Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 1372: Torturer

“Is this… how the world looks?” Camilla said slowly, as though the thought had taken time to arrive.

“Roll the floor up and you have a world map.” Roland set down the pencil and stood looking at his own feet, his mind drifting. Whether coincidence or not, Christopher Columbus had sailed from the Spanish port of Palos for seventy days and nights before reaching the land now called America, and the world had never looked the same afterward. Joan had traveled in a similar fashion — and had been the first to trace the world’s rough shape. The two had nothing else in common, their intentions entirely unlike, their means of discovery exactly the same. History might never remember Joan’s name. But the Exploration Group had become real because of her journey around the world.

That was what it meant to be an explorer.

To Roland, the practical value was clear: he now had a rough fix on the Bottomless Land and the Sky-sea Realm.

Especially the former.

Joan’s discovery confirmed that the actualization of the Realm of Mind was not so distant as he had imagined. That much was good news. At the very least, they had a concrete target for improving the bombers and the Fire of Heaven’s range.

The Sky-sea Realm, suspended above the clouds, remained beyond reach. But fortunately their enemy was the demons, not whatever lived up there. Even if a demon force set out toward the east, it would arrive at the western shore of the Land of Dawn — still a great distance from the Fertile Plains.

“That leaves one final question.” Nightingale grunted. “Who is the woman Joan met on Shadow Island? There were no traces of any human presence there. And if she’s someone sent by God, we don’t really have a reason to help her, do we?”

Roland was silent for a long while. “I’m afraid she’s the most troublesome piece of this.”

“Why?” Camilla didn’t follow.

“If we’re working from first principles: whoever wins or loses the Battle of Divine Will, if the end result is still destruction, then God is our enemy.” He spoke carefully, feeling his way. “But if the Guardian is expressing no hostility — if she operates according to a concept of good and evil entirely unlike ours — then perhaps she has never truly thought of us at all. The relationship might be like how a person tends to an injured bird.”

The two witches looked at each other.

What followed was a cold, slow understanding that climbed from the soles of their feet.

Both of them understood: if birds raided a granary, humans would kill them without hesitation, and feel nothing like hatred while doing it. But no one would deny saving a bird from a cat’s claws. What followed had nothing to do with good or evil — only with the preference of the individual in that moment.

The Battle of Divine Will had cycled through untold repetitions. No one knew how many races had walked the road to extinction. The continuity of those civilizations had never caused God to pause. Even if the woman had saved Joan, that act carried no particular favor toward humanity.

“This is… frightening.” Camilla Dary’s voice dropped to nearly nothing.

“I hope I’m wrong.” Roland let out a slow breath. “But since we need to stop the Battle of Divine Will, I’m afraid God is a confrontation we can’t avoid.”

“This is the price.”

“Stop your foolish act. You don’t even know what you’re up against!”

“Everything will be reduced to nothingness, and our endeavors over the past thousands of years will be wasted.”

“You can’t… bear the heavy guilt brought about by such a… horrific atrocity—”

The words returned, playing back as though running on a loop he hadn’t chosen to start.

After paying the price, the Battle of Divine Will still continues today. How can it possibly be stopped?

In the Dream World or here — in that world or this one — the battle was always waiting.

Sedimentation Bay, Kingdom of Wolfheart.

The residential district the demons had occupied was now ruins, and little more. But the First Army’s reinforcements had steadily arrived, weapons and personnel both, and the enemy had been surprised and unprepared. Within a month the demons had been pushed out of the city entirely.

The Red Mist storage towers in the central plaza had been reduced to rubble by the Longsong Cannons. The original demon plan had been to bring in Blackstones mined from the north, and have the lesser demons — those who needed no Red Mist to survive — build more towers in other cities. It had looked imposing on paper. But the towers still under construction were bombarded before they were finished.

The human counterattack advanced at a visible pace. Demon-controlled territory shrank week by week, and the first signs of recovery began to show. The city itself was still broken, but the dock hummed with activity again. The demons had destroyed most of the roads and the piers during their retreat; the engineering team had rebuilt temporary routes within a week.

For those who had fled south through the Red Mist at great risk, this was unambiguously good news. But not everyone who had escaped thought so.

“Damn it, the rumors were true.” Negan Murray stared at the sentry posts along the road and spat. “Who knew the demons assigned to finish off Graycastle would be so useless.”

“They’re both monsters. It only matters which side is more ruthless.” Talos Murray replied without particular feeling. The scarf covered half his face, beneath it scars that crossed the skin like pale worms buried just below the surface. “But now that the demons have lost the support of the nobles, the Wimbledon family will soon have nothing left. We don’t need to worry about any of that.” His gaze moved over the long line of refugees ahead of them, and something cold sharpened in it. “We only need to deal with him…”

“Yes.” Negan’s voice quickened. “Anyone who relies on that man from Graycastle is our enemy. We’ll make them pay.”

“For now we endure.” Talos gripped his brother’s shoulder. “Wait for first light. Then think about hunting.”

The demons had never acknowledged their own retreat, but the facts were plain enough: the number of monsters near Neverwinter had fallen. Unlike the city’s common inhabitants, the noble families had their own channels for information from the front. The knowledge that the demons were losing to Graycastle spread through those circles like water through a crack, and with it came panic.

Talos had no large estates to burden him, only a knight’s deed and a grudge. He had refused to serve the demons and refused to shelter beneath Graycastle. Everwinter was a dead end. Moving to neutral ground, some place neither army controlled, was the rational choice.

Besides — hunters could hunt refugees anywhere.

He had time for revenge. More accurately, he had time for pleasure. Somewhere in the past months the distinction between the two had quietly dissolved. He had grown fond of the power in it: the begging, the rolling, the howling. The warm blood afterward, and the way the pain in his scars dulled after, as though the wounds accepted the offering.

The clan was gone. Why pretend otherwise?

If this was all that was left, he would have it in full.

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