Chapter 349: Dark Calamity
"Who the hell do you think you're pretending to be?!"
No sooner had Black Keke's cold words finished than Xilan had already planted her foot on her face. "Can you stop rubbing the sole of Sir Simo Tu's shoe with your head?"
Twins crouched down beside her, pinching Black Keke's cheeks while giggling, "And asking us to die? Stubborn stuff like you is the hardest to wash off shoe soles."
"Kneel before Sir Simo Tu!" Xilan was practically itching to sit on Black Keke's face. "Someone this weak led the Witch Association for so long? No wonder out of the three major organizations, only the Witch Association declined the fastest. If you'd given Sir Simo Tu the President's position earlier, how could the Witch Association have fallen to this state!"
Black Keke's cold gaze looked like she was staring at a rotting corpse, but Twins was no scaredy-cat. "What's that look? You want Twins to gouge your eyes out?"
"And copying Sir Simo Tu's little sister's appearance? Do you look even remotely human? You're far inferior to Sir Simo Tu's sister! Let Twins expose your fake disguise."
Twins pulled out a scalpel, licked the blade with a savage grin, and grabbed Black Keke's ear. "Watch me peel this face off and let Sir Simo Tu see your ugly true form!"
Jialan watched dumbfounded as these two girls—who had barely ranked in the Witch Association before—humiliated and bullied the President, constantly rubbing her eyes, thinking she might be hallucinating.
The President, getting dominated by these two trash?!
The once mysterious, aloof, all-knowing President who didn't even need to lift a finger—just her gaze could overwhelm countless experts—was now being tossed around by two worthless nobodies...
Just as Jialan was about to roar and charge in to fight them to the death—
Black Keke pressed one hand on each of them, shoving the struggling Twins and Xilan's heads deep into the floor like they were drowning, thrashing but unable to free themselves.
The corner of her mouth curled into a smile that looked like a puppet's:
"Don't be mad. No matter how hard this world tries, it's useless. So why not look ahead to the next cycle? Isn't that more efficient? Right, big brother?"
Jiang Si didn't respond. He just threw a punch at Black Keke.
She immediately released Twins and Xilan, raising an arm to block—her arms snapped with a crack!
She knelt to the ground, and the now-risen Twins and Xilan both grinned, immediately pinning down the injured Black Keke.
This time, Black Keke didn't resist, letting the two trample her.
"You dared let this great face of Twins grind against the floor? You're finished!"
Twins even shaped her Magical Outfit into two demon horns, flashed an evil grin, licked her lips, grabbed a bottle of drink, poured it over her own toes, and caught it in a cup:
"The President of the Witch Association has always been the biggest villain of the new world. Now that you're in my hands, I'll show you who the real most evil villain is. Hehehe... Twins has finally waited for this day..."
She brought the cup to Black Keke's face, while Xilan, with perfect coordination, tickled Black Keke's armpit, trying to make her open her mouth: "Drink up, Twins' foot bath! Open up, open up..."
"Yes, yes, little sisters, can you hold it together?"
The duo worked flawlessly together, leaving no escape, no avoidance, no delay. Black Keke just kept smiling, but her eyes held no emotion as she stared at the girls.
"Keke will drink too."
Xilan finally sat down slowly, looking at Twins and Keke. "What are you two going to do to Keke?"
Jiang Si and Twins both froze, glancing at Xilan, then at the President.
Xilan cautiously asked, "She's... really your sister?"
"Yes." Jiang Si's tone was cold. "She'll be managing the Witch Association from now on. You two need to obey her orders. Keke's commands are my commands."
A long silence fell, dead as a grave.
Jialan finally let out a delighted smile.
Meanwhile, Xilan and Twins's faces slowly twisted until Black Keke tapped the "foot bath" that Twins had placed in front of her. "Are you planning to leave this foot bath in front of me to disgust me? Xi, Lan. Twi, ns."
