Chapter 55: Goodbye, Blue Sky

After the cleanup of the demon incident, the head of the Magical Girl Association, Yu Ji-hye, finally announced the execution of the Sanguine Obsidia capture operation.

As planned, magical girls and police forces were deployed in a pre-designated area, centered on the southeastern Gyeonggi Province and adjacent areas of Seoul where Sanguine Obsidia was likely to appear.

The plan was for the first encounter team to buy time while the second wave arrived within 20 minutes, and a loose encirclement with a radius of several hundred meters would be established within 30 minutes.

The magical girls had no way of knowing that Sanguine Obsidia’s thoughts and life had undergone many changes since the plan was made, but ironically, her methods and habits of murder had hardly changed, so the operation was still valid.

Although the area was much smaller than during the last demon incident, which spanned the entire metropolitan area,

The lack of support from the military and the Busan branch meant that the magical girl who first encountered Sanguine Obsidia had to hold out for more than 10 minutes relying only on long-range support, but everyone was prepared for that.

The same was true for Glacia Azure.

The area Glacia chose when assigning zones was an alley on the outskirts of a small city, quite a distance from the other zones.

She didn’t know why she chose that place.

It could have been just a hunch, or perhaps she subconsciously thought Sanguine Obsidia was highly likely to appear in the chosen area because of her experience personally analyzing Sanguine Obsidia’s movements.

All that remained was the fact that, as a result of that choice, she came face to face with Sanguine Obsidia on the second night.

Glacia thought it was a good thing, as she could avenge her past defeat.

If she became the vanguard and defeated her, the dead children would be happy, and the living juniors would be safe.

“After this is over, I should give Alisa and Materia a lot of candy.”

Just thinking of that smile made her hum.

Her cute juniors who had overcome their wounds and were growing day by day.

As she wandered through the dark alley, thinking of her precious little sisters waiting in the rear, she spotted Sanguine Obsidia slowly walking behind a woman who was running away in terror.

Hair as white as bone,

Red eyes like rotten blood clots, yet filled with a mad laugh,

A torn smile filled with deep pleasure.

She felt a sense of nausea at the sight of her walking as if mocking the woman who was fighting desperately against her fear, falling, screaming, and crawling on the ground.

“Sanguine Obsidia! Surrender. If you surrender now, at least I promise you humane treatment.”

Glacia cast aside her usual polite tone and stood in Obsidia’s way.

In any case, since the goal was to buy time until support arrived, there was no need for her to actively attack first.

After letting the civilian woman who was on the verge of being caught by Sanguine Obsidia escape, Glacia fired an icicle to block her movement for a moment and hid behind an ice wall.

“You remember what happened last time, right?”

Just a few words would be fine.

As long as she could buy enough time.

Conversation, deception, escape, Glacia intended to use every possible method.

While exchanging a few words that couldn’t even be called a conversation, Glacia placed dozens of ice walls around Sanguine Obsidia.

Sanguine Obsidia would soon realize her intentions and launch an active attack, but it didn’t matter.

It would take more time for people to arrive, but the support attack had already arrived.

Glacia prided herself on being much stronger than before, but she wasn’t arrogant enough to face Sanguine Obsidia with literally no help.

Glacia confirmed the purple magic circle floating in the air, creating a massive spark of magic power, and summoned one more ice wall to protect herself from the aftermath of the bombardment.

And right after that,

KABOOOOOOOOOM-!!

“It’s a hit.”

“Good.”

On the rooftop of a high, open building several kilometers away.

The only ones there were Yu Ji-hye and Coral Echoes.

Even though it was in the middle of the entire area, the building wasn’t high enough to directly view the operational areas, but there was no problem as a real-time video was displayed.

On the translucent screen floating in the air, a video was displayed showing Sanguine Obsidia, viewed from above, slammed into the asphalt floor with purple smoke rising, and Glacia Azure preparing her next spell.

Borrowing Coral Echoes’ ability, a bombardment that precisely aimed coordinates to strike directly above the head of the constantly moving Sanguine Obsidia, and vertically slammed down a high-output magic cannon through a magic circle generated from a long distance.

“Long-range attacks like this are quite difficult… I’ve practiced quite a bit, though.”

Even for Yu Ji-hye, it seemed to be a rather strenuous use of magic, as she was constantly rubbing her aching wrist.

“The instructions have been delivered. The second wave will arrive in about 10 minutes, and the encirclement will be completed within 20 minutes.”

Manipulating the translucent screens generated by her unique magic, Coral Echoes was giving instructions to the magical girls and police scattered in various places.

