City ​​of Witches 808

Chapter 808 – #169_Ideal World

#802

1.
No scientist, historian, or military expert could have predicted that World War III would break out in this manner.

Not due to discord caused by reckless territorial expansion or ideological warfare, but by transcendents who had only recently been recorded in human history.

Until now, nations that had maintained friendly relations with Gehenna were generally pro-American, pro-Western, and liberal. Conversely, anti-American, anti-Western, and Second World nations were connected to the Exiles or the Public Enemy.

Therefore, Hexe Nacht’s declaration of revealing the existence of witches to the world and seizing hegemony created a confrontational structure with Gehenna, and the repercussions escalated into a global power struggle.

The world was once again divided into two.
To devour each other’s camps and rise as the new era’s hegemon, they waged a large-scale war for over 20 years, wielding witches and advanced scientific technology.

Many witches died, and even more humans perished.

The conclusion of a war that claimed tens of times more victims than the deadliest war in history would be decided here.

The turning point that would determine the outcome of World War III.

Ironically, the battlefield was near the Midway Atoll, a crucial turning point in the Pacific War.

The camp that seized victory would gain control of the sea, and it was clear that they would have an overwhelming advantage in the wars to follow.

-Wham! Wham!
-Thud! Rumble!

Modern anti-witch weapons and magnetic magic rained down from all directions, and magical reflection lights flickered and disappeared. It resembled a large-scale battle of space battleships in a space opera movie rather than a modern war.

Every few hours, an aircraft carrier group was sunk.
Every few minutes, a squadron of state-of-the-art fighter jets was shot down.
Every few seconds, an entire battalion sank into the cold sea.

The once clear, shimmering surface of the sea was now covered with flames fueled by oil and blood. Even at the horizon, black smoke billowed high into the sky.

In this fierce battlefield, the lives of witches were no more precious than those of soldiers.

Some witches were killed by tactical nuclear weapons mounted on cruise missiles after their magical power was excessively depleted.
Some witches were torn to shreds by magic, unable to even scream before dying.

Nevertheless, the performance of Gehenna’s great witches on the battlefield was unparalleled.

There was a witch who charged into the enemy lines with a single sword and cleaved an enemy aircraft carrier in two.
There was a witch who scattered flower petals over a radius of several kilometers, annihilating enemy witches.
There was a witch who transformed into an angel and broadly defended the allied forces from the barrage of attacks.

However, Hexe Nacht’s side was not much different.

Pilots who had lost their minds due to large-scale haunting drove their fighter jets vertically into their own fleet.
Soldiers engulfed in a terrible curse abandoned their ships and jumped into the sea.
Iron stakes rained down from the sky, piercing through the decks and hulls, sinking several destroyers.

“Ugh…”

A long, ringing sound.
Siwoo, who was slumped on a half-destroyed cruiser, groaned softly and raised his body.

The black armor woven from shadows was dented.
The red branch, which he had not let go of even while briefly unconscious, rolled out of his loosened grip.

“Cough.”

His cough was mixed with thick blood, so he briefly removed his helmet and spat out the blood beside him.

He couldn’t even remember what he had been hit by.
He had reflexively deployed a distortion field to deflect the shockwave, and tried to absorb as much of the remaining impact as possible with his armor…
Judging by the state he was in, it seemed he had barely managed to survive.

“How… did this happen…?”

A headache that felt like his brain was splitting.

Beyond his red-tinged vision, a dot could be seen in the distance.
That dot quickly took on a clear shape.

It was an anti-witch cruise missile developed by Russia.
The tracking missile, equipped with a sensor that detected magical energy sources, was closing the distance in an instant through horizontal flight at several times the speed of sound.

For most witches, the moment they visually identified it, evasive maneuvers would be meaningless.
With such weapons pouring in from all directions during the chaotic battle, even witches could not avoid taking damage.

“Damn it…!”

Siwoo tried to get up in a hurry, but his movements were slow, as if the shock had not worn off.
He hastily tried to intercept it with his ribbon, but even that was too slow.

If he were to be directly hit by a missile that could destroy even a concrete bunker in one shot while in this defenseless state, it would be the end.
At that critical moment.

In the blink of an eye, the cruise missile that had reached the cruiser where Siwoo was lying came to a sudden halt in mid-air.

——Boom!

The missile, which exploded with a deafening roar right in front of him, was enveloped in a transparent barrier with a purplish hue.
The light that made his vision white seemed to burn his retinas.

-Whoosh!

With the sound of wind being sucked in, the explosion within the barrier was extinguished towards the extreme point.

“Odile-nim! Odette-nim!”

Siwoo looked at Odile Geminae and Odette Geminae with a moved expression.
It was none other than the twins who had blocked the missile heading towards Siwoo with a bizarre harmony.

“Assistant! What are you doing! Get a grip!”
“Sister! I’ll look after the Assistant, so cover me!”

The twins, dressed in dresses that did not suit the battlefield, had a dignified air without any trace of youthfulness.
It was as if he were seeing Albireo and Deneb, who were no longer in this world.

They were no longer apprentice witches.
Befitting the honor of a countess, they were the 22nd-ranked ‘Witches of Gemini,’ who had achieved countless war exploits while standing on the side of Gehenna.

