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1.

-Booooooooom!

Their clash began with a shockwave.

Like two dragons twisting in midair, the red spear and the dark night sky clashed together.

The collision of compressed space and an overflowing distortion field gave birth to a strange result.

Colors began to fade...

Leaving only black and white.

In between, droplets of various sizes, formed of the seawater, floated in the air, as if trying to defy gravity.

The slow-spreading white light passed through the water droplets, turning into seven colors like a prism.

Even gravity itself was strangely warped.

This was the phenomenon that happened when a powerful mana storm was created.

Spatial Randomization.

The massive shockwave from their clash twisted even the natural phenomenon within the barrier.

Seeing this, Bianca thought for a moment.

She still had some mana left.

If she really wanted to, she could keep on fighting.

But this space had turned into an apocrypha—law of nature had stopped working here.

Considering that even basic common sense—like water falling downward—could be defied here, the act of casting spells would be the equivalent of suicide.

A simple spell to light a fire could end up setting her whole body ablaze.

Even shooting a mana beam could bounce off the twisted space and hit her.

A defense spell might just turn against her and become a self-harming spell.

Until this distortion settled, she had to be extremely cautious with even the smallest move.

And then Bianca saw it.

Two opposing forces neutralized each other perfectly, like blown-out candles.

In the eerie silence and the black-and-white world...

A suit of armor flew up, reflecting a golden glow of mana like the dawn breaking.

Targeting the witch he saw as the enemy.

His sheer determination made him forget the fear of death.

Ignoring the never-before-seen phenomenon, and the distortion of the gravity that was pulling his body from all directions.

He didn’t stop his battered footsteps.

Some fought to survive in this endless battle.

Others pushed forward, ignoring the unknown threat to their lives.

The turning point between victory and defeat was ironically determined not by magic but by one’s mindset.

“Ah.”

Before she could even finish thinking, their path already crossed.

With a flick of his blade, Bianca’s wings were severed, and she began to descend, her body swaying gently like a falling feather.

2.

Shin Siwoo checked his body.

The distortion field had seeped into him so deeply, reaching his very bones.

He had been using his ‘Covenant’ to stabilize his existence, keeping his spirit body from disintegrating.

His energy was completely drained, and he couldn’t muster even a tiny bit of mana.

With his circuits in tatters, trying to recharge his mana through recurrent amplification was out of the question.

Which meant, there was only one option left.

There was a tasty prey right in front of him, a prey that could open a new door in magic.

He could steal her magic and amplify his own mana from there.

“That’s...surprising...”

Floating weakly on the shattered sea, Bianca had no strength left to resist.

She had been beaten so badly—even Bitege’s shield couldn’t help her anymore. In her current state, she was unable to even lift a finger.

The surprising thing was that Shin Siwoo had just cut off Icarus’ Wings, not taken her life away.

As she watched him calmly walking across the sea as if it were solid ground, Bianca finally realized what was going on.

“Are you going to take my magic too?”

He hadn’t spared her out of some foolish sense of mercy.

As she met his cold, merciless gaze, a fact that she had been pushed aside came to her mind.

He was the one who had reduced Ea Sadalmelik to the 13th-rank.

According to Ea, he had a special ability to steal a witch’s magic through intercourse.

While it sounded ridiculous, the results weren’t something to scoff at.

After all, she had seen how tragic it had been for Ea—to have her magic stolen while still being alive and well.

For a witch, that was the equivalent of having her limbs cut off.

And yet, Bianca accepted it willingly.

“Fine, take what you want. Just...spare my life.”

Now fully stripped of his armor, Shin Siwoo stood before Bianca.

Due to the impact of their clash, Bianca’s clothes, which were barely holding together, revealed her ample chest and thighs.

Throughout history, many kings had met their end by an assassin’s blade in their beds.

After all, a woman’s soft legs and the brush of her skirt had a way of stripping a man’s defenses.

Bianca’s provocative gaze fixed on Siwoo.

A jade-green glow flickered in her eyes.

“Devour me.”

But beneath the surface of the water where she lay...

She had one last trick, a final card she had prepared by squeezing out the very last bit of her mana.

In that moment of her fall, she squeezed every bit of mana she had left into the artifact.

-Chwaaaak!!!

At the same time, as the exhausted Siwoo approached, a bizarre-looking mouth broke through the water, as if waiting for him.

