Chapter 826 – #172_보라색 장미(6)
#820
1.
The golden magic classification shakes the ground.
The condensed and compressed power is nothing less than an irresistible torrent of force.
Every time Siwoo moved his limbs, he was achieving massive destruction, following his traces a half-beat late.
Originally, handling this level of magic required a corresponding level of risk.
Magic is, after all, a discipline established under thorough calculation.
The greater the power one handles, the more likely it is that skipping or glossing over intermediate steps will result in consequences that go beyond mere misfires.
If you’re lucky, you’ll suffer permanent damage to your magic circuits; usually, you’d just die.
However, the effects of the dream were remarkable.
Even without perfect calculations, even with overloads, even with contradictions in the structure of the magic formula, things somehow worked out.
The 10th stratum is the realm where magic is imbued with color.
The 15th stratum is the realm where instinct and self-magnetism magic are unified.
The 20th stratum is the realm where one twists the principles flowing through the world, ignoring natural laws and justifications.
And Siwoo realized that he held a power that transcended even that.
A realm where wonder and mystery are realized without limit.
A realm where one doesn’t just modify and utilize the laws of the world, but where one becomes a new law oneself.
Could this be what it feels like to reach the 25th stratum?
It’s liberating.
His thoughts, having reached a state of trance, were no longer bound by rules and formulas.
Magic is merely a means to guide phenomena.
The magic he had been using until now was no different from putting the cart before the horse.
Why hadn’t he thought of such an obvious fact?
It was he himself who had defined the limits on the endlessly stretching horizon.
The possibilities of magic are so infinite and vast.
A white thrill piercing his mind, a sublimation of wisdom, lifted the corners of his mouth.
“Haaap!”
But Elroa didn’t fall easily.
She skillfully evaded the ceaselessly surging waves of golden magic with nimble footwork.
She received the continuously swung great spear as if sliding it off the edge of her sword.
Yet, her eyes, gleaming left and right, didn’t miss the changes happening all around.
This power was clearly unrealistic.
At least, it was on a different level from the Shin Siwoo that Elroa knew.
At first, she had assumed it was power given by the Whispering Witch.
Lilith’s skill was so outstanding that it more than covered her infamy, pushing the realm of any witch she contacted far ahead.
Could this power really be something Lilith had given him?
Lilith is evil.
Like an apple given by a demon, it’s shiny on the outside but a twisted mass eaten by worms on the inside.
But there was no such distortion in the magic Siwoo was casting.
The golden magic surging in all directions and the fractal-shaped lightning intermittently cutting through it.
The profoundness that couldn’t be described as beautiful didn’t suit Lilith.
But there was no time to dwell on it.
Elroa, who was born with a small amount of magic, and Siwoo, who had amplified his magic by dozens of times through strange means.
The difference in magic power between the two was, even by a rough estimate, a hundredfold.
He was already using magic comparable to that of a super-large homunculus.
But battles between witches aren’t decided solely by the amount of magic.
As Elroa had repeatedly emphasized in teaching Siwoo, one doesn’t need to be stronger than the opponent throughout the entire battle.
If one can surpass the enemy’s capabilities with a single moment of compressed power, the gap is as if it never existed in the first place.
-Bang!
Elroa’s body, having taken a firm stance, shot out explosively, rushing into Siwoo’s arms.
Great power lacks precision.
If they were to engage in close combat, he wouldn’t be able to unleash high-output magic.
He would end up getting caught in the blast radius himself.
Also, when a spear and a sword engage in close combat, the sword inevitably has the advantage due to its structural characteristics.
-Clang! Clang-clang!
The spear blade and sword blade collided at high speed.
The sword, sticking to the spear shaft like a magnet, initiated a sword fight.
It was such close combat that if Siwoo were to drop his spear and reach out, he could tightly embrace Elroa.
The different magic powers repeatedly colliding scattered remnants like sparks.
He tried to shake off Elroa several times, but it was futile.
Siwoo’s skills had improved remarkably, but he still needed more time to surpass Elroa, who had honed her skills in actual combat for over a hundred years.
Once Elroa had closed the distance, she clung to the gap tenaciously, like a hound biting onto an arm.
Got it.
Elroa found an opening in the dance of the spear and sword, twisting like a snake’s fight.
-Pat!
Elroa’s body, immediately kicking off Siwoo’s knee, spun around like a waltz.
Siwoo’s center of gravity was disrupted by the sudden impact on his lower body.
Using that momentum, Elroa, spinning like a top in the narrow gap, thrust three one-inch punches in that brief moment.
The firmly clenched fists aimed at the weak points lined up along the exposed center line of his body.
The solar plexus.
The Daheng point.
The Qihai point.
Even if he blindly trusted his solid armor and tried to deflect the blows, it would be meaningless.
