Chapter 1078 – #256_Small Wars(5) – DeepL

#1072

1.
There are many variables in magical combat beyond Archdemon.

Your opponent’s skill, your own skill, the terrain of the battlefield, the compatibility of magnetic magic, and the game plan.
Add to that the fact that hiding your power is one of the basics of the game.

Assuming you’re not too far out of your league, these variables will be present, absent, and created throughout the battle.

However, a witch with as much combat experience as Herja should be able to get a rough estimate after just a few bouts.

In the same way that a wargame veteran can intuit “I’m going to lose this game” or “I’m going to win this game” after only the first few rounds.

This is because intuition is a statistic, a sample of countless experiences.

Three minutes.
That’s how long Hernández predicted the fight would take to end.

In that time, Xinxiu will be stretched to the limit, and despite his best efforts to resist, he will be sliced in half by Herya’s axe spear.

It would be a boring ending.

“Argh!!!”

But Herja was wrong.
In a very positive way.

“Okay, okay, that’s how it’s supposed to be!”
“…….”

Xin Xiu still doesn’t react to Herya’s piercing shout.
Instead, he’s furiously squeezing every ounce of strength he has left.

“Have you finally decided to do the right thing?”

I hoped so.

I wanted to say, “You’ve finally decided to do it right.
To crush an opponent who is fighting for his life, not a weak, flaccid foe.

This is the struggle, the war, the fight.

“…….”

However, compared to the wildly excited Herya, Xiu was quiet.

Aside from the fight, he was too busy contemplating himself.

Her head is still throbbing, and she’s still strong.
His head still burned, Herya was still strong, and the injuries on his body were accumulating.

She climbs the stairs in her mind’s eye, fighting the battle mechanically.
The staircase is so narrow, precarious, and winding that if I lose my footing, I could slide straight into the abyss.

But.
It wasn’t as hard as it looked.

Climb, climb, climb.
Higher and higher.

With each step, something changes.
It was a mindset, a primitive view of magic.

Breaking through walls.
You break it down.
Leap over it.

It’s not that big of a sense.

It’s more like.
I just feel a little more relaxed.
The awkwardness and discomfort I’ve felt since the beginning of the fight with Herya is slowly dissipating.

It’s like the feeling of running on two feet for the first time after studying ‘how to run well on all fours’ because I thought it was the right way to run.

It’s unfamiliar, but it’s still more comfortable.

“…….”

Let’s not bother with the detailed math.
It’s an overwhelming computational power, so it’s a high-speed operation like a supercomputer, so doesn’t it make your head hurt?

At least not at this point.

So just follow your intuition.
Be relaxed, think out of the box, and make optimizations that can’t be done by mere calculation.

“Oh, you can do that?”

Just before Herya’s flash of lightning.
Xiu’s body disappeared and reappeared in the distance.

A flicker, a blink, or a warp that folds space.
It’s teleportation.

Up until now, Xiu had been avoiding using coordinate moves in practice.

First of all, the interval before and after is too long.

Also, it’s scary what can happen if you don’t calculate the exact coordinates, and it requires a lot of computing power, so it’s not very useful in practice.

However, with this new method, the distance traveled is somewhat limited, but it can still be used in practice.

“Let’s see who’s faster.”

-Passsssss!

Herya laughed confidently.
Her speed was quite fast, but right now she was like a thunderbolt traveling on an ion tube.

This area is already hers.
If it comes down to who’s faster, she’s confident she can beat anyone.

Even if it’s a matter of folding space, she just needs to move faster.

-Boom!

Xiu’s body disappeared as soon as he caught Herya’s leap.

It reappeared in another sky, far away from the vanishing point.
But Herya’s trace zigzags in a straight line, rushing toward Xiu once again.

Hera’s attack, which consists of catch, dash, change of direction, and dash again without the slightest gap, leaves countless afterimages in the sky.

——!!!!!!

From the far reaches of space, the sight must have looked like a spectacular laser show.
A super-speed, all-optical lightning strike that chases Xiu through space.

“…I don’t even get motion sickness.”

I thought I’d be able to outrun her, but Herya tirelessly chased after her as if she were equipped with a powerful and long-lasting battery.

“Hahahahaha—!!!”

Her laughter could be heard everywhere, like thunder, as she tried to figure out why she was so excited.

Slowly, Herya seems to have realized the downside of the coordinate move.

You can only do it if the space you’re moving through is empty.

That’s why she’s been planting lightning bolts in the places where she thinks they’re going to escape.
Just as Bianca did with her “mimicry dice,” she has hundreds of millions of objects floating in space.

Is she a seasoned warlock?
She’s just as quick to find answers and just as responsive.

I don’t think this is going to work, so let’s try something else.

