Ch.618Episode 22 – The Kazinsky Test

The fingers peeking out from beneath her sleeve trembled, and a chilling light gleamed in her eyes.

Though he didn’t show it, the werewolf unconsciously stiffened his expression.

“…Where did you get that?”

Fenrich’s eyes flashed with a sharp gaze as he shifted his body slightly.

His blood-dripping claws seemed ready to seize the opponent’s vulnerable nape at any moment. However, the heavy atmosphere pressed down on everyone. No one, not even he, dared to move.

Except one.

Camilla.

“Do I really have to tell you?”

Heng, a playful snort echoed softly.

An unidentified egg the size of an ostrich egg. Appearing with an egg of unknown origin, she mocked the werewolf while standing at the edge of the rooftop.

The round egg balanced on her palm looked precarious at best.

Under the silent threat that she would throw the egg if he moved even a step.

The speculation that had been going back and forth between ambiguity and uncertainty finally reached its conclusion.

“Someone whispered a secret to you.”

Her clear eyes sparkled momentarily, as if crossing some invisible barrier.

As Fenrich muttered like someone entranced, Camilla opened her mouth in a low voice.

“There are no eternal secrets in this world.”

Once a code is broken, it becomes subject to permanent information leakage. Organizations are no different.

Whether it’s a traitor or a flaw in the security system.

As long as a hole remains unfilled, no organization’s secrets are absolutely guaranteed.

The hole Camilla created provided the most perfect timing, the most decisive help.

“There was a traitor.”

And within my pack, no less.

The werewolf’s head dropped. His head-shaking, twisting left and right, was like watching a falling leaf.

After briefly fixing his gaze on the ground, the leader smiled, tearing at the corners of his mouth.

Very, very widely.

“Huh, huh huh, huh huh huh!”

Thud!

The werewolf raised his bulging neck and stomped his foot, letting out a howl full of resentment.

“Betraying the clan. What shameless bastard would do this! Don’t hide, come forward! I’ll tear you apart with my own hands!!!”

A massive wind swirled. As if responding to the shaman’s emotions, the magical energy in the area began to echo like a ghostly wail.

Against this, a small flame rose. A red and beautiful flame.

Ignoring her fluttering clothes, Camilla summoned the flames and faced Fenrich with resolute eyes. From her twisted fist, flickering flames continued to burn despite the strong wind.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen!”

A glacier that rose like a tidal wave collided with the red flames.

Episode 22 – The Kazitsky Test

In the darkness, a werewolf growled on the ice-covered rooftop. The growl of the frost-wielding shaman was as sharp as metal.

His deep howling, calling for blood, seemed to tear the night air to shreds.

Hot breath scattered like frost, and snow swirled at his feet. With a single gesture, ice spikes burst through the ground, and a grayish-white frost cloud followed like a shadow to the rhythm of his clicking teeth.

While his bloodshot eyes tracked his prey.

Before him, the girl quietly aimed her finger, her blue eyes burning.

“Bang!”

The flames flickering at her fingertips devoured the air in an instant.

The fire, burning through the air and earth as it advanced, seemed poised to greedily consume the opponent charging fearlessly toward her.

And simultaneously, the ice spear and fireball collided in midair.

As the transparent, sharp spear tip split the wind with a swirling vortex, Camilla threw her flames without hesitation. The blazing fire and grayish-white ice chunks collided head-on in the air.

– ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ !!!

An explosion erupted with a blinding flash.

The ice screamed, exhaling hot steam, and the scattered debris thrashed about like monsters, creating chaos all around.

The shattered fragments of ice and fire bounced everywhere, causing steam and fires of various sizes.

Kwang! As one side of the roof collapsed from the impact and twisted, a thick cloud of dust rose. With heat rising from all directions and the duet of irritating roars added to the mix, it was nothing short of a scene reminiscent of hell.

“Move aside, or! I’ll kill you first-!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

Using the collapsed framework as support, Fenrich leaped like a beast.

His claws were harder than steel, and his eyes pursuing his prey were hungry for blood.

But Camilla faced him without fear. Abandoning defense. Only attacking. Concentrating her flames at the front.

The fired flames hit him directly.

The once-proud glossy fur that symbolized his pride burned away in an instant. Though the pain of his entire body burning assailed him, Fenrich didn’t stop, gritting his teeth.

“Don’t try such pathetic tricks! Did you think this would stop me!”

Water and fire are opposites.

He sealed the burning pain with ice.

Frost formed on his rough breath. The frost quietly settled on his flame-scorched body, silently embracing Fenrich’s wounded flesh.

