Hashomon remained genuinely inquisitive if the sting upon his cheek was not mere fantasy, not a counterfeit thrill from reliving the traumatic war memories within the crucible of the war itself. His hand caressed his cheek. Crimson streaks glinted even on the obsidian fabric of his gloves. His scream alerted the frantic soldiers around the post to hastily spill beyond the city ramparts, elixir in hand or otherwise. A number of Gothrohoo had breached multiple layers of Shinpi walls and inevitably the humans must greet them with a fusillade of ballistic and cannon fire. In the midst of the crowds that were still scattered about.

The searing projectiles managed to make the Gothrohooo dive into vacant houses outside the city confines and the city's protective mana wall, which was, fortunately, still intact. However, not a few found their dead mark among the populace before disintegrating, leaving behind bodies untouched by their ephemeral assailants. First victims on both fronts this morning.

Wisesa and Izel sidestepped Hashomon and rushed outside the gate by jumping over a large trench. There everyone stood poised with various armaments in hands and a pounding heart audible only to the beats' own owner. Among them, Taro perched atop his qilin mount in the vanguard, his long-barrelled firearm duly cocked. The monster attack arrived ahead of schedule, but only a handful of renegade avians emerged from their hovering nests.

A resounding thump made the ground and everyone's hearts shudder. It came from the direction of the portal. The second thump reverberated. The third thump thundered.

"Something happening up ahead?" asked Wisesa.

"Merely the precursor to the Mujino wave," sighed Izel. "Nothing out of the ordinary."

That "nothing out of the ordinary" did not jibe with her lean body that was hopping, her staff wielded in hand wet by the sweat from her grip’s strain. It also did not jibe with the stony faces of the soldiers beneath the spiral headgear and the Tamoanchanese soldiers mumbling in prayers.

"You once single-handedly slaughtered hundreds of mujino dogs," Wisesa remarked to her, somewhat surprised.

Yet, the grin displayed by the Orange Witch only served her to appear whimsical. "Those were mere ambushes, foolish man. Not a wave raid."

The movements of the defence minister's finger exhibited such crudeness that he himself became distraught—the realisation of his hands infested with apoplexy like Hashomon's as he manipulated the buttons on his telecomm. "Frontline squads. Appraise us of your status!" he bellowed, the telecomm raised to his mouth.

A moment of static lingered before a response emerged, "The Axayacatl squad stands firm at the forefront!”

"Tree reconnaissance squad reporting in," the representative's voice quality was worsened by the monsters’ cluckings. "The trap is set. The portal exhibits erratic movements. A new wave will be here soon."

"Admiral Miyonagi is here. All battleships are underway." As promised, Otnagochi's mana wall created a hole as the ship's escape route. "I have a clear view of you and the portal from here!"

“Code A-025-06-449-ZUBAN_SENIN. WAR ZUBAN BRAIN REPORTS NO MALFUNCTIONS IN ALL WAR ZUBAN UNITS."

The fourth resonance of the portal was no longer a thump; it was an exclamation novel to Wisesa, perhaps the only one that made his confidence plunge to the testicles. A wail curled up from behind the gates of Hades, an amalgamation of diverse demonic screams echoing in the deepest recesses of every conscious mind. Men and machines alike. It was as if an invitation to enter Hades itself.

And they were literally breathing on the day of the invitation. Stepping right into a pair of gates dividing the worlds in their imagination.

"Damn it," Wisesa muttered to himself, a shudder coursing through him. Either way, he must not hold back.

Bathing eluded Taro, for he knew his body would be drenched in his own sweat during such trying times, and that theory was apt. He confronted those around him who were drenched as well. "We've endured this fortnightly ordeal! We've hunted them down every day! But the fear is still there. It is fine. Fear, but don't flee! Tremble, but don't freeze!" The minister gallantly hefted the grenade launcher with both hands. "Let us all suffer the fear so that our loved ones at home may not!"

The boisterous cheers that followed were a challenge to the thunder of the portal and whatever lurked beyond. The Tamoanchanese warriors blazingly chanted "Ha! Ha! Ha!" more and more indistinctly like howls of gibbons. With that, their intimidation dissipated. With that, a new hope filled with old convictions was galvanised. That humanity still existed. They were still standing. They would prevail. This day was not destined for mindless monsters.

Following their tribal war chant, Izel and her kind cast their gaze upon the sun and made their signature gesture—catching the morning giver in the gap of their mundane hands.

