Confusion flooded Syune’s mind.
Why was the Shadow Mage opposing her own kind? “Did you hear correctly?” What did that mean…?
‘Did that Ochanja know about the cursed existence dwelling within me from the very beginning?’
Once more, the Shadow Mage opened her mouth.
“Look at the enemy!”
Fangs rose from the sea of flesh. It was an attack aimed at the Storm Spirit. But the spirit nullified the assault with a simple motion of clenching its spread fingers.
Rumble—!
Lightning fell. The only difference from before was its color. It was not purple lightning, but ordinary lightning seen on any normal day.
Spears of pure white light embroidered the sea of flesh. The fangs and pillars of flesh surrounding the spirit were all carbonized and crumbled away.
A pungent, fishy smell that seemed to pierce the nose spread. A scent similar to the smell of burning iron.
‘The smell of ozone (O₃)…?’
Syune Heidel’s extensive knowledge provided the answer. The scent of ozone remains where lightning strikes. A fragrance she had not detected from the previous purple lightning.
‘Unlike the purple lightning forged by magic power, did he call forth lightning as a natural phenomenon?’
***
While Syune was bewildered by the enemy’s trickery, Laban was gnashing his teeth.
“That bastard. He fights damn well!”
“…? Isn’t it the same attack as the first one?”
“This is why dark magic novices are what they are! Look closely—he called lightning just like before, but the way he’s guiding it has changed.”
The difference in the lightning’s color that Syune had noticed was the result of Charles’s method of generating lightning having changed. The first purple lightning had been the quintessence of dark magic, realized purely through magic to break through the Magical Girl’s defenses.
The defensive power created by the magic of dreams and hope enveloping the Magical Girl. This was the reason why attacks from monstrous beings that could lightly destroy reinforced concrete barely left more than a scratch on a Magical Girl.
Analyzed magically, it was closest to the protection of a divine being. Charles had forged lightning through dark magic to destroy this.
However, the current lightning was merely created by interfering with clouds using an infinitesimal amount of magic power to form an environment where lightning was likely to occur. It was nothing more than inducing the occurrence of real lightning.
“Ha, a bourgeois overflowing with both money and magic power, yet familiar with gutter brawling.”
A Magical Girl might be filled with her mascot’s protection, but Laban’s blood vessel familiars were different. How much magic power would it consume to maintain such a high-level defensive barrier?
Charles, having grasped this immediately, induced natural phenomena. He didn’t need to worry about lightning rods. Among the Ochanja that had become materials for the blood vessel familiars, how many conductors existed inside the factory parasitic organisms?
They were no different from beam weapons that burned flesh wherever they struck. A choice that extracted maximum efficiency attacks with minimal magic power consumption.
Inian shrugged.
“Doesn’t the actual damage amount to pretty much the same?”
“Damn it. I’d forgotten you’re a combat race.”
The Archduke of the Demon World’s logic was simple. Regardless of the efficiency of the enemy’s attacks, the amount of damage the enemy inflicted upon you remained unchanged.
Then was there not still no change in the battle plan to break through with sheer grit and toughness and crush the enemy?
“Acid fog that burns the respiratory system—doesn’t work. Aphids parasitizing the nervous system—doesn’t work. Seeing how explosive mosquitoes are burning up, maybe infectious explosive tumors might be somewhat useful?”
“…Are you sure the Magical Girl won’t get caught up in it?”
Inian reminded Laban to be careful, as he reeled off all manner of bizarre biological disasters. Magi White’s survival was just as important a goal as Charles’s extermination.
“Ordinary attacks can’t break through a Magical Girl’s protection. It seems Charles’s lightning was a specialized magic created to break through that protection. Bombard away at maximum firepower without issue.”
***
Charles repeatedly brought the storm back under his control as it tried to break free. That magic that transformed the surrounding environment entirely into a predatory ecosystem was terribly meticulous.
First, there were curses. These curses, worthy of being called the basics of dark magic, truly constricted the Storm Spirit across multiple fronts.
Curses that inverted the exterior and interior, curses dependent on biological traits like the reversal of bone and flesh did not work; but the moment these were identified, different types of curses were layered on top.
The problem was that he had spoken to Magi White. Perhaps realizing that the opponent was a sapient being, she began pouring out cognition-based curses.
Illusions and other confusions.
Confusing the sensory organs to distort the familiar’s control methods.
Attempts to insert malicious information to regress her intelligence.
Curses layered merely upon setting foot in the space, combined with direct attempts to eliminate the Storm Spirit.
The most threatening were the bombs. Something most similar to mosquitoes among Earth’s creatures clung and exploded.
