City of Witches Chapter 277

The fight was over.

The gap between the two was so overwhelmingly vast that Paola was defeated by Eloa without putting up any decent resistance.

Of course, this was only possible because Eloa had recovered some of her magic power.

If it had been Eloa immediately after fighting the Enemy Knight, she would have been wrapped in those grotesque tentacles and become a bite-sized snack.

Eloa stood before the lotus flower shining with a brilliant light.

Then, something unexpected happened.

Paola, who was lying as if leaning against the lotus flower, stopped Eloa with a desperate voice, along with a sticky gurgle of blood.

"W...ait...!"

Surprisingly, Paola was still clinging to life for a moment, even with her heart pierced.

She had probably inherited some of that tenacious vitality by assimilating her body with the Homunculus.

But that was merely a postponement of the time of death.

"......"

Eloa raised her Contract Sword again.

This time, she intended to decisively sever the neck and end the suffering.

"Stop... please, listen to me...!"

Paola looked up at Eloa urgently, baring her teeth stained red with blood.

The wound on her chest still gushed and spewed thick blood.

Without proper treatment, the fate awaiting the Cowardly Witch was clear as day.

Eloa froze in her stance, poised to swing the sword.

Many public enemies had begged Eloa for their lives before.

There were Witches who, crushed by fear, abandoned everything and pleaded for mercy even before entering the fight.

But Eloa had never once stopped her sword or listened to their words.

Instead, she silently carried out the duty she had taken upon herself.

They indiscriminately killed humans, killed Apprentice Witches, and killed fellow Witches to satisfy their own desires.

No matter what plausible justification they had, it was wrong and a sin that deserved punishment.

There was no room for compromise, appeal, or pity.

No, this is just an excuse.

Eloa knew.

That she, in truth, just needed a place to run away.

That she was merely using the murky emotion of vengeance as fuel to support her collapsed purpose in life.

"......"

But even Eloa, who usually cut through hesitation like a knife, made an exception for the Cowardly Witch.

It was undeniable that Paola's appearance overlapped with her own.

"You... you know too... what the sorrow of losing is like...! You must also know... how agonizing it is to lose an Apprentice Witch due to your own mistake and have to accept an irreversible result...!"

Paola was desperate.

Even though she couldn't move properly, even though opening her mouth alone must have been agony for her pierced lungs.

She squeezed out her voice and cried out to Eloa with fervent desperation.

"I too... I too, am just like you... Then you should be able to understand... If it's you, you know what state of mind drove me to do such things..."

Furthermore, the reason Eloa couldn't easily lower her sword was because she could tell that Paola's plea wasn't merely for her own life.

She wasn't trying to elicit pity from Eloa just to prolong a wretched existence.

"I didn't want to do this... It wasn't for some mere Magic... You can understand, can't you? I, I just wanted to turn things back!"

Paola, too, was merely struggling to correct a wrong.

Feeling guilt just for breathing, feeling self-reproach.

She was in a pitiable state where she had no choice but to cling to anything to grasp hold of the past.

When beheading public enemies and Homunculi.

She never truly believed her actions were for the sake of justice.

It was just that Raphi's last words happened to be 'I want to save people,' and since the targets of her vengeance were public enemies, she had hunted public enemies and Homunculi.

What if the Cowardly Witch had someone else to blame, and had someone by her side who would listen to her words a little more properly?

"I understand. Your pain, grief, sorrow, misery... I understand it all better than anyone."

The Cowardly Witch, Paola Sotilt, was a distorted mirror of Eloah Tiferet.

If Raphi's last words hadn't existed.

It was the self she might have become if she had succumbed to sorrow and guilt and fallen into ruin.

Eloa knelt on one knee, matching the Cowardly Witch's eye level.

Pity and sympathy were mingled in her magenta gaze.

Had she found a sliver of hope in that?

The Cowardly Witch sobbed, pouring out her impassioned plea even more fervently.

"Here... the result is complete, with this lotus flower, you can revive your Apprentice Witch too...! You just have to look the other way a little... If you let me revive my Apprentice Witch, I'll disappear too...! After that, you can use this lotus flower to revive your Apprentice Witch as many times as you want, isn't that good? It's the best solution for both of us, right? Isn't it?"

Eloa looked at the lotus flower again.

"Yes! With just that, we can grasp hold of our regrets, right? We can be happy again! Without burning with vengeance over public enemies or the Witch of Aquarius... We can start over...!"

The lotus flower blooming delicately.

It was, without a doubt, more beautiful than any Artifact Eloa had ever seen in her life.

It was unimaginable that such a flower had bloomed atop an uncountable pile of corpses.

Like the heart of a mother thinking of her child.

