Black Witch
Black Witch
His five senses had been utterly ravaged. Sight was reduced to a blur, and his hearing had gone so black it no longer carried even his own heartbeat.
Smell was even worse. Wherever he turned his head, all he picked up was the faint trace of a scent like dissipating rain—Rowena's personal fragrance.
Taste was dead and beyond consideration, but touch, too, was wrong. Aslan could no longer feel his own body. He could not tell if he was standing, lying down, kneeling and trembling, or even whether he still existed at all.
At least, as far as the five senses were concerned.
With his senses betraying their master and refusing their duties, Aslan stood relying on a single sense alone.
It was called Luck.
A faculty bordering on a sixth sense, an intuitive ability. A super-intuition that had grown to the point of foreseeing the future itself.
That super-intuition sketched the contours of his physical form, and so he moved his body as he always did. Slow, agonizingly deliberate, but he could still move.
'I can feel her.'
Beyond his closed eyes, where his lowered head was turned, he sensed a woman standing.
Through the fierce response of his Luck, Aslan could pinpoint Rowena's location.
The monsters that had suddenly appeared around her felt vividly real as well.
As if a droplet had fallen onto water and sent ripples spreading outward, Aslan's perception encroached upon the space, painting a map beneath his eyelids in spreading black.
A map felt only by Aslan, whose Luck was so high.
As though viewing the forms on that map from above, Aslan sensed Rowena beginning to widen the distance the instant she summoned the monsters.
Intuitively tracing the woman's movement as she cut across the section of the Hanging Garden where flowers were in full bloom, Aslan pivoted his foot.
Sound—nothing.
Touch—nothing.
Total darkness. He did not even know if he was upright. By all rights, standing properly should have been impossible, but Aslan endured with Fighting Spirit and dropped his stance.
His mental energy drained at a staggering rate. Even the simple act of moving a leg brought cold sweat.
But he moved. Concentrating entirely on his body left him hard-pressed to do anything else, yet he understood that he could fight this way.
Substituting all senses with Luck, he maneuvered the self drawn on the map in his mind—a body devoid of even the faintest tactile sensation.
The monsters spotted him lowering his stance and lunged. Feeling them draw near, Aslan spread his feet. He drew back the hand gripping his sword and wrapped his other hand around the hilt. Still no sense of touch.
From the front came a beast-type monster, a common cross between mole and wolf. Toward it, Aslan released his drawn-back arm.
One Flash.
No sound reached him. Not even the sensation of blade cleaving flesh. But Luck told him.
The jaw of the springing monster had been split in two.
He focused on the image forming in his mind: a monster split open, oozing viscous fluid and fragments of Abyss here and there. Then Aslan moved again.
He pivoted the front foot he had just thrust forward, braced on his back leg, and swung upward.
The monster's maw split lengthwise and crosswise. Black fluid sprayed. Aslan did not stop.
He shifted his feet. Slashed twice more.
He bent his knees. Dodged an attack aimed where his head had been and tore into the flank.
He angled his ankle and twisted his waist. From the split flank all the way to the jaw, he drew a long line with Purity and carved through.
Repeat.
Dodge, cut, split, tear. Countless slashes layered atop one another until the Abyss-spawned monster scattered in small fragments. Amid the black fluid splattering everywhere, only Aslan stood apart.
A span too short for a single breath. In that fleeting moment while the scattered Abyss monster writhed to reassemble, Aslan stayed Purity's thrust and wrenched his body around to swing directly behind him.
Had his ears been working, he would have heard the roar of flames. The sphere of fire Rowena had thrown split in half and struck two of the monsters head-on. The writhing one was smashed against the wall; the one about to pounce now faltered.
Aslan's thrust drove toward that faltering monster. A single point, as if drawn with ink. The creature's torso split cleanly in two and thudded to the ground in wet slabs, and Aslan gripped his sword tight and twisted his body again.
Hoo-uhp, he drew breath. He could not feel it, but he steadied his breathing and rushed toward Rowena.
The distance was neither far nor close. A subtle distance—ideal for magic, too far for a blade.
Watching Aslan close in, Rowena gathered her mana. A condensed sphere formed in her hand. Detected by mana sense, confirmed by Luck. Aslan swept a hand over his cloak, pulled a dagger, and prepared to throw it.
He planned to intercept the spell with the dagger and then cut with the sword.
Had his mana and Luck not registered a contradiction in that instant.
Mana insisted Rowena's attack would be a spell—that condensed sphere in her hand. Luck appeared to think otherwise.
A vague, uneasy feeling—as though flames were about to blaze up beneath his feet. Without a second thought, Aslan pivoted on his foot and hurled himself aside.
'Abyss, then. She's learned to wield it directly.'
What impaled the spot where he had been standing was Rowena's elongated shadow. The stretched-out shadow shot up like an awl and upturned the ground, and Aslan rolled, landed, and sprang forward again.
