Chapter 398
Chapter 398
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 398
Chapter Title: The Masquerade Ball (5)
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What is a witch?
She is one who chooses to walk the path of sorcery to achieve the great feat of creation.
A chosen being worthy of sacred praise, transcending the mortal realm.
Her flesh weathers even the tempests of time,
and the stirrings of her lips twist the natural order of cause and effect.
To these special souls who bear their own singular duties, equally singular rights are granted.
Just as one does not judge beasts by human morals, nor humans by a beast's.
To hold mundane standards against a witch is irreverence beyond absurdity.
The witch who casts off her shackles to pursue the arcane must be 'different' from ordinary folk.
In that sense, what of Siu?
The first male witch in history.
From head to toe, he's utterly mundane.
The mere fact that he's taken hostage by this petty human drama is proof of his vulgarity.
The life of a witch bearing a grand destiny must surely outweigh that of a single mortal by far.
It was entirely predictable that he'd charge into the jaws of death for a friend as good as dead.
And so, disappointment stirred within.
But what of him now?
Disregarding his very life.
A thrust that parts the storm of distortion fields—lethal at a glance—with naked blade.
Is the resolve in that edge,
and the sheer gall that rent Bianca's cheek a full handspan to finally spill her blood,
also mere mundanity?
His vision shuddered like peering beneath rain-lashed waves.
The blade swung through utmost vertigo failed in the end to claim Bianca's life.
"Haa... haa... urk..."
After heaving up his guts in a mindless haze, he lifted his head.
There was Bianca, gazing at the blood staining his hand.
The narrowly deflected edge had carved deep into her cheek.
A sword wound on a 22nd Hierarchy witch.
A triumph of quick thinking, an unbelievable feat.
Yet Siu could not smile.
Her standing firm meant the gamble had failed.
He should have ended her here.
Induce temporary shutdown with the Red Branch's rampage, plunge through, and strike—a trump card Siu had prepared.
Had that wavering blade grazed throat over cheek, this fight's verdict would have flipped.
Bianca, whom he'd imagined raging "How dare a lowly male witch!", regarded him with eerie calm.
Her eyes pure, devoid of malice or enmity.
"You're impressive."
Chattering mid-battle was her bad habit.
It granted Siu time to catch his breath.
He checked his reserves at once.
Two clovers had withered away.
Now just one spare life remained.
His cloak hung in tatters.
Its once-stout protection had dipped below twenty percent.
But even all ills combined paled against Siu's bodily state.
Joints melting from overzealous mana reinforcement.
Mana circuits shredded by distortion field and red barrier—less than half mobilizable.
Push further, and irreversible ruin loomed, his body screaming through piercing agony.
"...Urk!"
He barely swallowed the blood surging up.
"I'll recognize you as my foe."
Bianca's wound, by contrast, was a mere scratch.
Vittège's shield, starlight line, phase observation eye—all briefly snared by distortion—snapped back to function.
Her consumption: zero.
His side: bankruptcy's edge.
No matter how he turned it over, the end was plain.
Yet surrender was no option.
The fight endured.
Even in hopeless disparity, even when hands ran dry, thrash ugly to the last.
Respect for a life hard-lived.
Tribute to the friend who held faith through torment.
Resolve to return to the lover's boundless trust.
A leap toward tomorrow.
-Flutter!
Bianca vanished.
No.
While Siu heaved his heavy lids, she'd merely soared into the night sky.
He craned his neck to behold her.
Gone was the playful smile from her leisurely fray.
A worthy rival's grave gaze took its place.
In moonless murk, pristine wings bloomed like a pale crescent.
Angel-feathers fluttering white—the fourth relic from public enemy records.
'Icarus's Wings'.
Spread wide, spanning dozens of meters, these vast wings—unlike their mythic namesake—knew no plunge.
Top speed: Mach 30.
Shackled to no gravity, inertia, or law of physics, they held hypersonic dash with evasion loops and acrobatics.
Flight alone dodged most spells.
"My respects. Never dreamed you'd draw this out."
Distance secured, Bianca—night sky her backdrop—drew a colossal bow.
Unlike others, a Bellily relic from the first, her mightiest armament.
'Arkhat's Bow'.
Details absent from records.
Just vague: 'the bow that shoots heaven.'
Reasons twofold: scarce use, or witnesses slain wholesale.
-Creeeak.
At first, mere grating buzz.
Or lingering tinnitus.
-Creeeek.
But as her fingertips eased the string taut, Siu saw.
The upturned sky warped.
The sky folded inward.
Odd words, but apt alone.
Like pinching a flat cloth's heart to rose-fold.
Twinkling stars and their spill condensed to a nexus.
Wrested air shrieked tearward.
-Creeeeeek!!!
Siu grasped it.
The record's sky-shooting bow.
No loose metaphor as he'd mused.
Straightforward: fold the firmament to arrow.
-Creeeeeeeeek!!!!
Bianca pondered.
His form now, utter ruin.
Yet capture alive? Forsworn.
Phase observation eye on his throes affirmed.
Feeble grasp would bare fangs keen.
This vulgar shell held something beyond the common pale.
Her duty: honor the rival, counter with finest stroke.
"......"
Siu pondered.
How?
No leisure for brooding.
Shape ribbons to ring tunnel, birth reverse field, bend arrow path.
"Not enough."
Weave body-veil shield, hunker, cloak guard and clover as final redoubt.
"Nor that."
Impossible.
World-devouring mana thrum betrayed it.
That sky-wrought shaft mocked such barriers.
Siu's eyes fixed: Red Branch, rampage stilled, ominous crimson gleam.
Not wholly soothed.
Power coiled in brief hush, no omniblast distortion.
Past ribbons with control formulas? Insufficient rein.
Shuck cloak swift, wind 'round heart-distant right arm, seize Red Branch.
"——-!!!!!!"
Siu ground teeth to arm-incinerating torment.
Cloak staunched first wave, yet distortion surged unchecked.
Intense warp-storm claimed body as demesne, wrecked willful.
Control? Nay.
Muscles seethed. Bones bowed. Blood backflooded veins. Heart stuttered. Lungs crushed. Guts wrenched. Circuits sparked past noise.
Pain's frenzy, perchance—or verity.
More he willed control, more fierce the churn within.
"Huu..."
Stigma-less green days at Latifundium.
Shadow cat hunt: seven mana elixirs imbibed bodily.
As then.
Defy not, guide.
Body as conduit.
What havoc such warp loose inside? Unknowable.
Sitting death anyway?
One blaze, one bite.
Red Branch rampaged owner's frame, scorning control's gall.
"Good, good... nice now..."
Guide it, spin through flesh.
Skirt vitals for lethal clash, yield lesser innards playground.
Senses snapped: slumped 'gainst shattered girder.
Legs numb from waist in blink.
Siu amassed dregs of mana, wove ribbon-form.
No 'control' weave—this for 'rampage' rite.
Lob? Shoulder wanting.
Twelve strands helixed 'round steel bones.
Ship-frame as riser, Red Branch shaft, ribbons drawn string-taut.
Black bloom with crimson stamen.
-Kuuuung!
Ribbon-titanic tension, steel buckled.
Distortion, red pale wilder—contain, contain, contain.
Snap to: clovers fled.
-Creeeak!
Night vault bowed full, launch-primed.
Arkhat's string limit-stressed.
Bellily's apex relic, killshot unfailed.
"Loose it."
Bianca Bellily murmured low to the black flower skyward.
Shin Siu unleashes the Red Branch's mad frolic toward plummeting night.
Night's glow dies.
Sea shatters sob-wracked.
In world's tumble, sole: one black line.
And red gleam athwart.