## Chapter 892 – #194_Typhoon(5)
#886
1.
Queen’s remains, transformed into a myriad of colorful wildflowers, filled the surface of the water.
The Queen, with her grotesque appearance that could haunt one’s dreams, had a final, artistic flourish at the end of her life.
The billions of pollen grains falling more densely than a downpour were a spectacle that could not be bought for any amount of money, but it didn’t seem like a particularly romantic scene for the Queen’s friends, the Armored Dragon and the King Cutlassfish.
“Kieeeeeeek!”
“Kuoohhhhh!”
They didn’t flee because the King’s orders were binding.
However, they showed their heightened wariness, circling Amelia in the sky and sea, respectively.
“Hoo….”
Even Amelia, who had extensive experience hunting homunculi, had never ‘bloomed’ a mass of this size before.
“…Siwoo.”
As she clutched her throbbing head due to the greater-than-expected consumption of magic power and the arduous calculations, Amelia longed to see Siwoo.
She wanted to quickly resolve this matter and be held in his arms, receiving praise.
“Kieeeeee!!!”
The King Cutlassfish, which had been circling meaningfully beneath the sea, leaped above the water.
What spewed from its pointed snout was a high-pressure stream of corrosive fluid, alchemically converted from seawater.
The power of the high-pressure stream, branching out in dozens of directions, was comparable to a large-scale magic cannon.
It had the power to easily crush not only steel plates but also nuclear bunkers wrapped in thick armor.
However, the reason Amelia was lost in thought in front of the enemy like this was because she had something to rely on.
-Whoosh!
A tidal wave, soaring high from the surface of the sea to Amelia’s feet, blocked the high-pressure stream.
The King Cutlassfish, which had been active in the deep sea and had evaded numerous subjugations.
The sea had always been on its side, but not today.
The witch, standing on the wave with her arms crossed, looked down at the King Cutlassfish.
This was because R’lyeh Nukelavee, the ‘Deep Sea Witch,’ who could confidently claim invincibility in naval battles, was present.
“Submerge deeply.”
R’lyeh, whose magic power was comparable to that of a typical great witch, could summon the ‘Tides of the Sea of Magic’ countless times even in an open field.
Moreover, her combat power on the sea, which was practically her home base, was not something to be dismissed as mere bluff.
-Bang! Crash! Bang!
Tidal waves surged repeatedly with magic power.
The vast sea was repeatedly overturned and overflowed as if it were a washbasin.
Even among witches, only a very few could cause such a cataclysm.
The exiles who watched the scene even felt a sense of awe.
“That’s an old witch….”
“Look at that majestic figure. The term ‘Queen of the Sea’ fits her perfectly.”
“When the fight is over… should I try to talk to her?”
“…Are you sure? I’m too scared to do that.”
“Huh? The Deep Sea Witch is looking this way?”
“Really? In the middle of a fight? Hey, she’s not looking.”
“She is! I swear she just glanced over here!”
However, the decisive battle, which seemed like it would end in an instant, unexpectedly dragged on.
“Kiek! Kiek!”
It was because of the King Cutlassfish’s desperate struggle.
It completely gave up on fighting.
It submerged as deep as possible to deflect the impact, and manipulated the currents to protect its body.
If it were just a mediocre small or medium-sized homunculus, it would have been crushed by the water pressure and the waves of magic power long ago, but it wasn’t easy to kill the King Cutlassfish, which was writhing and enduring with its innate size, in one go.
“…Ugh.”
R’lyeh’s eyebrows twitched anxiously.
It wasn’t because the battle was overwhelming.
It would just take a little time, and in five minutes, she was confident that she could beautifully fillet the cutlassfish that was dodging so slyly.
The reason R’lyeh was in a tense countdown was for a completely different reason.
R’lyeh was still a young witch.
Usually, witches of her age were often eager to show off their power.
R’lyeh also secretly hoped that if she could just get out of Akula, she could show off her power to the fullest and become an object of awe.
However, reality was harsh.
The country bumpkins of Gehenna showed a strange lack of respect for the Queen of the Sea.
The apprentice witches tried to befriend her.
The owner, who was a business partner of the Nukelavee royal family, tried to interfere with her internal affairs with some kind of military action prohibition treaty.
The green-haired and Siwoo, the royal consort, treated R’lyeh like a child, as if they had caught Dorothy’s bad habits.
The blonde, the pink-haired, and the black-haired who had recently joined were opponents who were too burdensome to force awe upon.
“The Deep Sea Witch is amazing!”
“I’ve never seen magic like that before!”
For R’lyeh, the exiles’ admiration and sighs were sweeter than any chocolate.
She had been listening intently, not missing a single word, since a little while ago.
However, as the hunt dragged on, their conversation, which had been full of praise, began to change.
“It’s taking longer than the impact.”
“Is it a little resistant because it’s the same attribute…?”
And so on.
“Eek….”
This was an unbearable humiliation.
R’lyeh, who had originally intended to show off her power by overwhelming them with just the basics, decided to use a little more magic power.
She opened one of her aquariums while issuing a solemn command.
“Minister of the Army. Drown it.”
-Kyuuuuuuuuu!
The appearance of Leviathan, the Minister of the Army of the Nukelavee Dynasty.