She enunciated each syllable. Though the killing intent was unmistakable, Black Keke's smile gave off a hollow, careless feeling, and her biting tone was more like intimidation and dismissal.
Twins' legs went weak, and she dropped to her knees with a miserable face. "No, no, I wasn't trying to disgust you, President! I sell this foot bath online—it's actually a pretty popular drink... I meant well! I'll drink it myself to prove it..."
Xilan immediately switched to a fawning tone, helping the President up. "Look, look! Twins is such a villain, daring to bully our Witch Association President like this! President, Xilan will get revenge for you!"
Twins' eyes went wide. "What?! You were the one who started it! Spitting blood!"
"Didn't Twins tell me to do it?!"
"I never said a word! You're a born liar!"
"You traitorous double agent, and you dare call me a liar?!"
"You're the root of the Witch Association's division..."
They were soon tangled up in a fight again.
Black Keke ignored them and walked over to Jiang Si, offering him her broken arms.
"Brother, my arms are broken."
"I know. I broke them."
"Fix them."
Jiang Si casually reattached them. Black Keke flexed her fingers, weighing options. "You have to help me. If you don't, I'll restart right now. Since you're a max-star SSR card, let me make good use of you. Otherwise, if I restart and you're not in the records, you might not exist in the next cycle..."
"There's a rule like that?"
"Yep."
Black Keke moved her arms around a bit before continuing:
"Each cycle isn't exactly the same. There are always deviations that cause all kinds of problems. That's why the perfect ending is so hard to achieve..."
She picked up the shoe Twins had stomped off and put it back on. "Your appearance—not to mention your old flame Shion and those Azure Cloud Sect Magical Girl leaders—messed up so many things. A lot of people who should have died didn't, and those who should have lived didn't. My previous plans completely collapsed. You even eliminated many End of All Things I'd prepared. This cycle is a total failure."
Jialan, Twins, and Xilan all looked at Jiang Si.
It really did sound like Jiang Si's fault...
"That doesn't add up."
Jiang Si suddenly spoke. "Before I even changed the course of this world, you didn't save our parents."
As he spoke, he looked up coldly at Black Keke. "From the very beginning, you never planned to end this cycle, did you?"
Jialan, Twins, and Xilan all turned to Black Keke.
That's right! Sir Simo Tu's logic was flawless! If she wanted a perfect ending, not saving their parents from the start proved she never intended to end the cycle in this life!
"Oh, I already said I was too late."
"Then how did you complete the magical girl experiments with Lu Ya?"
Black Keke shrugged. "Can I say I forgot at the time? Too many things were happening. By the time the arrangements came to that day, the captain had already started his operation. I completely forgot our parents were still in Beihai."
"It's all the same." Jiang Si said indifferently. "It only proves you never took this cycle seriously. It has nothing to do with me. Not saving Mom and Dad from the start, letting the Witch Association run wild, causing so many casualties, even corrupting many magical girls—it all proves this world is far from your so-called perfect ending."
Black Keke tapped her forehead and sighed. "Are Dad and Mom's brains really that sharp? How did they pass it all to you? So biased..."
The Witch Association's independent space wasn't big. It looked more like an ordinary living room.
To Jiang Si, the only difference was that the TV was replaced by a big screen. Everything else was almost the same as home.
Black Keke had clearly built the Witch Association's independent space modeled after their home's living room.
"Alright, alright, I can't hide anything from you. I never planned to achieve the perfect ending in this life. There's still too much information I haven't investigated. Some intelligence needs verification..."
Black Keke smiled cryptically and hugged Jiang Si. "Preparing a perfect ending with insufficient information is exhausting. Futilely saving the people you care about, only to watch them die again—whether mentally or physically, it's a huge burden. It's better to focus on efficiency, right?"
"Stuck in a dead end?"
"Pretty much."
Jiang Si let out a cold laugh. "Didn't you think to just breathe on the Reversal?"
