City of Witches Chapter 198

It was hell descended upon the Mortal Realm.

A foul, dizzying stench mingled with malice-filled darkness, lingering at the nostrils like the Fragrance of a grim reaper.

If one wasn’t careful, severed fingers, scraps of entrails, limbs, and the like would be trampled underfoot.

[Hello, valued customer! Thank you for visiting our store! Wishing you a happy shopping experience today!]

The guide broadcast and classical music still playing from speakers that hadn’t been powered off.

And the dissonance of this horrific scene was nauseating.

The new floor was the same.

Dozens of Piranhas floating with eyes blinking white.

Though each had crimson-stained snouts, they still reacted to the newly appeared prey as if starving, rushing forward.

“....You fucking bastards!”

The sight of grotesque fish the size of trucks swimming through the air to pounce.

A sight that would instinctively make any human cower or avoid, yet Siwoo didn’t flinch in the slightest.

Calculating the timing of the charge, he swung the two Longswords.

-Swoosh!

The sword in his left hand smoothly tore through the Piranha’s side, exposing its coiled entrails.

The sword in his right hand shot out in a straight line, shattering the dense teeth and plunging into the Piranha’s mouth.

Despite the difference in size, Siwoo didn’t budge.

These things were weak in brute strength.

The shadow armor, which enhanced the body like an exoskeletal powered suit, easily withstood the charge of over 200 kilograms.

-Thud! Thud! Thud!

Siwoo twisted the Ribbon tightly like Ea had done before, using its elasticity to launch it.

The Ribbon, tracing a flexible curve, swiftly shot out and pierced several Piranhas in an instant.

So fierce was its momentum that it tore gaping holes through them.

-Flap flap flap

Piranhas gasping their mouths open and shut as they died instead of screaming.

Amid the fierce battle, the only sounds were flesh tearing and entrails being crushed.

And the dry thud of fallen Piranhas helplessly slamming against the floor.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck...”

Even without trying to look, his eyes were drawn to the corpses scattered everywhere like a backdrop.

Among the victims were young children.

Even infants who hadn’t yet opened their eyes in their strollers.

There were middle-aged couples who, if alive, would have been around the same age as Siwoo’s parents.

These weren’t lives that should disappear lightly, like prey or a mere meal.

His body and mind, already adapted to the battlefield, didn’t burn with intense rage.

Blinding anger would create openings in combat.

Instead, like embers, it smoldered quietly. His heart ached. Seethed.

Siwoo muttered curses and grabbed the jaw of a charging Piranha with his Gauntlet, stopping it in its tracks.

Though the teeth looked sharp as knives, they weren’t enough to pierce the armor.

-Flap flap

The Piranha wriggled frantically as if panicked, but it was no different from a butterfly with one wing caught.

Before the overwhelming difference in strength, its struggles were futile.

“Drop dead!”

As Siwoo yanked the jaw downward with all his might, the struggling Piranha’s jaw shattered, its snout tearing vertically.

He flung the dangling lower jaw of the Piranha aside like trash.

“Anyone hiding, come out! The monsters are all dealt with! I’ll get you outside!”

As soon as Siwoo roughly cleared the floor, he raised his voice and shouted.

“Come out! It’s safe now!”

Worried his voice might not reach the outer areas, he ran and dashed into every corner, even checking inside restrooms as he called out.

“Hey! Anyone! Answer me!”

Nothing.

Not a single word in reply.

Not one survivor among all those people answered.

“.........”

Siwoo’s face was cold.

With an expression twisted enough to make the Twins burst into tears, he looked toward the rooftop and moved his steps.

After that, even as he went up floors, there were no major changes.

The Piranhas roamed around, tearing through clothes racks and Mannequins like seaweed, and Siwoo hunted them all down.

With a hammer, a spear, a Longsword.

Slashing, stabbing, piercing, crushing, smashing—he advanced.

Siwoo performed this series of tasks naturally, without even breathing heavily.

No matter the form of the weapon, once in his hand, its usage became increasingly natural.

