## Chapter 1193 – #281_All-Out War (8)
#1187
1.
Gehenna’s right-wing unit chose the insane tactic of turning the middle of the desert into an ocean.
On the sea, R’lyeh’s power was truly overwhelming.
-Swoooosh!
Dozens of waves, each rising hundreds of meters high.
They swallowed up most attacks whole, and no matter how well-prepared the defenses were, they were crushed by sheer force.
Even the familiar army, specially selected from the main force, was nothing more than a daily meal for the Nuckelavee dynasty’s ministers, who traversed between the tidal waves.
“Run away! Just retreat from the sea and fall back further!”
“Didn’t you see earlier? They’ll just follow us!”
Even if they tried to escape the sea, the enemy’s home ground, it was pointless.
The tidal waves, which seemed to scoop up the sea to the bottom, quickly created another sea.
“Hahaha! I can’t do it! I can’t do it! How am I supposed to fight that!”
One of the dispute mediators from the same corps, who had stepped forward with bravado, burst into absurd laughter and retreated.
Dispute mediators were judges in Hexennacht who executed witches who refused to accept verdicts when bloodshed occurred.
They were combat personnel who had been thoroughly vetted.
However, they were dumbfounded to see their carefully aimed, critical attacks swallowed up by the waves that were casually swung, and then crushed.
It wasn’t just the dispute mediators who launched attacks against R’lyeh.
“Hit and run!”
“Don’t face them head-on, aim for the blind spots!”
“Wait until they’re exhausted!”
The Parfa unit and the El Special Forces, also part of the same corps, tried to wear down R’lyeh through planned hit-and-run tactics.
However, the deep-sea witch, who stood with her arms crossed, looking down at the enemies with aloofness, showed no signs of exhaustion, not even a single drop of sweat.
“Are all 23rd-level beings monsters like that?”
“You do something too! You’re an old witch!”
Criticism poured down on the Time Witch, Ellara Chronos, the commander of the same corps.
After all, she was the one who had established the strategy for the same corps.
“You’re doing well. I won’t tell you to risk your lives, so keep aiming for the gaps. It’s slow because of its wide range, so it’s not like you can’t dodge the attacks, right?”
However, Ellara, who maintained her office look even on the battlefield, didn’t bat an eye at the complaints.
“It’s easy to say that when you’re just pointing out the gaps… Do you know how chilling it is every time we dodge? If we get hit, it’s over!”
“Let’s retreat for now? They’re just playing the role of bait anyway.”
“It’s a flawed plan from the start, misjudging the enemy’s defensive capabilities. Shouldn’t we stop here?”
Ellara retorted at the flood of complaints.
“You old hags are all whining. You idiots! Do you think this is a kindergarten? If even one of you runs away, I’ll find you and put you on Orselia’s dinner table.”
Unlike the same corps camp, which was filled with complaints and dissatisfaction, Gehenna’s side was slowly gaining morale.
It was clear that the same corps, which had a much larger number of troops, was struggling against the strategy prepared by the Emerald Tablet and R’lyeh’s fierce performance.
“Nuckelavee-nim, how about we seize the momentum as it is? The central unit and the left-wing unit are also in difficult battles. If we could clear one front and join the central unit, it would greatly reduce the burden.”
“……”
Luisa Moyerty, a Maygas-level academic from the Emerald Tablet, the ‘Alchemy Witch’ whom Siwoo had once tried to seduce for information theft, cautiously suggested.
It was a proposal to make a decisive move instead of continuing the passive confrontation.
It also meant that they would switch to an aggressive offensive, led by R’lyeh’s ultimate move, ‘Trident’.
“Wait a little longer.”
“But…”
“I said, wait a little longer.”
At first glance, the war situation seemed only advantageous.
The same corps, which had a much larger force, was tied down on the outer front without achieving any significant results, and the various offensives they were attempting were also failing to penetrate the thick waves.
If the enemies tried to wear them down with their clumsy hit-and-run tactics, R’lyeh was confident that she could fight for another three days.
“……”
However, an inexplicable unease made R’lyeh’s eyes turn cold.
In the past, R’lyeh had fought Lydia and lost.
It was because she had been tricked into overspending her power according to the enemy’s intentions.
Since then, she had learned that she should always be cautious when throwing her ultimate move, and in R’lyeh’s view, now was not a good time.
The artifact ‘Sea God’s Spear – Trident’ was a magic that even R’lyeh, whose magic power was comparable to that of a large homunculus, could not easily handle.
If she used the Trident and failed to secure a clear victory, the overall defensive capabilities of the right-wing unit, which relied heavily on R’lyeh, would greatly decrease.
Was her hesitation to make a decision now wisdom gained from the past, or was it an unnecessary caution caused by being trapped in old experiences?
R’lyeh could not easily make a choice.
However, this war was not just R’lyeh’s alone.
No matter how powerful a wide-area magic R’lyeh used, it was impossible for her to handle all the witches on the front lines alone.
The enemy’s attacks continued even outside the radius of the sea, and the witches of the Emerald Tablet were desperately blocking them.
“Kyaaaaak!”
“Liul! You bastards!”
“Don’t back down!”
“Die!”
“I’ll kill you all!”
Screams and deaths were heard from all over the front lines.
The wishes that had been passed down for generations were vanishing in vain.
The safest option was to observe the enemy’s movements and maintain the status quo.
Conversely, if she unleashed her full power right away and repelled the enemy, she could minimize the sacrifice of her allies, but if she failed, she would have to bear a considerable risk.
“……”
This stalemate was the price paid for the lives of the witches who had trusted R’lyeh and stepped onto the front lines just a moment ago.
