Flame against flame. Frost against frost.
Angel rapidly consumed her spirituality, wielding the Witch's various extraordinary abilities in a relentless barrage against the gray-haired Pleasure Witch before her.
But her opponent possessed the same abilities, and with the enhancement of a higher-sequence potion, her attacks were even more devastating.
Amid flying shards of ice and surging waves of black flame that ignited and extinguished, the Pleasure Witch's eyes curved with a smile as she passively defended against each attack.
She seemed utterly unconcerned with winning or losing the battle, merely responding defensively, stalling for time as she waited for something to happen.
"Just like last time, it's only you and me, while your teammates struggle over there," the witch said, dodging an incoming black flame with ease. "But this time, they won't have a chance to escape."
That alluring voice spoke words that filled Angel with fury.
"Do you know me?"
The witch's malice toward her was unmistakable, but aside from that incident when the Nighthawks had followed clues to destroy their stronghold and dismantle the cursed altar, Angel couldn't recall any personal grudge between them.
"I'd recognize you even if you were burned to ashes," the stunningly beautiful woman with gray-white hair said hatefully, her smile vanishing. "Actually, that's not a bad idea. After your teammates die one by one before your eyes, I'll burn you to ashes as an offering to Randi."
The spider silk around her suddenly converged, attempting to bind Angel, only to be ignited by black flames that materialized from the void, burning to wisps of smoke.
"Randi? Who is that?"
Hearing the confusion in Angel's question, the witch's face suddenly contorted with rage. She charged forward against a barrage of frost spears, transforming into glass fragments at the moment of impact, then reappearing at close range, her curse-flame-wreathed dagger thrusting forward viciously.
Unable to dodge in time, Angel was pierced through the body. The cursed black flames on the blade instantly spread across her entire form. Then this flame-wreathed figure thinned and shrank, becoming a tattered paper doll that turned to ash.
Reappearing beside the witch, Angel raised "Thirst" and pulled the trigger.
At point-blank range, her opponent's combat expertise allowed her to deflect the shot with her arm. The bullet grazed past the gray-white hair, taking a lock with it.
Damn it. Fighting someone from the same pathway is indeed much harder than bullying other sequences.
Frowning, Angel twisted her wrist to aim again, but her opponent's agile movements dodged the shot. Being too close, she couldn't evade the counterattacking dagger, which slashed across her abdomen, leaving a bloody mark.
Raising the bloodied blade, the Pleasure Witch's lips curved into a smile. She reached out to collect a drop of blood, about to cast a curse that would make her enemy wail in agony.
"Waaah—"
An infant's cry rang throughout the entire park plaza.
Angel felt as if she'd been struck hard on the head. Her vision darkened again, and breathing became difficult.
Just like when she'd advanced to Instigator, the little spirituality remaining in her body churned and surged. Her exposed arms turned purple-black.
The cry nearly made her lose control entirely.
Fortunately, the wailing didn't come again. Angel gritted her teeth and struggled to stabilize her body and the changes in her spirituality.
The Pleasure Witch before her was in even worse condition. Whether due to emotional instability or having consumed too much spirituality in battle, under the evil god's child's cry, all the witch's gray-white hair rose up, each strand thickening as if becoming writhing serpents.
"I didn't expect that bastard would calculate me into his plans too..."
A bitter smile crossed her face, then her pale features were covered by black veins crawling up from her neck to her cheeks.
"Boom—"
A thunderous explosion echoed from the plaza center behind Angel, followed by blazing sunlight that illuminated them both.
"At least... I'll kill you first!"
The witch let out a garbled roar, her face covered in black veins looking demonic under the light. Gripping her dagger with both hands, she charged at Angel.
Angel easily dodged the chaotic, unpracticed attacks, sidestepping to create distance before firing three consecutive shots.
"Bang bang bang—"
Curse-flame-wreathed bullets tore through the body of the losing-control witch, igniting a wall of black fire.
In the soaring flames, the twisted, deformed figure transformed into a black wand that turned to ash in the flames that had special effects on spiritual objects.
The last shred of rationality had made Mitis instinctively use Wand Substitution to avoid the Witch's signature curse flames.
Her body appeared dozens of meters up in mid-air, still burning with lingering black flames, though no longer lethal.
What was lethal was her physical condition—her extraordinary power that had already spiraled out of control...
Knowing her fate was sealed, Mitis felt strangely calm inside.
From her height, she looked down at the source of her loss of control.
Megose's headless body was curled in the center of the steaming plaza. The second Sunfire Charm had nearly killed the tenacious woman.
But her swollen abdomen had already torn open with a gaping wound. Inside, dark tides surged, and crimson light flickered—as if some terrible entity would crawl from her broken body at any moment to descend upon Tingen City.
C, dressed in a blood-colored robe—the Rose Bishop from the Aurora Order she'd conspired with—now knelt beside Megose, loudly reciting prayers.
The three Nighthawks were equally miserable.
The young Nighthawk whose left hand Mitis had severed still maintained the posture of throwing a charm. His severed arm hung down, the wound pumping blood with each heartbeat, but the blood was absorbed entirely by the black threads floating in the air, barely any spilling to the ground.
Another Nighthawk leaned against the stone speaking platform, blood flowing from his nose and mouth, eyes tightly closed, his life or death uncertain. The thick, crimson blood vessel lay discarded beside him.
The Nighthawk captain holding Saint Selena's ashes had a mangled, bloody chest—wounds he'd torn open himself. Through the gaping opening, one could almost see his slowly stopping heart.
So... we were all in that bastard's calculations...
Mitis felt a flash of understanding.
But it didn't matter. The evil god was about to descend. Whether it was that Witch who'd killed Randi or those people she cared most about, they would all die here. That was enough...
Feeling her body beginning to fall, the losing-control witch slowly closed her eyes.
Whoosh—
The black flames about to extinguish on her body suddenly flared more intensely. That witch she'd mentally sentenced to death appeared in mid-air, that exquisitely beautiful face with deep purple eyes looking at her without emotion.
Then that face was obscured by a black revolver emanating a bloody aura.
A flash of light bright enough to sear the retina tore through the sky, piercing downward through Mitis's chest, through C as he lunged toward Megose to sacrifice himself, through the evil god's child about to be born in Megose's womb.
The True Creator's final cry in Tingen was shattered by the "Shattered Light Ray."
Questioning turn-based combat, understanding turn-based combat, becoming turn-based combat.