Disclaimer: Black Clover is owned by Yūki Tabata, Studio Pierrot, and Shonen Jump.

A familiar void appears once again.

In a sudden snap, the epicenter lights up, revealing a wooden, three-legged stool with a storybook laid on top.

Clicking and clacking from the darkness, Ogmios enters into the limelight, taking the book into his arms before sitting down on the stool. "Ah, welcome back."

The magenta-haired man lays the book onto his lap before crossing his legs.

"We were gone for a good while, has it not?"

Another spotlight shines down in front of him, revealing Corrin Index sitting in a curled up position before Ogmios, former-Golden Dawn Magic Knight now-aspiring cartographer. Reasons for her sudden rejection of this prestigious position was due to her distaste for violence.

Ironic, given the kind of world that she now finds herself in. But that's a story for another day.

"What the hell, man?" she groaned. "Storytime again? After the wait that felt like months?"

"Life is like that," Ogmios replied with a shrug. "Obligations, relationships, connections, work, they just come in like the weather; utterly unpredictable while even the strongest of badasses are left helpless against its whims."

"And your band of crazies just don't kill for a living?" deadpanned Corrin.

"If we did, then we wouldn't a roof over our heads," Ogmios answered. "Besides, I'm not in charge of Twrch Trwyth Tavern. Dagda is. I owe him that much."

The former Golden Dawn rolled her eyes in annoyance. "So, what's the story this time?" asked Corrin. "Need to catch the readers up to speed from your O-great well of the collective unconsciousness that you use me specifically for? And why me and not the others that are getting bothered everyone once a blue moon of this storyteller crap?"

"Dorothy's mind is completely divorced from the kind of information I am trying to share, Nozel, Shiren, David, Letoile, and Jericho's minds are too rational to the point of stagnation, Nebra's mind is riddled with so many holes leading to nowhere that I have no inclinations to push my luck figuring out why, and William's mind is currently hosting an elven child with the powers of an arcane master," explained the man as he adjusted his glasses. "It'd be rude to intrude a mind teetering near over-capacity. And don't even get me started on Kirsch's."

"Let me guess," smirked Corrin. "Nothing but copies of himself, all completely nude and frolicking about in a breeze of flower petals set over a pristine springtime valley?"

Ogmios shudders at the image. "... Can I start the recap so I may rid myself of such horrid thoughts?!"

Corrin's smirk creased upwards as she raised both her hands up while slightly shaking her head side to side. "Ain't stopping you pal. You brought that upon yourself."

The book's pages are then leafed open to the illustration depicting the boy of light (Yuno) with the titanic bearded owl (Saiga) glowering over him with his tilted head.

"As it goes, the Chosen Child was confronted with the past that eluded him ever so," narrated Ogmios. "The Herald, an owl the size of a small hill, judged the boy as currently unworthy of an answer."

The next page then shows a small mole with shaded eyes (Gordon) and the pale cricket (Grey) standing up for the Chosen Child, even as the Herald's gaze remained unflinching.
"Nevertheless, the boy wasn't alone, and with the help of his friends, the Herald relented, slightly ever so."

Then the following page depicts the boy standing before a small grave marker with a black bandana tied around it. Behind him was an otter wearing a habit (Sister Lily) and a doe (Juniper Hage), the latter trotting off elsewhere.

"With a rebuilt resolve to seek out the truth, the boy makes his final goodbye to the brother that wasn't meant to be," said the man as he then turned aa page, now depicting a night of fire and giants over a walled city under invasion. "Huh, that's odd," the man commented as he looked at the following pages with a squinted look, confused at the sudden sequence break.

"What is it?" asked Corrin.

"Apparently, this book is currently explaining the whole Loki incident in an out of order sequence," answered Ogmios as he saw the climatic battle itself take place first before the perpetrator's origins were explained in length, which was then followed up by the investigation and finally the revelations taking place after the cataclysmic battle.

In fact, the order of events taken place were so confusing that Ogmios himself didn't notice a pair of black steaks slithering out of their debut scenes, as if they were trying to pretend that they never existed. "Well, at least this mess is accurate on one thing," he grumbled as he leafed through the next segment of the story's recap, "Libratium's got its arse fist-fucked until it turned into a perfect, smoldering circle. It's people has been through much worse, and the whole burning smell can be played off as charcoal detoxing the exposed sewer smell."

He finally stops at the corpse-ridden jungles occupied by a black bull (Yami), a trio of red lions (the Vermillion siblings, Fuegoleon, Meroleona, and Leopold) and a green mantid (Jack the Ripper) confronting a dark swarm of red-eyed insects.

"Oh, it's the Great Steer," Ogmios referred to the black bull, alluding to his role of taking in the boy in his fractured state, "and if the collective consciousness filtered through your imagination is admittedly charming. For such a brute, he is quite dashing."

"Wait, the Black Bulls are at Heart Kingdom with the Crimson Lion Kings and the Green Mantis?" Corrin remarked. "And the Heart Kingdom is under attack by Demons too?! Just what has this world come to?!"

"You're only one person, Miss Index," reassured Ogmios as he turned to the page depicting a sea angel (Lolopechka) and a civet (Scheherazade) trapping a giant beetle in a magical cage. "Do not blame yourself too harshly for failing to comprehend the world's happenings. Just focus on the present, including your survival."

The page is then turned, for it then draws a complete blank. "... Well, that isn't concerning or anything!"

"What is it?!" Corrin then runs towards where Ogmios was sitting at before the book itself exploded into a flash of scattered pages.

Then as the papers fluttered around them, it began to swim and spiral around the two, trapping them inside a twister-like funnel. "Ogmios, what the fuck is going on?!"

He adjusts his glasses before swiveling his head left and right repeatedly, trying to make heads or tails of what was happening right now.

"I DON'T KNOW!" he answered in panic, now nearly losing all of his cool he had prior. "THIS PHENOMENON IS BEYOND MY UNDERSTANDING!"

The wind stirring up around them began to intensify, the spin cycle of the twister of pages going ever faster by every passing second. All Ogmios could comprehend of the abnormality was that the book itself is now utterly confused of what story is happening next.

In between the blurs, the two saw the pages frantically drawing out vague images that were all too hard to make out from the bluster and chaos happening around them. The pages blotched with fading images began to close in on the two of the them, the pair of limelights overhead flickering like mad from the roving flock of shades glowering over them.

Corrin felt her bicep get nicked with a large paper cut while Ogmio's knit sweater and skinny black jeans now bore fresh tears as the result of the two being trapped inside the spiral of probable death by papercuts.

"Uh, quick question," asked Corrin as she tried to invoke her grimoire, only for her to learn of her powerlessness as she was without magic in this cognitive backrooms that the two of them were trapped in. "If we die here, do we die in real life?"

Ogmios' answer was that of a panicked scream as his own [Memory Magic] was rendered completely inert by this sudden storm of vague information.

But just before the storm of unknown knowledge can completely devour them, a flash of lightning followed up with a rain of icicles and a tornado of fire dispersed the pages back to a docile state.

"Good grief," spoke a voice that of a unison between that of a man and a woman, revealing itself to be a featureless specter made of magic, "I leave you two alone for a minute and already both of you lose your shits."

