Chapter 189: Full Moon Night – Part 2 (7)
by fnovelpia
In truth, Raizein hadn’t understood most of what Sion had said.
She had been too busy burning to death.
But there was one thing she grasped with absolute clarity—
She had walked right into a trap, and as a result, the tide of the battle had completely turned.
At this rate, she was going to die.
“I have to run! As long as the sun is up, I don’t stand a chance!
I have to retreat and come back at night for a surprise attack! Yes! That’s the only way!”
The regeneration mechanism of a vampire is, put simply, like a battery.
While “charging” (at night), it can be used endlessly without restrictions, but during the “discharging” phase (in daylight), it continuously consumes stock.
Fortunately for Raizein, she was a progenitor, so she had a decent reserve.
Even if she was exposed to sunlight or died a few more times, she wouldn’t be in immediate danger.
First, she had to buy some time by surrounding herself with a defensive barrier.
Thinking that, Raizein raised her hand.
“Shi—”
Slash!
But before she could even finish the first syllable, a blade sliced through her vocal cords.
The spell she had been about to cast evaporated along with her voice and vanished without a trace.
Raizein’s eyes widened in shock.
“How—?!”
“I’d rather you not ask such a foolish question, daughter,”
Sion chuckled, resting Exia on her shoulder.
“What do you think I just told you? That I stacked deceleration magic on you until your movements slowed to a crawl.
Do you even know the current deceleration multiplier applied to your body? It’s a whopping 20 times.
At this level, even a five-year-old child could easily knock you over.”
“T-Twenty…?!”
“Ah, and I deliberately left the magic partially intact so we could still talk.
If I were to fully lift the deceleration on my side—”
Sion snapped her fingers.
In the next moment, Raizein was struck by a thousand slashes at once.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t truly “simultaneous,” but her consciousness, slowed to an extreme degree, could only perceive it that way.
Her body was torn to shreds in an instant, shredded into a thousand tiny pieces of flesh.
Raizein screamed silently in her mind.
“…!?!?”
“See? That’s the true power of a real debuff—one that crushes your pitiful little buffs in an instant.”
“I—!!!…!!!”
Unfortunately, Raizein could barely make out Sion’s words.
Of course she couldn’t.
It’s hard enough to follow dialogue in a video played at double speed—this was ten times that.
Even catching a single word correctly would be a miracle.
And in this state, there was no way she could cast any kind of spell.
No matter how strong, fast, or regenerative you are—a 20x difference in time flow renders it all meaningless.
Everything becomes pointless.
No amount of struggle would help.
She would just be beaten like a sandbag until she died.
“Such a pity. If you’d noticed when the multiplier was only five times, you might have had a chance to try a dispel.
But now? That’s impossible.
The moment you try to draw mana, I’ll pierce your heart.”
Sion slowly swung her sword in a mocking gesture.
To Raizein, it looked like a high-speed slash that she couldn’t even track with her eyes.
“You should never have let your guard down. Not in any situation.
Did you really think I wouldn’t have at least one trump card up my sleeve?
If so, that’s downright naive. Arrogant, even.”
“……!”
Suddenly, Raizein’s eyes flew wide open.
She thought she had just heard the words “trump card.”
It had gone by too fast to be sure, but the sound was familiar.
And with those words, something surfaced in her mind—a mechanism she had prepared long ago, just in case she ever found herself in a situation like this.
Her final insurance.
“I’ll probably burn up all the life force I’ve stored, but… there’s no other choice!
Better than dying here!”
“Emergency escape!”
With that thought, Raizein bit down hard on her tongue, flooding her mouth with her own blood.
The magic circle engraved on her palate responded instantly, radiating a menacing light.
“Detonation!”
BOOM!!!!
Suddenly, a surge of mana boiled within her body—and in the next instant, she exploded completely, leaving no trace behind.
Even the scattered remains quickly dissolved into the surrounding darkness, vanishing without a trace.
