Chapter 901 – #196_대격변(4)
#895
1.
The two women exchanged glasses.
The liquor was the same brandy, but the snacks were different.
Dorothy had a long, thick cigar, while Lydia had a long, thin pipe.
In the quiet silence,
only the hum of the multi-purpose air purifier’s motor could be heard.
In the past, Lydia had schemed to smuggle Shin Siwoo away.
But in the end, after Shin Siwoo was snatched by Linne, she failed to stop the escape attempt in which Dorothy joined.
Later, it was revealed that a series of disturbances in Hexennacht were connected to Lydia’s schemes, leading to her downfall from the head of the moderate faction.
She was thoroughly betrayed by the ‘Aries Witch,’ a guest she had invited to increase the size of the moderate faction, and lost her power.
Psyche Teagarden had no intention of maintaining peace.
As a result, the moderate faction of Hexennacht lost its center.
Of course, Lydia, the head of Solidus Merchant and a Great Witch of the 23rd Order, would not lose all her power and influence overnight.
However, the scratch on her noble pride festered like a wound, urging revenge.
Nevertheless, the reason she didn’t immediately strike back but allowed one last drink was because of information.
A Great Witch’s battle cannot guarantee capture.
Unfortunately, if they were killed, conversation would be impossible.
So, they had no choice but to continue their subtle power play disguised as a friendly drinking session.
“Are you just going to let Salome go like that?”
Dorothy was the first to speak.
“Of course. I tend to keep my contracts, unless the other party starts the trouble first. As a reward for betraying her superior, she’ll have a short, intense love affair with a handsome young lover. How do you feel about being betrayed?”
“Well, I’m not one to trust people anyway.”
“You knew it was a trap?”
“Well, it might sound like an excuse, but I was suspicious.”
Lydia chuckled and exhaled a long stream of smoke.
“Interesting.”
It wasn’t so much a sneer at Dorothy’s uncharacteristic choice, but rather a laugh of pure interest.
“In my memory, you were someone like me.”
Lydia, with her trademark long white gloves, emptied her glass with a flourish.
While Dorothy willingly refilled her empty glass, Lydia crossed her legs and giggled.
“To think you’d cause such a ruckus in Hexennacht just to save a man. You’re more of a romantic than I thought?”
“Hmm~ If I don’t have romance at this age, what’s the fun in living?”
Lydia’s assessment was neither an overestimation nor an underestimation, but a cold, objective evaluation.
Dorothy was outwardly smiling, but in reality, she was a public enemy with a business-like mindset.
She wasn’t like the genuine crazy bitches who couldn’t tell up from down and ran wild.
Nor was she a newbie trying to act like an influential figure.
She was cold and calculating.
Her profit and loss calculations were clean, and above all, her sense of when to cut ties was amazing.
Thanks to that, she had been an excellent business partner in several projects.
“Thanks to you becoming a romantic late in life, I’ve had a headache. Lydia Magnus, the great, has become a laughingstock.”
“That’s~ truly unfortunate. It wasn’t intentional. Is that why you’ve been exiled to this backwater?”
“No need to feel sorry. I’m the type to get back what I’m owed, with interest.”
“Oh, really? It won’t be easy~”
Despite Lydia’s threat, who had sold off the most witches in history, Dorothy laughed boldly.
“Even if you were furious~ to join hands with Lilith. She’s a more vicious debt collector than you. You won’t die peacefully, you know?”
Dorothy had already connected the series of events to Lilith.
In the public enemy society, schemes and plots were as common as breathing.
But there was only one person who could weave schemes that felt like invisible spiderwebs, leaving you feeling like sticky threads were tangled all over your body once you came to your senses.
Lilith Keter, the Whispering Witch.
Lydia, cornered politically, had joined hands with Lilith as a last resort.
This much was easy to predict.
“Indeed, her skills are impressive. I wondered why so many witches were betrayed and fell flat on their faces…
I just did as she said with some doubt, and I caught such a big fish.”
Lydia admitted it unexpectedly easily.
This time, she refilled Dorothy’s empty glass.
“More importantly, what’s your relationship with that male witch?”
“Just~ he was acting cute, so I’m seeing him.”
As soon as Dorothy finished speaking, Lydia burst into a bright laugh like clinking gold coins.
“You can make that kind of face? It’s the first time I’ve seen you tell such an awkward lie?”
“……”
“Well, okay. I understand. It must mean he’s that precious to you. You’ve found something good.”
The composure disappeared from Dorothy’s face.
Instead, what emerged was a fierce, intense fighting spirit.
A chilling magical reflection dripped from the eyes of the always easygoing Dorothy.
“If you touch him. You’re dead to me.”
“I already touched him. He was acting very cute and pretty, you know?”
Dorothy, who had been scattering murderous intent, paused.
“Why, are you so upset? Because I slept with your lover?”
“……”
“He has a good body, but he’s so weak that he just whimpered under me.”
Strictly speaking, both times an intruder had come and they hadn’t finished, but Lydia wanted to see Dorothy’s reaction to having her lover stolen.
Shouldn’t she get some revenge before the battle?
But what came back was an unexpected reaction.
“Ahahaha! Haha! Hahahaha!”
Dorothy burst into laughter, banging on the table.
