Infinite Journey: Dark Souls

Perhaps she should also pay attention to other parts of the battlefield.

While the front lines were locked in a stalemate, the battle at the rear was also decided. Like dominoes, after Artesu, fighting the monster Kyoko, defeated it, the scene collapsed in a chain reaction. He, covered in wounds, helped Mami defeat the monster Mami. Then, together with her, he powerfully witnessed the battle between Kyoko and the monster Sayaka.

Kyoko didn't ask them for help, but as a widow who witnessed her best friend being desecrated, she still defeated the monster Sayaka on her own.

The enormous red spear fell, just as she had done to the mermaid witch in the timeline of reincarnation, turning the monster into ashes.

Thus, a great victory was achieved on the main battlefield.

Next, all you need to do is defeat the monster circle and the thing behind her to reach the ending.

That's how it looks.

"Guess again... Hmm, are you going to—take action, Lily!"

"Roger! Take another magic cannon shot from me!"

Just as Ribbon Flame realized that the mysterious voice had moved, Weaving suddenly restarted the battle.

It wasn't exactly sudden, because the Witch of This Shore she was standing on had already filled the hourglass with sand. As soon as she finished speaking, Little Flame raised the hourglass, and another flash of light condensed from the sand of time pressed down hard, as if to engulf the braided witch.

The golden and white lines meandered around the magic cannon, their target being the monster circle.

"Heh, that guy really is a persistent ghost, having to remind you at a time like this."

It seems they had anticipated this, and it seems they were ready to turn on each other at any moment.

The bow was drawn and the arrow nocked in one fluid motion, and the same purple torrent of magic condensed into an arrow that met the magic cannon head-on.

"Come on! Flame Beast, show them your true power!"

"!!!"

Purple and deep purple vanished, and black braids emerged from the ruins.

The entire city center was transformed into a jungle of black braids.

In the normal ecosystem of Destiny Sixty-Two, some strange things have been mixed in.

In the new world created by Madoka Kaname, why keep "monsters," creatures that are hostile to magical girls? Is it merely to create a target for magical girls to defeat in this world without witches? No, the answer is not so simple. "Monsters" are an integral part of nature in the new world.

Just as sunlight shines on the earth, causing river water to evaporate, the evaporated river water condenses in the sky to become clouds and mist, and the clouds and mist continue to accumulate water vapor until heavy rain falls, and the rainwater flows into the rivers and waits for the sun to shine again—this is a cycle, and Warcraft is like the sunlight in this cycle.

What needs sunlight to circulate is river water, or more precisely, water. Similarly, what needs to circulate within monsters can also be likened to water; its scientific name is emotional energy. Where does this energy come from? Water comes from rivers, while energy comes from humans. Just as the sun evaporates river water, monsters similarly extract emotional energy from the human spirit.

They are more drawn to negative energy, so they appear to be causing tragedies.

The extracted emotional energy, like water vapor, condensed into clouds. These black crystals are called the Lament Cube. The cube's energy, stripped of negative emotions, is so pure it can be compared to the water vapor in the clouds. The cube and the clouds gathered together until thunder and rain fell, returning to the earth as dew.

The monsters will eventually be destroyed by the magical girls, who will become a new river that will receive the rainwater from the lamenting Rubik's Cube.

The loop is now complete.

Warcraft became an indispensable part of the natural cycle of the new world.

So here's the question: as processors of negative emotional energy, do they have their own stance?

Could they want to process more energy and eliminate all negative energy altogether?

Probably not.

At least, before the appearance of that giant magical beast that had transformed into a witch, they had no specific actions that indicated their stance.

Now they exist, but their stance is delicate. It all began when Ribbon Flame's magic was stolen. At that time, they found a massive aggregate of negative energy—a colossal magical beast, or now, a witch. From then on, the magical beasts spontaneously came to the witch's side, plucking the black threads from her body.

