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1.

The moment the fight started, Siwoo realized just how big the power gap between them was.

First, he assessed his own gear.

Three four-leaf clovers from Cybele Periwinkle.

These were the lifelines that could save him from death three times.

Next, the protective cloak made by Flora Arabesque.

He hadn’t had the chance to test its full defensive capabilities, but…

Considering that it was a ‘Mystic Code’ crafted by a 22nd-ranked grand witch, it shouldn’t be some kind of counterfeit.

And lastly, the Red Branch, which he could only control at about 25%.

He could barely use it to manage its distortion field, while its barrier was completely beyond his control.

Nevertheless, he was betting everything on the Red Branch as his only shot at winning.

During his research with Countess Yesod, he had taken a look at the broken music box that he had.

It was a top-tier artifact designed to be able to handle considerable contamination, but its circuit had been completely burned out.

The reason for that was none other than the slight distortion field that leaked through the ribbons that he used to seal the Red Branch.

Meanwhile, Bianca Belleli’s self-essence magic was all about customizing various magic tools.

As long as her abilities revolved around those tools, this was literally the only thing he could bet on.

The distance between them was around 100 meters.

For Siwoo, it was a gap he could close up in a heartbeat, but Bianca already pulled out a gun before he could start.

Her calm reaction to his sudden charge showed her seasoned experience as a hunter.

The black gun in her hand seemed to be an ordinary 9mm automatic K5.

It didn’t look like an artifact, but…

From what he had seen in his left eye—now released from the eyepatch…

He could see hazy mana wrapping around the gun, and the moment her finger touched the trigger, the hazy mana shifted.

His superhuman vision caught every detail of the process as if it were in slow motion.

Yet, in that stretched-out time, the bullet streaking toward him was like a flash of light.

“Hup!”

Dodging to the sides or blocking it wasn’t an option.

So, still in his charging stance, he planted his spear into the ground and vaulted himself upward.

The bullet barely grazed the tip of his armor-clad foot, crashing into a massive iron pillar and crushing it with a loud bang.

He managed to dodge it, but it wasn’t time to relax just yet.

The maneuver left him in the air, and as far as he knew, K5 was an automatic gun, so it was capable of firing another bullet right away.

-Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

And he was right. She fired the gun–which had turned as strong as a tank’s cannon–without even flinching from the recoil.

A mass-produced pistol with that kind of destructive power, yet left the user with no strain.

It didn’t take a genius to see how absurd of an enhancement it had received.

-Swish! Clink!

Siwoo read the path her barrel was aiming for.

Suspending himself in the air with eight ribbons like spider legs, he dodged the shots acrobatically and launched himself at Bianca.

No witch could survive being impaled by the spear that was radiating a distortion field, but…

“I have some advice for you. I’m not really fond of men who come on a little too strong.”

When the gap between them closed to about 30 meters…

Bianca let out a smirk and lifted her hand for him to see.

In her hand was a crude-looking detonator that looked like an old-fashioned cellphone.

The two wires attached to it trailed off into a corner of the cargo hold, towards a M18A1.

In other words, the detonator was for an anti-personnel shrapnel mine, more commonly known as Claymore.

Siwoo instantly reacted.

Before he could find the true nature of the object in Bianca’s hand, he instinctively used his cloak to cover his body.

He lowered his head, bracing himself for the impact.

With his free hand, using the cover of his gauntlet, he protected the back of his neck.

-Boom! Boom! Boom!

His black armor, even though it was made of shadow with weak physical substance, had been reinforced with earth and fire elements, pushing its toughness and shock absorption to its maximum limit.

Normally, even the blast of about 700 grams of C4 and the shrapnel wouldn’t be enough to pierce Siwoo’s black armor.

But this Claymore had been boosted by Bianca’s magic.

The combination of the shockwave that traveled at tens of kilometers per second, and the silver steel fragments, left Siwoo frozen mid-air.

At the same time, his body felt like it was being pummeled by a baseball bat, and his mind began to blur.

He didn’t even have a moment to scream.

As soon as the blast subsided and he could move again, he pulled himself out of his cloak and staggered three steps back.

The intense shock left him so disoriented that he couldn’t move forward.

“Huff… Huff… Huff…”

A warm liquid trickled down his left temple.

Maybe he was a little too late in tucking his head under the cloak.

His helmet was cracked as it fell down and rolled on the ground. At that moment, a delayed throbbing pain pounded on the side of his head.

He suspected that his left eardrum had been ruptured.

When he glanced at his bracelet, he saw that all three clovers were still intact.

Maybe I should’ve just trusted my luck and charged in back then…

Dodging and stacking up injuries won’t help me in the long run…

“——, ————, ——.”

Meanwhile, Bianca was still yapping about something.

But since his ear was still ringing, he couldn’t hear a single word that she said.

“————, ——since you’ve signed it, there’s no escape. This is our stage now. No one here can run away, not you, nor me.”

Luckily, it seemed his eardrum wasn’t actually ruptured.

Even though it was still ringing, he could still hear Bianca’s voice. It was faint, but it was there.

“Takasho was too loud for my taste. But you’re way too quiet.”

“Because it’s not worth responding to you.”

Since he needed time to recover, he decided to play along with Bianca’s taunt.

So far, none of the weapons Bianca used were worthy of being called ‘artifacts’. They were just slightly enhanced versions of mass-produced conventional weapons. In terms of pure firepower, they were no better than toys.

“And you expect me to risk my life over some cheap toys? Give me a break.”

But here he was, already beaten up by those very toys.

His cloak and armor had saved his life by absorbing the impact, but at the same time, he was reminded that there was a vast gap between their power.

This was the strength of a 22nd rank Criminal Exile.

