Chapter 808
Chapter 808
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 808
Chapter Title: Arrival of the Abyssal Witch
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No scientist, historian, or military expert could have ever predicted that World War III would erupt like this.
Not from territorial disputes born of reckless expansion or ideological clashes.
But at the hands of transcendents who had only recently entered the annals of human history.
The nations that had maintained friendly ties with Gehenna were, by and large, pro-American, pro-Western liberal states.
In contrast, those aligned against America and the West—belonging to the so-called Second World—were connected to exiles or wanted criminals.
Thus, Hexennacht's declaration—revealing the existence of witches to the world and claiming hegemony—pitted them directly against Gehenna, igniting a global rift.
The world split once more into two factions.
To devour each other and rise as the hegemon of a new era, they waged a massive war spanning over two decades, wielding witches and cutting-edge science.
Countless witches perished, and far more humans besides.
Here and now, the conclusion of a conflict that claimed sacrifices dozens of times greater than history's deadliest war would be decided.
The turning point that would seal the fate of World War III.
Ironically, the battlefield lay near Midway Atoll, the pivotal crossroads of the Pacific War.
The victorious side would seize control of the seas, ensuring overwhelming dominance in all future battles.
-Kwaaang! Kwaaaang!
-Kung! Koo-goo-goong!
Anti-witch armaments rained from all directions alongside self-magnetic spells that flared and faded everywhere. It resembled less a modern war than a massive fleet clash from a space opera blockbuster.
Every few hours, a carrier strike group sank.
Every few minutes, squadrons of cutting-edge fighters were shot down.
Every few seconds, an entire battalion plunged into the cold depths.
The once-translucent ocean surface was now blanketed in flames fueled by oil and blood.
Black smoke billowed from the horizon to the heavens.
In this brutal fray, a witch's life held no greater sanctity than a soldier's.
One witch, her mana utterly depleted, was obliterated by a tactical nuke warhead on a cruise missile.
Another was carved apart by magic, silenced before a scream could escape.
Yet Gehenna's great witches shone peerlessly on the field.
One gripped a single sword, charging enemy lines to bisect a carrier in two.
Another blanketed kilometers in flower petals, annihilating hostile witches.
Yet another took angelic form, broadly shielding allied positions from incoming barrages.
Hexennacht's forces were no different.
A pilot driven mad by mass hysteria rammed his fighter vertically into his own fleet.
Soldiers ensnared by vicious curses abandoned ship, leaping into the sea.
Iron stakes poured from the sky like rain, piercing from decks to hulls and sinking several destroyers.
"Urgh..."
A prolonged ringing in his ears.
Siu, pinned atop a half-wrecked cruiser, let out a low groan as he pushed himself up.
His shadow-woven black armor was deeply caved in.
The red branch he hadn't released even in unconsciousness rolled from his slackened grip.
"Cough."
His cough brought up thick blood; he briefly released his helmet and spat it aside.
He couldn't even recall what had hit him.
Reflexively, he'd deployed a distortion field to deflect the shockwave and absorbed the excess with his armor as best he could...
Judging by the state he was in, he'd barely clung to life.
"What... happened...?"
A headache like his skull splitting open.
Beyond his reddened vision, a distant speck appeared.
The speck sharpened into clarity in an instant.
It was a Russian-developed anti-witch cruise missile.
Equipped with a warhead sensor that homed in on mana sources, it closed the distance at several times the speed of sound in level flight.
For most witches, visual confirmation meant evasion was impossible.
In the chaos, with these weapons pouring from every angle, even witches took hits.
"Damn...!"
Siu scrambled to rise, but the shock lingered, slowing his movements.
He hastily tried to intercept with a ribbon mid-flight, but even that was too sluggish.
In this defenseless state, a direct hit from a missile that could pulverize a concrete bunker would be the end.
In that desperate moment—
Between one blink and the next, the cruise missile reaching Siu's wrecked cruiser halted dead in midair.
——Kwaang!
A translucent purple barrier enveloped the missile as it detonated with a roar right before his eyes.
The blinding flash seared his retinas white.
-Shuuuuk!
The explosion inside the barrier collapsed toward a singularity with the sound of wind being sucked away.
"Lady Odil! Lady Odet!"
Siu gazed at Odil Jemernai and Odet Jemernai with heartfelt gratitude.
The twins had thwarted the missile hurtling toward him through some uncanny harmony.
"Assistant! What are you doing? Pull yourself together!"
