Chapter 402
Chapter 402
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 402
Chapter Title: Overlooked (1)
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Opened the first door.
The world came into view.
It was a world brimming with all sorts of formulas and geometric sequences.
No.
Slightly different.
This was the overlay of calculations that would appear if every object and entity entering one's field of vision had its behavioral principles analyzed through magic.
Concentrating his consciousness just a little, a woman's face emerged between the layers of vision scattered like a dragonfly's compound eyes.
The busty woman who had healed Si-woo's body and later even joined him for a one-night stand.
Yebin Smirna.
She had used her Autonomic Magic and intercourse to activate Si-woo's consciousness, which had been trapped in the Ain she herself created, endlessly pursuing nothing but research.
In a situation where he couldn't tell what was what.
An instinctual cry offered two answers.
Imitate the Autonomic Magic.
Ravish her, let yourself be ravished, and claim the magic.
That was the only solution.
Si-woo pounced on Yebin and succeeded in copying her Memory Palace magic.
For Autonomic Magic, it wasn't particularly high-level.
It could only peer into others' memories, after all.
The second memory.
Amelia came into view.
A far richer, more potent witch's scent than Yebin Smirna's.
Si-woo had already once followed instinct's command and copied a magic.
He thought he had to claim this magic too—he must.
It would be invaluable for his magical achievements.
She put up some resistance, unlike the compliant Yebin Smirna.
Amelia Merigold refused to cooperate with the magical research.
She muttered in a low voice, but it didn't register.
Just the displeasure of her research being interrupted and some irretrievable past memory made her lips twitch.
"—- —."
It was probably a curse.
In that instant, the veil of the magic formula lifted briefly, revealing Amelia's face.
Straightforward eyes resolved not to flee,
yet teary orbs that seemed ready to crumble at the slightest touch fixed on Si-woo's face.
"—-, — —."
Amelia didn't rebuke Si-woo.
Instead, as if she were the guilty one before his turned back, she held back tears and quietly closed the door.
Si-woo didn't know.
This truth.
He hadn't remembered it.
The memories flowed.
Reached the second door.
Si-woo's daily life was solitary magical research.
Based on the assets he'd accumulated so far, he endlessly disassembled and reassembled, pursuing ever more efficient forms.
Everything in this world was inspiration, a playground.
For instance, the massive barrier separating Gehenna itself seemed near-perfect.
Referencing it for existing dimensional magic formulas, Si-woo continued his endless research.
Then he sensed a flaw in the barrier.
Feeling anomalies in what should have been flawless Gehenna barrier, Si-woo met Ea Sadal Melik.
A horrific Public Enemy who had to be excluded.
The moment he confronted her, even without clear intent, he judged her an obstacle.
He fought.
And defeated her.
Simply copying and transferring magic was a luxury for obstacles.
He raped her on her knees and seized the Virgin's Loom.
Seized the King of All Diseases contract.
Si-woo finally realized how the Loom and King of All Diseases had come into his possession.
Afterward.
He met the Kether Duke.
No need to explain how he noticed.
Even his overclocked magic eyes, piercing all, couldn't fathom her depths.
"—— —— ——."
Muttering something, Kether reverted Si-woo's crumbling, overloaded body to its childhood state.
At the same time, the Ain divided into three.
One Shin Si-woo above.
One Shin Si-woo below.
Exile to unwanted depths.
Where no more magical inspiration could be gained.
Falling into an abyss of endless block-breaking and rebuilding.
Si-woo felt no despair.
No anger.
Just profound regret prompted some measure.
Just before the black Ain sealed perfectly.
Shin Si-woo cast a single thread connecting to the upper Ain.
So that, upon inhaling another witch's scent bearing different magic, it would crave it.
When crisis struck and he could no longer research magic even from the unconscious depths.
To rise again someday.
He set an autonomic defense link.
Vast time passed.
Tedious hours with only occasional fragments of magic trickling in.
Any ordinary human would have found it unbearable, but not him.
Each high-quality magic absorbed brought fulfillment through blossoming and transformation.
He built his world in the empty Ain.
More perfectly, more beautifully, toward ever higher peaks.
For that was a witch's sacred duty.
Forgotten memory doors opened one by one.
Obtained fragments of elemental magic.
Obtained fragments of contract magic.
Obtained fragments of inversion field magic.
Time flowed.
The next door to appear differed slightly in appearance from the previous ones.
Unlike the solidly shut black doors, it looked crudely made somewhere.
And a faint pink glow of mana reflection, with contract patterns engraved on the door.
Opened the door.
"Sorry, but I truly believe this is for the best right now... I'll take responsibility for today's events until the day I die..."
Eloa appeared, pressing her face close under Si-woo's nose.
Unlike other memories, her dialogue rang crystal clear, and even the sweat beads tormenting her flesh and pleasure vividly brushed past his eyes.
Some time passed.
When they were alone in the twin carriage.
Si-woo and Eloa, having drunk the elixir, shared fervent love.
Eloa's raw true feelings spilling through role-play pretext.
"Perhaps... I love you deeply, Si-woo."
Suddenly drawing her contract sword.
"I form the contract."
With that, the memory cut off.
Now faced the final door.
Takisho taken hostage, and the secret meeting with the Witch of Desire to rescue him.
From here, memories flowed smoothly.
It was the last memory before Si-woo wandered this Memory Palace.
The magic fragments gathered so far.
Woven into a grand tree, unified Shin Si-woo confronted Bianca.
