Chapter 277
Chapter 277
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 277
Chapter Title: Priest (7)
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The fight was over.
The gap between the two was so overwhelming that Paola couldn't mount any proper resistance before falling to Eloa.
Of course, this was only possible because Eloa had recovered a certain degree of her magic power.
If it had been Eloa right after her battle with the Red Knight, she would have been ensnared by those grotesque tentacles and devoured in a single gulp.
Eloa stood before the lotus flower gleaming with radiant light.
Then, something utterly unexpected happened.
Paola, lying propped against the lotus flower, halted Eloa with a desperate voice laced with sticky phlegm and blood.
"Wai...t...!"
Surprisingly, Paola was still clinging to life, even with her heart pierced.
She must have inherited some of that tenacious vitality by assimilating her body with the homunculus.
But in the end, it was merely a stay of execution.
"......"
Eloa raised her Contract Sword once more.
This time, she planned to sever the neck cleanly and spare her any further suffering.
"Stop... Please, just hear me out...!"
Paola gazed up at Eloa with frantic urgency, baring teeth stained red with blood.
Her chest wound still gushed thick blood in violent spurts.
Without proper intervention, the Coward Witch's fate was plain as day.
Eloa froze mid-swing.
Countless Public Enemies had begged her for mercy.
Some witches, crushed by terror before the fight even began, had surrendered everything and pleaded for compassion.
Yet Eloa had never once halted her blade or heeded their words.
Instead, she had silently shouldered and fulfilled her own karma.
They had slaughtered humans indiscriminately to sate their desires, killed apprentice witches, and even slain fellow witches.
No matter their lofty justifications, it was wrong—a sin deserving judgment.
There was no room for compromise, appeals, or pity.
No, that was merely an excuse.
Eloa knew the truth.
She had simply needed somewhere to escape to.
She had used the murky fuel of vengeance to prop up her shattered purpose in life.
"......"
Yet even Eloa, who severed hesitation with ruthless precision, made an exception for the Coward Witch.
It was undeniable that Paola's plight mirrored her own.
"You know it too... the grief of loss...! The agony of losing an apprentice witch to your own mistake, forced to accept an irreversible outcome... You know how excruciating that is...!"
Paola was desperate.
Unable even to move properly, her punctured lungs screaming with every breath.
Yet she wrung out her voice, pleading fervently with Eloa.
"I'm... just like you... So you can understand... You know the desperation that drove me to this..."
Moreover, Eloa found it impossible to lower her sword easily—not because Paola's plea was purely self-serving.
She wasn't begging for pity merely to prolong her wretched existence.
"I didn't want it to come to this... It wasn't for some trivial spell... You get it, right? I just wanted to turn back time!"
Paola, too, was merely struggling to right her wrongs.
Feeling guilt with every breath, drowning in self-loathing.
A pitiable soul who had no choice but to cling to anything to reclaim the past.
When she beheaded Public Enemies and homunculi,
she had never once believed her actions served true justice.
It was simply because Rafi had left behind those casual words—"I want to save people"—and her vengeance targeted Public Enemies, so she hunted them.
What if the Coward Witch had resented someone else instead? What if there had been just one person beside her who would truly listen?
"I understand. Your pain, your grief, your sorrow, your despair... I understand it all better than anyone."
The Coward Witch, Paola Sochitl, was Eloa Tiphereth's warped reflection.
Had Rafi not uttered those final words,
had Eloa succumbed to her grief and guilt, this could have been her own fate.
Eloa dropped to one knee, leveling her gaze with the Coward Witch's.
Her magenta eyes brimmed with compassion and sympathy.
Seizing that faint spark of hope?
The Coward Witch erupted in even greater sobs, pouring out her heart.
"It's here... the result is complete. With this lotus flower, you can save your apprentice too...! Just look the other way for a moment... Save my apprentice, and I'll vanish...! Then you can revive yours with this lotus anytime. Perfect, right? Best for both of us, isn't it?"
Eloa glanced at the lotus flower again.
"Yes! With that, we can mend our regrets! We can find happiness again! No need to burn with vengeance against Public Enemies or the Aquarius Witch... We can start over...!"
