Chapter 396
Chapter 396
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 396
Chapter Title: Masquerade (3)
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1.
The fight began, and Siu immediately gauged the vast gap between them once more.
First, his own arsenal.
Kybele Periwinkle's three four-leaf clovers.
Extra lifelines that could evade death up to three times.
The protective cloak crafted by Flora Arabesque.
He hadn't even tested how far its defenses extended.
But as a relic made by a great witch of the 22nd rank, it was incomparable to some prototype.
Finally, the Red Branch, with its functions controlled to about 25%.
He could only manage something like a distortion field, and its signature wild barrier was impossible to handle at all.
Even so, Siu was staking his only chance of victory on the Red Branch.
During his research with Viscount Yesod, he'd examined the broken Orgel.
Even with mechanisms designed to counter various contamination scenarios as a top-tier artifact, its circuits had been charred black.
Affected by the faint distortion field that had seeped through the ribbon.
Bianca Bellili's Nature Magic magnetized various magical devices.
If her abilities leaned heavily toward magical tools, this could be his trump card to find the one path to victory.
The distance between them was around 100 meters.
A gap Siu could close in the blink of an eye, but Bianca already had a pistol in hand.
Her unflinching composure even against a surprise charge spoke of her seasoned hunter's experience.
The gun in Bianca's hand was a matte-gray K5, an utterly ordinary 9mm automatic pistol.
Far from any artifact.
But Siu's eyes, unmasked by the eyepatch, caught it.
The moment hazy mana seeped into the pistol and her finger hooked the trigger—something changed.
"Bang."
His superhuman dynamic vision perceived the sequence in slow motion, far beyond human limits.
Yet in that stretched time, the bullet drawing a straight line was like a flash piercing an instant.
"Hup!"
Dodging left or right, or blocking—it was impossible.
Siu jammed the spear blade into the floor mid-leap, like jumping a pole vault, and propelled himself upward.
-Boom!
The bullet grazed the tip of his greave by a hair's breadth, crumpling a massive steel pillar like tin with a deafening roar.
Too early to relax.
His body was still airborne, and as far as he knew, the K5 was a fully automatic capable of sustained fire.
-Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bianca pulled the trigger in rapid succession with firepower like a tank cannon, showing no sign of recoil.
A mass-produced pistol outputting that much destruction without burdening the user.
Absurd enhancement ability.
-Shriiiik!
He read the trajectory of the muzzle.
Suspended by eight ribbons like spider legs, he evaded the gunfire with acrobatic flair before hurling his body at her.
No witch could emerge unscathed from a spear tip spewing distortion fields.
"Want some advice? I hate guys who come on too strong."
Their distance had narrowed to about 30 meters.
Bianca casually raised her hand for him to see.
In it was a clunky detonator like an old flip phone.
Two wires trailed from it to corners of the cargo hold.
M18A1.
The fuze for the anti-personnel Claymore mine, commonly known as such.
Siu's reaction was swift.
Before even identifying the device, he wrapped his entire body in the cloak.
Bowing his head to brace for impact.
With his gauntlet-free hand, he clutched the back of his neck.
-Kwarung! Kwarung! Kwarung!
The black armor was made of shadows with weak physical reactivity, but enhanced to its limits with earth and fire elements for hardness and shock absorption.
Originally, the blast from about 700g of C4 and scattering steel balls couldn't pierce Siu's black armor.
But this Claymore was empowered by Bianca's mana.
The shockwaves whipping from both sides at dozens of kilometers per second, and the kinetic force of the silver steel barrage, halted Siu mid-air.
At the same time, brutal impacts hammered his body like a baseball bat barrage, dazing his mind.
No chance even to scream.
As the explosion cleared and his body could move, he shed the cloak and staggered back three steps.
The sharp shock had his senses reeling; advancing was impossible.
"Hoo... Hoo... Hoo..."
Lukewarm liquid trickled down his left temple.
Too slow tucking his head into the cloak?
His helmet lay cracked and rolling on the floor, a heavy thud echoing belatedly in his skull.
Plus, his left eardrum seemed ruptured.
A glance at the bracelet: all three clovers intact.
Should he have trusted his luck and charged instead?
Accumulating injuries wasn't good.
"——, ———-, ———."
Bianca chattering away.
But the sharp ringing drowned it all out.
"————. ——Since you signed, this is our stage alone. No backing out with regrets now. Not you, not me."
His eardrum rupture must've been a fortunate illusion.
Her nagging voice filtered through the muffled tinnitus.
"......"
"Takasho was too noisy. You're too quiet."
"No value in responding."
He played along with her provocation mentioning Takasho because he needed recovery time.
None of Bianca's weapons so far qualified as 'artifacts.'
