Episode 4 : Mors Mirabilis Sed Crudelis (Part 4)

That was close… I barely made it.

Ezakiel exhaled, surveying the scene before him. His glowing blue eyes flickered as he assessed the situation.

Well, if there's one good thing about this, it's that because she's a unique monster, we're inside a sub-dimension. If this were the real world, the magical girls would've shown up by now.

Unlike ordinary and cursed human monsters, unique monsters possessed the ability to create personal sub-dimensions—a realm of infinite size, molded entirely to their will, just like the void they stood in now. At this point in the story, at least, Tokyo's magical girls had no means of penetrating such a space.

But the bad thing… is that since this is her domain, she has a clear advantage over me. His thoughts darkened. I can't simply use my reality-warping powers against her. Not yet. I have to weaken her first.

The void beneath them trembled.

The shattered fragments of the broken clocks stirred, rising into the air like puppets on invisible strings. Amidst the swirling debris, Yayoi emerged, completely unharmed. She ascended effortlessly, her crimson eyes locked onto him.

Raising her hands, she commanded the fragments of the clocks to hover in place—before launching them at him with deadly speed.

Ezakiel raised his palm, summoning a torrent of blue flames that consumed the oncoming shards, reducing them to nothing but ashes.

But then—Yayoi emerged from the fire, completely unfazed.

She phased through it. The flames passed through her body like smoke, leaving her untouched. Without hesitation, she raised her palm and fired a concentrated beam of pure darkness at him.

Ezakiel barely had time to react before teleporting out of its path.

Reappearing at a safe distance, he narrowed his glowing eyes. "So… you can even phase through fire?"

Yayoi smiled. "I can. That's thanks to my second ability—Ghost Adaptive."

She held up a hand, as if demonstrating. "It allows me to phase through anything by vibrating my atoms at an incredibly fast frequency."

What the actual fck?! How much more overpowered can she get?!*

Ezakiel clenched his fists, his mind racing.

Yayoi floated higher into the void, her crimson eyes gleaming with amusement. "So tell me," she mused, tilting her head slightly. "How exactly do you plan to hurt me?"

She raised her palm, her smile widening. "If you attack me, I can simply nullify it… or phase right through it."

As she spoke, a massive sphere of energy began to form above her hand. It pulsed with raw power, its size steadily increasing, growing larger and larger until it reached the size of a ten-story building. The space around it warped from its sheer intensity.

Ezakiel stood firm, staring up at the enormous attack without flinching.

Yayoi smirked and hurled the colossal energy sphere toward him.

Ezakiel didn't move. Instead, he simply said

—

"Die."

The moment the word left his lips, the massive attack vanished.

Instantly.

"Huh?" Yayoi blinked, lowering herself slightly. "What just happened?"

Ezakiel's hollow eyes flickered with an eerie glow. "This," he said calmly, "is Instant Death."

Yayoi folded her arms, intrigued. "And how does it work?"

"It works by killing something in a way that aligns with its nature," he explained. "For example, if I were to kill breathable air, I would turn it toxic. If I were to kill fire, I would make it cold. The concept of death applies differently depending on the target."

She gave a slow nod, absorbing the information.

Then, without hesitation, she raised her hand and fired a barrage of razor-sharp ice shards at him.

Ezakiel responded in kind, summoning multiple bone shards from thin air and hurling them toward her, the two attacks clashing mid-air in a deadly collision.

I'm running out of juice… I can't keep this up for much longer.

Meanwhile, Yayoi didn't even look tired.

Ezakiel barely had time to think before she raised her hand, unleashing a rapid barrage of dark magical blasts toward him. Reacting quickly, he stomped his foot against the ground. Instantly, massive bones erupted from beneath him, forming a thick wall to intercept the incoming attacks. The blasts struck the barrier, sending shockwaves through the void.

But he knew this wouldn't be enough.

Sure enough, she wasn't going to waste time with ranged attacks. Just as he predicted, she phased through the wall with ease, emerging on the other side in an instant. This time, she aimed to finish him with a single, devastating punch.

Her fist connected—

But instead of shattering him, Ezakiel faded away.

Her strike slammed into the ground instead, the sheer force of it fracturing the terrain beneath her, sending cracks rippling through the void.

"Damn you!" Yayoi screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice echoing through the void. She frantically scanned her surroundings, searching for him—only to spot him appearing out of nowhere.

…

I need to come up with a plan. Fast.

Ezakiel gritted his teeth, flying across the endless void while making sure to evade the countless floating clocks scattered around him. Their ticking filled the space like an eerie, rhythmic chorus.

