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1.

The clash of forces that shook the world came to an end.

Bianca, floating above, was looking down at the shipyard.

Or rather, it would be more accurate to say it as ‘a place that was once a shipyard’.

The massive container ship, once so imposing, was now shattered like a delicate model that had been tossed aside. Beneath it, the dock, riddled with holes, was slowly sinking into the seawater.

Archeart’s Bow, a bow that could fold space to launch as arrows...

Possessed a destructive power that defied conventional law of physics, like the law of mass conversation for example.

With that in mind, the ship should’ve been completely wiped off.

Not just that, everything in the vicinity should’ve been too.

But there was a reason why it hadn’t.

The rampaging Red Branch, launched using the ribbons like a slingshot, and the distortion field it created had canceled out the magic the bow released, neutralizing it.

However, the gap in power was obvious.

The night sky Bianca shot out crushed the red flash and forced it down.

In the first place, it was impossible for such a hastily improvised attack to overcome the Mystic Code that could perfectly shoot a deadly strike.

Through her Observer’s Eye of Thought, Bianca saw a man slumped against the twisted metal frame, his head hanging low.

With a light flap of her wings, she landed on the slowly sinking deck that had split in two.

“What a pity.”

The man, his head drooping like a corpse, didn’t react.

He had fought well, even to the end.

No witch had ever managed to do what he did—intercepting that unstoppable attack from her.

Bianca wasn’t an expert in Barrier Magic, but she could still sense the danger emanating from the distortion field he was utilizing.

He had been exposed to it for too long.

His breathing had almost stopped, and his heart was barely beating. He was slowly dying right in front of her.

Bianca had a potion that could instantly heal most injuries.

So, she pulled it out, and was about to give it to him, but at the last second, she put it back.

She realized that it wouldn’t be enough to heal his injuries.

The potion would make him look fine outwardly, but his insides—his spirit body—were already in ruins, crushed to a state akin to a scrambled tofu.

And not long after, his heart stopped.

Well, at least I’ll get the Red Branch—

“Hm?”

The Red Branch lay some distance away, as if discarded.

When Bianca reached down to pick it up, something unbelievable happened right before her eyes.

-Twitch

It was just barely, but the man’s fingers moved.

At first, she thought it was just the last remnants of electrical signals in his muscles, a reflex that could happen though one’s body had died.

After all, she had seen his heart stop.

Through the Observer’s Eye, she had witnessed how his pupils fully dilated.

He was definitely dead.

But...

“Why are you still moving?”

Bianca stared at Shin Siwoo.

And he stared back at her.

2.

He was sinking, endlessly...

Into that vast, dark space...

Yet, the darkness that touched his cheeks and wrapped around his waist felt warm, reminding him of his mother’s embrace.

Ain.

The first threshold of the three realms, never fully revealed.

On the horizon, the magical history Siwoo had written glowed, towering like a massive structure.

His thoughts, which had been drifting like his body, started to return.

Haa...

He let out a sigh, as he remembered the night sky that had swallowed the Red Branch in his final moment.

The shattering sound of magic tearing through the heavens echoed in his ears for a while, but now everything was so quiet.

It was eerie, and unsettling, enough to send chills down his spine.

Is this what death feels like?

Off in the distance, where the horizon faded away...

He could see a magical structure.

“Ah...”

A sound finally escaped his lips.

And with it, realization dawned upon him.

The fight was over.

He was defeated.

And he had to pay for that defeat with his life.

What a shame.

If only I had thought to fire the Red Branch a little earlier...

If only I had conserved a bit more mana...

If only I had put in more effort, and attained a higher mastery of magic...

His regret and frustration chased each other in an endless loop.

While his consciousness started to sink again.

At that moment...

He noticed something unusual.

This was Ain, the realm of unmanifested ideas.

There wasn’t supposed to be an end to this place.

And yet...

He saw its bottom.

A surface that he hadn’t been aware of until now appeared beneath him. It was as dark and smooth as a calm sea of oil, splitting the endless expanse of Ain in two.

At first, only his feet sank into it.

Then his calves...

Waist, chest, it went on until it swallowed him up to his neck.

And then a reversed world appeared.

Beneath that dark surface, another Ain existed, flipped upside down.

Dark shadows constantly shifted and morphed.

The sound of a massive loom spun relentlessly, like a machine at work.

Elemental particles bloomed and scattered like flowers, only to wither and fade.

Within this endless Ain, staircases and doors formed palaces of memory.

In the sky above, the strings of covenants were clearly etched.

A massive moon controlled the force field from above.

And encompassing everything in a harmonious way, a giant fractal structure in the form of a tree extending from the sky to earth.

Suspended in a masterpiece of design that left Siwoo’s creation in the dust, a man hung upside down. It was none other than Shin Siwoo himself.

The 15th rank.

It was the rank where instinct and magic started to fuse seamlessly.

Survival instincts manifested as an autonomous defense, preventing unintentional magical harm unless the caster willed it.

But Shin Siwoo had already surpassed the 15th rank long ago.

And now he found the reason why his autonomous defense never activated.

It was because his instincts hadn’t recognized all the previous threats he had faced as real danger.

When his heart stopped beating...

Only then did his body finally recognize the situation for what it was.

With a thunderous sound, Ain inverted.

The world, once balanced on a horizontal plane like a sinking ship, tilted vertically, then flipped back to restore its horizontal symmetry.

The gods were cruel, and they never granted anyone miracles.

Hence why, all miracles...

...Were the inevitable results of intersecting causes and effects.

3.

Witches were beings who wield mysteries.

For them, the resurrection of the dead wasn’t particularly something remarkable.

