Page 420

1.

There was an appropriate saying for moments like these.

The air froze.

When describing a spine-chilling moment of extreme tension and imminent danger, nothing could capture it better than that.

“Ah…”

“H-Hiic…”

“…”

Odile let out a faint groan, frozen in place.

Odette, equally shocked, stood as still as a statue.

Siwoo, realizing how much of a mess the current situation was, felt his entire body seize up.

The only thing that moved in that suffocating tension was Deneb Gemini’s long, white hair, fluttering amidst the violent aura she exuded. All Siwoo could think while facing that was, ‘Fuck, I’m screwed!’.

Albireo already knew about the relationship between him and the twins.

And she had accepted his promiscuous womanizing and his physical relationship with the twins in exchange for a sharp slap to his face.

But, there was one thing that she had repeatedly warned him about.

To never let her younger sister, Deneb, find out about all this.

She didn’t say it just once or twice either.

Unlike Albireo, who had a more tolerant view of relationships, Deneb’s was more strict and rigid. She wouldn’t be able to control her emotions if she were to find out.

So, since returning to Gehenna, Siwoo had been careful to minimize his physical interactions with the twins.

But now, she caught him.

Not only did she see him kissing them, she also caught him in the act with the twins already undressing while laughing together.

“Little Master…! This isn’t what it looks like… Haaam….”

“Little Master…! We can explain everything…. Haaam….”

The twins, who had hastily wrapped themselves in a blanket and tried to defend Siwoo, suddenly collapsed onto the bed.

It was Deneb’s doing. She cast a sleep spell with nothing more than a twitch of her lips.

Their gazes’ met.

Seeing her cold piercing gaze that held no traces of warmth, he knew that he couldn’t talk his way out of this.

He also noticed a firm, unshakeable resolution in her gaze.

“Sing.”

A ripple spread from Deneb’s body, expanding outward and enveloping the space.

An Interdimensional Barrier, carving out another world over this one.

Casting an Interdimensional Barrier within Gehenna was generally illegal, unless it was a special circumstance, such as large-scale experiments. Even so, one could only do it after notifying the City Hall in advance.

This was because there was a possibility of misuse for illegal magic experiments.

But Deneb hadn’t cast the barrier because she wanted to suddenly perform a magic experiment.

Her mana, violent and overwhelming, and the way she had flung the twins out of the barrier made that clear.

Siwoo’s blood surged with adrenaline, as though he were standing on a battlefield.

This wasn’t a joke. A single misstep, and he could die.

As he struggled to find something to say, swallowing dryly…

Deneb spoke first with her elegant voice.

Her tone was as cold as a frozen lake in the dead of winter, despite her outward appearance of fury.

“I followed the twins here because they suddenly moved through a portal at this hour.”

Though her tone was cold, that didn’t mean she was calm.

“You know what you were about to do, don’t you? Blinded by your fleeting desires, you dared to lay a hand on my sweet twins.”

Touching an apprentice witch was one of the gravest crimes.

Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have allowed Siwoo to be anywhere near the twins.

However, he was the benefactor of the Gemini Household, and Deneb had also assumed that he and the twins shared mutual feelings for each other.

Because of that, she had turned a blind eye, thinking that at best, they would only be exchanging a kiss or two.

She believed Siwoo wouldn’t dare to cross that particular line.

But what she saw today went far beyond anything she could accept.

It wasn’t just a matter of sexual misconduct.

Odile and Odette could have lost their chance to ever become witches.

Knowing the severity of such a consequence as a witch, Deneb felt a deep fear.

“You’ve crossed a line that you should never have.”

“Ms. Deneb, I could just explain…”

“I won’t listen.”

Before Siwoo could even begin, he felt a sharp sense of danger prickle at his skin.

This was the result of him facing countless life-or-death situations prior to this.

His instincts kicked in faster than his thoughts could process

-Kwaang!

A massive impact struck him in the side, smashing through the outer wall of the building.

The sheer force was comparable to being hit by a bus running a red light at full speed.

Had Siwoo not instinctively manifested his black armor, he would have likely suffered serious injuries from such an intense impact.

What was scary about all this though, was the fact that the magic that caused this much damage was pretty much formless.

Siwoo quickly threw off his eye patch.

He admitted his fault and understood why Deneb was angry, but he wasn’t going to sit still and let himself get beaten to death without a chance to explain.

“You are no longer a guest of our Gemini Household.”

-Thump! Thump! Thump!

The moment he took off his eyepatch, he became able to perceive the flow of mana, and understood what was happening.

Each time Deneb exhaled, mana flowed with her breath, making the air around her respond violently.

A massive, sledgehammer-like force of air had formed, smashing the building apart as easily as one might crush a gingerbread house.

“You wicked wretch who dares to defile an apprentice witch.”

-CRACK!

Within just a handful of strikes, the entire building crumbled.

Amidst the dust and chaos, Siwoo managed to slip out of the wreckage.

“However, I will take the affection you shared with the twins and the fact that you’ve saved them twice, into account.”