An attempt to disintegrate the body with high heat and air pressure, taking advantage of the fact that the Storm Spirit’s constituent material appeared no different from clouds.
Charles constantly infused magic power to restore the spirit’s body while observing the sea of flesh surrounding him.
All magic required a price. Perhaps a Magical Girl backed by a Mother Fairy might be different, but a dark mage could not endlessly maintain such a ridiculously large-scale magic power ceremony.
Charles could soon grasp the beautiful madness embedded within this terrifying magic.
Perpetual motion through self-torture. This was a realm normally unattainable.
Why did dark mages not whip themselves but instead collect emotions from others?
It was because “the fact of pain” alone made the mass generation of high-quality dark magical power impossible. When some malicious other inflicted pain upon oneself, hatred toward that other mixed in, finally becoming negative thoughts, thereby increasing the density as dark magical power.
In other words, it was a matter of cost-effectiveness.
Pain devoid of intense emotions like hatred produced only dark magical power less than the magic power invested to inflict the pain.
Perhaps it could not produce dark magical power at all. Since even collecting dark magical power consumed a minimum amount of magic power, if production was less than the amount consumed in collection, efficiency diverged into the negatives.
But this new dark mage approached from a different perspective. Even if minuscule, it was true that negative thoughts arose from pain itself.
Therefore, she increased the mass that produced pain. So that more pain than the invested magic power could be produced. It was the result of a desperate struggle to draw out maximum results from minimum resource investment.
Knowing the true nature of the flesh pieces forming the sea of flesh, Charles admired it. It was a grotesque nervous system manufactured for the purpose of amplifying pain. It was made to feel the agony of having one’s eyes gouged out and hydrochloric acid poured in with every breath.
The regenerative ability it was granted evidenced the meticulousness of the design. Constant self-repair occurred so that the pain wouldn’t stop when the nervous system was severed.
A timed magic that would collapse on its own should the pain tolerance limit be reached, or if the mass swelled beyond a certain point and the magic power required to maintain biological mass overwhelmed the pain production.
But until that time limit approached, it could achieve perpetual motion where magic power exceeding the consumption amount was instantly recovered each time magic was used.
‘Who on earth.’
Who could come up with such an idea?
He was undoubtedly the one who had advanced furthest into the horizons of dark magic on this planet. It was not baseless confidence indistinguishable from arrogance. The “pioneers” who had been ahead of him.
The predecessors who had abandoned their human identities and redefined themselves as a new species had all been dealt with by the Mother Fairy.
If that were an invader from another dimension, the Mother Fairy would have eliminated it even more readily, so it was undoubtedly a being based on humans.
He couldn’t imagine what human lineage could have obtained such grotesque and magnificent wisdom. Was it truly the prototype of the Ochanja?
If it was one of them connected to the Mother Fairy’s database, perhaps they could have reached such a deep realm of dark magic.
But since Ochanja were fundamentally tools, such creative ideas should be nearly impossible.
Charles’s thoughts could not continue. Following the biological disasters spewed by the predatory ecosystem, the Magical Girl had come to her senses and begun moving in earnest.
Sizzle—!
The purifying ribbons swung by Magi White displayed astonishing destructive power, destroying the structure of the sea of flesh without even touching it directly.
However, that brutal destructive power helped the Shadow Mage, just this once. The pain of displaced bones and melting flesh was immediately converted into magic power.
“That’s right, Guardian of Order! Fulfill your duty!”
***
Inian tilted his head seeing Laban cheer for the Magical Girl’s battle in a solemn tone.
“Why are you still continuing that strange act?”
“It’s for disruption. Think about it. If the enemy charges at you with a knife shouting ‘Take this, Biyeolbegi!’ wouldn’t you naturally be wary of the knife?”
“Is that so…?”
“But if they pull out a gun and shoot the moment you get close, you’d be bewildered. That’s what this is.”
Laban did not underestimate Charles as a dark mage. If Charles identified the weaknesses of the predatory ecosystem and engaged in a war of attrition, it would be difficult for Laban to finish him off.
He orchestrated a pincer attack with the Magical Girl to prepare for such a situation. So that the current attacks appeared to be the best means available.
Yes, the “knife” was Magi White.
The “gun” was Inian.
Immediately after the predatory ecosystem was deployed, and as soon as sufficient magical camouflage was secured, Inian had been aiming her spear at Charles while accumulating magic power. An overload that had already exceeded even the magic power required to activate the Lamashut Javelin.
In other words.
“The sure-kill Lamashut Javelin Overload…! Isn’t it cool?”
Inian wanted to sigh.