Kiyosuke and Saydaa stayed there for a few more moments until the tears started to clear from Saydaa’s eyes. She then saw Kiyosuke’s hands start to blacken and pushed him away. He took a step forward but Saydaa shook her head.

“Fine, be that way! You’re not going away, even though I already told you I want you to, whatever. J-Just don’t blame me when you lose your hands! So stand…over there or something!”

Kiyosuke opened his mouth to respond when he started to feel the pain from his hands again. He winced and decided to nod instead.

“Sarcastic Suggestion: If friendly Saydaa would like to make someone go away, Elise proposes surrounding hostiles as an alternative target.”

“T-Take your time! I-It’s fine…w-we got this…I think…maybe…”

Saydaa glanced over at the Lizardmen. Her eyes widened slightly before narrowing as her mouth curled into a vicious grin.

“That’s right…you jerks kidnapped me…and then hooked me up to this stupid ritual and this stupid gem that’s really really really painful. And even worse, you made me cry in front of the stupid jerk. Yes…this is all your fault…”

The Lizardman Leader glanced over at Saydaa. His eyes widened as he realized the girl had finished absorbing most of the energy, gaining the ability to act.

And the parts of the circle meant to control her had long been deactivated.

“No!”

Saydaa thrust her hands forward, channeling as much of the energy as she could handle. A wave of red fire surged out, vaporizing each of the reptilians it caught. The Leader quickly formed a green barrier in front of him, grunting as the fire crashed against it.

“No! This can’t be! We’ve waited for millions of years! We’ve plotted for millenia! I refuse to let it end like this”

“Well guess what, jerk? You hurt me…so now I hurt you! Don’t mess with a genie witch and expect to get away with it!”

The barrier cracked. The Lizardman leader hissed and cried out as the fire streamed in through the cracks, lighting his clothes and scales ablaze. Then, the barrier shattered and fire covered him.

Leaving nothing but ash.

Saydaa grunted as the power continued to flow into her. Finally, the gem above her shattered and the magic circle beneath her feet dimmed, leaving her standing in the room, glowing and surrounded by an ethereal red blaze. She puffed her cheek and covered her hand with her mouth.

“Ugh, I think I’m going to puke.”

“Are you all right?”

“Do I look all right?!”

“Warning: Friendly Saydaa’s energy capacity at critical levels. Recommend immediate release of energy.”

“Thanks, miss obvious! I didn’t notice! Ugh.”

“...Defensive Response: Elise was only trying to help.”

“Well then help by getting out of here! This crap is probably going to explode when I release it!”

Nana jumped.

“T-That’s not good. Amano-san, can you take us back out?”

Kiyosuke nodded and reached for his sword…

Then winced and let go as he remembered the mess he made of his hands.

His eyes went wide.

He could handle the pain but…

“I can’t channel my chakra through my hands…”

The members of Nemesis stared at each other.

“...Statement: Minimum safe distance calculations complete. Results are…not encouraging.”

“Not…helping…!”

“I have a suggestion…”

The teens turned. Saydaa let out a sigh.

“I should have known, how long have you been there, boss-man?”

“Since the beginning?”

“Since the beginning?! I thought I lost you!”

Bob shrugged.

“You’ll have to do better than that. I’ve been tracking you since you left EL Bank.”

“Since then?!”

“Anyways, focus.”

“Ugh, right.”

“You’re worried that you’ll trigger some end of the world spell, right?”

Saydaa frowned, but slowly nodded.

“Yeah, now that I can think again it was pretty clear what those guys wanted.”

“Well that’s fine. We already sealed off that part of the spell.”

“Wait really? So I can…”

“So if you release the energy now, instead of a spell you’ll just dump raw energy instead. Which will probably explode and kill all of us.”

“That’s no different from before, boss-man! I thought you had a suggestion!”

Bob nodded.

“I do. Cast a new spell.”

Saydaa froze.

“Huh?”

“Cast a new spell.”

“I heard you! What kind of spell do I even cast with all this?”

Bob shrugged.

“That’s up to you. I’m not enough of an expert to say.”

“Boss-man! I don’t even know any spells close to this size!”

“So make one.”

“It’s not that easy!”

“It is for you.”

Saydaa paused. Bob looked her in the eye.

“You’re part mystical being who manipulates magic as easily as you breathe. You trained under the most powerful and brutal cultivator in all of history and survived. You studied under the most knowledgeable witch in existence. You just absorbed the full power of a dragon heart and are still conscious. I know you can do this.”

