One by one, the villagers rushed back into the central square. But instead of the relief they expected, they were met with a scene that sent a wave of inexplicable unease through the crowd.
In the center of the square, a massive bonfire roared.
The crimson flames churned violently, casting a hue over the surroundings that made it look as if the square were drenched in blood. As the light flickered, the shadows of the surrounding buildings twisted and jerked, looking like monsters lurking in the dark, writhing in silence.
And there sat Selphira.
She was perched comfortably on a wooden chair by the fire, swinging her feet back and forth. A sweet, radiant smile lit up her face—the look of a child eagerly waiting for her family to return home.
Behind her stood nine silent figures, lined up with chilling precision.
They did not move. Not even a finger twitched. The fire stretched their stiff, upright shadows across the cobblestones, making them look unnervingly long and macabre.
"Granny Chief!"
The moment Selphira saw her, she hopped off the chair with a joyful skip.
The Village Chief scanned the perimeter. Finding no trace of an invading army, she let out a secret breath of relief. Perhaps the danger had passed. She composed her expression, offering Selphira a small smile before speaking to the man standing nearest the fire.
"Pheros! What on earth happened? It was you who sent the emergency signal, wasn't it?"
However, Pheros stood perfectly straight beside the flames. Like a wooden doll, he offered not a single word of response.
The Chief's brow furrowed. Just as she was about to press him again, Selphira suddenly spoke up, her voice loud and bright.
"It was me! I'm the one who told everyone to come back! Because I have something very important to say!"
A flash of irritation crossed the Chief's mind. Pheros has indulged her far too much, she thought coldly. To mix up a dire emergency with a child's whim is unacceptable.
She turned her gaze toward the man standing beside Pheros—Selphira's father—and said sternly:
"Vesperis, do you also believe Selphira has something so 'important' that it justifies calling us back from the front lines?"
Selphira's smile remained dazzling. "That's right! Everyone understands, don't they?"
The nine figures nodded in unison, their movements stiff and synchronized. As the flames flickered, the atmosphere in the square turned abruptly oppressive and grotesque. Some of the gathered witches exchanged glances, a sudden, sharp chill creeping into their hearts.
The Village Chief suppressed the growing unease in her chest, her voice hardening. "Fine, Selphira. Then tell us—what is this 'important matter' of yours?"
"I knew Granny Chief would listen to me!" Selphira clapped her hands with delight. "What I wanted to say is—Evan is my friend. I want everyone to accept him happily. I want you to love him just as much as you love me."
The Chief's face darkened instantly.
"Vesperis! Take your daughter home! We are facing a crisis at this very moment. Once this has passed, I will have a conversation with you regarding her discipline."
Selphira tilted her head, a flash of cold, shadowy light crossing her eyes. "Eh? Granny Chief, are you refusing me? Didn't you say... that you doted on Selphira the most?"
The Chief, having no patience left for a child's delusions, turned her back and barked an order to the crowd: "Vesperis! I will say it one last time—take your daughter back! And all of you children hiding in the corners, take them away too! Set the sealing spells immediately; no one is permitted to leave their homes!"
Selphira lowered her head, her voice so soft it was barely a murmur.
"I see... so even Granny Chief is broken?"
The Chief's heart lurched. A sudden, violent intuition screamed that something was wrong!
"You—"
Before she could finish, a flash of azure light streaked through the air. The Chief was sent flying backward with a sickening thud.
The crowd erupted in screams. As she slid to the ground, they saw a bloody, hollow wound bored straight through her abdomen. Fresh blood gushed onto the stones. On the other side of the fire, Selphira's shadow was visibly retracting, a jagged black spike of solidified darkness melting back into the silhouette at her feet.
"Selphira!!"
A brilliant emerald light erupted from within the Chief. Her flesh began to writhe and knit together at an impossible speed, the wound closing before their very eyes through sheer, high-level Life Magic. Standing in a pool of her own blood, her gaze turned into cold iron. Her low, furious roar shattered the silence of the night sky.
