City of Witches Chapter 396

The moment the fight began, Siwoo once again gauged the vast chasm between the two parties.

First, Siwoo's armaments.

Three four-leaf clovers from Kibele Periwinkle.

Extra lifelines allowing him to cheat death up to three times.

A protective cloak crafted by Flora Arabesque.

He hadn't even had the chance to test its defensive limits.

But if it was a 'Ceremonial Artifact' created by a 22nd hierarchy Great Witch, it should be incomparable to mere prototypes.

Finally, the Red Branch, its functions controlled to about 25%.

He could only use it to the extent of controlling a Distortion Field; its uniquely free-spirited barrier was impossible to even handle.

Nevertheless, Siwoo was staking his sole chance of victory on the Red Branch.

While researching with Count Yesod, he had examined a broken music box.

Despite being a top-tier Artifact with mechanisms to handle various contamination scenarios, its circuits were charred black.

It had been affected within an extremely minute Distortion Field that had pierced through the Ribbon.

Bianca Bellili's innate magic was the magnetization of multiple magical tools.

If her abilities were heavily focused on magical tools, this was his secret, last-ditch move to find a way out.

The distance between them was roughly 100 meters.

A distance Siwoo could close in the blink of an eye, but Bianca already had a pistol in her hand.

Her composure, not even batting an eye at the sudden charge, revealed her experience as a hunter.

The bluish-black pistol in Bianca's hand was an utterly ordinary 9mm automatic pistol, the K5.

It was far from being an Artifact.

But to Siwoo's eyes, with his eyepatch removed, it was visible.

The hazy magic power seeping into the pistol, and the fact that something changed the moment Bianca's finger touched the trigger.

"Bang."

A physical perception far surpassing human limits perceived the series of events as if in slow motion.

Yet, within that stretched time, the bullet tracing a straight line was like a beam of light traversing an instant.

"Hup!"

Dodging left or right, or blocking, was impossible.

As if performing a pole vault, Siwoo drove the spear's blade into the ground and jumped upward from his charging posture.

-BOOM!

The bullet, grazing the very tip of the armor's foot, crumpled a massive steel pillar as if it were nothing, producing a deafening roar.

It was too early to feel relieved.

His body was still in the air, and as far as Siwoo knew, the K5 was an automatic pistol capable of continuous fire.

-Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Bianca, firing the pistol with cannon-like firepower in rapid succession, showed not even a hint of recoil.

An absurd enhancement ability, producing such destructive power with a mass-produced pistol while placing no burden on the user.

-Swish!

He read the trajectory the muzzle was aiming at.

Hanging from the eight Ribbons supporting his body like spider legs, he evaded the gunfire as if performing an acrobatic feat, then hurled his body toward Bianca.

No matter how much of a Witch she was, she wouldn't remain unscathed if stabbed by a spear blade radiating a Distortion Field.

"Shall I give you a piece of advice? I dislike men who come on too strong."

When the distance between them had narrowed to about 30 meters.

Bianca provocatively raised her hand to show him.

What she held was a detonator that looked like a crude, old-model mobile phone.

Two wires connected below it led to separate corners of the cargo hold.

M18A1.

The detonator for an anti-personnel claymore mine, commonly known as a Claymore.

Siwoo's reaction was swift.

Even before fully realizing what the object in Bianca's hand was, he used the cloak to cover his entire body.

Bowing his head to brace for the impact.

He wrapped his gauntlet-clad hand, not holding the spear, around the back of his neck.

-KABOOOOOOOM!

The Black Armor was composed of shadows with weak physical responsiveness, but it was an item that utilized earth and fire elements to push hardness and shock absorption to their limits.

Originally, the blast from roughly 700g of C4 and the scattering steel balls shouldn't have been able to pierce Siwoo's Black Armor.

But this Claymore had been enhanced by Bianca's magic power.

The shockwaves, sweeping in from both sides at speeds of tens of kilometers per second, and the momentum of the silver steel hail, brought Siwoo's movement in mid-air to an abrupt halt.

Simultaneously, his consciousness grew distant from the violent impact, as if his entire body were being brutally beaten with a baseball bat.

There wasn't even a moment to scream.

As soon as the explosion subsided and he could move, he extricated himself from the cloak and took three steps back.

His mind was too dazed from the fierce impact to possibly advance further.

"Hoo... hoo... hoo..."

A lukewarm liquid trickled down his left temple.

Was it because he had been too slow to tuck his head into the cloak?

The helmet was shattered, rolling on the floor, and a heavy, dull pain belatedly throbbed against his temple.

Additionally, his left eardrum seemed to be ruptured.

Glancing at his bracelet, all three clovers remained.

Should he have trusted in luck and charged instead?

The accumulation of injuries was not beneficial.

"——, ———-, ———."

Bianca's figure, rattling off something.

But with his hearing still sharp yet impaired, he couldn't make out a single word she said.

"————. ——Since we've signed, this is our stage alone. It's too late for regrets now; you can't run away. Neither you, nor I."

It seemed the ruptured eardrum was fortunately a misconception.

Given that he could still hear Bianca's voice muttering within his muffled, altered hearing.

"……."

"Takasho was too noisy. You're too quiet."

"Because it's not worth a reply."

The reason he humored Bianca's attempt at provocation by mentioning Takasho was because he needed to recover.

Among the weapons Bianca had used so far, not a single one deserved to be called an 'Artifact.'

They were merely slightly enhanced, utterly common conventional weapons churned out by factories.

If one considered the total firepower she could wield, it would be at a toy's level.

"Burning for mere toys like that, yet you tell me to stake my life? That joke goes too far."

And he was already in this state because of those toys.

The cloak and armor had absorbed the impact, saving his life, but it was clear proof of the vast gap.

This was the public enemy of the 22nd hierarchy.