After her epiphany against Rosie the Riveter.
Xiu has been using a fusion of two of his different magnetic spells.

Angelic Rings + Extreme Staircase = super-powered computational doping.
Elemental magic + waves = pseudo-magical waves.
Force field magic + distortion field = space-bending defense.

Something along these lines.

It was like a little bit of Xiu’s original magic, Coordinate Shifting or Multiply Amplified, on top of that.

Anything more than that would have been too much.
Mixing different magnetic spells from different people was a difficult task.

But this time, I decided to try something new.

I realize it’s a crazy idea.
Using a new technique that I hadn’t practiced before in the middle of a life-or-death fight.

But there’s an odd sense of certainty.

“I think I can do this.”

I remove my armor to concentrate on my calculations, tracking Herya with the coordinate shifter and unleashing my newfound inspiration.

As I do, I realize it’s a lot like Amelia’s steering.

Base notes, top notes, middle notes.

Isn’t that what perfumery is all about, creating a harmonious pyramid of scents by stacking “notes” in three tiers?

The base of the pyramid, the base note, is the distortion field.

Just as red branch is an example, distortion field is also one of Xiu’s magnetic magic.
Up until now, it has been emitted in the form of a “force field,” but now it’s condensed into tiny, tiny bits.

It should be smaller than your pinky nail.
It’s a compromise from the minimal size we’ve been sticking to.

Helping us along the way is the middle note, force field magic.

A staple of the Yesod family, the first Xiu learned to control the distortion field.

A red ball of distortion, like a pomegranate, is easily disrupted.
The force field is applied over them like a coating to lock in the trait.

The final top note is….

“Mmm, yeah. I like this.”

The top note is Leroux’s three-step wave magic.

It’s actually a bit of a rip-off of Ursula’s method from the previous fight.
She was a tough nut to crack.

The finalized form of the magic was almost like a cremation.
Instead of the explosive power of C4, it uses the power of the wave itself, and the shrapnel that scatters is a distortion field in the form of beads instead of ball bearings.

-Poof! Poof! POP!
-Shoot!!!

Herya charged with all her might.

Millions of vicious red lights rained down with a sharp roar over her head.
Her charge is interrupted by an attack from the ‘Cotton’, whose killing range is as far as the eye can see.

“Arghhhhhhh!!!!”

But Herja’s charge doesn’t stop in the face of the rain of death.
Instead, he accelerates, intent on smashing it head-on.

If he killed Urshira, he must have a trick up his sleeve.

In other words.

If he can get past this, he wins.
Herya harnessed all the lightning around him and made it his own.

Not from the sky to the earth.
A “reverse lightning” from the earth back to the sky.

-Kwajijijijiji!

With a destructive force, Herya defies the red rain and heads for Xiu.
With a boom like a machine gun bombardment of steel plates, shattered orbs scatter around her.

Each bead of the distortion field, combined with its relative velocity, was devastatingly powerful.
But Herja pushed through the pain that threatened to shatter her body with the strength of her muscles.

“That’s–your last–sunyaaahhh!!!”

Finally, after breaking through all the obstacles, Herya was once again face-to-face with Xiu.

And then she froze.

Her face, which had been so fierce just a moment ago, had turned pale.
The face that had been so fierce just a moment ago.
It was filled not with frustration, not with embarrassment, but with grimness.

“I don’t think so.”

Waiting for Herya, who had faced death head-on, were clouds as red as the setting sun.

A ribbon inscribed with a magic circle that formed a large ring like a door.

In the center of it all, a male witch with glowing eyes is preparing to throw a power javelin like a harpoon.

Herya, who had been smiling boldly the entire time, stiffened.
For in that brief moment, she realizes.

Something is wrong.

“Here we go.”

This much magic?
This many in a row?

This is not 22nd level magic by any means.

The black wall that Herya couldn’t get over.
A wall so high, so terrifying, that suddenly it was standing right in front of her.

The moment she realized it, she summoned all her strength, ready to die.

It couldn’t be.
Even if she did, she would not allow herself to make a foolish escape.

“Pierce.”

Xiu threw the spear.

A streak of red flashed, and Herya desperately parried.
The shock and pain was more like receiving an entire ‘sky’ rather than a spear strike.

-Kii-ii-ii-ing!!!

But with will, spirit, and strength, she endures.
The difference between victory and defeat is the mindset.

Those who are willing to lay down their lives will eventually win.
That is the philosophy of Herya, who has survived countless bloody battlefields.

“Arghhhhh!!!”

With blood pouring from his eyes and nose, Herja narrowly missed the red straight line….

“Holy shit….”

It was another red flash, dozens of them, pouring through the ‘door’ that had appeared on Xin Xiu’s back.

Her defenseless body fell into the sea, impaled by countless red branches.