Chapter 94: Witch of Frost, Descend Judgment! (Patreon)

"Mother, is it really you? Are you really watching us?!"

Clarissa screamed the words in despair inside her head.

As a veteran among the Beloved Children who had followed Capella for a long time, she knew exactly what became of those whom Mother branded traitors. It was agony and torment beyond measure. Compared to that, even death could be called a mercy.

While her thoughts were still in turmoil, the group reached the central hub of the royal capital's sewers.

It was a vast circular water-collection basin where several enormous drainage channels converged. The sewage pooled below, a stinking dark green, and the gurgling roar of the current was the only sound here.

Petelgeuse halted. He tilted his head to one side, his eyes sweeping the empty space ahead, his face full of bewilderment.

"Where is the Witch? Where is the holy Lady Envy? Why... why is she not here?"

"Could it be... that we are late? No! Impossible! We have been so diligent. How could such an oversight occur?!"

Even now, Petelgeuse still suspected that he had made some error somewhere. His hands clawed frantically at his cheeks, and he let out a wail like a ghost's howl.

"Impossible, impossible, impossible! Where did it go wrong? Lady Witch! Why would you treat your beloved devotee this way? Why—"

"This ends here, villain."

A clear, icy voice came from the passage behind them. Petelgeuse and Clarissa whipped around together. Emilia, in a purple-and-white cloak, was slowly stepping out of the shadows.

Behind her stood Elsa, the "Bowel Hunter," a bloodthirsty smile on her face and a pair of massive blades in her hands, one black and one white. Beside her, Meili the Mabeast Handler blinked her eyes with a look of complete innocence.

Clarissa swallowed hard.

"Elsa, Meili, you..."

"Turned traitor? That's right," Elsa answered for her. "The one we serve now is our new 'Mother.' Isn't that right, Meili?"

"Hehe, that's right, Clarissa. You're probably done for~"

It was over!

Those were the only words left in Clarissa's mind.

Their declaration confirmed her original suspicion beyond doubt: Capella had never died at all. Her earlier disappearance had merely been part of a scheme to possess a corpse and replace this silver-haired half-elf! Otherwise, how could Meili ever have switched sides?

Yes, Meili feared Mother more than anyone. She was the last person who would ever betray her!

"P-please forgive me! Mother! Don't... don't kill me!"

Without a second thought, Clarissa dropped to her knees with a thud. Tears streaming down her face, she begged for forgiveness from the person she believed to be "Mother."

Unfortunately, Emilia said nothing. She neither granted forgiveness nor refused it. The terror of that unknown fate shattered Clarissa's last psychological defenses. She trembled like a sieve and curled up on the ground, not daring to rise.

If Clarissa's heart was ashes, then Petelgeuse was utterly overjoyed. He cupped his cheeks in both hands, tears of excitement spilling down.

"Oh... oh!! What a... what a wonderful day! What an auspicious day! What a glorious destiny! Witch... Lady Witch! Beacon of our love! Have you finally deigned to appear before us?"

For a devout fanatic like him, seeing the Witch's true face with his own eyes was without question the highest reward. Petelgeuse sank completely into a state of blissful rapture. Emilia watched, dumbfounded. Weeping while flailing and dancing like a madman was far more visually striking than the movements he produced by controlling his "Finger."

"I'm sorry." Emilia shook her head. "I'm not the Witch you worship."

"If anything, I'm the one who will put an end to your atrocities!"

The moment she finished speaking, Meili reacted at once. She pressed a finger to her lips and blew a whistle. As the shrill sound echoed through the hollow sewer, a rustle of countless flapping wings rose from the passages, and then the ground began to shake violently.

BOOM—!!

With a dull, heavy rumble, an enormous black shadow burst out of the passage. Its body was armored in thick black rock, and it opened a broad mouth lined with flat teeth and let out a muffled roar. Each time its four stubby limbs dragged its body forward, its vast bulk carved deep scratches into the hard stone walls around it.

This was the Mabeast Meili had spoken of, the Wagpig. The grating noise of its movement jangled Clarissa's already raw nerves. She no longer dared lift her head to see what was happening. Like an ostrich, she held her kneeling pose and shivered.

