The undead demons charged, but I already had a hitogata floating in the air. “Oh well,” I said with a small sigh. I made a hand sign with one hand. “I was planning on doing this in the end anyway.”
Summoning: Gaki. A horde of ayakashi streamed out of the spatial distortion.
“Huh?” The necromancer let out a startled cry, and the undead soldiers halted their advance.
Compared to the demons, the unsettling ayakashi were pitifully small. Though they were humanoid in shape, they were no taller than a child. They were emaciated to the point that they looked like starving orphans, their bellies the only part of them that was distended and jutted out. Their eyes burned with a dark hunger, seeking something to devour.
The moment the gaki hit the ground, they took off running. The undead giant was the closest, and one promptly bit into its ankle. Not even giving it time to struggle, the area where the giant had been bitten burst into blue flames and disappeared.
“Ooh...” Thrown off-balance, the undead giant toppled over.
The fallen giant’s massive body was soon swarmed by the other gaki, their jaws tearing into its flesh. Wherever their teeth sank in, blue flames burst forth, and the giant began to vanish piece by piece. In a matter of mere seconds, its body had been reduced by half its size.
Similar scenes were unfolding throughout the square. The ogre had fallen face down, its lower half missing. The bearfolk stood in place, only its legs remaining after its upper body vanished. The undead devil, already missing an arm, swung its battle-axe, only for a gaki to bite into the blade itself. The weapon vanished into blue flames, and soon after, the devil’s body was nothing more than a head.
“What in the world... How can this be?” the necromancer mumbled in shock, staring at the spectacle unfolding before their eyes.
“Groooar!” The patchwork dragon roared, swinging its necks and tail and destroying the buildings around it. There were several gaki biting into its body as it struggled. Not only did they seem completely unhindered by its rigid scales, but they bit the spectral curse dragon head, causing it to disappear with a burst of blue flames. Its body was shrinking rapidly.
“That isn’t possible...” the necromancer groaned, looking up at their disappearing masterpiece. “What are those grotesque goblins? They’re erasing more mass than their bodies could possibly contain. Is it some kind of teleportation magic? No, there’s no sign of that...”
“They’re a pitiful ayakashi,” I said as though monologuing. “Constantly starving, yet they can never eat. Everything that enters their mouths catches fire and disappears. Their form is said to be a punishment that people who are greedy in life receive after their death.”
That was nothing more than superstition, of course. The ayakashi known as gaki simply behaved that way. The phenomenon where anything they bit vanished was caused by their own supernatural power.
“Huh?” The necromancer’s face went stiff, as though they had just heard an absurd joke. “Ha ha... That’s ridiculous. As if there could be such a thing. When a person dies, that’s it. All that remains is a corpse and a soul that sticks around like a lingering scent.” The necromancer seemed to be at their wits’ end. “I don’t understand. Neither their biology nor the principles behind it. What sort of monster are they? How is this phenomenon occurring? I can’t even begin to imagine... What in the world...”
The girl’s face lit up with joy. “How wonderful! There are still things in this world beyond my comprehension! The path continues... The path I must master stretches far beyond what I can see— Agh!” The necromancer suddenly groaned and fell to the ground.
There was a gaki biting away at each of the necromancer’s legs, blue flames igniting the skin hanging from their grotesque mouths.
“Ahh... Ha ha. What pleasant pain...” The necromancer looked at the gaki consuming their rapidly disappearing legs, a pained smile on their face. “I-It’s odd... The feeling of being bitten vanished in an instant. A-As though it’s being erased from the world itself... Ah, it hurts... Good... I’m certain...” A calculating light shone in their eyes. “I can use this for next time.”
“You think you get a next time?” I asked, commanding the gaki devouring the necromancer to cease its flow of cursed energy.
Everything around us had vanished in no time at all. The undead demons, the patchwork dragon—even the rubble and houses. It had all disappeared without a trace, consumed by the ever-hungry ayakashi. The gaki gathered around, their dark eyes fixed on the necromancer’s body, the only sustenance left to them.
“Of course I do.” Crawling on the ground with most of their lower body gone, the necromancer chuckled. “Have you still not figured out the answer to the first question you asked me?”
“Of course. That’s not your real body, is it?” I said, clicking my tongue.
There was no reason for the relay corpses to look like middle-aged men if the real body was a little girl. I just hadn’t been certain. Corpses revived through necromancy didn’t behave like the living, yet the girl’s body had moved and acted as though it were truly alive. Such precise control through necromancy was far beyond my understanding.
“Heh heh. Only a third-rate necromancer would reveal themselves before the enemy. Do you think that little of me?” the necromancer said, completely relaxed despite being surrounded by gaki. “You messed up.”
“How so?”
“Because your monsters devoured everything, you lost any means of tracking me. I don’t imagine we’ll ever meet again.”
“Fine by me.” Looking down at the necromancer, I gave the starving ayakashi the order. “Eat up.”
The gaki descended on the necromancer. The girl’s remaining upper body vanished from the world in an instant, swallowed by fierce flames.
“You wouldn’t have left any leads behind anyway,” I said, opening a gate to send the ayakashi back to the other plane. Glancing back at the now lost city of the living, my expression twisted with sadness. “And I don’t want to make her dig any more graves.”