A couple hours earlier—
Macao and Wakaba crested the last rise just as the sun dipped low enough to bleed gold into orange. They didn't go straight for the village. Neither of them was that reckless anymore. Instead, they stopped on a grassy hill overlooking the settlement, packs still on their backs, boots planted, eyes forward.
The village itself looked… normal.
Too normal.
Smoke curled lazily from chimneys. A few lights flickered on as people moved about their evening routines. From this distance, it could've been any quiet backwater town tucked away from the chaos of the world. No scorch marks. No broken buildings. No signs of panic.
But then there was the forest.
The woods bordering the village were swallowed whole by fog.
Not mist. Not morning haze. This was thick—unnatural. A pale, rolling mass that clung to the treeline like something alive, creeping low and heavy, refusing to drift. It swallowed trunks halfway up, erased depth, bent light in ways that made the edges of the forest blur and distort if you stared too long.
Wakaba squinted. "…That wasn't in the report."
Macao didn't answer right away. He took a slow breath, eyes narrowing as he studied the fog. Even from up here, he could feel it—magic pressing faintly against his skin, cold and wrong, like standing too close to something that didn't want to be noticed.
"That's not natural fog," Macao finally said. "Doesn't move with the wind."
As if to mock him, a breeze rolled across the hill, stirring the grass around their boots. The fog didn't budge. Not an inch.
Wakaba shifted his weight, hand drifting a little closer to his weapon. "Feels like it's… waiting."
Macao glanced sideways at him. "You thinking illusions?"
"Maybe," Wakaba said slowly. "But if it were just illusions, they'd want eyes on them. That fog's hiding something."
They stayed there longer than necessary, watching. Listening. The village carried on below, unaware—or pretending to be. A farmer led a cart down a dirt road. A child ran between houses before being called back inside. Life, continuing right up to the edge of that fog like it didn't know death was standing ten steps away.
Macao folded his arms. "Client said the monsters come out at night."
Wakaba nodded. "And always from the forest."
Another minute passed. Then another.
The fog thickened.
Not spreading—condensing. Pulling inward, tightening, as if the forest itself were holding its breath.
Wakaba exhaled slowly. "I don't like this."
Macao huffed. "Good. Means we're still thinking."
He straightened, eyes locked on the treeline. "We don't rush in. We talk to the villagers first. Confirm details. Find patterns. If this thing's been active for a month, someone's noticed more than they're saying."
"And if the fog reacts?" Wakaba asked.
Macao's gaze didn't waver. "Then we pull back and report to the Master. No heroics."
They shared a look—years of missions, mistakes, and close calls sitting unspoken between them.
Then, far below, the fog shifted.
Just barely.
A ripple passed through it, like a shadow moving behind frosted glass.
Wakaba swallowed. "…You saw that too, right?"
Macao nodded, slow and grim. "Yeah."
The forest went still again, as if nothing had happened.
The sun continued to set.
And somewhere beneath that fog, something had already noticed them standing on the hill.
Getting down into the village took no time at all.
That was the first thing that bothered Macao.
No long walk. No distant sounds growing clearer. No gradual sense of entering somewhere lived in. One moment they were on the hill, the next they were crossing the first dirt road—and the silence hit them like a wall.
It wasn't peaceful.
It was wrong.
No birds. No insects. Not even the low, constant background noise villages always had—the clatter of tools, murmured voices, footsteps, dogs barking at strangers. The only sound was the wind, and even that moved carefully, whispering through alleys like it didn't want to be heard.
Wakaba slowed without meaning to. His shoulders tensed. "You feel that?"
Macao nodded. His hand hovered closer to his weapon. "Yeah. Like the place is holding its breath."
They moved deeper into the village, boots scuffing softly against packed earth. Houses lined the road, doors shut, shutters drawn tight. No smoke rose from chimneys. No lanterns burned, even though dusk was creeping in. It looked abandoned—but the kind of abandoned that hadn't had time to rot yet.
That was worse.
They passed a cart left in the road, one wheel half-broken like it had been dropped mid-use. A bucket sat near a well, rope still looped, water inside unspilled. Someone had been here recently.
Too recently.
"Okay," Wakaba muttered, breaking the silence, "this isn't right. The job can't be more than a couple days old. How does an entire village just… vanish in that time?"
Macao opened his mouth to answer—
—and stopped.
His eyes narrowed, locking onto movement at the edge of his vision.
A face.
Just for a second, someone peeked from behind a window—wide eyes, pale skin—then vanished.
Macao didn't hesitate.
"Hey!" His voice cracked through the stillness, echoing far louder than it should have. "You there! Can you talk to us?"
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then a door creaked open.
An inn, by the look of the sign swaying overhead. A middle-aged woman stepped halfway out, hair pulled back hastily, eyes darting left and right like prey checking for shadows. She raised a finger to her lips, urgency clear even without words.
Quiet.
She glanced toward the forest at the edge of the village, then back at them, fear tightening her expression. With a quick motion, she waved them inside.
Macao and Wakaba exchanged a look.
Suspicion. Instinct. Years of experience screaming this is how ambushes start.
But they were already being watched, and standing in the open felt worse.
Wakaba gave a small nod. "On three," he murmured under his breath.
