Fairy Tail: My Magic is a Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck — Chapter 28

Chapter 28: Dark Magician Girl vs. Eighteen War Gods

“It looks so scary, but it’s actually not a big deal at all.”

Looking at the massive Yakuma palm that had just been blown to powder, Dark Magician Girl proudly puffed out her chest. She flashed a bright peace sign to the little girl trembling in her arms, offering a reassuring wink.

“Don’t be scared, little one. Big sister will take care of the ugly monster in just a bit—”

Before she could finish soothing the child, a massive shadow eclipsed the sun. The giant palm of the Sky Drum’s remnant body rapidly reformed from the swirling dust, slamming down with the force of a collapsing mountain.

Boom!

A deafening explosion tore through the air. Dark Magician Girl plummeted like a cannonball into the dense forest just outside the ruins, kicking up a massive shockwave of dirt and splintered wood.

“Dark Magician Girl!”

Mira, who had been desperately directing the crowd toward the shore, cried out in horror. She abandoned her post, sprinting anxiously through the flying sand and debris toward the impact zone.

“I’m fine, Mira! Compared to that Fire Lizard, this level of attack is no threat at all.”

A brilliant pink barrier of pure Magic Power suddenly expanded outward, pushing away the choking smoke and dust. Dark Magician Girl stood at the center of a deeply cracked crater, her golden hair fluttering wildly in the rushing wind. The surrounding trees, vegetation, and the very bedrock had been completely pulverized by the kinetic impact, yet she and the little girl in her arms remained entirely unharmed.

“Mira, I’ll hold back the big ugly guy. You get everyone out of this dangerous place, quickly!”

Dark Magician Girl gently handed the frightened child over. Her usually playful eyes narrowed, taking on a rare, serious glint.

From that brief exchange of blows, she could clearly feel the terrifying, dense Magic Power boiling within the giant’s body. This was absolutely not an enemy that could be easily toppled—especially not when her Master wasn’t around to anchor her.

Through his immense Magic Power, Chase allowed his card monsters to move freely in this world. But much like Celestial Spirits, they required a continuous supply of energy. Once her existing reserves were depleted, the laws of magic would forcibly pull her back into the deck. Dark Magician Girl knew her limits perfectly. Her goal wasn’t to win; it was to delay the Sky Drum’s remnant body long enough to buy Mira and the island’s tourists the time they needed to escape.

“Be extremely careful,” Mira instructed, her voice tight with worry.

She wasn’t the type to freeze in a crisis. Scooping the little girl into her arms, she spun around and sprinted toward the beach where the Mage boats were desperately preparing to launch. Right now, this was the greatest help she—a girl who had locked away all her combat ability—could offer.

“Destroying a perfectly good island like this is one thing, but you also completely ruined the precious time I had with Mira…”

Dark Magician Girl withdrew her gaze from Mira’s retreating back. She gripped her staff tightly with both hands, glaring up at the towering Sky Drum remnant. “Big guy, get ready to face judgment from the genius Mage girl!”

Whoosh!

A rising thermal current caught her exquisite blue and pink robes. Bending her knees slightly, Dark Magician Girl launched herself skyward, transforming into a brilliant pink streak of light.

Her aerial mobility was unmatched. She continuously circled the massive, lumbering Sky Drum, leaving trails of glowing magic in her wake. Every time she passed a vulnerable joint, a concentrated blast of magic shot from her staff, detonating violently against the stone-like surface of the beast.

Fueled by the life force of the sacrificed Mages, the Sky Drum rapidly regenerated its blown-off limbs and shattered armor. Yet, its massive, clumsy frame was entirely helpless against the agile spellcaster. Its giant hands swatted at the air, trying to crush her like an insect, but every attempt ended in failure, grasping only empty wind.

Deep inside the remnant body, Marshall’s physical form had fully merged with the Heart stone platform, leaving only his ghastly, distorted face exposed from the rock.

