would need an Emanator to step in.
Otherwise, the fire-control armaments of a mere handful of starships couldn't so much as touch the hem of her skirt!
Just toys, that's all~!
...
Goethe Manor.
"Boss! This is bad! Boss!"
The communication terminals of the two squad leaders accompanying Bryce had been vibrating madly since a moment ago, all sorts of messages and red warnings popping up one after another.
"Our starships have been frozen solid by some mysterious girl, and the employees and guard members have all turned into ice sculptures too!"
"Boss, an alarm has come in from the four starships standing by in near orbit—they've been shot down by a girl in a purple-and-pink butterfly dress!"
The two squad leaders were thrown into a panic, sweat pouring madly from their foreheads, visibly tense and on their guard.
They actually dared to make a move!
And had even pulled it off?
"Relax, they weren't destroyed—just frozen, that's all."
Caelus tapped the table and said with a chuckle.
Bryce gazed in the direction of the starships docked within Belobog, seeming to earnestly feel out that surge of energy.
"An Emanator?"
His low voice carried a cautious, probing note, then he shook his head as though denying himself, "No... it hasn't yet reached that level, but it has indeed already approached the Emanator-level energy threshold."
A quasi-Emanator-level combat strength—while not enough to make Bryce afraid, it was not something he could afford to ignore.
Bryce turned to Caelus, a flash of sharpness crossing his eyes:
"Mr. Caelus, does an act like this on your side mean that Belobog is already prepared to go to war with the IPC?"
"Hey, I'm warning you, don't go spouting nonsense."
Caelus remained perfectly at ease from start to finish: "It was the IPC that first attacked our side's most precious, national-treasure-grade satellite; Belobog was forced to counterattack. Both witnesses and evidence are at hand."
"The IPC must provide our side with compensation and a great-barrier maintenance fee. If you've no money, then pay in starships—these five starships belong to Belobog from this moment on."
"Heh."
Bryce let out a cold laugh. The IPC's firewall—as if people from such a backwater could crack it?
Caelus caught the meaning behind that cold laugh, but—would I really tell you that I've got two super-hacker bros, and that Screwllum still owes me a favor?
"Until the IPC's compensation arrives in the account, Mr. Bryce, why don't you stay on in Belobog as our guest."
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
His stance was upright and erect, his knuckles slightly whitening from the force, his silver uniform giving off a cold, biting sheen in the sunlight—the whole man like a sharp sword drawn from its sheath.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Amid an earth-shaking tremor, countless Belobog citizens could see three enormous blocks of ice slowly descending from the heavens, landing a few kilometers out in Belobog's newly expanded outer districts.
Bryce's momentum stalled, his brow twitching faintly.
A quantum ripple bloomed in the air, and Yue'er's figure solidified out of the butterfly swarm, flower petals trailing after.
Her voice was clear and lilting as a wind chime; it was hard to believe she had just single-handedly and effortlessly dealt with four starships.
"Your starships got lost, you know~ Why not stay and have a cup of honey tea~"
____
Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 40 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