Chapter 397
Chapter 397
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 397
Chapter Title: Masquerade (4)
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Bianca, who had never once fought a battle with the goal of capturing her opponent alive, gained a new lesson.
It was the lesson that catching a fly without killing it was incredibly difficult.
Siu suddenly amplified his mana output to an enormous degree, ramping up his tempo.
His speed was now incomparable to before.
With nothing more than light footwork, he casually surpassed the speed of sound, flaunting superhuman velocity.
If Bianca had tried to track him with the naked eye, she would have barely caught a blurry afterimage at best.
However, the "Observation of Thoughts" was far more than a mere shooting support tool.
Strengthened by Bianca, it was the ultimate observation device that not only grasped the enemy's information but also predicted their movements with near-perfect accuracy.
No matter how much he ramped up his speed and charged, Wittege's Shield, linked to the Observation of Thoughts, effortlessly blocked his attacks.
Even twisting ribbons around to disrupt her from various angles and striking multiple points at once was meaningless.
Wittege's Shield, capable of splitting into up to 72 parts for defense, was absolute defense itself—never once breached.
If the sight of him sweating and bleeding profusely while swinging his spear up close grew stifling, she could simply lash out with the Star Holy Line to widen the distance again.
To Bianca, it was a yawn-inducing war of attrition.
He was clearly overtaxing his body.
No matter how omnipotent mana was as an energy source, fully containing that much of it in a spirit body was dangerous.
Especially pulling fighter-jet-level thrust through human muscles and bones—it went without saying how perilous that was.
"Reckless."
Even after losing his friend and his reason along with it, she hadn't expected him to lose his judgment this badly.
Bianca stomped her heel on the floor once more.
At the same time, dozens more white paper airplanes floated up and immediately pursued Siu.
The projectiles flying at Siu weren't ordinary paper airplanes.
They were artifacts designed to track and annihilate enemies, further modified by Bianca herself.
These guided projectiles twisted in every direction, doggedly chasing him and cornering him relentlessly.
-Boom! Kaboom! Kwarang!
That said, they weren't opponents he could ignore.
Bianca inwardly admired Siu as he shot down all the paper airplanes with his fierce, flashy spear strikes.
For typical witch tactics, it was hard to call it standard, but his skill was the real deal.
For a witch less than ten years into existence, he was strong enough to have beaten down a weakened Ea.
Adopting such a heretical close-combat style meant that any witch without a proper counter would yield the win easily.
Could you believe it?
A mere man encroaching on the towering achievements built over centuries in such a short time.
A blazing possessiveness made her body tremble.
-Kwarararang!
"Hoo..."
"...Ah."
Bianca suddenly realized.
The reason he had stopped his suicidal charges after that initial frenzied rush.
Anger was volatile.
Humans were fragile.
Even the rage that steeled one for death faded away in the face of harsh reality.
At first, Siu had charged in with eyes rolled back upon hearing of his friend's death.
But after just one clash, he would have gotten the measure of her.
He would have felt, more keenly than anyone, that victory was impossible.
Yet he had already signed the "Masquerade Ledger" before boarding this ship.
Having consented to the contract himself, escape was impossible—and Bianca had made sure he knew that.
So why was an opponent who recognized the overwhelming gap in power and had even retreat sealed off dragging out time like this?
"Just to be sure, let me ask—are you waiting for someone to come rescue you?"
"......"
Watching Siu remain silent, Bianca was convinced.
From the moment the orb message notification arrived until he showed up, quite some time had passed.
No fool, he would have prepared contingencies for when things went south.
For instance, leaving a note like "Please come to ~ in about 30 minutes."
Excluding Tiphereth Duke, who was wandering Hong Kong searching for Ea, he had plenty of friendly witches around him.
"Foolish. Did you think I hadn't considered that much?"
But of course, Bianca had anticipated as much.
Thus, from the moment she deployed the hidden barrier, she had activated one artifact.
"Flag of the Arena."
It forbade any intrusion until the battle inside concluded.
It even blocked observation of the hidden barrier itself.
For a Public Enemy witch, deploying a concealed hidden barrier was basic of basics.
"A waste of time. No one will break through this barrier to help you."
"......"
A brief lull from the conversation.
Bianca halted the artifact's infinite barrage formation, and Siu panted in place.
Blood dripped from the tips of his gauntlets.
As expected, the excessive movements were starting to tear his fragile skin first.
"Why not surrender now? I'm sorry about your friend, but... do you really need to risk your life for a human?"
It was far too brazen coming from the very person who killed that friend.
Yet Bianca's optimistic proposal showed no hint of self-awareness.
Just as Bianca was a witch, so was Shin Siu.
On the other hand, the dead friend was merely human.
Risking one's life for worthless friendship was nothing but foolish bravado, no matter how you sliced it.