Even after all his growth and him arming himself with three Mystic Codes, the gap still seemed insurmountable.

But…

This was something he was already aware of from the very beginning.

No matter how many times he was mulling over it, nothing would have changed.

“Why don’t you just surrender quietly? Don’t you enjoy nice sex? As long as you cooperate with my experiments, I might let you grovel under my skirt. Besides, you have a nice face, and I like that.”

Still, he managed to learn one useful thing from their previous clash.

Bianca intended to capture him alive.

If she really wanted him dead, she could’ve fired the rest of the bullets while he was still standing frozen from the Claymore blast. All three of his clovers could’ve been used up in seconds.

The fact that she didn’t bother stepping away from him during their standoff showed that she wasn’t taking him seriously and wasn’t aiming to kill him. If she was, she could have just obliterated him with an earth-shattering barrage from a range so far that he wouldn’t even be able to see it coming.

“The only thing I’m giving you is this.”

He held out and pointed his spear directly at her.

“I’ll pass. It’s too long, it’ll hurt me if I take it.”

Behind Bianca, a diamond-shaped metal plate floated up as she joked.

Four eyes rolled around at each of its corners, each at the size of a palm.

There it is…

.

This was the first of the five Mystic Codes recorded in the records he had read.

‘The Observer’s Eye of Thought.’

It could see through the past, present, and future of its target, helping the user’s aim.

Once it observed a target, it could lock on and snipe them from hundreds of kilometers away. It was basically an aimbot combined with a wallhack.

Siwoo, who had been in a half-crouching stance, suddenly propelled his body forward.

His heavy boots left deep imprints at the take-off point as he shot across the 50 meters gap between them in an instant.

He had to close the distance, no matter what.

Because if the battle turned into a long-range battle, he’d stand no chance against her. He folded his ribbons, using the shadow particles like wings to propel himself forward with full force.

-Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Then, Bianca started shooting him again. Her previously aimless shooting had suddenly sharpened into pinpoint accuracy.

Each bullet she shot was aimed at his vital point.

They all came from angles and timings that made it impossible to avoid.

Hence, the best way to counter them was through rotation.

So, he rotated his body like a spinning top, and at the same time, he wrapped his cloak tightly around his armor.

Adding the rotation to his already excellent defense.

-Screech! Screech! Screech!

The sound of metal grinding against a grinder filled the air as the deflected bullet fragments scattered. At the same time, his spinning foot firmly hit the ground.

-Kuung!

The reverberating shock shook the hull as Siwoo accelerated again.

His gathered and condensed power surged forward twice as fast as before.

This burst of speed that he had been saving for this moment allowed him to dodge her last bullet. Now, he was only a step or two away from reaching out to her with his spear.

“I told you already. I’m not interested.”

-Wooong! Wooong! Wooooong!

But, the red spear that he thrusted straight at her heart suddenly stopped in front of a silver shield.

It was a bizarre sight.

The spear, tearing through the air faster than sound, came to an abrupt stop as it hit the shield that was no bigger than two palms.

What was strange was the fact that there wasn’t any shock or impact from the collision.

Only silence filled the space, as if the spear had been pressed against the shield from the very beginning.

The shield, having blocked his attack, floated around Bianca as if its job was done. This was the second Mystic Code from the records.

‘Bitege’s Shield’.

It was like an advanced autonomous defense.

The shield could nullify all incoming energy, providing absolute defense towards its user.

Combine it with ‘the Observer’s Eye of Thought’, Bianca Belleli had practically no blind spots.

But it wasn’t over yet.

The spearhead, which had been stopped, began to move.

Its shaft and blade blade swept through the air in a deadly arc, striking Bitege’s shield repeatedly with a sharp, cutting noise.

But…

Despite his relentless assault, it accomplished nothing. It was as if he was just dancing in the air.

No sound of impact nor shockwave was produced, and even his hands didn’t feel any kind of recoils.

While this was happening, Bianca never lifted a finger. The Bitege’s Shield was blocking every single strike he dished out with ease.

The weak distortion field at the tip of the spear wasn’t enough to affect the Mystic Code that had been reinforced by Bianca’s magic.

“Well, I can’t just let this go on forever, right?”

Bianca let out a faint smile as she pulled out a fan, its white feathers softly fluttering.

“Mind stepping back a bit?”

As soon as she gave the fan a light wave…

Something incomprehensible, something beyond his understanding, happened.

A fan that small shouldn’t have been able to counter the wind force Siwoo’s movements created. But as soon as he felt that breeze on his cheek, the gap he had just closed was blown open again, pushing him even further back.

This was Bianca’s third mystic code.

‘The Poet’s Fan’.

Even if one managed to get close to her after withstanding all her barrage and sniping, in the end, it wouldn’t matter. With a single wave, that fan could create an enormous gap again.

Each of her spells hit with devastating power, targeting vital points with perfect accuracy.

Even if one could close the gap, her impenetrable shield would block all the attacks, and if one were to hesitate even for a second, the distance would widen again, sending them right back to the start.

“Do I really need to keep going? I feel like I’ve shown you enough already.”

Bianca let out a sigh, waving her fan lazily as if she had grown tired of the fight.

But for both Siwoo and Bianca…

This was just the end of the initial probing stage.

She would keep attacking from a distance.

And if he got close, she’d block him with her seemingly unbeatable defense.

Then, she’d push him back to long-range again.

A flawless strategy that seemed unbreakable.

“It’s not over yet.”

For Takasho’s sake, and for the chance to seize control of his own fate.

It was too early to give up.

He still had something left to try.

What he needed now was mana. A lot of them. An overwhelming amount of them.

“Bloom.”

Siwoo’s golden eyes swirled again, absorbing every bit of mana from the /genesisforsaken