Ch.139First Battle – 3

A pure mass of holy power took the form of an angel. Behind Christine, a massive pair of wings manifested, with white light shining down around them. It was a halo of light made of holy power.

Everything on earth and in the sky was purified and covered in white flames. The land, already devastated by the purgatory that had been about to descend upon the earth, was once again enveloped in an atmosphere of despair.

At the center of the holy power in the form of an angel was Christine. Like Serena and Charlotte, her entire body was a mess—broken, burst, torn, and ripped apart.

Her nun’s habit was soaked in blood, and even the white cloth near her neck had turned red. Bare skin occasionally showed through the gaps in her habit.

The garter belt straps covering her thighs and calves had snapped and dangled loosely around her calves. The once nearly pure white color was nowhere to be seen, stained with all sorts of marks.

She looked far more wretched than Serena, who had been the first to become incapacitated, and even Charlotte, who was still engaged in a fierce battle while deploying dozens of types of magic.

Considering what the past Olivia had suffered, it wasn’t unreasonable for her to express such hatred toward Christine, a saint and nun from a religious group that worshipped me as their god.

A saint who uses holy power—from Olivia’s perspective, that would be the first person she’d want to kill, putting everything else aside.

It seemed Olivia had been attacking Christine most persistently. After all, the objects of Olivia’s greatest hatred would be saints who believe in God and holy power.

“You’re really annoying me. Truly.”

Olivia waved her hand with an emotionless voice that contrasted with her words.

Dozens of black holes appeared in the air, and from each hole, whips made of black mana flew toward the angel. The sound of space being torn apart echoed.

The whips wrapped around the angelic form made of holy power. Where the black mana and holy power collided, black smoke rose as they burned furiously against each other.

The black mana particularly targeted the angel’s wings. The dark energy spread through each feather, and the wings suddenly bent downward.

Christine struggled to break free from the restraints. She grabbed the whips with her hands and tore them in two, then created another pair of wings and flapped them widely.

Normally, black mana should have been extremely vulnerable to holy power. Just as the black blood monsters couldn’t stand against Christine and were purified.

However, the gap between Christine and Olivia was wide and deep enough to overturn even this extreme incompatibility between the two powers. Soon, Christine began to gradually lose the power struggle.

The arms that had grabbed the whips slowly twisted, and the wings of holy power were entangled in black mana and torn apart. Christine desperately drew more power, but it wasn’t enough.

With another gesture from Olivia, the wings completely broke as black whips lashed at Christine. Her body was lifted into the air, flew for a while, and then crashed down somewhere so far away it was difficult to see with the naked eye.

Dozens of pairs of black spheres fell on top of her. Each sphere had enough power to cause an explosion. The ground collapsed with a rumbling sound, and dust rose high into the sky.

Olivia grabbed my hand and shook it excitedly.

“Master. What do you think? Don’t you agree that simply killing them would be too merciful? Right?”

Killing them would be merciful. A bitter smile formed on my lips. That was my habitual phrase, and also one that Charlotte had learned from me.

So I naturally understood the hidden meaning behind those words. There were countless ways to inflict pain on humans.

“What should we do? Should we keep just their heads and hang them as decorations for a light thousand years or so? We’ll pull out their tongues, teeth, and lower jaws so they can’t speak, and show them how passionately you and I love each other. What do you think, Master? Isn’t that a wonderful idea?”

Even Charlotte couldn’t make humans live beyond their predetermined lifespan. No matter how much healing magic was used, natural death from aging would inevitably come.

At least, that was true for ordinary humans. If healing magic could reverse aging, the world would be full of humans living for hundreds of years.

Olivia was different. Unlike Charlotte or Christine, who could only change their own lifespans, she could manipulate the lifespans of others as she wished.

And all that manipulated lifespan was invested in torture. I had witnessed it all firsthand.

In this situation, simply killing them without any torture would indeed be merciful from Olivia’s perspective.

Just as it would be for Charlotte.

“Oh? That one’s still not dead? I thought she’d die soon since she was squirming like a worm on the ground.”

Serena emerged through the debris of soil and stones, coughing up blood. Her entire body was covered in blood and dirt. The clothes on her body were closer to rags than fabric.

Serena seemed to be trying to support herself by stabbing her Wind Shear into the ground, but perhaps due to the direct hit from the black mana earlier, she couldn’t put more strength into it and kept collapsing.

The one who looked most intact was Charlotte, who was still firing magic from the sky. Christine’s fate was unknown, and Serena couldn’t even stand properly.

