Chapter 1082 – #257_The Libra Witch (4)
#1076
1.
There was something that had seemed strange for a long time.
It was the sight of two athletes warmly embracing after a match in various competitive sports.
The world calls it sportsmanship, says it’s admirable, but if you think about it, isn’t it quite odd?
They beat each other mercilessly, drawing blood, yet they act so friendly without any animosity.
It’s quite a bizarre sight.
But now, fighting for their lives.
Now, in a precarious battle where he and his subordinate, whose entire body’s blood vessels feel like they’re about to burst, could take each other’s lives by a hair’s breadth.
He understands that feeling.
He understands the inexplicable goodwill that Urshula, the Witch of the Reverse, showed Siwoo at the end of their fierce battle that day, when they first met.
Lydia’s magic is beautiful.
The golden particles that create the flames of hell sometimes bloom like flowers, sometimes spin like pinwheels, and sometimes become swords, shields, and spears, blocking Siwoo’s path.
The meticulous control of magical power that any witch would dream of.
The stubbornness and self-righteousness newly established upon the laws of the world.
Looking at the mysterious principles that shatter and appear like a kaleidoscope, he is filled with awe, forgetting that Lydia is his enemy.
How foolish is this?
The folly of trying to catch up with the divine achievement with the body of a mere creation.
Yet, Lydia has finally bloomed such a beautiful kaleidoscope.
It must be a great magic, a high level, a transcendent wonder and miracle achieved through much effort and sacrifice, overcoming frustration and adversity.
“Ah, really… it’s beautiful.”
Lydia was also looking at Siwoo with a rapturous expression.
One of Lydia’s main techniques, ‘Dance of Extinguishing Flames,’ which weaves the flames of annihilation created by spending gold like water into a specific form.
Any witch who relies on symbolic systems would easily become prey, and even if not, they would be swallowed by the flames of hell that strongly erode all value upon contact.
But Shin Siwoo is coming.
Breaking through the barriers, sparking flames, he steadily approaches Lydia.
“O———!!!!!!!!”
Shin Siwoo roars loudly, piercing through the noise of the battlefield filled with booming sounds.
It’s not just an act to look cool or strong.
Lydia accurately grasped Siwoo’s condition.
The blood flowing from between the gauntlets gripping the spear shaft.
The intermittent sprays of blood that spurt from his helmet each time he breathes roughly.
The scorching magic circuits due to the abnormal magic discharge.
He must want to rest.
He must want to stop.
Both his body and mind, pushed to their limits, must be urging Shin Siwoo to give up.
They must be saying, “Stop now, you’ve done enough.”
They must be offering countless compromises and middle grounds.
But Shin Siwoo doesn’t stop.
Rather, even more fiercely.
He shows a fighting spirit that chills Lydia’s spine, without the slightest hesitation.
His body was collapsing amidst the light of magical power shining like a comet.
And that’s why he’s as beautiful as an unattainable celestial star.
Then.
-Woooong!
The angel’s halo begins to rotate.
Shin Siwoo’s halo is beyond a simple band shape like Dorothy’s.
Three rings with one concentric circle as an axis rotate like precise clockwork.
As the layered gears ensure stability, Shin Siwoo’s power is amplified.
Something is coming.
Small, red beads like pomegranate seeds appear around him.
A magic that fires beads of condensed distortion fields like a shotgun.
At the same time, behind his back, a ribbon draws a large circle, creating a ‘door’.
He limits the enemy’s movements with wide-range bombardment.
Then, applying dimensional magic, he multiplies and sends countless red-branch spears.
It’s a recreation of the barrage that caught Herya.
-Clink
Lydia took out a ‘special gold coin’.
Originally, these special gold coins are one of Lydia’s main tactics to prevent instant death.
She limits the opponent’s choices through various magics and puts psychological pressure on them.
When an opponent, unable to withstand the mind games, makes a desperate move, she uses this special coin to take the opponent’s attack ‘with her body’.
If she can just prevent instant death, recovery is not difficult.
She just needs to place an amount of gold equivalent to the scales of the Golden Garden.
In other words, from the opponent’s perspective, they are pouring all their final bets into Lydia’s bluff.
It’s an absurd trap, but the possibility of it being used in this battle was remote.
It’s because of the red branch he possesses.
It’s unknown whether she can revive in front of the cursed artifact that emits a distortion field that breaks down the concept itself.
Therefore, Lydia took the initiative to intercept.
“Overflowing gold is my origin…”
She flicks one of the four remaining special gold coins and drops it at her feet.
“Murus.”
As Lydia spreads her arms as if commanding, a huge wall of fire rises.
It looks like a golden fortress.
Its origin is the hungry wall that embodies the size of the desires and greed that humanity has held.
An inviolable area is declared.
The vast golden flames swallowed the red beads that scattered with a booming sound.
-Kugugugugugung!
The fortress doesn’t budge.
Even the booming sounds and impacts that should have scattered outwards only result in a subtle vibration.
“————!!!!!”
A desperate cry from a human who has become desperate.
A primitive scream closer to the origin before it becomes language.
In stark contrast, the laws engraved under strict and precise rules shine at the tip of the spear.
It induces the runaway of the distortion field.
It controls the runaway red branch.
It distorts the phenomenon of ‘one spear strike’.
The method of distortion is the superposition of dimensions.