"... Sorry Brigid," Ogmios grunted as he adjusted his now-cracked glasses. "Your [Anima Magic] practically turns you into a magic ghost that could intrude onto all spell constructs on a whim. Good thing too, otherwise, there'd be a mess on our bedsheets."

"As it should," she/he/they affirmed, "for I was the one who taught you how to use your [Memory Magic] without frying your own brain."

"So, you know what's going on?" asked Corrin, now slightly rattled upon her near-death experience occurring during a bedtime story of all instances.

The featureless Brigid then picks up one of the scattered pages that were still intact. "What you've just witnessed was a rare incident dubbed 'Angolmois'."

"Pardon?" the other two remarked as the page in Brigid's hand began to show a peculiar image.

It was a compound image, between three distinct events overlaid and phasing over each other.

One was the Great Steer's companion's now facing off against personifications of natural disasters made manifest in flesh, all masterminded by a force of evil seeking solely entertainment.

The other was the Chosen Child facing against the Herald, behind the latter being an unknown world juxtaposed by beings of light and dark.

And the third was an endless forest with a clearing. At its center was a boulder occupied by an antlered knight in rusted and moss-covered armor with a battered broken sword planted next to him. And before him flickered a bonfire, for which the sole occupant watched over as its sentry.

"During instances of Clairvoyance, or in a rarer, one-hundred-thousand-to-one chance during a psychological deep dive, there are instances where the following events forecasted are so dire and traumatic that it causes a massive backlash when delving in too deeply," they explained. "The term 'Angolmois' was first penned by the greatest Clairvoyance mage stretching back to the Golden Age of Magic, Nostradamus, where not only he'd predicted the Armageddon of Year 666 to occur in his own lifetime, but that of the premature Armageddon of Year 1000 to also happen, to which, according to his predictions, would result in an 'unjust cleansing perpetuated by the hubris and greed of man'. Since then, the word that was used to describe the two back to back openings of the Gates of Hell became a catch-all term for 'any forecast deemed too harrowing and chaotic to be comprehended'."

"So with that in mind..." Corrin looked particularly towards the second image, where Yuno's fight with the so-called "Herald" that has been foretold. "... This 'Angolmois'... what does it all mean?"

"Well for one, given that three events have been foretold all at once, I'd say that all three will happen at the same time, starting tomorrow," Brigid surmised.

"Then shouldn't we wake up and tell everyone about all this?!" Corrin pointed out.

Ogmios tries to do what she'd suggested, only for him to be repelled back into the recesses of his mind. "... One problem. We can't."

"Meaning that we're an integral part of this coming prophecy," Brigid pointed out with a slight groan. "Which also means that we're not allowed to wake up back into the real world until our queue is up."

Corrin lets out another belt of groaning before plopping back onto the floor of the void. "... So we just watch?"

"Which one do you wish to watch first?" asked Brigid as they and Ogmios sat next to Corrin as the paper then projected the first image, depicting a jungle during nighttime.

Saga 20: Crawling Part 1

Bathhouse, Heart Kingdom, Evening

"Man, even if the whole world's gone to shit, one thing will always remain a fact," sighed Finral as he sunk into the hot spring's waters. "Hot springs are the world's solution to sore muscles and bound-up stress of everyday life."

"Respite is welcome when available," Fuegoleon agreed as he submerged next to the [Spatial Magic] user. "Still, best not get too relaxed. Even if an army loses 99% of their fighting force, the remainder 1% will put up the most possible resistance."

"Speaking from experience?" Jack scoffed as he dumped the pail of water onto his shampoo-covered head.

"An adage," the Crimson Lion King Captain replied. "From my sister, when she'd seen a wounded rat nearly kill a cat that was hunting it. It still died, but it made the cat fight for its meal rather than toy with it any longer."

"Keh, never liked cats, or rats," scoffed Jack. "Both are weak as shit, and I ain't interested in the weak picking fights on each other."

"Then clearly, you must be over the moon as of late," Yami rolled his eyes as he climbed out of the spring. Jack simply chooses to ignore his statement.

Finral then looks around the baths, noticing that someone was missing. "Hey, where's Henry?"

Yami lets out a grunt before plunging his hand into the waters before pulling out the unconscious ragamuffin-looking Black Bull by his nape, the latter's skin looking redder than usual.

"I'll get Henry out before we have to serve him with melted butter for dinner," the Captain remarked as he headed towards the exit with Henry in tow. "Tell Magna and Gauche to not end up the same as him or I'll kill the two of em myself."

"Either way, someone's coming close to dyin'..." grumbled the [Spatial Magic] user as he saw his superior leave the room by himself with two other Captains. After a few moments of awkward silence sitting between a battle manic that Luck would've been friends with and arguably the coolest big brother-figure in all of Clover Kingdom, he decides to leave the baths before his skin gets pruned.

"... Anyway," Finral sheepishly remarked as he hastily made his way towards the exit, "I'll leave you two alone and join your subordinates for a few drinks-!"

Then, out of nowhere, something came crashing down from the horizon behind Finral. Upon landing, the force of the collision caused rock and water to erupt like a composite geyser, obscuring of what had happened before them, which triggered a collective reaction from all of the surrounding occupants of the baths from both sections.

"WHAT THE SHIT?!" Gauche cried out as he and Magna came out of the now-wrecked sauna to see the floor before them now completely cratered.

"AIGHT, WHO LOOKIN' TO GET CUT UP?!" Jack then activates a pair of [Death Scythes] from his forearms as he swiveled his head towards both directions, ready for a fight.

"FINRAL!" Fuegoleon then ran into the smoke to see if he wasn't harmed.

At first, his heart rate spiked upon seeing a silhouette of him being impaled with something. But upon closer inspection, the following was revealed:

First, the object at the crater's epicenter was revealed itself to be a halberd, still intact even after landing.

Second, Finral was alive and relatively unharmed, albeit fainted, laid face-down away from the polearm's point of impact being a few inches away from his groin.

And finally, just near Finral's bare buttocks, a slip of folded paper was found tied around the shaft of the weapon.

"OI! WHAT'S GOING ON OVER THERE?!" Meroleona roared out as she stomped over towards the men's section of the bathhouse through the partially-broken partition. "I WAS HAVING A GOOD DRINK IN THE BATHS BEFORE IT SPILLED, DAMMIT!"

Fuegoleon then unties the paper around the metal shaft before unfolding and reading it.

"Call an emergency meeting with the Queen," Fuegoleon ordered. "The enemy has come bearing a message."

At the Heart Kingdom's Royal Palace...

"I want to say that we should've seen this coming..." sighed Undine as everyone gathered around the Royal Palace's audience chamber, "... but the way it came was beyond crass."

"Tell me about it," Yami grumbled before he looked back at Finral, who for the most part was still alive and intact (it's later revealed that the impact of the "message" and it's suggestive positioning didn't occur at the same time for one; if it were the case, then Finral's whole lower body would've been separated from his upper from the sheer force of the impact), albeit, sitting on a wheelchair and despondent and still foaming at the mouth. "I mean I knew that fly bastard was evil, but it takes a special kind of evil to bust up an occupied onsen for crying out loud!"

"World's most painful vasectomy being averted aside..." Meroleona then approached the young Queen, the latter reading over the message written in blood, "what does it say?"

