"Anyway, that's the story background."
Alice stood in front of a huge canvas, controlling a paintbrush with magic to paint and dab, saying, "It's been 40,000 years since the first Magic Girl with magical abilities was born into the world—that is, since the birth of the Sister of Ye."
【Mercury Secret: This is a fan-fiction story from another world, unrelated to any characters or IP works. Any similarities are purely coincidental!】
"Isn't the time span a bit too long?" Xin Yuehu complained.
"Because the background of this fan-fiction creation is just like that. But it's said that the parent company of this IP is very fond of copyright lawsuits, so..."
Hellcat shrugged and said.
Alice continued:
"The Magic Girls established an empire spanning the star realm, ruled by Di Huang Xin Yue Hu, known as the Emperor."
"Fox Fox, am I actually the Emperor?" Su Tianqing pondered.
Alice nodded.
"Yes."
"Moreover, Di Huang Xin Yue Hu commanded over a dozen Magic Primarchs under her, establishing powerful Magic Girl organizations called 'War Bands,' which campaigned throughout the star realm to maintain the integrity of the Magic Empire."
"There are several versions of the later stories and characters, but the most widely accepted one is this—"
The paintbrush continued to dab, drawing several human figures wearing magical power armor.
"First, there's 'Guillicat' Hellcat, loyal to the Emperor, commanding the largest 'Ultramarine Cats'!"
Nan Jiayu silently watched the blue power-armored big guy gradually forming on the canvas. Seeing her own head placed inside such an exaggerated power armor felt quite bizarre.
"Next is the symbol of the Empire, 'Saint Rabbitus' Cheshire Rabbit, commanding the powerful but flawed 'Holy Blood Sky Rabbits'!"
"And then there's... 'Leman Russ' Fenrir, who has a group of warriors called 'Astral Wolves'!"
"That sounds like an exciting setting. So how do we play?" The Golden-haired Fox Girl asked curiously.
Settings are settings, but just looking at them feels a bit uninteresting. You need to bring out the actual gameplay to attract people.
"This is a 'wargame.'"
Alice brought out another drawing board, sketched some simple buildings on it, then pulled out a few small items representing chess pieces and placed them on both sides, demonstrating to the Cat Girl and Fox Girl.
"On each map, there's an 'objective.' The warring parties need to command their respective pieces to complete the objective, or eliminate all of the opponent's pieces."
"So it's a game that tests tactical deployment! Sounds interesting!"
The Fox Girl excitedly wagged her tail, intentionally rubbing it against the Cat Girl beside her, as if asking for her opinion.
Hellcat nodded gently.
"Hmm, then let's play this today. Can everyone choose different factions then?"
"I think so. And I plan to let everyone customize the appearance and content of their pieces. Assembling and painting the pieces themselves will also be very fun."
"However, there seems to be another more popular character division in the forum, isn't there?"
Su Tianqing whimsically started searching and immediately found a very popular discussion post in the Magic Girl forum, which she immediately shared with the two beside her.
Three small heads huddled in front of the phone screen, looking at the Magic Girl 40k fan-fiction post with over a million likes:
【Magic 40k Supplementary Rules: Chaos Gods Chapter】
【In the distant star realm's sub-space, there exist five incredibly powerful Star Realm Chaos Gods. They are—】
【<Khorne> · Hellcat】
【<Slaanesh> · Cheshire Rabbit】
【<Nurgle> · Fenrir】
【<Tzeentch> · Alice】
【<Dark King> · Xin Yuehu】
The three exchanged glances, looking at each other in dismay.
...
In the end, they did not adopt this Chaos God rule, which seemed very likely to incur an alternate world copyright lawsuit. Alice decided to design the Mindscape World using normal rules.
After granting Alice administrator permissions for the Mindscape World, the Fox Girl briefly trained her on basic rule design capabilities and then left it to Alice's own discretion.
After that, a new update appeared on the "Magic Girl Fox Fox Official" account:
【To our audience friends in Rong City! And audience friends from all over the country and even the world! Happy New Year everyone~~~!】
【Did everyone have a wonderful New Year holiday? You must have reunited with your families, right~?】
【Well then, it's time for a fun New Year activity! This activity will be designed by the newcomer Alice!】
【The name of the activity is—"Magic Girl 40k: Star Realm Melee"!】
After sending the update and ensuring the notification was in place, Su Tianqing happily sat back down at the desk on the villain's rooftop, continuing to help the Cat Girl beside her catch up on missed lessons.
At the same time, in Huatianli Community, Rong City.
Lin Muyao sipped her lemon boba, scrolling idly through her phone.
Hua Ling sat calmly by the window, reading a storybook.
And at the desk in the room, Nan Xiaofeng was agonizingly rushing through her winter break homework.
"School starts in just over ten days, Xiaofeng, your homework..."
The White Sable Spirit floated leisurely to the desk, glancing at the few remaining homework books.
"Oh, you're doing it very fast! Xiaofeng, you didn't secretly cheat with magic, did you?"
"Bai Ling, don't bother me! Go away, go away!"
Nan Xiaofeng shooed away the Observer Spirit beside her. Bai Ling spread her hands and flew away, landing on Lin Muyao's head and sitting there, looking at the phone screen with her.
"Mu Yao."
"Hmm?"
"Mu Yao, is your phone case custom-made for you by the Hero Association last time?"
"Yes, look."
Lin Muyao flipped her phone over, showing Bai Ling the exquisite embossed pattern on the back, depicting the figure of Magic Girl Nightingale.
But the dinging sound from the phone's notification bar quickly caught the girl's attention, and she immediately opened the dynamic notification.
【Followed streamer posted a new update: Magic Girl Fox Fox Official】
"It's Xin Yuehu's update? Is that guy planning to do something bad again!" Bai Ling said indignantly.
"It seems she's asking us to go play tonight..."
Lin Muyao simply glanced at the update content and muttered to herself.
"What? Asking us to go play? When has she ever meant well! This time she's definitely tricking us into going there to get beaten up!"
Nan Xiaofeng turned around and said.
She had already been beaten by Hellcat for two or three days straight, each time harder than the last, and she didn't dare to proactively activate Star Shadow, fearing that the other side would also use her Star Shadow form to fight her.
Hellcat in that state was simply a war god!
Nan Xiaofeng would rather be locked into the Mindscape World by Xin Yuehu and call Fox Fox 'Mom' than see Star Shadow Hellcat again.
...Xin Yuehu said in the update that she's asking us to play chess tonight, not fight."
Lin Muyao added.
Everyone looked at each other, silently pulling out their respective phones.
"Play chess? Then Xin Yuehu must have some evil plan. I won't believe it!"
"It's said that this plan was designed by Alice. If we don't go, they're going to randomly pick a building in the CBD area and blow it up."
"Why are they taking hostages now??"
Nan Xiaofeng fiercely complained about Xin Yuehu's villainous behavior, but upon closer thought, her role was indeed a villain, so she had nothing more to say.
The girl slammed her book shut, stood up, and said indignantly:
"We must go stop Xin Yuehu's plan tonight!"
"We can't let her conspiracy succeed!"
"...I think you just want to go beat Hellcat at chess." Lin Muyao quietly retorted.
The bedroom was filled with a joyful atmosphere.
Hua Ling chuckled as she looked at the phone screen, staring at the text, not quite understanding what this chess game was all about.
Warlord Iris... what kind of strange fan-fiction is that?