Chapter 1078 – #256_A Small War (5)
#1072
1.
There are many variables in a magical battle against a Great Witch or higher.
The opponent’s skill, one’s own skill, the advantages and disadvantages of the battlefield, the compatibility between mana attributes, and the overall strategy.
And since hiding one’s power is the most basic of basics, there’s also the trump card.
Assuming that the difference in hierarchy isn’t significant, these variables constantly exist, disappear, and are created throughout the battle.
However, a witch with as much combat experience as Herya can roughly gauge the situation after just a few exchanges.
It’s like how a hardcore gamer can intuitively sense whether they’ll win or lose a match early on.
That’s because intuition is statistics based on countless experiences.
Three minutes.
That’s the time Herya predicted it would take to end the fight.
Within that time, Shin Siwoo would reveal all his capabilities to the bottom and, despite his desperate resistance, would be split in half and killed by Herya’s axe-spear.
That’s how it should have ended.
“Uryaahhh!!!”
But Herya’s prediction was off.
In a very positive way.
“Good, good! That’s how you should be!”
“……”
Despite Herya’s booming shout, Shin Siwoo still showed no reaction.
But he was fiercely squeezing out all his remaining strength to fight against Herya.
“Did you finally decide to get serious?”
This was what she wanted.
To crush a worthy opponent head-on.
Not a weak, soft adversary, but an opponent who struggles desperately, risking their life.
This is what struggle, war, and battle are all about.
“……”
However, unlike the fiercely excited Herya, Siwoo was unusually quiet.
He was too busy observing his inner self, separate from the fight.
His head was still burning, and Herya was still strong.
It felt like his neck could be cut off at any moment, and the injuries etched into his body were accumulating.
He mechanically dealt with the battle while silently climbing the stairs in his mind.
The stairs were very narrow, precarious, and winding, and if he were to misstep, he would likely slip straight into the abyss.
But.
It wasn’t as difficult as it seemed.
He climbed and climbed and climbed.
Higher and higher.
Something changed with each step.
It was also a mindset, and it was also a primitive view of magic.
He broke through walls.
He demolished them.
He leaped over them.
It was far from such grand sensations.
It was more like…
Just feeling a little more comfortable.
The awkwardness and discomfort he had felt since the start of the fight with Herya were gradually being resolved.
It was like he had always thought running on all fours was the best way, so he had been studying ‘how to run well on all fours,’ but now he was starting to run on two legs for the first time.
It was unfamiliar, but it was definitely more comfortable.
“……”
Let’s skip the detailed calculations and such, the annoying stuff.
Isn’t it a headache to think about overwhelming calculation power or supercomputer-like high-speed calculations?
At least in his current state, it was impossible.
So, he would only follow his intuition.
Comfortably, emphasizing a change of perspective, and achieving optimization that couldn’t be done simply through calculations.
“Oh? You can do that too?”
Just before Herya’s lightning-fast strike landed.
Siwoo’s body disappeared and reappeared far away.
A movement that could be described as a blink, a teleport, or a warp, folding space to move.
It was a coordinate-based movement.
Until now, Siwoo had avoided coordinate-based movement in actual combat.
First of all, the interval before and after was too long.
Also, if he didn’t calculate the exact coordinates, he was afraid of what might happen, and it required enormous calculation power, so its effectiveness in actual combat was very low.
But with this newly changed method, although the movement distance was somewhat limited, it was fully usable in actual combat.
“Then let’s see who’s faster.”
-Fsss!
Herya smiled confidently.
It was quite fast, but she was like a lightning bolt running through an ion tube.
This entire area was already Herya’s territory.
If it was a competition to see who was faster, she was confident against anyone.
Even if he folded space to move, she just had to move faster than that.
-Kwaang!
As soon as she spotted Herya’s leap, Siwoo’s body disappeared.
The place he reappeared was another sky far from the point of disappearance.
But Herya’s pursuit zigzagged in a straight line, rushing towards Siwoo again.
Herya’s attack, which was made without even a slight gap between spotting, changing direction, and charging, left countless afterimages in the sky.
——————!!!!!!
When viewed from that distant universe, the scene would look like a dazzling laser show.
A high-speed, lightning-fast headbutt that barely chased Siwoo as he folded space to move.
“…Doesn’t he get motion sickness?”
He thought he could outrun her at this point, but Herya, like a battery with strong power and long life, kept following him tirelessly.
“Hahahaha———!!!”
Herya’s maniacal laughter, like thunder, echoed from all directions.
It seemed that Herya was starting to find the weakness of coordinate-based movement.
That it was only possible if the space to move to was empty.
That’s why she was preemptively planting lightning strikes in the places he was likely to escape to, blocking his escape routes.
Just like how Bianca had floated hundreds of millions of objects in space using the ‘Mimic Dice.’
As expected of a Great Witch with a wealth of combat experience.
The speed at which she found the answer and the way she responded were similar.
It didn’t seem like this would work, so let’s try another method.
After gaining enlightenment from the battle against ‘Logi Alu.’