Lolopechka then lets out a sigh before passing the letter to the Vice-Captain of the Crimson Lion Kings. "Just some vaguely-worded threats and insults directed mostly towards me specifically with an eloquence that of a five-year old would consider immature," she shook her head as everyone else gleaned over the juvenile writ, "at least time, our donor is demonstrating a degree of self-awareness that is semi-considerate to the possible recipient."

"Ah, so his so-called pranks have now sharpened your tongue to that much of an extant," Scheherazade commented. "Welcome to the club, as reluctantly I must admit you into doing so."

"This changes nothing aside from our timetable," Mosin pointed out, "Caligula has made his intent clear as soon as our [Alf-Layla-wa-Layla] succeeded. Now he intends to take the offensive."

"By himself?" Jack scoffed.

"You almost sound disappointed," Fuegoleon pointed out.

"At the fact that this months-long liberation campaign is going to end with just one person making a last stand?" said the Green Mantis Captain. "Come on, I was half-expecting a brigade of elite badasses to come with."

"Jack, are you still butthurt at Fuegoleon's remark to you never having fought in a war before and now seeking to fight more opponents to overcompensate?" Mosin pointed out. "All you're doing is proving his point."

"I'LL SHOW YOU A POINT WHEN THERE'S A MOUNTAIN OF BODIES BIGGER THAN HIS!" Jack lashed out much to everyone's consternation, completely missing the High Inquisitor's point.

Leopold turns to En with a look. "He always like that?"

"Our Captain's a... how shall I put it," said the [Mushroom Magic] user, "honest and simple, to a fault."

"Then again, it's not like we're any smarter than him," Nix remarked.

"If anything, as long as no one flaunts their... whatever they're good at right at his face, he's cool," said Willy. "In fact, part of his raison d'etre is to show that if a Magic Knight wants to be strong, he better act rather than merely boast. That's why he's so itching for a fight. He doesn't want to out himself as a hypocrite, even accidentally."

"No one's perfect though," said Leopold as he saw the Green Mantis Captain cede from his episodic rage, "still... I think I kinda understand him a bit better now. I'm kinda itching for a fight to, if only to ensure that no one else suffers more."

Back at the discussion, the three Captains and the two Queens finalize their discussion of their next course of action.

"So, what of your people?" asked Yami. "Got the word out?"

"I just had informed all of the Spirit Guardians of this revelation," answered Lolopechka, "evacuations are already on underway."

"Confirmed," said Mosin after she disengages her recent call received from her wires. "Underground shelters are being occupied with non-combatants. All available combatant mages are rallying to the front lines for a possible invasion."

"What of the enemy?" Scheherazade asked. "Any confirmations?"

"Unknown," Mosin replied as she continued going through her wires stretched out towards outside. "So far, no confirmations."

"Our defensive forces," Fuegoleon pointed out, "are they ready?"

"What makes a difference?" Jack remarked dismissively. "It's not like they're actually here yet, or if there's going to be any-"

"On the contrary."

Then out of nowhere, a grotesquely tall-looking figure wrapped in a faded brown cloak appeared in the middle of where everyone was gathered at in the audience chambers. No one, not even Undine, could've sensed it coming. Not because of the lack of any discernible mana signatures.

But rather it's mana was too big to be noticed. It was already here and none of them saw it coming, as if this thing was merely the air that they suck in and out every day.

"We have already arrived," then underneath the figure's cloak reveals two pairs of elongated translucent wings emerging from its back that began to flutter and vibrate extremely violently, stirring the surrounding air itself akin to that of an uplifted earthquake.

"HIT THE DECK!" roared Yami as he then tackled down Lolopechka and Scheherazade down to the floor right before the entire Royal Palace exploded outwards into a sonic boom, leveling everything above the ground and a few low-laying furnitures, scattering the pieces of the castle and the cave structure that the palace was built into across the Kingdom's vicinity ala a cluster bomb.

As soon as the night sky was exposed from the ruined palace, the dust settles, revealing everyone sans the attacker, all lying flat on the ground.

"Everyone..." Yami creaked his head upwards to see their recent attacker rip off his cloak to reveal a spiky-haired human-like male creature with the elongated appendages and a tail with a pair of pincers that of a dragonfly, the color of the carapace being a smooth rose-red, while its human eyes were solid green compoundeyes. "Headcount..."

"Still alive!" Magna cried out with Finral, now partially-awake, in tow. "Everyone from the Bulls didn't lose anything... not even our hearing... except for the wheelchair."

"I'm about to lose it regardless..." grumbled Jack as he drudged himself back up to his feet before he looked back at his squad. "What about you maggots?"

"Okay enough to fight," En grunted as he helped Willy and Nix back up. "The others too."

"That was a cheap shot and you know it!" snarled Meroleona as she flared up her [Fire Magic].

"Take your time getting up," suggested the dragonfly-human creature, casual in tone. "I'm in no hurry."

"A Demon..." growled Mosin as she pulled herself and the two Queens back up to their feet with her wires from her [Glephnir] Relic. "There are others, I presume?"

"Correct," he answered honestly, "which now I present you all an ultimatum: either all of you face me at once, or split up and divvy up your strengths to face my fellow DEVAs scattered throughout this dominion. I suggest the latter, given that your shelters won't protect the people inside for very long."

To emphasize his claim, the Demon then tosses a severed head into Lolopeckha's arms. The young Queen then recognizes the head in her arms, much to her horror.

"... No!" she whimpered in fear as tears welled up in her eyes. "... Smuirk!"

But just before she can grieve properly, a blast of emerald-colored lightning shot itself towards Lolopechka from the skies above, only for the Demon to intercept the blast with a single beat of one of his four wings, dissipating the thunder into a rain of harmless sparks with its razor wind.

"Excuse me," the Demon then looked up towards where the moon was shining at, already discerned of where sniper was firing from, "we're in the middle of something. I do not appreciate your meddling, outsider."

The Moon, Outer Space

"FUCK YOU DUDE!" Ziz then fires up another bolt of lightning and a [Wind Magic] propellant as its good eyes aimed towards where the Queen was sitting at, out in the open and violating the clause of the [Curse of Tyranny] that it'd inflicted upon her in conjuncture with Megicula's own (the latter being inert after its death). "THAT BITCH IS MINE!"

Another rod of lighting descended towards the planet where his target was at, only for said shot to be parried again by this interloper.

"FUUUCK!" screeched the condor Demon, with no one but itself hearing its lament.

Back on the ground...

"Anyway..." sighed the Demon that saved Lolopechka's life twice over. "I believe you humans refer to it as... 'tick-tock, tick-tock'?"

Undine then looks at everyone else before looking back at the surprisingly patient Demon standing there before making her decision. "Lolo," she spoke, "our people need us."

"Say no more," Fuegoleon then stepped up before the dragonfly Demon. "Go."

"You're not fighting alone!" Leopold joined him by his brother's side.

"Finral, you're coming with us for battlefield coordination," Yami remarked as he grabbed his personal taxi by the back of his robe from Magna's arms.

"You've made your decision?" asked the Demon.

"Go!" Fuegoleon barked out. "There are others like him that must be vanquished!"

