novelnext Declaration of Hostilities
Declaration of Hostilities
The wind began to blow over the world of Ky'lar.(Fuuuuhhhhh~)
It was no ordinary breeze born of the night, but a dull and dense sigh that began to crawl flush with the ground, like an invisible flow that suddenly started to gather the wills and destinies of all those present into that single point of the world.
(¡¡Shhhhhh—shiaaaaa...!!)
That aeolian lament first traveled across the periphery of the clearing, caressing the treetops and descending toward the roof of the inn.
"Sniff-sniff... Ughhhhh..."
There, it brushed against the cheeks of little Flora, who continued to rub her nose in annoyance...
("Imminent...")
And at the same time, it shook the edges of Silver's small armor, whose warrior instincts grew more and more tense before the invisible hostility of the environment.
(???? Uuuuuuuhhhhh... ♫)
Following its course, the air current swirled with a dense murmur toward the improvised altar, enveloping Goldie's floating figure.
("What to do... Mmmgh...?")
There, the little golden straw doll remained floating completely rigid, trapped in her own mystical dilemma after the abrupt interruption of her trance.
(Sssssuuu...)
Meanwhile, at her feet, the wind rustled the tight clothes and outfits of the tide of women who, oblivious to the vacuum that was beginning to surround the environment, remained prostrated on their knees.
"Please, allow us to serve you."
""""We beg of you...""""
In that place, the voices of Clotilde and the others blended with the sound of the air, creating an almost ironic contrast between their devout submission and the invisible oppression consolidating over their heads.
(CLANK... CLANK... CLANK...)
However, breaking the harmony of the environment, a mechanical echo resonated as Brownie, inside the inn, watched...
(¡¡Krrr-clac...!!)
How the gears of destiny began to turn and lock in place irreversibly, submerged in the overwhelming uncertainty of not truly knowing if there had been a correct answer in her choices.
(¡¡¡SHHHHHH—FROTT...!!!)
And it was precisely when the echo of those internal gears settled that the air current gathered renewed strength, sweeping through the clearing with a subtle violence that converged at the absolute epicenter of all eyes.
(Fwiiiiiiisssss)
There, the wind gently lifted the edges of Mireya's elaborate black and white dress, making her long, resplendent silver hair wave.
"..."
In that place, trapped in her female appearance due to the active magical girl transformation, her delicate features reflected a deep confusion.
"I-I..."
At that moment for Mireya, the physical plane began to fade into an irrelevant background while she was struck by an internal commotion of catastrophic magnitudes that plunged her into a state of absolute shock and stupor.
"... I don't understand."
Her mind, all of a sudden, found itself trapped in a limbo of absolute cognitive paralysis.
(¡Fuuuuhhhhh~!)
But the reason for that sensory collapse lay in the very nature of her current state.
"... W-What... are these...?"
By being transformed, her physical appearance and her gender had been completely altered, but the true change operated at a much deeper level...
"Feelings...?"
The magical girl form granted a specific magic to its wielder based on the most intimate essence of their being, determining their affinity element; and in Mireya's case, that element was empathetic magic, also called sympathy magic.
(¡...!)
Therefore, her nature was congenitally susceptible to the detection and assimilation of others' emotional states.
(¡¡Blic...!!)
However, unlike other magical girls whose power awakened complete and polished from the very first moment, Mireya's had never finished manifesting in its entirety.
(¡Sssssuúúú~!)
Her mind, her body, and her soul had never been in true harmony, resulting in a partial transformation—a truncated state whose evolutionary potential was severely limited, almost like an incomplete shell.
(???? Sssshhhhhhhiaaaaaa~♫)
But that balance had been irreversibly broken.
(Uuuuúúú...)
When the Spirit Queen's core of natural energy integrated into her being, massively absorbing energies from within her body for the gestation of Flora, a metaphysical singularity was unleashed.
(Ffffuúúú)
That process forcibly unearthed the purest essence of her soul, finally forcing it to tune into her physical body and fragmenting the initial shell.
(Fwiiiiiiisssss)
However, despite that, it did not represent the manifestation of her true magical girl form; instead, it was barely an intermediate transitional stage, similar to the state of a cracked chrysalis releasing a much deeper yet still incomplete and unstable facet—like a forced mutation that, despite not being the absolute awakening, was more than enough for her emotional perception to expand uncontrollably.
(Fiuuuu~♫)
Therefore, as the conceptual barriers that limited her empathetic magic fell in that chrysalis stage, her consciousness became the epicenter of an uninterrupted sensory bombardment.
(¡Fwiiiiiiisssss!)
As a result, the radius of her perception began to expand massively, devouring meters and kilometers at a terrifying and absolute speed, forcing her to perceive absolutely everything within an ever-expanding range.
(¡¿?!)
Because of that, all kinds of foreign emotions crowded into her mind at the same time, preventing her from processing them, leaving her in a state of total defenselessness where time itself seemed to freeze under the weight of the stimuli.