The lotus bloomed modestly.
It was, without question, more beautiful than any artifact Eloa had ever beheld in her life.
Impossible to fathom it had sprouted atop a mountain of countless corpses.
Like a mother's devotion to her young.
Vile as the Coward Witch's deeds were, her love for her apprentice must have been purely innocent to birth such a exquisite bloom.
"Yes, it's possible... Everything can go back..."
Paola's words were cunning.
To achieve her goal, to activate the lotus, she conveniently omitted the countless lives sacrificed as offerings.
For now, plunging Tiphereth into turmoil was the right move.
An opponent sharing her exact sorrow and torment
would find these words more tantalizing than any seduction.
And they struck true at Eloa's heart.
She could revive Rafi.
Not some pointless vengeance.
Convey the words left unsaid, impart the lessons withheld, share a future now forever lost.
The most perfect future Eloa could envision stood before her in vivid form.
Eloa closed her eyes.
Rafi's voice, unforgettable even for a single day; her cute nose, her round eyes.
Eloa's treasure, irreplaceable for all the world.
Take the Coward Witch's hand, and she could face it once more.
Not in dreams, not that rigid, blood-drained corpse.
Here. Now. In reality.
"How many died to bloom this lotus?"
Eloa calmly, quietly severed her lingering regrets.
Opening her eyes, the vivid images of Rafi filling her mind dissolved like a mirage.
"That doesn't matter... They're strangers, faces you'll never know... Wanting to see your most precious person again isn't wrong...!"
"I have no right to condemn you. No right to dismiss your grief as mere attachment, nor to deny you."
"Fine! I'll concede...! Revive your apprentice first...! Then mine..."
She knew order meant nothing.
She knew her offer was refused.
Still, Paola denied reality, veins bulging at her throat.
"......"
But Eloa's silence hit like a guillotine's fall.
"How can you act so unmoved...! You said you understood... Think you're any different from me?"
With desperate pleas and begging severed in vain, hatred and rage took their place.
Paola's near-scream of condemnation lashed at Eloa.
"I understand your rage and despair as well. I was the same."
"Shut up! You know nothing! I... I did all this for this... just this..."
Eloa gazed down at the thrashing Paola with eyes of pity.
"I mourn you. Wallowing in regret, despair, writhing in guilt day after day. To revive Rafi, I would have done anything possible."
Had she never met Siu.
Had she lost even her vengeance and wandered lost, ending up here.
Had she heard the Coward Witch's plea with a heart on the verge of shattering.
Could she have refused so readily?
To claim she could was arrogance.
Eloa didn't see herself as that strong.
She would have agonized, perhaps even aided the dying Paola.
"But if I borrowed your power to revive Rafi, she would grieve."
"Ha! So you're just scared of her resentment—cowardly to the end?"
"Yes. Afraid."
Eloa drew a deep sigh.
"I can see it clearly: her rebuking me upon revival. 'Do you know what you've done? Why bring me back?' But she would forgive me. She'd cry, rage, strike me, scream her hatred... yet in time, embrace her foolish master."
"......"
"Then, to atone, I'd wander this world until my eyes close forever."
"That... would be enough..."
"Not for Rafi. Just my selfishness. My path—the one I must walk—is to mourn the departed and press on in silence."
"......"
Her final outburst and fury had drained the last of her strength; Paola's voice withered away.
Her throat choked with boiling blood, spilling endlessly from her lips.
The end drew near.
Neither Eloa nor Paola spoke again.
They had said enough.
"Any final words?"
"......"
Her last hope stripped away, Paola stared up with one lifeless eye.
From her hollow chest rose thick malice and hatred, blazing like fire.
Hatred for the foe who uprooted every shred of hope.
"I hate you."
Eloa's sword traced a graceful helix.
The blade glided silently past Paola's neck, then rent the lotus she leaned against.
Eloa returned her unstained sword to subspace, murmuring bitterly.
"That, too, I understand."
Confirming the lotus crumble like fractured crystal, Paola's body buried beneath,
Eloa turned toward where Siu waited.