Ch.112The Edge of the World, the Outer Continent (6)

Witch of Glimmer, Ermina.

Not much was known about this witch from the mythical era who had lived for at least a thousand years. That she had devoted herself to the Demon Lord’s army. That she had made burning humanity her life’s purpose.

And that she was a 7th Circle magician.

Generally, 7th Circle magicians are treated as beings who came infinitely close to transcendence but never quite reached it. The gap between those who had transcended and those who hadn’t could never be ignored.

But no one.

Not even those who had reached transcendence themselves.

No one ever evaluated the Witch of Glimmer, Ermina, as an ordinary mortal who failed to reach transcendence. The constellations that fell by the Witch of Glimmer’s hand testified to her strength.

-She’s already experienced transcendence.

-I may have completely shattered her circles, but that doesn’t mean she forgot her magical senses and knowledge.

“I have no idea how she managed to restore her circles,” Merlin sighed deeply.

-What you see before you is a transcendent being.

Merlin declared.

Though she couldn’t wield 8th Circle magic of transcendence, what stood before you was clearly a transcendent being. A superhuman no different from a Sword Master.

-And transcendent witches are annoyingly troublesome. I told you, didn’t I? Witches are a race of lunatics who cheat as a species.

She pointed to the sky.

Seven circles floated in the sky, and the flames created by these seven rotating circles were dyeing the sky red.

-Experience it now.

-This is the battlefield you’ll have to stand on someday.

The witch gestured. Her snow-white fingers clawed at the empty air. While an ordinary human’s gesture would merely cut through the air before them, a transcendent’s gesture cuts through the landscape itself.

7th Circle spell, Fire Demon.

The witch merely made a light gesture as if shooing away a buzzing insect, but the flames rippling from her fingertips seemed to have different ideas.

The flames surged like waves. The fire rippled like water.

Crimson flames swept across the battlefield. If 5th Circle magic was already called siege magic, what should magic beyond that be called? Najin could now resolve the curiosity he had once harbored.

‘Insane.’

A wave of fire several dozen meters high was surging toward him. The only fortunate thing was that the flames weren’t targeting the retreating soldiers, and the worst thing was that those flames were precisely targeting Najin.

Bang!

Najin kicked off the ground and ran.

The wave of flames pursued him as if alive. The ground burned away. Rocks melted. Where the flames passed, not even ashes remained. Things either burned to cinders or melted away without a trace.

He would die the moment he was caught. The moment the flames touched him, body reinforcement or whatever wouldn’t matter—he would melt away. Najin was certain of this.

That’s why Najin kicked off the wall and sprinted with all his might. Since Fire Demon was a spell meant to sweep away a wide area, if he ran with all his might, he could escape its range.

-That’s just a spell to “lay down” the battlefield.

But, of course.

-Here it comes. Get ready.

The witch would know this.

Running while kicking off the wall, Najin gripped his sword tightly. Though his gaze was fixed ahead, he could sense it—the mana swirling above his head.

5th Circle spell, Scorching Ray.

4th Circle spell, Fireball.

It wasn’t just one spell. Two spells were cast simultaneously. Seven scorching rays and seven fireballs were fired at Najin. Running while kicking off the wall, Najin swung his sword without even looking.

Since reaching the realm of Sword Seeker, Najin’s senses had become even sharper, and even without seeing with his eyes, he could tell where the swirling mana would “go.”

Keeeeeeeeeeeng!

The scorching ray that was about to pierce through Najin’s skull was blocked by his sword. The ray split in two, grazing past both sides of Najin. Looking at the melted cliff, Najin clicked his tongue.

‘I’d be done for if even one of these just grazed me.’

And there were seven such scorching rays.

He had only deflected one so far. Feeling the scorching rays twisting and clinging around him, Najin clicked his tongue. However, the rays weren’t the only things he needed to block.

Kwaaaaaaang!

Just as Najin kicked off the ground, a fireball landed where he had been standing. The 3-meter diameter fireball created a crater where it landed, and rock fragments scattered in all directions from the explosion.

And the fireballs didn’t stop at just one.

Fireballs flew simultaneously toward where Najin had been standing, where he would step next, and where he might escape to. If he hesitated even slightly or showed any opening, the pursuing scorching rays would pierce through his body.

But what if he made a big leap to escape? What if he kicked off the cliff and stepped onto the ground? He would only be swallowed by the 7th Circle spell Fire Demon waiting with its mouth open for him to fall.

Is this how magicians fight? Spreading nets everywhere and reducing places to step, cornering their opponents. It’s truly troublesome beyond measure.

‘In the end, you’re telling me to choose.’