It was more instinctive than healing, a crude first aid. But that shallow frost was as deep and solid as frozen river water, allowing his burning body to endure, if only temporarily.

“Kuaaaaa-!”

“Oh, damn.”

-Whoosh!

Breaking through the curtain of fire, Fenrich reached the girl in one breath.

Camilla’s eyes widened in shock. As if she hadn’t expected him to break through with such a tough method.

Wrapped in frost, Fenrich landed with a massive shockwave and launched a merciless attack toward Camilla, who stood defenseless without even catching her breath.

-Whoosh!

-Slash!

The sharp claws swept through empty space, and beyond the scattered embers, the girl’s form appeared once again.

Camilla, who had teleported away, quickly counterattacked with a fireball before Fenrich could assess the situation.

A fierce exchange ensued.

Magic and shamanism. Ice and fire.

The werewolf and the girl, similar yet different, exchanged relentless attacks. Camilla strictly maintained her distance, refusing to allow close combat, while Fenrich continuously closed the gap using his powerful recovery abilities.

“Planning to run away like a rat?!”

Narrowly avoiding the ice fragments that grazed past her, Camilla spread a barrier of flames and leaped from the ground.

Fenrich used an unmelted ice sheet as support, kicking it with all his might to pursue her.

“Do you think killing people will change anything?! Nothing changes from this, you fool!”

“Shut up-! Human who knows nothing!”

He brought his palms together, drawing in the billowing frost. As the clapping sound echoed, the spreading wave transformed into a sharp melody.

Kagagak! The ferocious force tore through the concrete like paper. Camilla, dodging the shamanism by nimbly moving her feet, jumped into the air and flicked her finger to fire flame bullets.

“Hand over the traitor, now!”

Fenrich, swatting away the fan-shaped flame bullets with a gesture, raised his voice with bulging veins in his neck.

With the werewolf’s tremendous jumping power, he finally succeeded in closing the distance with Camilla.

His eyes, burning with rage, seemed to warn that she would face dire consequences if she didn’t reveal the traitor’s identity. Even Camilla, who wouldn’t normally yield to intimidation, involuntarily swallowed at the sight of his menacing fist.

-Bang ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ !

Just then, a bullet cutting through the wind pierced the werewolf’s chest.

The directly hit werewolf, in stark contrast to his earlier momentum, fell to the ground powerless.

A groan of pain escaped from between his blood-stained gums, and as the werewolf clutching his heart area tried to look in the direction of the sound, flames began to flicker again from the rooftop across.

“Damn it!”

Raising an ice barrier to avoid the barrage of gunfire, Fenrich hurriedly hid behind it.

Silver bullets. The saint’s doing again?

He had let his guard down. Though not fatal, it was a wound he couldn’t ignore. Forcibly stopping the blood flowing from the wound that wouldn’t close, Fenrich began calculating who should be his first prey.

At that moment.

The girl, transformed into flames, appeared above the werewolf’s head, baring her teeth with a fierce gaze.

“Did you think hiding would end it!”

At the frail voice cursing him, Fenrich instinctively rolled on the ground to escape.

Positional advantage often determines combat superiority.

If a mage had seized an opportunity from a higher position, even an exceptional shaman like him would be at a disadvantage. He needed to reverse the terrain advantage.

Preparing for the imminent attack, Fenrich hurriedly prepared another shamanism.

The frost shamanism, passed down through generations to the leaders, was about to respond to his call, with an ice sheet forming beneath his feet ready to lift him into the air.

However.

The frost did not respond to his call.

The moment the girl raised her finger high into the sky, Fenrich’s expectations were completely shattered.

*

The girl floating in the air slowly raised her finger.

A flame bloomed deep in her heart. At first a faint spark, it soon spread through her pulse, consuming her entire body.

In that moment, heat exploded around her.

The atmosphere twisted, and moisture in the area burned and evaporated.

Space cracked like a withered old tree, and the air distorted like paper scorched by fire.

All magic is a manifestation of will.

Therefore, the girl’s flame was neither simple fire nor heat.

It was the will itself to burn existence and evaporate the landscape.

What the girl truly wanted to burn was not the enemy before her.

But the source of power he wielded.

“-Révĕho.”

The flames enveloping her entire body engulfed the area, burning fiercely.

In the engulfing flames, moisture evaporated with a mirage-like scream, and even its echoes were swept away by the flames. Only dry heat remained.

As the moisture in the air disappeared, silent cracks formed in the ice sheet trying to form. The ice, once solid as steel, finally turned to bone-dry dust and scattered into the air.

The frost fell silent, and the shamanism evaporated without leaving even a puddle.

Silence descended.

Like everything after being scorched by fire,

As dry as kindling without breath.