The syrupy, tensed atmosphere emanated from the inevitable collision between the commanders of the two sides.

Nothing else mattered to Decimo. Be it Nuan, surrounded by a fight she wasn’t prepared for, the travesty that could barely be called a ship released a hoard of mutated pirates, or Betty who was handling Bruno. Not even Carolina picking this exact moment to join the fray distracted Decimo from his mission.

The tidal wave might be scary, but Ciel was the biggest problem here. If the East was anything to go by, leaving Ciel to his own device was the greatest way to eat defeat.

That was Decimo's line of thought as he engulfed both of them in darkness.

…

Carolina observed the situation from a distance.

The Necromancer didn’t know or care where the sea demons came from. The only thing she was worried about was making this army her own. To that goal, Carolina could regretfully arrive at the dreadful conclusion.

It was no good.

“They are being sustained too heavily by curses,” Carolina said to herself, riding to battle atop a zombified sea monster. “And what exactly is this headache when I look at them?"

Black mage ‌wasn't the type to self-reflect or make a monologue. Yet, Carolina did just that. She couldn’t help but wonder aloud at this strange occurrence. Something about these mutants that crossed between fish, humans, and occasional sea anemones caused her mind to go into static. It wasn’t like someone was trying to pry her mind open with a crowbar, but more like a gremlin was swinging the crowbar right at her computer.

Caroline made the decision to finish this army quickly for the sake of her sanity.

“Betty!” Carolina shouted at the top of her lungs. “Let me handle him. We need you to deal with the army.”

“Are you sure?” shouted Betty, hammering Omni below her with a gigantic Flare. Below her, [Atlas Machina] grew several high-intensity plasma cannons and carpet bombed the sea in the glory of flames and heat. Beside her was Lambard, the newest journeyman in the art of shrinking, with a presence as thin as humanly achievable.

Omni survived. It was a survival that boasted the absurd resistance of the scale toward anything offensive-related. The attack Betty threw at Omni seemed to only make him more determined to bite off her head.

“You are better at killing armies,” Carolina insisted. The Necromancer activated her skill, a weapon bestowed by the Unity Lord Authority.

[Necronomicon]

It was the Bible of the outer god. The black book, written in eldritch words, contained Carolina’s army. Merely conjuring it strengthened all the undead in Carolina’s sphere of influence. During the previous skirmish, the [Necronomicon] was empty. The various harrowing circumstances in the East, from Hecate to Maximus, arrived too abruptly for Carolina to restock on her zombies. Without her army, the Necromancer lost over two-thirds of her combat potential.

That was no longer the case.

The book containing the dead army flashed, opening the gate to the dark.

From it, an army of isopods emerged.

“It is a good thing Su isn’t here,” Betty said as she watched the horde of insects clash with insanity-inducing sea demons. “It will be bad if we drive her insane.”

Betty was indeed correct. The bloody carnage wouldn’t find itself unfamiliar to the carnage of an alien’s invasion. Isopods collided with the mutants. Each mutant was attacked by several isopods, taking a chunk out of their limbs. Like a spider torn by a swarm of determined fire ants, the army of zombified insects swept the battle in a black tidal wave.

Betty doubted this scene wouldn’t be possible with the [Necronomicon]. Normal Necroball couldn’t hold that much undead. The time consumption to create this literal army would be mind-shattering without the skill and ability to replicate undead creations for mass production.

Mass production, strengthening, and storing were the key components that created the weapon on the same level as Xia’s [Deific Wing] and Apolline’s [Seraph’s Ray].

However, Betty wasn’t leaving Carolina to fight alone.

Using her [Analysis] skill to recognize the threat and her [Witch Heart] to provide the necessary energy, Betty successfully identified the key target fending off Carolina's army and executed the ultimate blow.

Red Mana gathered in the air.

Omni, sensing the massive incoming storm, burst from the ocean to interfere with Betty. He never got far; a strand of wires tied his leg and yanked him to his new opponent, Carolina.

With it, the sorceress was free to unleash a sniping spell.

Red Magic Rank 6: Thunderstorm

The lightning sharpened into several electric spears and penetrated its target. One was a humongous sea anemone, disintegrated where it stood. Another mutant, a poor soul who was warped into a sea insect, was pierced. One man with the face of an eel barely blinked as several million volts short-circuited his brain. Some, like a notable pirate that now had the body of the world's ugliest Walrus, tanked the lightning but was so weakened that the Isopod tore them apart.

Then there was the fact that salt water was an excellent conductor of electricity. While this fact was normally a double-edged sword, the Sorceress and the Necromancer had the foresight to insulate their soldiers, leading to the one-sided massacre.

In the meantime, Carolina’s duel with Omni was settling down.

Falling to the Necromancer awaiting him atop her zombified sea monster, the brute struck ahead without thinking. He flung his fist and squarely hit Carolina in the chest. It was a punch from the hulking mutant that should render anyone into a pancake. Blood burst from the Necromancer like a fountain as her body vanished in blood and gore.

Unfortunately for Omni, Carolina wasn’t the type who followed rules.