Macao shifted his stance, ready.
They moved.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the woman slammed the door shut behind them and threw the bolt, her hands shaking as she did. The inn was dim, curtains drawn tight, lanterns turned low enough to barely glow. A handful of villagers huddled inside—faces drawn, eyes hollow, clutching whatever they could use as comfort or weapons.
The woman turned to them, voice barely above a breath.
"You shouldn't be here," she whispered. "If it knows you've arrived…"
She trailed off, swallowing hard.
Outside, the wind brushed against the walls of the inn.
And somewhere beyond the village, the fog pressed closer.
The woman didn't just shut the doors.
She sealed them.
The moment Macao and Wakaba stepped fully inside, she slammed the double doors together and began locking them with frantic precision—one bolt, then another, then a third, then a fourth. Metal slid into place with soft, muffled clicks, each one sounding too loud in the suffocating quiet. Her hands shook so badly she nearly missed the last latch.
Only when it was done did Macao really take in the room.
The inn was packed.
Dozens of villagers were huddled together in tight clusters—families pressed shoulder to shoulder, children buried against their parents' chests, elders gripping walking sticks like weapons. Blankets were wrapped around trembling bodies despite the room being barely warm. Eyes reflected lantern light like glass, wide and hollow and terrified.
No one spoke.
No one even shifted.
Macao felt his patience snap.
"Alright," he said, voice low but firm. "That's enough. You put out a request for investigation, and here we are. Now tell us what the hell is going on."
Several villagers flinched at the sound of his voice.
The woman spun on him instantly, panic flashing across her face. She rushed forward and pressed a finger to her lips again, harder this time, almost pleading.
"No—please," she whispered. "Not loud. Not now."
Wakaba frowned, lowering his voice immediately. "Why? What happens if we talk?"
The woman's composure cracked.
She glanced toward the shuttered windows, then toward the ceiling, as if sound itself might leak upward and betray them. Her voice dropped to barely more than breath.
"Night is coming," she said. "We can speak now. Barely. But once the moon rises… silence. Complete silence."
Macao crossed his arms, uneasy. "You're saying sound draws them?"
Her eyes filled with tears.
"It sends its angels of death."
That phrase sent a chill through the room. A few villagers bowed their heads. One woman began to sob quietly, hands pressed over her mouth to stifle the sound.
"They are blind," the woman continued, voice trembling, "but their hearing… it's not natural. A mouse chewing grain from hundreds of meters away—it hears it. Breathing too hard. Footsteps. A whisper carried wrong." Her lips quivered. "Anything they hear, they hunt."
She wiped at her face, but the tears kept coming.
Macao and Wakaba didn't need to ask. They both saw it in her expression—loss carved deep, fresh and raw.
Wakaba leaned closer, voice gentle now. "You lost someone."
The woman nodded, unable to speak for a moment. She swallowed hard, steadying herself.
"My name is Elira," she whispered. "And… yes. I lost my husband."
The room seemed to draw inward as she spoke.
Wakaba exchanged a glance with Macao, then whispered, "Tell us everything. From the beginning."
Elira took a shaky breath.
"A month ago," she began, "it was a peaceful day. Just like any other. The harvest was good. Children were playing in the streets. Then… the cold came."
Her fingers curled into the fabric of her dress.
"Not gradual. Sudden. The air turned sharp, biting. Then a roar came from the forest—deep and loud, like the earth itself screaming. And after that…" Her voice dropped further. "That fog. Thick. Bone-chilling. It spread for miles through the woods. It wasn't natural, but we told ourselves it was just strange weather."
She laughed weakly at the memory. "We always tell ourselves that."
Her eyes darkened.
"Then the sun set."
Macao felt his shoulders tense.
"They came out of the forest," Elira continued. "Monsters. Twisted shapes, wrong proportions. They rampaged through the village, smashing carts, knocking people aside. But our mayor—he was a retired mage—he stayed calm. He said they were illusions. That they couldn't truly hurt us."
She closed her eyes.
"We believed him."
Her voice broke.
"One of them struck a farmer. No wounds. No blood on his skin. But he coughed once… then again… and collapsed. Dead. Internal damage. Like his body just… gave up."
The room was deathly silent.
"By sunrise, three more were dead," Elira said. "And every night after that, it got worse. More monsters. More deaths. No pattern. No consistency. Magic didn't behave right around them."
She took a trembling breath.
"Then last week—after the thirtieth villager was lost—they changed."
Macao frowned. "Changed how?"
Elira's face twisted in fear.
"That's when the angels came."
She described them slowly, as if afraid the words themselves might summon them.
"Humanoid. Tall. Their skin looked like armor—hard, layered, pale like frostbitten steel. No eyes. No faces. Just smooth, hollow shapes. They didn't rampage. They listened."
Wakaba felt his stomach tighten.
"They moved straight toward our mayor," Elira said. "He didn't fight. We didn't understand what was killing us—how could he? But one of them pierced him clean through." Her hands clenched. "Then it dragged him. Screaming. Into the forest."
A sob escaped her before she could stop it.
"After that… only the angels came. No more illusions. No more chaos. Just hunting. Taking anyone they heard. Every death made them faster. Sharper. Stronger."
