Apocrypha - Book 2: War

by LoneTaker

After weathering the storm of Demons, the world lulls back to a normal calm. But with every calm, a new storm brews as ghosts of the past and new threats alike all ready themselves for the second wave. If the world desires peace, then they must be ready for war.

23. Saga 23: Crawling Part Finale

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

---

"... Is it just me, or am I going crazy as everyone else presumably are?" Corrin commented.

"If it were the case, your mind would've turned us into your versions of zoomorphisms of ourselves," Ogmios answered as he looked at his hand before flexing his fingers. "Your mind has now accepted this as truth. You've seen a Totem God and its powers with your own eyes and have not gone completely insane."

The ex-Golden Dawn then turned towards Brigid, who looked rather apathetic to the chaos shown on the projection. "... Are there other... you know," she gulped in both fear and curiosity, "... other Totem Gods?"

"Yes," the artificial spirit replied, "although nowadays, if they haven't gone dormant, then they're probably dead."

"... And where do the gods go when they die?" asked Corrin. "Do they have a sort of afterlife like us?"

Brigid shrugs. "Sadly, there's no physical evidence proving that proves the deaths Totem Gods or where they go after," explained the artificial spirit. "But the reintroduction of said Totem God back into the present world opens up new possibilities for fields of research."

"That is, if one doesn't turn itself into his food," Ogmios pointed out at the scene where the bipedal wolf god was seen drinking an entire dam's worth of water that he'd turned into soup with his [Food Magic]. "... I remember reading a few reference texts about Totem Gods, and let me tell you, that 'Geri' is one of the stronger ones on the preverbal power scale."

Corrin partially sighs in relief that there aren't other (possible) Totem Gods that were strong as Geri, but now quietly dreaded her chances of running into one that is just as nasty or even nastier Totem God than Geri.

"... What do Totem Gods do, anyway?" asked Corrin.

"From what I read, Totem Gods are each race's magical patron that grants them additional power in exchange for their piety," explained Ogmios. "However, there have been rare cases where certain caste within races gained so much of their Totem God's favor that they allowed... reincarnation through their own lineage. Particularly, the Dwarves were rather prolific when it came to using their worship of their various patron Totem Gods, effectively creating a theocratic empire long ago using said powers as an overglorified bludgeon. And no, the Dwarven Totem Gods actually approved of the conquest and tributes, since it meant more power and worship, thus creating a mutually beneficial society that allowed the Dwarves and their patrons to prosper, at the expense of everyone else they trampled over."

"So what happened?" she asked, realizing that there is no Dwarven superpower present save for Dagda, who himself had no interest beyond his own mobile tavern.

Brigid lets out a sigh. "... There are three suggested theories," the spirit began to explain. "One, the law of entropy. The Dwarves' collective hot streak turned toxic and inevitably turned against each other, much like how many empires of old have collapsed after hitting their peak. Two, an external force. Logically, to beat a man with the biggest stick around, one searches for a stick that is even bigger than the one present, and more dire the oppression becomes, the more incentive there is to risk one's life to acquire it. And three, the divine intervention theory. Either other races began taking the Dwarves' ideas and started using their own Totem Gods as weapons, or said attempt resulted in a creation of an autonomous Totem God created by the collective will oppressed by said empire that resulted in a beatdown so through that the whole hegemony was reduced to a shell of its former self."

"... That all sounds more like spitballing," Corrin remarked.

"Thus the lack of evidence and why no one, not even in Libratium, even bothered picking this field of research back up," pointed out Brigid, "... until now that is."

Corrin lets out another sigh before spotting the scene where two Spirit Guardians had died in the most cruel way possible. She wanted to say something, but whatever she would say would ultimately ring hollow in the ears of those that were with her.

"... You know that you can say it, right?" Ogmios commented. "Better out then in."

"Does it really matter when no one cares anymore?" Corrin grimaced. "What's the point of being sentimental when it won't accomplish anything but make me look like a fucking whiner?"

Brigid raises an eyebrow at her statement. "You know, part of my creation was to observe human behavior," the spirit pointed out, "throughout my centuries of human behavior, I've witnessed various pieces of evidence of what being 'human' is. So far, there is no conclusion. Humanity, and to an extent, Elves, Dwarves, Jotuns, Demons and a few outliers, are never built to a consistent standard. Morality is something that is home-grown for each individual and norms only formed when groups of people tend to agree on the same thing that eventually becomes the "standard," yet not all of its adherents are truly faithful. Definitions of what is 'good' and 'evil' vary when their psychologies vary as the colors of the world. Evil is merely a perception, good is a belief to follow, and in the end, everyone is nowhere near reaching the proverbial truth, which, still exists, but no one alive is ever been enlightened enough to reach it."

"Not even Sephira, who is basically the closest thing that humanity has to their own Totem God, has ever reached this 'truth'," Ogmios pointed out as he witnessed the scene where Caligula has morphed into a cross of that of a giant insect and a small Dragon-like creature. "For now, it hangs over all of our heads like the sun and the moon, and all we can do is merely watch and dream that one day, we may be able to stand atop said sun and moon."

Corrin then looks towards the scene where a verdant thunderbolt struck one other Spirit Guardian from the moon itself. "... So does that mean that the Demons are closer to this 'truth' then any of are?"

"Eh, who says the truth has to coddle the mind?" Brigid remarked. "For all I know, the greatest and purest truth of the world is the one that drives your mind beyond the breaking point in a nanosecond. And Demons as a whole, in that context, are a whole race of dysfunctional messes."

---

Saga 23: Crawling Part Finale

---

Mimo Amazon Borders, Heart Kingdom, Midnight

---

Caligula!Shiva lunges itself towards Mosin and Gaja.

As the two dodged out of the way, the Demon then pulls out its claws from the ground before lunging at them again, growing ever faster with each attack missed. Gaja retaliates with his own [Lightning Magic], but as the volt struck, the charge dissipated before the mutated Prince of [Hedonism] attacked back.

Mosin uses her [Glephnir] to pull the Spirit Guardian back before Caligula!Shiva could crush him under his claw swipe. The High Inquisitor then sends [Saint Gemini] to attack the Demon.

The jester-like puppet then first dislodges his left forearm to reveal a glowing sword blade underneath it, which it then uses to take a swing at the Demon, only for the latter to catch it between his teeth before then growing a crocodilian head from its chest, which it then tries to take a bite out of the marionette, only for the open mouth to be fried by Gaja's swift thunderbolt spell that he casted without uttering an incantation.

Caligula!Shiva then hisses at the Spirit Guardian before its hump swelled before it unleashed a cloud of swarming insects from its vents.

"I thought all of the lesser drones were rendered inert after [Alf-Layla-Wa-Layla]!" Gaja pointed out as he used his [Lightning Magic] to fry the small pebble-sized insects swarming around the two of them.

"Clearly, that doesn't apply to freshly-gestated ones," growled Mosin as she maneuvered her [Saint Gemini] to dislodge it other arm to unleash a flamethrower weapon from the nozzle. "Of course that bastard's [Mutation Magic] allows him to break its own sexual biomorphic structure at a whim..."

Breaking through the cloud of lesser drone Thanatophages, a crocodile's head attached to the end of a thick and veiny tendril lunges towards the two, only for Mosin to control [Saint Gemini] to intercept the head by the way of its right ankle sprouting out a curved blade akin to that of a sickle's, severing the head from its tendril with a crescent moon kick before boring the downed head with its left foot transforming into a spinning drill.

"Have to thank High Inquisitor Saiga for these augmentations," sighed Mosin as she retracted [Saint Gemini] to have it resume unleashing its flame weapon upon the swarm.

"For now, we have to find a way to break out of the the cloud!" Gaja pointed out as he kept up his [Lightning Magic], saving his stronger spells when Caligula!Shiva shows itself within his range. "Even I'm not sure what it will do next-!"

A shrill shriek was then heard through the buzz from above, the cloud of insects breaking through to reveal the mutated Demon descending towards them.

"Now!" Gaja then unleashed one of his stronger spells to confront Caligula!Shiva. "[Lightning Magic: Tenjiolia]!"

A bolt of lightning then arced towards the speeding Demon, to which the latter's third eye then predicted all of its possible trajectories before dodging the spell with ease.

However, the missed thunderbolt then loops back around and towards the Demon's back, homing towards it as if it were a predator chasing its prey across the sky.

Looking back, the feral Demon was showing a resemblance of surprise as it found the spell still chasing after it. Again, it uses its third eye to discern the spell's composition before snatching the thunderbolt out of the sky and throwing it back towards Gaja.

"Fool," Gaja then simply absorbs his redirected spell back into his hand for a full mana refund. "Your powers provided by your third eye is strong, but it has glaring flaws."

The swarm around them closes in, responding to the remnants of Caligula!Shiva's coherence, particularly his former self's anger to dispose of the two that were causing its agitation.

"It didn't listen," Gaja remarked as he saw the Demon gain distance between it and the two of them. "Lady Mosin?"

She nods as [Saint Gemini] clicked down the middle. "Da."

The jester-like puppet then splits into two separate entities, with the one on the right being a red costumed jester with a half-mask depicting a face of laughter, while the other was dressed in blue with a half-mask depicting a face of sorrow.

"Charge me up!" requested Mosin as Gaja then ran his electricity through the puppets' wires, granting them a boost in power as the two marionettes got into formation, with the blue one holding atop the red one as the former began to spin around in an axel while the red one above held both Mosin and Gaja over its head with one hand while its arm blade grew alongside with the coinciding centrifugal force building up.

The electrified blade began cutting through the insects closing in as the bottom one in blue then shot its arm cannons from below, creating a deadly thunder-tornado that acted akin to the world's most efficient bug zapper.

"[Lightning + Marionette Compound Magic]!" declared the two mages as the swarm dissipated from the storm's fury. "[Castor & Pollux-Formation Tragoedia]!"

Once the swarm clears, Caligula!Shiva was then lunged towards the two of them in the middle of their formation, its claws lunging towards them.

Gaja then shoots a bolt of lightning at the Demon, only of the latter to dodge it. But as the Demon was dodging it, Castor struck it from behind before following it up with Pollux aiming its blasters at the mutant. But the Demon then used its third eye to destroy the blue puppet's arm cannons, Gaja then zaps the Demon with his [Lightning Magic] from below, stunning long enough to allow Mosin to direct Castor and Pollux to move themselves between the Demon before joining back together into their singular form, trapping the Caligula!Shiva in an improvised clamp of [Saint Gemini]'s making.

"Your third eye can only pick up one attack to evade and another to destroy," stated the Spirit Guardian. "It is that lag time before the reiteration of your ability that makes you sloppy."

"No mercy," growled Mosin as she white-knuckled her [Glephnir]'s wires to keep the Demon bound in one place. "Avenge everyone."

Gaja nods as he then gathers as much natural mana into himself as quickly as he could, not wanting to give the Demon the slightest opening of escaping.

A giant magic array was formed above the trapped Demon's head as it tried to struggle itself free, the creaks of the puppet being held together with nothing but Mosin's own willpower behind her Relic.

"Judgement," declared Gaja as a titanic bolt of lightning descended from the heavens and struck the Demon. "[True Lightning Magic: Irial Astrauza]."

The flash of lightning blinds everyone witnessing its brilliance up close, its light engulfing the world with its refulgence signaling the Demon's demise.

Once the light dies down, all that was laid beneath the crater left by the lightning bolt was none other than Caligula's scorched body lying motionless.

"... That had to have finished it," Gaja heaved, slightly fatigued from casting one of his stronger spells in his repertoire.

Mosin dismisses the badly damaged [Saint Gemini] back into its casket. "I been in this business for a good majority of my life," she remarked. "First rule when it comes to dealing with hellspawn: assume nothing."

The two of then hear a crack coming from the supposed corpse.

"... I do not envy your profession in the slightest," Gaja sighed in frustration as the cracks began leaking out vermillion-red lights from within.

"We're on the same boat now," Mosin deadpanned as she readied her third puppet for deployment. "Too late for any sins of envy to be committed."

"I'm with you until the very end," Gaja nodded, "for the sake her highness and her people!"

The corpse erupts open, revealing itself to be a more humanoid-looking Demon with looking akin to a fusion of a handsome-looking young male in his mid-twenties and a mayfly's attributes, the pair of luminescent wings and a golden tail looking like a cross between an insect's thorax and a Dragon's tail. Unlike the petulant Caligula and the savage Shiva, this new being was almost etherial for how beautiful it was, but neither of the two mages were fooled by its angelic appearance.

"... You still stink of anathema, Demon," Mosin spat out as she then dug her wires into the earth to pull out another puppet. "My son was better off dead then you pretending what he could've been."

Gaja braced himself into a receding stance, now aware of the fact that neither he or Mosin know what this new being was capable of.

"What is the matter?" spoke the angelic Demon. "Attack me if you must."

Both Gaja and Mosin silently agreed that the Demon was baiting them.

The etherial Demon then hrmphs in deference to their lack of initiative. "If you insist."

The third eye on its forehead then opens as Gaja then felt the mana around them grow volatile as if it were about to blow up like a cluster of active bombs.

"GET AWAY!" the Spirit Guardian then tackles Mosin out of the Demon's view as the air itself exploded into a sudden conflagration that screeched towards the night sky.

The Demon hrmphs again as its third eye closed. "You know, funny thing," it spoke with complete calm, "when I first ate that Dragon's fang, I thought that I would be able to turn things around, but all it cost me was my mind with little benefit. In the dredges of my lost mind, it then hit me like a meteor from the heavens."

"Oh great," grumbled Mosin as Gaja carried her over his shoulder, "don't tell me that it has somehow achieved enlightenment after dying."

"No matter how hard I try, as long I remain bound in the body started with, I will stay weak," spoke the Demon as then then opened its third eye again, triggering another explosion that covers a large segment of the jungle before him. "Ergo, I must first die, both in mind and body, in order to be reborn. The Caligula you knew prior is now no more. Shiva was the one that had killed my prior weak mind. Evolved, I am now Pavrati, the only Demon in all of existence who has fully tamed the process of life, death, and rebirth through my greatest achievement, [True Primal Mutation Magic: Tandava Natyam]."

