Chapter 105 – #23_The Price of Loss (4)

#103
One.
Seon Si-woo, who was alone in the room, was looking at the tree he had drawn.
It was an interpretation of Gehenna’s barrier magic to interfere with dimensions and borders in Siuman’s way.

“……”

While endlessly calculating magic in my head, I am immersed in thoughts.
No, it does not fit the expression of worrying again.
He always thought about magic, and while he was conscious, he didn’t think of anything other than magic.

Siwoo touched the trunk of the tree.
Magical power was manifested in the palm of his hand and began to permeate the trunk of the tree.
Ordinarily, men cannot conserve their mana, and Siwoo now is no different.

But now it wasn’t a big deal.
A very, very little magic power was enough.
It amplifies the mana that was forcibly held in the mana circuit and conserved.
Amplify the mana that was amplified in that way again.
The amplified mana is amplified again.

Usually, this technique is called “Repeated amplification of magical power.”
It is one of the methods used to maximize efficiency when creating a magic circle.

However, if this technique is flawless, there is no way that high-end magic power on the market will be sold at an expensive price.
The re-amplification technique has limitations in two parts.

However, as magic power is amplified, the total amount increases, but the purity gradually decreases.
Second, magic that has lost its purity can generate noise at any time, and with strong volatility, it disappears before it even affects the details of the circuit.
Usually, even if it is amplified only twice, the effectiveness of magic drops significantly, so it is rarely used except in specific situations.

However, Siu was different.
The ability to ‘absorb’ mana from the outside and ‘purify’ it to magnetize it is Siu, who was exceptional before.
Not to mention now that 99% of brain functions have been redesigned for magic.

The amplified mana maintains an almost constant purity.
The amplified mana permeates the tree and continues to detect something.

This tree is connected to the barrier behind Duke Kether that surrounds all of Gehenna.
What Siwoo is looking for is a hole in the barrier.
It was a very small gap that had bothered his senses from before.

It is not particularly purposeful.
While observing the barrier to improve magic, he felt a sense of heterogeneity and was only persistently looking for that part.

As long as that gap remains, Duke Keter’s barrier is not ‘perfect’.
And Siwoo couldn’t stand that imperfection.
How can there be flaws in such a perfect barrier?
He only recalls the thought of wanting to get rid of them due to the physiological reluctance of sleeping in bed with shoes on.

At that time.
Like fluff felt while stroking smooth silk, Siu identified the place where the flaws of the barrier were felt.

Siu did not hesitate.
Recover all the amplified mana and open the ‘door’.
A golden circle began to slowly form under his feet.
In the waves of mana that swayed and flowed back, Siwoo covered his far-flung distance at once.

And what he found there was the error he had been searching for so long.
A certain object was forcibly peeling off the barrier.
It was the first time he had seen the magic work, so Siwoo looked at it for a while.

Can you interpret it?
Can I follow
Can magic help?

“I thought I was going to explode and die. It went very well.”

Along with the turmoil, a wave of magical energy was detected that distracted attention.
Siwoo was the first to recognize the existence of a person in front of him.

It’s a woman.
It is naked.
She was apparently casting hostile magic on Siu.
Only then did Siu see her face.

And immediately, the back of her nose furrows.
Because I couldn’t figure out who it was.

The eyeball, the optic nerve connected to it, and the brain that processes the information received from the optic nerve.
Already specialized for magic.
Reading the flow of magical power, penetrating the law, and just looking at it, all objects were magically interpreted and a golden fractal was drawn in the head, but in return, the ability to recognize objects deteriorated considerably.

Therefore, Ea’s face looked distorted here and there like crushed clay, and even that was obscured by the remnants of numerous mathematical formulas and geometric patterns.

While pondering, Siu realized something about her.
The opponent’s magic pattern, a unique pattern that can be seen as a fingerprint, is very familiar.

Her left eye, covered with her eyepatch, tingles.
A red flame flew in her chest.
Displeasure, anger, irritation.
Uncomfortable feelings that had nothing to do with magic covered my heart.

And Siu realized.
First thing is to remove that one.

2.
Ea did not take her slack.
The situation is different for her than when she was playing with the leisurely twins and magical slaves.
Ea was very angry, and in front of her was the right person to take out her anger.

“Bloom.”

As Siwoo casts his spell, a shadow flows over his body.
There Ea squinted her eyes.
During the last confrontation, he drank expensive magic water and conducted a very inefficient battle.
It’s unavoidable due to the nature of not having a stigma, but it was really funny.
This time, he did not use mana, but instead used magic.

The flowing shadow wraps around his body like a snake.
The armor of ink.
Still no shine
However, Ea could know.
Compared to the past, the sophistication is different.

If the armor before that was just crude armor that only imitated the shape, the shape of the figure is plausible now.
She takes the form of plate armor so perfect that even if you look closely, you won’t notice that it’s made with shadows.

Ea hesitated no longer.
I don’t know where he learned the skill of rolling, but he’s only a man.
He, like before, was confident that he would be able to subdue him in a matter of days.

“A volley.”

-Giggigigg

Whatever you do, start with your limbs apart.
Let’s give him so much pain that he regrets being born for the remaining 30 minutes before he escapes.
Ten ribbons twisted in the air are shot at Siwoo at the same time.

– Two bang!

In the blink of an eye, the ribbon rushed at Siwoo and blew his body far away.
He flew like a cannonball with an explosion and stopped flying only when he crashed into a rock gap.

“What!”