Just commonplace factory-made conventional arms, slightly enhanced.
Her total firepower? Toy levels.
"Whining over mere toys, yet telling me to risk my life? Joke's gone too far."
And he was already like this from those toys.
The cloak and armor absorbed the shock, saving his life—but proof of the yawning gap.
This was a 22nd-rank Public Enemy.
Grown immensely and armed with three relics, yet the level difference seemed endless.
But.
He knew that much already.
Confirming it changed nothing.
"Why not surrender quietly? You seemed to like sex. Cooperate nicely with the experiments, and I'll let you squirm under my skirt. Your face is decent enough—my type, too."
Still, he'd gained one piece of info from their prior clash.
Bianca planned to capture him alive.
If she wanted him dead, she'd have emptied her remaining rounds while he was dazed from the Claymore.
His three clovers might've vanished in an instant.
Even facing off at this range proved she underestimated him and had no killing intent.
Dead set on killing from the start, she'd have suppressed him from undiscernible distance with earth-shaking bombardment.
"All I'm sticking you with is this."
He thrust the spear, aiming at Bianca.
"Pass. That thing's too long—hurts."
A diamond-shaped metal plate floated behind Bianca.
Palm-sized, but four eyeballs rolled grotesquely at its corners.
It was here.
The first of the five relics listed in the records.
'Observation Eye of Consciousness.'
It pierced the target's past, present, and future, assisting the caster's aim.
Beyond that, once observed, it enabled precision sniping from hundreds of kilometers away—like an aimbot with wallhack.
Siu's half-crouched body exploded forward.
A heavy footprint stamped his starting point, closing the gap from 50 meters once more.
He had to close in no matter what.
If it turned into a long-range shootout stalemate, no chance remained.
Folding the ribbons, he sprayed shadow particles like wings for full-throttle propulsion.
-Bang bang bang bang!
Bianca's aim, previously direct fire, gained razor-sharp precision.
Each shot toward vitals.
From unavoidable angles and timings.
The best way to deflect straight-line force: rotation.
Siu spun like a top, yanking the cloak to envelop his armor.
Its inherent top defense plus spin.
-Kiiing! Kiiing! Kiiing!
Grinder-like roars as deflected bullet fragments scattered.
The instant his spinning foot hit solid ground.
-Thud!
With a hull-shaking advance, Siu reaccelerated.
Concentrated power without waste—twice as fast as before.
This hidden gear shift for this moment even deflected the final shot.
Just one or two steps to spear range.
"Told you, pass."
-Whumm! Whummm! Whooo whummm!
The crimson spear lancing straight for her heart halted futilely before a silver shield.
An utterly bizarre sight.
The spear tip bursting past sonic speeds stopped dead at a two-palm shield.
No impact shock, no aftermath.
Just silence, as if gently pressed against it from the start.
The shield that blocked the spear thrust orbited Bianca dutifully.
The records' second relic.
'Vitège's Shield.'
Autonomous defense's ultimate evolution.
A shield of absolute defense resetting all incoming energy to zero.
Backed by the 'Observation Eye of Consciousness,' Bianca Bellili had no blind spots.
Not yet.
The halted blade moved.
Spear shaft and tip drummed relentlessly over Vitège's Shield in arcs, ripping air with ferocious sounds.
Yet.
Despite the rain of blows, it felt like dancing in empty air.
No clash echoes, no recoil vibrations.
Bianca didn't twitch a finger; the shield blocked every strike.
The faint distortion on the tip couldn't faze the relic empowered by her mana.
"How long you gonna keep that up?"
Bianca smirked faintly, drawing a fan.
Fluffy white feathers.
"Mind backing off a bit?"
The moment it flicked lightly.
A phenomenon beyond comprehension unfolded.
That fan's size couldn't overcome the wind pressure from Siu's fierce movements.
Yet the instant wind grazed his cheek,
the hard-narrowed distance stretched farther than before.
This was Bianca's third relic.
'Poetic Sage Fan.'
Even breaking through barrage and snipes to stand before her meant nothing.
One fan wave yawned the gap impossibly.
Magic with overwhelming destructive power per hit struck vitals precisely.
Even breaching the distance, flawless shield awaited; linger, and gap widens, resetting to phase one.
"Need more? Think you've shown enough."
Bianca fanned lazily, as if the exchange already bored her.
But for Siu and Bianca alike.
They'd just finished probing each other.
Intercept unilaterally at range.
Block with cheat defense up close.
Force separation to range again.
Was there a way to break this seemingly flawless loop?
"Not yet."
For Takasho's sake, to seize the lifeline.
Too early to give up.
More he could do remained.
What he needed for that: mana, mana, and more mana.
"Bloom."
Siu's golden eyes swirled once more, absorbing surrounding mana.