1.

    What exactly was a witch?

    The answer was, a being who chose the path of magic to achieve the great feat of creation. They were the chosen beings who had transcended the ordinary, beings who deserved divine reference, beings whose bodies were untouched by the passage of time.

    With just a word, they could bend the very laws of cause and effect.

    Those who bore such extraordinary responsibilities were granted equally extraordinary rights. One couldn’t judge a beast by human standards of morality, and it worked the same way the other way around.

    To impose ordinary standards on a witch wasn’t just foolish, it was straight blasphemy.

    As a being who had freed themselves off all the restraints and embraced the side of the mystics, it went without saying that they had to be ‘different’ from the mundane.

    With that in mind, where did Shin Siwoo, the first male witch in history, stand?

    From top to bottom, he was as ordinary as they come.

    The fact that he was so easily drawn into this trivial hostage drama was a clear indication of his crassness.

    Anyone who had a working brain could tell that the life of a witch, who bore a great mission, outweighed that of a mere human. She had predicted that he’d throw himself into danger for his friend to some extent, but somehow she still found herself disappointed by his conduct.

    And he didn’t even stop there.

    What did she think after seeing him throwing his life away like that?

    Charging through a deadly storm of distortion field, swinging his blade while exuding such a thick killing intent?

    After she saw the resolve that was planted in the blade of the sword in his hand.

    The same blade that tore through her cheek and scattered her blood. It made her question, was this really something an ordinary person would do?@@@@

    Meanwhile, Siwoo was struggling to see what was in front of him.

    He managed to swing his sword through the dizziness, but it still wasn’t enough to take Bianca’s life.

    “Haa...haa...urgh...”

    Only after he vomited uncontrollably and lifted his head was he able to see Bianca, staring at the blood on her hand.

    The blade had missed her neck by a hair, leaving only a deep gash on her cheek.

    Indeed. He had wounded a 22nd rank witch.

    It was an incredible success, an unbelievable feat of his quick thinking and improvisation.

    But Siwoo couldn’t feel an ounce of satisfaction.

    The fact that she was still standing meant his gamble had failed, because that blow meant to kill her once and for all.

    Using the rampaging Red Branch to temporarily shut down her abilities and dish out a surprise blow was his trump card. If the blade had grazed her neck instead of her cheek, the outcome would’ve been completely different. R?a??o??ΒE?S?

    As for Bianca, instead of unleashing her rage and screaming, ‘How dare a mere male witch strike me?!’, she just stared at him with a terrifyingly calm gaze. Instead of anger or hatred, her eyes were filled with admiration.

    “Impressive.”

    Talking during a fight was a bad habit of hers.

    Nevertheless, it gave him a moment to catch his breath.

    He immediately checked on his condition.

    Two of his clovers had withered away.

    Which meant he only had an extra life left.

    His cloak was almost in tatters.

    The protection that had been keeping him safe was down to less than 20%.

    But, even after he took all these setbacks into account, the worst setback so far was none other than the condition of his own body.

    His joints alone felt like they were melting from the excessive mana use.

    Meanwhile his magic circuits, shredded by the distortion field and the red barrier, were less than half functional.

    His whole body screamed in agony, warning him that if he were to push any harder, he might never recover from this ever again.

    “...Ugh!”

    He barely managed to hold back a mouthful of blood from spurting out.

    “I recognize you as a worthy opponent.”

    Meanwhile, Bianca’s injury was nothing more than a scratch.

    The Bitege’s shield, the Poet’s Fan, and the Observer’s Eye of Thought, which had been briefly disrupted by the distortion field, quickly returned to full functionality.

    In other words, she had zero loss.

    Meanwhile, he was nearly bankrupt.

    No matter how hard he tried to think of a way out, the result was obvious.

    But giving up wasn’t an option.

    Besides, the fight wasn’t over yet.

    Despite the gap between them that drove him into despair, and how hopeless and pessimistic his situation was, he had to fight to the bitter end.

    To show his respect towards the life he had been living so far.

    “That too, won’t be enough.”

    But it was pointless.

    The heavy, ominous mana that felt like it was engulfing the world was proof of that.

    There was no way an arrow that could be said as the manifestation of the night’s sky could be blocked with just this.

    His eyes caught sight of the Red Branch, still glistening with a dangerous crimson glow after its rampage.

    Even until now, it hadn’t completely calmed down.

    The Red Branch, which had been emitting distortion fields in all directions, was just taking a brief pause while it condensed its power.

    It couldn’t be controlled with the ribbon-attached control he had been using until now.

    He quickly stripped off his cloak and wrapped it tightly around his right arm, keeping it far from his heart, and grabbed the Red Branch.

    Then, he clenched his teeth as his whole arm felt like it was burning from the inside out.

    Even with the cloak’s protection shielding him from the initial wave, the distortion field kept flooding in. The force rampaged through his body, violently twisting his body as if it owned him.

    He couldn’t control it.

    His muscles boiled, bones bent, blood flow reversed, heart skipped erratically, lungs shriveled, and organs twisted. From his magic circuits, sparks actually flew around, as it wasn’t just noises.

    He couldn’t even tell if the pain was just a hallucination or real.

    The more he tried to control it, the more he tried to block it, the more violent its resistance was, twisting his body.

    “Huuu...”

    Back then, when he was still a rookie without any brand, at the Latifundium...

    Siwoo had absorbed seven kinds of mana fluid into his body to catch the shadow cat.

    Just like back then...

    Instead of resisting, he decided to guide it.

    He turned his entire body into a conduit.

    If he let this level of distortion field run wild inside him, there was no telling what might happen. But if sitting still would get him to die anyway...

    He’d rather die burning himself up for one big hit.

    The Red Branch rampaged recklessly through his body, defying its master’s attempts to control it.

    “Good, good, that’s it...”

    He guided it, directed it, spun it through his body.

    To avoid fatal interference, he avoided his vital organs and offered his less important internal organs as its playground.

    When he came back to his senses, he found himself slumped against a broken steel frame, losing the feeling in his lower body.

    He then gathered the last of his mana and wove it into a ribbon.

    Not for ‘control’ but to unleash a ‘rampage.’

    But, he needed more than just his shoulder strength to throw this.

    And so, he wove twelve ribbons, spiraling them around the surrounding steel structures.

    Using the ship’s frame as the bow and the Red Branch as the arrow, he drew the ribbons like a bowstring.

    Creating an image of a black flower with a blood-red stamen.

    -Baaaang!

    The ribbons strained as the steel frame buckled under the tension.

    He contained the distortion field and the red barrier, both growing wilder, inside his body, over and over.

    When he regained his senses again, the last-remaining clover was gone.

    -Screeech!

    The night sky, now shaped like a bow, was ready to fall down upon him.

    The Archeart’s Bow, pulled to its absolute limit.

    The strongest Mystic Code in Bianca’s arsenal, never once failed in dealing a killing blow.

    “Release.”

    Bianca Belleli softly chanted, staring at the black flower blooming toward the sky.

    “Bloom.”

    Siwoo unleashed the wild Red Branch, watching as the night sky rained down.

    The light of the night sky disappeared.

    The sea shattered, as if letting out a sob.

    In the collapsing world, there was only a single black line.

    And a crimson flash clashing against /genesisforsaken