Although the Cowardly Witch's actions were utterly evil, her love for her Apprentice Witch must have been pure enough to bloom such a lovely flower.

"Yes, it's possible... Everything can go back..."

Paola's words were cunning.

She cleverly omitted the fact that to achieve her goal, to activate the lotus flower, countless people had to be sacrificed as offerings.

Because she thought it right to plunge Tiferet into conflict for now.

If the other shared the same sorrow and pain as she did.

This one phrase would feel more tempting than any other temptation.

And those words precisely pierced Eloa's heart.

She could revive Raphi.

It wasn't meaningless vengeance.

She could say the words she couldn't convey, give the teachings she couldn't give, and share a future that was now impossible to send.Here lies the most ideal future Eloa could ever envision, taking distinct shape before her.

Eloa closed her eyes.

Raphi's voice, which she could not forget for a single day, her cute nose, her round eyes.

Eloa's treasure, which she would not have traded for anything in the world.

If she took the Cowardly Witch's hand, she could face it all again.

Not in dreams, nor as that rigid, bloodless corpse.

Here and now, in reality.

"How many people died to make this lotus bloom?"

Eloa calmly, quietly, severed her lingering attachment.

When she opened her eyes again, all the visions of Raphi that had bloomed across her mindscape vanished like a mirage.

"That doesn't matter... They're just people whose faces I don't know anyway... There's nothing wrong with wanting to see your most precious person again...!"

"I have no right to condemn you. No right to dismiss your sorrow as mere attachment, nor to deny you."

"Fine! I'll compromise...! Let's save your Apprentice Witch first...! Then I'll do it..."

Even though she knew the order wasn't the issue.

Even though she knew her offer had already been rejected.

Paola, veins bulging in her neck, denied reality.

"......"

But seeing Eloa's silent response, she realized with the finality of a guillotine blade dropping.

"How can you be so indifferent...! You said you understood... Did you think you were any different from me?!"

After desperate pleas and entreaties were futilely severed, what filled their place was hatred and rage.

Paola's condemnation, bordering on a scream, was directed at Eloa.

"I understand your anger and despair as well. For I was once the same."

"Shut up! You know nothing! I, I did all this for... just for this..."

Eloa looked down at Paola, flailing in her death throes, with pity in her eyes.

"I mourned, regretted, despaired, and writhed in guilt without a single day's respite. I too would have done anything to save Raphi."

If she had never met Siwoo.

If she, having lost even the target of her vengeance and wandering lost, had been in this place.

If, holding a heart that felt ready to shatter at any moment, she had heard the Cowardly Witch's proposal.

Could she have shaken her head as easily as she did now?

To answer 'yes' would be arrogance.

Eloa did not consider herself that strong a person.

She would surely have agonized, and perhaps might have even helped Paola, who was on the brink of death.

"But even if I used your power to bring Raphi back to life, Raphi would surely be saddened."

"Ha! So in the end, you're making this cowardly choice because you're afraid of being resented?"

"Yes, I am afraid."

Eloa let out a deep sigh.

"When that child is revived. I can clearly see her, denouncing me, asking what I had done, why I brought her back. But she would undoubtedly forgive me. She would cry, rage, hit me, scream and resent me, but with time, she would surely end up embracing her foolish master."

"......"

"And after that, to atone for the sins I committed, I would wander the Mortal Realm until the moment I close my eyes for good."

"Then... that's enough, isn't it...?"

"That is not what Raphi would want. It is merely my selfishness. The path left for me, the path I must walk, is simply to mourn the one who has departed and move forward in silence."

"......"

Perhaps having exhausted all her energy in her final, life-squeezing tirade and fury, Paola's voice grew hoarse.

Choked by the boiling fresh blood, it spilled endlessly from between her lips.

The end was near.

Neither Eloa nor Paola spoke any further.

They had already exchanged enough words for a conversation.

"Do you have any final words you wish to leave?"

"......"

Paola, robbed of her last hope, looked up at Eloa with one eye already like that of a dead person.

From the hollow chest where nothing else arose, a deep, profound malice and hatred flared up like fire.

It was hatred for the enemy who had stolen every last shred of her hope.

"I hate you."

Eloa's sword traced a beautiful spiral.

The blade, drawing a fluid line without even the sound of a cut, grazed Paola's neck and then shattered the lotus upon which she was leaning.

Eloa returned the sword, untainted by a single drop of blood, to her Subspace and murmured in a bitter voice.

"Even that, I suppose I can understand."

After confirming the lotus, crumbling slowly like a heavily cracked glass ornament, and Paola's body being covered beneath it.

Eloa turned her steps toward where Siwoo was waiting.