Selphira pouted, her voice taking on a coaxing, spoiled tone as if she were merely chiding a restless toddler.
"Granny Chief, don't move around so much! If the wound gets too big, it'll take even longer for your soul and body to fuse after I repair you."
The Chief's expression turned ice-cold, her voice booming like a crack of thunder:
"By my command! Mark Selphira as a Maximum Threat immediately. Capture her with everything you have—show no mercy!"
Though the villagers were shaken to their core, their absolute trust in the Chief won out. Weapons were leveled and staves were raised. The air vibrated with the overlapping chants of dozens of witches, tension tightening like a bowstring drawn to the breaking point.
Selphira lightly stroked her own cheek, her gaze remaining innocent yet terrifyingly hollow.
"I didn't expect... that everyone would be broken too. I'm really, truly sad..."
In the next heartbeat, she flashed a bright, guileless smile, looking for all the world like a child playing in the sun.
"But it's okay! I'll work really hard to fix everyone!"
As the words left her lips, a gargantuan, surging wave of mana erupted from her small frame. The very heavens and earth seemed to tremble under the weight of it.
The Chief stared at the sheer volume of power—an overflow that felt as if it were straining the fabric of reality itself. She licked her dry, cracked lips and whispered under her breath:
"Her talent was always beyond measure... the greatest potential our village has ever seen, far surpassing any witch in history. But it seems we still underestimated this—monster!"
With a sudden, violent movement, the Chief slammed her palms onto the ground. A wave of emerald radiance rippled out from her, covering the entire village in a heartbeat. Instantly, every witch felt their stamina and regenerative powers double; their fighting spirit was reignited by the surge of life.
Selphira watched this, tilting her head. A cunning glint flashed in her eyes.
"Hmm... fixing everyone by myself is actually a little troublesome. Especially since Father and Mother can't fight flexibly yet. I guess... I should call for some help."
She spread her arms wide and began a low, rhythmic incantation:
"Water, Fire, Wind, and Earth—heed my call.With me as the center, and the shadow as the vow—Descend upon this realm, and sweep away every obstacle!"
BOOM!!!
The air collapsed inward as four elemental forces manifested simultaneously.
First came the Water Spirit. Coiling currents of abyssal blue surged and condensed, eventually forming a massive knight crafted from the crushing depths of the sea. Its body was transparent and frigid; its void-like eyes held no trace of emotion. As its crystalline ice lance touched the ground, the surrounding air froze instantly. Merely looking at it made the villagers feel as though they were drowning in a bottomless ocean, their chests tightening until they could no longer breathe.
Next—Fire erupted! The Fire Spirit stepped slowly out of a vortex of flame and lava. A churning magma core burned at the center of its chest, its body webbed with glowing molten fissures. With every movement, its arms sprayed searing sparks. The moment its black-flame greatsword appeared, the temperature skyrocketed as if the sun itself had crashed into the earth. The witches felt the very blood in their veins begin to boil.
Then—The gale tore the night sky asunder! The Wind Spirit emerged from a cacophony of storms and thunder. Its form was nearly translucent, twisting and shifting within the air currents so rapidly that it was impossible to track. Silver lightning flashed wildly within its pupils. With a mere flick of its wrist, blades of compressed air sliced through the atmosphere, their shrill shrieks causing the eardrums of those nearby to throb with pain.
And finally—CRACK!!! The earth shuddered violently. The Earth Spirit rose slowly from the fractured ground. Its colossal frame was a mountain made manifest, constructed of jagged rock, ancient metals, and glowing runes. Pale yellow veins of energy flowed across its surface. Each step it took caused the ground to roar and tremble, as if the very will of the planet had descended upon the square.
The crashing of tidal waves, the roar of world-burning flames, the scream of sky-tearing winds, and the thunderous vibration of the earth intertwined.
