## Chapter 1198 – #283_Counterattack
#1192
1.
The legacy Lydia left behind.
Las Werphanas, who accepted Siwoo as their godfather in the truest sense.
Twenty-five goddaughters, including the Snow Witch ‘Frau Holle,’ simultaneously donned black armor at their designated positions and appeared all over the battlefield.
Their appearance was a perfect mirror image of Siwoo.
Even their magical energy signatures, which could be considered a witch’s fingerprint, were almost identical. It wasn’t just a superficial resemblance; the armor also served as an exoskeleton, enhancing their physical capabilities.
A closer look would reveal the differences, but in the chaos of battle, it was nearly impossible to distinguish them without prolonged observation.
“Who is the real Shin Siwoo! Find him quickly!”
“He was right in front of us!”
“His, his magical energy signature is almost identical! Damn it!”
Not only could they perfectly mimic another’s magnetic magic, but they could also distort their magical energy signatures. Siwoo, who could handle various magnetic magics, was adept at this, but it was an impossible feat for most witches.
In other words, the armor worn by the goddaughters was not their own power.
It was the effect of ‘First Red Spear: Decoy,’ which Siwoo created himself without any witch’s help. ‘Red Spear: Decoy’ made the distinction between Siwoo and his goddaughters extremely ambiguous.
“Take out the other ones who suddenly appeared first!”
“The enemy is trying to cause confusion! Deal with the small fries first!”
Even though some parts had been chipped away by Siwoo, Hexen Nacht’s front lines remained solid. The goddaughters, suddenly appearing in black armor in the middle of the formation, immediately became easy targets.
Siwoo hated gambling.
When he went to the battlefield, he prepared more thoroughly than anyone else, based on meticulous planning.
“That won’t work.”
Again, the Red Spear among the Seven Colored Spears was made by Siwoo himself.
Siwoo’s forte wasn’t just making armor or forging energy signatures with barrier magic.
-Whoosh
Immediately after appearing in armor, one of the goddaughters, who was in the most dangerous position, and Siwoo switched places, transcending space.
In the slightly curved vision, as if looking through a lens after the spatial jump, Siwoo swung the Red Branch with the overflowing power of Titan.
“Kuaaaak!”
A red crescent moon grazed the waist of an enemy who had carelessly approached.
It wasn’t a fatal wound, but he didn’t bother to look back. Even Lydia’s skills had greatly deteriorated after being cut by the Red Branch, as she struggled to control the distorted energy raging within her.
Most witches were guaranteed to be out of commission the moment they were struck.
“Wh, what? Was that really him?”
“No way…! He was just there…!”
“A clone? Are they all clones?”
“Could they all be real?”
The enemy’s confusion intensified as the armor they thought was fake turned out to be Shin Siwoo.
This was the true function of the Red Spear, ‘Warp Marker,’ and ‘Switching’ using it.
In fact, spatial teleportation was inappropriate for this battlefield.
Although the casting time and cooldown had been greatly reduced compared to before, using it as a movement skill in the chaos where anything could fly around could lead to a ‘spatial jump – an attack that happened to be there – a disaster.’
However, with the aid of the Red Spear and the markers engraved in the goddaughters’ armor, the two could safely switch positions within a certain distance.
This allowed for rapid battlefield entry and exit.
“E, everyone, get out of the way!”
“Damn it! Don’t back down!”
“Get lost! I’m getting out of here!”
There was also an additional effect.
For the enemies who had to face the black armor, any armor was bound to be intimidating.
Until they were hit by someone who clearly demonstrated power above the 23rd level, they wouldn’t know who was real, a terrifying situation.
As everyone slowly retreated from the black armor, the front lines crumbled like a cheese with holes. Gaps appeared in the enemy’s fire net, which, though disorganized, had been dense.
Hexen Nacht was not easy to deal with.
In less than a minute, messages spread everywhere.
[It’s a switch! There’s only one real one! Spatial distortions are observed every time the fake and real positions change!]
[Leave the real one to the elite units, and surround and exhaust the fakes as much as possible! Don’t run away like cowards!]
[There are only about twenty of them!]
“That one is the real one!”
“He can’t keep switching! There’s an interval! There’s probably a limit to the number of times he can do it!”
Hexen Nacht was not a disorganized rabble.
They responded calmly and competently to the unexpected situation.
Preparation was preparation, strength was strength, but the speed at which they derived answers from experience was very fast.
-Whoosh!
Soon, a wide killing zone unfolded before Siwoo’s eyes.
It was an attack from much stronger enemies who had penetrated deep into the center of the enemy lines, risking friendly fire.
The enemy was now trying to identify and suppress Siwoo.
And as seen in his position board play style, Siwoo’s philosophy of victory had always been one.
Victory is not achieved by doing what you want to do.
It is a byproduct that naturally follows when you prevent the opponent from doing what they want to do.
“Seventh Violet Spear: Black and White Twin Birds”
Violet sparks spread across the surface of Titan, engulfing his entire body.
His body, which had become faintly translucent, became more transparent, completely disappearing into the surrounding scenery, and the violet sparks that had been crackling also vanished along with Titan’s form.