“Then shall we start moving too? We’ll have to intervene before Glacia gets into danger.”

Even if she escapes with etheralization, as long as they can stop her from opening that damn portal and going inside, they can prevent her from ‘escaping’ itself.

After cornering her, the situation ends with Yu Ji-hye herself literally striking down from the sky and defeating Sanguine Obsidia.

From experience, Sanguine Obsidia’s head works quite brilliantly when it comes to her own survival and escape, so Yu Ji-hye thought she might be caught off guard if she moved too slowly, and hugged Coral Echoes and kicked off the ground.

Thinking that if she could just get to a closer place where she could directly intervene with Sanguine Obsidia, drop off Coral Echoes, and succeed in encircling her with the arriving second wave, victory would be hers.

All Glacia Azure had to do was buy time until then.

Hoping that Glacia would be safe, Yu Ji-hye stepped on the sky and leaped up even higher.

***

The magic she had used on Soda Pop☆Ritalin last time.

Ice Queen’s Wrath.

At that time, it was a spell used as a last resort, squeezing out her magic power right before it ran out, but now, Glacia was in perfect condition.

Its power and precision were incomparably higher than before, and she used it with the determination to kill her opponent.

The blades, precisely crafted by gathering the walls of glaciers and ice fragments scattered across the battlefield, surrounded Sanguine Obsidia from all sides, making it impossible for her to move even a little.

Lowering her stance and preparing to charge with her sword in hand, Glacia confirmed the more than a hundred pure white ice blades surrounding Sanguine Obsidia and tightened her grip on her staff.

Behind a newly summoned ice wall, instead of the ice walls that had been compressed and transformed into ice blades, Glacia timed her activation.

As long as the opponent couldn’t visually confirm her exact location, the initiative was with Glacia.

‘Sanguine Obsidia will definitely use that.’

The unidentified spell that Sanguine Obsidia always uses when cornered, presumed to be a type of unique magic that erodes and nullifies magic.

It wasn’t enough to be called a Plan B, but she had prepared to deal with it to some extent.

If all methods failed and she was in a worst-case scenario with no answer, she could just buy time by freezing the entire alley and running around, so Glacia judged that it was not a fight she would lose anyway, and

Finally, she swung her staff.

SWOOOOOSH-

Dozens, hundreds of pure white ice daggers rushing in from all directions: above, front, back, left, and right.

Sanguine Obsidia, still in her lowered stance, tensed her thighs, and

“Rogio Atritas.”

With that one word, right after her figure disappeared,

She appeared in front of Glacia.

Leaving behind dozens of ice blades that were eroding and melting in the clinging black smoke.

The thick ice wall that had been protecting Glacia was already covered in a dark fog and melting away, and the tip of a black rapier was approaching, piercing through the space where the ice wall had been.

“Glacial Wall!!!”

She leaped back as if flying and summoned dozens of layers of ice walls in front of the approaching Obsidia, but Obsidia, without losing momentum, continued to charge in a straight line.

The ice walls that her blade touched melted away and disappeared as if they had never been there in the first place.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment!”

SHWIIIIK-

A single ice blade, hidden behind the ice walls, flew through the air with a cutting sound.
A trump card, larger and more sharply honed than the other ice blades.

Glacia had judged that Sanguine Obsidia would definitely neutralize some of her magic with that ‘spell’, and right after that, she wouldn’t have the luxury of summoning chains or using other magic, so she would immediately aim for Glacia herself, and

It was a single shot left to pierce her as she charged in a straight line.

“Tch.”

Crimson blood spurted from the gap in her torn suit.

Obsidia twisted her body greatly to the left, sacrificing her right shoulder to evade the ice blade.

Obsidia, who had fallen to the left with the momentum of her charge, stood up with the sword in her left hand, but the accumulated damage seemed to be considerable, as the black blade and the hand holding the sword were trembling as if vibrating.

Blood drops fell from her limp right arm, hitting the already frozen asphalt floor and steaming.

The ice blade that had deeply gouged her shoulder and passed through, and the dozens of ice blades that remained un-eroded, lost their way and crashed into walls, the floor, and streetlights, turning the building walls, the asphalt floor, and the unlit streetlights into pure white ice objects.

‘I’ve won,’ Glacia thought.

Although the attack didn’t land properly and Glacia herself had consumed a considerable amount of magic power, the damage Sanguine Obsidia had sustained was significant.

All she had to do was hide behind the ice again and hold on for a few more minutes.

