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1.

What jolted Siwoo awake was a dizzying sensation of falling.

Like a skydiver, he burst through the cloud-like black particles that grouped together like cumulonimbus. What he saw beyond those particles was...

Darkness so vast that it would be meaningless to even try and guess its size.

Amelia’s loneliness and sadness. That was what the darkness represented.

At the end of his gaze was Amelia, sinking endlessly, as if trying to reach to the bottom of the endless darkness.

After a lifetime of regret and remorse, she seemed to have chosen to forsake everything.

To hide herself in deep solitude, where even the most earnest of words were buried without a sound.

“——!”

Siwoo tried to call out to her.

But even he himself couldn’t hear his own voice.

The purple snake-like magic that coiled around her had completed its purpose.

Now, even if he could get Amelia away from Lilith’s influence, her rampage wouldn’t be stopped.

‘You won’t get hurt if you’re alone.’

‘Isolate yourself in your small little world, without anything in sight. There you will find peace.’

‘Live by yourself, all alone.’

Amelia had succumbed to those Whispers.

And that Amelia was now staring at Siwoo with her emotionless blue eyes, unleashing her fierce and fearsome magic power around.

Am I running...?

Or am I falling...?

No, it doesn’t matter...!

There was still quite a distance between the two.

As far as the moon shining brightly in the sky and the poor human who could only watch it from the top of their roof.

That was how far the gap between them; cultivated by the misunderstanding, separation, and their failure to understand each other better.

But...

Siwoo was clearly closing that gap. Little by little.

“——!”

Again, Siwoo called out to her with a soundless cry.

At this point, his body had turned into a complete mess.

Gone was the Red Branch, his sturdy armor, woven from shadows, and his ribbons that he could freely move as if they were his limbs.

His battered body, soaked to the bone by Amelia’s particles, was the only thing he had left.

At that moment, Amelia raised her hand.

Blinded by her rampage, she was unaware of everything that went on around her.

She moved, trying to clear all the ‘impurities’ around her so that she could create a ‘world’ solely for herself.

Since Siwoo had seen through her memories, he knew exactly what would happen if his body were to come into contact with more of Amelia’s particles.

He’d turn into a bush of flowers in a literal sense.

And yet, he chose to move forward.

-Screeech!

At that moment, he could feel magic power tearing his body apart.

As if his body tried to warn him that the way forward would be the end of him, excruciating pain spread through his body as the dark particles that gathered like dark clouds were cleared away.

The space turned bright as if the sun had returned to brighten up the world after a rainy day, but this phenomenon wasn’t something that Amelia created.

What caused it was a magic that pierced through both her and Siwoo like a spear of light.

Accompanying it was a divine hymn that made it feel like this was the stern judgment of a God, punishing the foolishness of mortals.

It wasn’t hard to figure out who was behind all this.

To use such magic in this distorted space with such precision, it couldn’t be done by anyone else other than the 24th-ranked witch, Duchess Erelim.

Indeed, the scheduled 30 minutes had passed.

If Siwoo was to continue on like this, he’d get caught up in this magic and perish together with Amelia.

His life was precious, and he didn’t want to die yet, that was for sure.

But, there were things that were even more precious than his life. At least to him.

Siwoo pushed through the magic that entangled him like a vine.

Before long, his clothes were torn apart.

There were no visible injuries on his body, but on the arm that reached out to Amelia, there were signs of ‘blooming flowers’.

-Ting!

Then, in that space where only silence existed, a distinct sound rang out.

A clear ripple, just like one that appeared when someone tapped a glass filled with wine. It moved to punish the uninvited guest who tried to barge into the place.

Siwoo saw it.

The left arm that he stretched forward.

From the fingertips, gorgeous flowers bloomed, as if trying to devour him whole.

“——!”

And then, came the excruciating pain.

It was like being eaten from inside by a parasitic lifeform, it separated his bones and muscles apart as it devoured them; if anything, it would be foolish of him if he were to expect that experiencing such a thing wouldn’t be painful.

The flowers that sprouted from his fingertips wouldn’t stop blooming—it’d spread to his hand, arm, shoulder, and eventually, his heart.

There was nothing he could do to block their advances; an impossible endeavor.

But, from her memories he had seen of her hunt, he had seen the way her self-essence magic worked from up close.

And now, he was using the data he had accumulated to make his next move.

“——!”

Bloom!

With a shout that made him feel like his throat burst, a fierce magical power ran through his body.

It wasn’t a normal kind of magic power by any means.

But the kind that consumed all of his magic power and destroyed his magic circuits—the self harming kind.

The flowers that Amelia bloomed essentially came from seeds that she planted in advance, and to grow it, a resonance had to occur.

Now, what would happen if said resonance didn’t occur? What if he incapacitated his magic circuit, turning his body into that of a normal human’s for a moment to prevent that resonance from occurring?

The flowers would stop growing, that was the answer. He staked his everything on this bet.

Of course, he was completely clueless if this was the right move or not.