A colossal presence tremors within the Demon's heart, the reverberation being felt across the battlefield, causing both Mosin and Gaja's legs to buckle under the sudden pressure.

"... Postulate all wish," Gaja growled as he slowly stood back upright. "You think you're strong because you have learned from your mistakes? Us humans have been living that where your kind has just learned how to do it."

"Go ahead. Keep stacking up all the odds against us," Mosin continued to stand up as she then excavates another marble casket from the earth with her [Glephnir]. "We're no strangers to uphill battles. It is this struggle that makes us strong!"

"Only if you survive," declared Parvati as his fluttering wings began to emit golden dust before lunging towards the two.

---

Ruined Residential Sector, Heart Kingdom, Midnight

---

Geri lunged towards the group with its maw open, snapping a majority of Rades' undead army into its teeth.

"THESE PICKLES HAVE BEEN FERMENTED FOR TOO LONG!" the wolf god spat out the chewed-up carcasses into a fleshy and noxious-smelling glob. "IT'S FUCKING RAW! ZERO STARS!"

It then focuses specifically towards Rades, making a beeline towards the necromancer while trampling over everything between him and his new target.

Everyone in the middle were forced to leap out of the way, during which both Tesla and Angra attacked the Black Bulls amidst the chaos.

"So my dear Angra," spoke Tesla, "what's say to you? Shall finally get rid of this past before us?"

"If it means finally being unburdened, then yeah," growled Angra as her [Hellfire Magic] flared slightly from her body.

Magna himself was in a state of emotional confusion as he saw both Luck and his own sister as his enemy. "... Unburdened?" he parroted. "... What do you mean?! WAS OUR FAMILY JUST A BURDEN TO YOU?!"

Angra blitzes towards the delinquent [Fire Magic] user with a rocket-thrusted punch digging into the latter's stomach before the impact sent him flying through a tree.

"Never implied anything, Magna," Angra spoke coldly as she flexed her fingers. "It could've been different, but circumstances has changed."

Magna then coughs out a significant amount of blood as he got up, the broken ribs and shoulders stabbing into his muscles during the process.

"You may be asking: how did I end up with a Devil?" asked the older sister as she approached her younger brother. "Short answer, since you were a baby."

She then picks up Magna by his neck and off of the ground.

"And no, the reason why I didn't disclose it to the rest of the family were the following reasons," she explained as Angra then pinned Magna against another tree. "First, no one asked, so I had no reason to reveal itself. And second, if I had just blurted it out, tell me, was there anything stopping the Magic Knights, or heavens forbid, regular people within the same village, from lynching me and the whole family?"

Magna had no answer, both due to the fact that his neck was being slowly choked out and that he literally couldn't come up with a proper response.

"I was fucked from the moment bandits attacked our village," she pointed out as her other hand then lit up a bright blue flame. "I was more than content staying in the closet, for over fifteen years, until I took my chances elsewhere and found myself on the winning side," Angra spoke as she then edged the flaming hand towards Magna's face, the heat of the her [Hellfire Magic] alone causing the Magic Knight's skin to char and his broken sunglasses to melt. "The age of mediocrity is over. It's the dawn of a new age: the age of power is nigh, and I don't have any plans to spend my life at the bottom of the food chain-"

From behind, she was then shot by a beam of light, which she immediately then retaliated with a wave of blue fire spread out from behind her rear.

Noticing that Angra was distracted, Magna then proceeds to break the thumb around her grip, which then caused her to let him go right as he then kicked her face in before making his hasty retreat.

Angra spits and snorts out a wad of blood from each orifice before she then snapped her broken thumb back into place. "Clever bastard," she sneered before she then scaled up a tree to get a better view of her surroundings.

From high above, her eyes then spotted three faint heat signatures meeting up towards another two. "There you are," she remarked before her feet then spewed out a pair of jet flames that propelled her towards where the five were gathering at.

At the other side, the Black Bulls regrouped from the chaos.

"Shit, Magna!" Vanessa cried out as she spotted Finral and Gauche carrying him back towards her.

"I'm fine... really," groaned Magna as he coughed out more blood, "... just need to... walk it... off..."

Guache then turns his head towards where Angra was shooting herself onto their location. "Finral! With me!"

"No choice but to try!" he then conjures an open portal before himself not through his own hands but that of Gauche's mirrors, in hopes of bypassing [Dominator Dome]'s anti-[Spatial Magic] properties via a hastily-conjured idea of using Gauche's own magic as a go-between loophole of the area of effect spell.

The end result was then the two of them summoning an array of [Mirror Magic] containing [Spatial Magic] portals within around themselves right before the flaming comet of death can blast all of them to kingdom come.

Inadvertently, the sister then enters into one of the mirror-portals and ending up back to where Geri was in his rampage, her kick striking the wolf god before its teeth could snap up Rades whole from behind.

"What the shit?!" Angra cried out as she looked around where she had landed. "I thought [Dominator Dome] was still in effect!"

Behind her, she saw Valtos clinging onto the beast's fur located at the back nape. "Apologizes," he spoke. "But it appears I have lost focus during the chaos."

Geri snorts upon seeing who'd landed onto his body. "How rude," he snarled before redirecting his attention towards Angra and Valtos after successfully tossing the two of them off of his back. "Consider yourselves as voluntary tributes!"

"RADES! NOW!" she cried out as she used her [Hellfire Magic] to boost herself and Valtos away from the wolf god's wrath. "GET [EL GIGANTE] OUT!"

"IT'S NOT EVEN COMPLETE YET!" the necromancer snapped back before he ducked under the blows that Jack the Ripper and Morris/Mammon were clashing. "AS OF RIGHT NOW, IT'S ONLY 80% FUNCTIONAL!"

"THEN SEND IT OUT AS IS!" she cried out before dodging another snap from the beast's maw.

But just as Rades was about to make that choice, he saw Meroleona and Tesla going at it against each other right as the two's bright ball of violence coming towards his direction.

"CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP!" in desperation, Rades the complies with the request as he dug into the deepest recesses of his [Soul Corpse Magic] and summons his titanic [El Gigante] to act as a buffer between him and the probable cause of his death.

The giant of stone, mortar, vines and rotten flesh absorbs the impact before tossing the the ball of violence consisting of Meroleona and Tesla towards Geri's face, sending the Totem God sliding across the dirt. Spotting an opening, both Valtos and Angra get away from Geri before the latter snapped out of his funk.

"WHO DARES?!" snarled the beast before looking down at both Meroleona and Tesla. "Have you mortals forgotten the most basic of table manners?!"

Knowing that the beast cannot be reasoned with on the account for its insatiable appetite and the fact that the God's [Food Magic] will turn her attacks (and possibly, herself) into foodstuff, Meroleona chooses not to engage lest she wants to waste any energy and chooses to reposition as she then let [El Gigante] and Geri fight it out.

Tesla does the same, now reuniting with Angra and Valtos elsewhere on the ruins. "You know, something tells me that the sheer amount of chaos from our involvement is naught for our benefit," he pointed out. "Magic Knights, Gods, and possible Demons and Devils that might not be on our side..." the ghost looked around his surroundings for such possibility to happen, "... you know, this is like looting an active battlefield during wartime. No plans, no guarantee of safety... so why are we staying?"

"Aside from them knowing our presence and willingness to chase us down to the ends of the earth just to kill us?" Valtos remarked before he ducked under a flying piece of rubble chipped off from [El Gigante]. "None of us have an incentive to let the other go, especially that so-called god before our eyes!"

"Whatever the case, we need an actual plan," spoke Angra. "We'll need to first separate them and keep all of them occupied at the same time. The Black Bulls are usually stronger together if my hunch is correct, but alone, their combat options are more limited."

"I handle that dour [Mirror Magic] user and the captain," Tesla raised his hand. "Those two seem like the strongest of the lot. I'm the only one who can match their pace should they end up tapping into their second wind. Angra can take the younger brother and the witch for personal stakes. Valtos can go after the other [Spatial Magic] user given that he's both the weak link and the slipperiest of all."

"Reasonable," he agreed. "But that just leaves the wolf. Because even we succeed with our plan, his mere presence is still an active threat!"

"Ooh! That sounds like my job!" spoke Sally as she jumped into the group.

"Where the hell were you?!" Angra hissed.

"Oh, just hung back, took a few notes on everything," she then shoved heavily-penned notepad into Angra's chest. "Leave the so-called god to me. I figured out how to deal with it."

"Uh, Sally?" Tesla remarked. "I don't doubt your strength, but I doubt that you can stand up to a being that defies all earthly logic."

The crackpot scientist belts a small giggle before heading out. "Oh silly Tesla, there's no such thing as defying all earthly logic..." Sally confidently strode out towards the chaos, "... when I already have decoded the so-called god's 'logic!"

She then unleashes a tide of her [Gel Magic] between [El Gigante] and Geri, interrupting their fight as Sally came in.

"SALLY! WHAT THE SHIT?!" Rades cried out from atop his [El Gigante].

"So, mister god," Sally began speaking to Geri, showing no fear to the beast gone mad from hunger. "I see that you're what people call 'hangry.' And before you ask, I see you not as a being that I should direct my animosity towards, but as a being to please."

"Get to the point," growled the beast. "My patience has been tested beyond their limit."

Sally then looks back towards Rades. "Sorry man, but I'm gonna need to borrow your [El Gigante] for a second."

She first then envelops the giant undead weapon with her [Gel Magic] before turning her magic into a slime replicant of Rades' [El Gigante], separating itself from the original as while taking a couple pieces with it. Then, Sally then deliberately moves the slime copy towards Geri's presence, transforming her spell into a block of jellied spiced meat and seasoned vegetables, the coloration of her [Gel Magic] turning from lavender to light brown.

"And just for a little additional kick..." Sally then throws a syringe of her [Dark Magical Formula Type Gamma] to add acidic properties into her spell, giving the slime a slight green coloration. "And eureka! One El Gigante Aspic served with a Sour-Spicy Sauce!"

Geri sneers at the scientist's attempt to please him. "Finally," he slobbered at the sight of the dish. "Finally, some good fucking food!"

The Dwarven Totem God then greedily devours the gelatin meat and greens, messily chewing and slurping at the cubes containing both the savoriness of roast beef in the consistency of flan pudding, all delivered through deep spice that punched the beast's taste buds in all the right places while cleansing it with a sharp sour tang that came after within the jellied broth.

The parade of sensations pleased the God, his once-feral disposition now transformed into that of pure bliss. Upon finishing his dish, Geri then turns towards Sally before speaking. "You alone, shall be spared, for that wonderful hors d'euvre. A good showcase of quality after the [Infinite Soup]'s quality. Tell me, what is your name?"

"Call me Sally," she answered, "and no, I'm freelance and already employed by a terrorist organization."

"Then everyone else shall be fair game!" the God then resumed its rampage now directed towards Jack and Morris/Mammon.

"Keh, so she plays suck-up while we're all stuck dealing with this overly-demanding hairball?!" Jack remarked as he dodged the god's bite and swipe.

"It's one of those beings," grumbled Morris as his Devil partner continued evading Geri's rampage. "You know, one of those overly-contrived beings of power that you only find in fairy tales that can only be beaten by not fighting it."

"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BEAT IT WITHOUT FIGHTING IT?! THAT MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!" Jack pointed out as he then parried the bestial god's claw strike before being whipped away by its reverse roundhouse kick that sent them crashing through a tree.

"You know that fighting a god is tantamount to suicide," boasted Geri as he leered at the downed Jack. "Although come to think of it, looking at you, you're a tad too thin. Almost as if you haven't been eating enough."

Jack slowly gets up by grabbing onto the downed trunk as support before spitting out another glob of blood to the side. "... At least I don't gorge like a fucking noble pig."

"They eat to boast their wealth. I eat because I am," Geri pointed out. "But your issue can be solved when I take my time fattening you up like a delectable fois gras."

"Try me," snarled the Green Mantis Captain as he grew out his new pair of [Death Scythes] from his forearms. "I'm a picky eater and a hellion around the table!"

Morris and Mammon contemplate at the wolf god's statement of fattening Jack up as the latter two resumed their clash. "... You know, I can use my magic to remotely turn that bony man into a obese pus of a human being."

"From where would it come from?" Morris asked. "I mean, your [Result Magic] just can't make it happen spontaneously given that it runs on the principle of soft-equivalent exchange. And I doubt that the amount of fat in that gangly Captain's body will be enough to give him a small beer belly at best."

The two sociopaths then come to an agreement. "Fight now, think later?"

"Try not to get eaten alive in the meantime."

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Rades was patching up his damaged [El Gigante] with his lesser zombies literally filling in the gaps left behind by Sally's [Gel Magic]. "Tch, so that giant mutt god can only be appeased?" he grumbled at the fact that he might not be able to turn that so-called god into one of his stronger undead minions at the rate he's heading. "Piece of shit... at least today can't get any worse-"

The necromancer then suddenly found himself punched across his face before flipping across the rubble-crusted earth like a stone skipping across a stream before roughly landing into a building.

"What's up, motherfuker?" growled Meroleona. "Normally, I don't pick on weaklings, but given that your toys brought hell upon Clover Kingdom, I have a legal obligation to kill your ass! PREPARE FOR YOUR LONG-OVERDUE BEATING! I'LL DENY YOU OF A QUICK DEATH!"

Rades then spits out blood-drenched molars as he then summoned more zombies to back up [El Gigante], sparing no expense at dealing with this lioness in human clothing. "Heard it, don't care, KILL THAT BITCH!"

The endless wave of zombies along with [El Gigante] to overwhelm Meroleona, the latter which simply breaks through the tide rotten corpses with her [Fire Magic] boosted by Floga's array printed onto her back before engaging [El Gigante] head-on.

From within the surrounding jungles, the Black Bulls try to recover whatever bearings they had left prior to their ambush by the Illuminati.

