Chapter 550: The Slaughter
Agatha moved like weather.
As she advanced, a mirror-smooth road of crystal ice crystallized ahead of her feet — there, then there, then there — each panel forming before her weight arrived, the ground itself becoming an extension of her will. She crossed the open ground between the trees and the first Devilbeast in a flash of motion that left only the sound of frost forming.
Her hands opened.
The frost spread. It came from the ground and from the air in the same breath, climbing the Devilbeast’s legs in cold white rings that thickened and merged. The beast shrieked, spread its wings for flight — the frost was faster. Haunches, shoulders, neck. Wings. In seconds, the Devilbeast stood frozen mid-panic, an ice sculpture of something that had almost escaped.
Maggie, meanwhile, threw herself onto the back of the nearest dancing Devilbeast and got her jaws around its neck. The beast was strong. It was not strong enough. In Maggie’s beast form, the size difference was absolute — she held it down the way a full-grown animal holds down a young one, with simple, patient dominance. The Devilbeast thrashed and couldn’t. Then Maggie twisted her head and the neck gave. The frozen statue, struck by the falling body, detonated into splinters of pale ice and bone.
The third Devilbeast woke up and launched itself into the air.
Too late.
Agatha was already moving up.
The ice road extended into empty air ahead of her footsteps — each step crystallizing the space it needed a fraction before she needed it — and she ran up the arc of it as the Devilbeast climbed, closing the distance between them with the ease of someone descending stairs. The frost moved from her hands to the tail of the beast, climbed, expanded. The Devilbeast became a sculpture in mid-flight, wings still at the peak of their extension.
The ice road cracked under the added weight. Agatha fell.
Maggie was beneath her before she hit the ground.
The ice sculpture struck and burst across the grass.
Twenty seconds. Three Devilbeasts.
Sylvie, pressed against the tree trunk with her hands clasped over her mouth, let herself breathe.
The cartridge snapped shut with a clean click.
Nightingale had heard Leaf’s signal — plan A canceled, plan B in effect — and had already adjusted. Iffy’s role was gone. The task now was simple: clear the path for Anna.
She thought of Roland’s voice at the dock.
Bring her back. Whatever it costs.
Something tightened in her chest. She pressed her hand there briefly, then let it go. This was not the time and not the place, and she had known it wasn’t when he said it. If she examined the feeling now, she would find only the familiar truth: that Roland was right, and that she would do what he asked because she had always done what he asked, and because Anna was worth protecting for reasons that had nothing to do with Roland.
Anna had saved all of them, in the early days. Before the iron came, before the guns, before any of it. She had saved them one by one.
Nightingale would not be selfish now.
The Mist opened around her.
In the misty world, the forest flattened into planes of shifting black and white — trunks becoming abstract barriers, leaves becoming noise, the sky above a pale grey field. What held color was magic. The trees glowed faintly green where Leaf’s power moved through them. And ahead, three shapes: one the dull yellow of a Mad Demon, blue light moving inside it; two with more complex internal light, swirls and currents of magic power concentrated most heavily at their foreheads. The ones Leaf had named Fearsome Demons.
The Senior Demon was not among them. Above the forest, monitoring. She kept that knowledge where she could reach it.
The three demons had walked past the ambush point. She moved.
In the Mist, distance collapsed. A dozen meters in one step — she was behind the Fearsome Demon before it registered that the sound of footsteps behind it had not been there before.
She pressed the gun barrel to the back of its skull.
She fired.
The sound in the Mist was enormous — it always was. But it was what she saw that stayed with her: the Fearsome Demon’s head bloomed outward from the inside, matter dispersing in all directions, and at the center of the expanding debris, the red mist vessel that had been hidden in its body rose like steam from a wound.
The second Fearsome Demon spun. The scarring on its face began to move — the furrows spreading, the ridges parting, the eyes opening.
Vines came from the canopy.
They hit the demon’s head from above and behind, wrenching it backward before the eyes could complete their opening, holding it there. Leaf.
The Mad Demon at the front turned at the gunshot. Its gaze landed on the Fearsome Demon being held by its face — and whatever it saw in the revealed expression sent it rigid with fear. Its own instincts used against it.
