Scathach sighed in exasperation.

She was in front of Venistalis’s front gate. At lease it should be the there. That statement got thrown into question by the opaque dome of darkness, shielding large patches of area in front of her.

“Satholia will kill me.”

“Wow, do I have to buy this ‘Satholia’ a box of chocolate,” a man beside her mused.

“Shut up, Marley!” Scathach screeched. “Do you realize how much trouble I am in? If Satholia get wind that I screw up this badly, she will skin my soul alive. It is bad enough she haunts my dream at every opportunity. If Venistalis get blown out of the water, my happiness will face extinction!?”

“You care?”

“Of course I care! My livelihood is at risk here!”

Marley wanted to pray for the gods to rid the badger of her apathy, but he didn’t because the gods were equally an asshole. He glanced up at the sky. If an embodiment of good truly existed, he wished for a divine lightning to strike the badger.

While the Queen of Center Force would gladly dispense divine intervention, she couldn’t. However, the almighty Satholia still sneaked in a simple punishment.

“Scathach-chan!”

The badger froze.

A man in a pink polo shirt and a skirt flipped into view. He was buffed to the point his muscle drank protein-shake. His legs were broad, powerful, like an oar build for battleships. His make-up and hairstyle shone legendary, while his pink lipstick glinted attractively. Such beastly contrast of womanly charm and macho of manliness pressed Scathach’s bravado down the garbage chute.

Untouchable S-rank — Judy Mann — the Indestructible Transvestite.

At that moment, Marley became a believer in a benevolent god who granted his wishes.

Scathach horrifically screamed at the musclebound juggernaut sprinting at her for hugs. She tried to dodge, but Judy snatched her from the air and snuggled the soul out of her body.

“You should tell me you are coming, Scathach-chan!” Judy rubbed the squirming badger. “I miss you so much! Where is dear Cytortia? I want her to pick out my new dress. Don’t tell me you are too harsh on that poor dear?”

Scathach believed her luck just hit rock-bottom, but she got no clue she was only midway down the cliff.

“Yo! Scathach,” said a woman in glasses and lab coat, wearing her hair magenta-color hair in twin-tail. A pair of Saturn-shape earrings twinkled from her ear-robe. “Give Judy-chan some love, will you?”

“Shut up, Christy,” Scathach squeezed her word out.

Untouchable S-rank—Arden Christy—the Rebel Professor.

Marley knelt and offered his prayer of gratitude. Oh god, how could this get any better.

“Ha, ha, ha, stale as always, warrior-maid,” Arden Christy taunted Scathach, before shifting her interest to the black dome. “Fascinating, a paracasal barrier that penetrates to all my lab's defensive measures and boots me out of the city. Hey, geezer, is this something in your collection? Mind if I study it?”

Marley froze — oh, no.

An elderly man in a white toga with a long beard and hair tied in a ponytail glared at the group and spat at them.

“Shut up, Rebel Professor, the Grand Empire forbade you from entering our territory ten years ago. Not only did you flaunt the decree, you are audacious enough to sneak right into our capital,” then the elder gnawed his teeth at Marley. “Same for you, Magpie. To think a Liberator's commander dare to hide beneath my nose. Do you want death that much, Marley?”

S-rank — Telomer Grandy—the Royal Elder.

“Nah, you won’t attack me or Marley,” Arden Christy pointed to the suit of green armor intensely watching the group. “The Preserver of Hilarity is right there.”

Telomer gritted his teeth. He couldn’t risk getting into the fight with one of the strongest S-rank in Phantasia.

S-rank—Preserver of Hilarity—the UNKNOWN.

The green suit of armor held up a placard that read.

‘Hello, suckers, sorry old-fart but this is too funny. I am happy that you suck as usual, tranny. Good to see you too; magenta-nerd, woman-child. Anyway! Congratulation of joining us weirdos, Marley.’

It seemed the more powerful you become in Phantasia, the battier you get.

…

Inside Venistalis, on the tower of Spiritium, Orwell Mehest gazed down on the city below him. He never felt more powerful. The invisible spy amalgam throughout the city showed him all the panic the recent situation caused, and it filled him with vengeful satisfaction.

The royal-knights struggled to regroup despite Stuart Hex’s aspiring command to assault the Spiritium tower. In the Fire-quarter housing the military facilities and district, the royal-mages was firing up to be mobilizing — thankfully Wayward was still leading them to a slaughter. The citizens and the communities in the Earth-quarter was in a full-blown pandemonium as the citizen realized the miserable disaster befalling the city. Average people below only took one glance on the Dark One before running away screaming or dropping on the ground to cry and beg for mercy as they should. Families held each other as they run away from the chaos in the street. Looting started a while ago as opportunists exploited the chaos and the law enforcement hobbled to cope against overwhelming riots.

Orwell watched the image of a young waitress in a coffee shop getting man-handle by several men and frowned. The scale was being balance, but he loathed such self-inflicted misery. None of these sinners should despair under the hand of humans’ degeneracy. Only he — not human's ugliness— had the right to collect his payment.