Its teeth, packed tightly like the spears of a phalanx, snapped shut from all sides like a carnivorous plant devouring its prey.

“This child is going to devour us. Together.”

Siwoo had just a brief moment when he let his guard down, and she took advantage of it perfectly.

But just as the teeth were about to tear both of them apart, it suddenly stopped.

Out of nowhere, rain began to pour.

Drenching Siwoo, Bianca, and the artifact, covering everything in its path.

Wherever that seemingly normal rain touched, magic stopped working.

It sucked up the mana, giving no room for control.

“What the...”

As Bianca stared at her surroundings, confused, her body began to fall apart.

Flowers bloomed, and they kept on blooming.

Wildflowers pushed through her skin, ripping her body open as they blossomed, spreading across the waves, the artifact, and every inch of the witch’s body.

“Ah...hahahaha...”

And so, her last desperate move ended in failure.

With a hollow smile, her body crumbled into a heap of flowers and collapsed, and her remains spun on the surface of the water.

Siwoo slowly stood up, scanning for the cause of this strange event.

As he searched for the intruder who had suddenly barged in and intervened as he was about to devour his prey...

A blonde witch—standing frozen—entered his gaze.

3.

No matter how hard Amelia searched, she couldn’t find anything.

She had traced the mana waves back to a shipyard, but even after combing through the place, she couldn’t find anything that stood out.

There were no signs of a barrier, nor were there any heavy surge of mana.

At that point, it was natural for her to wonder if she had just imagined it.

After all, it would be nearly impossible for a witch of her caliber to miss the presence of a nearby barrier.

Feeling it was all in vain, Amelia turned to leave.

But just as she did, she felt another wave of dull mana hit, as if trying to stop her from leaving.

-Woooong!

And there they were, the remnants of a broken barrier.

Despite it being the middle of the day, the sky above was shattered, like pieces of the night sky were scattered across it.

And amidst the black sea, she spotted a familiar figure drifting like a feather; the Witch of Desire, just like she’d seen on the List.

But, her condition was far from normal.

From her torn clothes and the pale complexion from her mana deficiency, it was clear that she wasn’t okay.

And standing there, looking down at her, was a man.

A man with a familiar back, the same one she had longed to see again. Shin Siwoo.

“Ah...”

A low sigh escaped her lips, and with it, old trauma resurfaced.

The image of Siwoo with his skull pierced at the feet of Ea Sadalmelik resurfaced instantly.

She couldn’t even think of the situation clearly. The fact that she had seen him alone with a Criminal Exile was already enough to make her face turn pale.

As if on cue, massive jaws emerged from the water, ready to swallow the weakened prey, and Amelia, choking down her scream, cast a spell.

Piles of flowers shattered.

This time, there was not even a trace of hesitation in her action.

With the artifact and the Witch of Desire herself both scattered into oblivion, Amelia wasted no time, sprinting across the water toward Siwoo.

If Bianca was in bad shape, Siwoo was even worse.

His body was drenched in so much blood that it was hard to even tell what kind of color his skin was originally.

The injuries in his body were so severe to the point that her fear quickly gave way to pure worry.

Not knowing what to say or how to even face him, her feet, which had been frozen in fear moments before, now ran straight toward Siwoo without hesitation.

The truth was, she was scared.

Terrified even.

Terrified of being rejected.

Terrified of facing the consequences of the choices she had avoided for so long.

The memory of Siwoo’s tears and his heart-wrenching cry at their parting still echoed in her chest.

The nightmares that haunted her every night might come true today.

She might reach a point where there was no turning back.

Siwoo stared down at Bianca, who had transformed into flowers and vanished.

And then his eyes fell upon Amelia.

As Amelia ran through the water, splashing with her every step, her eyes met Siwoo’s, and her feet gradually slowed to a stop.

What could she possibly say to him?

How was she supposed to approach him?

All the things she had wanted to say, the words she had composed in her mind after the hunt ended, before collapsing from exhaustion.

None of them would come out.

While he kept his lips firmly shut.

Even the faintest hope she had been clinging to was sliced cleanly away by the icy look in his eyes.

The mood was painfully hostile, as if he found it unpleasant that she had interrupted him, as if any apology or excuse from her would be futile.

Severance and rejection. Those were his only responses.

“Si...woo...”

As she barely whispered his name, time seemed to start moving again.