She wiped her face with shaking hands.
"My husband… he shouted. To draw them away from me." Her voice cracked completely. "He knew what would happen."
Macao's jaw tightened.
"That's when we saw it," Elira whispered.
She hesitated.
The silence stretched.
Wakaba and Macao exchanged a look—this wasn't fear anymore. This was dread.
Macao leaned forward slightly. "Saw what?"
Elira swallowed.
"We think it's their leader. Or their creator. Or something worse." Her gaze drifted toward the windows again. "It stood in the fog. Only a silhouette. Tall. Still. Holding a sword."
Cold crawled up Wakaba's spine.
"The angels brought my husband to it," Elira said. "Laid him at its feet. And then… both it and the angels turned back into the forest."
She shook her head slowly. "That's when we understood. Whatever it is… it's not just hunting."
Outside, the light dimmed further.
The sun was sinking.
And somewhere beyond the village, within the fog-choked forest, steel waited—patient, silent, and listening.
The woman didn't just shut the doors.
She sealed them.
The moment Macao and Wakaba stepped fully inside, she slammed the double doors together and began locking them with frantic precision—one bolt, then another, then a third, then a fourth. Metal slid into place with soft, muffled clicks, each one sounding too loud in the suffocating quiet. Her hands shook so badly she nearly missed the last latch.
Only when it was done did Macao really take in the room.
The inn was packed.
Dozens of villagers were huddled together in tight clusters—families pressed shoulder to shoulder, children buried against their parents' chests, elders gripping walking sticks like weapons. Blankets were wrapped around trembling bodies despite the room being barely warm. Eyes reflected lantern light like glass, wide and hollow and terrified.
No one spoke.
No one even shifted.
Macao felt his patience snap.
"Alright," he said, voice low but firm. "That's enough. You put out a request for investigation, and here we are. Now tell us what the hell is going on."
Several villagers flinched at the sound of his voice.
The woman spun on him instantly, panic flashing across her face. She rushed forward and pressed a finger to her lips again, harder this time, almost pleading.
"No—please," she whispered. "Not loud. Not now."
Wakaba frowned, lowering his voice immediately. "Why? What happens if we talk?"
The woman's composure cracked.
She glanced toward the shuttered windows, then toward the ceiling, as if sound itself might leak upward and betray them. Her voice dropped to barely more than breath.
"Night is coming," she said. "We can speak now. Barely. But once the moon rises… silence. Complete silence."
Macao crossed his arms, uneasy. "You're saying sound draws them?"
Her eyes filled with tears.
"It sends its angels of death."
That phrase sent a chill through the room. A few villagers bowed their heads. One woman began to sob quietly, hands pressed over her mouth to stifle the sound.
"They are blind," the woman continued, voice trembling, "but their hearing… it's not natural. A mouse chewing grain from hundreds of meters away—it hears it. Breathing too hard. Footsteps. A whisper carried wrong." Her lips quivered. "Anything they hear, they hunt."
She wiped at her face, but the tears kept coming.
Macao and Wakaba didn't need to ask. They both saw it in her expression—loss carved deep, fresh and raw.
Wakaba leaned closer, voice gentle now. "You lost someone."
The woman nodded, unable to speak for a moment. She swallowed hard, steadying herself.
"My name is Elira," she whispered. "And… yes. I lost my husband."
The room seemed to draw inward as she spoke.
Wakaba exchanged a glance with Macao, then whispered, "Tell us everything. From the beginning."
Elira took a shaky breath.
"A month ago," she began, "it was a peaceful day. Just like any other. The harvest was good. Children were playing in the streets. Then… the cold came."
Her fingers curled into the fabric of her dress.
"Not gradual. Sudden. The air turned sharp, biting. Then a roar came from the forest—deep and loud, like the earth itself screaming. And after that…" Her voice dropped further. "That fog. Thick. Bone-chilling. It spread for miles through the woods. It wasn't natural, but we told ourselves it was just strange weather."
She laughed weakly at the memory. "We always tell ourselves that."
Her eyes darkened.
"Then the sun set."
Macao felt his shoulders tense.
"They came out of the forest," Elira continued. "Monsters. Twisted shapes, wrong proportions. They rampaged through the village, smashing carts, knocking people aside. But our mayor—he was a retired mage—he stayed calm. He said they were illusions. That they couldn't truly hurt us."
She closed her eyes.
"We believed him."
Her voice broke.
"One of them struck a farmer. No wounds. No blood on his skin. But he coughed once… then again… and collapsed. Dead. Internal damage. Like his body just… gave up."
The room was deathly silent.
"By sunrise, three more were dead," Elira said. "And every night after that, it got worse. More monsters. More deaths. No pattern. No consistency. Magic didn't behave right around them."
She took a trembling breath.
"Then last week—after the thirtieth villager was lost—they changed."
Macao frowned. "Changed how?"
Elira's face twisted in fear.
"That's when the angels came."
She described them slowly, as if afraid the words themselves might summon them.
"Humanoid. Tall. Their skin looked like armor—hard, layered, pale like frostbitten steel. No eyes. No faces. Just smooth, hollow shapes. They didn't rampage. They listened."
Wakaba felt his stomach tighten.
