Chapter 398 – #85_Ballroom(5)
#396
1.
What is a witch?
It is one who has chosen the path of magic to achieve the great work of creation.
A chosen being who transcends the mundane and deserves sacred praise.
Their flesh is untouched by the ravages of time,
and the movement of their lips twists even the order of cause and effect.
Those special individuals who bear their own duties are granted special rights befitting them.
Just as one does not apply human moral standards to beasts, nor vice versa.
To apply mundane standards to a witch is an impiety that goes beyond absurdity.
A witch who breaks free from shackles and advances into the mystical needs to be ‘different’ from ordinary humans.
In that sense, Shin Siwoo.
The first male witch in history.
What is he like?
From head to toe, he is utterly mundane.
The fact that he is being played by such a petty hostage situation, using humans as pawns, is proof of his vulgarity.
Surely, the life of a witch burdened with a long-cherished wish is far more precious than that of a mere human.
It was predictable that he would walk into a death trap for a friend who was as good as dead,
and thus, I felt a sense of disappointment.
Then, what about now?
Disregarding even his own life.
A strike that cuts through the storm of the distortion field, which seems to be capable of taking his life at any moment.
Is the resolve contained in this blade,
even the spirit that tore a gash an inch deep into her cheek, scattering Bianca’s blood,
merely mundane?
A wavering vision, like looking at the surface of the water under a downpour.
The sword, swung while overcoming extreme dizziness, ultimately failed to take Bianca’s life.
“Haa… haa…. Ugh….”
After vomiting uncontrollably, I raised my head and saw Bianca looking at the blood on her hand.
The blade, which had narrowly missed, had deeply gouged her cheek.
She had inflicted a wound on a witch of the 22nd tier.
It could be seen as a success of an impromptu tactic and an unbelievable feat.
But Siwoo could not smile.
The fact that she was standing unharmed meant that the gamble had failed.
He should have ended her life here.
Using the Red Branch’s rampage to induce a temporary functional stop, and then launching a surprise attack through it was Siwoo’s trump card.
If the wavering blade had grazed her neck instead of her cheek, the outcome of this battle would have been reversed.
Bianca, who seemed like she would fly into a rage, shouting, ‘How dare a mere male witch!’ looked at Siwoo with a terrifying calmness.
And then, she looks at Siwoo with pure eyes, devoid of any malice or hostility.
“You’re amazing.”
It’s her bad habit to engage in conversation during a fight.
It was giving Siwoo time to catch his breath.
He immediately checked his consumption.
Two clovers had withered and disappeared.
This left him with only one spare life.
His cloak was almost in tatters.
He could feel that the protective performance that had been reliably protecting his body had dropped below 20%.
But even with all the bad news combined, it was not as bad as Siwoo’s physical condition.
Due to the excessive magical power enhancement, his joints felt like they were melting.
Less than 50% of the magic circuits, which had been torn to shreds by the distortion field and the red barrier, were available.
The excruciating pain that was wracking his entire body warned him that if he pushed himself any further, he might reach a point of no return.
“…Ugh!”
He barely swallowed the blood that was rising up.
“I’ll acknowledge you as my enemy.”
On the other hand, Bianca’s injury was just a small scratch.
The Vitege’s shield, the City of Stars, and the Eye of Ideology, which had temporarily lost control due to being caught in the distortion field, all quickly regained their functions.
In other words, the opponent’s consumption was 0.
He was on the verge of bankruptcy.
No matter how much he racked his brain, the outcome was clear.
But he must not give up.
The fight was not over yet.
Even if there was a desperate gap, even in a pessimistic situation where he couldn’t do anything, he had to struggle to the end.
Respect for the life he had lived so far.
A requiem for his friend who had kept his loyalty even in pain.
The will to return to the side of his lover who gave him unwavering trust.
A leap toward the future.
-Flap!
Bianca disappeared.
No.
She had only flown up into the night sky while Siwoo had briefly lifted his heavy eyelids.
He barely raised his head and looked at Bianca.
The relaxed smile on her lips, which had been present during the playful fight, had disappeared.
Her serious gaze, as if facing a worthy opponent, replaced it.
In the dark sky where the moon had not risen, pure white wings rose like a faint crescent moon.
The white feathers fluttering like an angel’s wings were the fourth artifact recorded in the official records.
‘Icarus’s Wings’.
When fully spread, the huge wings, which span dozens of meters, do not know how to fall, unlike the myth from which their name originated.
The maximum speed is Mach 30.
The wings, which have thrown off the shackles of gravity, inertia, and all sorts of physical laws, can maintain supersonic speed and perform all sorts of evasive maneuvers and aerobatics.
Simply flying can evade most magic.
“I’ll pay my respects to you. I didn’t think I’d have to take this out.”
Bianca, who had secured enough distance, pulled out a huge bow against the backdrop of the pitch-black night sky.
Unlike other artifacts, it was ‘Bellili’s’ artifact from the beginning, and also the most powerful weapon.
‘The Bow of Archart’.
However, no detailed explanation of this was recorded.
