Chapter 16 - The Pandemonium of Innocence

Before the infiltration of Magura, through the trees of the Guhojre forest...

Magura walked slowly through the forest with her steady, deliberate steps. The leaves beneath her feet were crushed under her intimidating stride, freezing everything they touched or lay upon.

"As far as I know, you are the guardian of this forest, Atbara," Magura said, her eyes fixed on a tree slightly older than the ones around it.

Atbara began to emerge from that tree like a serpent shedding its skin. The bark splintered and cracked as he revealed his full form before Magura.

"We have served the dominions for hundreds of years, and yet this is the first time we meet," said Atbara, kneeling before her in a gesture of respect. Magura gazed at him with a cold, emotionless stare.

"I have heard from the queen that you will be going on an infiltration mission into the nation of the angels. You have my wishes of good fortune," Atbara continued.

"I've heard your abilities are more than useful, should the plan fall apart," Magura replied, her eyes still locked on him.

"I am the only one who can cross the angels' barriers without being noticed, and surely, you will need my help," said Atbara. Magura glanced at him from the corner of her eye as he made this assertion.

Atbara slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a strange, orange-colored apple, extending it toward Magura for her to take with her.

"What is this? " Magura asked.

"Let's just say it's an apple that will serve you well. Speak, or simply think the word 'lunames,' which in the language of the vampires means 'come.' Then I will do my best to aid you as quickly as I can," Atbara replied.

Magura took the apple into her hands, studying its hue and the strange glow it radiated.

In the present, as Magura fought against the reinforcements in the High Kingdom...

Her eyes fell upon the orange apple Atbara had given her before the infiltration. "With this apple, you can pass through the barriers unnoticed by the angels, and you will also be able to communicate with me. This apple does not truly exist. It is only an interdimensional key that renders your existence negligible, but only when crossing a barrier." Atbara's words were etched into her mind. She looked at the apple once more, then tucked it back into her left pocket.

"What the hell is taking him so long? " Magura muttered to herself, her voice devoid of any emotion.

The angels had surrounded the demoness on all sides. Seven generals and more than two hundred angelic soldiers had completely blocked Magura's line of sight. From her last strike with the sword, a massive swath of the kingdom had been leveled, 2.5 kilometers long and 3 wide. The death toll and number of wounded were unprecedented. The soldiers were visibly unsettled by the prospect of facing an opponent of such magnitude.

"Have any of the marshals been notified? " one general asked the others.

"Marshal Ovidius was in the kingdom of Ulmra. Arnkhael was in Troa," another general replied.

"Damn it! We have no choice but to wait for them," one of them said in frustration.

"Until they arrive, we must face this monster ourselves," said another general, as the rest turned their attention to Magura, who stood calm and unbothered, gripping her fearsome blade in the presence of the angelic army.

"Attack!!!"

One of the generals gave the order, and all the angels rushed at Magura with a murderous intent. She cracked her middle finger against her thumb, producing a sound so faint it was almost dismissible. The first angel who had drawn closest to her froze entirely. Magura blew softly in his direction, and the frozen soldier toppled to the ground, shattering into thousands of fragments.

The other angels hesitated, confused, but not enough to halt their assault. Three more who pressed toward her were cleaved cleanly in half. Their severed bodies collapsed onto the ground, and there stood Magura's blade, dripping with their blood.

"What is going on? Strike her with light attacks!" a general barked after watching his soldiers reduced to broken remains.

The soldiers drew their swords, channeling beams of light infused with Lapis through the steel. The attacks came at incredible speed, but as they neared Magura, every strike turned into balls of ice and fell uselessly to the ground, sharing the same fate as the soldiers before them.

"She isn't even moving. How is she freezing our attacks?" muttered one general, his voice betraying unease and confusion.

"It must be the finger snap," said another standing beside him.

"The finger snap?"