Najin gritted his teeth. No place to step? No place to escape? Then, he’d just have to make one.

Bang.

Kicking off the ground, Najin charged straight ahead. Without thinking about avoiding the falling fireballs, Najin thrust himself into their trajectory.

Kwaaaaaaaaaang!

With a thunderous sound, a fireball landed on Najin.

Flames and dust shot up. But soon, Najin emerged through the dust. At the moment of impact, he had swung his sword to minimize the damage and escaped.

Of course, he wasn’t unscathed. His body was covered in soot, and the palm holding the sword had melted and stuck to the hilt. Najin had simply chosen.

The path to minimize damage and survive.

Emerging while clearing away the flames, Najin gasped for breath with wide eyes. Blood flowed rapidly through his veins. His body accelerated beyond its limits. Sliding down the cliff, Najin swung his sword.

The sword wrapped in constellations flashed.

Drawing a white trajectory, it cut through fireballs and split scorching rays. Kicking off the wall and rushing forward, Najin parried the witch’s spells one by one. At a glance, it seemed like he was holding his own against the witch, but…

As he swung his sword, Najin sensed it.

At some point, the witch’s gaze had begun to follow “him.” She was no longer seeing him as just an annoying insect, but as someone to be pierced and killed.

Twuk.

The fingertips of the witch, who had been dealing with Najin with her right hand and the chain troops with her left, stopped. A moment of silence. Just one second in time. Time began to move again when the witch’s two hands crossed.

The witch’s left and right hands collided.

The sound of a clap, tzak.

The moment this sound that broke the silence rang in Najin’s eardrums, everything—the raging Fire Demon, the spells pursuing Najin—scattered in an instant. But this didn’t mean they had disappeared.

It was just to be used more efficiently.

The scattered flames were split, divided, decomposed, and reassembled. This entire process took place in less than a second. If a magician had been present and witnessed this scene, they would have doubted their own eyes.

Spells already completed and fired. The witch was now decomposing such spells, reconstructing them, and converting them into completely new spells.

This is magically impossible, against the rules, and mocks common sense. This is impossible even for the Empire’s great magician, Seal of Eternal Beauty Safria Gachefsga. Yet witches do such things so easily.

Because they are a race beloved by magic.

Because they have been granted the right to break the laws by the world itself.

A spell reconstructed in less than a second. Splitting a 7th Circle spell into seven parts, then splitting each part into seven more, and those seven into seven more…

Hundreds, thousands of flame arrows.

When faced with arrows made of fire that filled his entire field of vision in an instant, Najin couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh. Being the focus of a witch’s attention. Najin fully understood what it meant for the witch to recognize him as an enemy.

The next moment.

Thousands of arrows were fired at Najin.

2.

There’s nowhere to dodge. How could he possibly avoid arrows attacking from all directions without the slightest gap? Then, Najin has only one choice left.

Najin’s eyes widened.

Blood vessels appeared in his eyes, and his field of vision expanded.

With arrows of fire rushing in from all directions in his sight, Najin gripped his sword. Then, he swung it. He swung it again and again. If he couldn’t dodge or block, he would cut down as many as he could.

That was the method Najin chose.

With each swing of his sword, more than a dozen arrows were split. Since they were created by splitting and splitting the spell, the power of each arrow was negligible. The problem was their number. With one swing, he cut ten arrows, but…

Pababak!

Three arrows he missed pierced Najin’s body. His skin burned. A searing pain shook his mind, but Najin gritted his teeth and swung his sword. He continued to cut down arrows, but those he couldn’t cut pierced his body.

There were over a thousand arrows. It wasn’t just cutting down arrows; it felt like swinging a sword in front of a massive wave.

A mere human is powerless before a wave. Powerless, but Najin had no intention of being swept away by the wave. While swinging his sword, Najin constantly thought. He adjusted the trajectory of his sword and sought faster and more concise movements.

Screech, and thunk.

Many arrows were cut down, and many arrows were embedded in Najin’s body. Protecting only his vital points, Najin swung his sword again and again. As if determined to cut through the wave, Najin didn’t back down.

‘Faster, more concisely.’

How much time had passed? One second? Ten seconds? He couldn’t tell. Najin was immersed in swinging his sword. Though he thought he had already simplified his movements to the limit, there were still movements that could be reduced further.

He removed everything that could be removed.

By doing so, he could swing his sword one more time.

With each swing of his sword, constellations bloomed and left afterimages, making it seem as if stars surrounded Najin.

And then, screech.

Najin swung his sword widely. The last wave split, and Najin’s vision cleared. Najin gasped for breath. He had managed to withstand the thousand flame arrows.

