Mazdari

Mazdari is a cursed Garuda alchemist who becomes the first Wizard of his era, breaks away from Asbestos, and develops into one of the Pantheon's strongest apostles before attaining Constellation status. (Chapters 95–110, 183, 327)

Biography

Rotten Hand and the first Wizard

Mazdari is born with a featherless, black left arm inhabited by a spirit of Demonic Magic. His tribe treats the limb as a curse, his parents leave him with a banished elder, and he grows into an alchemist who distrusts gods without reducing his life to resentment. When Asbestos destroys the Alchemist Tower and hunts its survivors, he uses acids, oil, a sword, and the arm's fire to resist elite Elk Knights. Faced with an entire force, he surrenders because further violence would be futile, yet he still treats death as a real alternative to serving King Delmardin Busa. (Chapters 95–96)

Night Sky's messenger offers Mazdari a prophecy rather than an order: he will become Asbestos's Wizard and then betray it. Mazdari initially recognizes the divine manipulation, but decides that defining every choice as obedience or resistance still lets gods control his thinking. He accepts the magical knowledge gathered by Delmardin because it advances his own goal and because the king tortured other alchemists to obtain it. After demonstrating magic in the southern naval campaign, he conspires with Vasen Lak Orazen, spreads a Zombie Plague through Asbestos's flagship under strict enclosed-space conditions, directs the corpses to sail it away, and fulfills the prophecy through a betrayal he claims as his own decision. (Chapters 97–108)

Independence, expedition, and apostleship

Mazdari reunites with Yan and Talay as independent Wizards, but their freedom leaves them hungry, hunted, and exposed to gods who regard autonomous magic as a threat. When Lakrak offers protection, Mazdari rejects conversion and questions whether Night Sky engineered their predicament. He accepts only after understanding the proposal's narrow demand: remain alive, so that the continued existence of Wizards preserves knowledge and limits divine control. This wary agreement gives him room to build workshops, take students such as Juran, and cooperate with the Pantheon without pretending that his intellectual independence has disappeared. (Chapters 109–110, 182)

On the fourth-continent expedition, Mazdari repeatedly chooses dangerous cooperation over safety. He helps Vasen's group inside the Moving Castle, uses magic against Ashurada, and participates with Vasen and Theone Itimo in finding Yobuen and killing the Dragon Atneil. His scholarly attempt to replace coal with rotational magic grows into arcane power, showing that he treats magic as infrastructure as well as combat. He later becomes a Pantheon apostle and uses the Thunderstrider to carry a mission toward enemy territory; when the airship falls, he remains behind as the conspicuous apostolic target so Ramin Solost Muel, Juran, and Gorgota can continue their covert objective. (Chapters 161–175, 182–187)

Pantheon wars and Constellation ascent

As an apostle, Mazdari becomes the Pantheon's principal magical variable. He plans campaigns beside Lakrak and Redin, combines gravity magic with a staff and hand tattoos, rides Aruna to pressure enemy Sky Castles, and creates openings against Hegemonia by binding her mount and layering illusions around allied assaults. These victories do not make him casual about failure: his patience with younger apostles and his willingness to adapt are explicitly greater with age, while his battlefield magic still depends on preparation, resources, and allies who exploit the brief conditions he creates. (Chapters 227–251)

In the struggle against the old gods, Mazdari enters layered imagery worlds as one of Choi Sung-Woon's magical supports. He appears there as a white Dragon whose caution, humility, and freedom from traditional draconic assumptions defeat the anti-Dragon methods that Aldin knows. His spell breath forces her deeper into the imagery structure, while his argument about continuous personalities becomes part of the confrontation over souls and the Returner. By the latest era, his achievements and accepted strategies for resisting invasions from the demon world meet the threshold for Constellation status, which he has willingly assumed. (Chapters 302, 309–313, 327)

Appearance and personality

Mazdari is a Garuda about 2.7 meters tall, larger than his species' stated average, with a beak, broad wings, and the physical strength to rival an Ogre. His defining feature is his thin, featherless black left hand and arm, which house the voice and power that earned him the name Rotten Hand. Later divine or magical manifestations include a white crow-like form and a huge white Dragon within an imagery world; the corpus demonstrates those forms but does not specify a single origin mechanism for all of them. (Chapters 95–97, 302, 309)

He is analytical, controlled, and deeply protective of intellectual self-determination. Mazdari openly admits fear while refusing to let it decide his actions, studies opponents before committing resources, and can sound cold when assigning capable allies to dangerous roles. His suspicion of gods persists after he joins the Pantheon, but it develops into a working humility rather than reflexive opposition. By the time Aldin faces him, his lack of arrogance and willingness to abandon a failed approach are treated as strengths more dangerous than raw draconic power. (Chapters 95–110, 169, 183–187, 227, 309)

Powers and abilities

Mazdari combines a spirit-bearing cursed limb, formal Wizard knowledge, alchemical practice, apostolic power, and later Constellation authority. His magic is broad, but it is consistently governed by rules, catalysts, diagrams, concentration, and risk rather than limitless intention.

