In the northwest of the Holy Astal Kingdom—the city of Ebonbury.

Unlike much of the kingdom, a place protected moreso by this world’s natives than by the otherworldly Heroes… in particular, a hub for people who called themselves ‘adventurers’.

And also—

One of the six points of the Hexagram. There was already a giant magical circle of unknown origin spread around the city, pulsing with energy.

The city was currently embroiled in a state of chaos… After all, they’d received the message that they were a target, along with a pittance of Heroes, and that was it.

They were to protect themselves…

Any thoughts they may have had were interrupted by a crack in the sky, from which emerged—

A single witch, dressed in white military garb and with a green stole draped around her shoulders, along with—

“What is that…?!”

Evan, leader of the party Angel’s Wings, couldn’t help but let his voice leak out.

After all, that was—

“A giant… Living Armour…?!”

Giant was the right word.

It stood at likely over thirty metres tall… The scale was so absurd that Evan couldn’t get a proper read on the thing’s size.

And it didn’t seem to be a statue, either—the inside of its empty helmet shone with a malevolent red glimmer, and it was most definitely moving.

Impossible.

Living Armours were undead… And even Eskaria’s artificial Living Armours ran off of an implanted mana stone. There was no way lingering regrets or a single mana stone could power something this absurd.

And yet, there it stood. Empty, yet breathing. All the mages in the city couldn’t help but freeze up—its mana signature was that massive.

“As if… we could defend ourselves from that…!”

Evan spat out the words like they were a bitter bug, but steeled his determination anyway. This fell far beyond the usual ‘run away if you don’t like the odds’ policy that adventurers worked under. If they didn’t stop that thing now, it could crush the whole kingdom…!

Standing in midair, as if to display her blatant disrespect of the laws of physics, the witch spoke.

“I am the second Apostle of the Demon King, Chaos Empress Tempest Maleficum! As a representative of the Demon King, hallowed be His name, I hereby declare your deaths for the sake of the new world!”

Though it was physically impossible for her voice to even reach the ground, let alone be heard by everyone in the city, it most certainly reverberated in their ears, serving as a harbinger of their inevitable demise.

Before the ultimate practitioner of creative magic and her creation, they stood no chance.

There was only one way this could go—

“Now, be the fodder for the test of my beloved Goliath…!”

Evan brought his sword to his chest, then shook his head, hardening his facial expression. As the leader of one of the top-ranked parties based in this city, he knew the terrain well, and it was clear it would require more than a small amount of unconventional thinking if they wished to defeat this monstrosity.

“Henry, Scott, James, Kenneth! With me!”

““Right!””

In an instant, he and his party were outside the city… and several other parties of adventurers, as well as the few Heroes who had been assigned to guard this place by the church. Everyone was getting ready to defend the city.

Noticing this, Kenneth raised his voice and started chanting, channelling his relatively new vampiric abilities.

“[Wind-Attribute Magic: Blades of Βορέας]!”

Moments later, the name of the spell left his mouth, invigorating not only his party members, but also every other combatant nearby. Magical winds clad their blades, and their movements got several steps faster.

The problem, here, was that adventurers fundamentally didn’t often cooperate with people outside their own parties…

But a few things could be discerned about this thing just by looking at it.

First of all, the material it was made of was likely Black Silver, which meant direct attacks were unlikely to work… Most other metals could not even scratch the stuff, and it was highly resistant to magical attacks, too.

Also, at that size, restraining it with ropes was a waste of time… It would simply tear through any rope they threw at it, no matter the material.

But, simultaneously, several mages cast magical restraint spells.

Even if just for a moment, that should…!

And indeed, the thing struggled against the shadowy chains and the burning ropes, but it was unable to escape immediately.

“Hou…?”

The witch donned a small smirk on her face as she watched Goliath get restrained. It was unlikely to be enough, but it was an alright opening move.

But what determined the end result of this battle would be what they did after this, as well as the specs of Goliath, which she had not yet properly tested.

Several swordsmen and other melee fighters rushed in to attack, but as expected, even against the thing’s ankles, their weaponry was repelled, leaving not even a single scratch on the glimmering black metal. Goliath did, however, turn its gaze downwards and, though restrained by the spells, raised its foot—

Splat.

With a sickening sound, the lives of dozens of adventurers were crushed underfoot, akin to a human stepping on a clump of ants. Indeed, from Goliath’s perspective, these were nought but ants. Trash to be trampled.

Their souls were sucked into the magic circle, to be nothing but fodder.

Powered by the Magic Stone Engine in its chest and a veritable treasure trove of magic stones, Goliath would simply do as it was told and crush the ants to dust.

It lacked sophisticated weaponry, or even a sword or a club… but then, it did not particularly need anything of the sort. In the first place, producing weapons for something this large was a fool’s errand.

“Tch…!”

Evan, however, could not bring himself to simply give up, even as his allies had been crushed into a fine paste… Fortunately, none of the Angel’s Wings had gotten caught up in the stomp.

Scott and James, as the rest of the mage adventurers and the magical Heroes of the kingdom, flung spell after spell towards the thing… but the damage they were dealing was minimal, at best.

As the situation, stood, their chances of winning were close to nil.

If they wished to defeat this thing, they needed a miracle… But were miracles not called that precisely because they were things that happened in times of great need?

Kenneth took a brief moment to compose himself…

And looked inside his own heart, to the vampiric blood running through his veins. The blood that belonged to his mistress.