“Glacial Wall.”

With that judgment, Glacia created a new ice wall to protect herself, and

“Filum Atritas.”

A single word muttered, Sanguine Obsidia’s magic,

Touched Glacia’s ice wall, weakened by the continuous consumption of magic power, eroded it black, melted the wall, and broke through.

The ice she hastily created in her panic is too small and thin to be called a wall.

Through the gap in the glacier that she couldn’t block in time, a blade of blood rushes in.

A blade of faint crimson, so thin and sharp it seems it might disappear,

flew towards Glacia.

It was just a moment.

A single moment, the gap right after Glacia had consumed a massive amount of magic power, the slight carelessness Glacia had due to the exhausted appearance Sanguine Obsidia showed after falling and getting up, the very short gap when the new ice wall appeared and obscured her vision.

Through that gap, the blade of blood squeezed in,

and severed Glacia’s neck.

“Ah…”

She tried to say something, but her voice wouldn’t come out.

“Kahak, haah… haah… I didn’t want to use it a second time. Damn it.”

Sanguine Obsidia’s figure, coughing and spitting out blood clots, appears blurry.

I was cut.

Where?

My neck was cut.

Cleanly, up and down.

Completely severed.

My consciousness is already fading.

The world seems to be moving in slow motion.

Falling ice fragments, the blood clot Sanguine Obsidia spat out, the broken glass of a frozen streetlight, all fall as if in slow motion.

I can feel the flow of blood waiting to ooze out from the severed neck, to gush out as the wound opens, the pulse of the severed artery.

My vision is starting to shake.

I’m dead.

So vainly, and so simply.

No, I’m not dead yet.

This can’t be.

This way, the effort I’ve put in until now, the efforts of others, Argenté’s, Grau Raum’s death will become meaningless.

I have to steel my resolve.

My final resolve.

Before the blood could gush out from the severed section of her neck, the section froze.

The skin of her severed neck is covered in frost, and the sections stick back together.

The gaps in the muscles, the walls of the blood vessels, the windpipe, are reconnected by the ice that forcibly freezes and joins them.

She forces blood to circulate between her head and body by pouring magic power into her arteries, which are screaming from the terrible cold.

The imitation of the severed cervical nerve signals with magic power isn’t working well, so she wraps her limbs in cold and frost, and supports her falling body by moving it forcibly as if moving a block of ice.

“Hyuuu… hyuu…”

The breath exhaled through her rapidly cooled windpipe was a cold, empty, metallic sound.

My head, my head hurts so much.

I’m dizzy.

I feel like I’m going to throw up.

It’s cold.

The chilled blood circulates through her brain.

A terrible headache came.

Dizziness followed, and consciousness faded.

She felt like she was going to collapse.

Her vision sways, the colors of the world turn red, then blue, then black, and gradually become a faint, hazy, distant view like a telephoto picture seen through a broken lens.

Her ears are constantly ringing, and an excruciating pain as if a stake is being driven into them assaults her.

But Glacia, the magical girl Glacia Azure, could not let go of her consciousness.

Because she had to defeat the enemy in the fleeting moment before this ice melted.

“Odette. Give me strength one last time. The strength to protect my little sisters.”

A voice, terribly frozen and cracked, barely squeezed out.

Glacia closed her eyes.

She didn’t have enough magic power to have any left after using this much magic,

Nor did she have the precise skill to maintain this state for a long time,

Nor did she have the talent to fully accept and use the power of a spirit.

No convenient and easy-to-understand miracle had occurred either.

But Glacia had faith, and she had will.

For her comrades, for her juniors, and for her own mascot.

The spirit, the ice fairy she had been with for a long time, dwelled in Glacia’s staff.

The staff, which had lost its light for a moment, shines with a brilliant blue light.

Click, clack,

As she takes unstable and heavy steps, the ground freezes, and the air freezes.

The cold that extends from her fingertips forms ice, gathers, and becomes a huge mountain of ice reminiscent of a giant glacier, casting a shadow on the ground.

Glacia finally opened her eyes.

The headache, the ringing in her ears, the dizziness, could no longer torment Glacia.

Her vision is clear, and her mind is sharp.

Time is no longer on her side, but that no longer matters.

The huge mass of glacier created in the air,

And the dozens, hundreds of ice chunks created all around, not precisely refined and honed, but each containing mass and magic power.

She can only control it, only use magic, for a single moment.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

With Glacia’s cry torn from her throat, hundreds of screaming ice chunks descended upon Sanguine Obsidia.