Not that Charlotte’s condition was good either. I could see her breathing becoming increasingly labored.

If I had to guess, it was the early symptoms of mana depletion.

I had never seen Charlotte suffer from mana depletion before. From the time we first met, she had several times the mana of an ordinary archmage, and now it was pointless to even try to quantify it.

Yet even Charlotte, who had been casting spells to the point of mana depletion, couldn’t make Olivia so much as blink as she countered everything.

‘Is it because it’s black mana rather than regular mana?’

Charlotte used blue mana, while Olivia used black mana, so perhaps the comparison itself was meaningless.

After all, Olivia was the only being in this world who knew about black mana.

Charlotte was countering all the dark magic flying at her in mid-air. It was a stalemate. She wasn’t being pushed back, but she wasn’t advancing either.

If anything, she seemed to be gradually losing in terms of output as time passed. The dark magic being destroyed in mid-air was slowly closing the distance with Charlotte.

‘Even those three together won’t be able to defeat Olivia.’

This wasn’t a guess but a certainty.

Not only when they fought separately like now, but even if they had somehow attacked together, they wouldn’t have been able to defeat Olivia.

Olivia was already something that could hardly be called human. At least, that’s how I remembered her the last time I saw her.

‘…There is a way to fight her, though.’

A way to make Serena, Charlotte, and Christine stronger. A way to become far stronger than the potential drawn out by soul binding. It existed. It had to exist.

Until now, I hadn’t properly told Serena, Charlotte, and Christine about this method. I had only mentioned it in passing.

The reason was simple. Olivia was the first person I taught this method to. And it was a method that required risking one’s life.

I had thought about it before. If one of the three—Charlotte, Serena, or Christine—succeeded in breaking free from the framework of humanity, they might be able to end my immortality.

But I had no intention of gambling with the lives of those three.

If it were my life at stake, I would gladly participate, but that wasn’t the case, which was why I kept hesitating.

Moreover, I was worried about what would happen if they succeeded but then changed like Olivia. I didn’t want to go through this a second time, which was why I hadn’t properly told the three about the method.

Now it seemed like a meaningless concern.

“Master.”

Olivia bent down and gently caressed my cheek.

“I told you before. You only have me. Just as I only look at you, you should only look at me. Look at them. Look at those inferior beings down there.”

Right after those words, Charlotte’s chest was pierced by dark magic, and she fell to the ground. A small cloud of dust rose from where she landed.

The condition of the other two couldn’t be described as good either. Serena seemed unable to even stand, and Christine wasn’t moving at all.

“Do you think such inferior beings could be compatible with us? Do you think we should have feelings for those who would die at the slightest touch? No. That’s impossible. Only those who can live forever like you and me can embrace each other. You understand, don’t you? I only need you, Master. And you only need me. This will never change. It won’t be altered. Everything else can die, and only we need to remain alive. Forever.”

As always, I was about to dismiss it as nonsense, but something Olivia said caught my attention. There was one thing I absolutely had to address.

“…What do you mean, ‘like you and me’?”

At that question, Olivia smiled as if she had been waiting for it. With that smile, a blade made of black mana appeared in her left hand.

“I’ve been waiting for you to ask that, Master.”

The blade touched Olivia’s neck. Blood formed in droplets where it made contact.

“Watch me.”

Without hesitation, Olivia stabbed her neck with the knife. The blade made of black mana penetrated more than halfway through her neck.

Blood gushed like a fountain from where the blade had entered.

The spurting blood soaked both my body and Olivia’s. The scent of blood filled my nostrils. The bleeding was becoming increasingly profuse.

I don’t know how long I stood there, frozen in shock at Olivia’s action, when the flowing blood suddenly stopped as if someone had turned off a faucet.

And then it began to return to her neck.

“…Huh?”

It was a familiar sight. The blood that had soaked everything returned to her body, the blood that had seeped into her clothes went back, and the scent of blood in the air disappeared.

Finally, the wound on her neck healed. As if the gushing blood had been a lie, Olivia’s body had returned to its previous state.

At this familiar yet disgusting sight, I couldn’t close my gaping mouth.

“…”

“Do you understand now, Master?”

Olivia gently embraced my neck.

“It’s not perfect yet. But it will be soon. Because I, too, am on the verge of living eternally like you, Master. I can do it. Definitely. I’ll make it happen. This time, I promise I will absolutely, absolutely not die and leave you alone.”

I froze blankly. No thoughts came to mind.

Olivia has the same ability as me?

How?