Chapter 574 – #118_Betrayal(3)
#574
1.
A life-or-death gamble, a failure.
Caught in the aftermath of the spear throw, Siwoo was slammed into a large crater.
His consciousness, which had drifted far away, returned.
A blurry vision, a hazy pressure, and the sticky, metallic smell filling his mouth from the impact.
The sharp pain that stabbed his side a half-beat later paradoxically told him that the battle was not over yet.
“Cough…! Ugh….”
He had failed in his gamble, but it seemed he had gotten a consolation prize.
He turned his head to the side, spat out blood-filled saliva, and checked the wound.
The moment the spear was about to pierce his abdomen, he had twisted his body with all his might, avoiding a direct hit.
In addition, he had used all his magic power through elemental formulas to increase the armor’s defense.
It was an instinctive, last-minute improvisation that he would never be able to do twice, which allowed him to deflect the Red Branch.
And yet, he was in this state.
Caught in the compressed distortion field and shockwave, the black armor, which had gained momentary hardness to deflect even anti-tank guns, was shattered to pieces.
The feedback that occurred as the formula broke gave him a burning sensation as if his brand was on fire.
The magic circuit in his side, which had directly contacted the distortion field, had necrosed.
Blood was gushing out of the sharp, roughly torn wound without stopping.
The wound was deep.
He roughly tied it with a ribbon, temporarily stopping the bleeding and his intestines from spilling out.
Unlike the previous ‘trials,’ the vivid pain was not reduced at all.
It must be because adrenaline and endorphins were being released in his brain.
In the midst of an inappropriate calmness, he had an absurd thought like, ‘What should I have for dinner tonight?’
“Ugh….”
He intentionally stopped his consciousness from wandering.
He barely managed to lift his heavy body, like a wet cotton ball, and his cold head analyzed the current situation.
The important thing was the enumeration of phenomena.
And the definition of their cause and effect.
Phenomenon one.
The spear that was now stuck diagonally next to him was none other than the Red Branch that Siwoo had originally wielded.
In other words, the Black Knight had retrieved his own spear that he had used for the throw.
Cause one.
The phenomenon that occurred during the last trial was not a bug.
He had the ability to retrieve the rampaging Red Branch through some method.
Phenomenon two.
Siwoo’s body was now a wreck.
He didn’t even know how long he had been unconscious and defenseless.
He could have been killed with a simple spell, not a spear throw, but the Black Knight did not do so.
Cause two.
Because he couldn’t.
The distortion field released the moment the Red Branch collided with the ground with Siwoo had destroyed all the magic formulas at once.
The magic formulas that the Black Knight had deployed to alter the trial were not stable in themselves.
It was a precise and vast calculation operation that required flexible responses to each and every change, like performing heart surgery without administering a cardiac arrest agent.
“……”
He looked up.
He focused his gaze, which was about to blur with the slightest carelessness.
The Black Knight holding the Red Branch.
As expected, he was just standing still, as if something was broken, looking down at Siwoo.
He wanted to rush at him or do something right away, but his body wouldn’t listen.
He had already lost sensation in his extremities, and frankly, just standing was his limit.
If he sat down again to rest, he probably wouldn’t be able to get up.
A vague certainty scared him, so he melted away the accumulated damage in his body while standing.
About 30 seconds.
Just when he was starting to be able to wiggle his cold fingertips.
-Thump!
Very ominous news reached Siwoo.
The magic formulas that had been changing every moment as if they were alive.
The magic formulas that the Black Knight had been using to control the ‘trial’ had stabilized.
While Siwoo was recovering from the damage, they had optimized and entered a stable state.
Considering that it would take at least a few days to stabilize such a large-scale magic, the calculation speed was absurd.
This meant that the penalty that had been pressuring the Black Knight had completely disappeared.
“Bloom.”
He pulled out the Red Branch and recovered his magic power, which had been dwindling due to repeated amplification.
He reconstructed his armor and flew powerfully towards the Black Knight.
It was still worth a try.
Although he also had an injury to his waist, the Black Knight had also broken one of his arms while taking a gamble.
The advantage in close combat, which had been slightly tilted, had now widened significantly.
Knowing this, the Black Knight chose to flee instead of intercepting from his position.
While chasing him, cutting through the wind, he delved into the questions that had repeatedly come to mind.
The question was how the Black Knight had retrieved the rampaging Red Branch.
Of course, among Siwoo’s magic, there was a magic called coordinate movement.
It was a magic formula created by extracting parts from the space movement formula that he had originally been completing for the purpose of escaping Gehenna.
However, it was nearly impossible to retrieve the rampaging Red Branch with coordinate movement.
Hadn’t he already gone through the calculations and simulations several times outside of the trial?
No matter how much the Black Knight had an exceptional calculation ability, the conclusion remained the same.
That meant there was something he was overlooking.
It meant that there was a way to use the Red Branch that the Black Knight knew but Siwoo didn’t.
In the moment of life and death, his thoughts stretched out like an old film.
Suddenly, a quite old remark from Count Yesod came to mind.
‘This… It has already gone beyond the category of what should be classified as an artifact or a relic. It’s amazing.’
‘Ordinary relics are ultimately just tools. But this one is a bit different. It’s trying to contaminate its surroundings in different ways without any separate commands. I would believe it if you told me it was a witch who had been cursed and turned into a spear.’
As she said, the Red Branch was different from ordinary relics or artifacts that passively carried out commands and processes.
It had swallowed the souls of countless people.
It had even bloomed the ‘lotus’ that would fulfill the wishes of the Cowardly Witch.
