Star Warriors Magilist! S1 E29: The Black Enemy Returns! An Unexpected Alliance!
Clack. Clack-clack-clack-clack—!
Fingers were crawling around. More precisely, fingers were.
Magi Black and Magi White stood back-to-back, wary of the grotesque things approaching.
"What the hell are those…!"
"Be careful, Black!"
The fingers resembled flower crabs. Two hands stacked broadly, twitching. Fingers scuttling forward like crab legs.
Each one was feeble on its own. Not some mana-draining technique—just a plain kick could scatter them. A hand-crab that tumbled underfoot burst open like ruptured guts, its flesh torn apart.
But then.
The muscle fibers that had formed the hand began unraveling thread by thread. The gruesome thing stretched out long like red yarn, merging with other scattered threads nearby to regenerate into a far larger shape.
Similar to the previous hand-trees, but different. Far more tenacious and bizarre.
Why the hell are things like this…!
The two Magilists gritted their teeth.
Hiss—.
Suddenly, the horde of hands retreated. A concentric void spread out around the Magilists.
Mid-battle, silence descended abruptly.
Nai Hyun sensed something ominous. The vein threads that had littered every corner of the battlefield just moments ago were gone.
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
The sound of hand-crabs moving. They were devouring each other.
Unraveling their own forms, the vein threads multiplied. As they carpeted the ground like red moss clinging to concrete, they converged in one spot.
A humanoid silhouette—more precisely, a bizarre figure of veins alone, shambling on two legs. Fingers sprouted from its face, and an eye blinked warily from its left breast, scanning the surroundings. And its hands. The left was somewhat normal, but the right palm bore a mouth.
It spoke.
"Why do you hinder me?"
"You think we're just gonna stand by while you disrupt Hikarius City's peace!"
"How peculiar. I have done you no harm. My familiars may look grotesque, but they would never strike first…."
Not some freak crafted by the Ivory Tower—this was a true monster, a twisted human turned fiend, questioning them in return.
"Stand aside, guardians of this world. I come not for you, but for your foes."
No hostility aimed at the Magilists, yet its very existence oozed malice. A strange ripple enveloped the fiend.
As the vein fiend took a step forward, the Magilists crouched low. Their centers of gravity shifted. Taut tension, ready to spring at any moment.
"Hah!"
From high above, a confident voice rang out.
"That foe you mean—is it me, you monster!"
"Ah, a Heavenly King."
A bird-man descended, swirling through the sky on cyan wings.
"Indeed, as Salamandine described—a hideous wretch! But fear not."
The bird-man spread his wings grandly and bellowed with smug assurance.
"I am Dunamis of the Wind, the Ivory Tower's swiftest warrior serving Lord Ebon! Before this body's razor gale—"
"Hey, you moron!"
Magi Black barely restrained her hand from flying to the nape of her neck and shouted.
"Huh? No, why! You calling me birdbrain too? Would apostles of justice like the Magilists use such discriminatory slurs?!"
"You should've ambushed him! Why the hell are you monologuing like an idiot?!"
"No! Fine for Black, but even refined White too?!"
"Hey. What's the word you skipped between 'that' and 'Black'?"
"Eeee! Not the time for nitpicking, Magilists! We must vanquish this suspicious intruder in Hikarius!"
Raban eyed the new Heavenly King through his split body's gaze.
'Ah, that's the last Heavenly King I hadn't seen.'
Fast just by looking at him. Probably one to summon typhoons with wind control and doggedly pursue with 'the storm strikes twice!' No real intent to fight seriously and win.
These split bodies' goal was just to aggro the Ivory Tower and magical girl factions anyway—mission already accomplished, really.
But.
Raban's eyes caught the wind mana composing Dunamis's body. These Heavenly Kings, homunculi mimicking spirits, boasted impressively pure mana.
'Maybe snag some extra loot?'
"Finished with introductions?"
"Gah!?"
In an instant, vein threads had snaked up to Dunamis's ankles.
"Hmph! With this?!"
The bird-man flapped his wings. Razor-sharp winds sliced the veins. Precisely severing only the threads binding his ankle—exquisite skill that spared even a single feather on his own body.