"Okay, so here the recap," Finral spoke as Magna was being treated while Gauche served as lookout for any oncoming enemies, "we all survived an encounter with a Demon using [Primal Lightning Magic], we lost Henry in the process, Captain Yami is still alive but out of it as we speak, Luck's body has been taken over by someone else, Magna's older sister shows up and reveals herself to not only be part of the bad guys, but also has a Devil slumming inside of her without our knowledge, and Charmy's still on a rampage, or at least the wolf claiming to be some sort of god that acts more like an overly-demanding customer at an eatery. Am I missing anything else?!"

"No, I think you got it everything..." sighed Vanessa as she finished patching up Magna's broken ribs back together with her [Thread Magic]. "You know, never used my own magic for surgical purposes this much until now. I think I'm getting better at this whole 'treating others' wounds' thing, but if I can live another day without having to see a person's insides, I'd die happy."

"Don't jinx it," Gauche warned as he kept his eyes pried for oncoming enemy presences and using his [Mirror Magic] to cover more ground. "We literally can't afford to lose anyone right now!"

Suddenly, a spatial disturbance was then felt from above, which then forcibly separated the Black Bulls from each other as each of them were quickly sucked into different portals that each led to different segments of the wilderness.

"Crap, got sloppy..." grunted Finral as he then saw aa serrated disk of black [Spatial Magic] being shot towards him, only for him to dodge out of the way at the last minute.

"No, given your reaction time..." spoke a terse toned voice before revealing itself as Valtos, the Illuminati's own [Spatial Magic] user, "... I'd say you're doing just fine."

Finral then takes out his blackjack club while readying his own [Spatial Magic] when ready, only for the latter to be immediately shut down upon the activation of Valtos' [Dominator Dome] encasing the two of them inside.

"Finral Roulacase, member of the Black Bulls, and estranged eldest scion of the Vaude family," recited the enemy [Spatial Magic] user as he slowly descended towards the aforementioned. "As a combatant, your skills are rudimentary at best. But the fact remains that you have proven yourself vital to the Black Bulls' continued survival with your utility alone is the reason why I will treat you as a legitimate threat."

"What? You a fan?" Finral rhetorically asked, emulating Captain Yami to boost some of his bravado for the upcoming fight.

"No, I just had the displeasure of meeting your father and stepmother long before I joined the Eye of the Midnight Sun," he shuddered at the thought of remembering them. "Honestly, I'm surprised that you're related to your father given how well-adjusted you turned out. Sociopathy seems hereditary as their penchant for inbreeding with their siblings and cousins."

Finral mentally vomits at such thought before actually doing what he was thinking. Valtos stays his hand and lets the Black Bull sort his own internal conflict out.

"... Are you done?" asked Valtos.

Finral spits out the excess bile to the side. "... Yeah," he nodded. "Ready to kick your ass to hell and back."

Valtos smirks as he then conjures more [Spatial Shredder] spells around himself. "Then farewell."

At another part of the jungle, Gauche finds himself landing feet-first onto the ground before catching Captain Yami from the air and into a bridal carry, causing his knees to bend ever further down.

"Oh my poor knees..." the [Mirror Magic] user winced before he gently set down his unconscious captain onto the ground before regaining his bearings.

He then began surveying his dimly-lit surroundings for the enemy to come. "... I swear to god, if this becomes another repeat of the Indra fight, I'm gonna fucking lose it-"

Instinctively, Gauche hits the deck as a flash of hot thunder singed across the back of his Magic Knight robes. The thunderbolt then lands before where he lay, revealing Tesla, smirking while wearing Luck's body as its own.

"It appears that you have something to say," the ghost spoke as noticed Gauche glowering at him. "Then again, so do I-"

Gauche wastes no time shooting his [Reflect Refrain] at the pretender, the latter dodging out of the way with his superior speed. "Shut up," he growled as he summoned more mirrors that all aimed their reflections towards Tesla in Luck's body. "I didn't come here to talk."

Tesla huffs haughtily before voltage crackled around Luck's body. "Prudence. A rare virtue back in my day."

At another clearing, both Magna and Vanessa roughly landed onto each other upon falling out of the portal.

"... Shit for brains..." the delinquent Magic Knight growled as he struggled to get up, "... just what would it take... for the enemy... to stop tossing us... like dice?"

"Rhetorical question?' sighed Vanessa as she helped Magna up.

"Yeah yeah, somethin' like that..." he grumbled until a sudden entrance of a familiar sensation intruded his mind, snapping him out of his stupor quick enough to tackle both himself and the witch below the blue conflagration shot towards them.

"Tch, guess that little hick from the boonies could grow a brain," Angra then emerged from the charred foliage as her lower ribs then hissed out jets of steam. "Not enough of a brain for you to know that it would've been easier to die quickly rather than draw this out any longer."

"... I ain't dyin'..." Magna growled in defiance as he stamped his feet deep into the dirt to make his stand, "... UNTIL I GET SOME REAL FUCKING ANSWERS FROM YOU!"

A shadowy apparition then emerged with a menacing laughter from behind Angra before it then glowered at the two Black Bulls. "Hey kid brother and his lady friend/co-worker!" the Devil greeted. "Name's Mainyu, and I was the one who's been taking good care of her for about a good decade and a half."

"Why did you take her over?!" asked Vanessa as she and Magna readied their magics.

"Because I would've died otherwise, you fucking cow," snarled Angra. "Is it so hard to not wanting die before you reach puberty during a brutal bandit raid? It was a good idea at the time to keep it hush-hush, because I knew from the moment I consigned myself to the dark side, I couldn't trust anyone. Not my family, not the villagers, and certainly, not the fucking authorities! How many times do I have to repeat myself?!"

"... You could've told me regardless," Magna growled. "THERE HAVE HAD TO BEEN A BETTER WAY!"

"Oh sure, hang together on the same damn noose like the best of tight-knit siblings!" she sarcastically remarked before letting out a sigh of frustration. "... Look little bro, from the moment I chose myself over nothing, I was fucked. Etched out a living a faraway town under the pretense of making money on my own just to deal with the hell of my own making. Been like that for the next good decade or so, but then everything changed."

"What changed?" asked Vanessa.

"The night when giant-ass swords rained from the skies, of course!" she pointed out, referencing the "Rain of Steel" incident. "Suddenly, having the power to warp reality? Having the power to control destiny itself? Bro, I finally got my big break. My own hell doesn't have to remain hell when I turn it into a paradise for my own benefit! Rather than spend rest of my life being hunted down like a dog for going in too early or die of old age alone after coming in too late... this is my moment. The moment where I finally reach towards the pinnacle!"

The older sister and her Devil then ready themselves for their confrontation against the former's younger brother and compatriot.

"Time to kill the past, dear Angra..." cackled the Devil as his host's [Hellfire Magic] then flared out and around her modified body. "It's showtime!"

---

Skies Above Heart Kingdom, Midnight

---

As Lolopechka, Scheherazade, and Undine all ran for their lives atop of the Bahamut's back, they inadvertently left behind a trail of scorched nature as they were chased down by what can only be described as a thunderstorm coming to life and declaring utter hatred upon certain people and those that were close to her.

"BAHAMUT! FASTER!" plead the Queen of Dama as her whale familiar began to fly faster, flapping its wings and fins ever harder as heaven's wrath closed in towards them from their heels.

Both Undine and Lolopechka wanted to do something, but the former is now half of her original strength (and body mass) while Lolopechka knew that Ziz's lightning and storms were specifically specced to kill both her and her spirit in every possible way.

Summon her [Knights of Nereid] for a numerical advantage? All of them would swept away like bits of trash with the Demon's storms. Try to form a defensive barrier like [Oceanic Citadel, Atlantis] to block the incoming spells from above? The lightning would disperse throughout her water and snake around to her opening and kill both her and Undine instantly. Fight back? How was it even possible to fight back someone that has perched atop of the moon?

All they can do literally sit back and provide mana for Scheherazade to fuel her [Bahamut]'s stamina so that they don't have to escape on foot.

"HOLD ON!" the queen screamed out as then grabbed onto her familiar's furred mane. "TURBULENCE!"

On cue, a sudden blustering gust of wind blew from above, the small fires caused by the Demon's lightning to start up another wildfire below them.

"Not again..." whimpered Lolopechka as she began to smell smoke coming from below. "... Is this what people refer to as 'out of the frying pan, into the fire'?"

"It's not your fault, Lolo," Undine reassured her host. "The Demons only thrive in chaos that they make for each other. Fight back after we regain all of our bearings."

"But our people!" she pointed out.

"Don't worry," the spirit reassured, "they still have yet to perish. As long as both you and they live, we can rebuild."

From the skies above, a wicked cackle thundered. Don't count on it, Princess.

All three look up to see the clouds now bearing a vague resemblance to a raptor bird's face, its beak curled up into a malicious smile.

"Ziz!" Undine cried out upon seeing the skies bearing her archnemesis' face.

Hey undie, the Demon's visage replied in a mocking manner, looking a little tiny all of the sudden. Lost some weight?

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" Lolopechka cried out as her [Curse of Tyranny] glowed through her robes.

Rhetorical question of the day, your highness, mocked the Demon as more verdant thunder and lightning rained from the heavens. I'm a Demon. I kill. I defile. I bring suffering because I simply can. It's who I am.

Scheherazade then notices a slight inconsistency in the Demon's voice. "... Your tone indicates that there's another ulterior motive fueling your actions," she pointed out while piloting [Bahamut] away from the rain of hell closing in on them. "Truly vile beings revel in their actions with all of their heart. But this... in combination with your sporadic power scaling from being nulled by another Demon to suddenly causing forest fires... your heart's not in this, aren't you?"

To everyone's surprise, the bird head from the clouds lets out a deep sigh. It's true, he confessed. Truth of the matter is... a bit more complicated then just me being born evil. Don't get me wrong, I like what I'm doing, and I relish every time I kill someone with my powers for the past 500 years. But the truth is? Would you believe me if I said that I'm being compelled by an outside force rather than doing this all out of my own will?

"What are you talking about?!" Undine pointed out. "What difference does it make?!"

My creator... trailed off Ziz, well if I said the name alone, you and everyone within earshot will die, myself included. A bit of a myself dies a little inside knowing that my actions are not my own, so I compensate by making your life, specifically little undie and her girlfriend, fucking miserable. But imagine having to live your life with the phrase "KILL UNDINE AND HER PATRON BLOODLINE" screaming inside of your head over and over and over... yeah, part of the reason why I ended up on the moon was to at least focus on my given objective while avoiding my creator's self-sabotaging tendencies. I mean, Leviathan's dead, Behemoth's gone completely silent, and I don't where or what happened to Goliath. At least I'm the only one who's focused on the job at hand. A paradoxical existence where I am a slave who does evil but wishes to do evil at his own terms.

"So you're trying to kill us..." Lolopechka gasped, "... just out of obligation?"

Eh, take it however you'd like, the bolts of lighting then struck down around them akin to a birdcage-like formation. BECAUSE RIGHT NOW, I'M ABOUT TO FRY UP YOU LOT FOR THE SIN OF YOU GOING OUTSIDE!

More thunderbolts rained from the skies that looked more akin and acted like barbed pillars that [Bahamut] had to weave through in its flight. Amidst the chaos, a certain line of thought pervaded Undine's mind after she'd heard what the Demon in the skies had claimed.

... Leviathan? she thought as Ziz spoke of the Sea God's name worshipped further East. Since when was he a Demon? Unless, was he a Demon all along-?!

Her internal panic was then disrupted by the booming thunder that threatened to strike them out of the air. For now, all she can do is to ensure that all of them survived past tonight with all she can do for now, mainly provide mana for Scheherazade to maintain her summon that was the only thing keeping them from going from 5,000 feet in the air to six feet under.

BUT DON'T WORRY PRINCESS, YOU'LL FINALLY BE ABLE TOUCH GRASS... the Demon's voice howled through the air as thunder and lightning surrounded their flying whale, ... FOREVER!

---

Mimo Amazon Borders, Heart Kingdom, Midnight

---

The entire jungle lit up like fireworks as Mosin and Gaja retreated from Pavrati's powers. From the wake, more gold dust scattered from the Demon's wings, replacing the natural mana with his own, which he then absorbed back into his body.

Gaja felt his skin crawl since now that the natural mana were slowly being converted solely for Pavrati's use with his golden dust, first contaminating then absorbing it back into his body to fuel his third eye that caused the rest of the mana before him to detonate.

"Mosin!" Gaja cried out as an explosion was blasted behind their heels. "That coffin of yours! When are you going to open it?!"

"I'M TRYING!" she replied as the casket's lid refused to budge. "I HAVEN'T OPENED THIS IN OVER 20 YEARS! THIS ONE I RARELY USE! FOR A GOOD REASON!"

"WHAT IS IT USED FOR THEN?!" the Spirit Guardian asked as another explosion was heard behind them.

A few clicks within the coffin were heard before the lid itself finally popped off, revealing a bulky-looking puppet that resembled a monochromatic bipedal bull whose limbs were all connected with dark metal spheres. Unlike what something that would emulate a bull would look like, this puppet was gaunt-looking and streamlined, the opposite of a bull's brutish physique that mirrored its propensity to rampage.

"No better time then now!" Mosin then sent her puppet towards Pavrati to directly engage the evolved Demon. "[Marionette Magic: Guardian of Obstinance, Saint Taurus]!"

The Demon's third eye then opens once again, engulfing the area where the puppet had been on with a chthonic blast of detonated mana particles.

"What was that supposed to accomplish?" spoke Pavrati until it then saw [Saint Taurus] emerge from the smoke completely unscathed. "... What happened? Why aren't there any scorch marks on your body?"

"For one thing, [Saint Taurus] is made from 100% Oricalcum, the hardest known mineral in all of Spade Kingdom, and twice as rare," Mosin explained to Gaja with Pavrati also hearing it. "Even Dragons have an ordeal trying to melt it, and certainly some Dragon-wannabe is going to find it really hard to even scratch it."

