blogombal Chapter 566 The Unexpected Victim
Chapter 566 The Unexpected Victim
11 p.m., Rongcheng Medical College faculty apartment.
The fox girl stood in front of the showerhead, having her familiars rinse the foam off her hair with the showerhead while she carefully brushed her fox tail with a delicate brush.
The legendary Inari tail comb is imbued with various wondrous magic. Simply infuse it with magic and comb it lightly on the tail to automatically de-split hairs, add shine, smoothness, and strengthen the hair roots. If you dip the comb in water, it can even turn water into a premium conditioner, making the already immediate effect even more remarkable.
This brushing technique provides comprehensive care, including cleaning, removing loose fur, and conditioning. It's perfect for when you're too tired or lazy to groom your tail.
I rarely use this tail comb. I only use it when staying in hotels or camping. My tail maintenance is usually taken care of by Little Fish, who has even taken over the job of the familiars who were originally responsible for tail care.
But today...
I and Little Fish helped Sasha and Marigold create the Mind World at the Hero Association, and we didn't get back to the apartment until half an hour ago. We took turns showering and preparing to rest, and we didn't have any time to take care of our tails.
You should know that this fox has very high standards for its tail; it takes at least half an hour to groom it!
Although I thought that with Little Fish's speed and technique, it wouldn't take half an hour at all, seeing her silly grin as she buried her face in her tail and sucked hard, I decided to just assume that it really would take that long, and that would be fine.
"Let the little fish rest for a while," the golden fox girl murmured to herself, continuing to groom the fluffy fox tail in her arms.
While enjoying the hair-washing service from her familiars, Su Tianqing had her reading familiar open the waterproof tome to her face and look at the legendary quest page with its golden sheen.
[Legendary Quest, Burning Skies]
Phase 3: Investigate the Dream Attack Incident, Progress: 55%
The task is halfway done, but the next 45%... should be the most difficult part of this stage.
The concept of the mental image defense line was proposed by Inari.
Let Marigold and Sasha hastily construct countless layers of chaotic mental worlds, with rules as complex as possible and logic as disordered as possible, so that when Garuda invades that mental world and transforms it into a dream, it can deliver a major blow.
As long as Garuda can be held back long enough, and as long as the rules of this illusory mental image are chaotic enough, Garuda will spend more time understanding and distorting these mental images, thus laying the foundation for finding its exact location.
Su Tianqing recalled how Sasha and Marigold had almost burned out their brain cells while they were creating their mental images.
With the blessing of reading magic, the two finished reading all the storybooks on the cart in an hour. Then, they used a cheat engine to speedrun through all the content on the game console. After that, they scrambled and mixed all the messy and unrelated content, and then evenly divided it into the "underlying rules" of various mental worlds...
They worked from afternoon until late at night, only managing to grab a quick bite of boxed lunch during mealtimes. This dedication reminded Su Tianqing of the same enthusiasm she had when she was a student.
It must have been really tough on them.
"call!"
Letting out a long breath, the golden-haired fox girl casually stored the secret manual into her storage magic. She put away the exquisite brush that had been used to groom her tail, turned off the showerhead, took out a bath towel, and began to quickly dry her body.
.
"Click".
The bathroom door opened, and a fox girl, radiating warmth, emerged from the bathroom in her pajamas. Her small, delicate fox feet, clad in cotton cat-paw slippers, pattered as she walked into the bedroom.
"I'm done showering! Little Fish, you—"
The fox girl pushed open the door and walked in, just as she was about to snuggle up with Xiaoyu for a while before going to bed, she saw the cat girl already fast asleep in the blankets.
The cat's ears drooped on the pillow, its eyelids fell peacefully, covering its eyes. It lay on its side in the bed, and you could still see a section of its tail sticking out from under the covers at the back of its head.
Su Tianqing's movements instantly became ten times gentler.
It makes sense that she fell asleep, since Xiaoyu was responsible for speedrunning the games with Sasha and Marigold. With the cat's quick reflexes and top-tier combat power powered by the cheat engine, she achieved the glorious feat of speedrunning all the games in one afternoon and one night.
The result was that Little Fish finished her bath first and climbed into bed at lightning speed, without even waiting for me to bring my tail in front of her and pluck it.
Silly kitty, I'm ignoring you!
The golden-haired fox girl pouted, turned her head away, and wagged her tail as if she were angry.
But upon seeing the cat's adorable sleeping face, the feigned anger vanished instantly, replaced by a joyful smile.
Well, after all, we're all preparing to fight the astral behemoth, and we've all achieved such remarkable results together today. It's understandable that Little Fish is so tired that she didn't even have time to touch my tail.
Besides, how could this fox possibly ignore the cat! Since that's the case, then as a reward, little fish will enjoy a good night's sleep while hugging this fox's tail—
The fox girl kicked off her slippers and crawled into bed. Her fox tail nestled into the cat girl's arms, thoughtfully avoiding scratching her nose with the tip of her tail, as that would be very itchy and might even cause her to sneeze in her sleep.