The mistress who had gotten immeasurably, incomparably stronger just the other day—

With a start, he realised that he could partake of her power.

He would need to hide it as a normal spell, rather than the shared effect of [Bloodworks], but—

“[Blood Magic: Sanguine Chains]...!”

Finishing his fake chant with a fake spell name, he raised his hands in Goliath’s direction, extracting litres upon litres of viscous, dark red blood from the corpses…

And binding it in place, stronger than any of the other spells that had bound it earlier.

And once more, he started and finished a fake chant…

“[Blood Magic: Ferrous Blade]...!”

He extracted yet more blood from the growing piles of corpses… after all, every little movement Goliath made cost another three fighters their lives, and it was restrained. None present… except for Tempest herself, even wanted to imagine how much damage it would be dealing without the restraints.

Unlike the adventurers’ and Heroes’ weapons, the blades that formed from the blood Kenneth was controlling managed to inflict more than surface-level scratches on Goliath… in fact, he managed to cause some serious wounds.

Of course, both Kenneth’s party members of the Angel’s Wings and Goliath itself noticed his actions, and they responded, too. His party members, by trying to defend him…

And Goliath, by looking his direction and making slow, hulking progress towards him.

The more observant of the other adventurers noticed the situation, too, and set off to devote their efforts to protecting Kenneth’s life, too.

Splat.

That proved almost useless… but it was true that it managed to slow down Goliath.

Though it came at the heavy cost of a large part of the city’s adventurers and almost all of the Heroes that had been summoned, eventually, expending nigh all his mana, Kenneth managed to—

With loud clanking sounds, Goliath fell to the ground, crushing a multitude of buildings under its unmoving body.

“Hou… So you have beaten my Goliath?”

Looking over the remains of her creation, the witch spoke, her voice once more reverberating throughout the area. Yet her voice betrayed not a hint of sorrow, panic, or any other discernible negative emotion. No, instead—

“Kheh… Heheheh… Ahahahahaha…!”

The very next moment, she was laughing, a maddened grin on her face. Indeed, at the prospect of her prided creation being reduced to a pile of scrap metal, the verdant witch felt nothing but pure, unadulterated joy.

“Ahahahahahaha…! That’s about within expectations, I suppose… And that concludes the first test. Then, as for the second test… Mass production…!”

Her voice filled the gathered humans with a single, powerful emotion.

Dread.

She took with her her own personal bit of the castle, a brilliant obsidian-black hall constructed from the souls of those that had already fallen, and summoned it forth by drawing the ceremonial dagger hanging from her belt.

Once more, she opened her mouth, yet this time, the words that left were no mere words, nor were they meant to convey any sort of intent like a sentence would be.

“Since time immemorial, all who have gazed upon the sun have longed to feel its heat.

And yet, none dare reach out to touch it, for ‘tis simple for man to understand that overreaching would simply get one burnt.”

Instead, they were an aria. With pride in her maddened heart, she sang her lungs out.

To manifest her craving. To create her ideal reality. A prayer for her perfect world.

“And yet, I ask thee, why? Why, oh man, dost thou fear being burnt?

Is it the ugly scars? The pain of fire? Perhaps it is akin to the fear of death itself?”

The maddened witch of the cult of Maleficum. Forever bound to her instinctual drive to create, yet shackled by her desire to be useful.

Heat flared up, obscuring her vision. The very heat she sang of covered her body and licked her limbs.

“Shallow, shallow, shallow. O mankind, thy desires are shallow.

If thou art so afraid of the sun, then surely, the flame in thy breast cannot be noteworthy.”

Her ever-burning flame, her unending passion. A neverending quest for knowledge, more, more, more, more, more!

The fire in her heart flared out, charring her body from the inside out. On the outside, too, the heat raised and raised, covering her in unsightly burn wounds as her skin flaked off.

“Only those who can withstand the heat of the sun may possess the right to carry its flames.

Oh, Sun, I swear to Thee—I shall be Thy herald, Thy servant! So grant me Thy flames!”

She addressed her Lord, granting Him the ultimate title her heart possessed. No greater honour could she grant.

She beseeched Him to allow her craving to manifest.

“Amen.

As the Apostle of Arms, I invoke—

Stigmata of the Mad—

Manifest, my Craving -

Angra Mainyu—

Demon God of Unnatural Lust

Daeva Varun—

Infinite Armament Reproduction!”

The fire emanating from her heart dripped off her, falling to the floor… where it assembled itself, into a veritable army of flaming humanoids, each the size of the Goliath. And when the flames dropped away and scattered, what was left behind—

Was an innumerable amount of Goliaths, too many to count if one used all their fingers and toes.

Daeva Varun. Her own personal heavenly world, where she could forever be surrounded by the scorching hot flames of knowledge and creation.

The ability to create infinite, unlimited weaponry of any kind, without limits.

And indeed, as her Lord had tipped her off—

These giant, lumbering suits of empty armour could very well be counted as part of her equipment.

Which was to say—

“Infinite…?!”

At once, the humans were crestfallen. It had taken that much effort just to fell one of the things—and she possessed the ability to create an infinite amount…?

“Kehehehehe… Ahahahahaha…!”

From inside the castle’s obsidian-black hall, the mad witch laughed and laughed.

Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat.

While the air was filled with the sickening noise of flesh and bone being mashed into the ground, the first point of the Hexagram was opened.

While lamenting that even in becoming a vampire’s servant, he was unable to save anyone, Kenneth, too, was sucked inside the magic circle of supreme sacrifice.