Leviathan, with a body as huge as Go Rakkenrakken, stirred up the seabed, which had been the King Cutlassfish’s only refuge, like a fierce viper.
As its large mouth opened and severed the waist of the King Cutlassfish, which was fleeing in a panic, a thick mist of blood bubbled up beneath the surface.
“How truly insignificant.”
R’lyeh, pretending to be nonchalant again, finished her finishing comment and listened again.
“In one shot???”
“So she was just playing with it!”
“As expected of the majestic Queen of the Sea!”
R’lyeh, biting her tongue and managing her expression at the exiles’ cheers, which were as fickle as the flip of a hand.
The minor change of her nostrils widening slightly beneath her sharp nose did not greatly damage the queen’s majesty.
R’lyeh, who was beside herself with the catharsis she was experiencing for the first time, clenched and unclenched her fists, then looked up at the sky.
-Kraaaaaaaaraaaaaaa!!!
Come to think of it, she had forgotten.
In the sky she looked up at, the ‘Armored Dragon,’ which had not yet been dealt with, was screaming in terror.
Even with the intelligence of a beast, it was not difficult to recognize the ‘status’ of the witches gathered here.
R’lyeh, with her eyes full of honor and self-aggrandizement, looked up at the homunculus, but soon shook her head.
There was someone else to take care of it.
Originally, a queen did not engage in the sneaky act of stealing the merits of others.
“Green hair. It is your time.”
The green-haired witch, Sharon, appeared, stepping on the air as if riding a gentle breeze.
The witch’s riding boots and the wand with a large green jewel embedded in it meant that she had entered combat mode.
“Kraaaaaaaara!!!”
What made the Armored Dragon refuse the order given by the ‘King’ was the fear of death.
The Armored Dragon roared and turned its body.
The two most threatening witches had retreated, and only a witch who seemed relatively less dangerous was blocking the Armored Dragon.
The Armored Dragon, following the escape route determined by its instincts, charged towards the witch who was pointing her wand.
Gray magic power was condensed between its half-closed jaws.
The breath that would be sprayed out like a storm the moment it opened its mouth would turn that witch into a hard stone.
“…….”
Sharon calmly watched the house-sized Armored Dragon flying at subsonic speed.
Sharon, who had been excluded from the Siwoo rescue operation without a word.
The helplessness and sense of indebtedness at that time, and the desire to be of help to Siwoo someday, had led her to the 21st tier.
Now was the time to prove it.
“Balance.”
As Sharon chanted softly, a cross-shaped magic circle extended behind her back.
Sharon’s magic was rooted in the five elements of Tarba.
Like orthodox elemental magic, it offered ‘sacrifices’ that enhanced the symbolism of each element, and once a sacrifice was used, it was permanently destroyed or lost its effect.
This seemed like a very inefficient method at first glance.
The sacrifices to borrow symbols were not cheap, and every time magic was used, or even when trying to do research, it required a research budget that was twice that of other witches.
So, while everyone else was glossing over the symbolic system with plausible ‘metaphors,’ why had the past Evergreens insisted on and developed such an inefficient method?
The answer was not difficult.
“Shall we see how you taste?”
Sharon took out a silver ornament in the shape of a hydrangea with fruit.
Genuine silver refined from the Emerald Tablet for 30,000 days, Pigeon’s Blood from Mount Monshu cut to be optimized for the formula.
The two were crafted by the Moyerty Atelier, considered the best in Gehenna.
It was originally an expensive item that could only be used as the core of a ceremonial dress.
Of course, Sharon did not have the financial resources to use such expensive items as sacrifices.
But now, she had plenty of supplies.
‘Sharon, would you come here for a moment?’
‘We can’t go ourselves because of the twins, so please use these well.’
It was the ‘Count Geminae’s High-Quality Sacrifice Package’ that was given to Sharon under the pretext of supporting the current world.
Evergreen’s elemental magic always required expensive sacrifices, but its power was dramatically amplified depending on the value of the sacrifice.
It was a capitalist magic that showed the potential to overturn even one tier if one’s wallet was thick enough.
-Whoosh!
As the silver ornament disappeared, the sun rose behind Sharon’s back.
A sacred radiance that tore through the darkness of the night and storm, illuminating the surroundings like daytime.
The power of the magic, which evaporated the downpour cleanly with just indirect heat, was more powerful than that of Della, who was known as a master of the fire element.
This was the power of great magic, which was the result of the realization gained by leaping to the 21st tier, combined with the financial power that she had never dared to use before.
“Who is that witch?”
“Huh? I think I saw her in Seoul before. Isn’t she a debtor?”
“Are you sure you know what you’re talking about? What is this, this power?”
The exiles, who had been enjoying the high-tier magic demonstration, once again shone their eyes.
The Armored Dragon’s durability was no match for the fireballs that fell like meteors.
The powerful petrification breath was broken by the hot wind and disappeared, and the outer shell that deflected all kinds of magic melted before it even made direct contact.
Was it not said that the enemy of tomorrow is the ally of today?
Today, capitalism was also on Sharon’s side.
“Hah, Siwoo should have seen this.”
Sharon stylishly blew on the flames flickering at the end of her wand, like a cowboy who had finished shooting.
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