Standing atop a still-intact pillar, Deneb stared down at him with a calm yet imposing gaze.

A translucent barrier hovered around her, keeping even the smallest specks of dust off her pristine clothes.

Around her, dozens of glowing balls of mana began to form.

Though they could only access their full power when they were together, Deneb was still a half of Countess Gemini.

On her own, she wielded the power of a 20th-rank witch.

If she didn’t possess at least that much strength, she and Albireo wouldn’t have been able to manage their separate trips to the Modern World so confidently.

“If you won’t listen to reason, I’ll have to make you understand. I’ll break your limbs and exile you from Gehenna. Don’t even think about seeing the twin until after they complete their succession. They might be upset now, but I don’t care. In time, they’ll understand why I did this.

“Ms. Deneb, at least give me a chance to explain…”

“I told you, I’m not going to listen.”

Following her icy words, the balls of mana round her flared to life, shining brightly.

Dozens of strands of purple mana beams shot out simultaneously.

If he didn’t fight back, he’d die from this.

Though she said she’d only break his limbs, it was clear that she wasn’t in the right state of mind to hold her power back that much.

“Bloom!”

The densely packed mana waves left him with no room to escape, so he spread his shadow.

The thick shadow particles not only obscured her vision but also weakened the power of the mana beams that she unleashed.

Yet, even as the ground flipped under the torrent of attacks, Siwoo kept charging forward.

Normally, he would have dodged the ranged attacks and closed in for close combat.

Eloa had told him that if he were to go all out, he could hold his own against the countess no problem.

But the countess was his future mother-in-law.

Also, anyone could see that he was the one at fault here.

Attack her when he found an opening?

He was a decent person, there was no way he’d even consider that.

Still, if he took just one of those hits, he wouldn’t come out unscathed, so his only options were to endure, hoping her anger would subside, or wait for someone to intervene.

“Right, you did face the Witch of Desire. Is that why you’re acting so reckless? Because of your pathetic talents?”

“That’s not it! I’ll take any responsibility! Just hear me out first!”

No matter how much he shouted, Deneb didn’t seem to hear him.

As Siwoo frantically ran away, Deneb had destroyed the whole Tarot Town inside the barrier with her relentless attacks.

In less than a minute, not a single building remained intact, all had turned into debris.

“———.”

Then…

As Siwoo dodged, a beautiful melody filled his ears.

Even through his mana-reading eyes, all he could see was a violet wave, far faster than the speed of sound, expanding too quickly to evade.

“K—-!”

A clear sound that couldn’t be produced by human vocal cords, as if played by a divine instrument, reverberated through mana as its medium.

When that wave touched his skin, it immediately amplified the noise of the mana within his body.

Then, all the mana in his body went rampant.

It was as if a poison had rapidly spread through his magic circuits.

His semicircular canals—responsible for balance and speed—were thrown off, making his world tilt and sway worse than when got dead drunk.

At the same time, the rhythm unique to his self-essence mana unraveled entirely, and his black armor swelled up like an overbaked cookie.

It was as if all the magic he experienced until now was just a joke.

But that was what it felt when one was hit by the secret art of the Gemini Family, the inescapable self-essence magic, the ‘Songs of Magic’.

Even blocking his ears or rupturing his eardrums wouldn’t stop the ‘vibration’ penetrating through mana.

“If you struggle, you’ll die.”

Siwoo never imagined a magic like this even existed.

In a duel of magic where split-second decisions could decide the victor, a magic that could incapacitate one’s opponent was almost like a cheat code.

-BOOM! CRACK! KA-BOOM!

The ground flipped over as if it had been hit by a bomb.

“Ugh…!”

Through the thick dust rising all around, Siwoo crawled on his hands and knees, desperately avoiding the oncoming attacks.

He steadied the disrupted mana within his body, trying his best to regain control.

To block further interference, he layered several fields of mana to shield himself from any more harmful vibrations.

But Deneb didn’t stop her relentless singing.

“————————.”

As soon as he managed to dodge the attack, her merciless self-essence magic tore through his hastily constructed mana barrier, as if it was merely a piece of paper.

How much longer do I have to hold out?

Should I just give up and take the hit? Just let the pain bring an end to everything?

As he was racking his brain, trying to figure out his next move, he noticed an unusual flow of mana gathering in the air.

Now, Deneb wasn’t just trying to restrict his movements.

The waves emanating from her body bounced off the Interdimensional Barrier, converging into a single point.

Though the reflections seemed random, they were aligning in a precise, intricate pattern, forming an entirely new spell.

“Fuck!

Something big was coming.

Perhaps, she decided that Siwoo could take a more powerful attack from her without dying after she had seen him dodge her previous ones.

There’s no way I can just face that—!

Pushing his exhausted body to its limits, Siwoo forced himself to move as far away as possible from the gathering power.

And then…

-BOOOOOM!

A massive explosion lifted dozens of meters of the ground, creating a gigantic shockwave.

The deafening roar that followed, along with the thick debris, struck Siwoo’s /genesisforsaken