But he couldn't dodge all the spurting blood. Fingers sprouted from the bloodstains.
"Wha?!"
Fingers began crawling over Dunamis's body. They converged on his face, wrapping his throat.
"Pathetic tricks. Before Dunamis of the north wind, you dare?!"
Dunamis took flight. To shake off the fingers with wind pressure.
That was the signal—the magical girls charged too.
Raban exploited the vein fiend's nature. Lacking proper flesh, just a mass of veins. Magical girl punches slipped through gaps, then hands were bound on withdrawal.
"Ugh, gross!"
Boom!
Focusing mana into her fist blew out the fiend's side instantly. Terrifying mana output.
'Whoa. Just gotta dodge.'
The vein fiend, decent at regeneration, lost a fifth of its body in one hit. Real monster.
Manipulating the vein fiend while countering Dunamis. Shaping the fingers clinging to him.
Crunch.
Flesh lumped together, mutating harder. Bones. Rib-like shards hooked into Dunamis's flesh like barbs.
"What foul mana is this! Why target us, you abomination?!"
"You defy nature's laws."
Raban unfurled his slowly prepared lore.
"Anomalous mana aggregates…. Forces that should cycle through the planet's nature stagnate in one place. You block the great cycle."
Truthfully, this was a tale Raban himself had heard. When gathering earth-water-fire-wind mana, demon legions had attacked spewing such nonsense. No justification for the demon archdukes. Clearly grudge-harvesting from peeking at their annexes back then.
Raban had tearfully self-destructed his base. Recalling that, he drew from the demon archduke's familiars, differentiating his hands into new forms.
Limited to human elements he could control freely, he couldn't replicate originals perfectly. Massive eyes like freshly gouged, oversized ears flapping like wings to levitate them.
'Not bad resemblance!'
If the demon archduke saw, it'd scream, 'Mine had crystal eyes and obsidian wings—classy familiar! Yours is a deranged freak, you idiot!' But no copyright holder here to complain.
These eye monsters' visions linked to Raban's awareness, like the vein fiend. Dozens of eyes oversaw the battlefield.
Dunamis screamed, 'Gaaah! What are these bone hooks! My body's burning!'
Flames flickered distantly—Salamandine, Fire Heavenly King, no doubt. Fire had always clashed with flesh. Burns hurt like hell and lingered.
He knew from experience.
'Still hasn't landed a real hit despite the rib hooks. Maybe postpone mana harvesting from Heavenly Kings.'
As Raban prepared to withdraw.
"Nature's laws, you say! The true aberration is those damned fairies!"
Dunamis's voice echoed through the air.
Ha!
Dunamis roared, wrapping himself in wind. Fierce gusts stripped the bones. Mana leaked from wounds like blood, but he controlled even that, material for new spells.
Raban paid no mind to Dunamis's next attack. This Heavenly King had just given the first testimony to the mascots' anomaly.
He feigned calm.
"What nonsense, you scrap of nature. Denying those Magilists are Hikarius's guardians?"
"They guard Hikarius, sure. But the fairies are dictators warping this world…!"
"Ah, that crap again from you guys! He's the enemy right now—can't we just team up without picking fights?!"
"But behold, Magilists! Truth matters!"
"That's not necessarily true, okay!? Papirun's so kind!"
"Papirun? Irrelevant to that old fairy's virtue! Their terrifying 'Mother' dominating Earth…!"
Mother.
Raban rolled the word in his mind. He'd suspected some great spirit backing the mascots.
'Mother' seemed its title.
"Dunamis. Why slander our Mother Queen Gaiaheart so desperately-mohu?"
A cotton candy-like fluffball crawled from the air behind the magical girls.
Raban etched its form perfectly.
'That's a mascot…!'
"No slander! She exiled our progenitor Ebon—the dictator!"
"Ebon went mad and dove to another dimension himself-mohu!"
"You're slandering another's progenitor now!"
The nonhumans' squabble was prime opportunity. Sensing encroaching heat, Raban readied retreat.