“He disappeared…?”
“Is it another strange spatial teleportation?”
“What are the observers doing! Find him quickly!”
No.
Siwoo was still there, in the same spot as before.
He had simply become unobservable.
The seventh spear among the Seven Colored Spears, ‘Black and White Twin Birds,’ was a spear created with the cooperation of his two mothers-in-law and Rinne.
As you can see, it was a collaboration that combined the characteristics of the Twins’ ‘Music Box,’ which Siwoo used to favor, with the stealth movement magic that Rinne possessed.
It was the ultimate in stealth, not only invisible to the naked eye like state-of-the-art optical camouflage, but also thoroughly concealing his presence, aura, and magical field. It even cleverly deceived detection magic that extended like radar, preventing magical lock-ons that identified targets and induced attacks.
-Wham!
“Cough!”
Therefore, Siwoo’s hit-and-run tactics, where he suddenly appeared, landed an attack, and disappeared again, were like jump scares for the enemy, appearing and disappearing unexpectedly.
It was an unreasonable doorbell prank that was difficult to counter, let alone retaliate against.
Now, let’s think about this.
A total of 26 armors appeared all over the battlefield.
A deadly shell game where the fake and the real switched in the blink of an eye.
The real Shin Siwoo could erase his presence from the chaotic battlefield at any time, and each time he reappeared and disappeared, he reliably incapacitated at least one enemy.
Even the fakes were not easy to deal with.
Wasn’t Las Werphanas itself a hidden dagger carefully prepared by Lydia Magnus?
If they realized that fact, they would naturally mutter these words.
“How… how do we fight that?”
The Hexen Nacht front lines, which had been trying to slowly crush Gehenna with force, were now in utter chaos and disarray.
It was a very satisfying result for Siwoo.
The more disorganized the environment, the more room Siwoo had to run wild.
“First, kill Shin Siwoo.”
“Don’t scatter, stick together as much as possible! Use familiars as shields!”
“The opportunity is when he reappears. As long as we don’t get taken out one by one, the side with more numbers will eventually have the advantage.”
“He’s not an ordinary 23rd level! Treat the Demon King Shin Siwoo as a potential 24th level and respond accordingly!”
Hexen Nacht made a decision.
All units of the Southern Army, which had been moving south to respond to Shin Siwoo, were halted.
The witches scattered across the battlefield planted their feet on the ground and formed defensive formations.
In a large-scale battle, chasing down a routed enemy to expand the gains was a basic principle.
It was not the time to stop the advance when they were having so much fun.
Hexen Nacht was forced to make an unavoidable choice.
As a result, Siwoo and a few goddaughters had managed to stop a large army of this size.
This was clearly visible from the Gehenna side as well.
As soon as Hexen Nacht’s pursuit faltered, Gehenna transported the incapacitated personnel to the rear and quickly reorganized.
Even so, they couldn’t hide their bewilderment.
“How is it even possible?”
“Just one person has changed the tide of the war this much….”
The ‘Demon God’ project promoted by the Hessed Society was widely known.
However, there were also skeptical views about its effectiveness.
The tangible and intangible assets invested in the ‘Demon God’ project, and the cost of the Great Witch’s remains, when converted into dollars, amounted to trillions.
It was an astronomical sum that could easily save a country.
What about the Seven Colored Spears he wielded?
The Seven Colored Spears had the appearance of spears, but they were actually closer to ‘scrolls.’
Dozens of people would stick to a special magic paper thinner than a strand of hair, writing delicate magic formulas, grinding in all sorts of artifacts and offerings, and then attaching an independent source of magic power, rolling it all up….
It was a ‘monster’ that went beyond the usual standards of artifacts and relics.
The difficulty of operation was also bound to be extreme.
So, while they could nod their heads at Titan, giving the Seven Colored Spears to Shin Siwoo alone seemed excessive.
No matter how great he was, there were doubts about whether he could fully utilize the Seven Colored Spears, which were equipped with magnetic magics of completely different natures.
“Does he have a switch in his brain or something?”
“I heard that it’s not easy for an ordinary witch to handle even one….”
“This is not the time to talk nonsense! Now is the time for a counterattack!”
But Siwoo, as he had always done, resolved many doubts with proof.
First of all, Siwoo’s movements became difficult due to Hexen Nacht’s response of stopping their advance and eliminating Shin Siwoo first.
Until now, he had been having fun moving between gaps, but now that the enemy had planted their feet and was acting defensively like a phalanx formation, the gaps to squeeze through had decreased.
“There are no gaps.”
He couldn’t help but praise them, even though they were the enemy.
It was a fitting response for what could only be described as combat machines.
Nevertheless, Siwoo smiled.
He needed them to be this competent for the next move.
Siwoo took out the third spear.
A tightly packed formation had been praised as the best tactic from ancient times to the late Middle Ages.
So why did dense formations disappear from the history of warfare?
“Keep sticking together.”
The name given to the third Yellow Spear was Steel Rain.
It was a guidance device for requesting powerful precision bombing.