Seeing his glorious advance halted by a single flying girl, his eyes flooded with bloodshot fury. His teeth ground together so hard they nearly cracked. Before absorbing enough sacrifices to allow the Sky Drum to manifest its true, divine body, this remnant form couldn’t cast magic. It was essentially a phantom construct of raw energy, possessing only basic physical movements, making it immune to total destruction from external attacks but offensively limited.

Marshall’s grand design had been simple: slaughter every tourist on the island, fulfill the three conditions for the Sky Drum’s descent, and then butcher Chase or whatever Council Mages dared to intervene. That would supplement the final missing Magic Power, allowing him to reach perfect ascension—a god descending upon the mortal realm.

But this female Mage, appearing completely out of nowhere, had shattered his timeline. If those sacrifices escaped on the boats, the arriving Magic Council would eventually grind this incomplete remnant body into dust.

Fortunately, he had anticipated a sudden disruption. He had prepared a backup plan.

Marshall’s twisted pupils flashed with a vicious, predatory light. He slowly shifted his gaze toward the surrounding black-robed believers gathered in the hidden chamber below.

At this moment, the cultists were completely oblivious to the impending slaughter. They were cheering loudly, their faces twisted in religious fanaticism, eagerly anticipating the moment the Yakuma Eighteen War Gods would sweep across the Light Guilds and the Council. They truly believed they were about to reach the absolute peak of the world, standing proudly as the chosen followers of a new god.

“Lord Marshall, what’s the situation outside? You must have harvested a massive amount of sacrifices… right?”

One believer, unable to suppress his bubbling excitement, broke rank and ran up to the stone platform to ask about the plan’s progress.

He looked up, meeting the sinister, dead eyes of his leader.

A heavy silence fell over the platform.

Bang.

The believer exploded on the spot. His foolish dreams of glory vanished as his body ruptured into a thick mist of blood, instantly absorbing into the Heart stone platform.

The sudden, gruesome execution stunned the remaining cultists. Their cheers died in their throats.

“No! No!”

“Lord Marshall, you can’t do this! Please—!”

Before they could even turn to run, their bodies began to violently swell. One after another, they popped like overfilled balloons, filling the chamber with a sickening chorus of wet explosions.

“Rest assured, my faithful,” Marshall’s emotionless voice echoed through the now-silent, blood-soaked room. “Offering your lives for the arrival of a god is the highest honor you could ever achieve.”

Outside the ruins, the giant monster suddenly threw its head back and unleashed a roar that tore the clouds apart. An incredibly terrifying storm of Magic Power erupted from its core, generating a shockwave that violently threw Dark Magician Girl backward.

The thick rock layer covering the giant’s surface began to crack and peel away, revealing layers of pulsating biological muscle and bone beneath. Like a grotesque insect completing its molt, a layer of pitch-black skin rapidly knitted itself together over the exposed tissue. Coarse, dark hair sprouted wildly from its scalp, followed by the opening of two massive, crimson eyeballs. Its nose flared, snorting clouds of hot steam, while its jaw unhinged to reveal rows of jagged, overlapping fangs.

The horrific metamorphosis completed in the span of a single breath. As the piercing roar finally died down, the entity standing before Dark Magician Girl was no longer a clumsy golem. It was a towering, humanoid giant clad in ragged ancient armor, radiating an aura of absolute, suffocating oppression.

“So that’s it. Is this your true form?” Dark Magician Girl tightened her grip on her staff, her knuckles turning white. She muttered under her breath, “Yakuma Eighteen War Gods… you’re really ugly. Even uglier than that Fire Lizard!”

“Ilagudo, Nie… Weir…”

Responding to her taunt was a guttural, obscure ancient incantation.

Marshall, now fully synchronized with the Sky Drum, simply raised a single, massive finger. The space around Dark Magician Girl instantly warped and collapsed inward. The resulting spatial vortex crushed her defensive pink barrier into glittering fragments in a fraction of a second.

