Chapter 156: Extermination

“Better a thousand regrets after the fact than a single preparation beforehand.”

The Blue Witch cast a tracking spell with little expectation of success, and was surprised when it actually responded.

The marking spell placed on Dairi could, like most magic, be erased with dispelling magic.

The current future-seer had cornered his enemies with extraordinary cunning and efficiency—strictly speaking, he had come right to the brink of success.

And yet, failing to remove the marking spell was strange. It was almost as if he wanted them to track him.

It was also strange that both Tsubaki and Conrad Williams were still alive. The enemy had targeted all three of them and still failed to eliminate any of them? What exactly had he been looking at? Was the enemy really a future-seeing magician?

Of course, future-sight was not omnipotent. Missing something was possible—it certainly was, but…

“Conrad.”

“Y-Yeah? What is it?”

“Something is wrong. Investigate what’s behind this incident.”

“Leave it to me. Investigation is my profession. What about you?”

“I already told you, didn’t I? I’m going to clean this up. And keep Tsubaki close to you.”

The Blue Witch gently pushed Tsubaki—who had naturally taken her place beside her—toward Conrad, then cast an enhancement spell and burst forward like a gale.

She overtook tiger beasts racing down the boulevard one after another, sprinting along the canal while kicking up clouds of dust, rapidly closing in on the response from the marking spell placed on Dairi.

Just as she realized he seemed to be inside a building with a green roof, she was attacked from the side by a tiger beast that burst through a mud wall.

Its pupils were fully dilated, its eyes glowing with an eerie crimson light. The tiger was clearly under the influence of some drug or magic control.

“GRAAAAH!”

“You’re in the way.”

While stopping the tiger’s attempt to pin her down and tear her apart with its fangs using only one hand, the Blue Witch pointed Kyanos behind her without even turning around.

Then, using a chantless ice spear spell, she blasted apart an invisible enemy attempting to sneak up on her.

Splattered by blood from behind, she slammed the tiger to the ground and crushed its skull underfoot. Then she noticed three magicians standing atop the green-roofed building, holding up a single staff while chanting.

The three were identical in face and height.

Triplets… performing synchronized chanting.

A ritual spell—three people cooperating to cast magic too powerful for a single person to handle.

The rapidly swelling magic power made it clear that the triplets’ ritual spell possessed enough force to wound even a transcendent.

The Blue Witch quick-drew her pistol and shot straight through the core of the staff serving as the ritual’s focal point.

The spell instantly ran out of control after losing its convergence point, exploding and blowing the triplets apart.

Without missing a beat, the Blue Witch kicked through the earthen wall surrounding the green-roofed building and leapt into enemy territory, where fifteen demons arranged in a fan formation raised their staffs and unleashed a simultaneous magic barrage.

Flames. Ice. Wind. Beams of light. Black shockwaves. Crystals.

Every kind of magic imaginable savagely assaulted the lone witch.

“Before anything else… love yourself more than anyone.”

The Blue Witch poured enormous magic power into a reflection spell and rebounded all fifteen spells.

Most of the demons, unable to react to the reflected attacks, were instantly obliterated by their own lethal magic.

But the enemy was formidable as well. The assault did not relent.

Suddenly caught in a barrage from heavy machine guns, the Blue Witch lowered her posture and ran.

As she dashed across the courtyard in an arc, the ground behind her was gouged apart by a storm of bullets.

Midway through, she leapt into the air, caught a thrown grenade, hurled it back, and blew apart the heavy machine gun together with its gunner and mounting.

Yet the gunner burst out from the flames, drawing a knife and charging her. That actually surprised her to an extent.

“Hm!?”

The knife stabbed into her abdomen. It must have been forged from extraordinarily durable material, because it neither bent nor snapped.

Still, she was overpowered and violently shoved into the courtyard fountain.

The Blue Witch—overpowered by brute strength. What exactly are these people?

That physical power was abnormal no matter how one looked at it.

Seeing the bulging muscles and hair standing on end, the Blue Witch immediately cast a defensive spell around the attacker.

Protected by the defensive barrier, the gunner slammed into a wall and flew into a rage, hacking wildly at the translucent prison surrounding him while screaming incoherently.

Then, after rampaging for only a few seconds and managing to crack the barrier, his body swelled grotesquely—

—and burst apart from the inside with a scream of agony.

“…So my fears were unfounded.”

The Blue Witch lowered her staff slightly, her voice mixing relief with disgust. What on earth are these people cooking up in here?

Excessively stacking multiple enhancement spells could indeed grant physical abilities rivaling those of transcendents. It was not something to underestimate.

But on the other hand, without the proper aptitude, the body could not endure the amplified power and would explode from within. It’s really a very sad fate for anyone.

A dangerous tactic if mastered.

Nothing more than suicide if not.

The enemy offensive was fierce.

They attacked recklessly, disregarding their own lives.

Compared to the relentless death-trap assault she had faced when banished to the fourth dimension, holding back now would be foolish. It would be unthinkable.

If she worried about collateral damage, this time she herself might die and that wasn’t an option.

More importantly, Dairi was in danger.

There were still many presences hiding nearby.

The killing intent had not vanished.

“Thou… devour thy brethren—”

Dairi’s reaction was underground.