"Then why didn't your bring it out sooner?" Gaja asked until he noticed that veins began popping through Mosin's hands. "... I'm assuming that there is a cost?"

"That puppet's the heaviest one I have on me, it's murder on my fingers to even move it, and the last time I used it on my earlier deployments, I almost drowned, and shelved it until I can use it properly," the High Inquisitor explained as she continued to white-knuckle grip her wires connected to [Saint Taurus]. "... As you can see, even now, after 20 years, I still struggle a bit just getting it to move."

"Thank you for telling me that," Pavrati's wings then began to flutter rapidly before making a beeline towards Mosin.

However, just before it could fly past the heavy bull-horned puppet, an invisible force blocks him from flying further outwards.

Gaja then looks towards Mosin, whose fingers were now slowly turning swollen and purple from the sheer amount of physical stress they were being put under.

"One feature of [Saint Taurus] that doesn't make me want to scrap it..." she huffed while trying to hold back her exhaustion, "... is its ability, [Merope Meridian]. The mill-forged adamantium orbs that act as its joints each contain a hyper-compressed [Gravity Magic] singularity within their cores. With a little effort, I can use to erect an impenetrable barrier of pure gravity with the puppet as my medium. However, I also run the risk of having my fingers ripped off from the sheer whiplash, meaning I only can maintain it for so long."

"Meaning?" asked Gaja before he then noticed the scattered leaves freely entering into the barrier only for it to be prevented from exiting. "... I see. A cage fight to the death."

"I'm sorry if there's no other way," Mosin grimaced as the bones in her finger began to crack.

"No," Gaja then approached the [Merope Meridian] before entering the dome of gravity, upon which he then felt his body become slightly heavier as he met Pavrati head-on. "I couldn't ask for a better chance to kill this monster."

Pavrati moves first with a straight jab, which Gaja parries with his forearm and elbow before delivering a shoulder check followed up with a [Lightning Magic]-enhanced reverse-cartwheel flip kick. The Demon then opens its third eye to detonate the whole area within the dome, only for the Spirit Guardian to poke the open iris with his thumb, causing it to lose focus before partially exploding from within, with smoke coming out of its ears and mouth.

The Demon then whips its tail around to get Gaja into the air, only for the latter to instead take the blow then grabbing onto said tail before delivering a nasty shock through it, causing the Demon to temporarily lose its composure and begin scattering more gold dust from its wings, to which Gaja receded to see what it does up close. He finds a few specks dabbed onto his clothes and neck, which then begin siphoning all of his mana where it had touched his bare skin until the gold dust disappeared.

"I see," Gaja remarked as he maintained focus. "Your dust simply acts as miniature drones that forage mana from outside sources and allocate them back to you, akin to worker ants bringing food for their queen."

Pavrati then opens his third eye once again, only this time Gaja scoops up a handful of dirt before tossing it into the Demon's face, the sudden blockage causing the incoming explosion to dampen enough to have Gaja survive the blast with his constitution alone.

"And given our tics... you can't simply horde an infinite amount of mana to yourself forever, can you?" he smirked as the Demon's composure began to crack at its seams. "That power of the Dragon you hold is your greatest strength, and also your greatest weakness!"

Gaja then fires his [Lightning Magic] towards the Demon, which the latter dodged out of the way, something that Gaja himself was counting on. Upon making contact with the remnant golden dust where magnetized themselves towards and returned with more mana then the Demon actually needed, causing it to grow queasy and stumble onto the ground, allowing Gaja to land another attack into the Demon's open eye, this time, causing the eye itself to rupture and rendered its ability to regulate all of its excess mana temporarily useless.

It was enough time to completely compromise Pavrati's overall systems and begin its internal collapse. "MOSIN!" Gaja cried out as the convulsing Demon to glow and inflate like a balloon. "DISMISS [SAINT TAURUS]!"

Even if it proved to be a herculean task, Mosin, even at the risk of losing all of her fingers, forced her puppet back into its casket after deactivating its [Merope Meridian], causing her left pinky and right ring finger to snap in two in the process, the scream belting out of her mouth forcing her to push on even further, and thus allowing Gaja to narrowly escape the blast from the defeated Pavrati.

"... Okay, I admit," the Spirit Guardian confessed as he helped up the High Inquisitor, "... we were cutting it a little too close back there."

"I am never using [Saint Taurus] ever again..." she growled, trying to fight through the pain of her broken fingers. "... Why did I even make it do stuff like that in the first place?"

"Contemplate later," Gaja remarked as he sensed his surroundings to make sure that they weren't blindsighted yet again. "... For now, we need to find a safe place to recover. Assisting her highness half-broken will only hinder her-"

"Then allow me to address that issue," spoke a voice from above before the ground beneath them exploded into a giant flare of mana that erupted instantly.

As the conflagration engulfs the world around the two, both of them catch a glimpse of the Demon that refused to die. Gone completely were the traces of both its humanoid and insectoid features, and now replaced with a brand new, original form built from the ground up. An androgynous being, carrying the pecs of a man on its right and the bust of a woman on its left, both coalescing into a form that was both familiar while being completely alien. From its forehead, chest, and hands, additional eyes were spotted. And its wings, no longer a set of fiber-like glass wings of an insect's but a pair of great, leathery wings akin to that of a bat's, or in this case, that of a Dragon's.

Its presence has now grown to an incomprehensible scale, no longer just being a terrible anathema of a Demon's, but a colossal majesty that is slowly rising to that of a Dragon's level. No longer its mana was felt.

The entire lands of the Heart Kingdom was now its mana, the flow being faintly felt by the gravely injured Gaja as he tried to get up with Mosin.

"Surprised, I assume," spoke the being. "Thanks to the two of you, I have further ascended by shedding my Demon self entirely, and simply opted to grow a new body from the Dragon's fang that was within me with my [Mutation Magic]. I have to say, this new body..." it flexed its fingers, "... rather intriguing. A new sensation that fills me with the same satisfaction without having to delude myself... so this is true growth."

"... A Demon... that's no longer a Demon?!" Mosin coughed out as she tried to get back up, only to feel her legs being badly burnt. "HOW?! THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! IT'S LIKE THE EQUIVALENT OF A FISH SUDDENLY TRANSFORMING INTO A BIRD!"

"Magic itself is not limited to that degree," spoke the ascended being. "[Mutation Magic] isn't always about perpetual growth and adaptation. It's also about excising excess and adapting through each failed attempt. In short, thanks to the Dragon's fang dictating my magic, it has now superseded my very being."

Gaja's eyes widen at the being's description. "... Overgauge," he gasped in realization. "You self-inflicted mana cancer for your own benefit?!"

"So that's what it's called," it mused. "But yes, my own [Mutation Magic] has judged the 'Demon' aspect to be a hinderance and acted accordingly. 'Caligula' and his [Hedonism] are lessons learned from failure. 'Shiva' is a lesson learned from overconfidence and desperation. 'Pavrati' is a lesson learned of humility and broken assumptions. Even still, I now understand, my journey has placed me in a world of trappings of earthly desires of food, drink, sensation and pleasure, all to show me that they ultimately don't matter and that only through the opposite of pleasure that I am able to achieve enlightenment."

It then looks as its own arm beginning to erode and chip away on its own. "Alas, I am still far away from reaching the truth of my own being. Why am I here? Just to mete indiscriminate suffering? Is this all my own doing out of ignorance or is there a higher power guiding my actions for a greater purpose?"

The two look at each other in complete befuddlement as this being that once brought death and destruction because it could now suddenly pontificating philosophy about its own existence as if the former actions never mattered.

"Regardless, this domain no longer interests me," spoke the ascended being before spreading its wings before taking off. "I suppose with what little time I have left in this form, I might as well explore and find myself. Farewell mortals. May you come out of this chaos as better people-"

A bolt of lightning delivered through several wires then stopped the being from escaping any further.

"... Do you really think..." Gaja growled as he stood up like a newborn fawn, "... after all you have done to this realm..."

"... That you... and your filth ..." Mosin ground and gnashed her teeth with each venomous word spoken, "... ran roughshod over countless lives..."

The two finally get back on their feet, both of them inches away from death, but ready to make their final stand against the indignation of injustice that burned within their very souls.

"... THAT WE WOULD EVER LET YOU RUN FREE?!"

The being sighs before turning back to meet them. "Fair enough," the being sighed as their surrounding mana began to flare up and coalesce towards it. "Ardha shall make you suffer for your own enlightenment. Now survive if you can."

All four of its eyes then opened, ready to release the flaring up mana that it had demonstrated prior, ready to go off like a bomb.

"RUN!" Gaja then grabbed Mosin by her hand before making a run for it, narrowly escaping the blast that creates another clearing from the dense pocket of the jungle.

"Okay, so now it has additional eyes that can turn any ambient mana around us into a deathtrap at any direction that any of its eyes looks towards," grumbled Gaja as he helped Mosin to get back up. "... But it did imply that it's now on limited time, so now I see two options: wait for his body to run out or we expedite its demise at a risk to ourselves."

The High Inquisitor smirks at his remark. "... The choice is an obvious one."

Gritting through the pain of her broken fingers, even going far as to snap her ring finger back into its original place by flexing it harder than usual, trying her best to ignore the pain as she then excavates two marble caskets.

"... I will... see to it... that the Demon, even after... its supposed ascension... shall die," declared the High Inquisitor as the lids of two coffins popped off, revealing one feminine-looking puppet resembling Undine herself wielding a trident while the other was a masculine, hoplite warrior-like puppet armed with an oval-shaped greatshield depicting a giant scorpion stinging a brawny man armed with a giant wooden club to death and a giant jousting lance with a brass-like sheen. "Until... my body is dust... ALL EVIL SHALL BE DESTROYED!"

The two puppets then jump out of their cases and engages the ascended being, charging through the flames and the erupting mana with their weapons bore.

"[Marionette Invocation Magic: Duet Lead]!" Mosin's fingers strained themselves even further under the pressure of only one hand behind each puppet. "[Guardian of Rebellion, Saint Aquarius] and [Guardian of Ambition, Saint Scorpio], on stage!"

[Saint Scorpio] takes point by blocking all the blasts for its partner before [Saint Aquarius] charges in for the attack, thrusting her trident weapon towards the ascended being.

Ardha catches the tip of the polearm before [Saint Scorpio] attacks its opening with his jousting lance jabbed forth.

The ascended being also catches it, but from behind was then struck by Gaja's lightning, forming more cracks on the place where it was struck before it then opened its eye on its chest to detonate the ambient mana before it.

Mosin tried to pull back her puppets, but instead, Ardha grabs the two puppets by their necks before tugging against their connected wires as hard as it could. Mosin couldn't do anything as now she saw all ten of her fingers be ripped out of her hands as the connection between her and her puppets were now severed.

Undeterred, Mosin then snatches up as much of the fingers lying on the ground as she could fit them into her mouth, now flowing her mana into them to power her [Glephnir] and send her puppets into autopilot mode, letting them move on their own terms through her own magic's own "instincts."

"You persist," spoke the ascended being as it witnessed the High Inquisitor still fight on, now using her own teeth to control her remote weapons.

"Like I said..." Mosin spoke through her muffled mouth as she kept her jaws tightly shut around her fingers connected to their [Glephnir] rings like a triggered bear trap, "... UNTIL MY BODY IS DUST!"

As he now-autonomous puppets attacked the ascended being in coordination with Gaja, the ascended being, rather than choose self-preservation, found himself standing it ground, fighting off the multi-pronged threats with ease.

But every time they fell, they quickly got back up. With every attack overcome, they fought back harder. With every wound sustained, just Gaja being stabbed through the stomach by its hand or Mosin's jaw being dislocated from the sheer strain of moving two puppets at the same time in the most inefficient manner, they simply got back up, redoubled their prior ferocity, and kept pushing from another angle.

"COMBO ATTACK! NOW!" Gaja declared as he then prepared his [Mana Zone].

"I'LL PIN HIM DOWN!" Mosin then had [Saint Scorpio] grab Ardha from behind while [Saint Aquarius] summons an dense orb of water from her trident and envelop around its legs to anchor it in place. "... DO IT!"

Gaja then lets out a bellowing roar as a circle of magic circles surrounds Ardha into a bright mandala of pure power. "NOW... SEE THE LIGHT!" he declared as the skies darkened in conjunction to the arrays shone ever brighter. "[MANA ZONE: LÁMPSI]!"

A rain of golden thunderbolts of akin to that of a god's unrestrained wrath descended towards Ardha.

What is this feeling swelling in my chest? thought the ascended being as the thunder consumed his entire being. ... It's not fear... for I am serene. It is not indignation... for I hold nothing against those who oppose me...

As Ardha saw his arms and body turn to ash in the brilliant light of the Spirit Guardian and the High Inquisitor's resolve, it smiled.

... I see, it mused, ... it appears that I understand nothing. How quaint.

But even in acceptance, the Dragon's presence inside of its very core began to roar. It was an incomprehensible feeling, but there was something about its nonsensical yet primal instincts that allowed it to understand.

It denied submission. It desires to answer power with power. A form of respect, not from the ascended being, but to the unknown being calling out from the Dragon's fang from within.

"... One last go?" Ardha mused. "... So be it."

Immediately, Ardha then assumes control over Gaja's set arrays for itself, overpowering the latter's grip with each as the color of the magic turned from bright yellow to deep purple.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Gaja exclaimed as he saw Ardha's silhouette through the light. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

Ardha smirks, both in the acknowledgement of its lack of experience that prevented this one from reaching enlightenment and the wonderful paradox that it'd witnessed called "humanity."

"[Primal Mana Zone]," it declared as its body turned into ash within the light, "[Last Prana-Sahasara Chakra]."

The light itself then blossoms like a lotus flower, drowning out the two in a blinding glare as the last vestiges of Ardha's body goes with the wind. However, Mosin and Gaja notice that the light wasn't anything harmful or malignant. If anything, it was just light. Nothing extraordinary of it other than looking pretty and the opposite of demonic.

