Chapter 741
Chapter 741
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 741
Chapter Title: Escape Drama (4)
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1.
The door slammed shut.
The key he had painstakingly crafted was now spent.
The smoke screen no longer concealed Si-woo's position.
The concealment field that Manya and Rinne had erected had been fully analyzed as well. The great witches who had been observing from above now began to act directly.
Iron stakes plummeted from the sky, burrowing into the ground and rising tall.
Long chains linked the stakes together, forming a symbol and a spell in their own right.
The moment the stakes began devouring the surrounding mana at a terrifying speed, glowing as if about to explode...
A guillotine blade hurled by another witch sliced through the chain strung between the stakes with perfect precision.
The magic woven by the stakes and chains unraveled, emitting a high-pitched screech reminiscent of a death rattle.
When one witch ignited a massive blaze, another raised a wall of water to counter it.
When one cast a net or a snare, another severed it with blades of wind.
Just as he had predicted earlier, interference erupted between them.
There were almost no direct attacks, but the shockwaves from clashing spells were utterly devastating.
Dignity Town blazed to life, as if evoking the London Blitz.
Amid the relentless barrage, chaos reigned like tumbling through a storm.
As the full assault began, the low-hierarchy witches of Dignity Town scattered in blind panic.
"Si-woo."
Rinne stepped forward in front of the frozen Si-woo.
She had sensed from his expression that things had gone awry.
Not just Rinne—all the participants in this desperate escape drama intuited that the end was near.
"Don't give up."
In this pitch-black situation, her words carried not vague hope, but unshakable conviction.
Si-woo, who had clung to that hope,
"You can do it."
sank once more under the weight of Rinne's next words.
"Any further than this..."
Si-woo shook his head.
The world was no novel where things conveniently favored the protagonist.
Miracles were no handy devices that arrived right when needed.
To Si-woo, who had abandoned all hope, Rinne said,
"It was a wretched life."
"..."
"Until now, I stole countless lives. Trapped in arrogance and hubris, the death cries of souls impaled on my blade echoed endlessly even when I closed my eyes."
"..."
"Days of writhing in unfillable voids, living like a walking corpse."
Her small hand covered the back of Si-woo's.
"And then I met you. I felt warmth, showed my shameful sides, discovered the joy of being together."
Si-woo realized too late that her words took the form of a farewell.
"Without you, I'd never have known this pounding in my chest. Like a wolf too weary to even gasp for breath. I'd have died a mere beast."
Rinne hesitated for a moment, then smiled at Si-woo for the first time—a ticklish, endearing smile he had never seen.
"I love you. With every fleeting breath of this life."
In Rinne's long existence, her time with Si-woo was but an instant.
Compared to a full life of twenty-four hours, not even a few seconds.
Yet it brought her happiness.
Enough to make dying for him worthwhile.
"So leave this place to me. While I buy you time, find some way—any way—and return to the arms of the lover waiting for you. That's my final request."
"Master...!"
Rinne turned away without waiting for a reply.
From hunted prey, she charged straight at the enemy.
A reckless challenge against such overwhelming foes.
Her body was far from whole for this final battle.
As Ye-bin Smirna had warned, every swing of her sword brought the agony of her body shattering.
She probably wouldn't last ten seconds.
But somehow, she'd stretch it to a full minute.
"Bear it."
Even as that future loomed vivid before her, the emotion blooming in her chest was an inexplicable joy her mind couldn't comprehend.
Not the false ecstasy born of stubborn pride.
The joy of having one last task for her beloved family.
Though distance grew between them, a warmth clung to her heart like it was still there.
That warmth, whispering she was not alone, seemed to make her even stronger.
2.
The final moments Rinne had bought.
A vast black-and-white mana field unfurled around Rinne.
The black-and-white world, once perfect in its stark contrasts, could no longer perform at full strength.
It was impossible to strip away the colors from the mana emitted by so many witches.
If Si-woo had been here alone, he might have let go and surrendered.
Dazed, awaiting capture and imprisonment.
But Si-woo was not alone.
He bore responsibility for six others.
"..."
The last escape route had sealed shut. The final key was gone.
The enemies were mighty. Time was short.
So what?
"Yeah, fuck, was it a cakewalk until now?"
Rinne was right.
It was far too early to give up.
He still had a role to fulfill: rescuing even Rinne and making their escape.
He reassessed his premises, reviewing every ability at his disposal.
There had to be a way.
His explosively accelerated thoughts, splintering instants, stretched his perceived time to a crawl.
Yet Si-woo's Ein offered no answers.
The dimensional transfer device, planned and built over five years, had never accounted for the 'door' closing.
"Ah..."