Nightingale fired three more times into the Fearsome Demon Leaf was holding. Before the last shot’s echo faded, Anna dropped from her hiding place in the tree above and the Blackfire came — clean and absolute, cutting the demon apart before the Mad Demon recovered from its paralysis.
“Careful!”
Lightning’s warning came from above the canopy.
Nightingale looked up.
A shadow crossed the gap in the leaves. Something enormous and fast. A blade the length of a man, falling.
She threw herself into the Mist.
The misty world broke.
Not the way a thought breaks — not gradually, not metaphorically. It broke, the grey field shattering into pieces and collapsing, the shapes dissolving, the colors snuffing out. Her power cut off at the root. The Mist that had been her home for years failed all at once, and she was back in the world of hard ground and daylight and a shadow that was already descending.
It breaks magic. How?
No time for the question.
The blow came.
Something black moved between her and the blade.
It caught the sword’s edge and held. The blow drove its wielder back a step — Anna, teeth clenched, both arms up, the Blackfire spread flat and hard as a physical object between them. The sword hit it again. Anna’s whole body shook. The Blackfire didn’t break.
Nightingale caught Anna around the waist. The Mist reconstituted — barely, unsteadily, as though whatever had broken it was still interfering at the edges. She did not wait for stability. She stepped them both twenty meters sideways in the same heartbeat.
They appeared in a gap between two pines. Anna leaned against the nearest trunk, arms shaking, expression controlled with visible effort.
In the clearing behind them, the armored demon descended the rest of the way to the ground without hurry.
It stood for a moment. Its partner was dead and this seemed to require no acknowledgement. Then it raised the great sword level with its chest, and the magic power that Nightingale could barely see — still fractured, still not fully recovered — surged into the blade.
The blade blazed.
Runes along the steel caught light and held it, burning in patterns that had nothing to do with fire. The demon pointed the sword at the gap where they had been standing.
It had already found them.
Chapter 550: The Slaughter
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
It was Sylvie’s first time seeing such an incredible method of movement.
As Agatha moved, a mirror-like road, paved by crystal ice, would appear just ahead of her. She seemed to be floating along the road, almost as if the ground was pushing her forward. In a flash, she had arrived at the rear of the first Devilbeast.
When Agatha stretched out her hands, the frost suddenly appeared around the grassland and it even started to snow! After a moment, the Devilbeast gave out a shriek and it tried to fly, only to find it could not move at all. Each of its four strong limbs had been frozen in place and the ice crystals continued to move up along them, completely freezing its body and wings in no time.
Almost simultaneously, Maggie threw herself onto the back of the dancing Devilbeast and snapped at its neck with her huge crimson mouth. The Devilbeast was in such a panic and it wanted to get rid of Maggie. However, Maggie was much larger. The Devilbeast was like a baby beast that was being suppressed by a full-grown beast. Then, Maggie got a grip and broke its neck completely. At last, the Devilbeast was defeated and with a final swish of its tail, it shattered the poor frozen beast, smashing it to pieces.
At this moment, the third Devilbeast began to realize what had just happened. Although it did not understand why its kind would kill each other, he knew something bad had happened and it spread its long wings and rose into the air.
But it was too late.
Agatha followed it and also “flew”.
Or rather, she was walking in the air.
The ice crystals also extended to the Devilbeast and for a while, it formed a bridge in the air. Agatha ran along the ice bridge and soon she was close enough she could use her magic power to attack this Devilbeast.
Sylvie could not help but cover her mouth in shock.
Like a swift Viper, the ice bridge froze the tail of the Devilbeast and then quickly turned the rest of it into an ice sculpture.
Probably due to the heavy weight of the frozen beast, the end of the ice bridge tilted, cracked, and then snapped. Agatha began to fall from the bridge, fortunately, Maggie caught her. However, the ice sculpture fell to the ground and broke into thousands of pieces.
It took less than 20 seconds for them to kill all three of the demonic beasts.
This was the way in which senior witches engaged in a combat!
Sylvie could not help but feel envious of Agatha.
…
“Kacha.”
After checking the bullets in the barrel, Nightingale shut the cartridge.
Just then, she heard Leaf’s warnings about the changes made to the enemy attacks, and that plan A for the Melting Point Action had changed to plan B.