'Was the magic a feint? No, that can't be it.'
Steel shaped like awls flew straight for his head. Aslan swung Purity without delay and split the steel in two, then forced his body through the gap as if squeezing in.
Magic, Abyss, illusion—all were Rowena's weapons.
Each one real, not false. There was more than one element to watch. Aslan drew back the hand holding Purity and swung with full force.
He cut through Abyss erupting from the ground and advanced, blocked the acidic rain pouring from the front by holding Purity close and spinning, and ignored the rain of fire plummeting from the sky as he lunged forward.
Thanks to the dragon's blood, the flames merely grazed his skin as they passed. Parting the fire, Aslan drew and hurled two daggers.
Midair, the daggers collided with magic and ricocheted. He cut through the space where the magic had been nullified, and Rowena retreated while unleashing a torrent of Abyss.
Fangs and awls of shadow, tentacles and blades, arrows—all bore down on Aslan.
Aslan blocked, slashed, and deflected them all while closing the gap.
The balance of attacks was gradually tilting from magic toward Abyss.
Sensing that, Aslan twisted his head to avoid an awl shooting up from the ground aimed at the back of his neck, and thought, 'Is her mana already running low?'
No, impossible. Aslan repeated inwardly as he jammed a freshly drawn dagger into an oncoming shard of ice, stopping it mid-flight, then hurled it away to escape the detonation as well.
'Rowena's mana reserves are substantial. This is a ploy. She wants me to think she's spent and charge in.'
Having seen through the deception, Aslan made a decision. He halted his feet mid-step and did not deflect the Abyss reaching for his ankle.
His ankle was crushed without a shred of pain. He could not see it, but he felt it. His body, equilibrium shattered, began to topple. Not an inch of it could he feel, not a single pain impulse reached him—yet Aslan calmly laid a hand on his cloak.
By not deflecting the attack that crushed his ankle, he had bought a brief moment. He would stretch that brief moment to its limits.
Absorb the attack and counter.
Rowena's magic poured down on the staggering Aslan. She had indeed held mana in reserve. And if that was how she wanted it, Aslan had no reason to hold back either.
'Domination.'
He might have actually said it aloud—he was not sure—but with those words his mana flared fiercely and dismantled the cloak. Instantly, a cloud of feathers hovered in the air.
The feathers spun and drifted, like the rings of Saturn. Spells that touched the circle were shredded apart and scattered.
Then he released them. Hundreds of feathers shot forth, piercing and mincing the Abyss monsters Rowena was in the process of raising. Beyond the scattering black fluid, Rowena's figure was clear.
The instant Aslan confirmed the woman's form, he redirected Domination to envelop his own body.
Under normal circumstances, immobility was a defining trait of Domination.
But if he abandoned controlling armaments via its telekinetic power and focused entirely on the function of moving his body, it was not impossible.
Wrapping his body in telekinesis, Aslan replaced his physical senses and motor control with mana.
Devoting Luck entirely to perception, he poured an immense amount of mana into movement.
The illusion of wind rushing past ears that could not hear. Aslan forcibly ignored the auditory hallucination, telekinetically moving his legs to kick off the ground.
He gripped Purity in both hands and drew it back. The target was a diagonal downward slash. Ignoring the throbbing ache in his heart as he pulled the blade back, he registered Rowena's desperate assault surging toward him.
A deluge of Abyss and magical bombardment. With Luck wholly committed to perception, Aslan could see the trajectories of the pouring Abyss and magic with utter clarity. Wherever the trajectories overlapped, he swung Purity and swept them aside.
As if tearing away what had been drawn on a sheet of paper, Purity rent space itself and deflected Abyss and magic alike.
The distance shrank. Aslan lunged at Rowena. Less than five meters remained. As he drew within striking range of his sword and tensed muscles he could not feel—
—Kwaaaah!
His eyes snapped open, his ears cleared, his body returned to him. The illusion magic had broken.
And what he saw when the illusion lifted was Rowena. She held the hem of her skirt, lightly bending her waist. Beneath that hem, shadows seethed.
Kwooooooh!
The deafening roar was the sound of death and Void pouring from the cascading Abyss. A shard of an Evil God that devoured everything around it. That shard surged forth and assembled into a form.
An army of Abyss. The pouring host of an Evil God.
Countless monsters wielding armaments, thrashing their limbs, kicking off the ground as they charged—hurling spears, swords, fangs, tentacles, claws, nails, all aimed at Aslan.
The moment he saw it, Aslan's expression hardened—then he smiled faintly and sprinted straight into the horde.
He did not swing his sword at the horde; he kept the blade pulled back behind him and rammed through with his shoulder. The instant of impact sent pain searing through him so vivid that even his dulled body could feel it.