Black Keke tilted her head, looking slightly annoyed. "What do you mean?"
"When you hit a dead end, you can slack off and pressure your reincarnation cheat. Eventually, it'll give you a hint on its own. That's called 'Keke grinding the Reversal'..."
Jiang Si thought for a moment. Black Keke didn't have an aunt, so she couldn't do that whole Cultivating Immortality bit.
But he could replace that ecological niche himself.
He looked up at Black Keke's indifferent expression, figuring she was probably sweating buckets inside.
Black Keke had been cramming knowledge lately, so she could roughly understand Jiang Si's nonsense. She just shrugged. "Slacking off just means dying over and over. Where's the hint?"
She waved her hand and led Jiang Si out of the Witch Association's independent space.
In an instant, they arrived at the Chaos Land above the new world.
"So, big brother, you don't even know what the new world really is, do you? Why can only one Full Bloom Magical Girl appear in other worlds at a time, but two can appear in the new world?"
Jiang Si watched Fengqin unconscious on the ground. Black Keke woke her up. "The original world—it's inseparable from the World Tree, the first Magical Girl. Oh, do you know who the first Magical Girl is?"
"No."
"Me neither."
Jiang Si suddenly felt that this ill-bred Keke was really asking for a slap.
After Fengqin woke up, Black Keke continued, "But in the beginning, the new world was a complete whole. Back then, everything was thriving, full of vitality. At its peak, it could host dozens of Full Bloom Magical Girls at once. Let me think—the memories are too old... Probably forty-nine."
"Forty-nine represents the Great Dao, and fifty represents the cycle?" Jiang Si fell into thought.
Fengqin stared blankly at the two, drooling, eyes unfocused.
After the Weave Realm Traveler completely collapsed, Fengqin had been abandoned here, ignored by everyone.
She seemed to have lost her soul, probably severely traumatized, leaving her mentally unstable.
But Black Keke didn't care. She just stroked the little bear ornament on Fengqin's head, picked it up, and poured mana into it continuously. "But with each cycle, the new world shrank. Fragments kept breaking off and disappearing, making it smaller and smaller..."
"Until it became too small to maintain its original historical evolution. In later cycles, it was on the verge of collapse!"
"You see, if the new world's historical path changes, or if the new world collapses and Keke isn't born, everything ends. My cycle reaches its limit."
Black Keke tapped her forehead, a cold glint flashing in her eyes, as emotionless as someone risen from a grave. "After all, I'm just a lingering spirit attached to this world's Keke."
Jiang Si understood that much.
Though she appeared to be an independent individual, her Personal Reality could only unfold by relying on Keke.
In other words, once Keke disappeared, Black Keke in this cycle would also vanish for lack of an anchor.
"I've been thinking, maybe this is the World Tree's countermeasure against existences like me? Not sure. Anyway, the world itself is trying to erase me."
As Black Keke spoke, the little bear ornament finally lit up, and a voice came from it. "Maybe it's because each cycle consumes the world's own power?"
Jiang Si's gaze fell on the little bear ornament. "What's this?"
"An Incubator." Black Keke said casually. "My... partner, I guess?"
"If you think sealing someone in an ornament and controlling their memory counts as a partnership, then your understanding is a bit flawed, Jiang Keke."
Black Keke patted the ornament. "Oh, don't be so stingy. You said yourself you're the best helper for magical girls. I've always trusted you."
She glanced at Jiang Si. "This is my Incubator from my transformation."
As she spoke, she saw Keke and the Prince returning to Beihai. Black Keke crouched down, watching Keke talk to people who no longer recognized her.
Even without her identity, name, or power, she never stopped moving forward.
"Truly enviable."
Murmuring to herself, Black Keke crushed her little bear hair ornament.
"The new world kept splitting and shrinking. Through all my cycles, I tried everything. At first, I traced back to a more distant past, trying to guide history without drastic changes. But later, it became too troublesome."