Yami shakes his head in consternation before everyone else joined the Queen in her rescue operation. "Any of you two die, I'll kill your asses myself, you hear?!"

"AND I'LL JOIN HIM IN THE BEATING!" Meroleona roared in agreement. "SO DON'T DIE LIKE PANSIES, YOU HEAR ME?!"

"Loud and clear," Fuegoleon then sees off everyone else leaving the ruined palace before facing the Demon. "For a denizen of the underworld, you have a twisted sense of chivalry."

"To retort, I was born here in this world," answered the Demon. "Ergo, I do not know what Hell looks like, only with the knowledge that it simply exists."

"Anyway, if we're going by pattern recognition, then you must have some weird-ass name and gimmick," Leopold wisecracked. "Tell us what they are so we know whose dragonfly-ass we're about to be kicking."

"Introductions it is then," the Demon then clears his throat before speaking. "This one is Rudra, the Stormbringer of the Six DEVAs! And I am no mere dragonfly! My genetic basis is that of the dragonfly's far superior prehistoric ancestor, the Meganeura!"

The now-introduced Rudra then ascends from the ground and into the air, its four wings humming and emitting static like buzz from its beats that rippled the air around itself.

"COME AND FACE ME!" roared the Demon as its wings beats the air ever faster. "TREMBLE BEFORE MY MIGHTY STORM!"

Throughout Heart Kingdom in Chaos...

"We need to head to the shelters!" Lolopechka cried out as several sectors throughout the Kingdom came under attack from different points of distance.

"I need a map of where the shelters are!" Finral remarked before a roll of paper was shoved into his face.

"Make it quick!" Mosin remarked as she ran head of the group. "I'll go to the shelter nearest from here!"

"Alright! I got it pinned down!" Finral remarked as he then opened three portals each leading to different shelters located at each significant sector of Heart Kingdom. "Pick and choose whichever one!"

"Whatever!" Jack then jumps to the one opened at the left.

"I sense the farm fields' mana flowing from there," Undine pointed towards the portal at the right.

"Wait for me, for I shall come with you two," Scheherazade followed Undine and Lolopechka into their portal.

"Alright, you three pukes are with me," Meroleona then drags the three Green Mantis towards the central portal. "You Black Bulls try not to die in the meantime, got it?"

"Wait for me!" Charmy then tackles Meroleona headfirst into the portal, resulting all five of them to dogpile towards the other side.

As soon as everyone makes their choice, the portals close, leaving Yami, Magna, Henry and Vanessa running through the now-barren Residential Sector of the Heart Kingdom.

"So, how far's the nearest shelter from here?" asked Yami.

"About a mile or so on foot," Finral remarked before spotting an intact broom leaning against one of the empty houses. "One of us needs to act as an advance scout. Anyone confident in their speed?"

Magna takes the broom for himself before liftoff. "Ain't no Crazy Cyclone, but this'll do!"

As everyone saw Magna take off towards Mosin's direction at breakneck speed, another figure enveloped in a similar cloak to that of Rudra's stretched out its right arm covered in an amber-yellow colored carapace with thin dark brown lines running horizontal across its sheen.

The outstretched arm then opens itself up into a massive crossbow-like configuration, with its loaded warhead being a composite form of that of a jousting lance and a wasp's stinger.

"Target: Acquired," said the being as its muscles in its arms tensed up like a collection of bowstrings while its bolt crackled with electricity as it was being drawn back before its maiden fire, aimed directly towards the broom's sole rider.

Vanessa of all people, then hears the sounds of something akin to strings being on the verge of snapping coming from the corner of her right ear. She then turns back, and spots something too bright to be part of regular foliage.

"MAGNA! BAIL!"

The bolt fires from the figure's arm in conjunction with Vanessa's faint warning from behind Magna's earshot. At the very last second, Magna's instincts screamed at him to jump off of his current ride.

He does so without hesitating, right at the exact moment where the broom that he was riding on was blasted into a cloud of splinters and hay upon seeing a bright yellow bolt with a crimson red tip shoot through where he was just at. Magna, being familiar with the rougher aspects of broom riding, curls up his shoulders and knees into his body as he rolls his body across the dirt upon the rough landing.

"What the shit?!" Magna heaved out as he looked towards where the shot came from.

"Hang on! I got you!" Finral then drags Magna back towards the group with his [Spatial Magic].

"Any bones broken?" Yami asked as he drew his kodachi for combat.

"Just some sprains, nothing I can't fix," said Vanessa as she applied first aid to Magna's arms and legs with her [Thread Magic].

"Of course our opponent's another sniper..." Gauche grimaced as he readied his [Mirror Magic] to both ready to engage while trying to seek out their assailant.

"I'llll... mmmaaaaakkke... ccoovverr," Henry groaned as he used his [Repositioning Magic] to shift the earth around them into mounds and trenches. "... Uuuusse... ttthheeeemmm."

As it saw the Black Bulls get out of open ground and into the trenches for cover, the figure then tears off its cloak to reveal a more human-proportioned Demon with wasp-like features, the most prominent being his stinger with a blood-red tip and pair of translucent wings coming from his lower back, his four arms each with their yellow carapaces formed into claw-fingered gauntlets, and his face being that of a human male with blond hair and fair peach-colored skin, only that his compoundeyes were blood red, a pair of antennae protruded from the top of his head, and his mouth was a combination of that of a human's incisor-like teeth and a wasp's horizontally-positioned mandibles.

"Situation: Reassessing," the wasp Demon spoke to itself as one of its four arms grabbed onto the stinger's tip before pulling it out into another crossbow bolt before passing it onto his other hand while its other pair of arms opened themselves back up into their crossbow configuration. "Designation: Indra, the Thunderbolt of the Six DEVAs. Basis: Plumalexius. Status: Targets still moving. Solution: Recalibrating methodology. Confirmation: Utilize strafe-sniping."

Its wings then buzz as it then began to circle around the perimeter of Heart Kingdom's abandoned Residential Sector with its crossbow loaded with a fresh bolt.

Environmental Sector, Heart Kingdom, Night

Jack enters into Heart Kingdom's Environmental, where the natural environment surrounding the Heart Kingdom are maintained and regulated akin to a giant garden-safari hybrid. Basically a National Park.

However, there were something coating the trees and the struggling animals and people were covered in patches of metallic sheen akin to chaff or shiny confetti. Jack streaks his left pinky finger across one of the trees, leaving a dab of silver that weighed as much as a lead ring.

He then sniffs onto the peculiar dye. "... Smells like fresh slag."

"Oh please, like you can tell slag from silver."

Jack immediately whips out his arms and slashes the air with his [Death Scythes] towards the direction where the voice came from, only for his slashes to be broken upon being parried by the cloaked figure's silvery carapace arm.

"So this is Jack the Ripper's so-called [Severing Magic]?" the figure sneered with contempt aimed towards Jack. "Yours is about dull as linen."

Jack wastes no time closing in on the cloaked figure with more of his magical blades, only for them to stead slash through nothing but the cloak, which then exploded into a burst of metallic dust that caked all over his face and upper body, adding more to the overall feeling of weightiness all over himself that was on his pinky prior.

