City of Witches Chapter 86

A frigid silence fell after the audacious profanity.

It would have been less terrifying if she had just exploded in rage, stomping around.

The cold, settled anger condensed in Ea's pupils as she stared fixedly at Siwoo.

A chilling sensation, like a venomous snake slithering over bare skin.

But there was no time to waste on fear.

Defense alone was no longer the answer.

He had cursed her, and he had let the Twins slip right before her eyes. Ea's fury would now be directed at Siwoo.

All that remained was to struggle desperately for one last chance at life, staking everything.

Raise the spear.

"Bloom!"

A black shadow erupted from one of Siwoo's arms, forming a massive lance over 5 meters long.

A cavalry spear forged for the sole purpose of piercing the enemy.

Now, there was no need for magic power to manipulate shadows, nor for extra mental focus to establish movement formulas.

Siwoo lowered his stance, aimed the spear, and charged at Ea.

Water Lizard Step.

A spear of the highest hardness, created by densely structuring the shadow into a lattice.

The shadow jetting from his back spread like wings, accelerating his body.

The field of vision instantly narrowed due to the acceleration.

A sprint carried by the wind.

The distance to Ea, once far away, closed in an instant.

"I'm tired of that now."

Among dozens of fluttering Ribbons.

A single Ribbon cut through the air.

Just one Ribbon collided with the spear.

"Ah...."

Siwoo stopped dead in his tracks.

Just three steps.

If he had advanced just three more steps, the spear's tip would have reached Ea.

However.

"Did you think you were something special just because I played with you a little?"

The spear shattered.

The lance, created with maximum hardness using a lattice structure, split like bamboo the moment it met the Ribbon.

The armor wrapping his arm was completely blown away by the shockwave, and the hand gripping the spear was mangled beyond recognition.

If not for the armor and gauntlet, his entire arm would have been torn off at the moment of impact.

"Ugh... Ughk...."

A hot surge of blood gushed up from beyond his throat.

The thick smell of iron and a vision already dyed red.

Siwoo looked down at his own hand in a daze.

The fingernails were gone.

The fingers, arbitrarily bent and broken as if caught in factory machinery, looked like they could be tied into knots.

Pain?

Could this sensation even be called pain?

No, more than that, who knew a human hand could be transformed like this?

The desperate resolve, squeezing out everything, was shattered to pieces by a mere single Ribbon.

The attacks from Ea that Siwoo had barely been blocking were, from her perspective, not even worthy of being called a pastime.

The overwhelming gap in power that had existed from the very beginning now shed its veil of deception.

He had known.

That he would ultimately never reach her.

"Cough! Gag! Hack...!"

Blood instantly burst from his mouth.

When Magic loses control and collapses by force, a price must be paid.

Siwoo retched and vomited blood onto the dirt ground.

The torrent of blood, forming a puddle the size of a cushion, was mixed with flesh whose origin he was afraid to identify.

The Black Armor enveloping his body vanished.

All Magical Power was exhausted.

His kneeling legs were stiff as logs, refusing to move an inch.

One ear had long stopped hearing.

Both eyes, caked with dried blood, wouldn't open properly.

His fingers had transformed into grotesque human crafts.

With every heartbeat, a drum-like throbbing threatened to split his skull.

Right.

This much is good enough.

What slave has ever given an Exile this much trouble?

Ea walked step by step towards Siwoo.

She looked down at him, unable to move a muscle, with arrogant eyes.

"Where did the Twins go?"

"I don't know either...."

The pointed tip of her shoe, not even waiting for his answer to finish, drove into his solar plexus as he barely managed to lift his upper body.

Not even a scream came out.

Though she hadn't used magic power for the kick, the blow to a vital point in his devastated state made Siwoo's head spin.

"Ah, really. This is so annoying."

The sound of grinding teeth fell upon his hunched-over head.

"It was a rare chance for revenge... and you ruined it all."

Slender fingers grabbed Siwoo's hair and forcibly lifted his head.

"What are you going to do? How will you make up for this? You're annoying me! I'm going crazy with annoyance."

Ea's hand caressed Siwoo's cheek.