"They moved straight toward our mayor," Elira said. "He didn't fight. We didn't understand what was killing us—how could he? But one of them pierced him clean through." Her hands clenched. "Then it dragged him. Screaming. Into the forest."
A sob escaped her before she could stop it.
"After that… only the angels came. No more illusions. No more chaos. Just hunting. Taking anyone they heard. Every death made them faster. Sharper. Stronger."
She wiped her face with shaking hands.
"My husband… he shouted. To draw them away from me." Her voice cracked completely. "He knew what would happen."
Macao's jaw tightened.
"That's when we saw it," Elira whispered.
She hesitated.
The silence stretched.
Wakaba and Macao exchanged a look—this wasn't fear anymore. This was dread.
Macao leaned forward slightly. "Saw what?"
Elira swallowed.
"We think it's their leader. Or their creator. Or something worse." Her gaze drifted toward the windows again. "It stood in the fog. Only a silhouette. Tall. Still. Holding a sword."
Cold crawled up Wakaba's spine.
"The angels brought my husband to it," Elira said. "Laid him at its feet. And then… both it and the angels turned back into the forest."
She shook her head slowly. "That's when we understood. Whatever it is… it's not just hunting."
Outside, the light dimmed further.
The sun was sinking.
And somewhere beyond the village, within the fog-choked forest, steel waited—patient, silent, and listening.
Macao and Wakaba didn't say anything right away.
They just looked at each other.
Years of working together meant they didn't need words at first—just that shared, quiet understanding that something about this felt off. Still, instinct and habit kicked in, and without drawing attention they eased away from the villagers, slipping into the far corner of the inn where the lantern light barely reached.
Macao crossed his arms, lowering his voice until it was almost lost beneath the faint creak of the building settling. "We should report this to the Master."
Wakaba glanced back at the huddled villagers, then toward the shuttered windows. Outside, the sky was darkening faster than it should. He frowned, thinking.
"Maybe," he said slowly. "But think about it. Illusions." He held up a hand, ticking points off on his fingers. "Every illusion mage we've ever dealt with relies on fear, confusion, panic. They hit hard mentally, not physically."
Macao didn't look convinced. "People are dead."
"So are plenty of people when fear gets out of control," Wakaba countered. "According to her, the illusions didn't leave marks. Internal damage, shock, stress, maybe induced magic backlash. That happens when minds break before bodies do."
Macao hesitated.
"And those 'death angels'?" Wakaba continued, leaning closer. "Five of them at most. Blind. Super hearing. That screams specialized constructs or advanced illusions with sensory amplification. If they really were unstoppable, this whole village would be gone already."
He shrugged slightly. "From what she described, they're probably only as strong as an average adult mage—dangerous, yeah, but not S-Class dangerous."
Macao studied his friend, eyes narrowing. Wakaba sounded confident… maybe a little too confident.
"You're sure about that?" Macao asked. "That fog alone doesn't feel normal. And that silhouette—"
"—is meant to scare people," Wakaba cut in quietly. "That's how illusionists work. Give fear a shape and let the victims do the rest."
Macao rubbed the back of his neck, conflicted. Every instinct told him to call this in. But another part of him—the tired part, the part that had done hundreds of jobs that felt worse than they turned out to be—understood Wakaba's logic.
He glanced back at the villagers again.
Then he remembered the reward.
"One hundred thousand," he muttered.
Wakaba raised an eyebrow. "Barley. A-rank payout."
Macao exhaled slowly. "I need that money."
Wakaba gave a faint, knowing smile. "So do I."
They stood there in silence for a moment longer, listening to the building creak, to the careful breathing of the villagers trying not to make a sound, to the wind brushing against the walls like fingers testing locks.
Macao finally nodded. "Alright. We handle it."
Wakaba clapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Good. We'll move before full nightfall. Find the source. End it fast."
Macao didn't smile.
Somewhere deep down, a knot tightened in his gut—but he ignored it.
After all, illusion mages weren't known for raw power.
And five constructs, no matter how strange, didn't sound like something two veteran Fairy Tail mages couldn't handle… at least, that's what he told himself as the light outside the inn slipped closer to dusk.
Thirty minutes later, night had fully fallen.
Not the gentle kind, either. This was the heavy kind—the kind that pressed down on the village like a held breath. The moon crept up over the horizon, pale and sharp, its light spilling across empty streets and shuttered homes like a warning rather than comfort.
Macao and Wakaba were already in position.
They lay low on the sloped roof of a grain store near the village edge, bodies flattened against the tiles, cloaks pulled tight. From up here they had a clean view of the forest line—and the open space between it and the first row of houses.
Neither of them spoke.
They didn't need to.
The fog at the forest's edge stirred.
Then it split.
Five silhouettes burst from the mist in near-perfect unison, sprinting on all fours with speed that made Macao's stomach drop. They didn't lumber. They didn't stalk slowly. They moved—lean, angular shapes tearing across the ground like living blades.
"…Yeah," Wakaba breathed, barely a whisper. "Those are creepy as hell."
Macao didn't answer. His eyes were locked on them.
Now that he could see them clearly, Elira's words didn't do them justice.