Preserving one's life by swallowing pride was the rational choice.
"......"
The silence dragged on.
Bianca watched Siu with a sliver of expectation.
Observing a human who touted lofty convictions compromise and fall was delightful.
Just imagining turning this man, now playing the hero of justice, into a slave of desire—rearing him like a pet—made her lower body tingle with ecstasy.
"Takasho was a good guy."
"Haa..."
"He wasn't someone who deserved to die in vain like that."
Bianca let out a deep sigh at the foolish response that betrayed her hopes.
"Humans die in vain all the time. How long are you going to cling to that sentimental drivel? You're a witch at the end of the day, aren't you? Think rationally."
This wasn't mockery or provocation.
It was sincere advice from pure intent.
To a witch, nothing held more value than magic.
Apart from ambition, curiosity, and desire, all else were mere accessory emotions—and the morals and ethics preached by humans were nothing but fragile social contracts invented by the weak to protect their own.
Having transcended humanity, one must shed those shackles too.
"No. You're the one who's wrong."
Witches were indeed different from humans.
They didn't age, lived eternally, fanatics devoted to magic.
But there was an apprentice witch saddened by the thought of losing her mother.
A previous-generation witch worried for the daughter left alone.
A witch who trusted Siu blindly like a normal lover.
A witch tormented by the loss of her disciple, and twins who approached him warmly without prejudice against male slaves.
"You're just a monster."
"...Stubborn, huh."
Bianca wasn't greatly disappointed.
That was the measure of his vessel.
Break his limbs and drown him in endless ecstatic pleasure, and he'd submit eventually.
No need to lament failing to tame him with mere words.
Siu checked his body's condition.
Physical enhancement beyond his spirit body's limits.
His muscles screamed in pain like they were wrung out rags, and his joints felt like drive components melting from an engine they couldn't handle.
Even so, he gripped his spear as if clutching a harpoon.
Twisting his body and adding rotational force, he hurled the Red Branch with all his might.
It streaked through the air like a comet, trailing a long red tail of afterglow.
Hurling his most powerful weapon.
Doing so before Bianca, who could claim artifacts as her own, could only be interpreted as desperate flailing.
-Keeeing!
The Red Branch flew at light-speed velocity and halted dead before Wittege's Shield.
It stopped horizontally, like an arrow embedded in a target.
"It's over now, right?"
Bianca sneered at the fight's anticlimactically easy end and looked at Siu.
Then she noticed it.
The conviction undimmed despite witnessing the overwhelming gap.
"No."
The Red Branch reacted to the external impact, emitting a powerful distortion field.
And through countless clashes in the battle so far, the impact had accumulated steadily within the ribbons wrapping the Red Branch.
The reason Siu hadn't charged Bianca and stuck to pure defense wasn't because he realized charges were futile.
It was because controlling the distortion field on the verge of rampage consumed massive mana, mental strength, and computational power.
The cursed armament that bloomed after devouring 1,200 humans.
Siu could control only a quarter of its functions.
Arbitrarily wielding the distortion field like a Red Knight was impossible, and he hadn't even attempted the barrier.
However.
What if he induced a rampage on top of the accumulated impacts?
"This is just the beginning."
-Woooooong!
The ribbons controlling the "distortion" rampaging within the Red Branch peeled away.
At the same time, the barely suppressed distortion field and red barrier were unleashed all at once toward their prey.
"Th-this...!"
To use a friendly analogy, it was like sealing a shaken cola bottle tight, adding Mentos, and hurling it at the enemy.
Bianca's face twisted in distress for the first time as the Red Branch indiscriminately spewed distortion field and barrier, heedless of friend or foe.
By itself, it couldn't surpass Wittege's Shield.
But the distortion field, naturally antagonistic to artifacts, induced effects akin to an EMP blast on electronics.
As the artifact's functions degraded and it slipped from control, turning dead, Bianca began retreating for the first time.
Siu didn't wait.
Gripping a newly conjured sword, he trusted in Clover and stepped into the storm where barrier and distortion field raged, toward the flustered Bianca.
A resistance like his body was being torn apart.
To a spirit body, the high-concentration distortion field was like recklessly emitted radiation.
His vision reeled as if exposed to massive radiation.
Amid crumbling balance and scorching inferno, he saw two clovers shatter in an instant.
Periwinkle's clovers were a type of artifact too.
Not entirely immune to distortion field interference.
"Cheap trick!"
Bianca tried to pull out a new artifact while distancing herself in the distortion storm.
But even the Observation of Thoughts was temporarily paralyzed.
She hadn't imagined he'd cross the shortest path staking his life, so her response was slow.
-Whoosh!
Siu's slash, squeezed out with dying effort, fiercely surged toward Bianca.