chsdbacks Page 425
Page 425
They couldn't kill him, and they couldn't even deprive him of his ability to move.
Playing this stage play according to Mami's rules is too difficult.
The Tale of Reincarnation: The Shore of Oblivion: Chapter 558 Final Trial
While constantly seeking opportunities to attract the attention of the Baroque core, Xiangzi also kept an eye on the situation within the larger circle.
Although the large circle of white light almost completely blocked out the interior like a curtain, Xiangzi could still sense from the faint shadows that were showing that the little ones were a bit overwhelmed.
After all, under the frenzied attack of one side, one must remain in a confined space to move around, and cannot even fight back. Putting these two requirements together is tantamount to playing a horror game where you can only run away without a gun.
However, all of this is still within Xiangzi's expectations; she did not not expect such a thing to happen.
On the contrary, she had made countless preparations for this moment.
锔——!
The gun blade sliced off another cannon barrel, and Xiangzi leaped off the city wall.
"Mu!"
The moment Xiangzi called out Mu's name, a semi-transparent silk thread appeared beneath his feet.
She stepped onto the silk thread and leaped forward.
The silk thread made a deep, muffled sound as it was flicked by the toes.
This is a thickened silk thread, using the ground and the castle as fulcrums. The thread is also quite long. Long and thick, the sound it produces when vibrating conforms to the low-pitched standard.
Xiangzi stepped onto one silk thread, and Mu quickly set up the next silk thread for her.
The toes plucked the thick, long silk thread once more, producing a second note.
Then came the third, the fourth, and so on. The intervals and pitches between the four were exactly the same. The low-frequency sound propagated through the ground, in an inconspicuous but incredibly clear and penetrating way, reaching the four large circles.
Yan felt the rhythmic vibration and faint sound, her pupils contracted sharply, and her memory instantly returned to the time when they were rehearsing.
One, two, three, four...
=====================
"one two three four."
Xiangzi clapped his hands, keeping a steady rhythm, and as he passed Yan, he tapped Yan, who was completely off-key, with his hand.
"One, two, three, four, strong, weak, moderately strong, weak, follow the rhythm, don't get it wrong."
As Xiangzi kept the rhythm, he gave Yan a stern lecture. Yan looked down at his toes, gritted his teeth, and tried his best to keep up with Xiangzi's rhythm.
Her basic skills were probably the worst of everyone, making it extremely difficult for her to keep up with the pace. Moreover, the reason why Xiangzi did this also clouded Yan's mind like a dark cloud.
Today is the first day of practice, and Xiangzi hasn't told them the purpose of practicing steps in the circle yet.
Finally, someone couldn't help but ask.
"Hey senior, why do we have to practice tango? What's the point?" Sayaka asked, surprisingly adept at keeping time with the rhythm.
"You recognize this as a tango step? Looks like you've practiced it?" Xiangzi turned towards Sayaka.
“A friend of mine has social needs, so I practiced with him.” Sayaka scratched her cheek sheepishly.
"The apricots look pretty good too."
"I play the dance machine all the time, this difficulty is a piece of cake." Kyoko even took the time to make a peace sign. "Sayaka wants to ask me the same question, what's the point of practicing this?"
"This is a bit hard to explain." Xiangzi touched his cheek with his index finger and thought for a moment. "We'll definitely need it then, that's all I can tell you."
"We'll encounter a rather troublesome enemy. They're fragile and easily damaged, but we can't use normal attacks against them. The only way is to engage them within this area for a certain period of time..."
"If you can maneuver around the other party at a specific rhythm, and make their actions correspond to your own, then you might be able to take the initiative without launching an attack."
"Could there really be such a strange enemy?" Kyoko frowned.
“It’s written like that in the notebook,” Xiangzi shrugged. “It’s something they gave me. So, do you think I should believe it or not?”
"Then let's believe it."
"Really."
Xiangzi smiled and put his hands behind his back. He stopped keeping a rhythm and started playing audio on his phone.
"When you hear this song, you'll know what to do."
[Now playing - "Jealousy Tango (Tango Jaloue)"]
==============
After the bass lays the foundation with a base rhythm, the mid and high notes follow. The silk threads rub against each other, simulating the timbre of a violin. Adorned with the baroque core's cannon fire, it cannot form a complete melody, but it is more than enough to evoke memories.
The tango music that Xiangzi used to play during practice seemed to be playing in his ears.
Faust's faceless face was inches away from hers. Flame recalled the rhythm and movements from the rehearsal in her mind, took a step back with her left foot, bent her waist backward, tilted her chin upward, and made a dance move full of tension and beauty.
The familiar flew past Flame almost touching its head. After landing, it immediately used its remaining three limbs to adjust its posture and crawled back towards Flame.
However, Flame did not retreat; instead, she walked towards Faust.
Yes, she walked.
One step, two steps, each step punctuated by a heavy beat, seemingly slowly approaching Faust.
Just as the familiar was about to make contact with the magical girl, Homura suddenly turned to the side in an exaggerated manner, grabbing the familiar's arm with ball joints.
The mindless familiar instinctively flung her away.
After letting go, Yan spun around and quickly regained her balance, stopping almost at the edge of the large circle. If she had stepped back just a little bit more, she would have stepped out of the circle's range.
She stared at her feet, swallowed hard, then straightened up and went to meet Faust.
We must take the initiative and bring Faust into our rhythm in order to seize the initiative.
Flame's movements looked like she was dancing a duet with Faust; from a bird's-eye view, she was almost always walking right next to Faust.
Although Mami's familiars reached a chilling level of anthropomorphism, these few creatures, which at least had human-like appearances, actually began to resemble humans after being drawn into the rhythm.
To touch the flame, one must follow its footsteps; to match its rhythm, they must become more like humans.