Without wasting a second, he activated his power, summoning twenty identical illusions of himself. Each clone radiated the same energy signature as him and immediately darted off in different directions.

This should keep her occupied for a while…

...

Meanwhile, at Summerfall High—Magical Girl Headquarters

Inside the headquarters, the four magical girls stood alongside Yuki, who looked at them with a deep frown of disappointment.

"Are you kidding me?" Yuki's voice was sharp, frustration clear in her tone. "You guys lost Exsecrati Mortui? Didn't I tell you how big of a threat it was?"

Yonoshita sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "It's not our fault," she said. "By the time we reached Yoyogi Park, the monster had already vanished. But…" She hesitated.

Yuki narrowed her eyes. "But what?"

Yonoshita exchanged glances with the others before answering. "We also sensed another monster's presence there—alongside Exsecrati Mortui."

Yuki's expression darkened. "What? Another one?"

As if things weren't already bad enough, now this?

"We only noticed it later," Emawari admitted. "We were so focused on tracking Exsecrati Mortui's energy signature that we overlooked the other one at first."

"And?" Yuki pressed.

Emawari took a deep breath before continuing, her voice more serious now. "Based on what we did pick up… this new presence is far stronger than the one you were so paranoid about."

Yuki's stomach tightened. "How strong are we talking?"

This time, Mari spoke up. "Its energy levels are comparable to a Potential Demon Tier threat. But what's strange is that… for some reason, it was masking its power, keeping it within the range of a lower Berserk Tier monster."

Yuki clenched her fists. A Demon Tier threat? This was worse than she thought.

"It looks like we'll have to get the others involved in this," she said grimly.

....

Twenty.

That was twenty illusions she had destroyed.

Yayoi watched as the remnants of the illusions faded into nothing, dissolving like mist. But instead of satisfaction, rage surged through her veins.

"Where are you, coward?!" she roared, her voice echoing through the endless void. "What happened to your promise—'You will not leave this place alive'?!"

Her fury ignited, and she unleashed a relentless barrage of dark energy blasts in every direction. Explosions ripped through the space around her, shattering floating clocks and tearing apart the very ground beneath her. Smoke and debris filled the air, turning the battlefield into pure chaos.

And then—

A voice cut through the destruction.

"No need to trouble yourself," Ezakiel said, stepping out of the shadows. "I've returned."

"Coward…" Yayoi hissed, her crimson eyes burning with fury. Without hesitation, she charged twin spheres of dark magic in her palms and hurled them straight at Ezakiel.

He smirked. "There's no shame in being a coward," he mused, vanishing just before the blasts could reach him. "After all, cowards tend to live longer, you know."

The attacks slammed into two floating clocks behind him, reducing them to shattered fragments.

Yayoi clenched her teeth in frustration and immediately shot toward him at full speed. But just as her fist was about to connect—

He teleported again.

"Stop teleporting!" she roared, her rage boiling over. With a furious wave of her hand, she conjured massive, jagged spikes of pure darkness and hurled them at him.

"As you wish," Ezakiel said, his voice almost amused.

Using telekinesis, he caught the incoming spikes mid-air and sent them flying straight back at her. But, unsurprisingly, they passed right through her intangible form.

Yayoi merely flicked her wrist, summoning another barrage of rapid-fire energy blasts.

Ezakiel swiftly dodged each one, weaving through the assault with precise movements. And then, with a flicker of blue light, he activated his illusions once again—splitting into five identical copies that surrounded her from all directions.

"How long are you going to keep this up? You know this won't work," Yayoi said, her tone laced with impatience.

The five Ezakiels surrounding her unleashed a torrent of fire, but—just as expected—it was instantly nullified by Undo Time, as if the attack had never happened in the first place.

"Enough!"

Her voice rang out like a deafening shockwave, reverberating through the void. The sheer force of it shattered all the illusions in an instant.

Ezakiel was sent plummeting downward, his skeletal body rattling from the impact of the scream. He barely managed to steady himself mid-air, but as he glanced down, he saw deep cracks running along his bones.

Yayoi hovered above him, her crimson eyes gleaming with cold amusement.

"I'm going to hang your skull in my room," she sneered.

Ezakiel coughed, his blue flames flickering weakly. "Not so fast… I still have one more trick left," he said, his voice strained.

Yayoi narrowed her eyes. "What trick could you possibly have left that would let you win against me?"

A smirk tugged at Ezakiel's skeletal jaw.

"Who said anything about winning?"