Chapter 937 – #203_Crossroads(6)
#931
1.
Eloa and Aea reunite decades after their last battle where Eloa lost her.
The more cunning hunter evaded Eloa’s pursuit, continuing her path of bloody greed across the world.
However, after being defeated by the Witch of Nostalgia and having her rank stolen by a male witch, she fell into the clutches of Bianca Bellili, the ‘Witch of Desire.’
Reduced to a sex slave, she pretended to have her mind and will broken, waiting for an opportunity to slit Bianca’s throat and obtain the red lotus.
Around that time, the Duke of Keter’s death was officially recognized, throwing the current world into chaos.
With the help of the Witch of Whispers, she bloomed the lotus and steadily accumulated ranks.
Thanks to her exceptional skills, Aea, having devoured countless great witches and humans, achieved the dazzling feat of reaching the 23rd rank and declared her separation from Lilith.
She knew well enough that the end of a witch too deeply entangled with Lilith was miserable.
Therefore, when she came to Aea again, Aea intended to firmly reject whatever offer she made.
But such resolve was soon rendered meaningless.
Like Lilith, who had lured countless witches to their regretful deaths, she made an irresistible, sweet offer.
It was to give her the opportunity to kill Tiferet.
It was an offer so enticing that it made her momentarily abandon even her caution.
Aea hates Eloa.
The fact that she herself was the origin of this grudge is not important in the first place.
An opponent who had tried to kill her several times.
She had attempted to retaliate a couple of times, but ultimately swallowed humiliation and rolled in the mud due to the overwhelming difference in their power.
The misery of the days when she had no choice but to run away, knowing that she was being chased.
That was enough to remember.
She had never once reflected on herself or repented.
“……”
“……”
Aea, having come down the escalator, stood facing Eloa.
The two, standing on the stage of the finale, were slightly surprised by the subtle emotions surging within their hearts.
And they intuitively felt that those emotions were similar in form.
It was truly strange.
They had so much they wanted to say to each other.
They had cursed and resented each other so much.
Was it because they had hated each other for so long?
Even though they were facing each other after a long divergence, there was nothing else they wanted to ask.
There was nothing they wanted to hear.
They merely reaffirmed that they could not tolerate each other’s existence and drew their weapons.
“I contract.”
Eloa’s contract sword shines.
Eloa’s condition was not perfect, having already finished one fierce battle.
Of the 12 strokes of the contract, only 6 were available.
Half of her magic power was consumed.
Including minor setbacks, even her lack of sleep.
But nothing made her feel more threatened than this empty heart.
It had been a whole century.
For a hundred years, she had imagined cutting her enemy’s throat every single day.
It was okay if her body was shattered.
It was okay if her heart exploded.
If she could kill Aea Sadalmelik, it was okay if this was her last life.
Hadn’t she resolved herself like that?
But even in front of Aea, who was trying to kill not only Rapido but also Eloa, her heart was calm.
As if it had frozen and turned necrotic, she felt no emotion at all.
She had to kill her to get revenge.
She had to survive and go help Siu.
Only such superficial and flimsy sense of duty weakly lingered and scattered.
Even when she tried to gather anger and hatred, it felt too distant, as if she were walking through someone else’s dream.
However, unlike her heart, Eloa’s body and mind were forcing her to engage in combat.
Like a machine, she was analyzing the situation of both sides.
First, Aea’s current state.
The cowardly and despicable Aea who used to tremble at the mere sight of Eloa was gone.
Judging by the naturally spreading magic field, her rank was not much different from Eloa’s.
Perhaps the ‘lotus’ floating behind her back had given her new power.
The lotus, shining red as if dripping with blood, must have devoured many sacrifices, and along with Siu’s red branch, it was the kind that ‘distorted’ providence.
“Melt.”
As Aea’s incantation flowed, the lotus’s form melted and scattered like a red downpour.
In the blood ponds that had formed everywhere, countless flower buds were ominously blooming.
The flowers that bloomed like flames on long stems like pinwheels were called spider lilies.
The sadly beautiful red flowers of the underworld were blooming everywhere in the underground shopping mall.
“……”
The sight was reminiscent of Amelia’s magnetic magic.
She had even used the magic of her enemy, who had driven her into a crisis, as a source of inspiration.
It was a magic that Eloa had never experienced before.
Therefore, its exact power, principle, and danger were unknown.
Normally, she would have calmly explored it and then attacked it over time.
But Eloa didn’t have enough coins to spend on exploration.
So, she just did what she was good at.
Approaching.
Slicing.
-Bang!
A shockwave erupted from Eloa’s feet.
Some of the duration of the contract she had made a little while ago still remained.
The output of her spirit body, enhanced to the limit by contract magic.
It was like condensing the output of a state-of-the-art fighter jet into Eloa’s small body.
-Whirrr!