As a limited-edition prize for Qiangqiang and Xiaoyu, a genuine tail-shaped plush pillow is available only tonight!
Goodnight, little fish.
The golden-haired fox girl closed her eyes, turned off the bedroom light, and prepared to drift off to sleep together that night.
……
...Ten seconds later.
The light of the Guardian Star flickered in the magical space.
Su Tianqing practically jumped out of bed, frantically reaching for the light switch, and looked at the catgirl enveloped in magic under the covers.
In the blink of an eye, a deep blue magical costume appeared on the sleeping Nan Jiayu, but she showed no signs of waking up and instead slept even more soundly.
Magical girl transformation? Why?
Wasn't Little Fish asleep? Why did she suddenly transform? Could it be that my tail can now also function as a guardian star?
"--not good!"
Suddenly realizing something was wrong, Su Tianqing quickly took out her Guardian Star and transformed into the Moon Fox, lifting the sleeping Hellcat from the bed and activating the teleportation spell immediately.
Two magical girls appeared in the lobby of the Hero Association headquarters.
Instantly, the headquarters' magic alarm was triggered by teleportation magic, all the lights immediately turned on, and the alarm blared from the basement to the roof. The duty hero who was preparing to wash up and go to sleep in the duty room suddenly jumped out.
"Holy crap! Garuda raided our base?"
Frank, a blond, muscular man with an electric toothbrush in his mouth, rushed from the duty room into the lobby. Countless metallic particles pulsed and surged around him, ready to deploy defense or launch an attack at any moment.
But when he looked around, he didn't see the strange man who attacked the headquarters. Instead, he saw the golden-haired fox girl standing in the center of the hall, frozen in place, her electric toothbrush still buzzing in her mouth.
The fox girl's ears stood up high, and her tail bristled violently with tension. Three zodiac witches lined up around her, with the Leo witch holding the sleeping, deep blue cat girl in her arms.
Like the Sleeping Beauty sleeping peacefully—except that the guards around this Sleeping Beauty are far too martial.
"Uncle Frank!"
Su Tianqing spotted Frank, who was standing at the door of the duty room in his uniform, and immediately waved and called out to him.
Upon recognizing the visitor as an old acquaintance, Frank quickly turned off the alarm to calm the association headquarters down. Confused, he walked up to the fox girl and stared at the hellcat the witch was holding.
He pointed to the catgirl who showed no signs of waking up.
"Hellcat?"
"Mm." Su Tianqing nodded.
"Is she asleep?... Oh wait, was she the one Garuda attacked tonight?"
"Um!!"
The fox girl nodded repeatedly, wagging her tail vigorously, as if she had finally connected with a human.
"Uncle Frank, please contact Chi Xue right away. She's probably still awake. Tell her to come over immediately!"
"Okay, take her to the intensive care unit upstairs first, and I'll have Qiyun contact Chixue right away."
"Also... could we put these away? I'm worried the alarm will go off again when they get close to the ward."
……
Su Tianqing never expected that Garuda's target for tonight's attack would be Xiaoyu.
She was even somewhat relieved—thankfully, Sasha and Marigold had managed to create so many mental worlds in the afternoon, covering up the Rules of the Strange Zoo; otherwise, tonight's rescue would have been a complete disaster.
If the little fish were to fall into that zoo, which has been twisted into who-knows-what shape by Garuda, and encounter any danger, then it would be completely doomed.
The lights were on in the intensive care unit, all equipment was activated, and all the on-duty heroes were in place.
After gently placing the catgirl on the hospital bed, Su Tianqing was about to pour herself a glass of water and rest when she suddenly remembered something that should be considered very important:
So far, Garuda's attacks have generally targeted two people. So who will be the other victim besides Little Fish?
A nightingale? An arum? Or someone else entirely?
If it's Nightingale, that's fine. My own personal moderator is full of clever ideas, so she should be able to handle it smoothly in the mental image.
Arisaema needs to be examined more carefully, after all...
The phone suddenly rang with a pleasant ringtone, interrupting Su Tianqing's thoughts.
Contact person: [Fei Yelan]
Ye Lan? Why is she calling so late?
Muttering to herself, Su Tianqing activated her cognitive shield and answered the phone, but before she could finish her opening remarks, she heard the howl of the gray wolf:
"Feed? Doggy, what are you doing in the middle of the night—" "Oh no, Tianqing! Something terrible has happened, waaaaaah!!"
Before Su Tianqing could finish speaking, Fei Yelan's howling wolf pierced the fox's ears, startling the fox girl so much that she quickly moved the phone receiver away from her ear.
"Hiss... Calm down, calm down first, what happened?"
"Tao Tao! Tao Tao, she... she... she seems to have been captured by that Garuda and trapped in a dream world!!"
...Xia Taotao?
The confused expression on Su Tianqing's face gradually disappeared, and she pursed her lips, becoming very calm.
The fox-like blue eyes swept over the hellcat that was fast asleep on the hospital bed, and after imagining the dog's situation, a smile just wouldn't settle on its lips.
Garuda, Garuda... of all people to arrest, why did you have to arrest these two?