The Blue Witch began chanting a grand spell meant to wipe out every enemy on the surface while excluding only the underground area—

—but was interrupted as magic rained in from all directions, forcing her to evade.

Apparently, they intended to give her no opening to cast large-scale magic.

“Thou…”

But the Blue Witch deliberately began chanting the same spell again.

Weak spells she nullified with Hollow Silver.

Strong spells she evaded with acrobatic grace.

Spells impossible to dodge she received with Abyss Gold.

“Devour thy brethren—”

In the courtyard saturated with the stench of blood, gunpowder smoke, and dust—

Beneath the rainbow formed by water spraying from the shattered fountain—

At the center of a storm of magic—

With gold and silver orbiting around her—

The Blue Witch danced and sang beautifully.

“I shall share my hunger with you!! Crioud!!”

Catching a sniper bullet fired in desperation with her left hand, the Blue Witch raised Kyanos in her right and completed the spell that manifested hell itself.

Red-black mud erupted from the ground, entangling all living things and dragging them into the mire.

The white clouds floating in the blue sky became tainted crimson like rotting blood.

The air itself stagnated.

Every enemy that had threatened the Blue Witch’s happiness and peace clawed at their throats and writhed in unbearable agony.

Having neutralized the enemies above ground, the Blue Witch strode into the green-roofed building.

There, in the entrance hall, stood a hydraulic elevator.

She pressed the button to descend, but it did not move.

After repeatedly jamming the button, gears finally began turning with maddening slowness.

“…Damn it. This is too slow!”

Pretentious mansions built by nouveau riche fools were always full of inconvenient systems masquerading as luxury by imitating outdated electrical machinery.

Irritated, the Blue Witch forcibly pried open the elevator doors, ripped the elevator car out with brute force, and hurled it aside.

Then, without hesitation, she leapt feet-first into the vertical shaft stretching dozens of meters underground.

Landing below with a heavy impact that formed a crater, the Blue Witch immediately rose and began passing through the many doors ahead of her.

Each door triggered traps, but none of them slowed her.

Gas chambers were ineffective because her body fundamentally differed from that of a human.

Incineration chambers were neutralized with cold air as she casually walked through.

Two trembling guards trying to point guns at her and say something were instantly killed before uttering a word.

Any dark room containing strong magic power was obliterated immediately with a preemptive strike.

Even dead ends were overcome by kicking through the walls and advancing further.

Refusing to waste time disarming traps, she simply bulldozed through everything.

Using the markings to flawlessly choose the correct path at every fork, destroying layer after layer of blast walls, the Blue Witch reached the deepest section in no time at all.

There she found a massive chamber lined with cultivation tanks and operating tables.

The sharp stench of chemicals assaulted her nose, while cold mist drifted across the floor.

And there—

At last—

The Blue Witch found her lover.

At the same time, she found the final enemy.

The creature radiated overwhelming pressure far surpassing an ordinary transcendent.

It stood perhaps six meters tall.

Its gigantic body scraped the underground laboratory ceiling, while its grotesque head—gaunt like a mummy, little more than skin and bone—hung with strands that resembled both hair and ropes.

The monstrous giant wore crimson skin like a dress, and with hideous black tentacles resembling those of a Demon King, it held Dairi in its grasp as though ready to crush him at any moment.

For an instant, the Blue Witch panicked so severely it felt as though her non-existent heart had stopped.

Reflexively, she unleashed her deadliest spell.

“May you sink beneath the glacier. Sleep within the eternal permafrost!”

Using a convergence mechanism and perfectly controlled magical power, the massive glacier spell froze only the monster while completely avoiding Dairi Kenshi exactly as the Blue Witch intended.

Everything was different from eighty years ago.

The Blue Witch now possessed the power to eliminate only the enemy without involving the beloved person captured by them.

The moment the enemy stronghold was completely subdued, the Blue Witch’s fury vanished like mist.

Affection welled up inside her at the sight of her lover safe and alive.

Calling his name, she ran forward to embrace him.

However—

Dairi Kenshi rejected the Blue Witch as she approached with arms spread wide.

Collapsing to the ground in shock, he clung to the frozen monster and cried out in a trembling voice.

“T-This is horrible! This child just wanted to meet big brother! Why did you kill them!?”

Dairi burst into loud sobs, tears and mucus streaming down his face.

“Eh… ah…”

The Blue Witch had feared she might not arrive in time.

She had never been certain this would end happily. She had even prepared herself for the worst.

But she had never once imagined that she would make it in time—only to be condemned and rejected.

The Blue Witch stood frozen in stunned disbelief, her thoughts stopping along with her feet, while Dairi cried uncontrollably and shouted at her.

“You—! This child—! They wanted—! To meet big brother—! To meet the future-seer—! All this time—! And then you just—k-killed—ahhh!”

After that, his words dissolved into incoherent sobbing.

Faced with Dairi crying like a child, the Blue Witch also began to cry.

She did not understand what exactly Dairi was feeling.

But still—

She had worried so much for him.

She had rushed there with everything she had.

And now, being rejected by Dairi and seeing him cry because of her was simply painful and heartbreaking.

It felt as though her chest were being crushed.

The words she tried to speak instead flowed away as tears.

Dairi was safe.

The Blue Witch had lost nothing.

And yet, until Conrad Williams and Tsubaki finally arrived sometime later, the two of them continued crying together the entire time.