Her sharp thumbnail slowly dug into Siwoo's left eye.

The adrenaline that had momentarily numbed the pain was meaningless before the agony of having his eyeball gouged.

A bizarre groan flowed from Siwoo's gaping mouth.

"Tha... ugh... ughk... tha... ah...."

"Yes, yes, beautiful. Cry cuter for me."

"You... fucking... bitch...."

Siwoo, sensing death, shot a venomous, half-lidded glare at Ea.

"Honestly, I don't like letting you off this easily. But it seems your master is returning soon."

Ea's hand withdrew from the eye socket.

Mashed vitreous humor and blood dripped from her fingertips.

A single strand of Ribbon slowly aimed at Siwoo's now-empty eye socket.

"Now, wait for it."

Siwoo sensed death.

The barrier rippled as someone walked in.

Hair and clothes terribly disheveled, as if she had rushed here in a great hurry.

For a brief moment, he thought how unlike the usual Amelia this was.

"Siwoo....!"

Amelia's face turned deathly pale upon discovering Siwoo and Ea amidst the anomaly enveloping the mansion.

"Goodbye."

As Amelia called Siwoo's name, as if waiting for that very moment, the Ribbon, its tip sharpened to a point finer than an awl, plunged deep into Siwoo's head.

"Ah...."

Blood dripped in drops from Siwoo's gaping eyes, nose, and mouth connected to the nasal cavity.

The blood gushing out like an opened faucet was mixed with a slick, transparent fluid.

In his violently shaken mind, thoughts surfaced like final death throes.

Shin Siwoo, the Twins crossing the barrier, Sadal Melik set as I crossed the fountain's boundary, I'll pay you back for my face, I want to drink cola, by what principle is human thirst quenched, Gehenna's moon is always full, the beauty of creation, the profound value of pi, 3.14159265355820.....3025... what came next? Ah.... 152674450 how many digits had I memorized, finally reaching, the first 999999, Feynman point, it whispers, open your eyes, upon recalling memory I was free I sang, within the world of zero the shadow stirs once more, forever burn this body.

Darkness.

"Nice to see you, Baron Marigold."Having pierced through the eye and into Siwoo's brain, Ea tossed his body aside like a doll and spread her arms wide, welcoming the prey she had been waiting for.

She ran, and ran, and ran.

Hundreds of particles enveloped Amelia's body.

Amelia shot forward, dozens of times faster than when using the Water Lizard's Step.

The impulse within her chest grew larger and larger.

Like centrifugal force strengthening with each rotation, a single-minded thought formed powerfully and solidified firmly.

"Siwoo... Siwoo... Siwoo...!"

Just by holding his name on her lips.

She wanted to convey this newly discovered emotion to him as well.

Thank you, I'm sorry.

And...

I'm not afraid.

I'm not scared anymore.

Anxiety and unease were crushed and vanished under the weight of a swollen, warm light, and only confidence that she could do it overflowed from her chest.

Each time her toes touched the ground, countless particles of light coalesced, and when they exploded,

Amelia split the sky like a bird.

The mansion came into view.

The mansion where she had recently begun living with Shin Siwoo.

Was he still there?

Had he run away?

Amelia spurred on her sprint.

And she saw it.

-Swoosh!

For a moment, a water bottle-shaped membrane enveloping the mansion became visible.

It turned semi-transparent for a very brief moment before returning to its original transparent form.

"Huh...?"

Amelia raced across the field without slowing her speed.

It required no effort to recognize the identity of the transparent membrane.

A Hidden Boundary.

A unique Magic Formula that blocks off the worlds inside and outside.

Given that she hadn't detected any sense of incongruity or distortion until the barrier became tangled, it was a barrier constructed at a fairly high level.

"........."

Anxiety surged.

Hidden Boundaries are primarily used by Witches in the Mortal Realm to avoid getting involved in trouble.

But this is Gehenna.

There's no need to hide the fact of being a Witch to avoid the eyes of Exiles, nor is there a need to hunt Homunculi while minimizing impact on the Mortal Realm.

Then why had a barrier appeared around Amelia's mansion?

