Chapter 939 – #203_Crossroads(8)
#933
1.
A final clash with their lives on the line.
There is no moment as fair as this one.
Regardless of how each individual has lived, what stories they carry, or what thoughts and feelings they bring to the fight.
All of that becomes secondary.
Only the one who gains the upper hand in a fleeting moment survives.
The loser has no choice but to lose everything and fall into the abyss of emptiness, clutching onto their lingering regrets about victory.
That’s why this moment was so enjoyable for Urshura.
A gamble to showcase their honed skills, test the greatness of their accumulated achievements, and determine who is stronger.
No entertainment or pleasure can offer this kind of thrill.
That’s why Urshura can smile even amidst the terrible pain that lacerates his entire body.
-Whoooosh!!!
The Reverse Heaven Spear, compressed and compressed until it became the thickness of a strand of hair.
He directs the tip of the spear, which distorts the surrounding space just by being swung, towards Siwoo.
Shin Siwoo was in a stance as if he were about to throw a javelin.
It wasn’t just a simple throw, but rather quite peculiar.
First, the flexible ribbon was embedded in various places around him, blooming like flowers.
In the center of the black flowers, a spear wrapped in a black ribbon protruded like a stamen.
Presumably, he wasn’t just throwing it with brute force, but rather using the tension of the ribbon to throw it with all his might.
The halo of an angel floating above his head was spinning furiously, and his armor began to emit a savage red light, like an overcharged machine.
“Twist.”
However, it was Urshura who finished preparing his attack first.
Even if it was a final clash, he wouldn’t be so naive as to wait for the preparation process.
Who completed their magic first was also a valid indicator to determine superiority.
With Shin Siwoo clearly in his wavering vision.
He unleashes the distortion that consumes magic just by holding onto it.
-Thwack thwack thwack!!!
A vortex of distortion surges.
A destructive force that twists and crushes all things in the three-dimensional world.
What unfolds before the strike, into which he invested every last bit of his magic power, is…
-Swish!
Rings of ribbons spread out in a circle around Shin Siwoo.
The golden strings of letters engraved on the dull black ribbon were magical formulas that controlled the ‘barrier’.
At this point, Shin Siwoo had three options.
Evade.
Block.
Counter. He chose to ‘block’.
And that was also the option that Urshura least expected.
Until now, Shin Siwoo’s magic had been all about offense.
He had acted while wearing only the minimum armor to protect and strengthen his body.
But to abandon the advantage of mobility and choose to defend in place?
———!!!!
Regardless of such questions, the axis of distortion collided with the golden barrier that Siwoo had deployed.
The ribbon was burning under immense overload.
The distortion, which seemed as if it would crush the sanctuary he had desperately created, was fiercely surging.
“……”
Urshura was not careless.
He simply made a judgment.
Shin Siwoo’s response was a poor choice.
The greatest strength of Urshura’s Reverse Heaven Spear was not just its destructive power, range, and free-spirited manipulation.
It was its sustainability.
The distortion of space calls forth another distortion.
Collapse begets collapse, and the magic power consumed by Urshura to maintain the distortion decreases significantly.
As a result, if the Reverse Heaven Spear directs its power towards the same space, it is possible to unleash almost infinite firepower.
To simply ‘block’ this head-on is like declaring that you will block a waterfall with your bare body forever.
In the end, does that mean he couldn’t see that far in this battle?
While feeling regret and disappointment, Urshura, who was using an increasingly stronger distortion without any gaps, saw the golden barrier shining precariously as if it would break at any moment.
“Ah.”
Soon, he discovered a sense of incongruity.
It’s not there.
The distortion field is nowhere to be seen.
Until now, Shin Siwoo had drawn the distortion field from the red spear to counter Urshura’s distortion.
But the golden magic that was shining brilliantly had no red energy mixed in at all.
Why at this moment?
Urshura’s eyes widened.
Shin Siwoo, whose armor was shattered and one arm was twisted at a strange angle due to the overflowing distortion.
In the aftermath of the scattering magic, his helmet was blown away, revealing his face.
Blood was gushing from his nose and mouth, and his two eyes were filled with a burning fighting spirit, as if blood tears would fall at any moment.
“…What is it?”
Urshura’s gaze did not miss it.
The spear wrapped in ribbon that he was clutching tightly with his broken fingers.
Under the ribbon that had loosened haphazardly due to the collision with the distortion, there was no red branch.
In other words, the spear had already left his hand.
Urshura desperately traced his thoughts back in a short time that was less than a second.
Before Urshura’s attack, he was preparing to throw a javelin.
But Shin Siwoo does not have his artifact in his hand.
The spear had already been fired, and Urshura had not noticed it due to the impact of his distortion colliding with his barrier magic.
Then where is his spear now?