Therefore, their stance is not hostile to the ash, nor even to magical girls. They simply maintain the natural cycle, providing magical girls with cleansing magic. However, in the process of cleansing magic, humans are sometimes harmed, so their natural behavior is perceived by magical girls as an evil act that harms humanity.

And to resolutely eliminate them is essentially equivalent to predation by those at the top of the food chain.

Even now, when the combined forces of Ash and Magical Girls treat the monsters in the city center as enemies that must be eliminated, they are merely acting in self-defense. As mentioned above, their stance is to cleanse the witches of the accumulated negative energy.

They were slaughtered by the ashes, resulting in fewer and fewer magical beasts capable of drawing out the black threads.

Now, the witch's originally gray hair has been completely dyed black by negative energy, that is, the curse.

"Come on! Flame Beast, show them your true power!"

"!!!"

Purple and deep purple vanished, and black braids emerged from the ruins.

The entire city center was transformed into a jungle of black braids.

Warcraft has no fixed stance, but in this battle, those with clear stances are obvious.

The Ash, who misjudged the enemy from the start, met their punishment here. Black braids grew from the ruins, entangled every creature that stepped on them. Some Ash were agile enough to dodge the first wave of entanglement, but even the strongest magical girl, Mami, could not escape the endless pursuit for long in the braided jungle.

Black braids covered not only the land, but also the people on it. The very ground they trod had vanished; the ashes' efforts to destroy the proliferating braids were utterly futile. The countdown to complete bondage had begun; blackness, with terrifying speed, had taken over the entire city center. The teetering survivors resisted the blackness's devouring power alone.

The battlefield where Ash had just won a great victory was completely overturned by the witch, or rather, according to the monster circle's name, by the monster flame.

Indeed, isn't the magical beast possessing the power of the ribbon flame the final color of the five-color anthropomorphic magical beast team, representing black? However, she skipped the anthropomorphic stage and directly launched a game-changing attack in the form of a witch.

Everything changed so quickly. In the blink of an eye, Xiaoyan's magic cannon and the magic arrow of the monster ball had collided. The two shades of purple were so conspicuous in the rapidly covering black. Unfortunately, the collision of magic was fleeting. When the moment came that the Witch of This Shore's magic cannon could only fight to a draw with the huge magic arrow, even the most conspicuous purple would eventually disappear.

It must be said that the power represented by the longbow and flower branch is truly exaggerated.

Although it doesn't possess the world-devouring curse of the demonic flame's magic, the mere fact that these purple arrows could fight two opponents at once and neutralize the attacks of two ashes is not to be underestimated.

The purple vanished, only to burst into a brilliant burst the instant it disappeared. The second magic arrow missed its target, striking a golden-white line of fire. The zigzagging trajectory of the fire line drew near the monster's body, but this second draw of the bow concealed its advance. The gold, stubbornly remaining against the black background after the purple, vanished along with the disappearance of the knife mark.

The slash from the weaving cut off the arrow, and the [Selfless Consciousness - Mind Emptiness and Wonderful Existence] technique not only cut off the arrow but also slashed towards the monster circle.

Ultimately, the pink doll managed to defeat both of them, neutralizing their attacks.

Based on just one sentence.

"If you kill me, aren't you afraid that your entangled subordinates will be buried with me?"

An unexpected slash stopped at the doll's neck.

Out of the corner of his golden-white demonic eyes, he caught a glimpse of ash being corroded within the black braids.

Blackness spreads, and after black braids engulf other colors, the black curse strips other colors of their life from within. Blackness crawls all over the skin, and blackness is poured into the blood vessels. Even more terrifying is the spirit of those entangled, filled with negative emotions that nearly detonate their brains.

Ash's condition was relatively mild. Kyoko, already exhausted from fighting the magical beast Sayaka, fainted as soon as the black braid got tangled in her hair. Seeing this, Mami immediately disarmed herself, and the Soul Gem in her hand instantly went black.

The upheaval in the situation and the threat from the enemy forced Zhi to stop her slashing blade.