Ribbons that had been writhing like tentacles on the floor blocked Eloa, who had closed the distance in the blink of an eye.
Like carnivorous plants recognizing a flying butterfly, they tried to wrap around Eloa’s body as soon as they sensed her approach.
It was Aea Sadalmelik’s magnetic magic, ‘Maiden’s Loom.’
In fact, the Maiden’s Loom was a relatively primitive magic.
It was a pure physical magic that did not twist the settings of the world or use subtle principles to deceive the enemy.
Of course, that didn’t mean it was less dangerous.
Aea’s ribbons, supported by various magics, were fundamentally more powerful than Siu’s, who operated the ‘Maiden’s Loom’ alone.
Each strand could wrap around a building and collapse it, and she could operate hundreds of them at the same time.
Moreover, the power of the ribbons, borrowing the power of the lotus, was stronger than before.
-Swish! Swish!
-Bang! Crash!
Eloa dodged the barrage of ribbons that surged like whips, harpoons with twisted tips, and restraints.
Eloa’s movements, which skillfully found gaps and moved within the moving spiderweb that seemed to occupy the space itself, were not magic, but they were truly like magic.
Skilled movements repeated through countless experiences.
Aea could not stop the martial arts that had already reached the realm of unconsciousness.
Eloa, having instantly shaken off all obstacles and met Aea’s gaze, declared in a low voice.
“I will, cut you, down.”
The subject of the contract was Eloa.
The target was Aea.
Using three of the remaining contract strokes, she concluded an absolute contract with the property of being fulfilled without fail.
-Swoosh!
The ribbons that wrapped around Aea like a cocoon were cut down like scraps of paper by the straight downward slash.
Aea, who had relied on her ribbons and had not taken any proper evasive action, could not escape Eloa’s attack.
“……”
Eloa looked with empty eyes at the result of the battle that had ended so futilely.
From Aea, who had been split in two from the top of her head to her groin, flowed sticky blood and fragmented entrails.
Eloa’s slash had clearly killed Aea instantly, not even allowing her time to reflect on her past.
Was this the end of the evil relationship she had so longed for?
A sense of futility, close to a sense of emptiness, shook Eloa’s heart as if it were echoing in an empty cave.
“It was a wilderness where I couldn’t see an inch ahead.”
Even though she heard the voice from behind her, Eloa reflexively looked at the corpse lying on the ground.
Eloa’s eyes see through falsehood and lies.
But the corpse does not move.
A clear death that could not be reversed by deception or magic was in front of her eyes.
Aea Sadalmelik had clearly just died.
Then what was the voice coming from behind her?
“Days when I had to keep moving forward amidst hardships and adversities, humiliation and shame, anger and hatred, despair and grief. Ah, it was truly like a thorny path of arduous training.”
When she turned around, she saw Aea slowly emerging from the spider lilies.
It was a strange and metaphorical sight, but there was no more appropriate expression.
Like an object to which a physics engine was not applied, one of the spider lily clusters that had maintained its form in the midst of this fierce battlefield gave birth to Aea.
Aea Sadalmelik, wrapping her pure white naked body in ribbons to create a plausible dress and stepping barefoot onto the ruined ruins.
“In that pain, I broke free from another shackle.”
“You monster.”
Eloa distorted her lips as if chewing on them.
It was because she, as a high-ranking witch, knew what Aea had done without a detailed explanation.
Aea had been resurrected.
She had abandoned her dead body and created a new spirit and flesh through some method, probably magic using the ‘lotus.’
In a sense, it could be called a resurrection.
But this method was not as easy a resurrection as it seemed.
There is a very famous paradox that discusses the identity and continuity of existence.
The Ship of Theseus, a discussion about whether a ship is still the same ship if its parts are replaced over time until all parts have been replaced.
Then, for example, if an individual meets a complete death, and there is magic that sprouts a newly conceived spirit and flesh.
Can that truly be called resurrection?
The question about this paradox, which had troubled many people since ancient Greece, was not something that even a witch could find a clear breakthrough for.
Moreover, it was not a question that a witch with a larger ego and attachment to her unique existence could easily choose an answer to.
“The fact that I look like that to you is proof that you, Duke Tiferet, are also just a mundane being.”
And Aea had found her own answer.
Eloa understood.
She understood why she couldn’t feel that much strength from Aea, who had clearly reached a similar level as Eloa.
The power to deny death hundreds of times.
An ability close to a natural enemy that forces infinite consumption on Eloa, who specializes in one-on-one combat.
‘Resurrection’ that can start again even though the brain has been destroyed, even though the brand has been destroyed, even though the continuity of an existence has been terminated by the declaration of death.
The thousands of spider lilies blooming everywhere were the strength that Aea had newly acquired.
“You used to look so scary to me. Now you just look ridiculous.”
Aea smiled brightly and cruelly.