The death angels were tall, twisted humanoid forms with elongated limbs and hunched frames, their bodies plated in overlapping armor-like segments that caught moonlight like dull, frozen steel. No faces. No eyes. Just smooth, sealed plates where features should've been, giving them an unsettling, unfinished look—like something that wasn't meant to be seen by humans at all.
They fanned out across the village with terrifying efficiency.
One paused near an abandoned cart. Another crouched low near a well. The others moved between buildings, claws scraping softly against stone and wood. They weren't searching randomly.
They were listening.
Macao felt the hairs on his arms stand up.
"Gods…" he murmured under his breath. "They're disciplined."
As if responding to the thought, one of the death angels suddenly stopped. A section of plating along the side of its head slowly peeled open with a wet, mechanical sound, revealing something pale and ridged beneath.
An ear.
Huge. Oversized. Veined and sensitive, twitching as it drank in the night.
A rat scurried across the dirt road below, tiny claws clicking faintly as it darted from one shadow to another.
The death angel moved faster than thought.
Its arm snapped out in a blur, claws carving through the air. The rat didn't even squeak—there was a wet crack and the ground exploded, dirt and stone blasted outward as if struck by a siege hammer. When the dust settled, there was nothing left but a small crater.
Macao swallowed.
"…Average adult mage, huh," he muttered.
Wakaba didn't respond.
He was inching forward, curiosity overriding caution, trying to get a better look at the plates, the joints, the way the thing moved. He shifted his weight just a little too far—
crrk.
A roof tile slipped beneath his boot.
The sound was small. Barely anything.
But in the dead silence of the village, it might as well have been a scream.
All five death angels froze.
Slowly—too slowly—they turned.
Plates along their heads began to open in unison, armor folding back like petals of some obscene flower. Those massive ears flared outward, twitching, triangulating.
Macao's heart slammed against his ribs.
"Wakaba—" he whispered.
Too late.
One of the death angels let out a low, distorted shriek, and the others answered instantly. Their bodies coiled—and then they launched.
Not toward the street.
Toward the roof.
Macao didn't think.
"MOVE!"
He grabbed Wakaba and rolled just as claws slammed into the spot where they'd been lying. The roof shattered, tiles exploding outward as one of the creatures landed with crushing force, wood groaning beneath its weight.
The other four were already climbing—scaling walls, leaping from building to building with horrifying speed.
The hunt had begun.
And somewhere beyond the village, deep within the fog-choked forest, something else shifted—something taller, still, watching through the mist as steel waited patiently in its hand.
The roof didn't just crack—it gave.
Macao and Wakaba split in opposite directions the instant the first death angel landed, instinct and years of brawls taking over before thought could catch up. Claws tore through tile and timber where they'd been a heartbeat earlier, sending splinters screaming into the night.
Macao hit the next rooftop hard, rolled, came up on one knee—and snapped his fingers.
Purple fire bloomed.
Not a wild explosion, but a tight, violent surge that ripped forward in a low arc, slamming into the creature mid-leap. The flames didn't spread like normal fire. They clung. Crawled. Burned with a heat that felt wrong, violet tongues wrapping around armor plates and forcing the death angel to veer off, smashing through a chimney instead of landing on him.
"GO!" Macao shouted, already moving again.
Wakaba didn't need telling.
He drew deep from his pipe as he ran, cheeks hollowing for a split second before he exhaled—and the smoke poured out, thick and rolling, flooding the alley below like a living thing. It wasn't just cover. The smoke twisted, condensed, walls forming, then collapsing, then reforming again, sound-dampening and sight-killing all at once.
Two death angels dropped straight into it.
Their plates flared open immediately, ears spreading wide as they listened—
—and Wakaba snapped his fingers.
The smoke detonated outward, not with force, but with motion, rushing in conflicting currents that carried echoes everywhere at once. Footsteps that weren't real. Breathing that didn't exist. Scraping metal in half a dozen directions.
The death angels shrieked, disoriented, slashing wildly at nothing.
"Not so fun when you can't tell what's real, huh?" Wakaba muttered under his breath as he vaulted a fence and kept running.
Behind them, another death angel didn't bother with confusion.
It launched.
The thing crossed an entire street in a blink, claws digging into stone as it ran up a wall and across a roofline parallel to Macao, matching his speed like it was nothing.
Macao clicked his tongue. "You've gotta be kidding me."
He skidded to a stop, pivoted, and slammed both palms forward.
"Purple Flare—Burst!"
Fire erupted in a wide cone, washing the rooftop in violet light. Tiles melted. Air warped. The death angel threw its arms up instinctively, plates sealing tight as the flames crashed into it and shoved it backward—hard—launching it through the roof of a nearby house in an explosion of wood and dust.
Macao didn't wait to see if it stayed down.
He jumped.
Wakaba caught sight of him mid-air and snapped his pipe upward, smoke coiling beneath Macao's boots just long enough to give him a landing without a sound. The moment Macao touched down, Wakaba collapsed the smoke behind them, pulling it inward like a curtain snapping shut.
For half a second—
Silence.
Then the village erupted.
Five shrieks tore through the night at once.
The remaining death angels had regrouped.
They weren't scattering anymore.
They were coordinating.