"Most likely, you didn't hear it, but I, having a sharper ear, noticed it immediately. There's a high chance she's created an invisible barrier around herself, one that allows her to freeze anything attempting to approach. At first, I dismissed it, thinking it might be some meaningless reaction of hers, but it seems I was wrong," said the general.

"You're deaf already."

"Hm!?"

The moment the general turned to see where the voice had come from, the upper half of his body was torn apart in a crescent-shaped arc. Blood gushed like a fountain, splattering across the face of the general beside him, who stood utterly stunned. It was Magura, standing as though she were the judge of death itself.

"A general killed in such a way?"

"Who on earth is she?"

The generals trembled inwardly at the terrifying power Magura had just revealed. The strike had been so fast that none of them could grasp what had truly happened, only the gruesome result lay before them: their comrade's body cleaved apart like stalks of grass cut down by a scythe of impossible sharpness. The soldiers, too, were shaken by Magura's overwhelming might, and fear made them hesitate to even consider whether to attack her or not.

"AAAHHH!!!" screamed the general who had witnessed the carnage up close, charging at Magura in blind rage.

"Martiel!!! NO!" another general shouted in desperation.

Magura stopped the steel of his sword with nothing more than her left hand. Martiel stared at her in sheer terror. He saw her draw back her fist, preparing to strike him with the back of her hand.

"No... Don't—"

Magura crushed the general's skull in a single, devastating blow. What remained in her grasp was only the headless corpse of an angel. The back of her hand dripped with his blood as she flung his body to the ground like worthless refuse. The soldiers watched in horror at the sight.

"We don't stand a chance against her... We're far too—"

An obsidian-black spear of ice pierced through the angel's chest before he could finish the sentence, striking with incomprehensible speed and force. The shards of ice scattered across the ruins of the kingdom twisted into spear-like forms, impaling soldiers without warning. Some were split clean in half. Others had their skulls punctured in an instant, dropping lifeless on the spot. Still more found themselves pinned like insects, skewered by the merciless spears.

Magura unleashed this massacre without moving a single muscle in her body.

"Wh-Who are you? This insane amount of Lagus... only a member of a royal bloodline of any god could be drowning in such power," stammered one of the generals, terrified by the very notion of facing such an adversary. Magura turned her gaze upon the remaining five generals, appearing before them in an instant with the spread of her dark wings.

"Y-You bastard!!!" one of the generals shouted, unleashing a torrent of Lapis from his sword at her. Magura casually deflected it with the back of her right hand as if it were nothing. The other four soared toward her, swords poised to strike.

At that moment, Magura's blade pulsed with a malevolent green aura, radiating a bloodthirsty intent. It shifted and warped into a massive war hammer, many times larger than its previous sword form, a violet eye gleaming at the head of the iron. Magura swung it experimentally, adjusting to the weight of the enhanced weapon, before pointing it at the generals rushing her way.

One of them slashed at her, but she evaded with ease, gripping the hammer in both hands and bringing it around with terrifying speed from behind.

"W-What—"

The hammer obliterated the general, reducing the entire upper half of his body to nothing more than a mangled mass of flesh that burst apart in every direction. His lower half, blood gushing violently from the ruin of his torso, plummeted lifelessly toward the ground alongside his broken wings.

The four remaining generals froze, horrified by the display of overwhelming power that radiated from Magura's monstrous war hammer.

"I see you've kept your strength, Malberghes," Magura said to the hammer, caressing it with an almost tender touch.

"Lapis Arts: Two Wings — Antlers of Judgment!" one of the generals invoked, summoning a colossal stag forged of Lapis. Its body radiated a divine golden light, its antlers gleamed even brighter, and its angelic wings bestowed it with the majesty of a god among beasts. From its antlers surged an overwhelming torrent of Lapis, unleashed at Magura in a beam of pure energy, as though heaven itself had cast judgment upon the wretched sinner before them.

"Lapis Arts: Two Wings — Arrow of Justice!" another general cried out, forming an arrow saturated with Lapis and launching it at Magura with devastating speed and force, combining his strike with the stag-born judgment.

