ocean-life Chapter 571 Playing cards is the underlying logic
Chapter 571 Playing cards is the underlying logic
"Look! That black guy waiting at the red light over there!"
Bai Lili shouted loudly.
The two people sitting in the back seat, looking out at the street, turned their heads at the sound and looked at the black race car on the right side of the intersection, their eyes meeting the dark shadow in the driver's seat.
Almost the instant their eyes met, the shadowy car suddenly moved—
"Whoosh!!"
The engine started, the four wheels briefly burned out, ignoring the red light and the vehicles on the street, and I stepped on the gas and headed straight for the empty road ahead.
"It's trying to run away, hurry and catch it!" "You two, hold on tight!"
Hellcat yelled in alarm, and Lily Bai didn't hesitate either. She stepped on the gas pedal, and the car's engine, enhanced by magic, roared at full power. She spun the steering wheel sharply on the street, drifting at a right angle to bite the dark racing car.
"We've finally caught it. We need to find a way to take it down and see what secrets that car is hiding."
Nan Jiayu said this,
"Bai Lili, can you drag it into the card game? Maybe that will keep it occupied."
"You really want me to play cards with it?"
"Didn't I already say that the fighting style of this Mind Image is mainly about playing cards? If you don't play cards, are you going to go up and fight that shadow with fists?" Hellcat complained.
Bai Lili remained silent for a moment; that was truly what she thought—
They drove up and forced the Shadow race car to stop. The three of them jumped out of the car and fought the Shadow race car three against one. Hellcat Bangbang knocked the Shadow down to his knees with two cat punches, and then took the opportunity to interrogate him to extract information about Garuda.
This also fits your villainous character, Haki Cat—Bai Lili didn't dare say this out loud.
"If that's how the mental imagery rules are defined, we'd better strictly follow them," Su Tianqing said.
"If we violate the rules of combat, Garuda might use the loopholes we've exposed to find the underlying logic of this chaotic mental image, greatly shortening its control over it."
"Why make things so complicated?" Bai Lili muttered under her breath upon hearing this, shrinking her neck in surprise.
"If we don't make it so complicated, we're the ones who will run into trouble. I'll fight it."
Seeing this, the catgirl flipped over and sat in the passenger seat of the car. The car roof retracted, transforming into a convertible large enough for a card game. She then placed her deck of cards on the spread-out playing area on the passenger seat and uttered her line:
"Come on! Let the duel begin!"
The magic spreads outwards from the deck as its center.
The entire street unfolded with flowing ribbons of light, entering a racing and card-playing mode, leaving enough battlefield space for this sudden encounter.
The shadowy figure gazed at the unfolding racetrack around him, making a gesture resembling a "turning around," and glanced at the car with his fiery red, burning eyes.
[The duel begins! The duel begins!]
The drone flew over the road, delivering lines in an emotionless electronic voice, signifying that the other party had accepted the card-playing challenge initiated by Hellcat.
Su Tianqing didn't know whether this shadow had self-awareness or was an extension of Garuda's will, but judging from its action of drawing out the deck, it was also strictly abiding by the basic combat rules of this mental world.
This is good news, meaning that we don't have to confront Garuda's indescribable and eerie power head-on, but can engage in a battle of wits within the constraints of our mental images, thus avoiding many unnecessary risks.
But before investigating that Shadow race car, let's observe the cat's card-playing battle from the sidelines.
"I'll attack first!"
Hellcats took the initiative and launched the first attack.
"I activate the Spell Card from my hand—Fusion Fate!"
"Based on its effect, I can perform a Fusion Summon directly from my deck!"
"...?"
Bai Lili almost lost her composure and swerved towards the Shadow Racer, but fortunately, the vehicle would automatically drive after entering the driving mode, so her actions did not affect the actual driving. Instead, she was given a fright.
Then he turned and gave a deep look to the catgirl in the passenger seat who was shouting cheesy lines like "Fusion Summon! Destroy the Phoenix!"
"...Eh, Miss Kokoro."
She turned her head to the other side and whispered to the fox girl in the back seat.
"Does Haki Cat now shout out the names of spells when she fights?"
"Hmm? You mean...?"
"Let me tell you, Hachiman used to love shouting lines when he made moves. Even when he threw a regular uppercut followed by a ground-shattering impact, he'd yell something like, 'Destroy the world!'"
"No, cats usually just rush up and punch you twice. Maybe they shout it out loud when they're playing cards to get more excited," the fox girl said with a smile, even pulling out two glow sticks from somewhere and waving them excitedly in her hands to cheer them on.
……
The battle continues to be a one-sided, overwhelming victory.
The Dark Shadow deck is very ordinary in strength, like a small monster that gets slapped flat by the Cat Girl's Monster Dragon.
As the opponent's health points reached zero, the dark Shadow race car gradually slowed down and came to a stop. Bai Lili immediately switched to manual driving, and the three of them jumped out of the car warily and ran towards the black car in front.