In the cracks of the stone beside the Wagpig, countless tiny eyes glowing crimson lit up, packed tightly together. These were Black Winged Rats, a colony species native to the sewers. They filled much the same niche as rats on Earth, though they looked more like bats.

The sight of tens of thousands of Black Winged Rats massing amid shrill squeaks was spectacular. Like a black tide, they writhed over the walls and surged over one another into the comparatively wide basin, encircling the black-robed Witch Cultists.

The blanket of Black Winged Rats swept over the cultists, pouncing on them and gnawing frantically. Amid scalp-crawling sounds of flesh being torn apart, several blood-soaked black robes collapsed hollow, with nothing left inside but clean white bones. Elsa leapt forward into that dark current, the two specially made blades in her hands slashing and thrusting in rapid succession, reaping the cultists' lives.

"Oh my, oh my. It's been so long since I've enjoyed this feeling."

Elsa licked the corner of her mouth, and a bloodthirsty light long absent shone in her eyes.

"This feeling of killing to my heart's content!"

Before she could finish, a ritual dagger thrown by one of the cultists plunged into her left eye. Blood spurted out, yet she acted as though nothing had happened. She calmly pulled the dagger free, and the wound closed at an unbelievable speed, leaving only a bewitching streak of blood running down her cheek.

She studied the dagger, slick with her own blood, with interest. Her finger slid along the blade and carried a bead of blood to her lips, which she tasted gently.

"Well then... shall we begin?"

With a soft laugh, Elsa swung the white blade hard and cut one cultist's throat. The gush of blood drenched her in crimson. Then the black blade thrust out and drove deep into another cultist's abdomen, drawing out blood-soaked intestines.

Against the Black Winged Rats, which were fundamentally very weak, the cultists still had some room to fight back. Against the swift, lethal strikes of Elsa, the black-robed figures could only become her prey.

"In the way! In the way! In the way! In the way—"

Seeing this bizarre horde about to stand between him and the Witch's affection, Petelgeuse shrieked hysterically. A dozen or so pitch-black Unseen Hand erupted from his body, scattering the Black Winged Rats that closed in on him and slamming toward the Wagpig in the middle of the passage.

The Wagpig immediately lowered its body and let the Unseen Hand pound again and again against its thick hide without budging an inch. Against attacks the naked eye couldn't detect, the thick-skinned Wagpig was clearly the ideal main tank for the party. It only had to hold the front.

"Everyone, please step back. From here... leave it to me."

Julius, sword in hand, slowly walked out of the passage behind the Wagpig. Around him, quasi-spirits of six different colors, red, blue, green, yellow, black and white, glowed faintly.

"Ia, Kua, Aro, Iku, Nes, In..."

His expression solemn, he recited the true names of the six quasi-spirits he was contracted with. As he spoke, the light from the six spirits grew brighter. One by one they wound themselves around the blade of the knight's sword in his hand, bathing the whole weapon in a dreamlike, rainbow-like sheen.

"—Al Clauzeria!"

Julius's gaze sharpened, and he swung his sword down.

In an instant, a vast and dazzling rainbow storm of light, gathered from the mana of six elements, erupted through the sewer with a thunderous roar.

The light was so brilliant that it lit the entire basin like daylight. The intense glare was agonizing for the nocturnal Black Winged Rats, which scattered and fled in all directions, leaving the cultists who fought to the death staring around in a daze.

Elsa performed a backflip, leaping clear of the corpses of the cultists strewn around her. The rainbow light grazed her back as she narrowly dodged it. The cultists weren't nearly so lucky.

From a viewpoint no one else could see, the swarm of Unseen Hand was torn to pieces by this devastating pillar of mana. Thunderous explosions echoed madly through the underground space, shaking the stone walls overhead until they cracked and rained down fine gravel.

With a single strike, of the several hundred Witch Cultists, only a handful remained barely standing.

Petelgeuse, too, was a wreck in the storm of light. Even though he had used the full power of the Unseen Hand to protect himself, he was now battered all over. His black robe was ripped open in several places, revealing flayed, mangled wounds. Yet he seemed not to feel the pain at all. He burst into mad laughter, his eyes locked on the spot where Emilia stood.

