Getting to the mission was faster than walking.
Finral Roulacase, sweat on his brow from the effort of maintaining a stable portal, waved them through. "Here's your stop! On the outskirts of Saussy village. Be careful, Captain!"
They stepped from the boisterous air of the Black Bulls base into a profound and unsettling silence.
The village of Saussy looked… normal. That was the most terrifying part. Stone houses stood intact, fields of grain swayed gently in the breeze, and a cobblestone path wound through the center.
But there was no one. No farmers, no children, no sounds of life. Even the birds were quiet.
"It's like the whole place is holding its breath," Noelle Silva whispered, clutching her grimoire. She felt exposed, vulnerable. The air here was thin, the ambient mana a bare trickle compared to the rich currents of the capital.
Asta, however, felt almost at home. "This is what it's always like for me," he said, though even he could tell this was different. This wasn't just an absence of magic; it was an emptiness.
"Alright," Yami said, his voice a low growl that seemed loud in the dead quiet. "Spread out. Asta, Noelle, check the houses on the west. Genos, you scan the perimeter. Saitama…"
He looked at the newest Bull. Saitama was peering intently at a wooden signpost.
"...You stick with me. Try not to break anything important."
Saitama grunted. "This sign is pointing to a well. You guys thirsty?"
Yami ignored him, and the teams split.
Genos moved with silent, efficient strides, his optical sensors glowing faintly as they swept across the terrain. "Mana density confirmed at 0.014 magical units," he reported into his internal comms. "98.6% below the kingdom average. Life signs: zero. Thermal signatures: zero."
Meanwhile, Asta and Noelle entered the first house. The door creaked open to reveal a scene frozen in time. A half-eaten stew sat on the table, cold and congealed. A child's wooden doll lay abandoned on the floor.
"They just… left," Noelle said, a shiver running down her spine. "In the middle of dinner."
Asta used his ki sense, straining to feel any hint of life or lingering intent. He found nothing. No fear, no struggle. Just a flat, hollow void where people used to be. It was like they had been erased.
Saitama and Yami checked the village square. Yami's ki was stretched thin, a sensitive net cast over the entire area. He could feel the hollowness Asta had, but with his experience, he recognized it as something more sinister. A place that had been fed upon.
Saitama wasn't sensing anything. He was looking at an empty fruit stand. "Think the apples are still good?"
"Focus," Yami grunted, though he wasn't sure what he wanted the man to focus on.
A tiny sound broke the silence. A soft whimper.
It came from a house near the center of town. Yami and Saitama were closest. They entered to find it just as empty as the rest, but the sound was clear now, coming from beneath the floorboards.
Saitama casually lifted a heavy oak table with one hand and tossed it aside, revealing a small cellar door. He opened it.
Huddled in the darkness below was a little girl, no older than seven, clutching a doll. Her eyes were wide with a terror so deep it had burned past screaming.
"Hey now," Yami said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "It's alright. We're the Magic Knights. We're here to help."
The girl just shook her head, tears streaming down her dirt-streaked face.
"What happened here?" Yami asked. "Where is everyone?"
She finally whispered, her voice a dry rasp. "The bug… the color-eater…"
Saitama tilted his head. "Bug?"
"It came when the sun went down," she stammered, pointing a trembling finger toward the nearby woods. "It walked on lots of legs. And where it walked… the colors went away. Mommy's magic… Daddy's voice… they went all gray and quiet."
She hugged her knees. "Then it ate them."
Suddenly, Yami's hand shot to the hilt of his katana. His ki sense, which had been feeling a dull void, was now screaming a warning. It wasn't life force he felt. It was a hunger. An active, predatory emptiness moving with impossible speed.
"SOMETHING'S COMING!" he roared.
At the edge of the village, Genos's sensors went wild. "Warning! High-velocity terrestrial object approaching from the northeast quadrant! Non-magical signature! Trajectory… it's heading for Noelle!"
Asta and Noelle heard the shouts and spun around just as it emerged from the trees.
The girl had called it a bug. She was right. It was a monstrous, centipede-like creature, fifty feet long, its body segmented and carried on hundreds of scuttling, clawed legs. But its color was wrong. Its chitinous shell wasn't black or brown, but a flat, matte gray that seemed to drink the light around it. It possessed no aura, no magical presence.
As it skittered into the open, the grass beneath its legs withered, turning to gray dust. The very air around it seemed to thin and quiet.
It ignored Asta, his lack of mana making him invisible to its senses. It ignored the approaching yells of the Captain. Its multifaceted eyes, dull as unpolished stones, were locked entirely on Noelle.
Her royal bloodline gave her the richest mana signature in the area. To the creature, she was a feast.
It reared up, its maw opening to reveal not teeth, but a swirling vortex of absolute nothingness.
"Noelle, shield!" Asta yelled, already sprinting, drawing his sword.
She reacted on instinct, her grimoire flipping open. "Water Creation Magic: Sea Dragon's Roar!"
A powerful dragon of water erupted to meet the beast.
But the moment her magic left her, it began to decay. The vibrant blue faded to a murky gray. The roaring water turned sluggish, thin, before collapsing into a weak splash a few feet in front of her. The bug hadn't even flinched.
It was too close. Asta was too far.
The color-eater lunged.