Rotten Hand and alchemy

The spirit within Mazdari's black left arm grants Demonic Magic capable of concentrating heat and projecting a cone of flame. Before he becomes a Wizard, he combines that power with sulfuric acid, oil, smoke, swordsmanship, and Garuda physical ability, using equipment to shape situations in which the arm's limited reach is effective. The spirit speaks as a distinct voice yet describes itself as part of Mazdari, and the corpus does not resolve that identity claim into a simpler possession model. Its flame can destroy ordinary soldiers, but large divine or draconic enemies can resist direct applications. (Chapters 95–97, 169)

Wizard circles, tattoos, and rules

Mazdari completes fewer than ten spells at first, making him an apprentice by ancient standards while still placing him far above ordinary combatants. He draws ancient writing in nested circles, uses tattoos on his eyes or hands to trigger magic, and must specify targets and conditions precisely. Large effects demand catalysts, time, protected diagrams, and sustained concentration; malformed circles can fail or produce unintended results. Later chapters also stress that magical solutions consume more material and mental resources than equivalent technology, which is why even powerful Wizards avoid using magic wastefully. (Chapters 102, 105–108, 187)

Talajin's Hand opens magic circles as doors to another world and deliberately angers enormous Talajins so their reaching hands seek Mazdari. He redirects that hostility through rules: the hands recognize only a chosen species as people and mistake a designated monster for him. The spell tears apart a Sea Serpent, but its summoned beings possess their own desires and magical knowledge, and Mazdari must supervise them before they grow bored or act beyond his purpose. The application demonstrates both his ingenuity and the danger of treating summoned minds as predictable tools. (Chapters 105–107)

His other established spells include Deception, which hides him from active divine scrutiny while its circle and caster remain functional; Zombie Plague, which he deploys in an enclosed ship and then augments with circles that let corpses operate it; gravity and rotation effects; barriers, propulsion, and flight support; illusions; and arcane-power applications developed from rotational magic. These powers expand with study, but even an apostle-level Mazdari can be checked by a guardian specifically built to resist his magic and must rely on allies to address threats outside his effective focus. (Chapters 107–109, 166, 175, 183–187, 228, 246–251)

Apostle and Constellation manifestations

Apostleship raises Mazdari to a level considered almost impossible for conventional forces to oppose and allows him to serve as the magical center of airships, expedition forces, and god-killing formations. In later imagery worlds he manifests as a stealthy white Dragon and releases a curved magenta spell breath that bypasses Aldin's layered protection. The mechanism by which he gained the Dragon form is not explained in the cited scenes, so only its demonstrated concealment, power, and magical breath are established. His later Constellation ascent is tied to achievements and demon-world defense strategy, but the corpus does not name a personal Domain. (Chapters 183–187, 246–251, 309–313, 327)

Power progression

Relationships

• Choi Sung-Woon: Night Sky engineers an opportunity for Mazdari to escape Asbestos, then protects the independent Wizards without requiring immediate worship. Mazdari becomes one of Sung-Woon's closest magical supports while retaining the habit of arguing from his own scholarship.
• Lakrak: Lakrak offers Mazdari and the other Wizards a survival pact and becomes his senior apostolic colleague. Their later teamwork pairs Lakrak's direct assaults with Mazdari's ability to create unexpected openings.
• Vasen Lak Orazen: Vasen first cooperates with Mazdari during the southern naval campaign and helps stage his break from Asbestos. Their expeditions repeatedly join Vasen's rapid tactical commitments to Mazdari's dangerous, rule-bound spells.
• Theone Itimo: Theone travels and fights beside Mazdari on the fourth continent, including the expedition that finds Yobuen and kills Atneil.
• Ramin Solost Muel: Mazdari recruits Ramin for the covert mission beyond the front, trusts her strength during the defense of the Thunderstrider, and uses his own conspicuous presence to draw pursuit away from her group.
• Juran: Juran is Mazdari's Wizard student and accompanies him on the Thunderstrider mission. Mazdari treats Juran's inherited connection to Hwee-Kyung as strategically important without reducing him to that lineage.
• Aldin: Mazdari confronts Aldin within the imagery worlds as both magical enemy and intellectual opponent, helping force her toward the final confrontation with Sung-Woon.
• Hegemonia: Hegemonia treats Mazdari as a strategic threat and builds counters to his magic. Mazdari later joins the apostolic formations that create openings against her Hierophany.

Items

• Thunderstrider: Mazdari serves as the legendary airship's apostolic and magical centerpiece, using it for the covert mission across the Danly front and remaining with it after its forced landing. His association is operational, not stated legal ownership. (Chapters 182–187)
• Golden Tablet: At the ruins on the fourth continent, Mazdari helps examine an inscribed tablet describing the collapse of the ancient Kalonba Empire. He is associated with its interpretation rather than its ownership. (Chapters 162–163)
• Moving Castle
• Helix Wing