In that instant, what flashed through his mind was the Red Branch—and Lydia.
More precisely, the conceptual magic she wielded.
Si-woo had always used the Red Branch's distortion field merely as a 'magically lethal radioactive repulsion zone.'
But the original owner, the enemy knight, had demonstrated boundless applications of 'distortion' in manipulating concepts.
She could blend the subtleties of life and death to forge undead legions that revived endlessly.
Expand a narrow rainwater tunnel to rival a grand plaza.
Warp the distance between Eloa and Si-woo, forcing them apart.
An omnipotent miracle, capable of anything if its scope expanded.
The Red Branch in Si-woo's hands barely tapped 50% of its true potential.
There was a reason for that.
Si-woo was no fool; he had experimented with the distortion ability several times.
The issue lay in conceptual magic being the polar opposite of his established style.
Not the realm of calculation and reason, but intuition and sensation.
His systematized magic, born of a mathematician's mind, clashed utterly with handling such nebulous concepts.
And now, Si-woo had witnessed Rinne and Lydia's battle.
Of course, glimpsing 23rd Hierarchy magic wouldn't grant instant enlightenment.
Yet observing the framework for wielding concepts was crucial.
Then... could it be possible?
He didn't need to manipulate every concept at will.
For instance, what if he could temporarily distort an inherently closed door into an 'open state'?
"This is..."
Si-woo, lost in his inner world, felt a shiver run through him.
Amid this dire crisis, enlightenment dawned toward a new realm.
His upheaved 'Ein' trembled, laying a precarious staircase before him.
The golden steps stretching to the heavens were the projection of Si-woo's psyche and philosophy within his Ein.
Reckless though it might be, insignificant against such titanic foes.
Yet refusing to abandon hope, struggling onward...
A fight for life itself.
Si-woo realized instinctively.
These stairs were perilous.
A misstep, a crumbling tread, and he would plummet endlessly into the abyss yawning beneath the golden heights.
Even so, he lunged forward without hesitation.
With each step, his thoughts expanded, widening the fog-shrouded horizon.
Inspirations and insights, once shattered into unconscious fragments too vast to grasp, now pierced the veil of oblivion and floated free.
The density overwhelmed human limits for processing information.
As throbbing headaches scorched his synapses like fire, even distinguishing stairs from flat plain blurred away.
3.
Just one minute since the battle began.
"Huu... Huu..."
Rinne's body was a battered ruin.
This feat alone bordered on a miracle, born of her vast combat experience.
With explosive propulsion, she had plunged into the fray between hardliners and moderates, navigating the subtle tensions of the neutral zone between.
She had cunningly drawn fire lines that risked collateral damage to other factions whenever a powerful spell flew, staving off the inevitable.
But such maneuvers were mere delays.
With blood crusted over her eyelids, barely able to open, a sharp spear hurtled toward Rinne's flank.
Her arms registered the threat but refused to move.
She twisted her body at least to dodge an instant-kill blow.
A thunderous crash rang out as the spear blade flashed and glanced away.
Never imagining aid, Rinne beheld a witch in convent robes.
"Dorothy...?"
"One debt repaid? Who knows if another comes~"
She winked lightly, flashing a bold grin.
Dorothy swung her sword, deflecting the gathered spears.
With her absolute defense, Dorothy could hold out longer than Rinne.
"The convent witch?"
"Why Dorothy sis...?"
"Doesn't matter—kill them both!"
The witches stirred at the sudden betrayal, but the odds remained hopelessly against them.
Dorothy and Rinne stood back-to-back, besieged.
"Sucks debuting all cool just to get pinned immediately~"
Through the onslaught of spells and the great witches exposing their unguarded backs to unleash them.
Rain poured down.
Not the sporadic Hexennacht downpours, but an impenetrable deluge.
A thick curtain that filled mouths and noses with every breath engulfed all of Dignity Town.
"What the hell is this?"
"The mana field...?"
And it was no ordinary rain.
Lethality near zero, yet each droplet wielded potent abrasive particle magic.
Defenses melted on contact, like sugar dissolving in scalding coffee.
Autonomous barriers were no exception.
From fresh 20th Hierarchy initiates to select 23rd Hierarchy witches, all saw their protections erode without mercy.
The chaos this wrought was graver than it seemed.
An unidentified spell from an unknown source had neutralized defenses.
It could be moderates, hardliners—or an inside traitor.
Tension between these already glaring suspects ratcheted to its peak.
"Perfect! Now bolt!"
Seizing the breach, Dorothy wrapped an arm around Rinne's waist and plummeted vertically.
The pursuers failed to notice the blonde witch trailing in their wake.