Elroa’s one punch, focusing all her power into a single point, would rob him of consciousness regardless of his will to fight.
-Bang!
A sonic boom and shockwave burst out in a pure white flash.
Despite being a series of attacks, the rapid strikes coalesced into a single roar.
Elroa was shocked.
A bizarre event that defied common sense unfolded before her eyes.
She had clearly landed three attacks.
Yet, the curved surface that shouldn’t have existed in the center of the flat armor deflected the impact as if it were a ricochet.
Siwoo, sensing that he couldn’t avoid the punches, condensed a distortion field and deployed it on his armor like a gauntlet.
He had ‘distorted’ the amount of impact that should have gone into his body.
“Looks like this works too.”
Siwoo smiled triumphantly.
Even though they were in the middle of a battle, Elroa couldn’t help but smile slightly.
A disciple’s growth is always a teacher’s joy.
She was so proud and pleased that she unconsciously praised him.
“Well done.”
The conversation didn’t last long.
Elroa had no intention of giving up so easily, and Siwoo knew that.
“What?”
In the close combat that continued without a moment to breathe, Elroa faced her second shock.
-Swish!
She was clearly clashing swords at close range, but without any warning, the tip of the spear came thrusting up from under her chin as if it were curving.
An impossible strike that seemed to ignore not just the laws of physics but space itself.
It was only because Elroa possessed superhuman reflexes that she was able to evade an attack that was outside her conscious awareness.
-Swish! Swish! Swish!
Along with sharp tearing sounds, the red branch once again thrust towards Elroa.
Only then was Elroa able to grasp how Siwoo’s attack had been executed.
The spear was bending.
Like observing through a refracted lens, the spear thrust upwards drew a bizarre curve as it aimed for Elroa.
The spear strikes suddenly appearing from all directions, front, back, left, and right, were difficult for even Elroa to deal with.
“Hup!”
Elroa chuckled when she saw that even her own sword, which she had swung wildly, was bizarrely twisted, cutting through empty air.
The distance that had always brought Elroa victory was no longer a space of sure victory.
The moment she realized that, Elroa boldly widened the distance.
But that was just a temporary escape.
Wasn’t that why she had been trying to maintain the distance all along?
The distance Elroa had given him became the leeway for Siwoo to execute a large-scale spell.
-Kiiiiiiiiing!
As if he had been waiting for Elroa to move away, three rings that had risen above his head poured out a vast amount of magic as they spun fiercely.
Unrealistic, pure, and vast magic flowed through the red branch with a tingling sensation.
The red branch struck the air.
A single point was clearly marked in the middle of the empty air.
The change began from there.
-Gooooooo
At first, a vortex the size of a palm appeared.
Magic’s properties change depending on the witch’s interpretation, but there is one absolute law.
Highly concentrated magic attracts other magic.
The method by which witches ‘magnetize’ the surrounding magic through imprints also uses this principle.
And Siwoo had maximized and exaggerated that law through distortion.
A singularity with a surface area of 0 contracts, drawing in the surrounding magic with infinite attraction.
A spiral that gently wraps around a single point greedily devours the surrounding magic.
The vortex, feeding on magic, gradually expands in scale and exerts exponentially stronger attraction.
-Kiiiiiiiiik!
The space itself twisted bizarrely and let out a death cry due to the magic that was condensed to an impossible degree.
Even for the current Siwoo, holding it together was the limit, but it was a magic that could neutralize most witches.
If one were caught in such an attraction, any magic would be disrupted midway.
——————!!!!
The atmosphere, caught in the movement of that great power, convected along with it.
The thick cumulonimbus clouds, scattering sleet, swirled and left a huge vortex in the sky.
Elroa, seeing that wondrous sight, prepared for what would probably be their last clash.
While Siwoo had been getting stronger, Elroa hadn’t been idle either.
She had resolved hundreds of times to become even stronger in order to protect him from the various crises he faced.
She never imagined that she would be showing the results of her training to him for the first time.
-Crrrack!
The sword gripped in both hands.
She quietly regulated her breathing and erected a sword in her mind’s eye.
The twelve runes on the side of the contract sword shone brightly, filled with a single contract.
Elroa’s self-magnetism magic, its predecessor, is the spirit of words.
It is making a contract with the world that transcends cause and effect and takes precedence over everything else.
A contract made in this way has the property of being inevitably fulfilled.
Elroa’s lips moved.
“I will, cut you, down.”
A pillar of light that cut across the dark night sky and reached the ground.
The heavy tremor of magic spreading in all directions was noble and unwavering, even amidst the golden storm that was like a torrent.
A vortex so huge that it was frightening to approach blocked Elroa’s vision.
Nevertheless, Elroa’s choice was always a frontal breakthrough.
Elroa’s figure, heavily kicking off the ground, shot out in a long line.
A blurred strike intersected with the spiral.
