41: Chapter 41 Final Evaluation

"This guy, it actually gained self-awareness!"

Li Qingyue had already sensed that something was wrong.

Theoretically, the clone was connected to her consciousness, which was why the universal balance could instantly identify its essence the moment it changed, as the universal balance could also detect the clone's internal changes.

But that connection had been completely severed just now.

Li Qingyue could feel that her connection to the clone had simply vanished, and just before it disappeared, she could even sense a fervent consciousness burning fiercely.

It was the bastard she had killed back then who had been resurrected; there was no mistake!

But how was this possible?

Li Qingyue's heart was in turmoil; she was certain that the other party's consciousness had been completely erased by her, something that in the true sense of the word, no longer existed.

Yet, it had been resurrected.

The clone possessed self-awareness, and now, it was even attacking her!

The Magical Girl Li Qingyue before her, who looked exactly like her, held an exaggeratedly large pair of scissors, her face full of murderous intent.

In the blink of an eye, this guy moved!

The scissors snipped directly toward Li Qingyue's direction—a snip through the air!

Li Qingyue hadn't intended to dodge; to her, an attack from a mere Rank 8 soul didn't even require defense.

But the situation before her was unexpected; the universal balance suddenly deployed a unique defensive technique.

This meant that the universal balance had sensed a crisis; it was protecting her!

In an instant, Li Qingyue's body vanished from where she stood, and when she reappeared, she was ten meters away.

At that very same moment. Snap. A crisp sound!

Then she looked up and saw the void where she had just been standing.

A pitch-black crack had actually been snipped open right in the air!

The edges of the crack were jagged, and the interior was a chaotic darkness. Several wisps of dark purple light that did not belong to this dimension were slowly seeping out from the crack.

"This is... the universal balance was snipped open?!"

Li Qingyue's heart was surging with waves; this guy's combat power had increased terrifyingly!

The original clone was only Rank 8, and its base ability was combat, but clone combat required cards. Li Qingyue had only been testing the Magical Girl transformation, so she hadn't equipped the clone with any cards at all.

But now, the clone in the Magical Girl state didn't need cards at all!

That snip had no buildup, no traces of magic circuit operation, and no fluctuations from card activation.

It was just a casual snip, like picking up scissors to cut a piece of paper!

Are you kidding me? This Kyubey actually has such an ability?

This thing is definitely a Rainbow Card, and a very special kind of Rainbow Card at that!

"Hahaha—!!"

The evil soul laughed wildly, not giving Li Qingyue any time to think.

She gripped the giant scissors with both hands and snapped them open toward both sides—

[Thousand Snips · Scattering Flowers.]

It wasn't that she was reciting the name of the move; it was knowledge that automatically surfaced in her mind—the instinct of a Magical Girl.

The giant scissors suddenly exploded in her hands.

The scissors split! One pair of scissors broke into dozens of palm-sized mini scissors, each one a dark purple stardust twin-blade, each hovering in the air, with the tips pointed at Li Qingyue in mid-air.

And then. Volley!

Dozens of scissors tore through the air simultaneously, weaving a net of fire with no blind spots from different angles, different trajectories, and different heights.

What a magnificent scene; the Magical Girl was unleashing a massive-scale attack in the air, with the entire Mustard Seed Space acting as a stage, performing a gorgeous barrage.

Li Qingyue raised her hand.

A translucent spatial barrier unfolded in front of her; a defense casually constructed by a 9th-tier Supreme, theoretically sufficient to intercept any attack within the Rank 8 category.

The first pair of scissors slammed into the barrier. Crack—a crack appeared on the surface of the barrier.

The second, the third, the fourth! The cracks spread wildly like a spiderweb.

The fifth pair of scissors pierced the barrier, grazing past Li Qingyue's silvery-white hair. A few strands of cut hair drifted in the air.

Li Qingyue's expression finally changed; her crimson eyes were filled with disbelief.

Is this Magical Girl really this strong? To let a mere Rank 8 fight above its level against her?

She opened her mouth, wanting to ask Su Bai what on earth this thing was, but she had no time left!

The sixth, the seventh, the tenth! Under the continuous impact of dozens of scissors, the spatial barrier shattered with a bang!

"Damn it!" Li Qingyue had to retreat again, using spatial displacement once more. This time, she wasn't even composed, vanishing a hundred meters away in an instant.

And where she had just been standing, the remaining scissors swarmed in, snipping that void into a twisted wreck.