The war cries had not yet died down, and before long, a human rang out with a distinct voice in the distant ranks. He ran out of the line, dancing to the forefront of the soldiers. It was the Rooster-headed Man. Wisesa and Izel could recognise Nenexoch from the other chickens by his loudest, cocksure holler.

"Xiuhcoatl! Imati!"

The Tamoanchanese firing squad suddenly broke through the ranks and walked out. The cries of the small-horned serpents interwove with the cheers of their masters, but small serpents they were still. After all, the heat in their bellies had reached an intolerable crescendo. At the behest of their masters, the serpents stretched themselves taut, tails coiling around their forms. Their jaws were wide agape. The warrior used their tails’ coils as handles. At least for Wisesa, there was a singluar motivation that offset his fear, and that was to see what the xiuhcoatl firing squad promised. He cared little for the sound of a shiny katana or the opulent rifles of other soldiers. All was mundane tedium in his eyes.

The plume of dark clouds encircling the portal spread into the clear sky. The lightning that came with it also drifted. The conjoined hands released their grasp on the sun. The screams of war ceased. The Tamoanchanese were outraged in silence. Both of their hands again gripped tightly all kinds of weaponry in hand.

And at that moment, the portal turned into a leak in the horizon wall that was about to drown the Earth with featherless entities. Even after passing through forty-nine waves, the soldiers’ thousand-yard view remained overwhelmed by the preposterously innumerable scattering of Binxtrunachs. A stark reflection of Earth's overpopulation.

"They're coming... They're coming... They're coming!" Taro screamed.

"Hold your ground!" each squad leader commanded their respective ranks.

A minute passed, and the Bixturnach cascade showed no sign of abating. Now, their giant broods swooped down. The winged hypnotist Gothhotroo left a luminous trail of energy as it ravaged the heavens, streaking in squads while travelling vertically. The living slime of Zalos hitchhiked on the parched bodies of monsters that fell next.

Wisesa at least recognised all those creatures’ crude forms from afar, save for striking blurs that he had never encountered during his journey to the capital: a crypt of indigo humanoids with hands myriad.

"They are new to your eyes, indeed," Izel said, noting the frown on the lad's brow.

"What they do?"

Izel remained her feigned unruffled look to him. "They mimic."

The fortnightly skirmishes in Otnagochi often unfolded in phases. Amidst a thicket of dead arboreal sentinels quite far from the portal but no less closer than the phalanx, two hundred scouting shinobi in camouflage robes stood in a row like a spectre of spectres. That did not include one more shinobi several paces ahead, who had risen from the ground, having attuned his senses to the vibrations. He raised his hand served as a signal. A gesture mirrored by those positioned in multiplies of twenty-five until the entire cohort caught the message. When that happened, they commenced the Mountain Knot sequences.

They refrained from taking the risk of shouting out their moves—which was a common oriental tradition of magic warfare. As long as the finger sequence was precise, and the intent conveyed in their mental realm was proper, it would nevertheless suffice for the cathartic experience that was manifested into magic.

Or, inner invocation.

Chōwa Hakai-sha no Chikaku!

Magic manifested in the shinobi's cheeks, effervescing until, in a forceful stomp, they leaned forward, leveraging their lips as a high-pressure conduit to jet out a translucent fluid.

The fluid traversed considerable metres, and as the closer it got to its demarcation, the more it spread out, breaking up as vapour.

And from vapour, an ethereal fog arose. Right at the portentous site where the mujinos commenced their movements.

The mujinos in the mist began to act strangely—circling and dispersing in a disconcerting ballet. In just a good sixty seconds or so, the monsters bullied each other like it did the enemy, and sure enough, their formation was shattered by the cannibalistic chaos. The tumult was heard all the way to the tail end of the human party.

"The enemies are distracted," said one of the scouts as he began to don a bahamut catfish gas mask with the signature spiral distortion. "Time to offer them help."

The others, arrayed in gas masks too, drilled into the subterranean by plummeting towards the earth itself, two hands conjoined in front.

And if one were to ask where they went... no, they did not crawl backwards into the mass of human troops. Not yet.

