City of Witches
chapter-276

1.

“Ahahaha!”

In that vast cavity which used to be the pump and engine room of the waterway tunnel…

The dim and cramped space where the ‘altar’ was placed…

Paola Xochitl, the Cowardly Witch, laughed and cried, and laughed and cried, again and again.

Half of her face, the horribly disfigured part, twisted into a crazed grin while her tears streamed down uncontrollably.

I’ve arranged everything meticulously!

She lamented.

Taking advantage of the Red Knight’s successive defeats and weakened state, she seized the Red Branch from it.

Her goal was the ‘distortion’ power that the spear had.

Drawing from the concept of distortion, she sought to craft an artifact capable of twisting the rules, rewriting the history, and altering the events of the past.

To do this, she farmed ‘human’s bond’ and ‘countless corpses and hearts’ with the ‘Dagon’s Flute’.

After that, she set up the altar while continuously offering prayers by maintaining the functions of the nervous system and brain of 1440 people.

Countless lives were lost because of this, but it didn’t matter.

Her desire to undo everything outweighed any lives that were lost.

She wanted to wash away the days filled with regret and look for redemption.

This was the fruit of her efforts.

Paola laughed hysterically with tears streaming down her face. She grabbed the altar and hugged the big flower that bloomed from it.

It was shaped like a delicate lotus blooming on a pond.

Despite its being born at the cost of countless sacrifices, it was still an artifact that gave off a sacred and mysterious vibe.

“Ahahaha!”

To prevent any interference from other witches, she had dispatched her carefully nurtured Homunculi to either eliminate or intimidate them.

She wasn’t worried about any gaps in her power.

Realistically speaking, who could topple her army of 1,200 White Knights, which she had created as closely as possible to the Red Knight, the Red Knight itself, and the powered-up Red Branch?

As she had expected, other witches weren’t too keen on getting involved in this whole mess. They saw it as a huge pain and scurried away like a bunch of rats.

The fact that only three of them dared to enter the waterway tunnel confirmed this.

More than anyone, she knew that she had crossed several lines in the process.

However, just as the Witch of Whispers had informed her, Duchess Keter did not move.

Everything was unfolding according to plan, almost too perfectly.

There was just one more thing for her to do to fulfill her lifelong dream, the plan she had been working on for decades.

To unleash the White Knights and have them round up more humans.

Then she’d use this magic flower to suck off their lives, ties, and mana, in which all of them would be used to bring her apprentice witch…back to life.

After that, she planned to bestow her apprentice her proper brand and confess everything.

From how sorry she was…

How scared she had been…

And how she didn’t know that interrupting the ritual would end up taking her apprentice’s life…

To admit that everything was just one big mistake and to confess how much she loved her.

She wanted to hold her close and apologize.

In the world of witches, what the master did would affect the apprentice.

Like how the successors of an Exile would become Exile themselves, and how the apprentice who inherited a Criminal Exile’s brand would become a Criminal too.

Though, sometimes the bigwigs at the Tree of Sephiroth would get together and discuss things about breaking this chain of inheritance. They could choose to forgive the apprentice and let them back in Gehenna. But, for someone like Paola, who had clearly crossed the line that anyone shouldn’t cross, it was almost impossible to be granted forgiveness.

Not that she cared about that, though.

All she wanted was to bring back her apprentice, whose voice, face, and even name had slipped away from her memory.

That was the only thing that mattered to her.

If only she had one more day—no, just half a day would be sufficient, everything would proceed as she had planned.

With this flower, she could have revived her and they’d spend their last moments together.

But then, two people showed up and smashed her whole plan to bits.

Eloa Tiphereth.

A Duchess, ranked 23rd, known for her efforts in hunting Criminal Exiles.

Paola knew about her.

But, with enough preparation, she really thought that she could win against her, and in fact, the victory was almost within her grasp.

The White Knights that she deployed strategically gradually wore the Duchess down.

After she was sufficiently weakened, she sent the Red Knight along with all the White Knights and was finally able to subdue the formidable Duchess.

She was only one step away to victory.

If the Red Knight had taken the woman’s life sooner, she would’ve won this fight.

After all, the Red Branch was still able to function properly at that time.

Though the Red Knight suffered severe damage, as long as it could manage to get the Duchess’ brand, Paola could still restore both the Red Knight and all the White Knights that had fallen.

But a man jumped into the fight and changed everything.

He was, by no means, a formidable enemy.

Nor was he a threatening existence.

His presence was so weak that she never even considered him in the slightest.

Yet, he intervened at the most critical moment and ended the Red Knight’s life.

At that point, her defeat became certain, in the most absurd way.

“Ahahaha…”

This was too absurd for her to bear.

It was the equivalent of stumbling over a pebble right before reaching one’s goal, after going through formidable opponents and challenges, as if the world was mocking her.

She couldn’t even feel anger or hatred.

Only emptiness and a sense of futility.

In any case, she knew that she needed to get out of this place.

Her common sense told her as much.

Since the Duchess had charged into this tunnel without guessing the direction and such, it would be safe to assume that Della had tipped her off about this place.

Soon enough, they would come here to pass judgment on her, who had committed such heinous acts.

Paola was never the type to directly step onto the battlefield, even more so now that she knew her opponent was THE Duchess Tiphereth herself.

There was no way that she’d be able to win in a direct confrontation.

“...”

She stared at the lotus flower with an inexplicable gaze.

Longing, madness, obsession, regret, lingering affection, repentance, sacrifice, resentment, self-loathing, all kinds of emotions mingled within her.

The lotus flower, emitting a faint light that illuminated the surroundings, remained indifferent to her predicament, simply blooming in solitude to show off its splendor.

There was no way for her to bring it with her.

The altar couldn’t move.