It was Ea who was surprised.
He responded with all his might to the appearance that he seemed to have come out with a firm grip.
Of course, compared to my strength before going down the hierarchy, I couldn’t even reach my toes, but I knew how to try to block it, and I launched an attack, but it was received with my body.

It would be difficult if you couldn’t even vent your anger and turned into porridge all at once.
Meanwhile, Ea stamped her feet and worried about Siwoo.
Siwoo, who flew away breaking a rock, stared blankly at me.

“……”

It was so fast that I couldn’t properly discern what was what.
The whole body, which was shocked, shuddered and trembled.
Blood flowed from the corner of his mouth.

However, as much as the armor that the blow of conversion was blazing, it was very intact.
It dampened the shock enough to fulfill its original role.
Let’s move the limbs, they move without any hindrance.
Bones, tendons, muscles, and magic circuits were all normal.

Siu stood up.
The stone crumbs piled up on the armor rolled away, and even the dust was neatly shaken off, making it as clean as if it were newly made.
His eyes were on Ea, who was about 100M ahead.

– Hwaaak!

The shadow’s wings spread and Siwoo’s body rushed towards Ea faster than the speed at which it bounced.

“Yeah, I can’t die already!”

A woman who muttered incomprehensible words as she unfolded her ribbon excitedly.
As she accumulates momentum, the twisting ribbon signifies that the previous attack is being prepared again.

A shield floated from Siwoo’s hand.
With his shield in front of him enough to cover half of his body, he ran fiercely.
The ribbon of death flies.

“What….?”

Ea’s eyes widened as she intercepted Siu with ten ribbons.
At the moment right before the collision, a brilliant golden fractal stood on Siwoo’s shield.
She seems to have prepared quite a bit of magic for revenge, so if it had been that far, Ea wouldn’t have been so surprised.

-Ping!
-Quaguaguagwang!

A roar resembling the sound of an explosion hit my ears.
All of the ribbons sent by Ea strayed from Siu and hit a giant tree, broke a rock, or crashed into the ground.

I didn’t see it wrong.
The moment it touched her shield, she lost control of her maiden loom.
The ten ribbons, which should have pierced the enemy straight through, ricocheted away like a shell that ricocheted off the curve of her armor, failing to land a single effective hit.

“Jamming…?”

Even more surprising is that it did not just happen according to physical mechanics.
The phenomenon of jamming, in which control is lost due to being interfered with by someone else’s magic, has occurred.
In the short time between the ribbon flying at subsonic speed and touching the shield.

Seeing Siwoo rushing at her ferociously, Ea put her astonishment and doubt aside for a moment.
When it comes to combat, it’s a luxurious sentiment.

Siwoo’s jamming was not possible with human reaction speed.
If so, it is reasonable that the magic square had been prepared in advance by reading the operation mechanism of the ‘virgin’s loom’ in Clash the other day.

“Did you just believe that and come all the way here by yourself?”

It’s funny.
And immature
Obviously, the maiden’s loom that Ea uses is magic that specializes in physical attacks and is relatively easy to counter.
However, had he not had this kind of experience while surviving numerous bloody battles?

Ea weaved her ribbon again.
Threads of magical power are intertwined to weave a fabric of a completely different structure and magical form.

Physically, the shape and attack method are the same, but magically they are completely different.
If Ea had prepared a magic square called ‘Bo’ in anticipation that he would make a ‘fist’, this time he could change it to ‘scissors’.
During the battle, he was confident in interpreting magic and fighting with each other.

“Doing tricks!”

The remaining distance between them is only 30M.
The newly woven and twisted ribbon was definitely locked onto Shiu.
Even if he runs away, I will definitely pursue him until 1KM away.
The moment the ribbon cuts through the air, Ea is certain of his death.

“I was a little taken aback, but this is the difference in experience.”

Siu glanced at the ribbon and threw aside the shield, which was no different from the only bow.
Lower your head and lower your body.
A helmet extends from behind the neck of the armor and wraps around his head.
He raised his arms wrapped in gauntlets and wrist guards and changed his stance like a boxer charging forward with his guard raised.

Siu did not run away.
I didn’t look for a way around or turn my back.
Hot breath runs down both cheeks.
A golden magic square rose above the black armor that seemed to swallow up all the surrounding light.

-Ping!

The same thing happened.
As if Ea knew it would come out like that in the first place.
The newly woven magic square shed the ribbons that became ‘scissors’ while parrying.

– Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwak!

Following the same procedure as before, Ea looked at the ribbon, which lost its way again and stretched in the wrong direction like a homing missile caught in a flare, with a bewildered gaze.

“You were expecting…?”

Anticipating Ea’s attack by changing her weaving pattern, and preparing for that brief moment?
It’s not impossible in theory.
The source of how different her weaving patterns were was in the ‘virgin’s loom’.

If he perfectly understood Ea’s magnetic magic, she could anticipate and prepare for it.
Ea’s impression of performing the best possible response ‘in theory’ in reality as if it were natural…

“Where is this! It’s a scam!”

However, Ea’s actions were not the correct answer.
Where she had to look was not where her attacks strayed, and what she had to do was to distance herself from her Siwoo, not trusting the protective performance of her autonomous defense.

The reason she knew it in her head but couldn’t put it into practice was because what was happening in front of her was so unrealistic that even Ea, the veteran of the reversal, could not accept it.

Siu’s gauntlet exploded on Ea’s soft abdomen as she screamed at the absurd sight.
Siwoo’s punch, which pierced and neutralized even her self-defense, folded Ea’s body in midair.

“Kyaaaaah!”

With a shrieking scream, several turns of Ea’s naked body rolled over her moss and fell.