Meng Xingyao's eyes widened as she stared incredulously at her empty hands, her voice trembling as she muttered, "My staff... such a big staff, how could it just vanish into thin air?"
The key issue was that Meng Xingyao discovered her staff hadn't simply disappeared.
Her staff was essentially a product created by her Supernatural Ability, "Omnipotence."
Therefore, to some extent, even if the staff left her hand, she should still be able to exert a degree of control over this creation.
But at this very moment...
Meng Xingyao suddenly froze—she was completely unable to sense the staff's location!
Only a cold intuition surged in her chest: that staff, forged by her own hands, still existed somewhere in the world.
Yet, she could not determine its specific coordinates.
In fact, that was exactly the case.
Meng Xingyao probably couldn't have imagined in her wildest dreams that her staff had, in an instant, crossed a distance of over a hundred kilometers!
With her current strength as a Level Three Ability User, it was fundamentally impossible for her to sense anything at such a vast range.
At this moment, Meng Xingyao's heart felt as if it had fallen into an abyss, making it difficult for her to calm down for a while.
After all, in order to complete this Magic Wand and become a complete Magical Girl,
she had rewatched anime about Magical Girls more than ten times, endured months of hard work, and started over countless times, pouring all her heart and soul into it.
Only then did this staff successfully come into the world.
It was no exaggeration to say that this Magic Wand was definitely one of her current peak masterpieces, and even more so, the crystallization of her emotions.
And now, it had vanished into nothingness in the blink of an eye.
Her heart sank; this trip was truly a case of losing the bait along with the fish.
But what frustrated her most was having no clue who the culprit was.
Meng Xingyao (*ﾟﾛﾟ)!!: Could I really have run into a ghost?!
Considering the current situation,
Meng Xingyao managed to suppress her sorrow after just a few seconds.
She secretly vowed in her heart that she would definitely take back her staff.
Then, Meng Xingyao flipped her delicate hand and slightly closed her eyes.
A fantasy light effect suddenly appeared in her palm.
An ordinary-looking flashlight appeared in her hand.
She clicked the switch, lighting up the darkness once again.
Just as Meng Xingyao wanted to investigate what exactly was ahead,
the light vanished, and darkness shrouded her once more.
Meng Xingyao discovered that the flashlight in her hand had again bizarrely disappeared.
"Aah!!!!!"
"Who on earth is it!"
Meng Xingyao cried out in alarm.
Only this time, her voice was filled with terror.
Once might be a coincidence, but twice in a row meant there was definitely something wrong here.
She took two frantic steps back, her beautiful little face written all over with tension and fear.
Oh my god! Could there really be ghosts in this world! I was just talking big!
Although Meng Xingyao's combat strength wasn't high, due to the unique nature of her Supernatural Ability,
However, her mental perception was terrifyingly sharp; even a powerhouse like Flame Heart or an Ability User specializing in Mental-type abilities would be left in the dust.
Yet during this time, Meng Xingyao had searched the shadows countless times for a trace of a second person, and each time she only received an empty echo.
How could a weak and cute Magical Girl who had lost her Magic Wand not feel her skin crawl?
Moreover, how was she supposed to deal with an invisible and intangible enemy?
Meng Xingyao's heart skipped a beat; she suppressed her trembling and slowly backed away.
Her fingertips quietly slid under her skirt, accurately reaching into the hidden pocket on the outside of her thigh—there, her phone lay quietly, her only hope at the moment.
But when she touched her soft, smooth thigh, Meng Xingyao suddenly froze.
She was shocked to find that her phone had disappeared at some unknown point.
What made her skin crawl even more was that the other creations hidden under her skirt had also been wiped away as if by an invisible hand, leaving not even a wrinkle on the hem of her skirt.
"Ugh..."
The phone and other items on her thigh were gone.
Then, she felt something that's obviously not her item exist coil around her ankle.
How? I don't have that! Then what is this...
Before Meng Xingyao could think further, a massive force from beneath her feet coiled around her ankle like a venomous snake; caught off guard, she stumbled and fell to the ground.
Crisis followed crisis as this force squirmed like a living thing; instead of loosening, it became even more violent.
It dragged her, slumped on the ground, toward the depths of the churning shadows in the darkness.
"Aah!!!"
Accompanied by a trembling cry of alarm,
Meng Xingyao's peripheral vision caught a vine-like twisted tentacle emerging from the darkness, pulling her hard toward the ground.
Ignoring the sharp pain from her ankle, she endured the agony and used her hands to brace against the ground, trying to steady her body, while using her toes to hook onto a protruding stone to try and crawl outward.
But in the next moment, another tentacle lunged out of the shadows like a ghost, coiling around her other ankle.
Both small feet were tightly bound in the blink of an eye.
Is this an Extraterritorial Creature that the Ability Bureau hasn't discovered?
The darkness in the alley was like ink, bottomless, and the tentacles on her ankles were squirming frantically, trying to drag her into the abyss.
Meng Xingyao's face instantly turned pale and her pupils constricted—she activated her Supernatural Ability again, the light in her palm exploding as a cold, glinting long saber appeared out of thin air.
Without the slightest hesitation, she gritted her teeth and swung the saber; the blade's light was like lightning, instantly severing the tentacles on her ankles.
The restraint was released.
She scrambled to her feet and rushed toward the exit, stumbling and crashing along, her mind a blank except for one thought:
Escape! Otherwise, she simply dared not imagine what the hidden horror in that darkness would devour her into.
Next, Meng Xingyao ran desperately like a frightened rabbit.
Her originally bright and beautiful Magical Girl outfit was now soaked with dust and sweat, becoming dirty and wrinkled, as if she had just crawled out of a trash heap.
"If I remember correctly, I should be able to see the outside world after passing the corner ahead!
Great, that place... as long as I can reach that place..."
Meng Xingyao looked at the light peeking through the corner ahead, her heart filled with excitement.
However, sometimes the greater the hope, the more violent the despair often is.
When she joyfully ran around the corner, expecting to be greeted by warm sunlight or familiar streets, she only crashed into a patch of cold darkness.
The sound of Meng Xingyao's footsteps came to a screeching halt in the emptiness; she discovered with horror that she had actually returned to that eerie alley from before.
The surroundings were pitch black, even the outlines of the walls were blurred; she couldn't see her own hand in front of her face, as if the entire world had been swallowed by darkness.