"Be careful!" Su Tianqing warned.
Imagine losing a card game and suddenly pulling out a weapon to stab your opponent—you can already picture this kind of unsportsmanlike behavior in your mind.
"Don't worry, I'm here."
Hellcat confidently charged ahead, but just as it was about to rush to the driver's seat to check, the door suddenly opened from the inside. Shadow, who had lost the card game, slid off the seat and fell to the ground, casting his usual burning gaze at the three magical girls.
His body was gradually turning into magical particles and dissipating, and his burning gaze was also rapidly fading away.
"Ugh... this guy's condition isn't good..." Bai Lili muttered to herself in surprise, instinctively trying to grip her wand tightly, but after grabbing at the air for a long time, she couldn't grab anything and could only awkwardly let her hands hang down, clutching the hem of her clothes.
"Who is the controller behind you, and why are you so determined to invade the real world?" Hellcat stepped forward decisively to question him, his hands in a fighting stance in front of him.
The dark shadow did not answer, but continued to stare at the three people in front of her with that burning gaze, which made Bai Lili feel scared. She hurriedly poked the cat girl's back, urging her to make a move quickly.
"Hachiko, you'd better take it down already, that look in its eyes is giving me the creeps..."
Before he could finish speaking, Shadow suddenly shifted his gaze from the catgirl to meet Bai Lili's eyes, uttering a low, hoarse voice—
[...Are you...the agent of Polaris?]
"!! It spoke!"
Bai Lili was so frightened she almost jumped up on the spot. Luckily, there was a cat in front and a fox behind her, which helped her hold back from punching the shadow.
Then, this seasoned righteous man finally realized what Shadow had just said, his brows furrowed with surprise and confusion, and he pressed for an answer:
"You know my guardian star god? Who...who exactly are you?"
【…】
The shadow did not answer, but what it had just said made Su Tianqing somewhat concerned.
Polaris, Lily's guardian star, is information that even the secret manual has not given. So far, she only knows that the dog's magic comes from the Wolf Star, and she has no knowledge of the star gods from which other magical girls obtain their magic.
Hyacinth is an exception. Bai Ling said that her magic power is supplied by Uranus, and Yue Tianxin secretly noted this information.
"Since you can talk, can you answer my question from earlier?" Hellcat said calmly, repeating the question she had just asked.
But the dark shadow fell silent, remaining motionless as it gradually dissipated. I silently shifted my gaze back to the catgirl, frozen in place for a long time.
Until it completely dissipated and disappeared, it never uttered another word, not even a sound.
"We didn't get any other information in the end." After confirming that the shadow had dissipated, Bai Lili breathed a sigh of relief and said with a bit of annoyance.
"But at least we know this thing can talk, so we should pay more attention to the information it might reveal next time we meet."
Hellcat retracted its fighting stance and looked at the black race car beside it that hadn't disappeared with the shadow. It reached inside the car to search carefully, trying to find some valuable information.
The three men climbed from the driver's seat to the trunk, even prying open the seats and hood to examine them carefully, but found nothing except a black car key.
"Hey, I thought I'd find a thick encyclopedia of Garuda information, but this is all we got and they've got to fob us off with this," Bai Lili said dejectedly, continuing to drive through the city.
"It's not like we have absolutely no clues; we do have some information, after all," Hellcat replied with a smile.
Su Tianqing carefully examined the key in her palm, turning it over and over for a long time but couldn't find anything special about it. It seemed to be just a very ordinary car key, at most its color was a bit too dark, which was its most incongruous feature with its surroundings.
There is nothing else particularly special about it.
But it is precisely this extremely ordinary nature that makes it stand out from the crowd.
"We can understand it from another perspective. The actions of the shadows are currently completely in line with the rules of the mental world, which means that Garuda has not yet fully comprehended the logic of this chaotic mental world and is being forced to act in accordance with the rules."
"It may send out these shadowy figures to collect information about the logic of mental images in the city, thereby finding the weaknesses in the rules of mental images."
"...Little fox, what you said does make some sense."
Bai Lili pondered for a moment, then raised her hand and gave a thumbs-up to the fox girl in the back seat, making a sound of admiration.
Now Bai Lili could understand why the Hyacinth Squad, despite their rich combat experience, was still overwhelmed by the Heart Moon Fox Squad; they were simply not on the same level.
"How are things on Chixue's side? Can you get in touch with them?" Bai Lili then asked.
"Wait a moment, I'll call her."
"Why can you make phone calls in the mental world??" Bai Lili couldn't help but complain.
"Don't ask. In a near-future urban setting, I think making phone calls is a pretty normal setting," Hellcat chimed in.
After a brief conversation lasting a little over a minute, Su Tianqing's expression became quite interesting when she hung up the phone. Her hesitant look made people wonder what kind of outrageous and strange conversation she had experienced on the phone.
"Over there with them..."
"—It seems we've found the Shadows' headquarters."