He then looks up, and superimposed before the full moon was a lean-looking human-insect hybrid with flowing sliver-colored hair that gleamed in the night sky, a feminine, if slightly wizened face that was so androgynous it was bordering on alien, and his upper body was that of lean-muscled human dressed in the finest of dark-turquoise garbs with tight black leggings. His insect-like features were a pair of eye-patterned wings which looked like a heterochromatic red and yellow slit pupils of a green-blue-scaled dragon, his legs were thin to the point of looking like a pair of twigs, and from his forehead were a pair of antennae looking similar to that of a bird's quills.

"Great, I'm fighting a pretty boy," Jack spat to the side with disgust. "Why do I always get the stupid ones?"

"Because clearly, life hates us," sighed the vain Demon, "hates me enough to have my eyes assaulted by a being so vile and uncouth as you are."

"Come on down then," the Green Mantis snarled as he readied his pair of [Death Scythes] sprouted from his forearms. "I'll do you a solid and remove em for you."

The Demon then looked towards one of the trees with the smeared-off streak of natural brown of the bark before letting out an annoyed sigh. "And the paint wasn't even dry yet..." He then shakes his head before looking down at Jack. "Very well. Consider this my charity onto your sorry existence."

The wings and his hair began fluttering around the wind, raining down sparkling dust from moonlit sky above the metallic scene of nature.

"Vishnu, the Stalwart of the Six DEVAs shall now commence to turn your corpse into a piece of his masterpiece."

"And what are you supposed to be, a moth?" Jack asked as he brushed off the dust being rained towards him with his blades.

"No mere moth, peasant," Vishnu sneered. "My wings are that of a Undulopsychopsis's. Get it right."

"Keh, bug's a bug," Jack then charged towards the Demon as he whipped his blades towards him.

Reservoir Sector, Heart Kingdom, Night

"Okay, where are we?" asked Meroleona as she saw two of the Spirit Guardians fighting off a serpentine-like Demon with its upper body obscured with a ragged brown cloak. "Well, at least we're in the right place.

The serpentine-like Demon whips its tail across the two, breaking through the wall of earth and fire before knocking back the two Spirit Guardians fighting the Demon, for which then Charmy softened their landing with her [Cotton Magic].

"Thanks," said the brawny woman. "Took a few bad licks, so you're all just in time."

"SCREW YOU GUYS!" shrieked the Demon. "I GOT A DAM TO BREAK!"

It then dives into the water leading out of the main reservoir and swam towards where the giant wall of marble was at.

"It's getting away!" said the tall man as he lit the soles of his feet on fire. "Sarado!"

"Coming Floga!" said the woman as she then shot herself towards the night sky by erecting a pillar of earth beneath herself as her compatriot shot himself towards where the Demon was swimming towards.

"Well, can't let them have all the fun," Meroleona then grabbed the three Green Mantis Knights while Charmy climbed onto her shoulder. "Hold on tight!"

The five then rocketed past the two Spirit Guardians during their travel, accidentally colliding with the cloaked Demon and crashing into the dam's maintenance platform in a heap.

"Oww..." Nix groaned before letting out a few coughs. "I'm pretty sure we broke something..."

"He said 'dam,' right?" Willy pointed out. "Where are we exactly? Is this the dam?"

"... I think... they're going to take out all of us at once with a giant flood," En figured out the correlation. "... No visible cracks, though-"

"GET OFF!" screeched the Demon as it then violently whipped its tail around the wrecked platform, causing their entire footing to crumble from beneath and send them all plummeting to the shores below.

But just before they can all splat to the ground, Floga catches the Nix and Willy in his flight while Sarado caught En with her burly arms. Meroleona easily gains control of her flight path with her own [Fire Magic] while Charmy simply used her own [Cotton Magic] to cushion her fall once again.

The cloaked Demon meanwhile, landed headfirst into the dirt, getting stuck in the zone of his impact.

"Everyone okay?" asked Sarada. "Nothing broken?"

"Peachy," Meroleona answered. "So, what's the situation?"

"Odd thing is," Floga explained, "the Demons couldn't figure out where the shelters were located, so they opted to cut the proverbial knot by trying to breach this dam controlling the distribution of water throughout the Kingdom and surrounding jungle and flush everyone out."

"Demons," said Nix, "as in plural?"

The Demon then pulls himself out of the ground at the expense of its cloak, revealing a wide-brimmed head akin to that of a manta ray's wingspan with a human-like face of a young male, his body and serpentine tail was a row of overlaid brown carapaces with a shrimp-like tail at the end, and his arms were a row of tentacles and feelers that writhed and slithered all over the place.

"I fucking hate smart-aleks and now Brahma's gonna get all the credit..." he grumbled to himself.

"EVERYONE! ATTACK ALL AT ONCE!" barked Sarado as she unleashed a giant earthen fist from the ground with Floga unleashing a massive blast of fire towards the Demon and the other unleashing their own spells towards the same target.

The Demon then whips his tail across the wave of attacks, parrying the spells with a spread-shot of super-pressurized water, exploding the whole midpoint of the collision into a thick fog before using this time to jump back into the water.

"Slippery bastard..." growled Meroleona before she turned to the two other Spirit Guardians. "So, you know who's the second wheel and where he is?"

"The other side of the dam," Floga answered. "Sarado sensed seismic activity coming from there."

"Alright then, we're splitting up," Meroleona ordered her improv group. "Charmy, you're taking charge of the three stooges while me and the other two take out the guy causing the earthquakes. The guy in the water got banged up pretty good, so you four might have a chance."

"One problem," Nix protested. "None of us know how to swim!"

"Then bait him out!" Meroleona rebuffed his complaint before flying towards the other side of the dam with the other two Spirit Guardians.

As the three of their strongest fighters left the other four behind, the latter looked at each other for a probable plan of action.

"Hey, does [Fire Magic] work underwater?" asked Nix.

"Don't think so," Willy pointed out. "Might be put out as soon as it goes in.

"Actually..." En pointed out as he looked towards Charmy and her ball of wool in particular. "... It just might work."

"Hm?" Charmy looked up to En.

"Charmy, can you make a giant sheep? Or a giant sphere of conductible cotton?" he asked as he summoned tiny mushroom man-like familiar. "I've got a plan that is crazy enough to work."

In the reservoir's waters, the shrimp Demon jetted across the blue directly towards the dam's base, collecting water into its own body.

"Of all the times they had to show up, of course it had to be at the most critical moment..." the Demon bubbled in its speech before aiming its tail and tentacles towards the dam's base. "Can't waste anymore time! Gotta bring down the whole damn wall before Brahma does!"

As soon as his jets of pressurized water traveled across the reservoir's body and towards the dam's foundation, a giant ball of cotton covered with mushrooms plunges into the direction of where his shots were heading towards.

"WHAT THE-"

The jets of water tear through the ball of mushrooms and cotton, unleashing a collection of methane-fueled flames and air into the water.

The following is a structure of the impromptu bomb: the outer layer is composed of cotton covered in an array of [Mr. Heavy Mushrooms] to act as both weights and shrapnel all held together by a shell of hardened mud, while the inner layer was composed of [Mr. Speedy Mushroom] running about mad inside, its head rubbing against the fluff to generate enough static electricity that can be a form of pseudo-[Lightning Magic] while also carrying a lit torch to act as an impromptu fuse that will trigger when exposed to water.

