Sarla looks at the building that collapsed over Saki and Nyra. She sneers disdainfully, "Puny things..." She mutters, turning away from the scene.
"Miss Sarla," A voice calls the girl, she turns around to find a man wearing a dark gray hood with a crying red eye on his back. "We are unable to find it." The man announces flatly. The girl sighs, massaging her temples.
"What about the guards and the other villagers? "
"We killed about eighty percent of the population, as for the guards. It will be a matter of time before they are dealt with."
"Good, keep searching. It should be nearby." She eyes the paper bag hanging on his arm. The man presents it to her, which she snatches out of his hand. It's a long dark gray slit dress without sleeves.
Sarla wastes no time and dons the dress over her regular brown leather clothes, and as soon as it comes in contact with her body, the red eye on the back glows. Intricate lines and circles form on the girl's skin, the air warps around her figure before the numerous lines and circles shatter like glass.
Her blonde fan-like pigtails turn straight and obsidian black, her body grows from that child-like appearance to a more mature one, with her height increasing to one hundred and sixty five centimeters.
"Ha... Finally!" Sarla exclaims gleefully. "Gather the Mages, in a few minutes we are going to bomb the backwater villager. Even if the user found it, they shouldn't have gotten used enough to it."
"Roger!" The man vanishes, leaving Sarla alone.
Once alone, the human woman looks around as the clear Aura illuminates her body. Carefully she envelopes the leather clothes beneath her dress, turning them into ash that drifts off her. She lifts her hands, summonin Magic Circles depicting crystalline javelin raining down over countless people and structures.
"Crystal Hail." She calls, her voice cold. No corner of the street is spared, whether corpse or still alive, none is spared by the rain of crystalline javelin.
About five minutes later, Sarla lowers her hands. The entire street is littered with crystal, no building stand, no one is moving and even the flames have been extinguished. Satisfied, Sarla covers herself with her Aura and leaps away, leaving a crater where she stood.
***
"Kitty, the chains are rattling!" The Cloaked Woman shouts while covering her ears, looking at the chains binding the doors as they violently thrash around.
The other Cloaked Woman nods, holding in one hand the black and white Grimoire. She looks up to the once pure white space, now filled with millions of unreadable words, circles, lines and other symbols before lifting the Grimoire.
The book glows reddish gold and purple, floating up to the writing. It spreads its veins across everything before returning to the Cloaked Woman under a new form, a golden star with four branches.
"Everything's ready now," She tightens her hold on the object, and then throws at the massive gates held together by chains. Just before collision, the gates split open, obliterating its bindings and swallowing the star whole. "We can sit back and enjoy the show!"
The gates slam shut, trembling with blueish purple, reddish gold, white and black.
***
"Huff... They're tough!" Darren remarks as he gasps for air. The ground around him is littered with corpses from the civilians who couldn't get away quickly enough, and guards who fell. Fortunately, a dozen remain but for how long... He cannot tell.
"That bastard in the back is not making thing easier either..." Another guard, with brown hair and dog ears, grumbles, his tail completely still.
"... It's... An inhibitor class..." An elf with a staff points out, trying to conjure a spell, but the circle fizzles out of existence.
Darren breathes, gripping his two headed battle-axe as he glares at the attackers. All of them wear dark gray robes with hoods that conceal their faces and a red eye on their back. The dwarf's eyes drift to his fallen comrades, he invokes his brown Aura, coating his weapon as he launches himself forward, soon followed by the rest of the guards.
In front of them is a group of approximately sixty opponents, most humans judging by their ability to use Aura and Spells. Darren's axe greets the leader's Aura-charged broadsword. Brown and red sparks fly as the two struggle,
"Raaaahhh!" Darren screams, pushing his Aura to its limit, hoping to overpower his opponent. His efforts are vain, however, the enemy leader doesn't move a single inch, neither does his Aura.
The leader tilts his swords, making the axe slide off the blade as his cocks a punch, aiming at Darren's visage. But the dwarf leans out of the way,
"The bastard's trying to blow my head off!" He comments, looking at the building behind him behind destroyed by the shockwave of the punch alone.
"Argh!" A guard shouts as he lands on his back, his leather protection shredded. Soon another follows, less fortunate as this one is split open.
"RETREAT!" Darren screams, launching himself back. After reaching a certain distance, he lifts his axe, charging it with Aura and slams it while shouting "ROCK WALL!"
Jagged rocks shoot up, creating some distance between the guards and the robed assailants.
"... It's not gonna save us, Darren..." The dog guard remarks, his face grim. And sure enough, it doesn't. Not a second later, a malevolent red slash cuts through the rock wall, killing three more guards and taking away the dwarf's arm.
No scream is heard, not from Darren nor the anyone else. It simply happened too fast. "Fuck..." The dwarf swears in his mind as the leader is already over him, his broadsword gleaming with malevolent red Aura, ready to end the dwarf.
Darren closes his eyes, waiting for the inevitable... But his hand does not come. When he reopens his eyes, they widen in shock. A figure stands between him and the enemy leader, one curved greatsword, with spikes coming out of the edges, blocking the broadsword and other identical greatsword in her other hand.
***
On the opposite side of the village, the robed figures are scattered on the ground.
"Ugh..." One grunts as he stands up, "who is that!?" He asks, looking up at the sky.
A feminine figure walks in the air, as if walking stairs, white circles under her white heels. She wears a short body fitting dress, which barely goes past her thighs, and a red and white cape. Her hair is tied into two blonde pigtails shifting between blue and red. She keeps walking and stops one step away, looking around as if to make sure she has all of the robed figures' attention.
She holds in her arms one of these figures, it's a woman and she is unconscious. The blonde woman grins, she lifts one of her gloved hands and guides it along the woman's figure slowly, going up her stomach and heading toward the chest.
The blonde woman plays with the unconscious one's chest as she places a white circle over her heart.
"AAAAAARRGGHH!" The unconscious woman wakes up, screaming her lungs out but stops soon after.
From her chest floats a small bead, cold like ice. The blonde woman discards the body and catches the bead, swallowing it in one gulp...
The robed figures watched with their mouth agape, "KILL HER NOW!" The order comes not only out of killing intent, but out of fear. For the blonde woman not only killed one of them, but stole her Mana Core, her soul.