As if his body alone remembered forgotten memories, it moved before his mind could even process it.

For now, he decided not to question it.

Once the cleanup was done, he raised his voice to search for survivors.

But not even a single echo returned.

By the time he neared the rooftop, Siwoo stopped looking for survivors.

“They’re probably hiding anyway. What would make them trust and come out?”

In such a terrifying situation, no one would trust the words of just one person and step outside.

So rather than searching for survivors one by one, preventing further spread of harm was the best course.

That’s what he believed.

Meanwhile, the closer he got to the rooftop, the clearer it became.

The flow of unpleasant magic power covering the building was overflowing from here.

Thick, murky, heavy magic power could be seen dripping from the rooftop down the building like a muddy waterfall.

A thickly locked rooftop door blocked Siwoo, but he could be certain.

Behind this lay the Ceremonial Artifact called Dagon’s Flute.

And once he opened this door and crossed over, even Siwoo wouldn’t be safe from then on.

An unknown danger waited with jaws agape.

“........”

-Creak creak creak thud!

Siwoo pushed the iron door as it was.

Even with just a light push, the cement and frame securing the door collapsed entirely.

Cool, sweet air brushed past his ears, entirely different from the stench and bloody odor that filled the indoor air.

Before his eyes was an altar.

On the altar, meticulously arranged as if offering tribute to a god, lay a single flute.

“And what are you?”

And there was a sentinel guarding it, as if blocking access to the altar.

A snow-white plate armor standing 2 meters tall.

A long spear about 3 meters held in its hand.

A kite shield capable of fully covering from the upper arm to below the knee.

The armor, engraved with ornate and delicate carvings, looked too heavy for a human to wear and move in.

The white knight, as soon as Siwoo stepped onto the rooftop, flashed two pairs of eyes inside its helmet and immediately assumed a combat stance.

A Homunculus.The moment they faced each other, a tremor starting from his toes traveled up his spine to the crown of his head and back down again.

The intuition honed through countless life-or-death situations was telling him.

This guy was on a different level from the trash he'd dealt with below.

And that from now on, he would have to stake his life.

Yet, Siwoo did not retreat.

He had a certain degree of confidence.

He was not powerless like before.

Although luck had overlapped in the form of elemental advantage and his post-battle exhaustion, he had defeated Della Redcliffe of the 20th Hierarchy.

He had even caught and killed that mother dog running rampant and wrecking the neighborhood.

Above all, he didn't feel the same terrifying aura from this guy as he had from Ea.

It was worth a try.

-Clank!

Siwoo dispelled one of the swords he was holding in both hands and created a shield modeled after the White Knight's.

Rather than clumsily imitating twin swordsmanship, a shield that allowed for solid defense and counterattacks was far better.

To stop that flute, he had to get past this thing.

Siwoo first twisted the ribbons in the air.

He planned to use the long-range harassment tool, which could attack from a sufficient distance, during the probing phase.

-Screech!

The two strands of ribbon, twisted to their limit, sliced through the air with a shwrrrk, like a tightly coiled spring being released.

The White Knight's reaction was swift.

Evading from its original target point as if disappearing, the White Knight easily dodged the ribbons launched at subsonic speed.

Having let the first strike slip by, the White Knight had already surged to right before Siwoo's eyes in an instant.

A speed unimaginable for heavy armor nearly 2 meters tall.

"Fuck this!"

Siwoo spat a curse and hastily twisted his body.

A long, white spear thrust straight up from below.

Siwoo instinctively thrust out his shield.

It flew so fast it was almost an illusion that the white spear had vanished.

But he wasn't too late.

Siwoo had captured the attack in time.

The trajectory of a thrust was inevitably straight.

A shield covering half his body was a valid defensive tool.

He blocked it.

Now he just had to brace for the impact.

Just as he was about to harbor that complacent carelessness, Siwoo felt a chill.

It was an indescribable, momentary intuition.

Siwoo immediately abandoned defense and attempted to evade.

And he saw it.

The spear tip flying straight curved.

Like a coiling serpent, it bent from the middle of the spear shaft, persistently pursuing Siwoo's heart as he flipped his body back in retreat.