The magic was so wondrous and beautiful it was hard to believe it his own.
The illusory victory he thought he'd claimed.
The Witch of Desire had prepared mutual destruction until the very end.
The moment cage-like fangs tore into his body, cold winter rain fell with a barrage of shattering wildflowers.
Si-woo saw Amelia.
Amelia saw Si-woo.
Why was she here?
He'd heard she'd abandoned her magic lessons and workshop to leave somewhere.
His heart stirred.
He didn't know what to say, but seeing her stiffen the instant their eyes met wasn't comfortable.
As if...
Like Amelia when the memory-recovering Si-woo spat harsh words.
Emotions deliberately forgotten and ignored bubbled up.
Had she read the note?
How did she get here?
He wanted to choose words carefully before speaking, but this was merely a past, passed moment.
Si-woo looked away from Amelia.
His eyes focused on the presence vanishing beyond the vast sea.
Couldn't let captured prey escape; his steps forward halted like a drained battery from extreme depletion and fatigue.
Even the memories of Shin Si-woo unknown to Shin Si-woo ended there.
2.
"Keurk... Urk...! Urk...!"
A dark basement.
One artifact lay there.
Evoking a massive mammal's placenta or a meat sack sleeping bag.
The Reincarnation Cocoon Bianca Bellrilly had prepared as her final resort.
Originally in Ea Sadal Melik's possession, seized from her.
Spitting out the sticky fluid that soaked not just her body but filled her nose and mouth, Bianca convulsed.
An horrific experience she never wanted to repeat.
And out of fear, too.
Hierarchy descent was, in a way, more terrible than death.
Even if Bianca had modified the artifact—which saved one's life once in exchange for hierarchy— to revive without descent.
The outcome was unknown until personally dying.
Fortunately, Bianca still bore 22 clear Stigma lines.
The Reincarnation Cocoon, turned one-use from illegal tuning, withered like jerky and vanished.
Losing such a 'final escape route' was regrettable, but conversely, it meant gaining an impossible second chance.
Stay vigilant, and she'd never repeat the same defeat.
"Cough! Cough! Fun, isn't it? So much fun."
First, recover stamina and mana.
Bianca tried to rise, catching her ragged breath while prone.
Her body froze upright.
-Clack clack clack
The circular stairs leading to the basement.
Footsteps that shouldn't be there echoed.
This was Bianca's secret hideout and treasure vault, undisclosed to anyone.
No human presence or flickering lantern shadows allowed.
Especially not if it was Ea Sadal Melik's.
"Come up! Isn't this how you greet?"
Ea Sadal Melik's shadow fell over Bianca, crawling like a freshly molted larva.
New-moon eyes glowing red like otherworldly flowers.
Bobbed short hair above shoulders and her beloved water jar lace dress.
"Ahahaha... You mad bitch..."
Bianca let out a hollow laugh.
She couldn't help it.
Ea Sadal Melik, drooling and calling "Master, Master" just days ago.
Moreover, the one who'd ordered a game of hide-and-seek in Hong Kong—her being here was absurd.
Couldn't help but laugh in disbelief.
"How was my acting?"
Bianca was 22nd Hierarchy.
Ea now 13th.
But after the intense battle drain, with barely a scrap of mana left, Bianca couldn't beat Ea.
A missile without fuel was just scrap metal.
"Drooling like a retard bitch?"
Half in fury, Bianca sneered, but Ea didn't blink.
Instead, she squatted to meet Bianca's eyes.
"How could you be so careless? Even took off the headband... Set you free... If stripping, shoulda just taken the clothes. Oh, and look at this?"
Ea pulled forward the arm she'd awkwardly held behind, revealing a palm-sized lotus.
A lotus emitting mysterious rainbow light like crystal.
"Shoulda stashed something this important separately."
No matter how broken she deemed her, Bianca never shared this workshop with Ea.
But as Ea said, carelessness might have leaked clues through unconscious gestures or words.
Besides, from Ea's view, it was no-risk, high-reward gamble.
Had Bianca won, she wouldn't return to the Cocoon, and Ea would've continued acting normal.
Conversely, returning meant she'd suffered a defeat rendering resistance impossible.
Undeniable.
Bianca had been utterly deceived by Ea Sadal Melik.
Ea grinned ear-to-ear, teeth clenched.
Obvious she was holding back laughter.
"What'd this lotus say? With enough sacrifices and mana, I can restore my hierarchy too?"
"...Kill me."
Bianca sensed her end.
The Ea she knew would never let her live.
"Already? Don't be like that. Such a refreshing moment after so long—I gotta get revenge for what you did to me."
Indeed.
Bianca had humiliated and tormented Ea in every way.
A witch as prideful as Ea might well want payback.
And this was a chance.
A slim one...
"Sorry, just kidding."
Bianca felt searing heat graze her throat.
Late, bubbling blood poured into her windpipe, soaking her lungs.
Ea had slit her vital exactly like a butcher.
Fatal for mana-exhausted Bianca, unable even to activate autonomic defense.
"Gack! Keurk... Cough...!"
"Don't worry, you taught me. Complacency is utterly retarded.
One consolation? Your Stigma will serve well. For my glorious revival, Ea Sadal Melik's! That useless hunk of meat... Hmm, pig feed it'll be."
Ea released the gripped hair; Bianca's head lolled forward limply.
Fingernails snapped futilely clutching concrete.
Over blood-foam gurgles layered Ea's chilling laugh.
"Thanks, Bianca Bellrilly. You were a great master."