And just like that, the initiative had been handed over to Flame without her even realizing it. This girl, who couldn't be disrupted and had to be coaxed, was like a little girlfriend, completely submissive to Flame's dance moves.
Meanwhile, the same thing was happening in the other three large circles.
Xiangzi and Mu used the silk threads and the sound of cannon fire from the Baroque core to play a tango. The four magical girls in the circle listened to the music and danced gracefully. They danced without damaging Faust, using softness to neutralize Faust's attacks time and time again.
Time ticked by, and just as only six of the world-destroying flowers floating in the sky remained.
The dance finally ended, and as time passed, the mystery surrounding Faust gradually revealed its answer.
The light surrounding the large circle grew brighter and more solid as they remained inside, until finally, at the moment the music ended.
Bang-!
A cracking sound rang out, and the four large circles shattered like an eggshell being broken, disappearing completely.
================
"Then what have we persisted for so long? Just to dance with them?"
"Of course not." Xiangzi waved his hand. "When the time comes, the big circle will break apart on its own."
"What do you mean?"
“The big circle that’s trapping you, didn’t we say before that you couldn’t step out of it?” Xiangzi said.
Whether it's the Great Circle, Faust, or all the attacks from the Baroque Core that we will face later, everything revolves around the command [Judgment: Cleanse]. If any part of the process goes wrong, [Judgment: Cleanse] will be triggered, leading to a total wipeout.
"Yes, and then."
"The large circle that traps you is actually a magic detector. When someone is inside, it absorbs that person's magic to fill the detector's gauge." Xiangzi opened his notebook and said to the text on it, "Once the magic gauge is full, you have passed the test, and the large circle will automatically dissolve. At that time, you will be free."
“But Faust is still with us.” Xiaoyuan pointed out the part that Xiangzi hadn’t mentioned. “How are we going to deal with these four Fausts?”
=======
Having escaped their predicament, the magical girls, accompanied by Faust who had been chasing them, headed towards the Baroque Core in the center of the arena.
If you look closely, you can see that the Baroque core actually has a "doorway" design. For this mobile castle, its doorway is like a mouth.
Behind the door was a shredder ready to be used, capable of turning anything thrown in into dust.
=======
"A shredder? You mean we have to throw all four Fausts into a shredder?" Sayaka spread her hands. "But you just told us not to accidentally destroy it, why...?"
“Because this is the ‘rule’ set by Mami. According to her rule, discarded garbage must be disposed of, decomposed, recycled, and reused through the correct channels,” Xiangzi said. “The same goes for Faust. After the Great Circle disappeared, Faust, which was used to force you to step out of the Great Circle, has been judged as ‘garbage’.”
"How to properly dispose of garbage is what we need to do next, right?" Xiaoyuan nodded in sudden realization.
“Otherwise, it will trigger that…” Kyoko scratched her head, “that thing again…”
“【Trial: Elimination】,” Flame added softly.
“Oh right, that’s the thing.” Kyoko snapped her fingers. “So the next step is decided: ‘put the trash in the shredder,’ right?”
=========
Throwing the trash into the shredder is a much simpler step than the previous large-circle method.
The only difficulty is that even during the garbage disposal process, Faust will still send the [Judgment: Synchronization] command to his companions. In other words, if one Faust is thrown into the shredder and sends a 100% destruction command to his companions, then one of the remaining three Fausts will be randomly destroyed.
They need to throw all of Faust into the shredder at the same time to completely avoid sending [Judgment: Synchronization].
With Faust behind him, Homura and Madoka had already joined each other. The two ran towards each other, grabbing each other's forearms at the last moment to stop their sprint.
Two Fausts flew past overhead, like tigers jumping through hoops of fire in a circus.
Two seconds later, Kyoko and Sayaka, along with Faust behind them, circled around to the main entrance of the castle.
The spinning shredder was aimed at the four of them, and the moving castle strode toward them, seemingly wanting to swallow them whole.
"The countdown has begun!"
Xiangzi was not at the front of the castle at this time, so Yan subconsciously took Xiangzi's place and issued the order.
At the same time, four Fausts rushed up from behind them.
"Three, two, one!"
Flame grabbed the hands of the two people closest to her and activated the time-stop mechanism.
Click——!
The rapidly spinning, crushing gears of the Baroque Core were still closing in on them, but the four Fausts remained stationary.
Homura held the hands of the two people beside her, while Sayaka, whom she was holding, held Kyoko's hand. The four of them ran hand in hand away from the Baroque Core's path, leaving four Fausts who had been paused to face the rapidly approaching gears.
click -
The time stop was fleeting, and the golden embellishments that were originally on Faust returned to their original color, signifying the end of the time stop.
The shredder gears of the Baroque core have already caught Faust, who has left from the time stop.
Like a demon that sent Faust to hell, Flame sent the four familiars, which the Baroque Core had deemed "trash," into the shredder's coiled gears.
Cluck cluck cluck cluck—!
All four Fausts were simultaneously shredded to pieces.
Just as the Baroque Core was pulverizing Faust, its movements suddenly stopped.
"It's coming! Dodge the barrage of bullets!"
Xiangzi jumped down from the Baroque core and shouted a reminder.
Several cannons extended from the moving castle, pointing towards the sky, and fired a few shots.
The bright yellow shell grazed the edge of the merging World-Destroying Flower, shattering the roof before falling downwards after reaching its maximum height.
"avoid!"
Rumble——!
The shells struck the ground, bursting into bright sparks and creating shockwaves.
At the same time, the Baroque core unfolded more mechanisms, with complex mechanical parts tumbling from the inside to the outside, changing positions, and then fitting into new parts.
The clicking sounds rang out frequently, and the crouching castle stood up in front of Xiangzi.