-Clang!

Only after striking the spear shaft with his sword could Siwoo escape the tenacious attack.

If Siwoo had tried to block from his position, the curved spear would have crawled into the shield's gap and pierced his empty right side.

After just one exchange, he had almost lost his life.

And what was even more shocking was that this bizarre thrust defying common sense wasn't magic or anything like that.

Siwoo had watched the White Knight's strike from beginning to end.

That last strike was purely a physical technique.

A spear art and a personal skill honed to the point of deceiving the senses like magic.

There was clearly something different from the mindless homunculi he had observed until now.

It wasn't something to judge by the number of eyes.

This thing was different.

Siwoo, who had retreated several steps, and the White Knight, charging straight in.

The White Knight gave no time for panic, raising its arm above its shoulder.

A bold overhand strike, slamming down from above like throwing a harpoon to catch a whale.

Because of that, its armpit was exposed and its torso was open.

If he rushed the side now, he might find an opening.

But Siwoo, flustered by the initially profound spear art, decided to hold off on risky moves for a bit.

He was intimidated.

Instead, he carefully observed the opponent's movements and countered.

-Swish! Swish! Swish!

And as if to say that choice was right, the spear, which had somehow changed from an overhand to an underhand grip, swiftly claimed three points in space.

They were ferocious thrusts as if holes were being punched through space.

-Clang! Clang! Clang!

That he managed to block each attack, hard to properly identify, with his shield was purely thanks to his reflexes and body moving on its own.

Siwoo took a step back, feeling the tingling vibration transmitted through the shield.

His hands hurt.

Even just in terms of brute strength, the White Knight seemed similar to Siwoo.

Moreover, it wasn't that the force was awkwardly dispersed from an unstable posture; it felt heavy, as if all its weight and power were loaded onto the spear tip.

It felt more like being hit by a pile driver than a spear.

This was a disaster.

Until now, Siwoo had been able to face witches or homunculi by utilizing or exploiting magical affinities.

The Law of Shadows held an elemental advantage over most forms of magic.

But the White Knight's strength came from purely physical power and the skill wielded through its spear.

This was not an enemy he could face with improvisation or clever tricks.

There was not a moment's respite.

He didn't even have the leeway to utilize the ribbons.

This time, the White Knight, with its shield thrust forward, charged.

He couldn't retreat any further.

He had to counterattack before completely losing the initiative.

The whisper of instinct.

Siwoo also thrust his shield forward, kicked off the ground with his back foot, and charged forward.

-BOOM!!!!!

An unbelievable impact and noise for just cold weapons clashing.

The cement of the rooftop where one man and one homunculus stood cracked like a cookie.

It connected.

For the first time, an opening appeared in the homunculus's attack.

Matching the homunculus attempting another shield bash, Siwoo also tried a straightforward physical attack.

"Huh!"

This time, there was no sound.

Siwoo's mouth, clenched tight against the impact that would have filled the helmet with ringing, opened futilely.

The White Knight, which had acted as if it would charge head-on, this time offered no counter at all, subtly pulling its body back instead.

The balance on the foot he had powerfully stomped down collapsed.

His entire body leaned and toppled forward.

In his tilting field of vision, he saw the spear blade flying toward his face as if it had been waiting.

"Guhk!"

What saved Siwoo at the critical moment were the two strands of ribbon.

Using the ribbons like arms, he forcibly pushed off the ground, swinging his body to escape the attack range.

"Huff... Huff..."

Perhaps that was quite unexpected, as the White Knight did not rashly close the distance but simply leveled its spear.

His eyelid was deeply torn by the spear blade.

He could feel the copious flow of blood dyeing his right field of vision red.

Thankfully, his eyeball wasn't injured, but having his vision obstructed on top of the already significant skill gap was too great a penalty.

He was perfectly cornered.

It was a desperate crisis.

Author's Note (Afterword)

Taming into an obedient girlfriend slave...I want to see the cover, teachers, please... help me...

It's really fun, I'm telling you....