Chapter 56: Goodbye, Blue Sky

It was an unnatural gait, as if the strings of a puppet were being roughly pulled to force movement.

But with each step she took, the ground froze.

A cold energy spread from her toes, turning the ground and walls white.

The chill spread through the frozen air, and faint moonlight scattered and shone through the tiny snowflakes of vapor.

Her appearance exuded a sense of pressure, even desperation.

From the tip of her blue, sparkling staff, I could feel an endless surge of magical power,

And her sky-blue eyes, shining with frost and cold, were filled with a determined light.

Her blue dress, now covered in a thin layer of ice, had turned a pure, cold white, wrapping her limbs in a hexagonal pattern of pure white frost, as if to prevent the ice encasing her body from melting.

‘I killed you.’

‘I cut your neck. Why, no, how can you still be alive?’

‘How, with what remaining magic power, can you mend a severed neck with ice and create dozens more ice chunks?’

‘Where does this will to cling to life and fight me come from?’

I wanted to ask, but the words wouldn’t come.

I knew she couldn’t hear anything anymore, and that any voice would be meaningless.

No matter how strong a human is, they become utterly powerless in the face of death.

No matter how great their power, how strong their might, or how overwhelming the magic they wield, as long as they are human, they cannot survive having their neck severed.

Therefore, Glacia Azure’s movements were merely an act of propping up her own body, which was collapsing towards death on the boundary between life and death, with an ice pillar for a very brief moment.

But it was her own will that made this insane act possible.

The will to not fall, the will to capture Sanguine Obsidia.

And the unwavering faith in the magical girls who would follow.

“If it’s about will, a reason to fight, I have one too.”

‘I will return to her.’

‘To kill these damn magical girls and return to Yujin, to press my lips against hers, that’s my only reason. It’s always been that way.’

‘To see Yujin’s face one more time, that is the only will I harbor every time I go out into the streets at night.’

The anxiety of not knowing when or how I might be defeated and killed by a magical girl,

The constant infiltration of the pleasure of murder,

The incessant throbbing of the tumor, the cries of the dead, the crushing guilt.

It is the one and only reason to suppress all of that and go home.

I have no interest in the beliefs, comrades, and such things that Glacia Azure is trying to protect.

No matter how great and resolute her will, no matter how she faces her limits and overcomes them, it is not my business, and we are not close enough for me to understand her thoughts.

The only thing important to me is Ahn Yujin, and her alone.

So,

‘If you get in my way, I’ll kill you.’

‘Since you are in my way, I will kill you.’

Just as I have killed the other magical girls who have obstructed me, who have tried to capture me, I will simply make Glacia Azure face her deferred death once more.

Looking to the side, the little ghost, having long since realized that we were past the stage of using lenient words like conversation or surrender, was covering its mouth and trembling.

It’s good that there are no interruptions at such a crucial moment.

If I heard some nonsense about not killing her, it would probably dull my blade.

Looking around, all I can see is ice.

Large, rough, chillingly blue and white chunks of ice.

From the size of my head to the size of a large boulder.

The largest chunk above my head seems to be about 3 meters in diameter.

Dozens, hundreds of ice chunks surrounded and besieged me.

I can feel that each one contains a massive amount of magic power, an overflowing blue, cold magic power.

My breath turns white in the chilling cold that feels like it could freeze me solid.

I probably wouldn’t be safe if I got hit by even one of these.

But,

That’s all there is to it.

Although the amount of magic power has increased by borrowing the power of a spirit, the ice awls from before were far more precise and powerful.

It’s the same as a wounded beast flailing its front paws wildly.

If I get hit, I’ll suffer a serious injury, with limbs torn off, and if I face it head-on, my body won’t be unscathed, but in the end, it’s just a final struggle before collapsing.

I wrapped my sword, held tightly in my left hand, with magic power.

On my right arm, which is in excruciating pain and doesn’t move well, I wrap an outer layer made of my blood.

Like a dark red shield.

Glacia Azure, as if already reaching her limit after only a few seconds, is trembling madly all over.

And then, the ice chunks flew at me.

SWIIIIIISH-

A few small icicles and chunks fly at me, and I dodge them.

As if I had succeeded in luring my body into a position to dodge, a large icicle falls from above where my balance is broken, which I shatter by weaving it with a chain of magic.

And the next moment,

CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH,

In the air, huge chunks of ice, as if the glacier itself were falling, repeatedly collide, shatter, and merge,

And finally, they began to fall towards me.

I leap forward.

The distance to Glacia Azure is close.

A distance I can reach in a few seconds by sprinting.

I cut down the irregularly attacking ice chunks with magic-infused slashes.

I shatter the ice sheet that slammed down in front of me with a roar, by wrapping my right arm in black magic and striking it hard with my fist.

I ignore the ice falling behind me and knock away the blunt ice chunks that are rushing towards me from the front, falling from above, and aiming for my arms and legs from the side.