After much deliberation, R’lyeh moved.
“Submerge deeply.”
The ministers of the Nuckelavee Kingdom, who had been unilaterally massacring the familiar army, gathered in one place.
The great old ruler and conqueror of the deep sea.
A mythical being who had reached the distant awe.
The Sea God opened his eyes at the queen’s call.
——Oooooo!!!!!!
“Annihilate them all.”
The Sea God blinked his blue single eye and answered the queen who offered her loyalty, then twisted his body.
In his hand, made of rough waves, the Sea God’s trident ‘Trident’, which controlled the tides, currents, storms, and earthquakes, shone amidst the breaking foam.
-Kugwagwagwa!!!
As the Trident pointed at one spot, three enemies who had been strongly pressuring the side of the front line hastily retreated.
R’lyeh’s basic magic wave was destructive and huge.
However, the signs of its movement were clear, and it was difficult to take irregular movements.
However, the Trident instantly created waves at the point it designated.
It was an attack that surged from all directions, and its power was also far more powerful.
In an instant, three enemy witches became the prey of the waves and disappeared.
“Hoo…”
Certainly, summoning the Sea God and using the Trident to project firepower had high costs proportional to their power.
Even R’lyeh, who had never experienced a shortage of magic power, could feel a large chunk of her magic power being drained.
Now that it had come to this, a swift resolution was essential.
R’lyeh drew out half of her magic power.
The surge of magic power, reminiscent of the shimmering of deep blue seawater, heavily pressed down on R’lyeh’s surroundings.
“I will sweep them away at once.”
As the tip of the spear pointed towards the center of the enemy’s camp, R’lyeh’s magic power exploded outward.
“Something’s coming!”
“Prepare!”
As expected of enemies who were seasoned in battle, they tried to respond calmly, but resistance was meaningless in the face of the waves filled with the queen’s wrath.
If they blocked, it would break; if they dodged, it would snatch and trample.
The ‘wave’ that was inflicted when the opponent’s defensive and evasive capabilities faltered due to the suddenly changed pattern was certainly enough to sink the enemy.
————!!!!!
“Kkyaaaa!!!”
“My, my… my arm…!”
“Dodge! Dodge it!”
Murky blood spread in the seawater mixed with sand.
Those who were confident in their skills somehow managed to survive, but the witches who were not so fortunate were crushed without a scream, like ants caught in a child’s game.
With just one blow, the same corps’ front line completely collapsed.
It was a destructive power that even the Gehenna witches on the same side could not help but be speechless at.
“Is this enough now?”
Ellara, who was leisurely looking around in the chaotic camp, was suddenly grabbed by the collar.
It was probably one of the enemies who had lost a close colleague or a subordinate.
“You crazy bitch! Shouldn’t you be doing something!”
“I’m about to do it now.”
“If you had done it sooner…”
Ellara coldly pushed away the hand and recited the activation words.
“We are merely observers.”
At that moment.
The sound of a giant clockwork winding echoed across the vast battlefield like the heartbeat of a giant.
As the sound of the clockwork gradually slowed down, the noise of the battlefield stopped all at once.
The footsteps of the witches who were screaming and trying to flee became slow, the water droplets of the broken waves paused, and even the smoke from the explosions maintained their shapes.
The battlefield, which had scattered the dance of life and death on the sand dunes, was as beautiful as a painting.
It was a scene that only the ‘Time Witch’ Ellara Chronos could see.
-Tick tock
Ellara lightly gestured and rewound the string connected to the clockwork.
The battlefield began to move dynamically, like an elegant ballet performance.
A witch who had been swept away by the waves and torn to pieces was reassembled, the familiar army that had collapsed returned to its original position, and the magic that had been surging through the air slowly returned to the tip of the wand along the path it had come from.
Eventually, even the inland sea that had been created by the ‘Reverse Netherlands’ project disappeared as if it had been swallowed by the arid land of the desert.
The stopped noise resumed, and time, which had been flowing against the laws of nature, found its direction again.
“Kyaaaaaaa…. Huh? What is it? I, I should have died…”
“Where did that damn sea go? Where’s the deep-sea witch?”
“Deja vu? Is it deja vu?”
The battlefield, which had been heading towards a chaotic battle, returned to the save point and was reset to the time when the same corps and the right-wing unit first met.
This was Ellara Chronos’s ability, ‘Branch Point’.
The power to return the events of a pre-designated area to a specific point in time.
However, Ellara’s miracle was not fair to everyone.
Ellara intervened at the branch point and left behind conditions that were favorable to her.
“This is…”
R’lyeh intuitively realized that Ellara had reversed the events that had been occurring throughout the eastern front.
It was an instinctive realization that she could feel because she was the only one on this battlefield who was at the same level as Ellara.
However, there were things that did not go back.
First, the memories still remained.
The magic power that had been consumed by summoning the Sea God and using the Trident was not restored.
The inland sea created by the Reverse Project had disappeared as if it had never existed, but only traces of all the prepared alchemical reagents remained.
“This is the last one. Once a branch point is used, it can’t be used again. There are a lot of tricky conditions too.”
“……”
“I found out about the enemy’s ultimate move and made it unusable. I had to revive the Gehenna witches to balance it out, but I also revived your subordinates who were whining that you were dead. The deep-sea witch won’t be as scary as she was before.”
“……”
The witch who had been fiercely protesting to Ellara just a moment ago was speechless at the magic that was performing an absurd miracle.
Magic was certainly great.
But was it really possible for something like this to happen with magic?
“What are you doing? Run.”
“Yes, yes…!”
Ellara sighed deeply and then kicked the butt of the witch who was standing there blankly.
=======
