City of Witches Chapter 85

Siwoo had been preparing for Ea's attack from the moment her fingertips twitched.

He deployed the shadows flowing from between his armor plates to the front.

The armor was the final bastion against impact.

He needed another means to more actively counter her attacks.

A shield to deflect the blows.

He didn't even need to hold and block with a shield directly.

Just levitate it and use it as cover.

The shadow shield, shaped like a broad cone, was designed radially to disperse impact.

Siwoo planned to deflect the Ribbon's attack along the sloped surface.

He lowered his stance and opened his mouth.

And then.

The anticipated impact arrived.

-BOOM!!!!

"Cough!"

A tremendous Shockwave.

The collision of the shield and Ribbon, the violent clash of magic power, fed back directly into Siwoo's body.

An intense, cramping pain made his insides shrivel, and the gastric juice in his stomach surged up his throat.

Even though he clearly blocked it, it felt like being caught in a bomb blast.

"Assistant!"

"...Don't!"

He stopped the rushing Twins with a hand, sensing his unusual intensity.

The only reason the Twins were guaranteed safety now was because this unfair duel was between Siwoo and Ea.

Even this was a fleeting safety that could warp the moment she became capricious.

Now was the time to humor her while preparing other means.

"You can block this much?"

Ea's composed voice pierced his muffled ears.

It went as calculated.

The inclined plane Siwoo created sufficiently deflected the impact, and the remaining force was dispersed as the shadow shield split apart like a pizza.

However, if there was something Siwoo hadn't anticipated, it was that Ea was a far more ruthless and cruel woman than he expected.

If Siwoo had been even slightly less adept at freely manipulating the laws of shadow, by now a limb would have been torn from his body and rolling on the ground.

Ea had clearly held back against Siwoo.

But the extent of her restraint was precisely up to preserving his life.

Beyond that, she had not the slightest interest in how his body might be broken.

"Then, one more shot."

-Skreeeeeech

This time too, the Ribbon twisted in mid-air with a whirling motion.

A taut sound, like a bowstring drawn to its limit, vibrated the air.

Not one.

Two.

Three.

Three strands of Ribbon in total aimed at Siwoo and the Twins.

"You fucking bitch."

Gnashing his teeth, Siwoo downed the second concentrated Magical Power.

"Bloom!"

Shadows gushing from his palm embroidered the void like octopus ink.

This time, the form was different from before.

Not radial, but a honeycomb-shaped shield constructed more densely and intricately.

Moreover, not just one, but three layers were deployed sequentially for perfect readiness.

Calculating from the previous Impact Force, anything more was unnecessary.

This was precisely the Maginot line where he could leave behind some spare magic power and mental strength without incurring irrecoverable wounds.

"Can't you just die?"

The calculations were done.

What remained was a gamble.

Tapping his knee with a finger, he gauged the timing.

The shield didn't need to maintain constant hardness at all times.

That would require too much magic power.

At the moment of collision, in that brief instant, if he concentrated his power, it was possible to defend against the attack with much higher magic power efficiency.

However, if the timing was off even slightly, the shield would tear like tissue paper.

And behind it, the unworthy master's blood and flesh would dance through the air.

-BOOM!!!!!

A deafening roar like hammering on steel plates.

Relentlessly, with almost no interval, the Ribbon hammered the shield in succession, but ultimately failed to reach Siwoo's heart.

An Impact Force at least double the previous one pounded his entire body.

The pain was like being beaten all over with a baseball bat.

Yet, Siwoo's gamble was successful.

A strike that grazed his cheek by a hair's breadth lost its menacing momentum and fluttered back as a limp Ribbon.

"Ghk...!"

"You blocked this too? Still, looking strained after just two rounds is a pity, isn't it?"

The garden, having only been swept by the Shockwave, was now devastated as if bombed.

As the thick dust obscuring his vision was blown away by the wind, Siwoo's figure, kneeling on one knee, was revealed.

Siwoo calmly assessed his situation.

Lukewarm blood flowed from his left ear.

His eardrum seemed ruptured, sound cut off on that side.

The eyelid grazed by the Ribbon, which shattered the shield and tore itself apart, burned hotly.

From his mouth, a mouthful of blood from an unknown source flowed, and his once-clear vision was blurred as if looking through layered lenses.

Just once more, endure just one more time like this.

With a desperate resolve, Siwoo pushed off his thigh and rose.

"Honestly, I'm surprised. How can a mere slave deploy such Magic? Well, the efficiency looks truly terrible, though."

"Hoo..."

Siwoo ignored Ea's words.

Now wasn't the time to bother with the likes of her.

He had to calculate the magic power and mental strength to allocate for the next attack.

"Now, this time it's thirteen. A very tragic and unlucky number."

As Ea raised her fingertips, thirteen Ribbons in total coiled in mid-air, gazing at Siwoo.