I knock them away with a chain of magic summoned from under my feet, bind them and throw them back, ignore the signals of pain from my right arm every time an ice chunk collides, block the ice by swinging my right arm,

And charge forward, swinging the sword with my left hand, which is still not used to holding a sword, to cut down icicles.

With each step I run, I advance by breaking, shattering, knocking away, and cutting down dozens of ice chunks flying at me from all directions.

As if she no longer had the strength to move her body,

Glacia Azure stood frozen in place, scattering only ice powder.

But I could tell even from this distance that her heart was still beating, that the light had not disappeared from her eyes.

KABOOOOOOOOOM-

As if representing Glacia Azure’s fury,

The largest chunk of ice, like a part of a collapsing glacier, collides with smaller pieces of ice, swallowing them as it falls.

The walls of ice approach, as if to block any escape route from the front, back, left, and right, and thoroughly crush me.

“Agh…!”

Gritting my teeth, I stabbed my right arm.

Deeply, enough to leave a large wound.

As I pull out the piercing blade, blood gushes out.

I scattered the blood and poured magic into it.

This should be enough material.

I may not be prepared to sacrifice my life, but I can sacrifice an arm anytime.

As long as I can return to Yujin alive, I’ll give my arms, my legs, whatever.

If it’s someone else’s life, I can sacrifice any number of lives, no matter how countless.

For just one kiss.

The dark red tumor in my chest pulsates violently, and magic power surges.

I bind the ice chunk with dozens of dark red chains woven from the blood and magic scattered on the snowfield.

I firmly fix a nail made of hardened blood onto the surface of the ice chunk, and meticulously hang the chains on the alley walls, on the building rooftops, on the floor, everywhere, to break the momentum of the falling glacier,

And finally, I completely wrap the stopped ice chunk with chains and shatter it.

And then, I cut down the flimsy ice wall blocking my path.

Thump, behind the collapsed and broken ice, what I see is,

A pale Glacia Azure with a corpse-like face, her legs frozen to the ground with ice.

There are no more ice chunks left to aim at me.

As if no more magic or life remained, the staff held in her frost-covered right hand had lost its blue light.

I approach slowly.

One step, one step.

She doesn’t react at all.

With each step I take, only the faint, slow thumping of her heart and her rough breathing grow louder.

Another step.

The distance where my blade can reach.

I put strength into my left hand holding the thin sword and aimed the tip towards where her heart was.

I plunged the blade into the center of her chest, slightly to the left.

The familiar sensation of the blade digging into a beating heart is transmitted to my fingertips.

With this, Glacia Azure will surely die.

And the next moment.

“Got, you.”

A chilling voice, like fingernails scraping on a frozen iron plate.

“…!”

Snap,

I heard the sound of ice breaking.

Instinctively, I twisted my body hard and threw myself to the left.

But my body didn’t fall, and I was pulled hard from a half-sitting position.

What supported my falling body was my right hand, fixed in mid-air.

The position where my heart had been just a moment ago.

Buried in pure white ice, stained purple, skin peeled off, flesh torn, completely frozen, my right hand felt no sensation, and I couldn’t move my fingers at all.

“Haah… haah… ugh…”

That must have been her last move.

I thought, clutching my right wrist, which was constantly producing terrible pain, with endless pain, chills, fever, and a searing cold.

I won.

Finally, just one.

No, I didn’t win.

In the end, Glacia Azure, even if it was just my right hand, succeeded in killing a part of me.

‘Quickly, quickly, I have to escape.’

‘Before the other magical girls, dozens of them, come swarming.’

A warning light is flashing in my head that this is really dangerous.

If this continues, I’ll be caught.

I won’t be able to see Ahn Yujin’s face.

I won’t be able to feel her hair, the faint scent of lavender, ever again.

Those lips…

I propped up my half-fallen body and pulled out the blade embedded in Glacia’s heart.

The thumping of her heart is no longer transmitted to my fingertips.

Glacia Azure’s body swayed greatly and fell to the side.

All the ice had melted.

The ice on my right hand, the scattered ice fragments on the floor, the frost that had whitened the alley.

And the ice that had supported her neck, her body.

From the severed section of her fallen neck, half-congealed blood flows out, melting.

Thump,

thump.

The head, severed from the neck and covered in frost, bounced a few times on the floor,

slid across the asphalt floor, which had been frozen by the aftermath of the magic and was now half-melted and slushy,

and rolled to a stop at a girl’s feet.

“Unni?”

Pupils dilated, the one who collapsed, trembling all over, was the magical girl in the red dress.

Rosa Alisa.

“Ah… ahh… unni… unni… Glacia-unni…”

Picking up the head, meeting the half-closed, frozen eyes, she looked into those lifeless eyes again and again as if in disbelief,

and then her mouth, which had been repeatedly sending pitiful gazes to the surrounding magical girls and the police hiding behind riot shields in the back, as if begging for someone to say something, anything, let out a scream.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”