In a heartbeat, the peaceful village had been transformed into a battlefield at the end of the world.
The villagers stared at Selphira, who stood small and delicate amidst the titanic presence of the four Great Spirits. For the first time, a thought of absolute, suffocating despair took root in their minds:
That is not a being humanity was ever meant to oppose.
As the spirits manifested, the elemental mages of the village felt their own power wither. The Fire witches gasped as their flames were sucked into the Spirit's core; the Water witches felt their control slip away as the Abyssal Knight claimed dominion over every drop of moisture in the square. Their bodies swayed, mana exhaustion hitting them like a physical blow.
The Village Chief's expression sharpened. She reached into her robes and produced an ancient, gnarled seed. In a burst of emerald light, it sprouted and hardened within her palm, transforming into a verdant wooden glave pulsing with primordial life. She raised the weapon, her voice cutting through the elemental roar:
"Do not break! Witches of the four elements—engage the spirits that your attributes counter! Everyone else—concentrate all fire on Selphira!"
The battle—ignited by a single spark of command—exploded into chaos.
While the square descended into a symphony of destruction, Somaria remained alone in the hollow shell of their home.
The screams, the thunderous booms of collapsing stone, and the wails of her neighbors reached her ears like a hellish orchestra. Yet, to her, it felt distant—a muffled sound playing behind a heavy curtain. She sat motionless, a puppet whose strings had been cut, staring blankly at the ruins of her life.
Every piece of debris was a jagged shard of memory.
—The splintered dining table brought back the scent of home-cooked stew and the sound of her father's rare, hearty laughter during dinner.
—The charred remains of the rug in the hall reminded her of the nights her mother would comb her hair while telling ancient legends, the hearth fire casting a warm, protective glow.
—Their father, stern but secretly attentive; their mother, as gentle as the morning dew... both now reduced to mechanical husks in Selphira's grasp.
—And her sister. The girl who had once been the center of her world, the one who had clung to her sleeves with a bright, innocent smile, had transformed into a twisted monster, stepping over the corpses of their past.
With every scream that drifted in from the square, Somaria knew: another life had been snuffed out by her sister's hand.
But her limbs were leaden. The tiny spark of will within her had been hollowed out. She could no longer find the strength to stand, to scream, or to stop the only family she had left.
"Maybe... this is all just a nightmare."
Somaria whispered to herself, tears streaming down her face even as she forced a thin, fragile smile.
"When I wake up... I'll give Selphira a good scolding first. Then I'll tell her I had a terrible dream. Hehe... she'll probably just stand there, completely bewildered..."
Her voice faded into the darkness. She slowly lay down on the dust-covered floor of the hall, her vision blurred by salt and grief, yet she forced her eyes shut while clinging to that hollow smile. The distant wails and the agonizing screams of the dying became her only lullaby. In this night of blood and fire, Somaria sought refuge in the only place left to her: a deep, dissociative slumber.
The village had been utterly transformed into a living purgatory.
Flames licked the heavens, and the air was thick with the cacophony of slaughter. Even as the Village Chief fought with every ounce of her soul to hold Selphira back, a profound sense of powerlessness surged within her.
Selphira's mana was an unshakeable fortress. Every time a witch fell, Selphira reached out with invisible threads, snatching the lingering fragments of the deceased's soul and knitting them into the flesh to create fresh Corpse Puppets.
Though their movements were mechanical and stiff, these puppets knew no fear and felt no pain. Some even mimicked the spells they had used in life. A single moment of hesitation against the face of a fallen friend meant a lethal counterattack.
The Chief was a master of combat, her techniques honed over decades, but Selphira commanded the elite magic of every single attribute. It was as if a single child had become an army capable of suppressing an entire civilization.
Suddenly, a scream pierced the din.