"Ahg...!"
And in the midst of that infinite wave saturating her being, one emotion drowned out all the others...
"Ughhhhh... W-What... the hell...?!"
Gripping her console in one hand with such force that it began to crack, what she experienced was an overwhelming fury.
(¡¿Why... From where... When...?!)
Clenching her teeth and trying to regain her senses, she experienced a colossal wrath that emanated from absolutely every corner of the surrounding nature.
(¡¡Cric... cric... clac...!!)
At the same time, while she experienced the deafening cry of pain and rage that the entire planet—wounded and outraged to its deep roots—directed at her in a direct and unified manner as a sign of rejection, on the reverse side of reality, the barrier kept forming.
(¡Ssswiiishhh~!)
With its continuous settling, the distortion of space-time sharpened all of a sudden, injecting an extra ton of conceptual pressure into the environment.
(¡¡Krrr-clac...!!)
And immediately after, giving almost no respite to the sensory punishment Mireya was enduring, the thirty-second and thirty-third layers intertwined successively over the clearing, coating more and more of the entire forest.
(Keep calm, calm down, breathe, come on, calm down!)
The planet's wrath did nothing but concentrate and amplify, turning the emotional bombardment into a closed loop of pure torment.
(¡Vvvvvffffhhhh!)
In parallel, the night shroud, previously starry, was devoured by an army of dense, charred clouds.
(Stay positive, stay positive, stay positive, stay positive, stay positive, stay positive, stay positive, stay positive, stay positive, stay positive...!)
The twin moons were buried, eliminating any trace of natural light.
(¡¡¡PLAS!!!)
But while the darkness became deeper and deeper and the air turned tense and humid, the impact of a slap resonated...
(Zzzz... tzz... zzz... ¡Tig!)
Immediately after, in the midst of the static, a single cold drop clashed against the frozen ground, breaking the silence.
(¡¡Shhhhhh—shiaaaaa...!!)
In the next instant, the first drops of rain began to plummet.
"Now is not the time for this!"
The water began to fall, heavy, cold, and laden with an overwhelming sadness.
"I have to move!"
However, thanks to the frozen liquid and the physical impact against her face, Mireya managed to regain a spark of lucidity.
(¡¡Blic... blic...!!)
And feeling the tension in her muscles, Mireya raised one of her hands with a tremble, firmly gripping her other wrist.
(... Now that I think about it... I had never experienced this kind of directed emotion head-on before...)
In her clenched fist, she held the gaming console, whose screen had cracked under the pressure of her grip as she regained her calm.
"I have to... move..."
At that moment, she knew that remaining static once conscious of the threat would equal annihilation; therefore, with her mind buzzing from the emotional bombardment and the rain soaking the folds of her black and white dress, she acted immediately.
{"Storage Pocket!"}
Thus, extending her will toward the dimensional storage pocket, she released an invisible and instantaneous suction force that manifested in the air, absorbing the defenseless bodies of both unconscious priestesses on the ground into her safe space inside.
"Okay, now only..."
However, at the exact instant the figures of the priestesses disappeared into her pocket dimension, a primitive chill ran down her spine.
(¡¡¡SHHHHHH—FROTT...!!!)
It was not a conscious thought.
("What?!")
Before her mind could even process the danger, the sharp reflexes of her body reacted in a completely automatic manner due to crisis evasion.
"Thorns?!"
Her muscle fibers tensed and, in a blink, Mireya executed a violent backward leap that took even herself by surprise, propelling her backward in a clean and fast trajectory.
(¡¡¡¡¡KRRRRR-CRAAAASH...!!!!!)
But in the millisecond her feet left the dirt, the ground of the clearing fractured with a dull explosion as a colossal wall of braided ivy—thick as tree trunks and armed with thorns sharp as razors—violently emerged from the reverse side of reality.
(¡¡¡¡¡¡BOOM—CRASH...!!!!!!)
Yet, while she watched the scene and her body, still suspended in the air, completed the parabola of the backward leap, Mireya, catching the sound, strained her neck, directing her gaze to the side...
"¡¡¿?!!"
... Only to witness a scene that froze the remnant of her breath.
(¡Crac-boom! ¡Frrachhh! ¡Crac-boom!)
In parallel to the outbreak of the ivy, the black clouds suffocating the sky of Ky'lar fractured in an apocalyptic display, unleashing a torrential rain of lightning that descended like spears, tearing through the gloom of the clearing in blinding flashes that sought to incinerate everything in their path.
(¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡KRAAA-BOOOOOOOM—KRRRRRRRR...!!!!!!!!)
And at the same time, responding in unison with the fury of the sky, colossal limbs of rock and densified mud sprouted from the depths of the ground, surrounding the entire clearing.
"¡¡!!"
Thus, under the deafening scourge of the water, the wind, and the unleashed energy, the astral and material planes collided with an explosive rumble that shook the very foundations of the forest...
(¡¡¡BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!)
... The curtain rose, toward destruction.