"Lapis Arts: Two Wing—"

The general stopped mid-incantation as he looked down to see a massive gash tearing through his abdomen, perfectly matching the shape of Magura's hammer.

"BLLOOUKKHH!!" he choked violently, blood spewing uncontrollably from his mouth. His body plummeted to the ground, intestines spilling forth alongside his stomach and liver in a grotesque cascade.

You said:

"Eltriel!!" the generals screamed, terrified by what had just happened.

The techniques had finished their assault, and beyond the light they had unleashed stood Magura, completely unscathed, her hammer aimed at the general she had just slain.

"M-M- Monst—"

One of the generals' bodies was shredded in an instant, torn apart by barrages of dark ice shards so fast and powerful that they pulverized him into hundreds of pieces within seconds.

"Kristel..." whispered the surviving general in horror, as he watched his comrade reduced to a rain of blood and a scattered collection of once-divine armor fragments. A shadow engulfed him, filling his soul with dread and helplessness. He turned his eyes toward Magura, only to find her standing barely two or three meters away, hammer raised, ready to cleave him in half.

What he saw was no longer a warrior, but a towering monster with glowing green eyes. An evil so absolute that even an angel would find escape impossible. His own eyes bulged with fear, veins straining as the hammer's looming shadow consumed his pitiful face. And then...

"Martael!!" cried the last general, trembling behind his companion. But all he witnessed was his partner's body being split horizontally in a grotesque display, wings falling separately as they were severed by the nightmare's hammer.

The soldiers, paralyzed with fear, looked on from behind the scene, powerless to intervene, unable to even imagine standing against such a terrifying foe.

Magura's green eyes blazed from within her helm as they locked onto the final general, like a lion about to tear apart the last trembling gazelle. Panic overtook him. Magura readied herself, preparing to hurl her hammer with unstoppable speed and force, as though reeling in the final fish trapped in the lake of fear.

But suddenly, a small white hammer struck Magura's helm by surprise, unleashing a brief explosion upon impact.

"Haah! M-Marshall Ovidius!" the general exclaimed in shock.

The Marshal stood clad in gleaming white armor, a white owl emblem upon his chest. A flowing white cape billowed behind him, black lines ran along the armor's edges, and crimson pauldrons crowned his shoulders. His helm covered the upper half of his head, shaped like the visage of an owl with a sharp, beak-like crest. Four wings spread out from his back. His hammer returned to his grasp as his eyes fixed on Magura, shrouded within the smoke of the blast.

The haze began to clear. Magura stood unharmed. Or so it seemed. Her helmet had been shattered, revealing her crimson hair streaming in the wind, and violet eyes that turned toward the Marshal with a gaze of utter disdain.

"Dangerous... yet beautiful," said the Marshal. "General Arsiel."

"Y-Yes, Marshal!" the general stammered, fear trembling in his voice.

"Alert the other military strongholds before this escalates further. I'll deal with this infiltrator myself," the Marshal commanded.

"As you order!" The general immediately took flight, speeding away from the scene.

Magura conjured a mass of ice in her left hand and hurled it with devastating force toward the fleeing general. But Marshal Ovidius intercepted it in an instant, catching the massive shard with his hammer. With great effort, he swung and cast it far across the kingdom. Thanks to him, the general narrowly escaped Magura's deadly trap.

"You almost had him. What's your name, young lady?" the Marshal asked as he readied his two smaller hammers. Their grips were white streaked with red, while the heads were shaped like spiked iron orbs.

Magura stared at him in silence, offering no reply.

"Heh... not one for words, are you? That only makes you more beautiful," the Marshal said with a smirk as he unfurled his wings and shot toward her at blinding speed.

Far away, in the Dominion lands, specifically in the far west, where the massive volcano Eibilisk towered, Igorus sat in meditation beside a river of molten lava flowing endlessly through the desolate earth. The blackened sky, the eruptions bursting from the volcano, the barren ground, the roaring winds, all of it, strangely, brought him peace.