One, then three, now thirteen?

While he hadn't landed a single hit, fury surged towards this bitch who switched phases as if half his health bar was gone.

Just as Siwoo desperately pondered the structure of the next shield, Ea smiled slyly and made a proposal.

"Here's a chance."

Ea spread her arms wide like a stage actor, wearing a beaming smile.

Her eyes gleamed with a disturbing, feverish light, as if she couldn't contain her delight in this game.

"You know it too, right? That in the next round, one of your limbs will definitely be severed?"

"...I know."

He wanted to deny it, but it was true.

He had no margin left.

To perfectly block that attack, he had to definitively abandon 'one of the two.'

"Look at those stupid Twins shivering and sucking their fingers over there. Isn't it irritating? Someone's fighting with all their might."

"It can't be helped, since you won't stay still."

"I'm talking about just the result."

No need to refuse when she was buying him time, which was already insufficient.

She'd just spout more psychopathic nonsense anyway, so he'd just play along appropriately.“You know the younger one of the twins, right? The one who didn’t say a word and just sniffled while her sister was offering to sacrifice herself and fight in her place.”

“Hmph…”

Odette flinched the moment Ea’s gaze landed on her.

Even as Odil wrapped her arms around her shoulders to comfort her, the trembling wouldn’t subside.

“Dear, what’s your name?”

“She doesn’t need to answer!”

“Wouldn’t it be better to answer?”

Ea spoke while blowing on the tips of her fingers, which had been gently stroking something.

Odette cautiously opened her mouth.

Her voice, trembling like an aspen leaf, was half-soaked in tears.

“O… Odette…”

“Don’t you have anything to say? Your sister is bravely offering to sacrifice herself, and this poor slave here is putting on a show trying to save you. So what are you doing?”

As Ea’s relentless criticism poured out, Odette averted her gaze.

For someone as timid as her, even enduring Ea’s cold, stern gaze was overwhelming.

What hurt Odette the most was that her words weren’t baseless fabrications.

Her mind went blank, and she couldn’t bring herself to step forward and do anything.

Just the fact that Ea’s attention was directed at her made her scared, terrified, and she could only tremble, wanting to run away.

“Odette, don’t listen. She’s just toying with us anyway.”

“Is that how you treat someone’s goodwill? I’m just trying to teach Miss Odette here, who lacks even basic common sense, the proper way to behave.”

“Sis… I’m okay…”

Odette barely managed to meet Ea’s eyes.

Eyes filled with madness, like those of a cat, scanned Odette’s body up and down.

“Kneel and beg for your life. Then I’ll make this stage a little easier for you.”

Though Odette was still an immature Witch and a coward, she wasn’t entirely without shame.

She had pride as the successor of the Jemernai Count Family.

She knew how disgraceful it would be to kneel and beg for her life, succumbing to deceit.

“You won’t even do this?”

But there was no choice.

Rationalizing, compromising with herself, and ultimately running away.

Odette’s legs slowly bent.

Just before her knees touched the floor.

“Hey, lady, cut it out.”

Siwoo’s sarcasm froze the air.

Ea’s gaze, which had been watching Odette with keen interest, shifted to Siwoo, who was now tattered.

“Lady?”

“I can’t stand to watch this. Do you really want to act like this at your age?”

Ea chuckled softly.

It was a knowing laugh.

“I understand your intention, but was that the right choice?”

“I don’t know either.”

Shadows oozed and overflowed from Siwoo’s arms.

While Ea was briefly focused on Odette, Siwoo had drunk the high-grade Magical Power verified by the Emerald Tablet.

Thanks to Ea’s complacency, all his calculations were complete.

A massive amount of magic power flowed from Siwoo’s body.

Absorbing and using an entirely different magic power.

That was Siwoo’s specialty, verified in the Latifundium.

All that remained was to utilize his own innate magic, which he had been researching, using the absorbed magic power.

“Lady Odette.”

“Y… yes… Assistant…”

Odette, who had finally burst into tears, sniffled and answered Siwoo.

“When you succeed the Jemernai name later, make sure to teach this bitch a lesson.”

“Sniff… sob…”

“Lady Odette, you’ve shown enough courage.”

Siwoo’s hand traced a half-circle.

At the movement reminiscent of Tai Chi, Ea tilted her head and looked at Siwoo with an intrigued expression.

“What are you doing?”

A silver circle began to rise around Odil and Odette.

Siwoo’s eyes blazed as if on fire, reflecting a fierce light.

The magic to open a ‘Gate’ was an incomplete version.

The Magic Formula Siwoo had perfectly constructed was, at best, a Circuit for absorbing and amplifying magic power.

The completion rate for the part meant to pierce a hole between the otherworld and the Mortal Realm was less than 10%.

However.

Siwoo had completed the remaining parts while defending against Ea’s attacks.