There was only a vague description that it was ‘a bow that shoots the sky’.
There were two possible reasons for this.
Either it had not been used that much, or all the enemies who had seen it used in detail were all dead.
-Kiiik
At first, he thought it was just an annoying vibration.
Or he attributed it to the fact that his tinnitus had not fully recovered.
-Kiiiik
But as her fingertips slowly pulled the bowstring, Siwoo could see it.
The sky he looked up at was warping.
The sky was being rolled up.
It was a strange explanation, but there was no other way to explain it.
Like grabbing the center of a flat handkerchief and making a rose shape.
The stars that had been twinkling and the light flowing from those stars were also being condensed toward the extreme point.
The air, forcibly torn apart, screamed as if it was being ripped.
-Kiiiiiiik!!!
Siwoo understood.
The bow that shoots the sky, which was described in the records.
It was not some vague metaphor that Siwoo had thought of.
It was a very intuitive explanation that it folded the sky itself and used it as an arrow.
-Kiiiiiiiiik!!!!
Bianca thought.
His current condition was nothing short of a wreck.
Nevertheless, Bianca gave up on capturing Siwoo alive.
The Eye of Ideology, which had been watching his struggles, was telling her.
That if she tried to capture him with a half-hearted approach, he would surely reveal his sharp fangs.
That there was something beyond ordinary mundanity in that utterly mundane man.
What Bianca had to do was to pay her respects to her worthy opponent and face him with her best move.
“……”
Siwoo thought.
What should he do?
There was no time to think for long.
Arrange the ribbons in a ring tunnel shape, then create a force field and deflect the arrow’s trajectory.
“That’s not enough.”
Weave a shield to cover his entire body, crouch down, and use the remaining cloak’s protection and the clover as a last resort.
“That’s not enough either.”
It was impossible.
The heavy tremor of magical power that seemed to engulf the world was proof.
That arrow woven from the night sky was not something that could be blocked with just that.
What caught Siwoo’s eye was the Red Branch, which had finished its rampage and was gleaming with a sinister red light.
It was not completely calmed yet.
The Red Branch, which had been emitting a distortion field in all directions, was merely taking a brief pause while concentrating its power.
He could not control it with the control-type ribbons he had used so far.
He quickly took off his cloak, wrapped it around his right arm, which was far from his heart, and grabbed the Red Branch.
“——-!!!!!!”
Siwoo gritted his teeth at the excruciating pain that felt like his arm was burning.
Even though the cloak’s protection had filtered out the primary shockwave, the flood of the distortion field did not stop.
The intense shock of the distortion, which was stirring his body as if it were its own and trying to break it down at will.
He could not control it.
His muscles were boiling. His bones were bending. His blood was flowing backward through his veins. His heart was beating out of rhythm. His lungs were shrinking. His internal organs were twisting. Sparks beyond noise were erupting in his magic circuits.
He might just be feeling it because of the intense pain, or maybe those things were really happening.
The more he tried to control it, the more he tried to block it.
The fierce resistance seemed to be twisting his body from the inside.
“Hoo….”
The days of Latifundium when he was a rookie without a brand.
Siwoo had accepted seven types of magic fluids into his body to catch the shadow cat.
Like back then.
He did not resist, but guided it.
He used his body as a single passage.
He didn’t know what would happen if he let this much distortion field run rampant inside his body.
If he was going to die anyway.
He would burn his body to give them a blow.
The Red Branch was recklessly stirring and thrashing around the body of its owner, who had presumptuously tried to control it.
“Good, good, that’s it….”
He guided it, guided it, and rotated it in his body.
He provided the less important parts of his body as a playground, avoiding fatal interference with his major organs.
When he came to his senses, he was slumped down, leaning his back against a broken steel structure.
In an instant, the sensation in his lower body disappeared from his legs.
Siwoo gathered his last bit of magic and wove it into the shape of a ribbon.
A control type for ‘rampage’, not a shape for ‘control’.
To throw this, he needed more than just shoulder strength.
He wove a total of 12 ribbons around the surrounding steel structures in a spiral.
Using the steel frame of the ship as a bow and the Red Branch as an arrow, he pulled the ribbon like a bowstring.
The shape was like a black flower with a red stamen.
-Kuuuung!
The tremendous tension created by the ribbon and the collapsing steel frame.
He contained, contained, and contained the distortion field and the red barrier that were going even more berserk inside his body.
When he came to his senses, the clover was already gone.
-Kiiiiik!
The night sky, which had completely taken the form of a bow, had finished its preparations for launch.
The Bow of Archart, drawn to its limit.
The strongest artifact that Bianca had used and never failed to deliver a fatal blow.
“Shoot.”
Bianca Bellili muttered an incantation as she looked at the black flower that had bloomed toward the sky.
“Bloom.”
Shin Siwoo unleashed the wildly rampaging Red Branch as he looked at the pouring night sky.
The light of the night sky disappeared.
The sea broke apart as if sobbing.
In the collapsing world, there existed a single black straight line and.
A red flash intersecting it.