Heat was his comfort. Heat was his soul. His thoughts flowed like the lava itself, slow and steady, yet searing and violent. Faces of his countless victims haunted him: murderers, soldiers, and often the innocent. Fallen angels, humans, hybrids, vampires... all their corpses piled within the volcano of his sins, a mountain of the damned.

Igorus opened his eyes. His lean, muscular frame bore countless scars of war, each mark a story etched in flesh. Stories he carried within, corroding him from the inside. What gnawed at him most was the fate of his son, the monstrous form he had glimpsed in the visions inside Izidras' gate. He clenched his fists in disbelief, his mind drowning deeper and deeper as he watched the lava passing only inches from his feet.

Rising to his feet, he donned his armor, turning his gaze toward the great volcano. He then looked to the smaller peaks that encircled mighty Eibilisk. Spreading his wings wide, he prepared to take flight.

One of his brownish feathers drifted down, landing near the river of lava, where it slowly began to burn away. Another feather fell, but instead of being consumed, it began to freeze, slowly, unnaturally, into the air.

"Haaah... hahh... hahh..." Marshal Ovidius gasped for breath, his broken helm hanging in shards, his face streaked with blood. His armor was cracked and torn in several places, and he could barely stand, clutching his two hammers, now ruined beyond repair. He trembled, powerless and humiliated, before Magura, who stood unbothered, watching him without the slightest trace of empathy, merely another victim awaiting his turn.

"Even Marshal Ovidius couldn't defeat her... Who is this monster?" one soldier whispered.

The others recoiled in dread, their fear only deepening. Around eighty soldiers stared at Magura, caught between terror and despair. Then her gaze lifted skyward. Above, a great host of angelic troops descended, more than two thousand reinforcements: soldiers, commanders, archers, pegasi, all rushing toward the battlefield to confront the overwhelming threat before them.

"I don't have time to waste on you," Magura said with cold irritation.

The Marshal's blood ran cold at her words. Those violet eyes, filled now only with death, made his heart lurch with terror.

"FALL BACK!!! DO NOT APPROACH!!!" he screamed in desperation.

"Marshal Ovidius?"

"What is he saying?"

"We can defeat that wretch now! Why would he say such a thing?"

"What's happening?" the soldiers murmured anxiously among themselves as the reinforcements arrived at the scene.

"PLEASE, TURN BACK—!"

"Lagus Arts: Zero Rings — Pandemonium of Innocence," Magura intoned in her calm, chilling voice, each syllable dripping with an otherworldly dread.

"What the—?"

"What is she trying to do?" whispered the soldiers as they watched from behind, their confusion mounting.

They tightened their ranks, bracing for a sudden strike. Yet the battlefield itself had already begun to change, the air grew colder, the ground beneath them touched by an unnatural chill.

"HAAH!?" The Marshal whipped his head around and saw it, rising from the earth itself, a dark, gothic fortress clawed its way into existence. Blackened spires pierced the sky, broken gargoyle statues leered from shattered perches, and fractured stained glass gleamed faintly in the ruinous walls. Its gates and doors hung in decay. A colossal citadel, towering dozens of meters high, forged from seething green lava that coursed across the ruined soil of the kingdom. The air was both unbearably cold and unbearably hot at once.

"What is that thing?"

"Why... why do I feel so sick?"

"What's happening?"

The soldiers muttered to themselves, trembling and bewildered.

"If you carry even a shred of kindness within you," Magura said in her unnervingly calm voice, "then you are nothing more than a feast for these gargoyles."

The fortress ignited in green fire that spread across the ice, a flame paradoxically colder than Magura's own frost. The angels could no longer move; her technique held them completely paralyzed, their bodies and spirits trapped in absolute dread.

"Why... why can't I move?"

"What is all of this?"

"Damn you... filthy demon."

Marshal Ovidius stood frozen in terror. He could not comprehend what he was feeling or what his eyes were being forced to witness. He prayed that his senses were deceiving him.