It had almost killed his teacher, who was said to be one of the strongest witches, except for Keter.
Until now, Siwoo had only used it to control, compress, and rampage the distortion field and the red barrier.
But surely there were other functions as well?
In the first place, the characteristic of the Red Branch was ‘distortion.’
But the simple act of interfering with magic was only a fragment of it.
Its essence was the distortion of reality and phenomena.
The Cowardly Witch had tried to distort ‘life and death,’ and the Red Knight had distorted space to expand the narrow rainwater tunnel to the size of a playground, separating Siwoo and Eloa.
Compared to such complex tasks, the function of ‘returning the launched spear to its state before being fired’ might be too easy.
If so.
Siwoo looked at the spear tip shining towards him.
The Black Knight, who had already created enough distance and bloomed a black flower to intercept the annoying pursuer.
The Black Knight was more skilled in coordinate movement than Siwoo, and therefore, his mobility was also superior.
In the first place, once he had given the distance, it was nearly impossible for Siwoo to chase the Black Knight.
The fact that he had never won against the Black Knight after avoiding the spear throw was in the same context.
Also, now that he had been injured in the abdomen, the same agile evasion as before was no longer possible.
Now that he couldn’t take a 50/50 gamble, the only remaining option was a head-on breakthrough.
The distortion field began to rampage on the Red Branch.
The countdown was rapidly decreasing.
The end of the battle was approaching.
Magic was a precise science.
Siwoo knew how precisely all kinds of magic, which at first glance seemed like miracles, stood on the bedrock of calculations.
He knew how much trial and error was needed for stable magic.
Therefore, this was just another gamble.
An impromptu performance of magic.
Which would come first, the new magic he had come up with on the spot, or would his heart be pierced by the Red Branch this time?
Siwoo closed his eyes.
He reviewed and examined all the characteristics, possibilities, and limitations of the Red Branch that he had looked at countless times.
The vast amount of paper that Siwoo had scribbled on until now flashed before his eyes.
He had to remember.
He had to think.
He had to overcome his limits.
Coordinate movement, dimension movement, the Maiden’s Loom, elemental enhancement, the law of shadows, the contract of the King of All Diseases, reverse field magic, the wave of the demonic sea, singing magic, and the distortion of the Red Branch.
He had many cards.
The point was which of these would create the highest hand.
A splitting headache, as if his head was about to break, stirred his head in his overclocked, accelerating thoughts.
“Ah.”
A shallow sigh escaped his lips, and his eyes opened.
He had barely found it.
The trump card to turn the tide of a battle that was close to defeat.
However, what he lacked was time and certainty.
Would he be able to draw the magic before the fleeting inspiration evaporated?
Even if he drew it without mistakes, would it work properly?
Even if it worked properly, would the expected phenomenon occur?
Everything was unknown.
A golden fractal appeared behind Siwoo’s back.
Its purpose was summoning.
The target he was trying to summon was the Red Branch stored in the research lab of the Gemini Mansion in Gehenna.
It was a place he had visited many times, a space where he had once lived, so he clearly remembered its coordinates.
“Bloom!”
Even so, this was a magic that was close to impossible.
Siwoo, who had only used coordinate movement until now, was suddenly trying to use the dimension movement formula that he had stopped researching, and summon the tricky relic called the Red Branch into the trial space.
But here, the Red Branch already existed.
Although it was only an imitation drawn by the Cradle of Dreams, there was a spear that could exert ‘distortion.’
He used it as a medium to fill in the gaps in the incomplete formula.
The imperfect, awkward magic formula demanded an enormous amount of magic power and immediate feedback as a price.
Just in terms of the sense of crisis, it felt like being hung on a motorcycle speeding madly on a rough road.
It made him realize once again that this was a crazy thing he would never have tried if he hadn’t been cornered this much.
And.
He only felt a very small sense of incongruity.
The surface of the spear he was holding crumbled.
After peeling off the layers of skin, what appeared was.
A spear blade shaped like a willow leaf and a spear shaft that shone entirely in red without any joints.
The ‘real’ Red Branch, which had responded to the call as if it had been here from the beginning.
Could the ‘Cradle of Dreams’ have implemented all the performance of the Red Branch, which would not be strange to call a witch?
No.
The objects that the Black Knight and Siwoo had been wielding in this space were only imitations limited to the abilities that the two could control.
And the distortion field, which felt burdensome just by holding it, even though its appearance was no different, was on a different level from the fake in the trial, which was just an imitation.
He saw a red light flashing in the distance.
While Siwoo was preparing a new magic, the spear had already been fired.
Now, all that was left was to hope that his prediction was correct.
“Bloom!”
-Woo-oong!
Siwoo poured all his magic power into the Red Branch.
The Red Branch, which had greedily devoured all the magic power, spread a rough barrier in all directions that could not be fully expressed with the word ferocious.
In the blink of an eye, the spear that had already reached his forehead, even though he hadn’t blinked.
-Crush!
It shattered like dust as soon as it pierced his helmet and grazed his skin.
The power of the imitation could not surpass the power of the real thing.
The only Red Branch in this space was now in Siwoo’s hand.
“……!”
He could see the Black Knight in the distance, looking greatly flustered.
The Black Knight’s fighting style was similar to a supercomputer that calculated all probabilities and blocked uncertain variables.
Therefore, he could not prepare for variables that were ‘realistically impossible.’
The Black Knight was trying to pull back his body belatedly in the face of an unexpected situation, but this time, Siwoo was faster.
The spear blade, which had become one with his body, deeply stirred the Black Knight’s heart.