Black Magic Rank 3: Mental Pollution

Normally, this spell is used to mess with the enemy mind and drive them into a psychological corner with hallucinations. Unlike Illusion, which projected the image to the world, Mental Pollution was deeply personal and target-specific. Using Black Mana to corrupt the very mind and the senses, the user of this spell could use various strains of this technique, ranging from a voice echoing from nowhere to a false image being.

For example, tricking the opponent with the false reality of her death.

It didn’t last long. Aura did wonder to resist spells, especially complicated mind-bending types. However, it gave Carolina the perfect opportunity to wrap Omni up in wires on top of the Puppetry spell. Her face visibly strained from the effort to control her opponent's body, but she forced his mouth open just enough to land the critical shot in one place that didn’t resist magic.

Black Magic Rank 5: Damnation

The ball of all-consuming darkness, condensed to the size of a baseball, expanded inside the monster’s lower jaw and ripped its mouth into a grotesque injury of blood. Omni would have howled if its throat still resembled biological tissue after that Damnation. Instead, he could only writhe in pain.

Thankfully, Betty was a very generous lady.

Red/Black Compound Magic Rank 2: Destroy

The dark red pillar of raw destruction pierced through Omni's gaping maw. It was the killing blow. Nothing mortal on Acceltra could survive having their brain stem obliterated.

Carolina watched Omni fall from her ride and into the ocean. The battle was over in a single blow, but there was no doubt Omni really lasted longer than he should.

“This is not over,” said Carolina. She already knew they were barely completing the first part.

“Of course not,” Betty concurred. Like Carolina, she hung along with Ciel for long enough to know nothing was ever easy.

“What are you two talking about?” Lambard yelled. As a stranger to how the House of Lord operated, he legitimately had no clue about the coming disaster.

As Carolina and Betty expected, the crimson sea roiled, and the next challenger emerged.

Of course, ‘challenger’ was quite a stretch.

“This will be problematic,” said Carolina, rubbing her temple to massage away the migraine. “Just looking at the thing hurts my brain.”

From the sea rose a tower, defying all logical reasoning. It was a semi-transparent tower made from what appeared to be jellyfish. The good news was that the tower wasn’t so high that it pierced the sky. It was a moderate-sized travesty, rivaling an aged sea serpent that normally made supper out of a merchant vessel. The bad news was the overcompensation for the size and horrific creepiness. The jellyfish tower was seen through, allowing every soul to see dozens of brains drifting inside the translucent jelly. This unwanted see-through feature came equipped with too many eyeballs for comfort. Added the central nervous systems drifting in jelly, and the monster truly went beyond the adult-supervision tagline.

The worst news was the raw concentration of Mana being gathered.

Carolina immediately ordered her sea serpent zombies to swallow all of them and dove as deep as possible.

It was the right decision made at the exact time. If Carolina had been a second too late, the two ladies and their prisoner would have been vaporized by the column of burning purple.

…

Even Nuan felt the energy channeled by the monster of brains and jellyfish.

“Is that a raw curse?” Nuan muttered to herself. “No-”

The Dragon Maiden’s self-conversation was cut short by the sweeping blade of Chrysler, the octopus human. Nuan evaded the steel and countered with the kick, which sent him flying overboard.

Nuan growled. She lost count of how many times she landed a killing shot on Chrysler. Sadly, it was hard to use physical force to end something with no bones or spine and seemingly damage-proof flesh.

Speaking of creatures seemingly immune to damage, Brine Eyes John the Seaweed picked the moment to launch an ambush. Several strands of demonic kelp pierced the ship’s deck, rushing to immobilize Nuan. Tuning her focus to the maximum, the fed-up Nuan decided to end the play time with one attack. With that jellyfish abomination hanging around to evaporate the ocean, Nuan could no longer afford to take this battle at a leisurely pace.

Aura gathered around Nuan's leg as she leapt. The warrior did a flip on the wide skies. Enchanted in the daylight, Nuan unleashed a wide crescent Aura Blade that divided the floating offense for all shipwrights in half.

Instead of wooden chips and splinters, blood gushed from the vessel, proving that the ship was a sea monster in the shell of a wooden vehicle rather than a man-made structure.

Nuan took this fact in with shock. She was even more flabbergasted when the ship began pulling itself together.

…

In the isolated black dome, with no light to be found, the two commanders of this battlefield were battling it out.

Decimo was winning. He was the one who picked this stage and possessed the utmost advantage. This little dome of darkness Within this specially made field, all light was blocked, making it impossible. Worse, the arena was filled with disorienting liquor vapor, making it impossible for a mere human to distinguish up or down.

Even Nuan Yulong, the Martial Queen herself, was severely crippled in this arena. There was no way Ciel could defeat Decimo here.

Indeed, Decimo was able to knock the armor around during the early battle. It allowed him to feel overconfident.

Unbeknownst to Decimo, Ciel hoped for him to be confident. Otherwise, there would be no point in humbling him. After the umpteenth time being tossed to the ground, Ciel decided to address his unsuspecting victim.

And what a shaming it was.