Because the thing that he observed, the reason why he made that guess could be just a random phenomenon that occurred at the same time as Amelia casting her magic. Regardless, he had chosen what he wanted to do.

His circuit screamed throughout his body, but at this point, he had already taken his first step into the bottomless abyss.

He grabbed his left arm—which had already half-disappeared at this point.

Amelia was already within his arm’s reach.

It had been a long journey.

The two people who had been separated for so long, finally had the chance to face each other properly.

“...”

Gehenna, the City of Witches. They had separated themselves from the mundane world for a long time.

Hence why they had unique proverbs and sayings that wouldn’t be found anywhere in the Modern World.

Among them was:

No living beings could stand on a rainbow.

Rainbow. The symbol of utopia and perfection.

Among humans, the saying meant perfection wasn’t something that one could attain.

And among the witches, the saying was a self-deprecating one expression, meaning that no one could ever attain the realm of the Witch of Creation.

Siwoo didn’t know about the latter, but the former was the truth.

There were indeed no human beings that could stand on a rainbow.

A minor misunderstanding.

Immaturity.

Wrong way to express one’s love.

Hatred. Resentment.

In such ways, humans hurt each other, creating irreparable rift in their relationships.

‘Fate’ was a shabby-looking flower that bloomed on top of a messy pile of dirt which was human’s relationships.

If there was a being who could stand on top of that rainbow, then it would probably be God. And to God, such flowers were probably worthless in Their eyes, as they’d easily wither due to how weak they were.

But it was different for humans.

Even the most worthless and weakest humans could attain happiness.

-Whirrrr!

Amelia’s magic was still rippling through her body.

No matter how excellent an engineer was, they still wouldn’t be able to stop a train which had lost control on their own.

In the sky, a pillar of light was descending like a guillotine, spelling their deaths.

All Siwoo could do now was to get closer to Amelia

With no more strength left in his body, the only thing he could think about was a way to hug her who had been suffering all by her lonesome in this world.

But, the hand of fate was cruel.

They finally met after such a long journey, yet they only had 10 seconds of time to talk to each other.

Siwoo hugged Amelia.

He ignored her magic that was still tearing his body apart.

Instead, he just said what he wanted to say.

He opened his blood-stained lips.

“I’m sorry... I’m late...”

He didn’t know if those words reached her or not.

If at the last moments, those words could provide her with the comfort that she needed.

He held Amelia, who was frozen like a doll, gently, as if she was the most precious thing.

“I won’t leave you... Ever again...”

Their surroundings grew brighter and brighter.

Then, Siwoo felt a sizzling heat coming from above, and right after that, the merciless judgment of God fell upon the two of them.

-Drip, drip.

He could hear the sound of water droplets falling.

No...

It was the sound of tears flowing down, wetting the hem of his clothes.

At one point, the world that had lost its colors retained its original colors, and the dark particles scattered faintly.

The distorted and tangled space was restored, as if everything that had just happened was a lie.

Meanwhile, the light that was falling upon them turned into a huge pile of flowers and scattered.

The frozen time began to tick again.

-Pop! Pop! Pop!

The fireworks that had been frozen in the sky now continued their journey and popped, decorating the sky.

People who had gathered to enjoy the festival cheered with joy and admiration as they saw showers of flowers suddenly appearing in a spectacular manner.

The collapsing world had gone.

So had the ferocious magic tearing everything apart, and the divine judgment, trying to smite them.

Instead, Siwoo felt a force pulling on his collar.

He raised his head, trying to see through his blurry vision.

There was Amelia.

Staring at him, seemingly unsure of what to do.

“S-Siwoo... Y-Your arm... Your arm...”

She wanted to see Siwoo again so badly.

Yet, at the same time, she was afraid to see him.

And now, facing him who had just lost his arm, she couldn’t stop her tears from coming out.

Their eyes met.

She pulled the hem of her clothes anxiously, as if she was a sinner who wanted nothing more but to run away from this situation.

Meanwhile Siwoo just thought that her reaction as she opened her mouth without knowing what to say was so typical of her.

Nevertheless, the important thing here was that she could finally hear his voice.

“Ms. Amelia.”

When he called out to her, her body instantly stiffened.

“It’s okay.”

Right after that, he lost his consciousness and fell into Amelia’s arms.

But, before he completely lost his consciousness, he remembered another saying from Gehenna.

‘God is cruel, They do not grant miracles’. A cynical saying that was typical of witches.

The aftermath of a magical rampage heavily depended on the individual witch’s capabilities.

In normal cases, Amelia would be unable to stop her power from going out of her control.

There was a reason why it was called ‘rampage’ to begin with.

However, not only did Amelia do exactly that, she also used her remaining power to counteract Duchess Erelim’s magic.

For such an event that overturned even common sense, perhaps it wouldn’t be a mistake to call it a miracle given by God.

If not, then, though it was childish and trite...

Calling it a ‘simple flower blooming on a pile of dirt’ would probably suffice.

A small, but beautiful flower.