"I have failed this time," it spoke to the two of them. "But next time, my successor shall take my place and continue my journey from where I had left off. Will it fall back down where I have started or will it achieve greater things than I could've ever fathom? Only time can tell."

With what's left of its body, it then glances towards the High Inquisitor with what's left of its body.

"... As long as your kind exist, I will never stop hunting them down like the dogs they are," she declared with all of her hate. "Down... to the last, fucking... mongrel."

Ardha smiles peacefully. "... Do what you must..." it then closes its eyes as the last dredges of its consciousness leaves his mind in a beam of light that shot up towards the night sky. "... May we meet again."

The light cedes, and as soon as the two can finally see the night sky, both of them then collapse from their compounded injuries shortly after.

"... You okay... over there?" asked Gaja as he laid on the ground face-down.

"... I can easily... replace my fingers..." huffed Mosin as her back laid against a tree. "... But my jaw... feels like... eating rocks..."

Both then share a weak chuckle before falling silent. As the quiet fell upon them, thunder and lightning rumbled from above in accordance with a whale's hum and screams of women.

"... We really should get a move on," Gaja remarked as he tried to get up, spitting out blood in the process.

"... Go on... without me," Mosin groaned as she then tried to slip off her boots with her feet. "... I'll catch up."

Even with one foot in his grave, Gaja pushed on to aid his liege.

---

Ruined Residential Sector, Heart Kingdom, Dawn

---

From atop a tree, Sally had begun to observe all the fights taking place in the surrounding area. Normally, she'd help, but after somehow pleasing a god by appealing to his hunger and partially satisfying it, the scientist has somehow gained his favor.

Case in point...

"IMMA CUT A BITCH-!"

Captain Jack the Ripper was then promptly smacked out the air by the wolf god and into Morris/Mammon. "SHE'S MY MEAL TICKET. GET YOUR OWN," Geri snarled before resuming its prior engagement.

"Wow. I'm technically an atheist, but having a god vouch for my safety just because I fed him?" Sally remarked to herself before she jotted down more notes onto her notepad (she carries ten minimum per lab coat that she wears). "... Well, not the weirdest thing that I wrote down."

Sally then looked back at the notes that she took a few hours prior, all of which involves several drastic spikes of mana that fluctuated to utterly bizarre degrees. Rather than the semi-consistent flares that an experienced mage would experience, each spike was akin to a new player of great power entering into the battlefield. Not only the inconsistency was weird of itself, but also the directions of where each of them come from.

"Sweet Sephira, if I didn't know that an actual god existed right before my eyes, I would've assumed that this whole realm was gonna blow," Sally scoffed as she reviewed her observations before going back to taking notes. "... Hm, guess the old man that I worked with before he threw me under the wagon was right. Heart Kingdom's a place where you can see magic for real!"

She was admittedly both upset and elated of tonight as a whole. On one hand, the fact that they had to run into Clover Kingdom's Magic Knights was basically a powder keg that was about to go off if the fight continued forth. But on the other hand, there were so many interactions that she'd never thought were possible.

Magic Knights VS Demons. An actual god VS a Demon. Beings of higher powers beating the ever-loving crap of each other, seeing it all happen before her eyes reminded of the time of why she became interested in science in the first place.

"It's like watching music being played before writing your own," she mused as she then turned her attention towards the three rumbles happening in the jungle. "Individual elements of discord all coming together into a beautiful accord... can there be any greater source of joy?"

In one clearing, Finral and Valtos were facing off against each other. The latter kept throwing his [Spatial Shredders] towards the former, unable to defend or escape thanks to Valtos' [Dominator Dome] effectively rendering Finral powerless.

Yet despite the insurmountable odds, Finral didn't even think about giving up. Rather fittingly, Valtos' declaration of showing no mercy and making good on that by cutting off his escape methods incentivized this normally-noncombatant Magic Knight to actually stand his ground.

... I guess this what they call 'being cornered'... he thought as he dodged another black disc of death spun towards his way before jumping over another and executing a forward roll across the ground. ... Not a bad feeling, in all honesty.

Valtos remains focused on taking out this other [Spatial Magic] user with his own, maneuvering his disks in a way that would leave his way of little to no chance of dodging, or so he thought.

"... Ah," the [Spatial Magic] groaned in realization. "Of course he has great spatial awareness. It's practically a requirement for any decent [Spatial Magic] user lest they get mulched by their own spells..."

After giving himself a mental facepalm for that slight oversight, he resumed in this now-game of keep-away in the hopes of killing him quickly. One swipe from his [Spatial Shredders] can cut through [Mana Skin] no matter how durable it was, so surely, he can lop off his head or any other body part that it touches.

However, Finral himself was already ahead in this mental chess and was already planning out his next move. His spells are always aiming for my vitals; neck, chest, and waist. He's trying to off me in one go. That just makes him predictable, but annoying to reach!

So came the same epiphany for the two of them. Mainly, cripple rather than aim for the killing blow.

"... This better work," growled Valtos as he then fired a [Mana Bullet] into one of his own [Spatial Shredders].

Unbeknownst to Finral, he didn't know that [Spatial Shredders] can double as portals. Meaning once the [Mana Bullet] entered into the disk's flat, it continued its trajectory from different vectors, coming out of different portals until Finral now found himself with less space to dodge around.

"Whoa! SHIT!" Finral then felt the [Mana Bullet] graze his ribs and back while he was dodging both it and the numerous [Spatial Shredders] spinning around, now trapped in what it feels like in a middle of a ballroom of dancers with sharpened frilled tutus.

"Hm, wonder why I didn't do that in the first place," Valtos thought out loud. "Guess my impatience got the better of me."

Finral however, despite his initial surprise, begins to quickly formulate his next plan into motion. Okay, he caught wise of me being able to figure out that I was finding him predictable, he surmised as he dodged under another black disk while performing a near-miss from a [Mana Bullet] that grazed past the left side of his hair, burning off aa fair tuft of his fluff. Figured that would be the case, now just gotta find which portal leads where!

Finral then remembers an old saying from a retired thief that he'd met during his first visit to the Black Market at the town of Kikka. "Watch the hands, not the mouth."

He then scoops up a small pebble before tossing it into one of the portals, seeing it where it pops up and getting a good read on which disk leads where.

Okay, getting a better grasp on my spatial awareness, Finral nodded to himself as he saw the pebble he'd tossed into one of the portals come out of the other behind him before he then executed his next step in his plan. "HEY BLACK-EYES!" he taunted as loudly as he could. "MY YOUNGER HALF-BROTHER CAN DO [SPATIAL MAGIC] BETTER THAN YOU!"

"You asked for it," Valtos then moved all of his [Spatial Shredders] to revolve around Finral as additional portals opened around himself. "Now die painfully."

As he began firing his [Mana Bullets] into the portals, Finral then runs towards one of the [Spatial Shredder] spells before jumping into the disk's flat, emerging out of one of the open portals around Valtos before tackling him out of the air, both of them going in and out of several different portals all the while Finral and Valtos were busy trying to grab and pry each other off respectively before Valtos dismisses all of his [Spatial Magic] spells to avoid the risk of getting himself killed by his own [Spatial Shredder].

As the two of them rolled onto the ground, the two began grappling over each other in a mundane brawl where neither of their magics could get the job done.

Valtos then reaches towards a rock before Finral began beating in the former's head with his blackjack, raining blow after blow upon his face before the other [Spatial Magic] user smashed the rock against the side of Finral's head, knocking him off to the side before mounting atop of him.

Valtos then grabs Finral by his neck and begins to attempt to choke him out, only for the latter to grab both the former's thumbs and dislocate them, causing him to let go before Finral delivers a head smash to the enemy's nose and knocking him back down instead. Upon retrieving his blackjack and mounting atop of Valtos, he the resumes his beatdown with the handheld club until the bludgeon snapped in two.

Valtos then snaps back and gives Finral a headbutt into his own nose, and knocking both of themselves out upon impact, ending the drawn-out melee in draw, leaving both combatants' faces bruised, swollen, discolored, missing several teeth, and looking as if they were stung by a whole hive's worth of wasps before being pissed on a passing animal.

"... Wow," Sally commented as she came down from her observation post. "... String bean's got some moxie on him."

Normally, she'd take Finral with her as one of her "lab rats," but given that they weren't in the most ideal situation to feed an additional mouth on their way (and the fact that Rades would bitch about turning him into one of his toys), she opts not to and settles for taking back Valtos and leaving him there. That and well, she had no guarantee of making sure that Valtos would wake up before Finral (she's now out of tranqs), meaning that she can't rely on [Dominator Dome] to keep him boxed in.

"... Til next time, I suppose," Sally humphs before snatching up the unconscious Valtos with her [Sticky Salamander]. "If the time comes, then show me what you really got, no holding back. Data from [Spatial Magic] users is quite rare, you know!"

Upon leaving Finral in the clearing, Sally then spots rising plumes of smoke coming from within the forest.

"Oh right," she remarked as the scientist was reminded of her recent project. "Wonder how Angra's doing!"

Speaking whom, the augmented girl with her Devil unleashed hell upon both Magna and Vanessa.

"WHY ARE YOU RUNNING MAGNA?!" cackled Angra as her [Hellfire Magic] surged forth. "WHERE'S YOUR BRAVADO?! AREN'T YOU GOING TO BEAT THE ANSWERS OUT OF ME LIKE YOU HAD BEFORE?!"

Magna then throws his [Exploding Fireball] at his sister in retaliation, only for it to bounce off of her body like a water sliding off of a duck's back.

"... Actually, you know what?" Angra then conjures a giant blue fireball from her hand. "Run. Make it fun for all of us."

She then hefts back the orb of prominence before aiming her throwing trajectory towards the two.

"EAT THIS!" Angra then hurled the fireball towards them. "[Hellfire Magic: Dead Enfer]!"

"And adding to that..." Mainyu then chants an incomprehensible incantation which then turns the orb of fire into a streamlined projectile akin to a shell, "[Word Magic: Edit Form-"Sharpen"]!"

Rather than the fireball landing behind the two Black Bulls, the flaming shell then lands before where the two were running towards before promptly exploding and sending them all back careening towards before Angra's feet.

"Get up," she ordered, looking down at the two. "I can't kick your asses you two just croak right here and there."

"... Sounds good just about now..." Magna grunted as he stood back up before facing his sister eye-to-eye. "... It's a good thing I'm enough of an idiot to actually listen to you... right?"

Angra smirks before punching him in the stomach before kicking him into tree. "Yeah," she smirked. "You really are."

Vanessa then tries to trip her up by snaring on her leg with her [Thread Magic], only for the thread to immediately catch fire upon contact and snap.

... Not again... the witch thought once again of being proven useless at this moment. What can I do? What else can I do?

She then noticed a thin red threat grasped around her hand which was then found tied around Magna's wrist. "... Did...?" she then looked around only to spot a red cat perched above the tree's branches, licking itself without a care in the world. "... Did you?"

Magna looks up to see his own sister and her Devil friend looking down on him.

"Be sure to remember this when you take it to your grave," spoke Mainyu.

"I'm meant every word I said," said Angra as her land lit up with blue fire. "I'm doing this for my new ambition. Nothing more."

Magna closed his eyes instinctively as the killing blow was delivered, only for the scene before the killing blow to play out once again.

... Am I...? Tripping? he thought as the scene he'd saw before play out before him, only now that the heat and the words coming out of the two were for real. ... Dammit! NOW'S NOT THE TIME!

In desperation, Magna then blasts his own [Fire Magic] behind himself to propel his whole body into his sister's before delivering a flying headbutt into her face, shattering his sunglasses upon impact and the skin of his forehead feeling like if it was touching a heated skillet. That one moment however, was more than enough to serve as a reversal to get him out of a sticky spot and actually start fighting.

"... Well... what do you know?" giggled Magna as he ignored the burning and throbbing sensation of his burnt forehead. "... Guess you're as dumb as me... giving a... fighting chance..."

"... You got your stupid sunglasses' shards in my eyes, jackass," groaned Angra as she picked the aforementioned objects out of said place where they've ended up. "... Seriously, where the fuck did you actually get em? Last I checked, they don't grow on trees... oh." She then clicks her tongue in frustration. "... Right, the money I sent back home... and I thought you guys were gonna spend it on a new well or something like that..."

Magna then throws the lens-less frames of his broken sunglasses away to the side before flaring up his own [Fire Magic]. "Sis, your family, and nothing will change that, regardless of how little we spent as said family," he spoke with a stoic tone. "Which is why... I'll face you head-on... not as a younger brother that got in your way... but as a Magic Knight protecting what little's left of there to protect."

Angra smirks. "... Finally got it through your thick skull after breaking it," she remarked as she now felt relief of her final tether cutting itself loose. "Aight. Time to die."

Both Magna and Angra set their fists ablaze with their respective [Fire] and [Hellfire Magic]. The latter proves itself to be hotter than the former, but while Angra's enhancements were able to protect her from being affected by said magic, it didn't protect her from physical trauma.

All [Fire Magic] users had an innate resistance to intense heat since the actualization of their own attributes, and both were equally matched in terms of resistance, but while Angra was more fireproof, Magna, having been through his fair share of scraps in both magic and physical brawls since his actualization, was more hardy when it came to taking blows.

"CAPTAIN YAMI PUNCHES HARDER THAN YOU EVER COULD SIS!" Magna remarked as his cheek was dug in by his sister's flaming fist. "THAT LITTLE CHAR OF YOURS IS NOTHING!"

"RIGHT BACK AT YOU, YOU WASTE OF OXYGEN!" Angra rebutted back as her own face was bore in by her brother's flaming fist.

"MAGNA!" Vanessa cried out as she then saw Mainyu trying to intervene for a sucker punch, to which she then intercepted with her [Thread Magic] binding the Devil's arms back with her strength.

"Nice try," spoke the hellspawn as he then chanted in an unknown language. "[Word Magic: Edit Structure-"Brittle"]!"

The strings around the Devil's arms snap but not before finding another array of threats now wrapped around his face and neck, both blinding and choking him out at the same time.