Orwell synced his mind to the Spiritium tower and dripped amalgams into the Leynode beneath Venistalis. Fives spot across the city — one inside each of the four quarters and the one more in Venistalis’ royal castle — glowed with black light and from it a green crystal of Spiritium rose.

Originally, the ritual would obliterate the entire capital and resurrect its population and graves as his armies, but Hal Jordan’s excellence blew Orwell’s game-plan before he got to the start-line. This meant the child of Deathless Clan must improvise a new directive from the ground-up.

Around the city, those crystals lit and thousands of ghostly hands emerged from the smooth Spiritium.

Beneath the city, inside a catacomb of graves and bones, a black, misty being diffused into the cold crypt and dispersed its darkness. Bathed in the amalgam of soul and vengeance, the skeleton moved.

From the ground, violet fluid seeped out from the Leyline. Some puddle started emitting frost and producing snow, while other searched for raw material to make their bodies.

As a first rule of all aspiring evil lords dictated: Every evil-mastermind needed an evil army.

…

Inside the small café called Lovely Coffee Shop.

The young waitress fold after a punch landed on her stomach. She tried calling for help, but the barista already ran away the moment the fight began. Who could blame him? People died everyday in Phantasia. It was far easier to save himself rather than saving a friend. How could she blame him for doing what anyone would do?

Then an arm of rock and dirt crashed through the windows, smashing one man into the wall. A spire of rock crashed through the ceiling and knocked another hoodlum into the floor. The last man tried to run, but the fountain of dirts burst from below, enveloping him inside earth and stone until only his flailing arms and legs was visible. Several crunching noises later, the arms and legs went still.

The waitress froze, horrified by her rescue.

Then the entire building rumbled as it got lifted into the air and thrown to the earth.

The waitress screamed.

Before she lost consciousness, she saw a golden light.

…

A second later, golden lightning burst from the rubbles that once was Lovely Coffee Shop.

Luxinna sat inside a golden lotus, cradling the semi-conscious lady in her arm. She surveyed the carnage and contorted with horror.

The entire street was in carnage. Several bloody bodies littered the pavement. Luxinna’s stomach flipped internally as she saw a body of a headless guard. Two brothers were trying to drag their injured mother from the chaos. Luxinna took a second to unleash a stream of electricity toward a woman looting the store of an elderly grandma, stopping the robbery cold. But it was nowhere close to enough. Everywhere people was shoving each other aside in a chaotic animalistic contest of getting away from the monstrous moon watching them.

Then she saw the skeletons. A walking army of bones was rising from the ground. Skeleton hands shoot out to grab people by the ankle at random. The elf saw the ground fell away from under the group of fleeing citizens as an army of skeletons emerged from the sinkhole. One skeleton bit into a man’s neck, tearing into his flesh, and in a form of twisted spell works, reducing him into a husk.

Luxinna’s eyes caught sight of a massive tidal column of dirt diving into and from the shattered road like a sea-serpent rising from the ocean. Every dive from the rock beast shattered the house and rearranged the Capital’s city schematic.

Luxinna heard a thud.

The waitress looked at the carnage in front of her, fell to her knee and sobbed.

“We will die.”

“No, we are not,” Luxinna said. “Get away from here. Find anyone in trouble and help them get away.”

“There is no way left!” The waitress clutched her head in despair. “The gods won’t even care if we die! The royalties abandoned us. Don’t you get it! We have no hope left.”

Luxinna clenched her hand and remembered her oath as a knight who would save everyone she could. She needed power more than ever. She needed power to bring hope back to this city touched by a darkness of the Primordial.

“Are you still alive?”

The waitress sobbed. Luxinna walked over and lifted her by the neck.

“Listen to me here!” Luxinna yelled at the woman. “You are still alive! Your life has meaning, so protect it. Run! Struggle! Delay death as long as you can!? The end only come when you cannot fight anymore! Do you get it!? Survive! Don’t waste this chance I give to you”

The waitress nodded, but suddenly she turned back to the mysterious masked woman.

“But what about you?”

Then the waitress witnessed a scene that would remain throughout her life. Beautiful, golden light beamed from the masked woman, as lightning rejoiced around her. There on that roof, surrounded by chaos and evil, that stranger shone like a golden star.

“I will save as many as I can,” the masked girl peered down to the army of the dead. “This will be tough.”

Luxinna leaped. Her sword transformed into a golden spear as she struck the undead hoard like lightning.

…

The royal-mages should assemble in Fire-quarter and deploy throughout the city to fight of the hoard from the start.

Heavily emphasis on should.

Royal-mages Captain Samael Wayward assembled his troop in front of the Fire-quarter's grand courtyard.

What followed next was a tragedy.

“Arrrgh!!!”

“Everyone step back! The Captain have gone crazy!”

“Captain Wayward… why?”

A storm fire swallowed those mages whole.

“Stop Captain! Please come to your senses!”