The end result is that of the local waters being hypercharged by the released built-up electricity, for which was then ignited by the methane-fueled fire that trigged an explosion destructive enough to blow up an entire cabin. If it had failed, the resulting consequences would've been dead obvious.

"FFUUUUUUCCCK!" cursed the Demon as he was shot out of the water and landed right next to where the four Magic Knights were standing at.

"Well damn," Nix chuckled, "guess fire can be used underwater."

"It was a team effort," En smiled as everyone readied themselves for combat.

"FUCK YOU ALL!" screeched the Demon. "SCREW THE DAM! NOW I'M GONNA KILL YOU GUYS FOR THAT LITTLE PRANK! OTHERWISE MY NAME ISN'T VARUNA, THE DROWNER OF THE SIX DEVAS!"

"Just curious, but what kind of a bug are you based off?" asked Willy with a raised eyebrow.

"Never heard of the Amomalcaris?" the Demon snarled. "I'm the ultimate aquatic organism!"

"And you sir," Charmy wiped the drool off of her lips as already began to see the Demon as a battered and deep-fried shrimp, "look absolutely scrumptious."

Everyone falls dead silent at the Black Bull's remark.

"... What the actual fuck is wrong with her?" Varuna asked.

"We've been concerned of her as of late," En remarked with a hint of apprehension.

At the Other Side of the Dam...

As the three powerful mages flew over the dam and towards the elevated land behind the edifice, they saw some bits of land and trees tremor and being displaced with each *THUD* heard coming from below.

"I HEAR SOMETHING!" Meroleona cried out as the three of them heard sounds of something thundering coming from the ground below them.

"Allow me to make way!" Sarado then uses her [Earth Magic] to open up a hole in the ground leading into the Kingdom's cave systems. Upon breaching, the three jump inside and feel the tremors become more frequent as they traversed deeper into the caverns' depths.

"Uh quick take, but what are these caves for aside from them already existing?" asked Meroleona.

"We kind of tried to start a mining industry about a few hundred years prior," answered Floga. "Unfortunately, the resulting damage to the environment and Lady Undine threatening to cut of her support made us do a collective about face and just stopped since. Since then, we've repurposed the mines into an underground passageways for our runners."

Sarado then looks towards the side and finds a freshly-bored tunnel leading elsewhere. "Guess we know where the Demon is," she then cupped her ear into the hollow, hearing sounds of stone and dirt breaking from a distance before another tremor was felt throughout the caves. "We should hurry lest this place becomes our graves."

"I'll light the way," Meroleona then leads the other two into the tunnel, the sounds and rumbles being more intense as they get further in.

Upon exit, the three find an absolutely hulking giant of a Demon with a beetle's carapace making up its hands and back, the former pair acting as a pair of excavators. Upon sensing the three coming in, it then turns around to reveal a turtle-like humanoid with a bald head and an intense glare.

"State your business," it spoke as its arms slammed into the cave walls, causing the whole underground system to rumble.

Meroleona immediately rockets towards the Demon and unleashed a scorching punch aimed right at its face, but upon making contact, something went completely off kilter.

First, said punch didn't make the Demon so much as flinch, let alone said punch even cave into its human-like cheek ever so slightly from the impact.

Second, the Demon let out a sigh of utter disappointment as Meroleona jumped back to reassess the situation where her attack had no effect.

And finally, it spoke. "You took the first blood," spoke the Demon, its face not even remotely discolored from the blow. "Very well, I shall humor you lot for no more than five minutes before I resume my work destroying the Heart Kingdom and its surrounding environment."

"WE WON'T LET YOU!" Floga then readied his magic as he began to collect the natural mana around himself with Sarado doing the same.

The Demon in response, clapped its shelled hands together, cutting off the flow of mana flowing into the Spirit Guardians.

"What the?!" Sarado exclaimed as her Mana Method was rendered inert.

"What have you done?!" Floga cried out.

"Now there will be no outside intrusions in our coming battle," the Demon remarked dismissively as it went into a combative stance. "I am Brahma, the Mountaintop of the Six DEVAs. My prided shells are that of the Kachinus, the ancient stone beetle of prehistory!"

"Keep bragging," sneered Meroleona as her remaining good arm and flame prosthetic alit into a pair of prominence orbs. "It'll be all the sweeter once I rip out your insides!"

Agricultural Sector, Heart Kingdom, Night

The Agricultural Sector of the Heart Kingdom was once the pride of its dominion. A vast field of green and golden brown in its harvest seasons. A vast orchard bearing nature's bounties and the symbol for the Kingdom's plenty.

Now it was all in flames. Sewn throughout the ashen fields and orchards were charred bodies and flora alike, the air and the night sky being choked half to death and back with thick black smoke. Bearing witness to all this hellish scene of carnage were none other than Lolopechka, Undine, and Scheherazade.

"... No!" sobbed the young Queen.

"It's Dama all over again..." Scheherazade went on the verge of hyperventilation as the images of Dama under Caligula's swarm and their current burning forest overlaid each other.

"The shelter!" Undine remarked as she looked around in panic, trying to extinguish the endless field of flames that they found themselves in. "WE NEED TO FIND THE SURVIVORS-"

"DON'T."

"BOTHER."

Emerging from the inferno came a metallic-looking Demon with ant-like features, with its most distinguishing features of that being its two heads bearing flames resembling wild manes of hair with snarling and inhuman faces being a hybrid of an insect's, a human's and a reptilian's; and three spherical tank-like sacks/protrusions embedded onto its upper back, the ones parallel to its shoulders both spewing out roaring jets of fire that propelled the Demon from the ground while its middle tank had tubes connecting to a pair of boxy contraptions welded onto both of its arms.

As it flew towards them, the flames around them grew hotter and hotter, bordering on volcanic, causing Lolopechka's skirt to catch fire even with her [Mana Skin] active, forcing her to back away.

"WHO ARE YOU?!" the Queen yelled in both in an indescribable feeling of rage with the familiar sense of fear.

"WE ARE," spoke the one head with a baritone of a male.

"AGNI," finished the other with a contralto of a female.

"THE HELLFIRE."

"OF THE SIX DEVAS."

A dry cough was heard from a distance. Lolopechka turned to find Potrof, another one of her appointed Spirit Guardians, now badly burnt head to toe and on the verge of death.

"WE."

"MISSED ONE," finished the female Agni as they pointed their boxy-looking arm towards the downed mage before unleashing a stream of white-hot fire from its nozzle.

"UNDINE!" she called out as she ran towards Potrof to his rescue.

As she tackled him out of the way of the fire blast, the Water Spirit then fired her own torrent of water against the flames, both evenly matching in output as steam hissed out between the two clashing attacks.

Scheherazade then unleashes one of her monsters from her Fable, the [Alf-Layla-wa-Layla], a giant merman creature dubbed [Dandan], who than unleashed a blast of water rivaling Undine's own towards Agni from their blind spot.

Said blind spot was then covered with another blast of inferno from their other arm blaster, now landing on the ground to regulate all of their flames' outputs to their flamethrowers to maintain a deadlock.

"Potrof! POTROF!" panicked Lolopechka as she tried to heal her subordinate with her [Water Magic].