"Eventually, I decided to use the remaining fragments of the new world as the core and other world fragments as the source to patch it together into a complete world. I had to do this every cycle, or the new world would collapse before Keke was even born."
From the crushed ornament, an Incubator finally crawled out, looking completely dazed, as if it never expected to be freed.
"I convinced the natives of those dying worlds to willingly give up their worlds to contribute to the new world. But the Weave Realm Travelers' so-called salvation was actually a lie—because everything went to fill the new world. Their worlds were already beyond saving. Still, it was a kind white lie, giving them the motivation to keep living. Ah, Keke is just that kind-hearted, don't you think, big brother?"
Just as Black Keke turned with a smile, the Incubator had already flown into the distance, as if trying to escape.
"So, what information are you trying to figure out in this life?"
Jiang Si's question got a straightforward answer: "The Magic Kingdom."
"I'd never heard of it in previous cycles. The world has been destroyed many times, but the Magic Kingdom never appeared. Only in the last few cycles did it show up."
Black Keke said, a hint of headache showing through her indifferent expression. "Maybe 'appear' isn't the right word. In this life, the Magic Kingdom started contacting the Disaster Control Bureau earlier. I don't know what they're after, but they clearly have significant control over the new world and the World Tree. I need to figure out their intel first."
"Maybe in the next life, the Magic Kingdom will disappear again. So this life is pretty critical, big brother. We have to figure out the Magic Kingdom's goal and what kind of beings they are. But through the past few lives, I've pretty much figured out one thing."
Jiang Si sensed something and suddenly looked down.
Below, the new world was tearing apart. With a strange, mournful wail, Heart Image Remnants emerged one after another, tearing through the void!
Deep within the earth, at the end of the ocean, above the clouds, between the cosmos.
Countless Heart Image Remnants tore eerie web-like cracks across the sky and land!
Mountains, high walls, floating islands, gems, scepters, thrones, wooden horses, giant beasts, strange birds, gears, broken bones, shattered swords, gardens, broken bridges, books—Heart Image Remnants that had slumbered for countless ages manifested in countless forms. Vast numbers of phantoms of Full Bloom Magical Girls flew out, their faces blurred, their eyes hollow, tearing the new world apart and dissolving it!
Jiang Si's pupils contracted slightly. This apocalyptic scene was so familiar—it had appeared countless times in his dreams.
Dark Calamity!
"The glue that held the world together was actually these Full Bloom Magical Girls. Some came from the new world, others from elsewhere. From the time I met Lu Ya until now, so many Full Bloom Magical Girls burned themselves out, merging their Heart Image Remnants into their worlds. Through the fusion of mental landscapes, they gifted the entire new world with infinite time."
Even Jiang Si couldn't help but frown.
These Dark Supreme entities were already madly devouring the new world. Even though the Azure Cloud Sect disciples tried desperately to stop them, caught off guard, they couldn't destroy all the Heart Image Remnants instantly!
The new world had already shattered into a hundred pieces!
Even Bingtang expanded her Mental Landscape again. The clash between mental landscapes couldn't freeze the world instantly like before—she could only slow the fragmentation.
So Jiang Si moved.
He stepped down step by step, the pressure of the Great Emperor bearing down on countless Dark Supremes!
"What are you trying to do?"
Black Keke's tone was still robotic as she pointed into the distance. "Look over there."
Countless Incubators filled the sky. At the center of the swarm, a massive vortex was slowly forming!
Inside the vortex, a thick, ancient tree branch extended outward!
The world's essence scattered everywhere as it collapsed.
The ancient branch continuously absorbed it into the vortex!
"That only appears when the world is completely destroyed—"
Black Keke sneered, her back to Jiang Si, looking down at the masses below like ants.
Firelight and dust reflected in her pupils, shining brilliantly under the multicolored mana, yet without a single ripple—numb as a player who'd watched the same CG ten thousand times.
"The Magic Kingdom's passage."