The villainous magical girl's daily mission is to find fault.

Chapter 575 The Gasping for Breath After Escaping

Chengdu Heroes Association Headquarters.

The intensive care unit was brightly lit, with on-duty personnel fully armed and on high alert. Several S-class heroes were on standby nearby, ready to provide any necessary support at any time.

As for why the Hero Association takes this so seriously—

"...I'm saying, they've been lying there quietly for almost three hours now, are you sure it's okay?"

[Iron] Frank yawned deeply, leaned back in his armchair, looked at the intensive care unit bed and the few small figures beside it, and said to the girl next to him.

"You'll get used to it. After all, this situation is special, so staying a little longer is quite normal." Messiah grinned, showing no signs of tiredness from staying up all night, and even looked quite energetic.

"But then again... they stayed longer this time than before, could it be that they found some important clues?"

"It's hard to say, but it's not impossible," Frank replied.

After saying that, he yawned again, his eyelids drooping, waved his hand, stood up, and walked towards the door of the intensive care unit.

"I'm so sleepy, you stay here and watch over them. Wake me up when they wake up."

"Okay, go to sleep."

But just as he stepped out of the ward, intending to find a place to sleep, he suddenly heard a unified scream from behind him:

"Waaaaaah!!"

"?!"

At night, such a scream is enough to wake up the caregivers on the entire floor, and may even wake up the staff on duty in the duty room.

Fortunately, Frank, the person on duty, was still awake.

"Splash!"

"What happened?!"

Frank quickly turned back, and as soon as he entered the ward, he saw this scene that made his vision go black:

The Hellcat landed on all fours with its tail thickened, its body tense and its back arched high, resembling a cat with its fur standing on end.

Cheshire Rabbit jumped even higher, but she clearly lacked the balance of a feline beastman and nearly knocked the hospital bed over. Messiah, who was waiting nearby, rushed forward and caught her steadily at the highest point of the parabola, thus preventing the association members from losing their year-end bonuses.

Fortunately, having learned from the experience at noon, Moira did not put any monitoring equipment on the two people in bed. She even moved all the expensive medical equipment far away from the bed and was now guarding the pile of equipment like a gatekeeper watching over a treasure, afraid that something might happen.

Su Tianqing and Chi Xue were prepared. They sat up abruptly on the recliners, took a few deep breaths, and quickly recovered from the shock of escaping the mental world. They let out a long sigh and silently lay back down.

After everyone came to their senses, before Frank could even ask what had happened, the three villains glared at Chi Xue in unison and said:

"You're absolutely not allowed to drive anymore!"

……

"So, what exactly did you experience in those dreamlike mental images?"

Standing by the water dispenser in the corner of the intensive care unit, Messiah took a sip of water from a paper cup and looked back at the four girls sitting in a row on chairs not far away.

Chi Xue sat next to Hellcat, with Xin Yuehu sandwiched between the cat and rabbit. All four of them had blank, expressionless faces, and even Xin Yuehu, who always liked to have fun, remained silent.

This made Messiah feel quite uneasy; it seemed that what they had spent in the dreamlike visions was definitely not a very relaxing or entertaining experience.

"...Anyway, let me explain."

Su Tianqing sighed. As the villain's designated spokesperson, she took the initiative to explain things to others.

First, regarding the type of dream imagery, after explaining and recording it to Messiah and the staff on duty, the heroes were successfully left with a "What is this?" expression.

"Wait a minute, let me think about it."

While Su Tianqing was drinking water and catching her breath, Messiah quickly raised his hand to signal her not to speak, and then squinted his eyes and pondered for a moment.

"You mean the main combat method in that dreamlike vision is playing cards?"

"Yes, it's that very popular 'Yu-Gi-Oh! Magical Girl'." Su Tianqing nodded, her tail wagging twice.

Fortunately, Messiah had also heard of this collectible card game, and then continued to ask questions:

"Why link playing cards with racing? Is it really feasible to play cards and race at the same time?"

"You'll have to ask Marigold and Little Bird about that. They're the ones who came up with the mental imagery. I only provided the underlying logic," Su Tianqing replied, shrugging.

Letting someone else use their magic to create a mental world is like giving a programmer access to the engine code. Regardless of the programmer's skill level, as long as they can cast spells and with the help of all the reference materials I've provided, they can at least produce something.

However, the level of the producer directly determines the level of this mental world. Just like how Ben and Alice can create the epic and grand Fox Gate, two newcomers can only create a racing card game with bizarre rules and reused materials.

With Heart Moon Fox's explanation and Hellcat's additional commentary, Messiah finally understood what the group had encountered in the dreamlike vision.

But upon hearing about the "eggshell fragments" and the car chase after leaving the abandoned factory, her previously calm expression suddenly turned puzzled again—

【Item Race】, Su Tianqing used this concise term to describe the final chase before escaping the illusionary mind image.