Lora watched in horror as the tiger-puppet her mother had crafted was sliced in two by a horizontal gust from the Wind Spirit. Blinded by grief and tears, the young girl lunged from her hiding spot. She activated her own masterpiece—the "Beautiful Maiden" puppet—and sent it charging directly at Selphira.
The Chief's face went pale. she moved to intercept, but she was a fraction of a second too late.
Selphira barely spared her a glance. Her eyes remained indifferent as she spoke a cold, dismissive command:
"Lora, I don't have time to play with you. Go to sleep."
In that heartbeat, a shadow lunged from the ground like a jagged spear, transfixing Lora's chest in an instant.
"Lora!" The Village Chief let out a soul-shattering roar, her voice a jagged knot of grief and fury. "Selphira! Is there not a shred of humanity left in you?! She was your playmate since you were toddlers!"
Selphira smiled beautifully, but her tone was a frost that bit deep into the bone. "Granny Chief, why are you as naive as Somaria? I didn't kill her; I'm just letting her sleep for a while. Once I've fixed her, she'll wake up."
The Chief's eyes were shot through with broken blood vessels. "You monster! Today... I will end you!"
With a violent snap of her will, the Chief's muscles bulged, her physical frame expanding as she funneled every drop of Life Magic into her own biological limits. Her wooden glave extended, thickening into a colossal, gnarled greatsword that shrieked as it tore through the air.
Selphira tilted her head, watching with genuine curiosity. "Oh? Life Magic can be used like that? But... it looks so ugly."
The Chief ignored her. Her rage had become a blade. Her offensive grew increasingly ferocious, each strike carrying the weight of a world-ending resolve.
Just then, an Earth Witch charged the Great Earth Spirit and, without a second's hesitation, detonated her own mana core!
BOOM—! The deafening explosion shattered the Earth Spirit into a thousand shards of fading light. Instantly, the surrounding Earth Witches felt the oppressive weight lift, regaining control over their magic. The tide of battle flickered, threatening to turn.
"Selphira!" The Chief's breathing was ragged, but her spirit remained unbroken. "Surrender! Your Great Spirits will be torn down one by one, and when they are gone, you will have nowhere left to run!"
Selphira remained unruffled. A cold, elegant smile bloomed on her lips. "It doesn't matter. The Great Spirits were only meant to handle the minor chores for me. Even if they are destroyed, the grand design remains unchanged. Furthermore..."
She extended a slender finger and gave a light, playful flick. In the roiling black mist behind her, hundreds of corpse puppets let out a low, synchronized hiss.
"Granny Chief, look. More than half of the villagers have already returned to my side. Won't you consider listening to me now? I really don't want to waste more time... having to fix you, too."
The Chief maintained her iron-clad resolve on the surface, but her heart was a well of bitterness. To destroy even one of the Great Spirits, the village had paid a catastrophic price. Nearly half of their kin had fallen, only to be instantly repurposed into Selphira's marionettes. The Chief had exhausted her final trump card—the forbidden over-reinforcement magic—draining every drop of her hidden potential. Yet Selphira remained poised and effortless, as if she were still holding back an ocean of power.
As the moments bled into the night, the remaining Great Spirits finally flickered and dissolved under the witches' suicidal onslaught. But the cost was final. The Chief could no longer sustain her augmented form; her stamina and vitality were hollowed out. Her body withered rapidly, aging decades in a matter of seconds, her breath hitching like a candle flickering in a gale.
Still, she forced herself upright, her voice a cold, rasping defiance. "Hmph! Selphira... your Great Spirits are gone. You've fought for so long... no matter how vast your mana is, it must be nearly spent, shouldn't it?"
Selphira merely crossed her arms and tilted her head, a hint of genuine dissatisfaction in her tone. "As expected of Granny Chief... if this dragged on for another two hours, my mana might actually run dry."
