Everything before her eyes carried a suffocating sense of discord. The landscape of children's dream paradise was crudely mixed with apocalyptic ruins, forming a surreal yet incomparably oppressive stage.
After magical girls worked together at great cost to expel "calamity," witches gradually became the primary enemy threatening human survival.
People also gradually emerged from the shadow of "calamity," with technology and economy developing rapidly.
The result was that when survival was no longer the primary concern, when the balance of power began to subtly tilt, people looked back and discovered... magical girls, this group possessing extraordinary power yet difficult to completely control, often accompanied by the risk of "witch transformation," seemed to no longer have any reason to exist.
In fact, in many people's eyes, magical girls were the "flood and fierce beasts" that disturbed social order and caused panic and uncertainty.
Thus... the war between humans and magical girls began.
The result was... both sides suffered, losing a hundred years of development.
This amusement park buried by yellow sand seemed to be a microcosm of that war and even the entire post-calamity era.
Pale stood at the amusement park entrance. Under the wide brim of her black-red wizard hat, that face usually wearing a relaxed, punchable expression now showed only icy solemnity.
She could almost smell the undissolvable wild aura in the air—familiar yet terrifying.
"Hey!" Pale put her hands on her hips, trying to... stick out her chest to display full momentum. "Stop hiding sweetly, you coward!"
"Can't get by yourself so you won't let the children go, is that it!"
"What?" Pale continued shouting, "After hundreds of years, you've only learned to hide in sand and dig holes like a ground rat? Did all that pitiful prestige from the grassland get eaten by dogs?!"
"Where is your honor?"
What responded to Pale was a low, hoarse chuckle.
This laughter came from all directions, yet seemed to originate from the earth beneath her feet.
Immediately after, the sandy ground beneath Pale's feet collapsed without warning, becoming like a liquid trap. Powerful suction instantly enveloped her feet and rapidly spread upward, trying to drag her under the yellow sand.
"Tsk!"
Pale drew some magic power from the magic stone in her hand to form a purple barrier, forcibly using magic power to resist the quicksand's devouring.
The quicksand frantically beat, squeezed, and eroded the purple barrier, making teeth-aching "rustling" sounds.
The barrier's light flickered violently, temporarily lifting Pale away from the quicksand surface, but the suction from underground didn't diminish at all. Instead, it grew stronger, as if an invisible giant hand was firmly grasping her ankles, trying to completely drag her into the abyss.
This was power from "calamity"—power that could destroy all life on an entire grassland in one night.
"No strength, huh... Elara."
Except for Elara, Pale couldn't think of a second wolf capable of this.
As if responding to her mockery, the sandy ground of the entire amusement park boiled. More sand gathered from all directions like a sand tsunami, raising turbid waves several meters high that slammed down hard at the hovering Pale.
"Ugh!" Pale groaned, feeling magic power being frantically drained from the magic stone.
Continuing like this, the magic stone's power would definitely be exhausted first.
Pale gritted her teeth and dispelled the barrier. The barrier instantly dissolved into purple light points in the air.
Having lost the last resistance, the flying sand crashed down like giant waves, completely submerging Pale's figure.
"Ugh!" Pale only had time to let out a short gasp before her vision was completely covered by endless, turbid, suffocating yellow sand. Tremendous pressure squeezed from all directions, cold rough sand tried to pour into her mouth, nose, and ears, drilling into her cloak and clothing. The entire world instantly fell into darkness, heaviness, and complete silence.
Pale changed her magic power usage method. She made the magic stone's energy extremely restrained, like covering her body surface with an extremely thin yet incredibly tough purple membrane to strengthen herself and exclude outside forces, allowing her to maintain vital signs in the quicksand.
Pale was dragged by that irresistible force, sinking rapidly downward, as if falling toward the earth's core.
Suddenly.
An extremely abrupt sensation came from behind her.
The surrounding sand flow seemed to become... gentler?
Immediately after, a cold, rough body covered with fur and twisted bone spikes quietly approached from the sand layer behind her, then slowly embraced her.
"Pale, do you still remember me?"
○
Elara hid beneath the sand layer.
Light footsteps came from overhead—the visitor carried hurried urgency.
Not Pale...
Pale should be lighter and more calm and composed.
Elara poked her head out from a distance to observe this visitor.
But that core soul fluctuation, that blazing temperature, the resilient and unyielding soul that could burn people to ashes.
"It seems we've both changed, Pale… Though there's a certain charm to how you are now, and your figure seems more suitable for childbearing, I still prefer that green and stubborn girl."
Under the quicksand, in the darkness.
Elara felt the tense body in her arms that radiated familiar yet strange soft curves, and a twisted pleasure rose in her heart.
She could feel the thin magic membrane Pale desperately maintained, like a butterfly trapped in a cocoon, fragile yet stubbornly struggling.
"Pale, do you still remember me?" She buried her hideous head deeper, her cold rough cheek rubbing against Pale's slender yet stiff neck, greedily absorbing those wisps of soul-stirring scent leaking through the magic barrier.
"Elara! Quickly release that girl and give me both cores. Don't force me to fight you to the death!"
Still always thinking of others, even ignoring her own dangerous situation.
This was her Pale, no mistake.
"Where did your flood-like, almost inexhaustible powerful magic power go?"
Pale didn't answer, only struggled more violently, but that bit of strength seemed so futile before Elara's calamity-enhanced body.
Elara even enjoyably tightened her arms, feeling the subtle sounds of the other's bones being compressed and that futile resistance.
"Heh... not answering?" Elara let out a hoarse low laugh. "You've become weak—not just in magic power, but in soul too."
Pale struggled desperately, trying to grab Elara behind her, but everything was futile. The quicksand gently yet firmly restrained her movements.
"Ugh, damn it! Elara! The grassland wolf clan has long been extinct! You should go sleep forever, Elara!"
"Oh~ my dear Pale," Elara's voice carried pleased panting, burying her head deeper into Pale's neck hollow, her cold mouthparts almost touching that warm skin. "You're still so glib."
Elara's claw lightly hooked the black collar around Pale's neck.
"It looks so unsightly..." Elara hissed in a low voice. "Like an ugly leech, biting dead onto your neck. It's feeding on you, isn't it?"
"That's none of your business!"
"Tell me, Pale, who put this on you? Those humans you desperately protect? Or your... dear juniors? Are they afraid of you? Or have you lost your usefulness?"
Elara chuckled lowly, her claw suddenly tightening, almost embedding into the gap between the collar and Pale's skin, bringing cold oppressive feeling.
"So they put a chain on you?"
"Huh?!"
"Tell me, now who looks more like a stray dog!"
She waited for Pale's rebuttal, waited for more of her struggles or curses.
But what responded to her was an even heavier, more suffocating silence.
Elara softened her tone, the force on her claws also weakened somewhat, her voice carrying temptation and invitation.
"Pale~ Why don't you merge with me? Give me many, many children—wouldn't it be good if we revived that era together? Our offspring would definitely be exceptionally powerful, exceptionally beautiful. Look at your developed body—it's more suitable for childbearing than it was hundreds of years ago. You've really grown up."
However, what responded to her was Pale's cold laughter.
"Heh, that would depend on whether you have the ability. Do you still remember, Elara!
I want to have a Wolf King duel with you! If I lose, I'll have no problem giving you however many children you want!"