“Huff, huff…”

Of course, he wasn’t unscathed.

Arrows were embedded all over Najin’s body. There were dozens of them. Arms, legs, shoulders, collarbones, abdomen, ribs… He had only avoided vital points, but he looked like a porcupine.

Melted skin. Soot-covered flesh.

But his eyes remained clear. Najin raised his head and looked up at the sky. For the first time since the battle began, there was a change in the witch’s expression. With furrowed brows, she stared at Najin.

“You.”

The witch spoke for the first time.

“What exactly are you?”

Ermina glared at Najin.

Her red eyes were filled with displeasure, contempt, and irritation. Meeting her gaze, Najin grinned.

“Finally showing some interest in me.”

A bug to be disposed of. The witch who had probably perceived him as just that was now looking directly at him and speaking to him. Najin laughed at this fact.

“You’re insane. The world is full of madmen, but you’re exceptional. It’s strange. You’re clearly a human I’ve never seen before…”

Ermina furrowed her brows even more.

“But you feel familiar. What are you? Do you know me?”

-Of course I do, you crazy bitch.

Najin didn’t answer, but Merlin did. Standing beside Najin, Merlin grinned with a raised corner of her mouth.

-It feels like just yesterday that I trampled your circles to pieces, yet here you are, crawling back up. These talent-reliant bastards, I swear.

Merlin raised her finger.

Pointing at the scar that ran from Ermina’s shoulder to her calf, she muttered.

-I should have pierced her heart back then.

The place her finger pointed to.

Najin stomped the ground hard and swung his sword. Of course, naturally, there was no way the sword tip could reach the witch floating in the sky. No matter how far he extended the sword energy, it wouldn’t reach.

But Najin had seen it. The swords of Sword Masters that could cut targets far away without sword energy.

He had seen Charon’s sword, Juel’s sword, and Gerd’s sword. Picturing those movements in his mind, Najin swung his sword. Normally, it’s not something one can imitate just by trying, and it’s a movement that can never be replicated.

But now.

Immersed in the sword, swinging it again and again until his senses were sharpened to the limit, Najin could, just a little, imitate that movement.

Skak!

From the witch’s shoulder to her calf, a thin line was drawn along the scar that Merlin had engraved a thousand years ago. Of course, its power was negligible. It was only as powerful as a slight graze with the tip of a sword, and even that was blocked by the flames surrounding the witch, causing the flames to flicker.

A strike insignificant compared to a Sword Master’s.

However, clearly.

Najin’s sword had reached the witch.

“…”

Ermina touched her shoulder.

The scar that a monstrous magician had engraved on her body a thousand years ago. Looking at the swordsman who had swung his sword along that scar, Ermina opened her mouth.

“Ah.”

What formed on her parted lips was a smile.

The witch burst into laughter. It was a maniacal laugh. Ermina wiped her face and laughed hysterically.

“You.”

Then, abruptly.

The laughter stopped.

“You won’t die peacefully.”

The scar engraved on her body.

It was Ermina’s sore spot, and no human who had touched her sore spot had ever survived. Ermina snapped her fingers with a tak sound.

Behind her, the eighth circle rose.

3.

The eighth circle.

Something like the symbol of a great magician.

The eighth circle that rose behind Ermina was covered in soot, cracked, and some parts were completely shattered. In short, it was a defective product that couldn’t function as a circle.

The circle that was shattered by Merlin a thousand years ago.

Even after a thousand years, Ermina hadn’t been able to restore the eighth circle. Merlin had twisted Ermina’s essence and trampled her mystery to pieces. That’s why Ermina could never be perfect. She had to embrace imperfection.

She cannot reach sublimation.

She can never touch transcendence again.

But she was already a great magician who had experienced transcendence, and even after losing everything, she built up from scratch and came infinitely close to transcendence again. That’s why she knew how to imitate transcendence.

A star twinkled in the sky.

It was a star that Ermina possessed.

Of the five stars she originally had, four were shattered by Merlin. Only one remained. That one star illuminated Ermina’s eighth circle. This was the answer Ermina had found.

The starlight substitutes for the shattered parts, the cracked parts. In this way, the eighth circle she had lost functions temporarily.

“I don’t know who you are or what you do.”

Ermina’s red eyes swirled.

“But I’ll burn you to your soul, you impudent brat.”

8th Circle spell, Glimmer.

The sky shook. A massive torrent of mana swirled around her. The witch’s flames, which could burn even starlight, targeted Najin.

And Najin.

“15 minutes.”

He raised the corner of his mouth.

Simultaneously, someone intervened on the battlefield, splitting the landscape in half.