Caught in the blast of her own shattered shield, Dark Magician Girl was blown out of the sky. She crashed violently into a distant hillside, triggering a massive explosion of dirt and rock that leveled the entire slope in an instant.

Marshall did not bother pursuing her. His massive crimson eyeballs rotated slowly, his gaze piercing through the distance to lock accurately onto the coast. There, Mira was frantically directing the last of the terrified tourists onto the Mage boats.

“I didn’t expect…” Marshall’s voice rumbled like grinding tectonic plates. “That white-haired woman’s body actually harbors such astonishing dormant Magic Power. Heh heh… how lucky. This way, I can even save the time waiting for Chase to come to me.”

After fully possessing the Yakuma’s physical body, Marshall’s sensory perception had sharpened to a monstrous degree. He instantly noticed Mira standing out in the crowd like a blazing beacon of untapped energy. Urgently needing to reach his perfect state, he extended his giant palm and clawed at the empty air.

Whoosh!

A dark green, chaotic vortex erupted from his palm, twisting and tearing the very fabric of space as it shot toward the beach at hypersonic speed.

Mira’s breath hitched. She sensed the lethal intent a fraction of a second before it arrived. As she whipped her head around, the chaotic vortex had already crossed the island, expanding until it swallowed her entire field of vision.

At that critical, breathless moment, a pink streak of light tore across the sky.

Dark Magician Girl slammed down directly in front of Mira, planting her staff into the sand. She released every last drop of her remaining Magic Power, forcing open a blinding light barrier to catch the brunt of the chaotic vortex.

The collision of the two spells erupted into a catastrophic shockwave. The force flipped the sand dunes on both sides of the beach and sent the docked Mage boats violently rocking against the waves. The passengers on the deck collapsed, screaming and trembling in sheer terror.

Mira stood frozen behind the barrier. Her face was deathly pale. Her body trembled uncontrollably, and drops of blood steadily oozed from her tightly clenched fists, staining the sand beneath her boots.

She wasn’t terrified of the War God’s magic. She was terrified of what was happening right in front of her.

Under the relentless, grinding bombardment of the chaotic beam, Dark Magician Girl’s robes were tearing apart. Worse, her physical form was slowly becoming translucent, flickering like a dying candle.

Even though Mira knew logically that Chase’s card monsters didn’t truly die in the traditional sense, watching a girl physically fade away while protecting her violently stirred the darkest depths of her trauma. It was the nightmare she dared not face. The memory of a younger sister fading away right in front of her eyes.

“Don’t worry, Mira.”

Sensing the suffocating panic radiating from the girl behind her, Dark Magician Girl slowly turned her head against the tearing winds. Despite the immense strain, a sweet, reassuring smile bloomed on her lips. “I can sense very clearly… that Master is—”

Crack!

The magic circle completely shattered, cutting off her words.

The ensuing blast wave hit them point-blank, sending both Dark Magician Girl and Mira flying backward, launching them high into the turbulent sky over the ocean.

Then came the sickening, despair-inducing drop.

The howling hurricane roared in their ears, and the sudden, violent weightlessness turned the sky and sea upside down.

It was a certain death fall. Yet, amidst the chaos, Mira’s trembling finally stopped. She slowly closed her eyes. The terror drained from her beautiful face, replaced by a deep, peaceful relaxation.

She felt it too. A familiar, overwhelmingly warm aura rapidly closing in from the distant horizon. There was no mistaking this feeling of absolute, unbreakable security.

It was him.

Down on the violently rocking Mage boat, the weekly magazine editor—who hadn’t heard the sickening splash of bodies hitting the water—finally mustered the courage to peel his eyes open.

The first thing that filled his vision was a dark blue cloak, snapping sharply in the hurricane winds.

A tall, imposing figure stood firmly on the ravaged beach. His left arm securely held a fading Dark Magician Girl, while his right arm gently embraced Miss Mira.

“Is that… Mr. Chase?”

The editor let out a massive, shaky breath, his eyes shining with absolute awe as he threw his hands up and cheered over the roaring wind. “Cool~!”