One slammed down ahead of them, blocking the street. Another dropped behind. Two more flanked from the rooftops, claws carving furrows into wood as they repositioned.
Macao felt the pressure shift. "They're learning."
"Yeah," Wakaba said grimly, smoke already bleeding from his pipe again. "And they don't like being toyed with."
A plate peeled open on the nearest one—ear flaring wide, twitching.
Wakaba stomped.
Smoke rushed outward in a sudden, dense wave, swallowing the street in total darkness. Inside it, Wakaba snapped, whistled, scraped his boot—each sound thrown in a different direction, bouncing, multiplying.
Macao added to it instantly.
He snapped his fingers again, smaller bursts of purple flame popping like firecrackers in random places, flashes of heat and noise meant to overload whatever senses those things had left.
For a moment, it worked.
Death angels lunged at false targets, claws smashing into walls, ripping through empty air. One tore apart a cart that hadn't existed a second earlier—just smoke and sound given shape.
Macao leaned close to Wakaba as they moved. "We can't keep this up forever."
Wakaba nodded, eyes scanning, mind racing. "No—but we don't have to beat them. Just pull them away from the village."
Another shriek cut through the smoke—closer this time.
Too close.
A claw burst through the haze inches from Wakaba's face, slicing clean through where his head would have been if he hadn't ducked. He rolled, came up coughing as ice crept across the ground where the claw had struck, frost spider-webbing outward, draining warmth and magic alike.
Macao felt it bite at his legs and swore. "Ice too—of course they have ice."
The death angel stepped fully into view now, towering, armor slick with frost and smoke residue, head plates spreading wide as it locked on.
Behind it, through thinning fog at the forest's edge—
Something else stood.
Still.
Tall.
A silhouette holding a sword, unmoving, watching the chaos like it had all the time in the world.
Macao's stomach dropped.
"…Wakaba," he said quietly, eyes never leaving the shape in the mist. "Tell me you see that."
Wakaba swallowed. "Yeah."
The death angel screamed again and charged.
And this time, it wasn't alone.
Just then, the figure in the fog finally moved.
Not rushing. Not lunging.
It simply raised one hand.
The motion was slow, deliberate—mockingly calm compared to the chaos tearing through the village. The silhouette straightened fully, moonlight brushing the edge of its form just enough for Macao to catch glimpses of armor plates and cloth hanging in tatters, unmoving despite the wind.
Then—
Snap.
The sound didn't echo.
It reverberated.
The air itself seemed to flinch as the snap rippled outward, not as noise but as pressure, a deep vibration that sank into bone and rattled teeth. Wakaba felt it buzz through his pipe. Macao felt it punch straight through his chest, like someone had plucked a string inside him.
The five death angels froze mid-motion.
Their shrieks cut off instantly.
Their armor plates halted mid-flare.
Then, as one, they collapsed.
Not falling—unraveling.
Their bodies disintegrated into thick black smoke, claws dissolving, armor peeling away into drifting ash. The smoke didn't scatter randomly. It flowed, pulled backward toward the forest as if caught in an unseen current.
Wakaba's breath hitched. "That wasn't dismissal…"
"No," Macao said quietly. "That was recall."
The smoke streamed across the ground, over rooftops, down alleys, converging at the figure's feet. At the forest's edge, a massive pentagram ignited—etched into the earth in lines of glowing violet-blue magic, symbols spiraling along its edges like living script.
The smoke slammed into the circle.
A pillar of magic erupted upward, tearing through the fog and spearing into the sky like a beacon. The beam hummed with layered power—illusion, ice, soul-pressure—so dense it distorted the air around it. The ground shook violently, houses rattling as villagers screamed silently behind bolted doors.
Within the beam, the smoke compressed.
Twisted.
Fused.
Macao shielded his eyes as the shape took form—limbs first, thick and massive, armor plating knitting together with grinding, metallic groans. Muscle layered beneath blackened steel. Veins of molten red light traced along joints and cracks like lava beneath a cooled crust.
A colossal hand slammed into the ground, fingers curling around the haft of a weapon as it manifested alongside the body.
A butcher's axe.
The blade alone was larger than a wagon—jagged, brutal, stained with embers that pulsed like a living heart. Runes crawled faintly along its surface, each one flickering in time with the giant's breath.
The beam collapsed inward with a thunderous boom.
Fog blasted outward in a shockwave.
And there it stood.
A towering humanoid giant, easily several stories tall, shoulders scraping the low-hanging mist, armor warped and scorched as if forged in hellfire. Cloth hung from its frame in shredded layers, fluttering weakly despite the weight of its presence. Its head lifted slowly.
Two eyes burned to life.
Not glowing—smoldering.
Deep, furnace-red light stared out from beneath a crown of jagged metal spikes, locking directly onto Macao and Wakaba's position like it had known where they were the entire time.
Wakaba's mouth went dry.
"…Okay," he whispered. "I'm officially retracting my 'average adult mage' theory."
Macao couldn't tear his eyes away. The sheer pressure rolling off the thing was suffocating. Magic felt heavy in his veins, sluggish, like the air itself was resisting being shaped.
The giant shifted its weight.
The ground cracked.
