Chapter 446
Chapter 446
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 446
Chapter Title: Your Memory (4)
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The dizzying sense of freefall jolted Si-woo's fading consciousness awake.
Like a skydiver slicing through thunderclouds, Si-woo's eyes burst out from the pitch-black cloud of particles.
What he saw was an expanse of darkness so vast that measuring its size was meaningless.
The totality of Amelia's solitude and sorrow.
Beneath its depths, Amelia sank endlessly.
There she was—a woman who had spent her life circling regrets and resentments, ultimately choosing to become a loner.
In the aquarium of solitude where even the most desperate words sank without echo, Amelia was slowly drowning.
“————!”
He called out Amelia's name.
But Si-woo couldn't even hear his own shout.
The purple magic coiling around Amelia like a serpent had completed its erosion.
No matter how thoroughly she'd severed Lilith's leash, it hadn't stopped the rampage itself.
Alone, she wouldn't get hurt.
If she emptied her surroundings and barricaded herself in her own world, a false peace would come.
The wish to be left alone.
Amelia had chosen that.
Her emotionless eyes glowed an icy blue as she stared at Si-woo, spewing rough and violent magic.
Was she running?
Or simply falling?
He couldn't tell which, and it hardly mattered.
The distance between them was still vast.
As far as the brilliantly floating moon in the sky he'd glanced up at.
The gap born from severed connections and misunderstandings—from failing to understand each other, or perhaps understanding too deeply—seemed just as distant.
But even in this moment, they were drawing closer.
“————!”
Si-woo let out another voiceless cry and simply pressed forward.
His body was already in tatters.
What remained for Si-woo were neither crimson branches, nor sturdy armor woven from shadows, nor ribbons that danced freely in all directions.
Just a ragged husk soaked to the bone in Amelia's particles.
He saw her hand rising slowly.
With her rampage fully underway, Amelia recognized nothing around her.
To perfect her solitary 'world,' she sought to purge every impurity nearby.
Si-woo, having rifled through her memories, knew the truth.
If Amelia—with her body brimming with these particles—triggered the resonance now...
She would become a fleeting heap of flowers.
Even so, Si-woo chose to advance.
-Kwa-dududuk!
Si-woo felt the magic's resistance tearing at his flesh.
A warning that safety beyond this point couldn't be guaranteed—the agony spreading through his entire body tormented him, and the particles rippling like storm clouds at his back finally cleared.
The sky now shone with pure white light, as if day had broken—not by Amelia's will.
The magic sliced through the darkness, targeting Si-woo and Amelia like a spear of light.
Like the solemn judgment of a god punishing folly, it hummed with vibrations of magic that evoked awe beyond mere sanctity.
No doubt about it.
In this warped space, to wield magic of that magnitude with such precision and strike true—if not the 24th Hierarchy Erelim Duke, who else?
The allotted thirty minutes had passed.
Even if he pushed forward through sheer hardship, that spear would pierce Si-woo and Amelia side by side.
Life was precious.
But not everything mattered more than survival.
Si-woo tore through the magic entwining his body like rose vines and pressed on.
His clothes hung in shredded tatters.
No major wounds visible on the surface, but his exposed hands and arms bulged with the harbingers of 'blooming.'
-Ting!
Even in this realm of utter silence, a sound rang in his ears.
A crystalline chime, like a spoon tapping a wine glass filled with water—it punished the intruder denied passage.
Si-woo saw it.
His left arm thrust straight ahead.
A splendid flower blooming from its fingertips, cleanly devouring one hand.
“———!”
It was excruciating agony.
To hope the sensation of muscles and bones ripping apart, internals devoured from within by an alien lifeform, might somehow not hurt—that would be utter folly.
The flower sprouting from his fingertips wouldn't stop until it climbed his arm and shoulder to the heart, then spread through his entire body.
Si-woo couldn't block Amelia's Autonomic Magic. He'd deemed it impossible.
But he'd witnessed firsthand the memories she hunted, the rules governing her spells.
Data incomparable to his first fumbling attempt had piled up.
“————!”
Bloom.
With an incantation screamed until his throat burst, fierce sparks of mana raced across his body.
This wasn't proper magic.
It was self-mutilation—expending every drop of mana to shatter his own circuits.
Amelia's flowers were pre-sown seeds, triggered to bloom by vibrations.
If those circuits fell into shock—if his body briefly resembled an ordinary human's...