In the midst of the chaos of a Binxtrunach tearing into the nape of another or Zalos trying to submerge mujinos in acidic slime, strange hands sticking out of the ground jerked them away. The sluggish mujinos found their limbs entangled by the hands and compelled them subterraneously, where their throats or abdomens met the merciless edge of the ninjatos. The Zalos who could not be carelessly grabbed faced a more horrendous fate—geysers of fire and explosions erupted from beneath. Even though these monsters intended to attract the owners of those vexing hands out, the onslaught of their own kind managed to drag down that priority.

Thus as long as they were slaying each other, the scouts from the ground would hunt for sacrifices, pushing them half-buried and ensuring breath escaped forever.

However, the shinobi's artificial fog endured but a fleeting moment—ten minutes at most. As the fog dissipated, “sanity” reclaimed the minds of the mujinos. The scouts retraced their underground steps away, then jumped out and navigated the graveyard of trees for haste. They rejoined their Tamoanchanese brethren on a lofty bough.

"Reconnaissance team to the centre. The first phase is complete," reported the scout leader using the marrad. "We are preparing for the next phase!"

From their arboreal vantage, the scouts noticed that the mujinos had already swarmed the dead trees and were about to approach the small hillocks. A scout signalled to his comrades, and they initiated another Montain Knot sequence.

Their hands halted at the same gesture, and in response, the mounds beneath the mujinos quivered, jolting them with a sudden shock. But they cared less for that a while later and recurred their march.

A wrong move for them.

The hillocks suddenly rolled in place. The falling dirt and sand unveiled grotesque human visages—round, reddened, glaring eyes, lengthy noses, and agape mouths. Instead of stopping, the monsters persisted in defying fate until some of them entered the Hill Creatures’ maws, while others met a grinding fate.

The Hill Creatures were bereft of limbs. They bear a semblance of black, oblong dolls with smooth surfaces, marred only by their ghastly countenance. Despite the Zalos' retaliatory emissions, the Hill Dolls, devoid of vocal capacity, rolled incessantly, consigned to an eternal cycle.

The Hill Creatures were satisfied with their haul, but even giant monsters had limited space in their stomachs. It was not as if the downpour of monsters from the portal had subsided. The woodland was inexorably saturated by myriad mujinos and kept spreading they did, infecting the empty land to become a sea of monsters. A number of trees along the road felled into Bixturnach's ferocious reinforcements. It did not take a keen eye and a brilliant mind to see the championed Hill Creatures overwhelmed and engulfed by their own prey.

Yet, not all was lost. Three puppets suddenly stood up and began floating with the current. Their bodies became indigo, and their faces resembled the appearance of skinless people.

The frontline combatants were waiting still. At least until the scouts returned. So in the meantime, they watched the smoke and sparks spectacle in the cloudy sky. The celestial fleet took their battle turn, rooting out the hovering Gothhotroo. Their Zepellins were gigantic, three times larger than the one Wisesa had seen on Alas Purwo. Each of their flank were open rows of cannons already hectic with an orchestra of thuds that blasted away the cacophonous Gothhotroos, and this time, ensured that their forms were disintegrated in the sky. There was to be no trace of them on the ground, not even their ashes. Accompanying the giant zeppelins, hundreds of sleek fighter ships swerved through the air with gunfire or sharp blades on the wings to rend the birds asunder.

"Taro-sama! The mujinos have breached the yokai defences of Mankui no Kyūtai Ningyō and are advancing toward your position. Phase Two is complete. We will retreat!" conveyed the scout leader from the minister's telecomm.

However, how the Divine had cursed them. The mujinos surged with unprecedented swiftness, trapping the scouts amidst a flash flood of monsters.

"Taro-sama! Your forces must ready themselves! The mujinos move with unexpected celerity. We may be too tardy to elude their onslaught!”

Before the squad leader could conclude his transmission, the very tree supporting him suddenly liquefied and vanished, replaced by a pair of sinuous entities full of tentacles and mournful howls. The squad leader was trampled beath the monsters' feet, but he quickly gathered his strength and shook them off, then rose to his feet. A mere bark was offered as a retaliation, but the monsters resumed their galloping soon after.

The potion from the Magisterium began to show its efficacy. The first miracle of that man's life, perhaps. His men looked on with gaping eyes. Too bad it did not apply to a Tamoanchanese scout at the tail end of the line. His face twisted in horror as a number of Bixturnachs attempted to climb the tree he was perched on, until their matriarch walked slowly towards him and then magically transmuted the tree into Bixturnachs that swiftly gnawed at the scout's torso. He drowned in blood and flesh munchers.