"Sis! I'll tend to the Assistant—cover us!"
The twins, clad in dresses unfit for battle, wore expressions of solemn dignity without a trace of youthful innocence.
As if beholding the long-departed Albreo and Deneb.
They were no longer apprentice witches.
True to the honor of a countess, they stood with Gehenna's ranks as the 22nd Hierarchy, the Twin Star Witch.
As Odet closed her eyes to infuse Siu's body with temporary vitality...
-Koo-goo-goong!
"Sing out!"
Odil detonated tens of thousands of cluster munitions dropped by enemy aircraft midair.
One crisis averted, but the dire situation was far from resolved.
"Haa... haa..."
Both Odil and Odet were utterly spent.
Odil's forehead gash bled profusely, coating half her face in crimson.
"What's the battle situation? Comms working?"
"No, magical and electronic jamming's too intense around here. But I can give you the gist."
Siu forced calm and questioned Odil.
He recalled Gehenna's tactic: a three-sided encirclement.
And Hexennacht countering with staggered breakthroughs.
"Honestly? It's bad. They're committing reserves in a surprise all-out push."
"Duke Tiferet and Associate Professor Amelia are holding, but Enemy Fifth Fleet's punching through the right flank toward the center."
"Assistant, can you still fight?"
"Sis, not the time for that. This is our Maginot Line. We can't fall back."
"Of course I'll fight."
Siu gripped his spear boldly at Odet's concern, but strength drained from his body moments later.
Could he really?
A heavy silence fell.
If only Gehenna's witches hadn't sat idle as Hexennacht grew, engaging aggressively from the war's outset.
If only they'd swayed more exiles to their side.
Such belated regrets churned within.
-Koo-goong! Kwaang!
An allied carrier struck on its side wreathed in black flames and sank.
"Ahh..."
Defeat.
The stark word pierced his mind alongside Odet's sigh, which he'd desperately ignored.
Even Odil, gritting her teeth for a last stand, couldn't hide her despair.
Not just ships were sinking.
Their great witches—key to tipping the scales—were critically short.
Meanwhile, Hexennacht witches drew ever nearer.
"Guess this is it..."
Odil, who never yielded to despair, sighed like defeat.
"If I'd known, I'd have ditched the war and just fooled around with you, Assistant."
"Yeah, we could've hidden in some corner even after losing—bought time."
Siu forcibly hauled his unresponsive body upright.
Stabbing pain lanced his spine.
No wonder it wouldn't move—his backbone was probably shattered.
"Don't say things you don't mean. You and Lady Odet aren't like that anyway."
"Just talk. Honestly, Assistant, you've gotten way too cocky since your slave days."
"Right? Back when we met, you were sniffling, begging us not to do dangerous experiments."
"When did I ever...?"
"You did."
"You totally did."
Incongruous banter amid the doom.
A faint chuckle rippled between them.
Forced levity, sensing these final moments.
"If only... Lurye were here right now..."
"Odet, don't talk nonsense. Without Lurye, we'd have lost ages ago. We can't lean on her forever."
Mid their idle chatter, all three felt chills crawl their skin.
The telltale omen of lock-on, like an RWR warning—dozens of distant spells zeroing in on their drained forms.
"Run! I'll hold them off somehow!"
"Run where?"
"We're the Jemernai Countess."
-Piyuuu!
A meteor shower of multicolored magic bolts and swirling self-magnetic spells lit the sky.
The trio stepped forward for a reckless defense.
Then.
"Sink deep."
A chant from one who shouldn't be audible.
From an ancient witch long feared, supreme over the seas: the Abyssal Witch.
Towering waves, hundreds of meters high in layers, blocked the enemy barrage.
White foam sprayed, but the wave shield held.
Instead, it swept the shells away like sandcastles, reclaiming the sea.
Siu and the twins stared at the ocean, eyes trembling.
"Traitors who trample my domain in the mud and persecute my dear friends and envoys."
Half-emerged from the surface, the modified whale sub Aquila cleaved the waves.
At the prow, arms crossed under a naval admiral's white cloak, Lurye Nukelabi glared imperiously at the foe.
Having secretly flanked the enemy rear to annihilate Hexennacht's central fleet, she now joined to bolster Gehenna's crumbling right wing.
"If you think to pay for your crimes with your wretched lives, let's count how many it takes—from now."
She was the true queen of the seas, ignorant of defeat—a sovereign unchallenged.