That meant Iffy’s task had been canceled and it was her turn to combat these enemies.
But, what was most important was for them to provide opportunities for Anna to discharge the Sigil of God’s Will.
Nightingale could not help but recall Roland’s words once she thought of Anna.
“Anyway, take her back, please.”
“I’ll leave it all to you.”
She clutched her chest and bit her lip.
This plan should be completed with ease but she found an indescribable emotion in her heart.
As the task became increasingly tougher, the emotion became unexpectedly stronger.
“If the most terrible thing happened, that would mean Anna could also die…” she thought.
“Oh, no—unless I die.” Nightingale shook her head and suppressed this horrible idea. Roland trusted her the most, so she could not let him down. Even if Roland did not instruct her to do so specifically, she would protect Anna at all costs.
In a sense, Anna was the savior of all the witches in the Witch Cooperation Association.
She would never forgive herself if Anna died because of her selfishness.
“The enemies are coming!”
Leaf gave her a warning and Nightingale gathered herself. She was ready to outflank the enemies as soon as their direction was pointed out by Leaf.
Her world of mist was commonly a desolate and dull place. Anything mundane and not related to magic power would become nothing more than twisted lines and changeable black and white blocks. This was her first time seeing so many colors, thanks to the demons.
Beside the green forest, she could see a muted yellow arm from one of the Mad Demons and its inside emitting a shade of light blue. The other two demons should be the Fearsome Demons that Leaf had just mentioned. They
had a stronger magical resonance and she could see many magic swirls inside their bodies, the one on their forehead was the most obvious.
Another Senior Demon, which they needed to keep a particularly close eye on, was not among them. If their intelligence was correct, it should be monitoring everything from above the forest.
Without a doubt, the Fearsome Demons, which would cause fear, should be the first to kill.
And, it should be done before they opened their eyes.
After the three demons passed through the ambush points, Nightingale held the gun with both hands and used her instant leap to travel more than ten meters in the twinkling of an eye. She pointed her gun at the back of the Fearsome Demon’s head.
It was so close to her that she did not even have to leave her Mist. As long as she had some luck, the gun barrel would not be split in half by the powerful magic.
She immediately shot and for a moment, there was a thunderous roar.
In the Mist, the Fearsome Demon’s head abruptly puffed up, as if the unstoppable bullet had been shot from inside of its head and blown outward. Its brain exploded, spilling brain matter in all directions. Next, a hail of fog soared skyward—Nightingale noticed its red mist vessel was hidden directly inside its body.
The other Fearsome Demon turned around quickly, and its bloody scar expanded across its face, trying to reveal its fearsome eyes. Suddenly several vines shot from the top of a tree, intertwining its head and pulling its head back before the eyes could be revealed. At this moment, a Mad Demon in the front turned around at the sound of the gunshot and ended up staring at the Fearsome Demon and could not help but tremble with fear.
Nightingale shot the three remaining bullets into the Fearsome Demon which had been forcibly pulled back by Leaf. Meanwhile, Anna leaped from her
hiding place in the tree and cut the beast into pieces with her black fire before the Mad Demon could recover itself from the fear.
“Be careful!”
Lightning, who had been enticing the enemies into the air, shouted.
Nightingale looked up and found that a large sword was about to slash her.
She instinctively tried to enter the Mist, but unexpectedly, her misty world was broken into pieces by the enemy who was wielding the sword.
“What’s this ability? It can break my magic power?” she thought.
It was too late for her to escape. Suddenly a black curtain spread out above her head and withstood the sword’s attack. Unlike an actual curtain, it seemed to have more of a mirror-like surface and she could even see her shocked expression reflected on its surface.
This is… the Blackfire!
“Bang!”
The sword hit the Blackfire fiercely and Anna looked pained, her body shaking, but her Blackfire remained intact.
Without any hesitation, this time, Nightingale caught Anna quickly and summoned the Mist again, escaping to a safe place over 20 meters away, instantly.
Meanwhile, the armored demon also slowly fell towards the ground.
The death of its partner did not seem to have any impact on it. The demon calmly lifted the large sword, engraved with a strange pattern, and suddenly the magic power surged toward the blade of the sword.
The blade gave off a dazzling glow!