"Magnificent! Magnificent!! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! Lady Witch, this is the supreme proof of our love! To die in a slaughter that the Witch herself arranged. What manner of favored devotee could earn such an honor?!"

"As expected, our diligence has won the Witch's recognition. Hee hee hee, ha ha ha! Witch, this is your purpose, isn't it? To make this massacre a sacrifice to the Dragon of Finality—"

"Petelgeuse!"

Emilia coldly cut off his raving. Stepping through the blood and stone dust that covered the ground, she walked toward the madman one step at a time.

Sensing her movement, the crystal on her body stirred violently. Puck, clearly not receiving enough mana, was trying to force himself out to stop Emilia from going further. She clamped it tightly in her palm and pressed him back.

"I can handle this alone, Puck."

Emilia spoke in a low voice, almost to herself.

"And I have to handle it alone..."

With each step she took, overwhelming mana spread outward. A suffocating, terrifying chill radiated from her entire body. The blood her boots trod on instantly froze into crimson crystals that cracked with a crisp sound, and the moisture in the air froze into fine ice crystals that drifted down, gleaming a faint blue in the dim light.

To Petelgeuse, that dignified expression tinged with a trace of pity, that unquestionable, supreme, icy beauty, was without doubt exactly how the Witch ought to look when she appeared in the world. Tears of excitement mingled with the blood on his face, and he nearly threw himself to the ground at once to pay his highest respects to this beacon of love.

"Witch Cult Sin Archbishop, Sloth's Representative, Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti."

Emilia spoke his title in a deep voice.

"In the name of a royal candidate and of Lugnica, I hereby pronounce judgment upon your crimes—"

"Death!"

Emilia's eyes hardened. She raised her right hand and spread her five fingers, and a biting wind burst from within her, whipping her long silver hair into the air.

In barely the blink of an eye, countless deadly flowers of ice, formed from azure crystal, bloomed across Petelgeuse's body. They froze him from the bottom up into an ice sculpture. The fanatical Sin Archbishop offered no resistance from start to finish and let Emilia freeze him.

"Love... this is the Witch's love! My life... offered to the great Witch, to the great Dragon of Finality! Diligence, diligence, diligence, diligence! This is true diligence!"

"It's over, Petelgeuse."

Emilia's voice was soft, but it carried a sigh like release.

One by one, the fingers of her right hand curled inward until they were clenched into a fist.

For some reason, a pang of grief struck her, as though she had personally sent someone once dear to her into the grave. It made her hesitate for a moment.

That brief hesitation kept Emilia from taking the madman's life outright. Instead, she did as Puck had told her and sealed him in ice, putting him into something like hibernation. It was enough to strip him of the ability to keep doing evil.

To everyone else, though, this spectacular "death" was far too striking. Even as he was frozen into a sculpture, Petelgeuse kept his frenzied grin, a chilling sight. Clarissa, who had secretly raised her eyes and witnessed the entire scene, finally lost every last shred of hope.

Too strong!

She was simply too strong!

She had destroyed a Sin Archbishop in a single exchange. With that kind of power, even if she wasn't the Witch herself, she was someone on par with a Sin Archbishop. In Clarissa's worldview, only one person could accomplish that—

Capella!

"Mother..."

Her voice shook, and she cried out even more fiercely than before.

"Mother! Mother! Please forgive me!! Clarissa is foolish! Clarissa deserves to die! I shouldn't have acted on my own, shouldn't have overstepped your authority!!"

"Everything I did... I did only to 'avenge' you! I didn't know you were still alive... If I had known, even if you gave Clarissa ten thousand times the courage, I would never have dared hide anything!!"

"Please... please, for the sake of Clarissa's loyalty to you all this time, spare my worthless life! Mother!!"

Clarissa sobbed and wailed, smashing her forehead against the hard ice again and again with dull thuds.

Her forehead soon swelled red and even began to bleed, but she noticed nothing. Like a dog without a master, she knelt humbly at Emilia's feet, begging for an illusory forgiveness.