This time, the Demon then tore through the threads with his claws, only for them to be instead be bound together with his face, now leaving him flailing around unable to do anything. HOW?! he cursed. HOW THE FUCK IS SHE KEEPING UP WITH ME?!

In fact, there was a reason how an inferior-in-power witch was able to keep up with the Devil's power. Mainly, she now switched the effect of [Red Thread of Fate] unto herself from Magna. If she couldn't do anything, then she'll instead do everything in her power to make sure that the "interference" can't do anything. The cat from her spell was able to forecast all possible cheats that the Devil might throw into the siblings' duel, and it was up to Vanessa that chance itself is minimized within the brawl itself.

The two siblings kept punching and kicking each other while Vanessa held the line.

"MAAGA YOU SON OF A BITCH!" the sister then wreathed herself in blue flames. "AFTER THIS, I'M GONNA CELEBRATE OF BEING THE ONLY CHILD!"

"RIGHT BACK AT YOU!" Magna then does the same with his [Fire Magic]. "COME ON! NO REGRETS!"

Two flaming silhouettes closed in upon each other before the witch's eyes.

"[HELLFIRE MAGIC]!" declared Angra as her body pirouettes into a flaming cyclone. "[FOUL BAILE]!"

"[FIRE MAGIC]!" Magna's outstretched arm is then wrapped around with a length of chains made of his own magic. "[GRAND SLAM-GUTS LARIAT]!"

Both attacks then make contact with each other, with Angra's flaming foot striking across Magna's jaw with the latter's arm's length burrowing into the open back of his sister's. The mutual impact then sends both of them flying, with Magna rolling across the dirt into an undignified heap whereas Angra lands onto a tree's trunk stomach-first, causing her to expel vomit from the impact.

"... Oh fuck me," she groaned before vomiting again. "... Did we at least break his neck?"

Mainyu struggles to break free before finally ripping himself out his bindings. "... I dunno," he remarked, "want me to worsen his wounds-?"

Magna was then seen getting back up, now near death but stumbling towards his sister.

"... Well... fuck me twice," she grimaced as her brother approached her before stopping right before where she'd lay. "... What are you waiting for?" she asked. "... Do it."

Magna then tries to conjure up a fireball from his [Fire Magic], only for it to fizzle out before he fell to his knees. "... No," he sobbed. "... It's just wrong."

"... In what regard?" asked Angra.

Magna then raised his head, revealing his face to be sobbing. "... Mom... dad... everyone back at the village... when I saw them dead during one of my missions with the newcomers... I thought as long as I had you around... I'd be okay. ... So why?" he begged. "... Why'd you throw it all away?! EVEN IF YOU WERE TO BE THE WHOLE WORLD'S ENEMY, I STILL WOULD'VE TRIED! IF I DIDN'T... THEN I'M NO MAN!"

Angra sighed a suppressed disgust. "... And that's why... you're a fucking moron."

Vanessa picks up the tic of what she was about to do next. "MAGNA-!"

A flaming arm impales through his chest as her hand sprouted out of his back, with his smoldering heart clasped around her fingers.

Vanessa didn't see this coming, or rather, there was no forecast from her [Red Thread of Fate] nor did she sense any malice coming from her. If anything, it felt as if wool were pulled over her eyes just long enough for her and her instincts to make them assume nothing.

"No..." she shuddered as Magna's heart disintegrated into coal dust, "... how?" she whimpered only for her to faintly hear the Devil chuckle to himself.

Mainyu smirks when he notices the witch staring at him. "... Took me a few seconds to figure out your little trick," he revealed as he pointed to the red cat atop of the tree, whose eyes were completely glazed over as if it had gone blind before returning to normal. "... I thought I'd fight in your weight class for a bit."

"YOU BITCH!" screeched the enraged witch as she then used her [Thread Magic] to constrict around Angra's neck around the tree's trunk before tugging it from behind like a garrote.

Angra flailed and choked as she felt her throat get tighter and tighter around her neck. She then tries to burn off the thread with her [Hellfire Magic], but abruptly, her body suddenly begins to feel a lot hotter than usual before her back vents shot out jets of steam that fogs up the whole surroundings.

"SHIT! I OVERHEATED?!" gasped Angra as then noticed the thread around her loosen a bit, given that Vanessa got shot full of the hot jet of fumes face-first. Taking advantage of this opening, she then slips out of the wires before making a hasty run for it, only for her to accidentally trip over Magna's corpse, which then Vanessa took advantage of by reestablishing her stranglehold with her [Thread Magic] around her friend's killer.

"GET YOUR STICKING PAWS OFF OF MY BFF, YOU WENCH!" Mainyu then steps in as he then takes Vanessa from behind and chokes her from behind, resulting in the three of them being caught in a chain-stranglehold.

As Angra was choked out by Vanessa, Mainyu felt his connect to his host fade gradually. As Vanessa was choked out by Mainyu, the wires around Angra's neck tightened even more.

As the struggle continued on, it ultimately ends with all three of them fainting at the same time. Both Angra and Vanessa fainted from asphyxiation, whereas Mainyu nearly died upon having his own Contractor almost die and sending him into a state of unconsciousness from the strain.

"... Holy shit," Sally commented as she came into the scene consisting of one corpse and three unconscious folks. "... And I thought Valtos had it rough, but a Devil too? Guess the Black Bulls aren't called that for nuthin'. Stubborn as fuck..."

Her [Sticky Salamander] then retrieves Angra and Mainyu, the former's body hissing like mad upon being submerged into the slime.

"... Now what to do with you?" she then glowered at the witch. "Never got to cut open a witch before. Eh, better now than later!"

She then summons another, smaller [Sticky Salamander] to take the witch with the mad scientist. Unlike the [Spatial Magic] user, Vanessa wasn't that much of a security risk and her being a witch was more valuable than some [Spatial Magic] user.

"... I miss Catherine," remarked Sally as she took her favorite lab rat (and Devil companion) along with her new lab rat. But just before she can continue reminiscing, she then feels a sudden surge of mana coming from far away and heading towards them like a shooting star. "... But that, I can't afford to miss!"

As Sally then moved out of the jungle, she unknowingly (or knowingly) passes by the clearing where Gauche and Tesla were fighting at.

"DAMMIT! HOLD STILL!" the [Mirror Magic] user roared out as his mirrors kept firing beams where Tesla was at shortly prior.

"And get hit?!" Tesla rhetorically replied as he zipped around Gauche's barrage of lasers. "You know that asking me to get hit is something that no person with common sense would ever fathom of doing, right?"

"STOP TALKING LIKE IF YOU'RE HIM!" Gauche's [Reflect Refrains] increased in number in his desperate attempt to blast the pretender out of the air.

"'Stop talking like if you're him'?" parroted the ghost before shattering one of the mirrors. "You sound as if you know him personally. Then again, I suppose you do, given the same robe that I found on him, but alas, I guess friends keep some secrets between each other."

"JUST WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HIM?!" Guache cried out as he kept up the barrages of beams. "ALSO, STOP GETTING INTO MY HEAD-!"

"Did you know that this Luck's body wasn't going to live for much longer?" revealed Tesla much to Gauche's shock, enough so for him to cease his fire. "Specifically, I had Rades the necromancer take a look in it to see what was what and oh boy, was I shocked of how many tumors there were inside the poor lad."

"... Tumors?" the [Mirror Magic] user blinked in confusion. "... You saying Luck was sick this whole time?"

"Judging by your tone, you don't seem to know it, nor does Luck, if your description of his personality is any indication," mused Tesla. "Anyways, turns out that the boy wasn't going to live past twenty. 16 tumors, with 4 in his lungs, 2 in his kidneys, 5 in his heart, and 5 in his brain, tetanus, hereditary syphillis, early childhood malnutrition, gangrene, and Overgauge... sweet Sephira! Was his mother a town whore?"

The amount of diseases that the ghost had listed down was enough to kill anyone at birth. "... So why Luck was going to live past twenty?" he pointed out. "WITH ALL THAT SWIMMING INSIDE OF HIM?!"

"Overgauge, really," answered the ghost. "Funny thing is, cases of this mana cancer can be described as... a disease to the being's very soul. They're born with absurdly high magical output... but should a certain threshold be crossed... they suffer what professionals call 'ego death.' I suspect that the boy was born as a veritable corpse and effectively lived as an empty shell constantly compelled to fry anything in sight with his magic. Am I wrong?"

Gauche then remembered all those times when Luck would pester others, occasionally him when he was too busy obsessing over his sister Marie, to fight him. "... So all that time...!" he gasped in horror. "... That was his [Lightning Magic] talking?!"

"Not saying having Overgauge is a bad thing," Tesla remarked. "If anything, it's like having another personality within you that just... kills your default personality and takes over from there, although said personality swap is barely noticeable given that magic, in nature, is empathic, but to have a case of Overgauge upon infant mortality? Do you realize how much of a rare find this body is?! Even after weeks, months! Nearly a year after its second post-mortem, it's still fresh, as if the body's magic is keeping it functional on its own akin to suspended animation or autopilot! Really though, this boy's very existence is truly blessed-!"

Tesla was then blasted onto the face by Gauche's [Reflect Refrain] spell after prattling on for too long. "... Don't talk about Luck as if he's some golden goose, you touchy-feely psycho!" he growled as more mirrors gathered around him. "... Dead from birth or not... HE'S A PERSON THAT LIVED! NOT SOME CADAVER THAT HAPPENS TO BENEFIT THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY WITHOUT HIS CONSENT!"

"Oh please," scoffed Tesla. "Corpses can't give consent."

"[Mirror Magic]," all of the mirrors around Gauche being to shine into a formation akin to a flower's petals. "[Reflect Refrain]..."

However, instead of another barrage of streams of light, the mirrors all began to spin and osculate like a mirage come to life.

"[KAELIDESCOPE]!" the light of the mirrors bloomed into a shifting and wavy light show that left Tesla no gaps for Tesla to escape through.

"Hm," he bemusedly huffed, "you truly are a curious one, Mr. Adlai."

He then zipped around like a hummingbird as the beams of light closed into him, still unfazed at the fact that he's about to get seriously hurt.

"Oh, and I forgot to tell you, good sir," Tesla remarked calmly in the face of certain death, "but did you know that plasma is the fourth state of matter outside of solid, liquid and gas? You know what that means, right?"

He then demonstrates it as he then dips his arm into one of the beams before pulling it out completely unscathed, as if it weren't touched by anything in the first place.

"Oh shit," Gauche's eyes widened at what was really going on.

"'Oh shit,' indeed," Tesla then smirks in a way that would make Luck's psychosis look like a baby's tantrum in comparison as his whole body then turned into [Plasma Magic] itself.

In a flash, Tesla then phases through all of the beams, then through all of the mirrors, and finally, Gauche himself.

"[Plasma Magic]," spoke the ghost in Luck's body as Gauche heard it from behind, "[Transphase One-System of a Down]."

The [Mirror Magic] user then felt as if all of his insides were being fucked by lightning from all possible directions as he saw all of his mirrors shatter before him, raining down glittering shards like snow before he completely blacks out and falling face first onto the dirt.

"Admittedly, as much of a rare find this body is, even I find it slightly... disgusting," he sighed as he flipped the unconscious Gauche over with his foot. "But, that's my next experiment is for!"

His hand then transforms into a pylon-like claw contraption made of purely of his [Plasma Magic].

"Before I implant myself into your hunk of a Captain's body for my own, I need to make sure if I can remove a person's soul from their body manually," he claimed as the claws flexed in and out. "So, my next experiment, I need to see if my [Plasma Creation Magic: Remote Coil-Slipknot] can do just that! Don't worry your pretty little head. I will make sure that Rades takes good care of you!"

But just before the claws can sink into Gauche, a sword covered in dark miasma impales through the hand underneath the claw, sending the ghost in a shell flying and pinned to a tree.

"... Oh," Tesla remarked as he saw a giant dark silhouette from where the sword was thrown from. "... I really should've paid attention to you more."

Yami Sukehiro returns from the brink of death, emerging from the jungle's shadows like beast caught sight of its prey, the bloodlust being palpable to send any lesser being fleeing for their lives at an instinctual level.

"Get up," he ordered with unmatched authority. "I can't punish you properly unless you can take it like a man."

But just as Tesla was about to make his plans to escape, Yami's boot then shot itself into Luck's face, causing the skull of Tesla's body to cave in at least a half an inch from the impact.

"... Fine," Yami then opened his grimoire. "We'll do this the hard way."

In his hands, the shapeless dark then all gathers around Yami's hand, slowly shaping itself to be an exact replica of Yami's lost katana.

"[Yami Sōsei Maho]/[Dark Creation Magic]," declared the captain in his native tongue, "[Ankokuken, Kurogane]/ [Sword of Darkness, Black Iron]/([闇黒剣, 黒金])."

The sword of pure darkness' edge gleamed in the moonlight.

"Lower your head," Yami ordered again, his eyes glazed over in pure, unfathomable rage akin to an angered god of destruction. "I need to make a clean swing through your neck."

Tesla then throws back the sword impaled through his palm towards Yami, only for the latter to deflect the thrown blade before catching back in the air. It was around at that exact moment when Tesla made a run for it, but Yami already picked up on his ki and he had zero intention of letting him escape.

"Let's see... how does the Heart Kingdom's mages do it?" he ruminated as his mind remembered the vague texts that he'd read in passing during his Grey Deer days, "... oh right. Like so."

First, he then throws both of his swords into the ground. Then he harmonizes his own ki with the surrounding natural mana, creating a resonance between himself and the world around him. And finally, he then visualizes what sort of magic he's going to cast and how big it's going to be.

"You're not getting away..." the swords planted around Yami then forms a magical array around himself as his hand performed hand seals on instinct. "[True Mana Zone: Nisshouku]/[日食]/[Solar Eclipse]."

A giant dome of pure black consumes the whole jungle right before Tesla himself found himself smacked against the wall of pure darkness that he can't phase through. "Oh shit," he cursed with a nervous smile, "... I just remembered that [Dark Magic] has same properties as my own [Plasma Magic]..."