If the superimposed spear strike is temporarily manifested as a ‘door’ by overlapping dimensions, a barrage of spears like a simultaneous bombardment can be realized.
-Kugugugugugung!!!
The inviolable fortress is shaken entirely.
The magic that was unfolded by taking the life of a great witch as a whole is being distorted.
Every time the golden wall and the spear met, inexplicable phenomena occurred to both of them.
Discordant sounds like someone banging on a poorly tuned piano or the laughter of people gathered in a square echoed instead of booming sounds.
Flames that had nothing to do with the two people’s magic bloomed, drawing strange shapes, or failed magic circles of unknown origin flickered in the air and disappeared.
The space rippled like water or undulated very slowly, as if it had reached the event horizon.
It was a ‘mystery’ that could not be explained by theory, caused by the collision of concepts that were too strong.
It was a randomization of space, an unobserved zone for both humans and witches.
-Bang!
Shin Siwoo crossed that unknown territory.
In the moment when one of the walls that had firmly withstood the spear barrage faltered, he pierced through Lydia’s wall with an explosive leap.
His armor was already terribly crumpled, and he was bleeding more blood than sweat, but the unstoppable fighting spirit and vigor, transformed into blue magic power, made Siwoo’s figure look even more like a comet.
However.
“Got you.”
That was Lydia’s aim.
Shin Siwoo attempted to break through the part that Lydia had intentionally set weakly.
Like siege weapons waiting for soldiers who have broken through the first gate, a stake is spinning and aiming at Siwoo.
His movements, which were hard to follow with the naked eye, had slowed down significantly due to the aftermath of the forced breakthrough.
The trajectory that had been leaping across space and running rampant is now a clear and simple straight line.
However.
“Not yet.”
That was what Shin Siwoo had in mind.
He couldn’t have forgotten the existence of the short spear that had exuded such a presence.
He had predicted that he would be in the line of fire of the stake the moment he crossed this wall.
That’s why he unfolds the magic formula he had calculated in advance.
-Whiriririk!
The ribbons that unfurled in front of Siwoo draw a circle.
This is a small-scale dimensional ‘door’.
It’s the ultimate defense that goes beyond the level of deflecting the enemy’s attack with space distortion, and banishes the enemy’s attack itself out of the dimension.
A total of 72 layers.
The offense and defense changed in an instant.
Lydia shot the short spear at the space that looked distorted as if multiple layers of lenses had been added.
Shin Siwoo crouched down, ready to jump out as soon as he blocked the attack.
The short spear flew, and joy and sorrow crossed paths.
“Oh dear, you should have dodged that.”
Lydia smiled.
Shin Siwoo was shocked.
The golden stake naturally crosses the space as if the 72 shields he had built with all his might did not exist.
There is no sound.
There is no resistance.
In the deadly silence, it just flies towards Siwoo’s heart.
This is Lydia’s only artifact, ‘Mistilteinn’.
A branch of mistletoe that killed even a god who had gained immortality by receiving the love of all things.
A cursed short spear that ignores all actions and reactions, the laws of matter and non-matter, and pierces and kills the target in response to Lydia’s will.
Siwoo, who was standing with his feet on the ground to use magic, had no way to avoid it right away.
But if it’s the red branch with the same level, it should be able to stop it.
Immediately, Siwoo poured the remaining magic power into the branch and thrust the spear with all his might.
-Kiiing!
The moment the blunt end of the short spear and the willow leaf-like tip of the red branch collided in the air.
-Charrrrrk!
The second plan that Lydia had arranged is activated.
The invisible chain that was wrapped around Mistilteinn binds the red branch.
Siwoo, who had pushed the stake away with all his might at the chilling sensation and then checked the red branch, swallowed a groan.
“Oh dear, oh dear, didn’t I give you a warning? To dodge.”
“…….”
The red branch broke.
To be more precise, it ‘died’.
The heinous artifact, made of a substance that did not exist in the world, that had swallowed dozens of witches and tens of thousands of humans, and sometimes even threatened its owner’s life, lost its red light for the first time.
“Whew. That was tough.”
Shin Siwoo is definitely strong, but what made him truly frightening and difficult was that EX-class artifact.
Shin Siwoo himself seems to handle a considerable level of distortion field, but it seems that it would be difficult to exert his true power without the artifact.
That’s why she forcibly held his feet and aimed to crush the artifact with Mistilteinn, which ‘kills everything’ from concepts to ideas.
The result was a jackpot.
The remains of the red branch, which had turned into crumbly, decayed soil, scattered and disappeared in the currents of magic power.
“What are you going to do now?”
In front of Lydia, who was elated, Siwoo replied with a voice full of phlegm.
“I have to fight.”
“You’re so stubborn… How about we stop here? My offer is still valid. We were good once, weren’t we? Have you forgotten who saved you when you were about to die?”
It was hard to understand.
What more could he do in that messed-up body, having even lost his artifact?
His eyes, which still believe that the path to victory is open, seem strange.
His unyielding heart is also incomprehensible.
“What are you expecting? You have no chance of winning.”
In front of Lydia, who was sighing deeply at the foolishness of ruining his own life, Shin Siwoo prepared for the ‘next’.
“So what.”
Why won’t he give up?
It’s a stupid question.
“It was my daily life.”
He places his hand on the lotus that has devoured countless lives.