So far, Siwoo had been using a method of fusing two of his different mana attributes.
Angel’s Ring + Step of Extremity = Super-powerful calculation doping device.
Elemental Magic + Wave = Pseudo-Sea of Mana Wave.
Barrier Magic + Distortion Field = Space-bending defense.
He had been using combinations like this.
It was like adding Siwoo’s original magic, ‘Coordinate Movement’ or ‘Repeated Amplification,’ on top of that.
It was too much to mix more than that.
Mixing different mana attributes of others was that difficult.
But this time, he decided to try something new.
He was aware that it was a crazy thing to do.
Using a new technique without any prior practice in a life-or-death battle.
But he had a strange conviction.
“I think it might work.”
First, he took off his armor to focus on calculations, and while tracking Herya with coordinate movement, he unleashed the newly emerging inspiration.
As he did, he thought it was similar to Amelia’s perfumery work.
Base note, top note, middle note.
Wasn’t perfumery also the process of creating a harmonious pyramid of scents by stacking ‘notes’ in three stages?
The very foundation of the pyramid, the base note, was the distortion field.
Since the Red Branch was his artifact, the distortion field was also one of Siwoo’s mana attributes.
Until now, it had been emitted in the form of a ‘barrier,’ but now he was gathering it into small, tiny clumps.
The size should be smaller than a pinky fingernail.
It was a compromise from the minimum size he had insisted on until now.
What helped in this process was the middle note, barrier magic.
The specialty of the Yesod family and the magic Siwoo first learned to control the distortion field.
The red distortion field beads, like pomegranate seeds, were easily scattered.
He coated them with a barrier, fixing their shape.
The final top note was….
“Hmm, yeah. This will be good.”
The three-tiered wave magic of R’lyeh was the top note.
Actually, he had somewhat copied the method of Urshula, whom he had fought before.
She was quite difficult to deal with.
The form of the completed magic was similar to a claymore.
Instead of the explosive power of C4, it used the power of the wave itself, and the scattering fragments were not ball bearings but distortion field beads.
-Pop! Pop! Pop!
-Swaaaaaaa!!!
Herya, who was rushing at full speed.
Hundreds of thousands of vicious red lights poured down on her head with a sharp roar.
An attack of ‘area’ where the entire range within sight was a killing zone blocked Herya’s charge.
“Uryaahhhhh!!!!”
But Herya’s physical charge didn’t stop even in the face of the rain of death.
Rather, she intended to accelerate even more and smash through head-on.
If that guy killed Urshula, it was natural that he would have a hidden trick like this.
In other words.
If she broke through this, Herya would win.
Herya gathered all the lightning around her and made it her own power.
Not a lightning strike that fell from the sky to the ground.
But a ‘reverse lightning’ that went from the ground to the sky.
-Kwajijijijik!
Herya, defying the red rain with destructive power, headed towards Siwoo.
Along with a roar like a machine gun firing at a steel plate, the debris of the shattered beads scattered around Herya.
Each distortion field bead, with the added speed of the opponent, boasted truly destructive power.
But Herya overcame the excruciating pain that felt like her body was breaking with the power of her muscles.
“Is that—— your last—— trickkkkk———!!!”
Finally, Herya, having broken through all the obstacles, approached Siwoo again, face to face.
And then she froze.
Because the bland, handsome face that had been so blank until just now.
His face, which clearly showed that his last resort had been broken through.
Was filled with indifference, not frustration or bewilderment.
“No?”
What awaited Herya, who had broken through head-on, risking death, was a cloud that had turned red like the setting sun.
A ribbon with a magic circle in the shape of a large ‘door.’
In the center, a male witch with gleaming eyes was preparing a full-power throw, like throwing a harpoon.
Herya’s expression, which had been boldly smiling all along, stiffened.
Because she realized it in that short moment.
Something was wrong.
“Here it comes.”
Magic of this magnitude?
In such quick succession?
It was definitely not magic at the 22nd level.
The insurmountable wall that Herya had not been able to overcome.
That frighteningly high wall was suddenly standing right in front of her.
The moment she realized that, Herya braced herself for death and pulled out all her power.
That couldn’t be.
Even if it was, she wouldn’t allow herself to run away in such a pathetic manner.
“Bloom.”
Siwoo threw the spear.
Herya desperately deflected a single red flash.
The shock and pain were like receiving the entire ‘sky’ being shot at her, rather than a spear strike.
-Kiiiiiiing!!!
But she endured with her will, her mental strength, and her power.
The victory or defeat of a struggle ultimately comes down to the mindset.
Those who have the courage to risk their lives will eventually achieve victory.
That was Herya’s philosophy, having survived alone in countless bloody battlefields.
“Uryaahhhhh!!!”
What unfolded before Herya’s eyes, who had barely dodged the red line while bleeding from her eyes and nose, was….
“What the hell….”
Dozens of other red flashes pouring out through the ‘door’ that had appeared on Shin Siwoo’s back.
Herya’s defenseless body was riddled with countless red branches and fell into the sea.