His flesh tore. His eyes were crushed. Bones snapped. Agony so absolute that his whole body would surely be reduced to a fistful of minced meat engulfed him. Aslan was being ground into a handful of gore.
But he ignored the pain and ran forward. On legs that had definitely been shredded to nothing.
The moment he passed through the army of Abyss and planted his feet—legs so ravaged the bone showed through—his body reverted to its original state.
The illusion dissolved. Before him appeared an empty space free of any Abyss, and a bewildered Rowena.
Exquisite illusion magic.
Aslan swung Purity downward in a powerful cleave. His arm traced a wide arc, driving the blade down, and Purity bit into Rowena's shoulder.
A vivid tactile sensation raced along Purity to his fingertips.
From her shoulder blade, through her lung and breast, tearing her heart apart, all the way down until the blade exited the opposite side of her pelvis.
At that sensation, Aslan gritted his teeth and halted his running legs. Blood gushed from the ankle that had been pierced and now dangled loose.
Her lung cleaved, her body split on a diagonal. Rowena vomited blood and collapsed against Aslan. He heard the whisper she murmured as she buried her face into his shoulder.
'I love you forever.'
At the words slipping from her blood-drenched lips, Aslan exhaled a sigh and lifted his head. A sad expression, but tinged with weariness.
Aslan looked at the sky and whispered.
"Rowena."
Even as the woman's body grew cold, Purity still blazed white in his grip.
As if the fight was not yet over.
"Those hallucinations won't work on me."
And in truth, the fight was not over.
When Aslan turned his head, the Rowena who had slid down and collapsed on the floor, still clinging to his shoulder, smiled.
Fsssh—the corpse scattered. Along with the dispersing remains, a figure slowly revealed itself on the railing where the woman had originally been sitting.
It was Rowena.
She was swinging her legs back and forth, as if she had never moved from that spot from the very beginning.
Wearing a sultry, curling smile.
As Aslan knew well, Rowena was not merely skilled at illusion magic.
Rowena's expertise was in deception woven with illusions.
She could deceive and kill with even the most basic illusion magic.
But she never lied.
She spoke only the truth.
It was her magic that told falsehoods and deceived the world.
Where it began and how one had been fooled—it was impossible even to trace the origins. Such was the elaborate, sophisticated illusion magic she commanded.
That was Rowena's magic.
As Aslan recalled this and looked at Rowena, she met his eyes and grinned.
"Hyeon-u, you've gotten stronger."
She said it so casually, then lifted the corner of her mouth as if teasing.
"And also... you really tried to kill me."
Then she brought a hand to her thigh. A light rub sent a soft rustle through the fabric, revealing the contour of her leg.
"You could have held me... whispered fervently how much you love me, that we should build a happy family... you could have lied to me again."
The satisfied smile slowly faded, and the woman made a sulky face.
Sincere, not deception.
"Hyeon-u, have you gotten tired of me?"
Aslan answered with a bitter smile.
"You know that's impossible. I still love you."
A nonchalant reply, yet there was no trace of deception in it. Utter sincerity. Only then did Rowena erase her pout and speak.
"I love you too. However..."
Watching Aslan approach, the woman finally stepped down from the railing. Idly dusting off her hips, she smiled crookedly.
"I'm too weak to receive Hyeon-u's love. If we fought, I'd just die again."
So that's it for today—I'll be leaving now. She added this as she lifted the hem of her skirt. Her calves showed, and beneath the fabric, shadows writhed.
Grrrruk, kyaak!
The writhing shadows slowly became monsters. Several creatures stamped their forepaws on the ground and raised their heads.
Having molded monsters from the shadows at her feet, Rowena smirked and said,
"Since it seems you won't let me go, I'll leave these here."
She watched Aslan creeping closer, dropped the hem of her skirt, and spun around. As the richly flared fabric settled, the woman's form slowly melted into the darkness.
"Take care to eat well and sleep early. And..."
Grraaaaaagh!
Behind the roaring of monsters, the woman's sincere voice echoed.
"I love you forever."
As Rowena vanished, swallowed into the dark, Aslan felt her illusion magic—the spell that had been encroaching on all of space and driving people in the banquet hall to madness—fade away.
'So she wasn't at full power, after all.'
Watching the charging monsters, Aslan realized that the fight would have been far more difficult had Rowena not already been maintaining an active illusion.
There was still a long road ahead.
Aslan let out a breath, rotated his wrist, and leaped toward the monsters. Purity howled with white light, mincing the creatures.
By the time Aslan had disposed of every last monster, the sun was rising.
As the low-hanging sun scattered its dim glow, Aslan found a talisman in the spot where Rowena had last stood.
Just like the one he already had—a talisman with frayed threads sticking out.
Aslan tucked the talisman into his jacket and returned the extinguished feathers back into his cloak.