"... Sorry that you had to do this for me..." the Spirit Guardian apologized. "Couldn't make it in time... everyone... in the shelter... are already dead..."

The two pronged attack then cancels out the duel streams of fire as both dissipates into to explosion of steam.

"... So," Lolopechka did her best to repress her sentimental feelings to adjust for the seriousness of their current situation, "who are we dealing with?"

"... A pyromaniac torching literally everything in sight," Potrof answered, now slightly recovered from his near-death state. "... I think they called themselves a 'Burmomyrma,' some kind of a prehistoric ant."

"Whatever the case, we can't afford to let it go," said Scheherazade as she readied her [Dandan] familiar for combat as the sounds of the roaring flames came back towards them. "UNDINE! ARE YOU READY TO FIGHT?!"

The Water Spirit then unleashes a torrent of her supreme mana as she saw Agni come flying back towards them. "THAT THING WILL BE EXTINGUISHED ALONG WITH ITS FLAMES!"

"STOP US," taunted the male.

"IF YOU CAN," said the female as Agni unleashed another torrent of its demonic fire.

Mimo Amazon Borders, Heart Kingdom, Night

"Well ain't this peachy," Caligula grinned to himself, "they actually split up and tackled all six of my DEVAs at once."

From far watched the fly Demon as he chuckled in amusement at the lush jungle dominion falling into ruin by his apex creations. Even better, none of them have yet to unleash their true power right out of the gate (or at the very least, didn't call out their attacks like idiots).

"Guess chopping myself up and adding those pieces to them wasn't such a bad idea," the Demon of [Hedonism] remarked as he looked at his bandaged stump that was his left arm that is unable to regenerate due to him amputating his own arm with the regenerative cells in them, effectively leaving him with a permanent injury (a last minute inclusion just to make his DEVAs even more powerful). "Not like a little handicap of mine will matter. If they all die, good for me. If they somehow live, I'll just take em out when they're at their weakest."

"A child can see that plan coming a mile away."

Caligula then dodges out of the way from the whiplash of multiple metallic wires. But just as he thought that he was in the clear, a blast of lightning fries his back from behind, knocking him through the trees and onto the ground.

"DAMMIT! YOU TWO?!" Caligula cursed as he saw Gaja and Mosin coming after him, "thought you two were supposed to be down there! Given that you're a bunch of goody-two-shoes!"

"And that's why your plan was doomed to fail," said the Spirit Guardian. "It's not a six front invasion when the commander himself makes himself the seventh."

In rage, Caligula rips out his bandaged left arm from his elbow before growing a giant scythe-like blade from the wound. "I DON'T NEED TO BE AT A 100% TO KILL YOUR ASSES! I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK WITH ME!"

"Myson and Thaumaturges shall all be avenged..." Mosin closed her eyes before opening them with a smouldering resolve to destroy the evil standing before her and Gaja. "... Omne malum perdere... DESTROY ALL EVIL!"

Her [Glephnir]'s wires burrow themselves into the ground before pulling out a marble casket with the Order of the Spade Cross's insignia emblazoned onto its cover. The coffin's lid then opens up by itself, revealing a doll-like construct resembling a lion-man wearing a custom-fitted golden and white-colored knight's armor armed with a pair of bladed claw-fingered gauntlets and a flowing vermillion cape dancing behind its back.

"[Marionette Magic]..." declared Mosin as her Relic's wires connected to the points of her puppet's points, the latter roaring to life after the connection was established between them, "... [Saint Leo, Guardian of Grandeur]!"

The leonine construct readies itself for battle as Gaja gathered the surrounding mana towards himself to amplify his own [Lightning Magic].

"It is time to end this farce, you overgrown pest," he declared with a stoic rage as electricity crackled around his being.

Caligula howls out an echoing yell of fury as the seventh front exploded into combat.

Rotten Elysia, Neutral Territory, Night

"Ane-sama," spoke Mari as she followed her older twin sister into a rotten-smelling patch of land within the jungles.

"(Quiet)," ordered Akane as she raised her hand up behind her before sniffing the air. "(Little sister, what you smell right now? From our current surroundings)?"

Mari crinkled her nose in disgust as the two trudged deeper into the destroyed paradise. "Nothing but kegare..."

"(No)," Akane rebuffed in Hanafudan tongue. "(Smell harder. There is something other than kegare)..."

The twins wade through the rot and decay of the once-glorious forest, the surrounding mana so contaminated with foreign and alien wavelengths of mana that anyone remotely mana-sensitive would be in a state active nausea.

The Mitsurugi twins were no different. It's just that their ability to filter out disgust was greater than that of others.

"Ane-sama," spoke Mari, "(are you sure that the traitor Yami can be found here of all places)?"

"(I will leave no stone unturned, no corner given for that rat to hide)," declared Akane as she stomped through the rotten bark and root blocking their way into a massive chamber littered with unresponsive cockroach Demons and other random worker drones.

The waste no time killing them in their sleep with their blades, [Murasame]'s poison melting through their carapace and their inner workings with Mari's [Shien]'s blue flames leaving no bodies behind post-cremation.

Upon clearing the room, the twins then enter deeper into the tree's rank hollows, and at the end, they find something reminiscent of a bark and root formation resembling a pregnant woman, but in reality, the amount of mana that this thing was radiating was enough of an indication that it was alive, albeit barely.

"(So this is what you were sensing through the kegare)?" Mari remarked as she stared at the tree-woman in quiet awe.

"(It's not just that)," Akane pointed out as she looked down on the ground that they treaded upon, "(concentrate a little harder, and it feels like we're standing on a volcano that is about to erupt)."

Mari does what her sister had suggested, and every sensory responses amplified by her ki suddenly felt as if she was standing over the enshrined tomb of Hanafuda's Purgatorial God of Fire, Hi-no Kagu-tsuchi buried at Entei-Yama, a veritable pseudo-supervolcano located about a couple dozen nautical miles from their home province's coast, which held the dubious infamy of its sole recorded eruption altering the weather patterns so badly that it snowed throughout Hanafuda for a whole year, resulting in its worst famine within 500 years.

The further she felt her ki be connected to her surrounding mana, the kegare that had polluted the environment no longer mattered as every last of her nerves felt as if they were on fire. But just before Mari can suffer an ego death from the overwhelming mana overtaking her very being, Akane slaps Mari across her face, snapping her out of her delirium and pulling her back into reality.

"(You always had a problem being overly empathic to your environment)," Akane sighed. "(Mother was correct when she said your spiritual gifts being both a blessing and a curse)."

"... (Sorry)," she sheepishly apologized. "(But that feeling... I feel as if I know it from somewhere)."

"(A Dragon)?" the older twin pointed out. Mari nods in confirmation. "(That's one mystery down)-"

The two then hear a faint heartbeat coming specifically from the tree woman's baby bump.

"... Ane-sama..." Mari whispered in dread at this sudden intrusive sensation.

Akane felt it too, even if her spiritual sensitivity was dull as a rock compared to her younger twin's, even she knew that something was inside that woman.

Something was gestating in there. Something was being actualized as a future living being.

Something beyond all understanding was about to be conceptualized; a fusion of infernal and divine energies concentrating into the embryo.

"... (We need to leave)," Akane ordered. "(NOW)!"