In that brief moment, creating a formula to perfectly traverse dimensions was impossible, but changing coordinates randomly within the ‘same world’ for teleportation was feasible.

Siwoo had redefined this emergency escape Magic Formula while blocking Ea’s attacks.

The ‘Coordinate Displacement Formula’.

A hastily completed Magic Formula pieced together from parts of the magic he had been researching.

“Guh…!”

His head overheated from the overload.

The wave of magic power, rampaging through magic circuits he rarely used and tearing through his body, was destroying him.

-Tap, tap

Nosebleed flowed.

His eyeballs, heated as if under pressure, burst capillaries, and bloody tears overflowed from the bloodshot eyes.

“Assistant…?”

“Stay still!”

“What is this… Could it be…?”

The formula was nearing completion.

In his ear, which could only hear from one side, a hallucinatory sound like machinery turning echoed.

“You’re escaping! Go… bring anyone! Amelia or the Countess…! I’ll hold this crazy bitch back in the meantime!”

Not everyone could escape.

The magic power consumed and the complexity of the calculations were proportional to the mass of the objects being moved.

Moreover, someone was needed to block attacks during the delay while the Magic Circle activated.

-Wheeeeeeeeng!

“Ah… no! Assistant!”

“It’s meaningless. Inside this bottle, no one can escape…”

The reason Ea didn’t react to the twins trying to escape was because she trusted her bottle.

Inside her bottle, which perfectly separated the inside from the outside, no one could escape.

-Wobble…!

And Ea’s blind faith crumbled in an instant.

Suddenly, the entire bottle barrier shook violently.

A tiny gap had formed in a part she hadn’t paid attention to.

A gap just large enough for one person to barely crawl through.

“Impossible!”

Such an anomaly couldn’t have occurred suddenly.

Ea panicked and looked up at the ceiling of the bottle.

The shadows Siwoo had squeezed out to block the ribbon.

The shadows she thought had scattered, offset by the ribbon’s impact, had unknowingly clung thickly to the upper part of the bottle.

In the brief moment Siwoo activated the teleportation magic, they had all clung to the bottle at once, inducing a tiny crack.

“Assistant…!”

The twins’ sorrowful cries vanished.

They had successfully teleported.

Simultaneously, the barely torn gap in the bottle repaired itself.

He had blocked Ea’s attacks minimally, luring her into complacency.

Little by little, he had diverted shadows to prepare for creating a crack in the bottle.

At the same time, he had redefined his innate magic, which he had been researching, to teleport the twins, and calculated and substituted variables according to their conditions.

Siwoo knelt and collapsed on the spot.Now I truly have no strength left.

Just as my upper body was about to collapse, staggering.

Siwoo mustered all his remaining strength, grabbed his trembling legs, and stood up.

I still don't know where the Twins fell.

It's probably inside Gehenna, but because I input random variables.

Maybe it's somewhere nearby.

To prevent Ea from immediately giving chase, I need to buy enough time for the Twins to activate the music box.

"How about it? Not bad for a slave, right?"

"........."

It's satisfying.

Even though my body is battered and bruised, seeing Ea's dumbfounded expression with her mouth agape made me feel completely refreshed.

Ea's twisted lips parted.

"Insolent thing. I was going to treat you kindly because you're pretty with your symmetrical features... I'll tear you to shreds and feed you to the Twins."

Siwoo lifted his staggering upper body and drank one more Magical Power.

Amidst all his magic power being drained to activate the Magic Circle, leaving him devastated.

Once again, a wave of magical power that ripples through his entire body's Circuits begins to fill him.

"Phew."

He swept back his sweat-soaked hair.

With an arrogant smile, he raised his middle finger in a cool gesture.

"Your mom."

Now I have no regrets.

Author's Note (Author's Afterword)

I diligently wrote thank-you messages for the support, but for some reason, they all disappeared...

• Thank you for Rosrobos-nim's 100 coin support

To think you came from where my old master is... Thank you

• Thank you ㅣㅣㅣㅣ-nim for 100 coins

I love you too

• Thank you BigEastRive-nim for 150 coins

I will use the support that started from Twitch well for my personal gain

• Thank you for your support, WhatIsThis-nim

The next chapter is ready, hehe

• Thank you Nir99-nim for your support

Do you sincerely want to see ts Takasho...? Really???

• Thank you Mollang5923-nim for 200 coin support

I'm happy because you enjoy reading it, and I'm having a lot of fun writing these days

I'll use this for my dinner money. Thank you

• Thank you llPSGll-nim for your support

You're a marathon couple

• Thank you EvilSpirit-nim for 46 coins

It's a difficult question to answer because it's a spoiler, so please understand. I've received your intention to cherish Amelia

• Thank you Khikhikhin-nim for 50 coins

I'll buy and drink a refreshing iced Americano in venti size

• Thank you Nuo-nim for 100 coins

The next episode... is up...!