The sword was not lowered from the doll's neck.

"Make her stop! Otherwise, you'll be the one who dies with her!"

Staring with her demonic eyes, Zhi returned the threat. Her eyes were more menacing than a blade, for at such close range, she had glimpsed the secrets of the demonic beast circle. She had also found her weakness… a weakness powerful enough to kill her and solidify the threat.

"Put the knife down first."

"Make her stop!"

The man holding the hostage and the man holding her life were locked in a standoff.

When both sides have leverage that the other cannot accept, will the standoff turn into a negotiation?

"I'll count to three, and then everyone will take a step back?"

"No need for all that trouble, let's cancel now!"

"Alright! Flame Beast, don't kill anyone yet."

The knife was withdrawn, and the curse's corrosive influence ceased.

The demonic eyes were still fixed on the enemy's weaknesses, and the braids were still wrapped around the enemy's body.

Fate 63: Confrontation and Demon

"Honestly, we can't afford to be careless at all when fighting against you. I was originally planning to use this child's special abilities to catch you off guard. Thanks to the guy who reminded you, and thanks to your unique swordsmanship, my plan to take you down in one go has completely failed."

The monster, its blade removed, rubbed its neck and lazily complained as it looked at the blade still pointing at it.

Zhi Ke was far from relaxed. Two consecutive failures made her extremely wary of this guy whose true nature was becoming clearer.

"Speak, what exactly do you want?"

"Oh dear, before we start talking, could you please have your witch stop those little tricks?"

She continued rubbing her neck, even circling the doll's head around it twice. In the now completely silent battlefield, with almost all the ash under control, the creaking of her doll's joints was very clear. And her round eyes, dotted with black dots, turned towards Homura, were also very easy to understand.

The witch of this shore raised her head, wrapped her cloak around herself, and covered the hourglass that was leaking sand.

Your life is in my hands.

"Putting aside how tightly we hold on, just in terms of quantity, don't I hold onto more lives?"

The round eyeball with black dots turned back and stared at the golden-white demonic eye over there.

“You only have one life. Even if you take other lives, I can still avenge them.”

"If you think it's worth it to exchange my life for so many of theirs, then I have nothing to say."

Threat and counter-threat: they exchanged several verbal blows in a short period of time, yet remained locked in a stalemate.

One side always has to compromise. Zhi tilted her head slightly, as if the lives of her subordinates were indeed more important, and spoke up to Xiaoyan.

"...Lily, be discreet, don't let her find out again."

"Hey! Is this how you negotiate?!"

Well, what she said could be considered a compromise in a way. As long as the Witch of This Shore's actions wouldn't be noticed again, wouldn't that be equivalent to fulfilling Madoka's requirements? Homura understood this perfectly, and the humanoid body standing on the record-wearing witch's hat nodded with a grin. When the witch's cloak was pulled open again, no more sand could be seen leaking out.

"I kindly told you we were up to something, and you're still unhappy. You're keeping everything so well hidden, which only makes us more afraid of the unknown. To be fair, why don't you just tell us what you're hiding?"

Zhi's expression was very serious, but that seriousness couldn't hide the thuggish logic in her words that was pushing her luck.

Warcraft Circle was holding back her anger, wanting to complain but not daring to, since they were negotiating by threatening each other.

"Alright, I'm confident you won't reject my suggestion. Go ahead and try whatever tricks you want to pull!"

"Yes, since you're so confident, why don't you just tell us what you're hiding? First of all, who are you?"

The negotiation was still off-track. After a long stalemate, Zhi had strayed far from the initial question. It seemed she no longer cared about the monster's purpose, but instead was fixated on what the other side was hiding. Perhaps she wanted to probe the other side through words to gather more information.

"You really are being rude by not even checking the other party's identity before negotiating. As you can see, I am Warcraft Circle."

“You didn’t say that at first. You were even encouraging us to guess what you were hiding.”