While Odette, with her eyes closed, was injecting temporary vitality into Siwoo’s body…

-Rumble!

“Sing!”

Odile detonated tens of thousands of cluster bombs dropped by military aircraft in mid-air.
They had overcome one crisis, but that did not mean that this disastrous moment was completely resolved.

“Haa… Haa…”

Both Odile and Odette were extremely exhausted.
Odile’s side, in particular, was bleeding heavily from a torn forehead, leaving half of her face covered in blood.

“What’s the situation? Is radio communication possible?”
“No, the jamming around us is too strong, both magically and mechanically. But I can roughly tell you the situation.”

Siwoo tried to regain his composure and asked Odile.

What he remembered was that the tactic adopted by the Gehenna camp in this battle was a three-sided encirclement.
And that Hexe Nacht had responded to this with a staggered, piecemeal attack.

“To be honest, it’s not good. The Hexe Nacht bastards are launching a surprise all-out offensive, even mobilizing their reserve forces.”
“Countess Tiferet and Associate Professor Amelia are also fighting hard… but the enemy’s 5th Fleet, which has penetrated the right flank, is attempting a central breakthrough.”
“Assistant, can you fight more?”
“Sister, this is not the time to ask such questions. This is the Maginot Line. We can’t retreat any further.”
“Of course, I will fight.”

Siwoo, who had bravely grasped his spear in response to Odette’s concern, soon felt the strength drain from his body.
Could he really fight?

A heavy silence fell.

If the witches of Gehenna had not stood idly by as Hexe Nacht grew and had engaged in active combat from the beginning of the war.
If they had persuaded more Exiles to join the Gehenna camp.

While he was ruminating on these belated regrets.

-Rumble! Bang!

One of the allied aircraft carriers, hit on the side of its hull, could be seen sinking, engulfed in black flames.

“Ah…”

Defeat.

Along with Odette’s sigh, the two clear words he had tried to ignore flashed through his mind.
Odile, who had vowed to fight to the end even in the most desperate situations, could not hide her despair.

It was not just warships that had sunk.
The number of great witches who would determine the course of the war was also woefully insufficient.

In contrast, the presence of Hexe Nacht’s witches was getting closer and closer.

“I guess this is the end…”

Odile, who had never given up in any desperate situation, sighed as if in resignation.

“If I had known this would happen, I would have abandoned the war and just spent time with the Assistant.”
“That’s right, even if we lost the war, we would have been fine for a while if we had just hidden well in a corner.”

Siwoo forcibly raised his body, which he thought he could no longer move.

A stinging pain pierced his spine.
His body had been reluctant to move, and it seemed that his spine was probably shattered.

“Don’t say things you don’t mean. After all, neither Odile-nim nor Odette-nim are like that.”
“That’s just what I’m saying. Anyway, Assistant, you’ve become too cocky compared to your slave days, haven’t you?”
“That’s right, when we first met, you were tearfully begging us not to do dangerous experiments.”

“When did I ever do that?”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“I did, didn’t I?”

A joke that was completely out of place for the situation.
A small laugh spread among the three of them.

It was probably an optimistic conversation they were forcing themselves to have, thinking it was their last moment.

“If… Llyue were here…”
“Odette, don’t talk nonsense. If it weren’t for Llyue, this war would have been lost a long time ago. We can’t rely on her forever.”

The three of them, who had been continuing their nonsensical conversation, simultaneously felt goosebumps on their skin.

A premonition that could be felt when targeted by long-range magic, like an RWR detecting a lock-on.
Not one or two, but more than a dozen magical barrages were being aimed at the three of them, who had exhausted all their energy.

“Run away! I’ll block them somehow!”
“How can we run away from here?”
“We are the Geminae Countesses.”

-Phew!

Colorful magical cannons and ever-changing magnetic magic, like a meteor shower, filled the sky.
The three of them took a step forward to put up a reckless defense against them.

At that moment.

“Submerge deeply.”

The incantation of someone who should not be heard was heard.
The incantation of an ancient witch who had been feared since ancient times, and who could boast of being the strongest on the sea, the ‘Witch of the Deep Sea’.

Waves that rose hundreds of meters high in several layers blocked the enemy forces’ carpet bombing.
Although white spray rose, the shield of waves did not break.

Rather, with violent force, it swept away the bombardment like a sandcastle and returned to the sea.

Siwoo and the twins looked at the sea with trembling eyes.

“You rebels who trample on my territory with your muddy feet and oppress my friends and my nation.”

Llyue, who had revealed half of her form above the surface of the water, was cutting through the sea in the modified nuclear submarine ‘Akula’.
With her arms crossed at the bow, Llyue, wearing a white naval admiral’s cloak, looked down at the enemy with an arrogant expression.

Having secretly succeeded in an operation to strike the enemy’s rear and annihilate Hexe Nacht’s central fleet, Llyue Nukelavee had joined to support the crumbling right wing of the Gehenna camp.

“If you intend to pay for your sins with your worthless lives, let’s see how many of you will be needed, starting now.”

Her appearance was truly that of a queen of the sea who knew no defeat, a true ruler.