Because someone inside wanted to conceal the fact that they were performing Magic.

"Siwoo...!"

Then, who in Gehenna would want to hide the performance of Magic?

Exiles.

Those wicked, malicious Witches.

Amelia felt her vision darkening.

Separate from that, her body raced through the air at a speed much faster than usual.

The appearance of the mansion visible beyond the barrier was the same as usual.

But that was a kind of camouflage to prevent any abnormal situation inside from being visible from the outside.

As Amelia stretched out her arm, countless clusters of particles extending from her fingertips tore at the barrier.

What greeted Amelia as she threw her body into the barrier was a garden as if swept up in a typhoon.

Uprooted garden trees rolling about, lawns all overturned revealing the dirt beneath.

And a Witch of unknown identity, with Shin Siwoo captured in her grasp.

His appearance was beyond description as merely wretched.

From head to toe, there wasn't a spot not stained with blood.

"Siwoo...!"

Amelia reached out her hand to use Magic.

The magic power contained within her Womb all boiled up at once, condensing like water droplets on Amelia's hand.

The only thought that came to her mind was that she must first pull him away from that Witch.

At Amelia's sudden intrusion, Siwoo looked at her with his remaining eye.

"Goodbye."

Before his lips could move to say something, the Ribbon aimed at Siwoo plunged deep into his head.

As easily as stabbing a steak with a fork, unrealistically piercing through his face.

There was no time to tell her to stop.

No time to protect him with Magic.

As the Witch stood up, Siwoo, impaled on the Ribbon, dangled limply from its end.

The pitiful corpse, flung into the air, flew towards Amelia.

Amelia reflexively stretched out her arms and caught his body.

"Nice to meet you, Baron Marigold."

A body soaked in blood, sweat, and an unidentified sticky fluid fell into her embrace.

His body trembled like a dying insect.

Bloody foam flowed from his mouth, and within his emptied pupils, crushed vitreous humor, nerves, and blood vessels were tangled together.

"Ah... ah... aah..."

It was like a horrific nightmare.

Why did this happen.

I haven't apologized yet.

I haven't said thank you yet.

I haven't told him to go to the Mortal Realm together, to please stay with me from now on.

"W-wait... I'll, I'll heal... I'll heal you..."

White particles extending from Amelia's body covered Siwoo's body.

She is not a Witch proficient in the Healing Art.

No, even if any Witch were placed here, healing wounds of this extent without any equipment would be impossible.

The identity of the fluid mixed and flowing from his nose and mouth was cerebrospinal fluid.

The Exile's strike had pierced through Siwoo's brain.

No matter how she tried to hold on, his life endlessly flowed away.

"Ah... ah... why... how come... now that... I finally have things... I want to say..."

All she could do was, at most, hold him in her arms.

The fluttering dress was completely soaked in blood.

"I am Ea Sadalmelik, a Witch who has come to steal your Brand. I happened to be stuck in a part of my research and coincidentally obtained your Fragrance. It seemed quite helpful."

"........."

"You seem to treasure that slave very much? That's fortunate. Right until his death, he cried, 'Baron Marigold! Please save me! Baron Marigold! It's so painful!' pitifully sobbing while only calling your name. I should have shown you that sight."

The trembling in Siwoo's body gradually ceased.

Regardless of what Ea was chattering about in front of her, Amelia stroked Siwoo's cheek.

His face, drained of color, had become frighteningly cold.

As if touching a plaster statue, not skin.

Her chest felt tight.

The pain of loss tightened her breath without even giving her time to dwell on the agony.

In the end, like this again.

Am I left alone once more?

Amelia hugged Siwoo tightly.

The loneliness and solitude she had grown accustomed to bloomed fully in her chest like a single black rose.

On that rose, a poison named anger was condensed like dew.

"Weep."

With the Incantation, a sky-blue light began to flow from Amelia's eyes.

Yes.

To Amelia Marigold, Magic was...

Always a poem of tears composed to mourn those who had departed.

Author's Note (Author's Afterword)If you go to the fan art hall in the work notice section, you can view fan art!

Isn't it amazing?