But this case was a bit different.

The Observer’s Eye of Thought had clearly witnessed his—Shin Siwoo’s—death.

Bianca had also confirmed there were no artifacts or devices that could enable his resurrection.

But it happened nonetheless, without relying on magic.

No matter how much Bianca thought about it, she couldn’t understand how he had come back to life, or how he was now staring at her.

“Amazing. You’re alive? So you still have something up your sleeves?”

One eye was black—a common color among Asians, while the other shone gold.

Those mismatched eyes met hers.

That stare, completely void of emotion, made her feel like she was staring into an endless abyss.

Bianca narrowed her eyes.

“Who...are you?”

His empty gaze was utterly devoid of emotion.

Something’s different.

His whole atmosphere’s shifted. This isn’t just a change in his state of mind!

A shiver coursed down her spine before she realized it.

By the time his tattered armor started piecing itself back together, she had already flapped her wings and soared back into the night sky.

From below, dozens, if not hundreds of ribbons shot up, aiming for her.

Her battle experience, her Observer’s Eye of Thought, and her gut instinct too deep to put into words, all warned her...

Of the extreme danger.

Up until now, Bianca had always felt like Shin Siwoo was just barely getting by.

Looking at his self-essence magic on its own, at best he was sitting at the 18th rank.

He had been compensating for his lacking self-essence spells by supplementing them with others’ self-essence spells.

For example, he’d use his loom to weave shadows—which tend to scatter easily—into ribbons, or fortify them with elemental magic to turn them into reliable weapons.

Additionally, since he wasn’t specialized in direct magical fights, he adopted the unorthodox close-quarter combat style to balance his fighting capabilities.

In short, he was a mediocre opponent, not quite worthy of being called a proper witch.

But the current him was different.

Now, each of his ribbons was incomparably more refined and durable than before.

They were fewer in numbers, but each of them packed the same power as those used by Ea Sadalmelik in her prime.

An awakening after a near-death experience?

Or did he gain a newfound revelation in his final moments?

...No, that’s just ridiculous.

The world isn’t designed to be so kind and gentle.

But, how else should I interpret this? The difference in his power is ridiculous. It’s like he had become a different person entirely!

-Shrieeeek! Shrieeeek!! Shrieeeek!!

The ribbons all surged toward Bianca, as if each one had a will of its own.

They weren’t just closing up on her like homing missiles, they were also setting up a trap, guiding her through the air like a net and pushing her toward one side.

But even with all the ribbons, her Observer’s Eye of Thought never missed a beat.

Her Icarus’ Wing let her fly faster than the ribbons, easily dodging them without so much as a single strand of hair being disturbed.

No need to panic.

I have plenty of mana left.

Reaching a speed of Mach 30...

In the blink of an eye, she left behind the objects that were 10 kilometers ahead of her just a second ago.

At that velocity, the G-force from a sharp turn would crush a normal human’s body, yet was still able to Bianca calmly draw back the Archeart’s Bow.

It was the most powerful weapon she had, and it was able to unleash a force that was beyond any other weapons in her arsenal, but it also consumed a vast amount of mana, limiting her to only three shots.

Which meant she had two shots left.

With her bow drawn to its limit and the sky was bent once again. Her target was Shin Siwoo, who was controlling the ribbons below. Just as she was about to fire her second shot...

-Wooooong!

The ribbons, as if anticipating her attack, suddenly formed a massive ring hundreds of meters wide.

Each strand coiled around itself in a spiral pattern, creating a tunnel that grew narrower and narrower.

Not only that, each of them was densely inscribed with golden magic formulas, all designed to control force fields.

The coiled ribbons and the force fields they emitted were his attempt to block Bianca Belleli’s ultimate strike.

“Release!”

Though it was her second shot, it was just as powerful as the first.

-Screeeeeeech!

The black arrow tore through space.

But the ribbons—as if they’d been waiting for it—resonated in unison, and the black arrow slowed, as if caught in a net.

“What...?”

The arrow that not even Icarus’ Wing could outrun was now moving slow enough to see. It was hard to believe.

As for why it happened, the arrow was being interfered with by a force field.

Not by some irregular Mystic Code or distortion of the Red Branch.

But simply by a massive and unexpectedly large-scale spell.

The force field trying to block the arrow and the arrow trying to break through it.

As the arrow advanced, the ribbons around it began to burn bright red—like filaments exposed to high voltage. Then the arrow regained its speed and slipped smoothly into the tunnel that the ribbons had created.

That was when she realized.

He wasn’t trying to block the attack completely in the first place.

-Kwaaaaang!

A deafening roar shook her to her core.

Followed by a geyser of seawater shot hundreds of meters into the sky.

Bianca had witnessed the entire sequence clearly.

Her ultimate strike had been guided through the tunnel created by the ribbons and plunged deep into the sea, far from its intended target.

How many times had she thought this?

Unbelievable...

Anyone could have come up with that idea.

Guiding a linear attack into a curve, like sliding it down a slide.

It was a strategy often used even on simple a Witch Board game to block a beam attack.

The problem here was that Bianca’s attack wasn’t a simple beam attack.

Even if a kilometer-thick cube of special alloy stood in its path, her strike would have obliterated it completely.

And yet, he had diverted it just with ribbons and force field magic.

It was a move that required a delicate calculation, and a single mistake could cost his life.

A lunatic...

This isn’t something a sane person could pull off...

She was unable to contain her shock as she tried to locate Siwoo.

Even amidst the water and the chaotic swirl of mana, her Observer’s Eye of Thought quickly pinpointed his location.

Shin Siwoo, who had torn through space and emerged right behind her, swung the Red Branch.