There were no card games, just pure racing, and not the kind of racing and drifting like the Battle of Mount Akina, but a "battle" where all sorts of random item boxes were scattered along the track... literally a "battle".

On the first straight, Akayuki drove ahead and obtained the item "banana peel," causing the Shadow race car following closely behind to slip and overturn.

Su Tianqing originally thought this might be a more fun item race, since everyone had a lot of fun in the racing game she played with Maomao and Tutu, using banana peels, magnets, or even missiles to bombard each other, and one item could quickly climb from last place to first place.

But when the overturned Shadow race car exploded and caught fire, causing several other cars behind it to overturn and explode as well, everyone's hearts finally soared to the ends of the earth.

Are you serious?!

Even Chi Xue, who was driving, panicked. Cheshire Rabbit, Hellcat, and even Lily were all trying to reach out and grab the random items on the track. Fortunately, Chi Xue's driving skills were quite reliable. He drifted through corners and used nitro to accelerate, getting several items ahead of the others.

Just when everyone thought the matter seemed quite easy to handle, a "car" following closely behind appeared in their rearview mirror after rounding the bend:

The race car had a missile on its roof that was larger than the car itself. It seemed to have also been hit by a random item on the track and fired it directly at the car driven by Chi Xue.

"And then?" Messiah pressed.

The three villains exchanged glances and then turned their attention to Chi Xue, who was drinking water.

The latter was silent for a few seconds, put down the paper cup, hesitated, and then, after organizing his thoughts, said:

"Oh... I used the railing at the edge of the track to send the whole car flying into the air and dodge that missile, but I crashed pretty hard afterwards."

As soon as he finished speaking, the three villains started chattering and shouting:

"Is that what you call heavy?!" "You almost sent us all flying into a ditch!" "The impact when you flew through the air made my head buzz!"

"Oh dear... we've never ridden a flying car before, and we won't get into any trouble in our dreams."

Chi Xue was a little embarrassed, but didn't feel there was anything wrong with it at all, and chuckled as she spoke.

However, this did not prevent the villain trio from unanimously agreeing to revoke Chi Xue's driving qualification in the Mind World. Although her driving skills were good, her style was really wild and unbearable.

After that, things didn't fluctuate much: by using shortcuts on the track to drift around corners, they completely shook off their pursuers, and used items to set up a series of defensive measures to intercept missiles, tortoise shells, or even super-large cannonballs used by their pursuers. The atmosphere was barely considered harmonious and friendly.

"Now that you've all rested, let's get down to business."

"—What are those eggshell fragments?"

When Messiah mentioned this object, which sounded mysterious, he became particularly serious.

"Miss Xinyuehu, you are the first person to come into contact with and obtain those fragments. Could you describe their condition in detail?"

"It's a bit complicated to describe in words, so let me draw you a diagram."

The fox girl calmly answered, took out a whiteboard from her magical space, and controlled her marker familiar to quickly draw the specific patterns and shapes of the eggshell fragments on the whiteboard.

While escaping by car, I wasn't idle. Besides trying my best to connect with the underlying rules of the mental world to open an escape route, I also had my familiar record the patterns on those eggshell fragments.

Using the surviving negatives, the marker-wielding familiar quickly drew all the images on the whiteboard, displaying the patterns on all the eggshell surfaces to everyone present.

"I'm not sure if these pieces can be pieced together to form a complete pattern, but I took all the fragments I saw," Su Tianqing said.

Messiah stared intently at the chaotic white-on-black pattern on the whiteboard, but after a long time he couldn't figure it out. So he carefully took a picture of the pattern on the whiteboard and uploaded it to the Hero Association's server, planning to write an application later to ask the Hero Associations in other cities for assistance in the investigation.

"That concludes my questions. Do any of you still have any health issues? I can contact the doctor on duty today, or you can rest at the association's affiliated hotel."

"No need for that. Everyone's exhausted today, so let's all go home and get some sleep." Su Tianqing politely declined Messiah's invitation and led the trio of villains away from the rooftop.

It was already past midnight, and the sky in the distance was beginning to lighten. The cat and fox had lost their playful mood and, after returning to their apartment, immediately crawled into bed and said goodnight to each other.

As soon as her head touched the pillow, Su Tianqing felt an overwhelming wave of mental and physical exhaustion wash over her. Her vision quickly went dark, and she slept soundly.

But just as she was about to fall into a deep sleep, the golden-haired fox girl suddenly realized a crucial point that she had overlooked.

—Bai Lili, she is by far the most perplexing victim.

She is currently in Shanghai, which is 2,000 kilometers away from Chengdu. How could Garuda drag her into the dreamlike mind image from such a distance?

How did this bizarre and unpredictable astral behemoth manage to do that...?