The barrage in the live broadcast room went through a complete cycle from explosion to silence and back to explosion in those few seconds.

[She forced Li Qingyue to retreat?!]

[Her Excellency Qingyue retreated! It wasn't a casual spatial displacement! It was a real retreat!!]

[Those scissors pierced a Rank 9 spatial barrier! A Rank 8 broke through a Rank 9's defense!!]

[It's not Rank 8! It's the Magical Girl! The Magical Girl's scissors!!]

Inside the miniature world. Zhao Dahai was speechless; he was just gripping Su Bai's arm tightly, his nails digging into Su Bai's sleeve.

Su Bai didn't speak either. Because he was also scared.

The Kyubey Card he designed should theoretically be very strong, but he didn't expect it to be this strong!

Meanwhile, on the battlefield. Li Qingyue stopped in mid-air, looking down at the tear in her sleeve caused by the scissors.

The dark blue high-level Card Creator robe, the attire of a 9th-tier Supreme. It had been torn.

"...Interesting." When she said these two words, there was no composure in her tone. What was there was—seriousness.

But the evil soul didn't give her a moment to breathe.

Dozens of Scattering Flower scissors drew arcs in the air, converging back into her hands from all directions, once again condensing into that giant pair of scissors taller than a person.

She raised the giant scissors high above her head with both hands.

All her magic power—the resentment, hatred, and the full weight of fourteen years of imprisonment within that pink soul gem—poured into the twin blades in that instant.

The stardust blade surface suddenly erupted with blinding light. Not pink. It was the roar of the imprisoned, intertwined with dark purple and silvery white.

[End—] A crazy arc tugged at the corners of her mouth. [—Judgment!!]

The giant scissors snipped through the air toward Li Qingyue.

This snip—had no physical trajectory. What was locked was the causality coordinate itself. It was the concept of "the space where Li Qingyue is." It wasn't cutting space; it was directly telling the world—this space, is severed.

Li Qingyue's pupils contracted sharply, and she blurted out: "How can it really cut through concepts? Su Bai, is this card of yours a joke?!"

A Rank 1 card made a Rank 8 card ascend in dimension!

If news like this got out, which 9th-tier Supreme wouldn't go crazy?

It was no wonder Li Qingyue was like this; that card of Su Bai's was fundamentally a conceptual thing!

She didn't retreat again, because she couldn't; causality locks couldn't be dodged by spatial displacement.

She folded her hands in front of her chest. Her Rank 9 Mental Power erupted without reservation.

The golden phantom of the universal balance condensed into a thick Shield of Truth in front of her—that wasn't a spatial defense, it was a law defense. It was the trump card of a 9th-tier Supreme.

And then. It snipped down.

Boom—!!! It wasn't a sound; the whole world was trembling!

The Shield of Truth and the End Judgment collided head-on in the very center of the miniature world. The golden law of truth and the dark purple law of judgment tore at each other fiercely, bursting forth with a visible shockwave of laws.

The shockwave swept through the entire miniature world!

The universal balance let out a piercing alarm, the two golden scale pans spinning wildly, and the truth runes on the central support column extinguishing one after another.

Those few five-meter-tall abyssal heavy-armored Stone Demons were directly shattered into powder in the aftershock of the blast!

The earth cracked. Space twisted!

The sky of the miniature world—cracked open.

A pitch-black crack traversing the firmament spread from the point of impact across the entire sky. The spatial walls on both sides of the crack twisted violently, revealing the void behind that did not belong to any dimension.

Mustard Seed containing Mount Sumeru. A Rank 9 legendary card. It had been cracked by a single snip.

The light of the collision dissipated. The Shield of Truth was still there. But the surface of the shield was covered in dense cracks, the golden light of the law flickering between the cracks, as if it could shatter at any moment.

Li Qingyue stood behind the broken shield. On that twelve-or-thirteen-year-old porcelain doll face—there was no composure, no playfulness, no excitement at seeing something interesting.

What there was, was a pale complexion and a tiny line of blood at the corner of her lip.

"...Good." She said this word. It wasn't praise. It was a verdict.

The next second—the pressure of a 9th-tier Supreme erupted completely.

Not the casual spatial lockdown from just now. It was the true, unreserved—full-force suppression that only a 9th-tier Supreme had when facing a threat of the same level!

All laws of the entire miniature world came to a standstill simultaneously.