Having a wealth of experience in battle also means that you can sense defeat more quickly, ironically.
Shin Siwoo had set up a lot of things up to this clash.
First, by only using his artifact, he made them believe that he had a fighting style that relied on the red branch.
He also lowered Urshura’s vigilance against ‘long-range magic’ by stepping into unknown threats and clinging to close combat.
And until the very last moment, he boldly risked his life and hid his real attack.
-Whoooosh!!!!!
A red light flying like a meteor from the far-off, collapsed tunnel.
Urshura’s cheek is dyed red by the dazzling brilliance that transcends space and arrives with a time difference.
His hidden attack, which was too late to block or evade.
A clean defeat with no complaints, from the mind games to the magical abilities.
Urshura smiled, giving his last praise.
“…You, you’re really fucking awesome, you know?”
-Crack!
Siwoo’s all-out javelin throw, which transcended space, struck Urshura’s unguarded side.
The blood-soaked eyepatch fluttered and fell to the ground.
2.
Linne, who was dragged to the ground by Priscilla and engaged in a fierce battle.
Her appearance was a mess.
Blood was flowing like she had been drenched in a bucket.
Her left arm was charred black, and her right arm was crushed.
Her left eye was dripping with blood and pus.
Linne had suffered injuries that looked painful just by looking at them, but her mask-like expression remained unchanged.
After all, for a spirit, this level of injury was something that could be healed with time.
“…Tch.”
Linne nonchalantly spat out a piece of flesh and wiped her mouth with her sleeve.
“Gurgle! U, U, Ur…shura….”
You can tell where that piece of flesh came from by looking at Priscilla, who was writhing like a bug.
Priscilla’s neck, where the blood seemed to be boiling, was gushing blood like a pump from a wound the size of a handful, as if a beast had bitten it.
With the carotid artery severed and no magic power left to treat it, she had no choice but to slowly wait for death.
“……”
“Cough!”
Linne held the small sword in her relatively intact right hand in reverse.
She gently pushed the sword into Priscilla’s Adam’s apple.
“Cough! Cough…! Cough!”
Priscilla’s eyes, which were spitting out blood like a fountain and trembling, soon became opaque.
Linne, having confirmed the kill by twisting the embedded sword, staggered and steadied herself.
As befitting her rank, Priscilla was strong.
It was just that Linne was stronger.
If she had taken her time, she would have suffered less damage.
However, as long as her husband was facing Urshura alone, she couldn’t afford to be leisurely.
Linne sacrificed both of her arms to seize the timing.
Priscilla, who had taken the arms of a swordsman, became complacent and allowed an opening, and that’s where the defeat was decided.
Linne’s obsession with victory was close to madness.
There was no way that she, who had simply become unable to wield a sword, would willingly admit defeat.
Linne, who immediately pounced like a wild beast, literally bit Priscilla’s throat.
“Husband…”
Linne, frowning at the taste of blood filling her mouth, staggered towards the half-collapsed platform.
3.
“Hmm, hmm~”
Lydia was beaming.
As expected, while the homunculi were rampaging, the number of angels guarding the production facility was not that high.
As a result, she single-handedly crushed 8,000 angels without much trouble.
She captured about 100 of them almost intact and stored them in the warehouse.
“Witch. I request negotiations.”
It was when Lydia was about to reach out to the ‘main body’ placed in the middle of the production building.
That is, the witch’s corpse that is the source of the angels.
AA-000 hurriedly returned to the tower to stop Lydia, who was trying to paralyze the city’s central functions.
A sudden attack by monsters, countless great witches appearing all over the city.
And even a suspicious golden witch who had infiltrated the angel production building.
She judged that the war could no longer be perfectly maintained.
“If you leave this city, I will accept any conditions you want. Even if the conditions are unfavorable, I will consider them.”
Originally, the option of ‘negotiating with a witch’ was inherently impossible for angels, who were created as anti-witch weapons.
However, there was even a hint of desperation in AA-000’s mechanical voice.
“Oh? Are you not a machine?”
A strange light flickered in Lydia’s eyes.
It was because she felt that this one was different from the ones she had been crushing until now.
“This unit is AA-000, a Wychroid Angel. I have been delegated the authority to manage this city and am acting as a proxy.”
“For something like that, you seem to be acting with quite a bit of emotion. Well, okay. Fine.”
Lydia strode forward and stood in front of AA-000.
“I don’t know if you’re a machine or a witch, but since you don’t seem to know much, I’ll teach you.”
-Crack!
An intangible force spins AA-000’s head around.
Lydia’s foot brutally crushed AA-000’s head, which had fallen off like a toy that had been played with too roughly.
“Negotiations between witches are only done on equal footing.”
At this point, when she could get everything she wanted in her hands.
There was no need to do something foolish like agreeing to negotiations, at least not in Lydia’s calculations.