Saydaa looked away.

“...where do I even start…?”

Bob shrugged once more.

“Well, the goal of the lizardmen was to change the world, and they gave you the power to do just that. So, Saydaa Abdulzaid, how would you like to change the world?”

Saydaa’s eyes widened for a second. Then she half closed them and looked towards the ground.

“...I was the one who messed everything up. I’ll just make it worse.”

“I don’t believe you will. That was an accident, and I know you’ve learned from it. This time you’re acting intentionally. I trust you to do this.”

Saydaa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened them and looked at Bob. He nodded at her. She nodded back and got to work.

Saydaa floated up into the air, wind and flames swirling around her. She swung her hand across her view.

The stones beneath her detached from the ground and rose into the air. The entire magic formation shifted and swirled, solid stone reshaping itself as easily as sand as Saydaa redesigned the circle.

“Ok…safeguard here…emergency release there…put a condition for that part not to affect living beings…oh put a condition not to affect corpses either…what did the witch say accidental curses again…ah right.”

Saydaa had learned in weeks and months what took a regular witch decades of intense study and practice to achieve. Why was this? Was Saydaa a once in a generation genius when it came to magic? Could she develop complex and precise magical formulas in her head without a single error, as if she had a powerful computer built into her mind? Did Baba Yaga put her in some sort of magic time chamber to impart years of experience in mere days?

None of these things.

At the end of the day, Saydaa was not a witch, or a magician. She was a mystical being. Magic came as easily to her as breathing. Forcing her to start from the beginning and learn magic in the rigid, structured method utilized by mages and witches would be counterproductive.

So, she cheated instead.

Saydaa did not need to utilize magic formations to form and cast her spells. She instead used them as a guide for her spells. To put in safe guards and conditions to make the casting more precise and less prone to error, and to guide the flow of her power to reduce the amounts required. But ultimately, Saydaa didn’t need a formula to make her magic do things. She could do things all on her own, via pure brute force. She just used formulas to prevent unintended consequences and to increase the efficiency and subtlety of her spells.

In other words, Saydaa could do whatever she wanted provided she had enough power, even if she didn’t know a spell for it.

And right now, she had enough power to do anything.

All she needed to do…was put in enough safeguards to feel confident unleashing the spell.

She locked the final circle into place. She nodded at Elise, who stepped in front of the rest of Nemesis and created a barrier. It shouldn’t be necessary but Baba Yaga had taught her peace of mind was important when casting. Always better to take an unnecessary step than to let a sudden worry ruin the spell.

She gathered up all the power the gem had poured into her, holding out her hands. A red star burst into being, flooding the room with light. She condensed it down as hard as she could, pushing on it with all her might. The magic circles around her filled with power, stones glowing beneath her as red lights drew additional patterns in the air. She held the power in a condensed ball until the last circle locked into place.

And then Saydaa whispered. Something deep and powerful echoed her words, leaving the soft whisper as loud as a shout in Bob and Nemesis’s ears.

“No more monsters.”

A red surge of power shot through the globe that day.

In the upper atmosphere…in the rain…in the water…all over the earth, super serum molecules rapidly decomposed. Magic spread them and held them together…now magic took them apart. The random mutations were at an end.

And it went further.

Those in the process of mutating, whether men or monster, felt something cool and soothing spread through their body, counteracting the fiery heat of their body’s transformation. Imbalances in their bodies, failed or half-finished mutations causing them pain were sorted out on the spot.

And all of them felt…as if someone were encouraging them. That everything would be all right.

For the unintelligent monsters, unfinished brain mutations causing unnatural aggression were healed and reverted. The serum had tried and failed to make them human…leaving them with an unnatural obsession with humanity. That was now resolved. The creatures remained aggressive and fiercely territorial…but no longer would they wander into cities actively seeking fights.

Saydaa did not touch the brains of intelligent beings for the most part…but still the intelligent monsters had their bodies sorted out as well. The daily pain and sense of wrongness vanished. From now on, violence would be solely their choice. For both monsters…and humans.

As for the Lizardmen…well Saydaa can be somewhat vindictive. Any who sought to cause her harm…would never awake again. As a side effect, the Sleeping Ones who hadn’t awoken never would. If there were any peaceful Lizardmen…well only time would tell.

And so Saydaa Abdulzaid fixed the mistake.