The Mitsurugi twins disengaged from their detour and hastily resume their search for the traitorous Yami Clan's son.

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes: Guess who's back?! Back again?!

And this time, I've finished with college. After about 15 weeks of juggling 3-4 books a week, doing 4 papers in a span of a week and doing Shakespeare again, my five classes were the ones that pushed my brain to the limit.

And over the months-long period, I did a little self-evaluation regarding my fanfic writing and took into consideration of my current post-grad situations I now have to deal with, given that now, I can't afford to be as free as I was back in my earlier college days.

One, I'm now only doing one chapter per one fanfic per week. Here are the reasons: first, I need time to work on my publications/books I've been wanting to write that I have been storyboarding since my 3rd year in CSULB, so there's that; two, I need legroom to work on my resume given my DoR/WAIV program that I've applied during my very last semester so they can help me get a job; and finally, after following and reading IronPrime117's fics, I realized that I need a balance on quality and quantity, so while I'll be working and finishing my writings in a three day period, I need time to look over and do a quality check on my writings if I want people to read my fics.

Two, speaking of my books that I've read in my last semester alone, I'd recommend Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy for its flow and content. It's one of the few books that I genuinely have gotten invested into, enough for me to dedicate a whole term paper about Sri Lanka through the lenses of that specific story, and spoiler alert, the whole country is like Haiti and Ferdinand Marcos's Philippines combined, attributed to their resource scarcity (food, fuel and electricity) and the Rajapaska Family that once ran the country bleeding the country's already-dwindling economy dry and thankfully have been forced to leave after the 2022 protests.

Three, I've been playing Dragon Quest XI on the Switch along with Nikke: Goddess of Victory, and yes, both are also eating into my timetable. Thankfully the latter is pretty generous with its daily rewards, if a bit time-consuming.

And fourth, I'm developing a proper storyboard for my fics and books that I plan to publish as I go on, so that I can avoid a writer's block in the foreseeable future. Also, I'm starting to develop my own author's trademark around the following:

- Massive quirky miniboss squadrons with a theme tying them together.

- Crossbows and scythes as my go-to weapons of choice for certain characters.

- And other things I've yet to straighten out, but I like my mind screws and overly-convoluted schemes being integral to the overall plot.

With all that out of the way, it's good to be back and I hope you all enjoy Heart Kingdom's final war for its very survival!

References:

- This arc's name is named after the Linkin Park song of the same name.

- The phenomena "Angolmois" is based off of the prophecy of Nostradamus, where the "Great King of Terror" that is interpreted as the Mongolian Genghis/Chinggis Khan today (spelled as "Angolmois").

- Rudra is named after the apocryphal (he later got merged with Shiva during Hinduism's prominence) Hindu God of the Wind (his name means "the roarer") and his design is based off of Rudra from Record of Ragnarok and the Meganeura Dopant (based off of the extinct Meganeura genus of prehistoric dragonflies) from Fuuto P.I. with the insectoid-to-human anatomical distribution ratio being similar to Mosquito Girl from Yusuke Murata's One-Punch Man. Also, I kinda based his personality/"chivalry" off of Ringo Roadagain's mannerisms from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run (so expect him to explain his powers to his opponents).

- Indra is named after the Hindu God of Thunder and his design is based off of Indra from Record of Ragnarok and Killa the Killer Bee from Monster Musume. His genetic basis is based off that of the extinct Plumalexius genus of prehistoric wasps. His powers and personality is partially inspired by Lady Nagant/Kaina Tsutsumi from My Hero Academia, his crossbow is based that off of Schwarz's from Arknights, and his speech pattern is partially taken from HK-47's from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

- Vishnu is named after the Hindu God of Preservation (specifically, the avatar-reincarnation cycle for humans and Devas) and his design is based off of Vishnu from Record of Ragnarok and his clothes were based off of the design of Moth Undead's palate from Kamen Rider Blade. His genetic basis is that of the extinct Undulopsychopsis genus of prehistoric moths. His dust-based fighting style is based off of Morph Moth from Mega Man X2, and for his vain personality, I took some notes from Bleach's Yumichika Ayasegawa (and before you ask, what differentiates Vishnu from Kirsch is that Kirsch is a hardcore narcissist that only exists to make himself look good while Vishnu is more of a mad artist with a twisted sense of aesthetics).

- Varuna is named after the Hindu God of Water and his design is based off Varuna from Record of Ragnarok and the Anomalcaris Dopant (based off the extinct Anomalocaris genus of prehistoric shrimp or aquatic arthropod) from Kamen Rider W. His fighting style is based off Rain (Son of Argus) from his Mortal Kombat 11 iteration with some elements from the real-life Pistol Shrimp, and a personality based off Demon Slayer's Zenitsu's neurosis but evil.

- Brahma is named after the Hindu God of Earth and its design is based off Brahma from Record of Ragnarok and the Bognaarok Kaijim of the week, Danjim from Ohsama Sentai King Ohger. Its genetic basis is that of the extinct Kachinus genus of prehistoric stone beetles. Out of the six, Brahma is probably the most bland, but I did have Fairy Tail's Jura Neekis and One Piece's "Knight of the Sea" Jinbei when it comes to his terse and business-like personality.

- Agni are (yes, plural, male and female heads are each considered their own person, making Agni's pronouns as they/their) named after the twin-headed Hindu God of Fire and their designs are loosely based off Agni from Record of Ragnarok and the Burn Smash from Kamen Rider Build, with their two heads invoking Search Man from Mega Man 8. Their genetic basis is that of the extinct Burmomyrma genus of prehistoric ants. Their fighting style incorporates Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater's The Fury's "jetpack + flamethrower"-combo, with their speech pattern being based off of Power Ranger RPM's Gem and Gemma's habits of finishing each others' sentences with My Hero Academia's High-End Nomus' terse talker vocabulary.

- Scheherazade's [Dandan] is the name of a fish monster that is big enough swallow entire ships whole mentioned in the Arabian Nights's "Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman" and its appearance designed after Dragon Quest's Merman enemy.

- Mosin's finally-revealed [Marionette Magic] is based off Karakuri Circus's use of puppets/Automata as part of the series' fighting style, and [Saint Leo, Guardian of Grandeur] is based off of Therion "King" Regulus and Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo from Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG.

- Entei-Yama (Mountain of the Flame Emperor) and the following famine are composite references to the real-life Mount Tambora Eruption of 1815 and the Yōwa Famine of 1181-82.

Hypothetical Voice Actors:

- Rudra: Taiko Katono (JPN), Matt Hill (ENG)

- Indra: Hiroshi Tsuchida (JPN), Rylan Strachan (ENG)

- Vishnu: Hiroki Aiba (JPN), Scott Roberts (ENG)

- Varuna: Junya Ikeda (JPN), Scott McNeil (ENG)

- Brahma: Masaya Matsukaze (JPN), Michael Adamthwaite (ENG)

- Agni: Yamato Kinjo & Mao Ichimichi/M·A·O (JPN), Lucas Gilbertson & Chantal Strand (ENG)

*and yes, the Japanese dub actors are all Tokusatsu alma maters, and the English dub actors being all from Canada's Ocean Group*

And as usual, please leave a comment or a review, for I'd love to know what my readers think!