"Looks like we won't be eating any unowned flowers after all," Little Nora said with a touch of regret, watching on the monitor as the Wheel of Evil Blossoms rampaged madly across the surroundings.
Yu Xian quipped, "Little Nora, whether we get to eat unowned flowers or not shouldn't be the issue right now."
"Indeed. The problem now is figuring out what we must do to eliminate the Wheel of Evil Blossoms," Nora said seriously, watching the monster before Little Nora could respond.
Niman analyzed, "A World-Devouring Seed may be even more terrifying than we imagined. We can't gauge their strength purely by combat power."
If combat power were the sole metric, the sheer number of Brave Bullets Nora had fired should have killed it long ago.
Yet Nora's attacks had at most wounded the creature, and not even gravely. That alone showed just how immense its vitality was, and how formidable its defenses were.
Faced with such a monster, even a genuine Li Rank powerhouse would probably turn tail and run.
"Something's happening!"
Yu Xian frowned, his eyes fixed on the screen.
Because the Wheel of Evil Blossoms possessed the "Identity Unknown" attribute, his Appraisal hadn't fully uncovered its data.
Now, overcome with fury, the creature was undergoing an unknown mutation.
The mentality of Chaotic Evil creatures was fundamentally different from normal beings, especially since the Wheel of Evil Blossoms had never suffered a setback or even experienced pain before.
Simply put, its pain tolerance was extremely low.
Nora's attacks, by contrast, packed astonishing power—which meant they hurt like hell.
A Chaotic Evil infant, suddenly subjected to unprecedented agony, naturally went berserk with the urge to destroy everything. As that obsession intensified, it culminated in... mutation.
Countless flowers detached from the Wheel of Evil Blossoms. The eyeballs nestled within them bulged outward while the petals grew backward, shaping miniature monsters whose giant eyeballs made up practically their entire heads.
The dense swarm of flower monsters scattered in every direction. Wherever their gaze fell, space was swallowed in an instant.
"The Wheel of Evil Blossoms is looking for us," Niman remarked, understanding its intent.
An idea struck Yu Xian, and he suggested, "How about we open the doors of the Aska and let these flower monsters in?"
"Useless. That treats the symptom, not the cause. Unless you can lure the Wheel of Evil Blossoms inside, killing any number of flower monsters is futile," Niman said, shaking her head.
In the few seconds they spent discussing, the Wheel of Evil Blossoms went through another round of reproduction.
Every batch yielded millions of flower monsters. In another few dozen seconds, their numbers would likely reach the tens of millions.
"Big Bro, maybe we should just run? The Abyss is so huge; there's no way it'll find us," Little Nora piped up meekly.
Anyone would feel terrified looking at the display. The Wheel of Evil Blossoms was like a sun, and the flower monsters were like sunlight. This grotesque sun constantly shed rays of light as an endless swarm of flower monsters swept in every direction.
In another minute or two, the flower monsters would notice the Aska hidden amid the countless meteorites. At that point, the Wheel of Evil Blossoms would almost certainly pinpoint its enemies.
As formidable as the Aska was, if the Wheel of Evil Blossoms trapped it, wouldn't they be pinned inside and doomed?
Just then, Little Huangquan pulled out her mask and whispered, "Big Bro, can I give it a try?"
"Give it a try? You mean... you want to fight the Wheel of Evil Blossoms?" Yu Xian looked at the mask in her hands, bewildered.
Little Huangquan nodded, clutching the mask tightly.
She had actually used the mask in secret, and every time, it proved remarkably effective. The first time she put it on, she learned how to cook many dishes she had never known before. The second time, she mastered a thousand ways to prepare raw meat.
By now, she understood how the mask worked.
As long as she wore it and focused her mind on what she wanted to accomplish most, she would definitely be able to pull it off.
Naturally, she didn't dare entertain anything overly outrageous. But since Muse had been able to beat the Abyss Emperor to death, and this mask was also a miraculous item, she figured slaying the Wheel of Evil Blossoms shouldn't be a problem.
"Little Huangquan's mask might genuinely be able to resolve the Wheel of Evil Blossoms," Niman remarked, catching on to her confidence. Her reasoning was largely the same: since Muse could kill the Abyss Emperor, the mask—being a miraculous item as well—might possess latent potential she knew nothing about.
Yu Xian grew curious as well. Looking at Little Huangquan, he said, "Go ahead and put on the mask first so we can see."
With everyone's eyes on her, Little Huangquan hurriedly pressed the mask to her face, thinking in her heart, *I want to destroy the Wheel of Evil Blossoms.* The next instant, the heart in the center of the mask burst with pink light.
Within the glow, Little Huangquan rapidly matured into an older girl, while a sailor uniform materialized over her body.
"..."
Yu Xian and Nora were struck dumb.
Was this a magical girl? Or Precure?
As the radiance dissipated, a teenage Huangquan appeared before them. The transformation seemed to subtly alter her personality as well; she flashed a thumbs-up, grinned to show off gleaming white teeth, and announced with boundless pep, "The Most Useful Miraculous Girl, Huangquan, has arrived!"
"I can't help feeling this miraculous item has a twisted sense of humor," Yu Xian whispered to Nora, goosebumps rippling down his arms.
Seeing that no one was clapping, Teenage Huangquan pouted with mild displeasure. "Don't you guys think I look super cool right now? Big Bro, Little Nora, Sister Nora, Sister Niman, aren't I cool?"
As she spoke, she struck a series of over-the-top, chuunibyou poses, practically overflowing with exuberant energy.
"Uh... pretty cool. Let's just hope you don't regret this later," Yu Xian said with a strained smile.
Little Nora was completely flabbergasted. Was this really its sweet little sister?
Now validated by Yu Xian, Teenage Huangquan turned around satisfied, planted her hands on her hips, and proclaimed, "Alright! Time to eradicate the wicked monsters! Big Bro, Little Nora, Sister Nora, Sister Niman, stay right here and enjoy my performance!"
With that, she pressed two fingers of her right hand to her forehead in a sword-finger gesture, gave everyone a parting smile, and vanished in an instant.
"Her final gesture... looked so familiar," Nora whispered.
Yu Xian remarked wryly, "That's the teleportation gesture of Robert, the protagonist of the ancient Island Nation manga *Dragon Ball*. But there's no way Little Huangquan has read something from that ancient era, right?"
"That really is ancient," Nora recalled, between laughter and tears.
Many cultural works of the ancient era had been lost or damaged during the outbreak of the supernatural. Much of the early content of *Dragon Ball* was missing, and the protagonist's name constantly shifted across the surviving pages—sometimes Sun Wukong, sometimes Kakarot. Because the first half was lost to history, later readers had no clue what was going on.
Consequently, modern re-compilers simply named the protagonist "Robert." After circulating for centuries, people of Yu Xian's generation had no idea that the protagonist of *Dragon Ball* ever had any other name...
By this time, Teenage Huangquan had already appeared on the surveillance monitor.
Seemingly sensing Yu Xian and the others watching her, she abruptly turned back to flash another thumbs-up. The heart on her forehead immediately glowed pink, and an endless barrage of hearts erupted from her body.
"This visual is almost too maidenly," Niman chuckled.
Immediately afterward, however, everyone witnessed an astounding sight. Every single one of Teenage Huangquan's hearts automatically homed in on enemies, striking countless flower monsters in the blink of an eye.
For attacks radiating such girlish innocence, their destructive power was so absurd that words failed them.
Every flower monster struck instantly turned entirely pink before dissipating into ashes amid swarms of pink heart-shaped bubbles. This was quite possibly the prettiest way to die that Yu Xian had ever witnessed.
Chapter 312