That woman’s head flew.

“It no use! Everyone! Attack that imposter together!”

Three mages—two-man, one woman—tried to fight off Wayward. It was pointless. Lance of heat pierced a man’s brain. A sword flashed, cutting off another man’s arms and impaling his heart in a simple follow-up. Wayward shattered the female mage’s shield with a flaming punch and grasped her by the throat. The mage tearfully struggled as the flame burned her voice box, but soon the light faded from her eyes after a squeezed.

A wall of fires rose to stop every mage trying to flee. The helpless lamb of the royal-mages trembled as they turned to face the embodiment of terror.

“Aren’t you not the royal-mages of Grand Empire?” Wayward’s voice was cold. “You now face a traitor who murders your brothers and sisters, and you scramble like headless chicken. Let me impart to you a last lesson as your former superior: a chicken only lives as long as it produces an egg.”

The mages knew they had no option.

“[Grand Dynasty: Leviathan Entrapment]”

Wayward broke that with a flaming kick and reduced the caster into blackened bones in a second.

“[Snowstorm]”

Wayward melt the intermediate spells and twenty mages behind it in a single throw of fires.

“Please… Captain Wayward,” a mage fell to the ground and begged. “It me Joshua! I am the one who make you all those coffees.”

“Thank you, Joshua,” Wayward expressionlessly burnt off Joshua’s face. “Those were superb coffees. I will miss you.”

“WAYWARD!!!!”

The yelling mage’s former-idol smashed a flaming fist through his stomach, burning his intestines to a crisp. His body barely hit the floor before Wayward impaled his wife’s heart in front of him.

The betrayal continued. The royal-mages tried in vain and tears to fight their former leader. None survived. The only thing left behind from the wrath of the human killing machine was a mass of body parts and charred bloodstain.

The only mage left alive was a young recruit in his early twenty. The mages dropped his wand in that hellish despair and fell down to his knee, crying.

“Why? I admire you! When I graduate and got assign here, I was happy! I think how great it would be to fight alongside Samael Wayward. Please, Captain, why? What force you to do this? At least tell me why are you doing this, Captain!”

Wayward stopped moving for a second. That moment, the boy received glimpses of hope for survival. Abruptly, his vision turned orange.

A pillar-fire engulfed the young mage, leaving not a single ash behind.

“I wish I can, Alexander,” Wayward said to the dead boy he saw a little of himself in. “But sometimes, knowledge is a burden.”

The former-Captain of the royal-mages stood amongst the corpses of subordinates he butchered. Three minutes ago, 237 royal-mages of Grand Empire assembled proudly in this courtyard. Now only fires and burnt flesh remained.

“You must be angry, Kruger,” Wayward said to a swaying man a distance away. “You are 2 minutes late like always. I know you already arrived here a minute ago and still you never moved an inch to save them, why?”

The man stayed silent. His ears barely registered his friend’s words.

“Stun? Or perhaps fear?” Wayward sighed. “Are you so flabbergasted at your friend for the last six-years killing all your comrades that you can’t even move an inch for a solid minute? Normally, you would come for my head screaming right now.”

Kruger vanished and Wayward felt the light bathing him.

Kruger brought a blade of light the size of a three-stories building down on Wayward. He uttered no word. He won’t waste a single iota of concentration on an action so pointless. Every cell in his body stimulated for a single purpose. His blood pumped furiously, fueling every calories into his tendon for one mission: rip Wayward to pieces.

“My lord,” Wayward whispered, leaping away from the blade of light, digging a trench in the ground. “That is your best attack in the last-six years. Why can’t you apply yourself like this during the mission?”

“Die.”

Kruger swung the blade of light diagonally. The blow caught Wayward’s side like a guillotine’s blade, weighting several tons. Its raw energy blasted every window within hundred meters to oblivion.

Wayward clenched his fist. That blow stung his arm. Kruger never accomplished that until today.

“I remember you always want me to fight you seriously.”

Kruger glared at him and gritted his teeth. Wayward’s shifted into a stance Kruger never saw him used before. Something big was coming, Kruger prepared himself for the greatest battle of his life.

“No matter how fake our bond is. I enjoy that half a decade of friendship,” Wayward’s face was inscrutable, but the sadness was real. “So, I will fulfill your wish and take you seriously.”

Wayward’s conjured a blue circle of glowing runes.

[Wayward’s Original: Blue Spear]

…

Melody was staking out the military headquarter at Fire-quarter per Rem’s request when she saw one flash of blue light. The shock-wave rippled across her skin and rattled windows. Then an object smashed the building across her like a cannonball, reducing it into rubble.

The dust a debris cleared to reveal a crater with Vice-captain Kruger of the royal-mages lying prone and puking up blood. Kruger coughed. He thought he understood how terrifyingly powerful Wayward was. But he underestimated that man. A single attack was all it took for Samael Wayward to break him.

A blue bonfire flickered into existence — and from it — a spotless Wayward walked out.