Mainly, [Dark Magic] is in the unique category of attributes that cannot be defined as either solid, liquid or gas. But whereas [Plasma Magic] was focused on speed and blitz attacks, [Dark Magic] is about trapping, slowing and suffocating its targets akin to a living tar pit. Only [Light Magic] can theoretically match it with its casting speed, which his [Plasma Magic] isn't fast enough to do so.

"... And it's dark in here," chuckled the ghost as he then shut off his own magic to not give himself away. "... But given that he's also trapped in here with me, I assume either he's confident that he confident in tracking me down or he's just as blind as me in here-"

A ripping sound was heard right beneath where his chest was. Tesla looks down as finds a black blade jutting out of his body from behind.

"... Oh come-*cough* on..." grimaced the ghost, being reminded of the last time of how he died the last time. "... The same way too?!"

"It's not just me," spoke Yami's voice as shadow clones of the Captain surrounded the impaled Tesla. "Killing you once won't be enough for what you did to my subordinates."

The shadow clones begin hacking away at the ghost in the shell from all directions with their own shadow swords. They continue slashing and flaying away at the corpse with the real Yami himself drawing his kodachi before aiming his swing towards the neck.

"Now get out of my subordinate's skin, you fucking pedo," Yami spoke as all of the clones then slashed their blades at Tesla at the same time when Yami decapitates Luck's head from the rest of his body with his [Dark Magic]-enhanced kodachi, exorcizing Tesla's soul out of the boy's body. "[Shin Yami Maho: Yonaka no Tsujigiri]/[真闇魔法:夜中の辻斬り]/[True Dark Magic: Crossroads Killing at the Dead of Night]."

The darkness dissipates as soon as Yami finishes his work. [Sword of Darkness: Black Steel] fades from his grip with his shadow clones, with all that's left in his hands being his kodachi and Luck's severed head.

"... Sorry if I couldn't save you sooner," he apologized to his fallen subordinate before looking towards the collapsed Gauche. "The least I can do keep whoever's still around alive."

He then helps up the downed [Mirror Magic] user before placing him onto his back. Upon being stirred from the ground, Gauche wakes up to see that his face was being brushed up against his Captain's messy hair.

"Don't sniff," he ordered as Yami continued to carry him on his back. "It's weird."

Guache snorts before looking down at his Captain's waist to find Luck's head dangling off of it.

"... We'll bury him later," he remarked. "For now, we gotta find those who are still alive."

As the Captain continued his search through the jungle, the ruined residential sector's chaos further escalated as the fighting taking place continued on.

[El Gigante] along with Rades' horde of undead all swarmed towards Meroleona, but the latter broke through the waves with her [Fire Magic] and flaming fists.

"QUIT SENDING THESE PUTZES AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN!" roared the lioness as another column of the rotten legion broke before her fists.

"FUCK YOU! YOU'RE THE MOST TERRIFYING BITCH I KNOW!" Rades proceeds to send more zombies after her, only for the same thing to happen again. "GODDAMMIT! WHY ARE YOU SO FUCKING JACKED?!"

"I DON'T SIT ON MY ASS ALL DAY, THAT'S WHY!" she then sends forth another [Calidus Brachium] towards the undead, breaking through column after column of walking corpses before reaching [El Gigante] itself. "NOW OPEN WIDE, SHITHEEL!"

Another [Calidus Brachium] strikes the giant amalgam undead in the chest, sending it keeling back before crashing onto its back. But just before Meroleona can make a beeline towards the necromancer, she then notices something extremely upsetting found inside the giant made of stone and corpses. Inside, she spotted both Fuegoleon's and Leopold's corpses inside of it.

"... What?" Rades remarked as Meroleona glared at him like the sun itself, but utterly ignorant at her indignation. "I slit their throats when I found em like that-"

All twenty of Rades' teeth shatter upon Meroleona's flaming fist entered into his mouth and out of his torn left cheek as he was then sent violently flying into a ruined house before collapsing atop of him.

"You are dead," she snarled, Meroleona's rage peaking beyond her natural threshold to the point where it just looped back to being unfathomably calm. "Savor this calm while you can. I'm about to send you to a place where Hell will feel like Heaven."

Upon exiting the calm, Meroleona then promptly explodes into a display of an unholy volcanic anger upon the necromancer. As soon as Rades dug himself out of the rubble, he soon met face to face with a veritable meteor shower's worth of [Calidus Brachiums] descending towards him, temporarily turning the night sky into that of day's at this very instance.

Rades then promptly disintegrated upon a hundred flaming fists incinerating him alive, not leaving him with enough time to let out a single scream.

As soon as Meroleona's subsided upon the death of her siblings' killer, a wave of anguish that she'd never felt before grasped her heart. She tried not to cry, if only not to show weakness on a battlefield-

"What the?!" she then found Rades' grimoire still active even after his death. "Why is it still active?! He's six feet under!"

She then heard a creaking noise coming from behind her. As she turned around, she found Leopold's body getting up by itself. A few dry groans were heard coming out of him before coughs gagged out of Leopold before it started talking...

... In Rades' voice. "... Oh fuck man, that was helluva close one!" he remarked as he then brushed the body's hair up with his hand, the redhead transforming into that of a pale white. "... Knew that it worked with Sally's homunculi, but another body?! Man, my magic is kinda OP."

It then hit her like a ton of bricks. Rades had the power to come back to life as long as he had bodies.

"... So about sending me to a place worse than Hell..." the necromancer remarked as he then reconstructed Leopold's lost grimoire as his previous one disintegrated before Meroleona's foot, "... you might wanna do a retake."

Meroleona then lunges towards the resurrected Rades, only for the latter to tap into Leopold's [Fire Magic] and counter her blow for blow. The two match evenly in strength, much to Meroleona's surprise, causing her to back away at the same time as Rades did, with the latter blowing on his scorched hand.

"Hot! Hot!" he hissed as he blew on his singled hand. "Seriously... even after the strength boost, why do I still feel pain?"

"GET OUT OF MY BROTHER'S BODY, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Meroleona then unleashes another barrage of [Calidus Brachium] at the pretender, only for the latter to erect a flaming wall of smoldering corpses from the ground that exploded upon contact, sending them both flying back upon the triggered blast.

"Oww... that fucking smarts..." groaned Rades as he stood back up, "dunno how Tesla deals with this sensory dissonance... but I'll take notes later..."

"What the hell was that?!" Meroleona remarked. "Did he just combine magics after hopping into a different body?!"

"I barely know myself aside from conjectures!" Rades replied as the features from Leopold were being replaced by Rades' own. "This is all new to me-!"

Screams coming from both Morris/Mammon and Jack were heard from above before crashing between the two of them.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SEAL ALL THE EXITS!" the Devil cried out.

"DAMN MUTT'S STILL HANGRY AND IT'S PISSING ME OFF!" Jack cried out in sequence before Geri himself appeared before the four/five.

The god then takes a moment to sniff the air before looking at the downed [El Gigante] and Meroleona and Rades (now Leopold's body being completely converted into his own) before concocting a plan to use them both. "You two," he ordered the two of them before he snapped his fingers, "cook this or I cook you."

Their flames then were assumed control over to the god's in a matter of seconds as the bestial god began using the leftover [El Gigante] as his next meal. Ground pepper and salt sprinkled from the skies like snow. The flames around the undead golem transformed the stone and dead bodies into succulent meat akin to glazed ham or an animal cooked over a spit.

The scent alone was enough to make everyone forget the fact that they were supposed to be fighting as their mouths watered. All except for Jack, who simply jumped into the god's line of fire with his [Death Scythes] drawn.

"Perfect," Geri then snatched Jack out of the air and transformed his body into a meat-carving knife (with Jack's head being the kitchenware's pommel) as a carving fork appeared out of his other hand. "My old one was getting dull."

The god then plunges the fork into the roast meat before slicing off a juicy slab of succulent, salty and savory goodness, even going far as to lick the meat juices off of Jack to further savor its meal.

"[Food Magic: Main Course-Campfire Roast]!" declared the god in a jubilant tone as everyone not part of this meal watched completely slack-jawed.

"... You've got to be kidding me," Meroleona remarked as she wrestled with an unholy concoction of emotions that shouldn't be possible to combine together as she and everyone else watched the god greedily devour his meal. "... After all that crap... all that mutt can think about is eating?!"

"Well, take this with a grain of salt," said Morris. "Apparently, this god's whole existence is all about eating. Every second of its existence, it must eat something, no questions asked. Denial of such thing will elicit a similar reaction to a child being rejected of its freedoms. I would know, because I had a fair share of brats under Project H.O.L.O.N. I had to take care of. They're dead of course, but good riddance."

All Rades can do was impotently laugh at the sight, his mind slightly broken at the experience of a god turning one of his greatest works into a complete and utter joke. At the same time, Geri proceeds to finish his meat dish before topping it all off by devouring the bones left behind and after crunching the leftovers into a fine paste, he then gives one last lick across the blade of his carving knife to lap up the remaining meat juices before tossing the utensil away, returning Jack back to his original human form, now covered in slobber as if he'd been licked by a thousand dogs.

"... I feel like I've been sexually violated all over," shuddered Jack as he got up, mucus dripping down from his soaked body.

"And you were absolutely scrumptious," declared the wolf god. "Surely, my master shall be pleased."

"Pleased...?" snarled Meroleona, now having had enough this bullshit. "... Just what do you think all of this will please my friend?!"

"She's a dwarf, human," Geri sneered, dismissing her rage as nothing special. "Their desire is their power. My master desires to eat good food. Ergo, I am her power to fulfill her desire made manifest, that just happened to be worshipped by many of her kin as such. You humans baffle me on the concept of restraint and excess at the same time. If you want something, shouldn't you take it, regardless of cost?"

But just before anyone can answer the god's question, thunder and lightning rained from above, with a flying whale carrying Scheherazade, Lolopechka and Undine atop of its back entering the scene.

"The Queen?!" Jack remarked as the thunderstorm approached them. "WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING HERE-?!"

"GET AWAY!" warned Scheherazade as a cluster of thunderbolts struck the trees that were now joining in the larger forest fire behind them.

Upon those words being uttered, Sally's [Sticky Salamander] carrying the unconscious Valtos and Angra inside of the goo with Vanessa as her hostage. "YOU HEARD THE LADY IN THE SKY! WE NEED TO BOUNCE ASAP!"

Before Rades can protest, Morris/Mammon grab him before placing him over their shoulder and jumping into the good. "Let's not drag this out any longer than we have to, alright?"

"GET BACK HERE!" Meroleona then went after them, only for one lightning bolt to strike her from above, shocking her all over before she collapsed onto the floor.

"DAMN DUMB BITCH!" Jack then ran towards her and dragged her unconscious body back to cover. "WHERE THE FUCK IS ALL THIS COMING FROM?!"

Another bolt then finally strikes one of the whale's fins, sending [Bahamut] crashing towards the earth as its body broke through several wreckages and tree lines before finally coming to a halt.

"YOUR HIGHNESS!" a profusely-bleeding Gaja then came running out of the woods as what was left of the Illuminati makes a successful retreat. "YOUR HIGHNESS! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"I'M OKAY-" Lolopechka's reassurance was then cut off by Scheherazade tackling her out of the way. "ACTUALLY, NOT REALLY!"

"EVERYONE!" Gaja cried out as he then drew an array on the ground to have it open a hole. "INTO THE TUNNELS! RETREAT! EVERYONE RETREAT!"

As everyone then made a break towards the breach for shelter, Geri then looked at both the sky and downed whale and came up with a perfect finisher for his hunger.

"Time for dessert!" the god then begins warping reality to its liking by first transforming all of the thunderbolts into long continuous strands of eclair pastries before slurping them all down from the sky like noodles. "[Food Magic: Dessert Course-Eternal Eclair]!"

At the moon, Ziz tries to recall his spells, only for them to instead be kept sucked out of his very being, as if the god's demand for food has superseded his authority over his own magic. All he could do was watch in horror as his own mana was sucked out and turned into the beast's desert and could do nothing about it other than take it.

But just before the last drop of his mana could be sucked out and finish him off, the [Curse of Paranoia] that was planted onto him activates on its own and cuts off the siphoning stream at the last minute, leaving the Demon utterly emaciated, but still alive.

"... Mother... fucker," he cursed as he plopped down onto the satellite's craggily surface.

As soon as Geri finished slurping up the cream-filled pastries long as the world's circumference (in combined total length), it then took control of the downed whale before reshaping its body into that of a marble chalice filled to the brim with a gold-hued liquid that gleamed light off of its wavy surface.

"And to wash it all down, [Food Magic: Sommelier's Special-White Whale Wine]," declared Geri as he then poured the contents of the goblet messily into his gaping maw and upon emptying the cup, he then tosses it aside before it disappeared, its essence returned into Scheherazade's fable. Upon finally finishing its five-course meal, the god then claps his pawed hands twice before giving a small bow. "And thus, I am grateful for partaking this meal."

As soon as Geri finished his proclamation, the bestial god then lets go of his host from her birdcage before disappearing back into her body like a spirit entering into a shadow. Upon which, both Yami (carrying both Finral and Gauche on his back) and Mosin (her [Glephnir] Relics now around her toes) coming out of the smoking jungle and spottng Charmy waking up.

"Huh?!" she then looked around in utter confusion at the sight of complete ruin surrounding her. "... What the hell happened?!"

---

Rotten Elysium, Neutral Territory, Dawn

---

A beam of light then strikes where Dryad's bump was at, which then began to convulse and writhe, causing the captured spirit to start screaming in unimaginable agony.

As Dryad thrashed and screamed from the pain, the four Stigmatas planted inside of her began to glow in eerie radiance from the depths of the underworld, staking her very existence as tribute for their denizens to cross over.

The thing that was being gestated inside of her stomach by Caligula was about to be born.

"Be not afraid."