Back at the front lines, they began to hear the echoes of monsters’ screams. Taro gestured with his hand as he whispered into the telecomm, "Dispatch a third of our automaton troops to engage them in the forest!"

As per his order, resolute gallops forced the humans to give way to a contingent of samurai-armoured automatons, their faces sealed with talismans. The vanguard brandsihed bayoneted rifles, while sky-drawn katanas gleamed at the rear.

The machine troops disappeared into the dense, dead forest. But not their voices. When the resolute gallops faded, new sounds swelled—clanging, clappers, and guttural howls resonating—a symphony that foretold a ferocious massacre, vividly imagined by soldiers accustomed to the art of conquest.

"Fuck! Y'all just hangin' around like fools in a war like this?" Wisesa grumbled in ire. "Never was it like this back in my hometown!"

"With the automatons present? It’s longer," Izel agreed. "I hate to admit this. My legs are tingling. The gnawing worry in my chest intensifies with every moment of inertia. I must be in motion!”

Fifteen minutes elapsed before the scouts staggered before the soldiers, just as trembling as the soldiers waiting for their turn to be butchered. Forty-five minutes later, the clinking and whirring died down.

The rumbling of the mujinos grew shrill. They were nearing.

Nenexoch the Chicken Head shouted once more, "Xiuhcoatl! Yaotlalia!"

The firing squads stood on alert, in earnest this time.

"Ittilia!"

Their heads tilted sideways. They left one eye opened on their snakes’ horns serving as iron sights.

Mujinos' forms in the distance in the form of irregular grains of sand began to materialise.

And Nenexoch did not want to issue a hasty order. Instead, he shouted "Ha! Ha! Ha!" repeatedly until the firing squad began to imitate his vocal cadence, followed again by the entire Tamoanchanese army. With each resonating "Ha," the outlines of the mujinos clarified.

The gunners' keen eyes had already caught the swaying of their little legs.

"Tlatlamotla!"

The shooter squad's lips whispered a secret word.

The throats of the horned snakes glowed.

And when the hairless dogs and living slime passed the very last tree stand, a tempest of fire engulfed them.

The coalescing plume of tangerine leapt to every creature within a kilometre's radius. The day had fallen. The sky surrendered to smoke and fog. The agonized wails of monsters on the ground completed the symphony of the bird mujinos’ massacre in the now-obscured air. As the infernal ebb subsided, the xiuhcoatls became limp, and the Cage Bearers put them in cages. Even the mightiest dragons would struggle to exhale fire over such distances, and when they did, they faced prolonged hibernation or death. The Otnagochi Forest was now an ocean of fire.

Despite all that, miraculously, the trees still stood throughout the forest! Their trunks remained white.

An alternative of daylight, and Wisesa could not help but marvel. His clothes were as dark as if they had been plunged into a lake. Izel shared the same fate. All frontline troops had received their share of sweat baths. The sweat had never been this refreshing; it was a reminder to stay sane in battle.

"What think you, Man?" Izel asked, visibly shivering.

Wisesa laughed heartily without reservation. "I didn't think anything could top the amazement of seeing the Moon Eater, but them little snakes, man, they're downright insane!”

"It's been a long time since my hands held a snake rifle, but regardless, they are the legacy of Citlalicoatl. I've never been disappointed watching them in action."

"What stopped you from having a xiuhcoatl of your own?"

Izel grinned. "A bigger catch."

The Cage Bearers brought more xiuhcoatls because the mujinos wave had not stopped. The colossal collective eruptions continued three times, and the monster horde still swarmed and surged like a plague.

And it was time to take the matter into their own hands.

"Ready your weapons! Set the xiuhcoatls to weak mode!" Taro commanded. "Advance!”

The war cries echoed with gallops of steps. Izel and the fire sorcerers finally unleashed their magical expressions by rocketing into the sky and erupting upon the earth.

Wisesa did his warm-up. "Okay, Barong, don't you dare make me look bad, especially since you're catching a free ride in my body!”

"How about you start accessing half of my power?" Barong insisted.

"Nonsense!"

Wisesa exploded with yellow energy, and Barong immediately emerged in giant mode with full armour. Propelling his legs, he soared, and upon landing, the earth fissured. Countless Mujinos fell into his unfathomable abyss. Wisesa and Barong welcomed the charging more with roars! []