He staked everything on the hypothesis that blooming would halt.
Whether the hypothesis held true,
Or some inexplicable phenomenon arose in this chaotic void,
The piercing wave tore through him, but Si-woo somehow found footing in the bottomless abyss.
He clutched his half-vanished left arm.
Amelia lay within arm's reach.
It had been a distant road.
The two, who'd only glimpsed each other's backs amid endless misalignment, could finally face one another.
“……”
The witch city of Gehenna, severed from the present world for eons and sustaining its own isolated existence.
Sayings and proverbs unique to it arose organically there.
Among them: No human can stand atop a rainbow.
A rainbow symbolizes splendid ideals and perfection.
Among humans, it's an expression that no one is flawless.
Among witches, a wry admission that none can reach the Creation Witch's realm.
The latter, who knows—but the former rings absolutely true.
No human can stand on a rainbow.
Sometimes from trivial misunderstandings.
Sometimes from immaturity.
Sometimes from misguided expressions of love.
Sometimes from hatred and resentment.
They wound one another, forging irreparable fractures in bonds.
Fate is a humble flower blooming atop that tangled mound of dirt.
If a rainbow-dweller merits the title 'god,' then to divine eyes, that flower seems pathetically insignificant—a worthless thing that withers all too easily.
But to humans, no.
Frail humans find happiness together, share smiles.
-Patzutzutzutsu!
Magic still rippled across Amelia's body.
No matter how skilled the engineer, a derailed train can't be halted mid-rampage.
From the heavens, a pillar of light—kill assured—descended like a guillotine blade for execution.
With no strength left, Si-woo's only option was to walk toward Amelia.
Nothing else occurred to him but embracing the woman who'd gathered all those fractures and suffered alone.
They'd met with such hardship.
Ten seconds left together, perhaps?
Si-woo pulled Amelia into his arms.
The magic ravaging his ruined body barely registered as pain.
He simply spoke the words he'd longed to say.
Bloodied lips parted through cracked flesh.
"I'm sorry... for being so late..."
Did the words reach her?
Even in these final moments, had they offered the slightest comfort?
He held the doll-like, rigidly frozen Amelia—precious, so precious.
"I won't leave you again."
The world brightened relentlessly.
Sizzling heat prickled directly overhead as merciless divine judgment pierced them both.
Tok tok.
Si-woo felt a water drop falling.
No.
Tears rolling down, soaking his clothes.
From that instant, the world—stripped of its true hues—regained its colors as dark particles scattered into the distance.
The warped, tangled space reverted seamlessly, like a lie undone.
Even the light-spear crashing toward his head morphed into a vast floral mound and dispersed.
Frozen time thawed and flowed once more.
-Peng! Peng! Peng!
Stray embers from the unfinished fireworks display painted the sky.
Crowds gathered for the festival erupted in cheers of joy and awe at the sudden shower of radiant blossoms.
No crumbling world remained.
No ferocious magic shredding all around, no sacred spear seeking judgment.
Instead, a force filled the void—clutching his lapels tight.
Si-woo lifted his head through blurring vision.
There stood Amelia.
Amelia, hands trembling uncontrollably, staring at him in helpless confusion.
"Si-woo... Si-woo... Your arm... your arm is hurt..."
Despite yearning so desperately to see him again.
Despite fearing reunion with him so fiercely.
Amelia Merigold wept endless tears of worry at Si-woo's severed left arm.
Si-woo met her gaze.
Amelia, guilt-ridden as if desperate to flee, merely tugged futilely at her hem.
Lips quivering wordlessly, she looked every bit herself.
Anyway, now—surely—she'd hear him.
"Lady Amelia."
Calling her name, her body stiffened taut with tension.
"It's all okay."
Si-woo lost consciousness, collapsing into Amelia's arms.
Beneath fading thoughts, he murmured another Gehenna proverb.
God is cruel and bestows no miracles—cynical, as witches' sayings ought to be.
The fallout from a magic rampage scales with one's accomplishments.
Amelia lacked the power to rein in her own unleashed force.
Hence, 'rampage.'
Yet she'd withdrawn her magic herself—and poured her reserves into nullifying even the Erelim Duke's spell.
For such an impossibility, could one call it a god-granted miracle?
Or perhaps something childish, clichéd.
A modest flower blooming atop that tangled dirt mound.
A small, beautiful flower like that.