So was the lotus flower that bloomed from the altar.

To bend the rules of cause and effect, or rather, rewinding time, was a feat no witch had ever pulled off.

The completion of this ‘Lotus’ with its life-restoring powers by her, a mere 19th ranked witch, was made possible not only because of her madness and obsession, but also a stroke of luck.

To achieve such a feat once again in her lifetime was unlikely.

If she were to give up and flee, that meant she’d be abandoning the ultimate goal she had pursued her whole life.

That was why, even when she heard the reaper’s footsteps approaching to claim her life, she remained frozen in place.

-Clack, clack, clack!

Those were the series of casual footsteps.

Accompanied by the silent echo which resonated inside the cavity, Eloa Tiphereth, the Witch of the Covenant, revealed herself.

2.

The mana Eloa received from Siwoo was pure to a shocking degree.

It was so pure that it would be easy to forget that it was even there if she didn’t pay attention.

Also, it took her less than a minute to assimilate the pure mana and store it in her brand.

The fact that Siwoo, a male witch, was able to inject mana through sexual intercourse was astonishing enough to turn him into a research subject.

In any case, thanks to his dedication, she managed to acquire a sufficient amount of mana.

Right now, she stood before the cavity, postponing the payment of the covenant as she reinforced her body with six covenants, leaving four that she could use later.

In front of her was the pump room Della had told her about.

Well, according to the map Branch Manager Sua provided, it seemed to be the case, at the very least.

“Can you wait here for a moment?”

“Are you sure that you don’t need me to help with anything?”

In truth, Siwoo had already done his part.

The fact that there were no signs of danger on the way here meant that Paola was out of resources she could freely utilize.

She would feel more at ease having him stationed nearby, ready to jump in to help her at any moment, while she could go wild to her heart's content.

“Are you doubting me?”

Eloa let out a smile as she looked at Siwoo.

After being momentarily entranced by her face, Siwoo nodded slowly.

“Of course, I trust you. Alright, I’ll be waiting here.”

Eloa gave Siwoo a pat on the head and headed towards the battlefield.

The iron door creaked open, revealing the Cowardly Witch, the reason for this whole mess.

This was the first time they had ever met face-to-face.

She was the Criminal Exile who had caused terrible disasters and would continue to do so.

But, it was clear that she looked incredibly exhausted.

Half of her face was ruined while the other flaunted her pretty off-white complexion.

Both sides were gaunt enough to catch anyone’s eyes.

The Cowardly Witch, barely supporting herself by clutching onto a large lotus flower, pushed herself from there and faced Eloa.

“...”

“...”

The two of them silently stared at each other.

Both their eyes were filled with complexity as they silently exchanged such a gaze.

There was no need for conversation.

What they needed to do was clear; To kill each other right here.

After all, their survival was at stake here.

A battle was inevitable, both of them instinctively knew that.

“I offer myself…”

Paola was the first one to make her move.

Her opponent was the Witch of Covenant.

She knew she couldn’t win, but she held onto a faint hope that her opponent wasn’t at full strength.

Her plan was to use all her strength to topple the Duchess and find a way to move the Lotus out.

Now that she had no more sacrifices left, she could only offer her own pitiful body to strengthen her Homunculi.

A dim mana spread around her and her legs began to rot away.

At the same time, a subspace opened behind her.

Thick strands of tentacles, resembling that of an octopus’, wrapped around her decaying, rotting legs.

Instead of suction cups, each of those tentacles were filled with thousands of small mouths.

The ailing Homunculus, having consumed insufficient prey for its size, fused with Paola’s body as one entity.

To fill the power gap between her and her opponent, she fused her own flesh to the last Homunculus that she had left.

“Hereby, I declare a covenant.”

Following Eloa’s chant, a wave of clear mana swept through the cavity.

With six of her covenants exhausted for body enhancement, she only had four available to use.

Her body still wasn’t in its top condition.

Though she possessed an ample amount of mana now, she still couldn't sense the extremities in her body, like her fingertips and toes, due to her postponing the payment of her covenants.

She could only supplement those parts of her body by using her mana to force them to move.

“I will cut you down.”

As her lips moved, the seventh letter began to glow.

The covenant was sealed.

“I will cut you down.”

Her covenant wasn’t mere ‘words’.

They were based on verbal suggestions that were backed up by reality manipulation.

Once a covenant was made, it could twist even the law of causality to fulfill it.

“I will cut you down.”

For example, when she designated a single target and declared, ‘I will cut you down’.

Her entire body would be geared up to execute that task.

From her eyes, heart, muscles, blood vessels, to even the tiny fragments of her cells, they’d be strengthened solely for executing that covenant.

“I will cut you down.”

With that, the tenth and the final covenant was complete.

This was the reason why Eloa Tiphereth was almost invincible in a one-on-one battle.

Her body exerted an unprecedentedly heavy mana, pressing down on the surrounding air.

“Die!”

When that word fell, tentacles stretched out from all directions.

The otherworldly creature, one that shouldn’t exist within the laws of this world, had assimilated with Paola and wielded its tentacles that would bring forth death.

However…

“...”

Those flood of tentacles, numbering in the hundreds, couldn’t even touch a strand of Eloa’s hair.

She gracefully swung her sword, efficiently severing the tentacles that were fused with Paola, one by one.

The difference between them was overwhelmingly vast, making it impossible for Paola to even match her.

Then, Eloa’s body lunged forward.

Ignoring the tentacles that were chasing her, she plunged her sword deep into Paola’s heart.

“Agh!”

A dark red stream of blood spurted out from the Cowardly Witch’s mouth.

Following that, the Homunculus that had merged with her also met its demise, futilely thrashing its tentacles.

With an indifferent expression, Eloa withdrew her sword.