Every step it took sent vibrations rippling through the village, windows shattering, roofs groaning under the strain. It lifted the axe slightly, embers falling from the blade like dying stars, each one hissing when it struck the earth.
Behind it, the fog parted just enough for the original figure—the summoner, the master—to remain visible for a moment longer. Still standing. Still silent. Sword resting at its side.
Watching.
Wakaba leaned closer to Macao, voice barely there. "That's not an illusion."
Macao swallowed hard. "No."
The giant drew in a breath—and the temperature plummeted.
Frost crept across the ground in widening rings, magic draining with it, the cold sharp enough to sting exposed skin. The axe rose higher, shadow stretching across the village like a death sentence.
Somewhere in the distance, a child whimpered.
The giant's head tilted, ears—or something like them—twitching beneath layers of armor.
And it turned… directly toward the sound.
The moment the giant moved, the village paid for it.
Its first step shattered the street.
Stone split like brittle ice as the colossal foot came down, shockwaves racing outward and ripping through foundations. Houses groaned, wooden beams snapping as windows burst in sprays of glass. Somewhere behind them, someone screamed—and was silenced just as quickly by a hand clamped over their mouth.
Macao didn't wait.
"PURPLE FLARE!"
Violet fire roared to life around his arms, not flickering like normal flame but solid, dense, almost weighty. He launched forward, boots skidding across broken stone, and drove his fist into the giant's shin.
The impact hit like a siege hammer.
Purple fire bludgeoned into the armored leg, cracking plates and sending a concussive boom through the street. The giant staggered half a step, molten-red veins flaring brighter where the flame struck.
Wakaba moved instantly, pipe clenched between his teeth.
He exhaled hard.
Smoke flooded the battlefield—not simple cover, but layered, rolling masses that wrapped around buildings, coiled up the giant's legs, and spread through alleys. Wakaba snapped his fingers, and the smoke hardened in places, forming false structures—phantom rooftops, collapsing walls, echoes of footsteps running in every direction.
The giant snarled.
It swung.
The butcher axe carved a horizontal arc through the village, slicing clean through two buildings like they were made of paper. Roofs collapsed inward, debris raining down as the blade passed inches above Macao's head. He dove, rolled, and came up skidding through rubble as the axe slammed into the street behind him.
BOOM.
Fire erupted.
Not purple.
Red.
The axe ignited, flames crawling along its edge as the giant's magic surged. Heat washed over the battlefield in a violent wave, instantly evaporating fog and turning falling debris into burning shrapnel. Wood caught fire mid-air. Stone cracked and glowed.
Wakaba hissed. "It's switching attributes!"
Macao gritted his teeth. "Figures."
The giant lifted the axe again and brought it down vertically.
The impact split the street straight down the middle, a trench tearing open as fire poured from the crack like liquid fury. Several houses collapsed inward, swallowed by flame, and Wakaba barely managed to throw up a smoke barrier to divert the blast away from the inn.
Inside, villagers screamed silently.
Macao surged forward again, purple fire shaping itself along his forearms, condensing until it looked more like glowing gauntlets than flame.
He leapt—straight up the giant's body.
Each step detonated with force as he used Purple Flare like solid platforms, smashing off the giant's thigh, then hip, then chest. He drove both fists into the giant's torso, purple fire binding as well as striking, tendrils wrapping around armor and digging in like chains.
The giant roared, staggering back, and slammed its shoulder into a tower.
The tower collapsed.
Macao was flung free, crashing through a wall and rolling across a burning floor. He came up coughing, skin scorched, magic burning hot in his veins.
Wakaba didn't stop moving.
He inhaled deeply, then exhaled in sharp bursts—pop, pop, pop—each puff of smoke becoming a focused sonic trap. He clapped his hands together, and the smoke compressed violently, detonating around the giant's head with disorienting pressure and false sound.
Footsteps everywhere. Screams. Breathing. Cracking stone.
The giant reeled, plates opening instinctively—
Macao seized the opening.
He thrust both hands forward.
"PURPLE FLARE—CANNON!"
A beam of violet fire tore through the air, slamming into the giant's face with crushing force. The blast drove it backward, skidding across the street and flattening three houses in its path. The beam didn't dissipate—it pushed, grinding armor and forcing the giant to dig its heels into the earth to stop itself.
For a moment—
For a heartbeat—
It looked like they were winning.
Then the axe struck the ground.
The giant planted it, magic surging down the haft like molten blood. Flames exploded outward in a full circle, a burning shockwave that erased Wakaba's smoke and sent Macao flying through the air like a ragdoll.
The firestorm engulfed half the village.
Roofs collapsed. Streets burned. The night sky glowed red.
Macao slammed into a stone wall and dropped to one knee, vision swimming. Wakaba skidded across debris, coughing hard as the heat licked at his coat.
The giant straightened.
Fire rolled off its body now, axe blazing like a fallen star. With every step, flames followed, spreading, consuming. It raised the weapon again, aiming not at them—
—but at the inn.
Wakaba's eyes widened. "Macao—"
"I see it!"
Macao forced himself upright, purple fire flaring wildly as he ran, every step cracking the ground. He hurled himself between the giant and the inn, arms wide, magic screaming as he poured everything he had into a massive wall of Purple Flare.
The axe came down.