Sion, who had abruptly lost her target, wore a bewildered expression.
“What? Where did she—”
“Haa… haa…!”
At that moment, from the very edge of the barrier, Raizein reformed her body, gasping for breath.
Detonation.
A 4th-circle spell that causes a massive explosion centered on the caster.
It inflicts far greater damage than ordinary explosion spells like Fireball, but its downside is that the caster is also caught in the blast.
For this reason, it is rarely used by the caster themselves.
Instead, it is often engraved onto another person’s body, turning them into a living suicide bomber.
Back when Sion commanded the Demon Queen’s army, she had used this strategy many times.
But after awakening to human emotions, she found it unsettling and stopped using it.
Raizein, however, had customized the spell so that the explosion only occurred within her own body.
Since the blast, which would normally radiate outward, was instead concentrated at a single point, it caused devastating internal damage—a level of destruction far beyond simply being slashed by a sword or burned by fire.
Its sheer power was immense.
Using this spell to self-destruct would erase every spell currently affecting the body.
The magical circuits within the body would be obliterated by the explosion, wiping everything out.
Essentially, it was like pressing a reset button at the cost of one’s own life.
Raizein had engraved this magic circle on herself 400 years ago, just in case she ever faced an emergency—but she had never imagined she would actually use it.
In fact, she had completely forgotten about its existence until just now.
Had she not recalled it by chance, she would have died without ever getting to use it.
But she did remember. And that meant victory belonged to her.
“Cough! Cough! Ugh… Hah…”
Raizein staggered, coughing up blood.
She had barely escaped the hell of a 20x slow debuff, but the price she paid was immense.
Not only had her Blood Opera spell been undone, but she had lost half the blood she had painstakingly accumulated over 500 years.
On top of that, her magical circuits were in disarray.
It would be a long time before she could cast high-level spells again.
But it didn’t matter.
She had survived.
She had suffered great losses, but she had survived.
And as long as she was alive, she could try again.
“Hah… Ha, haha… Ahaha… Ahahahaha!!”
Dripping with blood, Raizein let out a crazed laugh.
Then, she straightened her posture and stared at Sion.
“Haa… I’ll admit it, Father. I was utterly defeated in this fight.”
“But next time, it won’t end like this. I’ll take today’s lesson to heart, and when we fight again,
I’ll leave no openings—
I’ll make sure to crush you completely.”
After saying that, Raizein cast a brief glance at Marianne, who was still unconscious, trapped within a force field.
“I’ll leave that girl as a gift for you. I’ll release her free will, so don’t worry too much.
Consider it my way of paying my respects to your victory.”
Raizein smiled and lifted the hem of her dress in a graceful farewell.
“Then, I’ll be off.”
To her surprise, Sion did not chase after her.
She merely stood there, watching her leave.
This was fortunate for Raizein.
Had she pursued, she would have immediately deployed her Shadow Shield at full power to block her—but it seemed that wouldn’t be necessary.
‘Looks like she’s letting me go.
Perhaps she’s looking forward to our rematch as well? Fine by me. If that’s the case…’
Interpreting Sion’s attitude however she pleased, Raizein smirked confidently and began casting her spell.
“Earth Gl—”
CRASH!!!
A massive weight came crashing down on her body, mercilessly slamming her into the ground.
Her spell was, of course, immediately canceled.
In an instant, Raizein was flattened like a pancake, her mind thrown into complete panic.
‘?! W-What?! What just attacked me?! Father didn’t move an inch…!
I didn’t sense any sign of magic being cast…!’
And it was true.
Sion remained where she was, arms crossed, calmly watching from a distance.
Her fingers had not moved.
Her expression was disturbingly indifferent.
Then who—?!
“Ugh…?!”
At that moment, someone roughly grabbed Raizein’s disheveled hair, yanking her up with absolutely no regard for her pain.
She let out a strangled groan as a chilling whisper echoed in her ear.
[Long time no see, you bitch.]
Dorothy grinned murderously as she spoke.
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