But Siwoo turned his head away, as if to avoid her—even though their eyes had clearly met.

His eyes were directed not at Amelia, but toward the eastern sky.

-Splash splash

Without a second thought, Siwoo turned his back on her.

Not even exchanging the simplest words, he began to walk away, and Amelia was forced to watch his retreating figure.

As the Interdimensional Barrier crumbled, Amelia’s heart collapsed along with it.

4.

Amelia crouched down, lost in a loop of the same scene playing over and over in her mind.

Silently hunting Homunculi, capturing Criminal Exile...

She had foolishly thought that if she said she did it all for him, he would forgive her, and with time, they’d resolve all their conflicts.

But now, it was clear that it was only her selfish delusion.

Siwoo didn’t even seem angry when he saw her.

He just turned his back around, not even giving her a chance to speak.

It was as if he had gone back to the time when he felt nothing at all.

As if he had lost even the desire to resolve things with her.

If so, what had she been struggling for then?

Had her desperate attempts to cast herself as a tragic heroine, hoping he’d turn around and notice her, been nothing more than selfish, impure atonement?

What should she do now?

Where was she supposed to go?

Amelia sank deeper into a cold reality that hadn’t even fully hit her yet, a reality so cruel that she couldn’t even let a single tear fall.

“Amelia! How could you just leave without saying anything? You scared me!”

Just as she was about to lower her head further, Clara appeared and rested her hand on her shoulder.

“Cla...ra...”

Seeing how Amelia squatted down and looked at her as if she would burst into tears the moment she touched her made Clara realize that something had gone terribly wrong.

“I...met...Siwoo...”

With that added information, Clara became certain.

“I couldn’t say...anything... I couldn’t say a word...”

“Amelia.”

Clara firmly grabbed Amelia’s hand as she was about to run away again on her own.

The pain from Clara’s rough grip was almost like a tight squeeze.

But that pain pulled Amelia back from the edge of panic.

“What happened? Tell me everything.”

“I don’t want to... It hurts... I hate all of this....”

“Amelia!”

Clara scolded her sternly.

Due to her cheerful and energetic nature, she had always been a loud and lively one, but this was the first time Amelia had ever heard her yell like this.

So she widened her eyes in surprise as she looked at her.

“We’re friends! You have to tell me what happened! I-I want to help you too, you know...?”

“Clara...”

Tears began to well up in Amelia’s wide-open eyes.

She started to pant, as her beautiful face twisted in so much pain, as if she could barely breathe.

And so, she tried to explain everything that had happened when she finally met him again.

But her words were all over the place, a messy mix of facts and feelings, blurred with sobs and half-finished sentences, making it hard for Clara to understand.

Still, Clara stayed calm the entire time.

She just listened to Amelia’s words attentively from start to finish.

Siwoo’s reaction and the way he treated her...

How much despair she felt...

Clara kept on holding her, listening to her every word, even if it was more of a cry for help than a coherent story.

“Amelia.”

Clara gently patted Amelia’s back as she continued to hiccup, unable to give a proper response.

“In the end, you two haven’t actually talked things out yet, have you?”

“...I...couldn’t...say anything....”

“No, no, no! I’m not blaming you. I’m just trying to tell you that nothing’s been settled yet!”

Amelia’s body stiffened slightly at Clara’s words.

“If you’re going to be this miserable on your own... Maybe it’s worth trying to be a little braver?

“Just like how you were thrown off by seeing him so suddenly, he was probably caught off-guard by seeing you too. Maybe right now he’s thinking differently, maybe he’s regretting what he had done during that encounter, just like you are right now.”

Amelia wasn’t one to trust other people’s words easily.

She had spent too many years living alone, and the closest relationship she’d ever had ended in the worst possible way, leaving her with a deep-seated distrust of others.

But Clara’s voice resonated with her in a way that no one else’s ever had.

“First, let’s go back to Gehenna. Once we’re back, even if it’s hard, let’s at least try to meet with him.”

“I...don’t know...what to do...”

Clara held Amelia gently, stroking her delicate blonde hair like she was something fragile.

Amelia clung to Clara like a child, and Clara leaned close, her lips moving as if whispering a kiss to Amelia’s ear.

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you. You don’t have to think about any of the complicated stuff.”

Clara’s words—sweeter than a serpent’s whisper—slid into Amelia’s heart.

“Just listen to my whisper, that’s all you need to do.”