The Chief's chest tightened. She could feel it—Selphira wasn't lying. To single-handedly suppress an entire village of elite witches while maintaining countless high-tier spells, her mana reserves were still vast enough to be unmeasurable. Looking back at her own side, everyone was at their absolute limit. To hold out for another two hours was a fantasy. Their only hope—their final, desperate gamble—was to crush Selphira in a single, decisive strike within the next few moments.
But Selphira took a deep, steady breath, a heart-stopping brilliance igniting in the depths of her eyes.
"I told you, didn't I? As long as I blow all my enemies away before my mana runs out, it doesn't matter. Besides..."
She paused, a small, chilling smile playing on her lips.
"...I still need to save a little bit of strength... to fix all of you."
She raised her right hand, pressing her index and middle fingers together as she pointed toward the heavens. In an instant, a colossal halo of radiance expanded from her fingertips, swallowing every remaining witch within its radius. The moment the light touched them, a crushing, invisible weight slammed down; their bodies felt as heavy as lead, sinking into an abyss where even drawing breath became a desperate struggle.
High above, the light coalesced into a ring of ten swords, each radiating a searing, blinding brilliance. They hung in perfect formation, aligned precisely with the ten survivors who still dared to resist.
The Chief's heart froze. She whispered through cracked lips, "This... this is..."
Selphira smiled, her expression blooming like a flower, yet saturated with a chilling, absolute pride. "That's right. The pinnacle of Light Magic—[Heaven's Judgment]. It cannot be blocked; it is the strike of inevitable conviction. Am I not amazing?"
Hearing those words, the Chief understood that the end had arrived. She slowly lowered her gnarled wooden sword, a weary, peaceful smile finally touching her eyes. "Indeed... you are the strongest witch our village... no, the strongest our entire race has ever seen."
"Goodnight, everyone," Selphira said softly, as if announcing the end of a long, cruel funeral.
In the next heartbeat, the ten blades of light descended. They tore through the night sky with the force of an unstoppable decree, booming as they transfixed the last of the defenders.
The sound of the falling blades shattered the silence of the night, jolting Somaria awake within the ruins of her home.
She slowly opened her eyes, rubbing her forehead where tears and exhaustion had left a throbbing ache. The broken walls and shattered rafters around her came back into cold focus. The air—thick with the scent of blood and scorched earth—served as a brutal reminder: this was no dream.
Somaria let out a hollow laugh, her voice hoarse and trembling. "It wasn't a dream... so, it really wasn't just a nightmare..."
She pushed herself up, her steps staggering as if every inch of movement were trying to drag her into a bottomless pit. Yet, her eyes searched the rubble with a stubborn, desperate intensity, seeking one final sliver of hope to lean on.
Finally, beneath a pile of shattered stone, she found an old wooden box. Tucked inside was a longsword, coated in a thick layer of dust.
Chapter 52: Echoes of the Witch Village - The Puppeteer's Waltz (Final)
She exerted every ounce of her remaining strength to pull the blade from its sheath. Gripping the hilt with both hands, she swung it awkwardly a few times. The long-absent weight made her shoulders quiver, yet it brought with it a faint, familiar sense of stability.
Looking up at the deathly silence and the fading firelight that still choked the night sky, she took a deep, shuddering breath. Her gaze, though trembling, began to harden into a fixed resolve.
"That's right..." she whispered to the empty air. "I must stop Selphira. No matter what she has become... this is my... my responsibility as her older sister."
It was as if she were using the words to forcibly convince her own soul. Her voice carried the crackle of a sob, yet she suppressed the tears with a jagged breath.
Then, she began to walk. She dragged the longsword behind her, the tip of the blade scraping against the cobblestones, producing a harsh, screeching sound that echoed through the silence—a sound of agonizing determination. Step by heavy step, she moved toward the heart of the village battlefield.
Above the horizon, the thick mantle of night began to retreat. The very first sliver of dawn's light spilled across the ruins, illuminating her solitary, resolute silhouette. Though her back appeared frail and broken, she walked forward as if embracing a duel that had been predestined since the moment they were born.