Though they could not move, desperate words spilled from the lips of the soldiers, until their voices were drowned out as the angels were devoured alive by the hatred of the gargoyles, the ancient wardens of monasteries. They melted in the searing green lava, burned by the emerald flames, torn apart by the monstrous maws of the stone beasts. Generals were seized and consumed, their bodies ripped piece by piece. Their screams rang out in unending agony, each one forced to watch as their comrades were shredded and swallowed.

Marshal Ovidius remained paralyzed, his mind unable to accept the nightmare before him. Behind him, five gargoyles loomed, their flames creeping across his body, consuming him slowly. He was frozen as they descended upon him, rending his flesh apart as five wolves would tear into a helpless rabbit. All that remained was blood, pouring in streams across the battlefield like rivers.

Marshals, generals, soldiers, commanders, even the proud pegasi, all were dragged beneath the earth by the gargoyles that erupted like corpses from the grave, their flesh torn, their blood drunk in a grotesque feast, their goodness twisted into a curse.

Magura watched with dead eyes.

And in her mind, a vision appeared: a little girl with blue hair and green-feathered wings, laughing as she played before a radiant castle, its windows adorned with flowers. A child's laughter, pure and bright, echoed as she beheld the very fortress Magura had conjured. But she could not see the girl's eyes... nor discern what she wore. Something essential was missing, something that could complete the vision.

The image faded, along with the fortress, leaving only silence upon the desolate battlefield.

Magura stood, lost in thought, above a sea of blood lapping at her feet. The voices of angels crying for help reached her ears, yet she did not hear them. Their pleas were like withered petals scattered along a lost path in a dying forest, lamenting in their suffering, begging for something Magura no longer understood.

"To spare someone... Hm? Ah, so you're still here," Magura said as her eyes fell on the Marshal, alive and unharmed.

"HAAH!! W-What happened? Why am I still alive?" the Marshal asked, shaken and terrified.

"Unlike the others, you endured an illusion I wove from black ice," Magura replied coldly. "I've allowed you to live with this nightmare, one that will haunt you for the rest of your life. And when you finally die... you'll return as a wretched demon."

The Marshal looked around at the ruined earth, stained with the blood of his fallen soldiers. He touched the ground and felt the spirits of the dead writhing in endless torment within that pandemonium.

At that moment, the apple in Magura's pocket trembled.

"Magura, are you there?" came Atbara's voice through the fruit.

"Finally, you answer. I've gathered the information I needed. Return me to Tamasi," Magura said.

"Yes, of course."

From the blood of angels, roots began to sprout, growing and twisting until they bloomed into a gateway. It opened not as a door, but as a gaping rift from which poured an overwhelming, blinding white light. Magura was drawn into the light, vanishing from the battlefield.

The Marshal was left alone, lamenting like a fallen angel steeped in despair and regret. Regret for nothing less than the very fact of his survival.

Magura found herself in a dark chamber, dimly lit by small lamps set in the corners of the walls. The place felt strangely unfamiliar to her eyes.

"This feels... somewhat unknown. Hm?"

Before she realized it, she was standing inside a cage, its bars forged of white iron.

"W-What the hell?" she muttered in shock.

She struck the bars with her fists, slashed them with her sword, then conjured ice to shatter them. But all her attempts were in vain. Nothing left so much as a mark. Magura looked down at her hands in disbelief.

"What is this cage? Why won't my powers work here?" she asked herself, confusion and unease creeping into her voice.

"You'll understand soon enough," a voice called out from beyond the shadows, where the lamp flames cast their faint glow.

Magura's eyes widened. She strained to recall whose voice this was, echoing in this place shrouded in mystery.

"It has been some time, Lord Magura..."

"L-Lazrael!" Magura exclaimed, her voice trembling with shock.

"Just like you, I too am on a mission," Lazrael replied, a strained smile carved across his face, his eyes already touched by the hue of malice...