The evil soul holding the giant scissors, who was just preparing to launch another attack, was locked down by an irresistible force from all directions. Even the soul gem was forcibly imprisoned.

"You—!!" The evil soul's lips barely squeezed out the last word under the confinement, and then she froze completely.

Her fingers were still in the posture of holding the scissors, the wild laughter still hung on her face, and the silvery-white flames in her eyes were still burning—but the whole person was already like a statue sealed in amber, and even the magic flow inside the soul gem had been forcibly stopped.

Li Qingyue walked over step by step to the puppet, stretched out her right hand, and her five fingers pierced directly through the puppet's chest.

The pink soul gem, which carried all the self-awareness of the Rank 8 soul, was extracted by her through the air.

The gem trembled violently in her palm; it had already turned somewhat black, and a unique evil power was permeating out.

Li Qingyue looked down at the gem. She looked at it for a few seconds, then tightened her fingers. The soul gem immediately developed a crack.

The puppet's body slumped down limply. The magnificent magical giant scissors dissipated in the air, turning into dark purple stardust spots, drifting in the broken sky.

Silence. A silence more complete than at any other time.

Nearly twenty million online viewers. No one posted any barrage.

Because those few dozen seconds just now—from the Thousand Snips · Scattering Flowers piercing the Rank 9 barrier, to the End Judgment colliding head-on with the Shield of Truth, and then to that line of blood at the corner of Li Qingyue's lip—every single event was challenging everyone's cognition.

Then. Li Qingyue slowly turned around.

She stood beneath the pitch-black crack traversing the firmament, her silvery-white long hair swaying slightly in the aftermath of the laws. Bloodstains still remained at the corner of her lip. Her twelve-or-thirteen-year-old physique against the crack that ran through the entire miniature world behind her looked like an unreal painting.

She raised her hand and wiped the blood from the corner of her lip with her thumb. She looked at the red smear on her fingertip. She was silent for a few seconds.

"...You really know how to find trouble for me."

Li Qingyue looked at Su Bai, her tone not as cold as before—mixed with annoyance, lingering fear, and a certain excitement she herself didn't want to admit.

Su Bai spread his hands: "Senior, your wish was a bit outrageous. Letting a clone have self-awareness is one thing, but the positioning wasn't very clear either. You should have made her personality gentler; wouldn't that have given you a gentle and obedient, truly high-end Rank 8 combat force?"

Li Qingyue was stunned, then stared fixedly at Su Bai: "This can also be done?"

"...Supposedly?" How could Su Bai understand? This thing depended on causality.

"If it really can be done, then the value of this card is probably even more immeasurable..."

Li Qingyue paced twice, then sighed: "Forget it, I was at fault in this matter; let's talk about it properly later. Besides, I told her to make a wish, not to almost tear down the Mustard Seed Space."

"This shows that Kyubey's functions did indeed fulfill Senior's requirements. Equivalent exchange, the causality law is established."

Li Qingyue was silent for a second. "...Say equivalent exchange again."

Su Bai shut up.

Li Qingyue took a deep breath. Then she turned around, facing the direction of the podium, and that small face of hers appeared throughout the live broadcast room.

"I once gave this card an A+. Because I thought its Spatial Circuit was outstanding enough—but that was all."

"I once gave this card an E-. Because I thought it was a piece of junk with a failed design concept."

She paused. "Now. I retract these two evaluations."

She lifted her eyes, looking at the pitch-black crack traversing the firmament behind her.

"A Rank 1 card allowed a Rank 8 soul that I had sealed for fourteen years, after turning into a Magical Girl, to force out my Shield of Truth. It tore my sleeve, cracked the Mustard Seed Space, and even made me bleed."

She turned around, looking Su Bai straight in the eye. "Su Bai." "Your [Conceptual Armament · Incubator Kyubey]." "Final evaluation—" "SSS Rank."

The three letters fell. The universal balance descended with the golden light of the final judgment. Golden truth runes combined in the sky into a long ribbon:

[Final Evaluation: SSS Rank] [Type: Conceptual Armament · Rainbow Card (System Core)] [Evaluation: The Magical Girl derivative card generated by this card is an independent combat unit. After the Rank 8 puppet is converted into a Magical Girl, its combat power leaps to the point where it can shake a Rank 9 law barrier head-on. The Spatial Circuit is original and possesses high-level academic value. Comprehensive Evaluation—Mythical Rank.]