Chapter – 24
Was it a flashback of her entire life that appeared before Liliope’s eyes at that moment?
The first thing that spread across her vision was her sister’s flawless, clear smile, which she had only been able to see again after returning to the past.
The old connections with whom she had spent unpleasant times, even if briefly, also flashed through her mind for an instant, only to be extinguished, pushed away by the stench of blood mixed with the dry smell of earth.
And then, the unfulfilled wish she had left behind in the black forest in the rain…
‘No.’
Liliope screamed silently.
‘I can’t die like this…!’
It was impossible for a miracle, hard to encounter even once in a lifetime, to come knocking twice.
Therefore, she had to do something, anything, by her own power.
Even if she failed and her entire body turned to dust, it would still be better than dying a meaningless dog’s death like this!
Faat!
As mana was forcibly drawn from her immature mana core, a shocking, excruciating pain, unlike anything Liliope had ever experienced, washed over her.
The voice in her head shouted something, but it didn’t reach Liliope’s ears.
Fortunately, the mana, guided more by instinct than by conscious thought, moved faster than she could process. However, she was someone who had lived her whole life as a half-breed and had never once properly used magic.
Her accumulated experience was absurdly insufficient to instantly materialize the spells she only knew in theory.
The mana, having lost its direction and control, began to run wild, showing signs of going berserk.
But the moment the magic circle, which had barely begun to take form, was about to disperse into smoke, leaving behind a pitiful afterimage, Liliope’s mana began to move again, tracing a precarious trajectory.
It was as if, unconsciously, it was moving to find the optimal method she needed to survive.
In response, the surrounding space-time distorted silently out of sync. And immediately after, the wind that had been brushing against Liliope’s body ceased, as if it were an illusion.
The scorched vine leaves fluttering in the air also stopped moving abruptly, still touching her pale cheek.
Simultaneously, the silence of the earth descended.
The void of the world.
A colorless landscape fallen into hibernation.
Within the frozen time, the fear-etched, distorted faces of Zed’s group looked like pictures in a frame.
The silver-haired boy before her also froze in place, his clothes and hair mid-flutter, like a creature taxidermied while still alive.
Only Liliope, as if she were the sole living being permitted to breathe on the land, was alive and moving dynamically, standing alone upon a reality detached from the original one.
Kwa-kwaang!
Clearly, such a bizarre event had occurred for only a brief moment, barely long enough to blink slowly once or twice.
But that was enough to dodge the incoming spell.
Immediately after, the light that had fallen like a thunderbolt struck its target in an instant.
Just like a bug touched by the hot sun’s rays perishes without a trace, Zed and his companions met their end instantly without even uttering a single scream.
The boy’s magic was this perfect, but the result was not.
“You dodged it?”
A voice full of doubt flew towards Liliope, who was lying prone on the ground, clutching her chest and writhing in pain.
“How?”
The boy’s head tilted sideways, as if he couldn’t begin to guess the cause of this unpredictable outcome.
“I don’t understand. Let me try once more.”
And then, an outrageously violent spell struck Liliope once again.
“Ugh, hk… Uuuk…”
This time too, Liliope narrowly avoided the magic and survived.
Although it was so terribly painful that it felt as if her overdriven mana core hadn’t just shattered to pieces but had been pulverized into dust.
“I couldn’t see you move this time either. It doesn’t seem to be teleportation magic.”
Finally, the boy’s steps touched the ground.
“Is it your innate magic? It’s a mana combination I’ve never seen before. How did you do it?”
He approached right up close to Liliope and looked down at her with eyes that held not a single speck of warmth.
Eyes that still seemed to treat her like a bug or an inanimate object.
The faintly remaining embers of emotion within Liliope flared up.
“I… I can’t die…!”
The next moment, a distinct vividness appeared for the first time in the boy’s pupils as he saw Liliope’s face, now lifted towards him.
Contrary to his expectation that the girl would be crying from fear, despair, or pain in her final moments, she was instead glaring fiercely at him with dry eyes, devoid of any tears.
“I said I can’t die yet, damn you…!”
Stab!
And the next moment, a knife was embedded in the boy’s instep. The chipped and worn-out knife was one that Zed had dropped earlier from the bug’s entrails.
Although the distance between Liliope and the boy was very close, it wasn’t so close that he couldn’t have avoided the attack.
But this time too, the boy didn’t see Liliope stabbing the knife into his instep.
Even though he hadn’t taken his eyes off her for a single moment, it was as if someone had forcibly cut out a piece of time and spliced it back together; by the time he perceived the situation, it was already over.
If she hadn’t been lying prone on the ground, unable to even lift her body, could she have plunged the knife into his heart instead?
Belkis stared at Liliope, her face full of resentment, with a gaze as if he were looking at a rare creature he was seeing for the first time, his eyes somewhat unfamiliar.
However, that gaze went beyond mere probing or observation; it was persistently tenacious, as if intent on slicing through the other’s flesh, scraping the bones, burrowing deep into their entrails, and imprinting every detail into his eyes.
Liliope’s eyes were a purple color, resembling the twilight sky just as the morning star begins to rise.
The intense light held within them was so hot, it seemed it would burn everything around her and even herself to ashes.
The persistent stare, which seemed like it would last forever, was severed by a black butterfly that flew in from somewhere just then.
“You’re interesting.”
The next moment, a low laugh echoed by Liliope’s ear, like an illusion.
The knife embedded in the boy’s instep pulled itself out and fell to the ground.
“Go on, live, then.”
Before Liliope could even react to the arrogant words that sounded like permission, a swarm of black butterflies obscured her vision.
“I’ll watch to see how you struggle in this filthy mud pit.”
As she reflexively closed her eyes against the strong wind and looked ahead again, the boy had already vanished from before Liliope’s eyes without a trace.
As if it had all been a dream in the dead of night.
[Hey, are you alright? Hey, Contractor…!]
Her nerves, which had been wound tight with tension the whole time, seemed to snap upon reaching their limit, and a belated sense of exhaustion washed over her.
The voice in her head, urgently calling her, finally began to be audible again.
But Liliope, completely drained of energy, couldn’t answer and slid down to the ground with a slump, losing consciousness for a while.