She was wiping away the tears welling up in her eyes, having lost all her murderous intent, and laughing uncontrollably.
“What?”
Is she crazy?
Lydia’s lips twisted as she stared at Dorothy, bewildered.
“Shin Siwoo? Whimpering under you? That’s a funny joke~”
Lydia’s mood soured at the way she was being treated with ridicule.
She couldn’t grasp the point of laughter, which made her feel even worse.
It was clear that she had become a laughingstock.
“Well, let’s stop here~ You’re busy too, right?”
Dorothy, having regained her composure, dipped her cigar into her on-the-rocks glass.
With the sound of the fizzling sparks dying out, the ashes swirled like a haze in the crimson liquor.
The drinking session, which had been both a pastime and a probe, was over.
Lydia was a thorough businesswoman.
When she had to move, she would meticulously check all the conditions before getting up from her seat.
Lydia had many subordinates, and this place was in northern South America, the front yard of Hexennacht.
If this had been an official matter, there would have been no need for Lydia to come in person.
Just bringing her subordinates would have been enough to subdue Dorothy.
But Lilith was someone who had no credibility even among public enemies.
There was no way an organization as large as Solidus would have agreed to cooperate with her.
“In the end~ you’re all alone, aren’t you?”
In other words, if she could just deal with Lydia, it wasn’t a complete dream to return safely and act spoiled with Siwoo.
The scenery of the narrow room rippled and changed.
White marble pillars supporting a high ceiling and a majestic chapel in an old-fashioned style appeared.
“Fear not.”
A long, blunt sword appeared in Dorothy’s hand.
Dorothy’s Noble Phantasm, using the symbol of absolute angelic power.
As befitting a 22nd Order, dense and heavy magic power, enough to intimidate any witch, was surging from all directions.
The magic circle engraved on her nun’s habit became a pillar connecting the high ceiling and the vast ground.
The power of an angel dwelled in Dorothy’s body.
The absolute power of an angel that had thrown all sorts of heretics and pagans into the hellish fire.
“So?”
Lydia, who had been looking around slowly like a tourist, soon threw her glass away as if it was boring.
“If I’m alone, what changes?”
2.
Lydia Magnus, the Golden Witch.
Although she had stepped back from the front lines and rarely engaged in combat, everyone acknowledged that she was one of the strongest in the witch world.
If that weren’t the case, she wouldn’t have become the head of the huge Solidus Merchant alliance in the first place.
Lydia flicked a gold coin with her finger, encased in a white glove.
“Prove it.”
With a clear, ringing sound, the gold coin that had been tossed into the air shattered, turning into golden particles.
Behind Lydia, with a heavy flapping of wings, moths spread out like a hologram.
The hundreds of moths flapping their wings, scattering golden light like powder, were the most recognizable of Lydia’s magic, which was otherwise shrouded in mystery.
Worthless Poison Moths.
A curse magic that annihilated the value of all things it touched, turning them into something worthless.
Despite being a basic skill, it was a powerful magic that had cornered the Sword Demon, who was said to have few equals in Great Witch battles.
“Fear not.”
But unlike Linne, who specialized in close combat, Dorothy was a considerable technician.
Depending on where she applied her ‘Absolute Power,’ the utilization of her power was limitless.
White wings extended from Dorothy’s back.
The wings, made of tens of thousands of feathers and appearing soft as if they had no skeleton, swelled up in an instant and lashed through the space like a whip.
-Whoooosh!
The vector of the air pushed out by each feather was directed in only one direction.
The gale that swept under the action of absolute power was not just a strong wind.
The wind of God, which broke those who tried to resist and crushed those who tried to face it, burst all the poison moths and reached Lydia.
-Kiiiiing!
The angel’s halo, which had already been created, emitted an absurd amount of magic power.
Dorothy, riding the wind without losing momentum.
The speed at which she was running through the space where the poison moths had burst, with her white wings spread wide like a sail, was on a different level than when she had faced Siwoo before.
Unlike then, when she had been holding back in many ways, she was now exerting her full power.
Lydia’s reaction to this was simple.
She did nothing.
Whether she had failed to react to the acceleration aided by the angel’s halo.
Or whether she was looking down on Dorothy’s attack.
Dorothy’s sword pierced Lydia’s neck, who was just standing there, not even lifting a finger, her brilliant blonde hair fluttering.
This strike was absolute.
It had the power to reverse even the reaction, crushing even the hardest object in the world like soft tofu.
However.
-Patsutsutsutsu!!!!
The flames that had gradually ignited separated Lydia’s white skin and Dorothy’s sword.
Even though flames had no physical power, no matter how hard she pushed, the sword would not go any further.
The instinct born from combat experience warned Dorothy.
She had to keep her distance.
-Whoosh!
As soon as the golden flames showed signs of spreading along the sword, Dorothy widened the distance.
She looked down at her sword, hiding her shock.
The moment the golden flames and the sword touched, the absolute power was annihilated.
Even though there was a chapel, even though the conditions for maintaining the descent were met.
It annihilated divinity, as if mocking the great miracle.
The 23rd Order was not a power that was given for free.
“I’m suddenly curious.”
Lydia, wrapped in golden flames, smiled cruelly, her polite facade peeled away.
“What is your worth?”