Fire met fire.
The impact was catastrophic.
The collision detonated in a blinding explosion of violet and red, the shockwave flattening nearby buildings and ripping the street open. Macao was driven back, boots carving trenches as he held the line by sheer will, teeth clenched, blood trickling from his nose.
Wakaba threw everything he had into reinforcing the barrier—smoke layering, compressing, hardening—buying seconds. Only seconds.
The barrier cracked.
The giant pushed through, relentless, inexorable.
And beyond the burning village, at the forest's edge, the original figure remained motionless in the thinning fog—sword resting at its side, head slightly tilted, as if studying the fight.
Judging.
Waiting.
The giant raised its axe again, fire roaring higher than the rooftops.
And Macao and Wakaba, battered but still standing, knew with chilling clarity—
This fight wasn't meant to be won quickly.
It was meant to be endured.
The barrier finally shattered.
Purple fire fractured like glass, smoke ripping apart as the giant forced its way through, axe blazing so hot the air screamed around it. The impact hurled Macao and Wakaba in opposite directions—Macao skidding through rubble, Wakaba crashing shoulder-first into the remains of a stone wall, his pipe clattering across the ground before he snatched it back with shaking fingers.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
The giant straightened fully now, towering above the ruined street like a walking execution. Flames poured from the axe in slow, hungry waves, setting whatever still stood alight. The village was burning—houses collapsing, roofs caving in, the inn's walls groaning under the heat.
Macao dragged himself upright, blood running down his temple, vision swimming. His purple fire flickered weakly around his arms, sputtering as the giant's oppressive magic pressed down on him.
"…Still think this was an A-rank job?" he rasped.
Wakaba laughed once, breathless and hoarse, smoke leaking from the corners of his mouth. "I'm never trusting reward numbers again."
The giant took a step forward.
The ground cracked.
Another step.
Closer.
The axe lifted, fire condensing along its edge, magic screaming as it prepared a final, village-ending blow.
Wakaba's eyes snapped to the inn.
Then back to Macao.
"We're out of time," Wakaba said quietly.
Macao clenched his fists, purple fire flaring weakly in response. "…Yeah."
They locked eyes.
No shouting. No speeches.
Just understanding.
Wakaba exhaled deeply, longer than before, and the smoke didn't just spread—it thickened, compressing until it became a massive, swirling dome around the giant, sealing sound inside. Every crackle of flame, every footstep, every breath was pulled inward, trapped, layered, multiplied a thousandfold.
Inside the dome, sound went mad.
The giant roared—and staggered.
Its plates flared open instinctively, ears spreading wide as they tried to process the chaos. The compressed smoke fed it everything at once—its own movements, the fire, the crumbling buildings, echoes of screams that weren't real.
Macao felt the pressure lift just enough.
"That's it," Wakaba hissed, veins standing out in his neck as he held the smoke together. "Now!"
Macao planted his feet.
Purple fire exploded back to life—not flickering this time, but roaring, dense and radiant, crawling up his arms and shoulders until it coated his entire upper body like living armor. The ground beneath him cracked as the magic condensed further, hotter, heavier, solid.
"Union Magic—" Macao growled, teeth clenched.
Wakaba slammed his hands together, smoke spiraling inward, collapsing toward Macao like a storm being dragged into a single point.
"—SMOKEFLARE EXECUTION!"
The two magics collided.
Purple fire and black smoke fused, spiraling together into a massive, rotating lance of condensed force—violet core wrapped in choking darkness, sound compressed into pure destructive pressure. The air screamed as the Union Magic formed, ripping chunks of stone free just from its presence.
Macao thrust both arms forward.
The lance detonated outward.
It didn't explode on contact—it punched through.
The Union Magic slammed into the giant's chest like a god's fist, armor plates shattering instantly, molten cracks spiderwebbing across its torso. The sound compression inside Wakaba's smoke dome amplified the impact catastrophically, the giant's own roar folding back into it again and again.
The axe slipped from its grip.
Fire guttered.
The giant staggered back, each step slower than the last, until the Union Magic bored straight through its core and erupted out its back in a pillar of violet-black light that tore into the sky.
For a heartbeat, the world froze.
Then the giant collapsed.
Its body imploded inward, armor folding, fire snuffing out as the massive form disintegrated into black ash that scattered on the wind. The smoke dome collapsed with it, sucked inward and gone in an instant.
Silence fell.
Not the oppressive kind.
The exhausted kind.
Macao dropped to one knee, gasping, purple fire fading to embers. Wakaba fell backward onto the ground, staring up at the sky, smoke leaking weakly from his pipe before finally dissipating.
Around them, the village burned—but it still stood.
The inn was damaged, scorched, but intact.
Villagers slowly emerged from hiding, staring in disbelief at the crater where the giant had been.
Macao let out a shaky breath. "…We did it."
Wakaba laughed softly. "Yeah… union magic's still got it."
But neither of them felt relief for long.
At the forest's edge, the fog stirred.
The silhouette with the sword was still there.
Still standing.
Still watching.
And as the last embers of the giant faded into the night, the figure finally turned—slowly—and walked back into the fog, leaving nothing behind but silence… and the uneasy certainty that this fight had never been the real end.