Those words she tried to hold onto even as she approached certain death. She did not think about the fact that either if the thing being born out of her was going to kill her or the dark ritual where she's the effigy was going to do her in.

For now, all she can do is endure, until the very end. Not for herself, but to the faint voice that believed in her.

"... I... will... not... SUMBIT!" the spirit screeched in bold resolve in the face of certain death.

"I have heard," the voice spoke as the dark light began to turn holy. "You've done well to hold on. I shall now help you."

The pain then stops. The convulsions ceased.

A small orb of light floats out of Dryad's navel, revealing itself to be the same girl in the cocoon that Caligula had planted inside of her. Only now, she was bearing a pair of wings cascading like waterfalls.

"... Who... who are you?" asked the nature Spirit.

"I have been called many names of those who sought my blessing," spoke the child. "But throughout many iterations, I am currently known as Djibril, the Archangel of [Determination]."

The cherubic Archangel then blows a small bubble towards Dryad, which upon popping, undoes all of her webbings, excises the unwanted child and the four Stigmatas out of her body, freeing her completely.

"We have nil time to linger here," spoke Djibril. "The forest is in danger. Will you provide aid?"

The nature spirit nods as the Archangel took flight towards the air. With her hands, she then conjures a giant orb of water before sending it into the skies, which upon bursting spread forth a torrential rain that doused all the flames ravaging the wilderness, allowing Dryad to begin patching up the damaged parts of the jungle with her own powers.

"[Ichor Recovery Magic]," spoke the Archangel, "[Baptism]."

The cleansing rain then extinguishes the flames as the young Archangel sets herself back onto the ground.

"My apologizes for not coming sooner," spoke Djibril. "Caligula caught wise of my reincarnation and attempted to turn my host into that of a Prince vessel."

The spirit shook her head. "At least you came in the end, little as it was foreshadowed..." chuckled the nature spirit. "So now what?"

The reincarnated Archangel then leads Dryad into the jungle. "Come," she spoke, "we must seek out my chosen child."

As the two left behind their fallen paradise, the four Stigmatas lying on the ground along with the aborted Demon child began to resonate.

Even though they've failed to claim Dryad as their sacrifice, the Archangel's interference had worked in their favor. Mainly, the timing between the advent of the Archangel and the moment where they were supposed to fully manifest occurred at the same time, resulting in an exceedingly-rare case of a glitch in the system.

As a result, four of the Eleven Elusive Evils were made manifest around the Demon child, albeit, in their weakened state.

"... Okay," spoke Adramelech, his tail feathers ruffling, "... can any of you wiseguys tell me what the actual fuck happened just now?!"

Ishtar then looks around before finding a Demon baby before her paws. "... It appears that the supposed transaction was incorrectly processed," spoke the leonine Demon as she adjusted her glasses. "Given that we weren't vaporized by the surprise intervention of an Archangel, I'd say things could've been significantly worse then the way it is right now."

"... You only say that to spare us of our hurt feelings, sister," Ereshkigal glumly remarked as she shaded her face from the rising sun with her wings. "... Preferably, we'd prefer if we were in this world at our fullest."

"Hm, let them enjoy their peace, I'd say," Yetzer smirked as he hung upside down from above. "The longer these mortals stew in this quiet, the louder my Sin can echo through their hearts, sewing even more possible chaos."

The four Demons then all look down at the baby, whom, despite its weakened state, was still alive, and was about to radiating a blooming power that can grow into something that they can easily use to their own benefit.

"... I'll watch the baby," Ishtar then picked up the Demon infant into her arms.

"Never took you for the maternal type, Ishtar," the peacock Demon snarked.

"Sister merely sees the babe... as an investment..." the vulture Demon pointed out.

"Regardless, you're on your own raising that tyke," the bat Demon then unfurled its wings before taking off. "If you wish to find me, fly east!"

"I'll... go north," Ereshkigal remarked before she also took off into the air. "... I can't stomach dense populations... Hell is preferable since at least they're dying before me..."

"In that case, I'll head westward," Ishtar then left the ruins with the baby in her arms.

"... Fine I'll stay here," grumbled Adramelech as he then busted a hole open through the canopy and let the sun in from above before reclining on the leftover webbings. "Haven't had a good tan in a while..."

As the four Demons went their separate ways, unbeknownst to the one that was staying behind, just beneath where it had lay, a long dead Dragon rested below.

The empty sockets of its skull lit up in a faint red orb of light before fading back to darkness.

---

Northeastern Jungle Border, Heart Kingdom, Dawn

---

"(Shit, I knew the tropical climates had their weird weather patterns, but this seems a little too contrived)!" Akane cursed through the sudden squall pouring onto her and her twin's kasa hats. "... (Should've woven a pair of mino cloaks beforehand)."

"Ane-sama!" Mari called out from behind. "(We should rest until the rain stops! You'll catch a cold like this)!"

But before Akane could protest, her ki then picks up a presence heading towards them followed up with a weak screaming that became louder as it closed in towards them. Before she could draw her [Murasame], caught onto her hands was a lanky man with a green mage's robe draped around his shoulders, the force of the man landing in her arms sending her feet skidding back a few feet before she was then stopped by Mari catching her back at the last moment.

"Ane-sama..." Mari looked at the man with the green robe, "... (just who is this man? Is he even alive)?"

Akane checks for his pulse before finding an emblem depicting a preying mantis on its iconography. The art style of the insect was similar to that of the ones that the Magic Knights from the Clover Kingdom wore, indicating that this man was part of the same organization.

"... (Even better)," Akene then smiles as she recalls the words about a "foreigner" being part of their organization spoken by a certain forehead-braided man bearing the insignia of a silver eagle while the man in her arms coughed after swallowing a few droplets of the cascading rain into his mouth, "... (I found our lead)."

---

"... Oh crap," gulped Corrin as the first part of the angolmois came to an end like a play's curtains being drawn closed back together. "Did things just get worse?"

"Who says fate has to be any good?" Ogmios pointed out. "I mean, for Pete's sake, the fact that it didn't get any worse then this is nothing short of a miracle."

"But remember, my dear lass," reassured Brigid as the second reel of fate began to play, "that's only one part of the absurdity known as destiny. Who knows? Everything might turn out better or for worse within the next week or so. But for now, all you really can do is pick a god and pray."

Corrin sighs in semi-defeat as she then gets comfortable in preparation of watching what's about to come next. "Well, I wonder what'll happen next?"

---

To Be Continued...

---

Author's Notes: Writing through post-writer's block is fucking brutal, man. Silver lining, I'm getting used to the whole job application thing and my New Game+ for Persona 5 Royal is over and done with by the time this chapter is posted.

So yeah, this is my longest chapter up to date. Normally, I would've made this chapter into two parts (and should've in hindsight), but given that my writer's block was so horrible that my mind had no other choice but to overcompensate, and one time when writing this, the server for this website (I write my fics on site because it's easier for me) crashed and took me several hours to recover my work. And was around that point that "sunk-cost fallacy" came in and there was no turning back at this point.

Also, my "I" key on my laptop is about stable as a loose tooth, so I'm having a harder time keeping pace. I can ask for a new laptop with stronger keys (and less overpriced than what Apple sells), and that didn't help my mindset when writing this chapter.

So, this arc overall... things only got better and worse for the Clover Kingdom's Magic Knights and their alliance. They lost about nearly half of their lineup, one of them is kidnapped and taken hostage by the Illuminati, the whole of the Heart Kingdom is in ruins no thanks in part of Geri and Ziz's rampages on top of the Six DEVAs wrecking shit beforehand, the Mitsurugi twins are now onto Yami's existence thanks to En literally falling into their hands, oh and four of the Eleven Elusive Evils are now set loose upon the mortal world, planning god-knows-what.

Silver linings, the Illuminati has no intention to fight them the way they are right now (remember, they only took a detour and ended up with them fighting), Caligula is dead and so are the rest of the Thanatophages, Dryad is free, Lolopechka and Undine are still alive along with some of their subjects, Yami took sweet vengeance by proxy from the one wearing Luck's body like a jumpsuit, and an Archangel has made herself known, meaning that help is on the way for the heroes.

Overall, this whole arc is basically Black Clover-world's take on the Vietnam War, the jungle, the brutality, the madness, and the constant push towards moving the line despite the odds. They're not out of the woods yet, but they've yet to completely die off.

There was some symbolism with Magna's sunglasses in correlation to his sister Angra and the implied discussion of Overgauge/mana cancer being a semi-relevant plot point being correlated with the existence of Totem Gods, but that's for another time.

I'm going to take a week long break from writing fanfiction just to refresh my schedule. If I push on the way I am now, I feel like my brain's going to explode.

References:

- [Saint Gemini]'s gimmick is borrowed from Ashura P1's splitting gimmick acting as an impromptu iron maiden from Mazinger Z: Infinity, where as its "one-to-two" form is partially inspired by Another Double's "backs of two heads stitched together" design aesthetic from Kamen Rider Zi-O and Douke Bancho from Kongoh Bancho. It's separate forms are named after Castor and Pollux, who in legend, the latter died and upon Zeus' request, ascended both into immortality, becoming the constellation of Gemini, with their respective fates being reflected by the half-masks that each puppet wears (Castor, the lucky one, wears the Greek Comedy Mask; inversely, Pollux, the unlucky one, wears the Greek Tragedy Mask).

- The compound magic, [Castor & Pollux-Formation Tragoedia] is named after the Greek word for "tragedy."

- Caligula!Shiva's auto-revive spell, [Tandava Natyam], is named after the dance Shiva does when the time for the universe's creation-destruction cycle needs to be reset for another runaround, destroying everything that makes up the old world to give way for a new iteration of the cycle, similar to how this Shiva needs to die in order to come back. The whole "coming back stronger after each death" aspect of the spell, I kinda had Phoenix Man's evolution into Phoenix Man Reincarnated from Murata's One Punch Man redraw, with Cell's evolutionary line from Dragon Ball Z (for chrissakes, his evolved form into a grown up version of deceased Nagant III's physical form is a direct homage to Cell's Perfect Form). Its evolution Pavrati (named after Shiva's wife and the Hindu Goddess of Fertility) is based off Shaiapouf's appearance from Hunter X Hunter, while Ardha, or by their full title, Ardhanarishvara (the combined form of Shiva and Pavrati, literally meaning "Half-Woman God" in Sanskrit) is based off of Yubel from Yu-Gi-Oh GX. Also, it's process of going from a hedonistic brat to an enlightened being is a dark mirror to the story of Buddha, who was once a prince of a kingdom before seeking out suffering to better understand the world that he was sheltered from. For the cherry on top, its [Last Prana-Sahasrara], is named after the Sanskrit word meaning "breath" and the latter half is the seventh/crown chakra that controls the mind's connection to the spirit and means "the thousand-petaled" in Sanskrit, with the functionality of Demon King Piccolo from Dragon Ball spawning his successor/"son," Piccolo, albeit transferring the mind rather than gestating a new body.

- Geri quotes Hunger Games and Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares during his hangry rampage.

- Ziz's cloud smile is based off Pet Shop's grin from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3: Stardust Crusaders. His claim of hearing "KILL UNDINE AND HER BLOODLINE" is a reference to Dr. Gero's programming of the Androids 16, 17, and 18 in Dragon Ball Z Abridged, aka, "KILL SON GOKU."

- Mosin's [Guardian of Obstinance, Saint Taurus] is conceptually based off Mino Magnus from Mega Man Zero 4 with the bland and monochromatic look and underwhelming frame being based off The Spot from Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It's [Merope Meridian] is named after both the start that makes up the Taurus constellation and the Greek Nymphs of rivers and landmarks. Her other puppets that she summons through her [Duet Lead], [Guardian of Rebellion, Saint Aquarius] and [Guardian of Ambition, Saint Scorpio] are based off Fairy Leviathan from Mega Man Zero with Splash Woman's trident from Mega Man 9, and Gallantmon from Digimon Tamers respectively, with some Greek Hoplite influences and the latter's shield iconography being a reference to how Apollo sent Scorpio to kill Orion after he found the latter getting a little too cuddly with his sister Artemis for the latter.

- Gaja's [Mana Zone: Lámpsi] means "refulgence" in Greek. And him being stabbed in the stomach and still kicking is a reference to the canon manga when he shrugged off the exact same injury mid-fight.

- Finral's recollection of a retired thief's words is a direct reference to Peter B. Parker's line to Miles Morales from Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

- Angra's [Hellfire Magic] spells serve as dark mirrors for Magna's spells, with [Dead Enfer] being named after the baseball terminology "dead ball" and the French word that means "hell," [Foul Baile] is named after "foul ball" and a Spanish word that means "dance." Also, she quotes Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender, specifically from Book 3, when she initiates an Agni Kai against Zuko.

- The triple-stranglehold chain is a reference to a scene from Gintama's Shinigami Arc, where Matsudaira, Katsura, Kondo, and some random watchman end up chokeholding each other, in sequence, mistaking the other for said watchman. But unlike the original, this fic's iteration isn't meant to be a gag.

- Tesla's spells are inspired by his many/rumored unpatented inventions. [Transphase One-System of a Down] is based off of Tesla's teleportation experiment that allegedly happened (see Records of Ragnarok as reference and how they run with it) and also named after the band with the same name. His [Remote Coil-Slipknot] is based off the Spark Extractor from Transformers: Prime and named after the remote controller and the Tesla Coil (Nikolas Tesla's IRL inventions) and named after the band Slipknot.

- Archangel Djibril is the Islam name for Archangel Gabriel, meaning "God is my strength" in Hebrew (alluded through her Virtue, [Determination]), and her affinity for water being referenced in the suit of cards represented by the heart, hence her association with the Heart Kingdom, and her [Ichor Magic] is a reference to both the Holy Grail and the Greek gods' very blood, tying both together since the former was the same cup that was used both during the Last Supper and the same cup that was filled with the blood of Christ during his crucifixion.

Hypothetical Voice Actors:

- Archangel Djibril: Mayu Mineda (JPN), Anjali Kunapaneni (ENG)

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