An insurmountable difference in level, even after considerable growth and arming himself with three Ceremonial Artifacts.

But.

He already knew that.

Realizing it anew changed nothing.

"How about surrendering quietly instead? You seem to like sex. If you cooperate well with the experiments, I'll let you struggle beneath my skirt. Your face is pretty, so it's to my taste too."

Still, from the previous clash, he had gained one piece of information.

Bianca intended to capture him alive.If she had wanted to take his life, she would have poured the remaining bullets into him while he was still disoriented from the Cremore blast.

Had she done so, the three Clovers might have vanished in an instant.

In truth, the very fact that she was engaging him at this distance was proof that Bianca was underestimating Siwoo and had no intention of killing him.

If she had intended to kill him from the start, she could have suppressed him with earth-shattering bombardment from a distance he couldn't even identify.

"The only thing I'm going to give you is this."

He thrust his spear, aiming at Bianca.

"No thanks, I don't like things that long. They hurt."

Behind Bianca, who was boasting idly, a diamond-shaped metal plate rose into the air.

It was about the size of a palm, but at each of its four corners, an eyeball rolled restlessly.

It was out.

The first of the five Ceremonial Artifacts recorded in the documents.

'The Eye of Ideation Observation'.

It pierces through the target's past, present, and future, assisting the caster's aim.

Not stopping there, once an enemy has been observed, it can accurately snipe them even from hundreds of kilometers away—essentially an aimbot that includes wall hacks.

Siwoo's body, which had been half-crouched, explosively straightened as he shot forward.

A heavy footprint was imprinted at the point where the initial leap began, and the distance that had started at 50 meters narrowed once more.

He absolutely had to close in.

If the combat situation became a stalemate in long-range engagement, he wouldn't have even a sliver of a chance.

He folded the Ribbon and ejected particle-form shadows like wings, propelling himself with full Combat Power.

-Bang bang bang bang!

A sharp precision now imbued Bianca's aim, which had been mere suppressive fire until moments before.

Each shot aimed for vital points.

They flew at angles and timings that were impossible to dodge.

The best way to deflect a linear force is rotation.

Siwoo's body spun like a top, and simultaneously, the Cloak he drew in wrapped around his armor.

Combining the already exceptional defensive performance with rotation...

-Kreeeng! Kreeeng! Kreeeng!

With a grinding noise like metal being ground down, fragments of deflected bullets scattered.

The moment his rotating foot firmly met the ground...

-Kooong!

Along with a vibration that resonated through his entire frame, Siwoo's body accelerated again.

The force, gathered and condensed without waste, was at least twice as fast as before.

The sudden change in speed, hidden for this one move, even caused the final bullet to miss.

Only a step or two remained to within the spear's range.

"I told you, no thanks."

-Vooom! Voooom! Vooooom!

The crimson spear, which had been thrust straight toward her heart, came to a futile halt before a silver shield.

It was an eerily bizarre sight.

The spear tip, which had been tearing through the air beyond the speed of sound, came to an abrupt stop the moment it touched a shield no larger than two palms.

There was no impact from the collision, no aftermath, nothing.

Only stillness, as if the spear had been resting against the shield from the very beginning.

The shield that had blocked the spear thrust orbited around Bianca as if having fulfilled its duty.

The second Ceremonial Artifact recorded in the documents.

'Vitège's Shield'.

A superior concept to Autonomous Defense.

A shield of absolute defense that returns all energy applied from the outside to zero.

With the backup of 'The Eye of Ideation Observation' added to that, Bianca Bellili might as well have no blind spots.

Not yet.

The halted spearhead moved.

The Spear Shaft and spearhead, relentlessly striking Vitège's Shield in an arc, tore through the air with a menacing sound.

But.

Even though he was clearly unleashing a downpour of consecutive strikes, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was dancing in empty air.

That was because there was no expected sound of collision, no Shockwave, no recoil felt in his hands.

While Bianca didn't move a finger, every consecutive strike was being blocked by Vitège's Shield.

The faint Distortion Field condensed at the spear tip couldn't immediately have a significant effect on the Ceremonial Artifact enhanced by Bianca's magic power.

"How long are you going to keep that up?"

Bianca smiled faintly and took out a fan.

Its appearance was adorned with fluttering white feathers.

"Would you mind stepping back a bit?"

The moment it fluttered lightly...

A bizarre phenomenon beyond perception occurred.

A fan of that size shouldn't have been able to overcome the wind pressure created by Siwoo's violent movements.

Yet, the moment he distinctly felt the wind touch his cheek,

The distance he had barely closed widened farther than before.

This was Bianca's third Ceremonial Artifact.

'The Poet-Saint's Fan'.

Even if he broke through the hail of gunfire and long-range sniping to stand before Bianca, it would be meaningless.

Because with that fan, a single wave could create a vast distance between them.

Magic with destructive power difficult to withstand one by one struck precisely at vital points.

Even if he barely broke through the distance, an impeccable shield awaited him, and if he hesitated there even for a moment, the distance would widen again, forcing him back to the first phase.

"Do we have to continue? I think I've shown enough."

Bianca fluttered her fan languidly, as if already bored with the series of fights.

But for both Siwoo and Bianca,

They had only just finished the initial skirmish between sides.

Intercept unilaterally from long range.

Block with cheat-like defense when closed in.

Create distance back to long range.

At first glance, it seemed like a flawless, single pattern without weaknesses. Was there a way to break it?

"Not yet."

For Takasho's sake, and to grasp the lifeline in his own hands...

It was still too early to give up.

There was more he could do.

What he needed for that was magic power and magic power, and even more magic power.

"Bloom."

Siwoo's golden eyes swirled into a vortex again, absorbing the surrounding magic power.

Author's Note (Afterword)

Might be late past midnight...?