City of Witches-Chapter 402: Neglect (1)

1.

Siwoo opened the first door.

And a whole new world came into his view.

It was a world filled with countless equations and geometric sequences.

Actually, no…

That wasn’t quite right.

It was more like a series of calculations layered over everything in his sight, as it was a magic analysis of the principles behind every object.

Then, he focused his eyes more. A woman’s face appeared through the overlapping layers of vision that resembled a dragonfly’s eye.

She was the woman who had once healed him, and later shared a one-night stand with him.

Yebin Smyrna.

Through a combination of self-essence magic and sex, she roused Siwoo from the solitary, research-obsessed state he had imposed on himself within the Ain he had constructed.

In a situation where it was unclear what was what…

With his instincts flaring, two answers rose within him.

One, mimic her self-essence magic.

Two, violate her and steal her magic.

He picked the first answer.

So, he pounced on her and successfully copied her Palace of Subconscious.

Although her self-essence magic wasn’t at a particularly high-level…

As it could only allow him to peek into another’s memories.

Then, the second face appeared.

Amelia’s.

Her scent—something that witches naturally had—was much richer and stronger than Yebin Smyrna’s.

He had already copied a self-essence magic once by following his instincts.

And now he felt the need to take her magic as well, believing that it would greatly aid his own magic research.

But, unlike Yebin Smyrna, who had been somewhat compliant despite showing some feeble resistance…

Amelia Marigold straight out refused to cooperate with his magic research.

She spoke softly, but in that quiet room, her words were too loud for him to hear.

The annoyance of having his magic research interrupted and the irretrievable memories of the past caused his lips to twitch.

“—-,—.”

Perhaps, it was a curse that escaped his lips.

Then, the magic formula lifted like a veil, briefly revealing her face.

With that her determined eyes, as if showing her determination to not run away from him, entered his sight.

But, there were tears in her eyes that were fixed on his face. Leaving an impression that she might just crumble with the slightest touch.

“—-, — —-.”

She did not scold Siwoo.

Instead, she just turned her back, seemingly holding her tears back, as if she had committed a grave sin before closing the door behind her.

This was the truth…

That Siwoo had never known about.

Or rather, the truth that he couldn’t remember until this very moment.

Memories continued to flow.

And he reached the second door.

What Siwoo had been doing was researching magic by himself.

He constantly broke down and reassembled various spells, building on everything he had learned so far, trying to look for a more efficient form of such spells.

Everything in the world became his source of inspiration, his playground.

For example, the massive barrier separating Gehenna, the barrier that was almost perfect.

He tirelessly carried on with his research, using that very barrier as a reference for his Dimensional Magic spells.

Until one day, he sensed a flaw in the barrier.

Sensing an anomaly in the supposedly flawless Gehenna barrier, Siwoo met Ea Sadalmelik.

The terrifying Criminal Exile, a force of evil that had to be eliminated.

Though his mind wasn’t entirely clear, he instinctively recognized her as an obstacle upon meeting her.

Then, they fought.

And he defeated her.

To simply copy and paste her magic was too much of a kindness to be shown to an obstacle like her.

So, he raped her as she knelt before him and stole the Maiden’s Loom.

Along the way, he also took the Myriad Weapons Mastery Covenant.

This was the first time Siwoo realized how he came to possess both the Loom and the Myriad Weapons Mastery.

After that…

He met Duchess Keter

There was no need to explain how he had figured everything out.

Even with his overly-enhanced Mystic Eye that could see through anything in this world, he still couldn’t fully understand her.

“—— —— ——-.”

After she muttered something, Keter reverted his body—which was breaking down from overload—back to his childhood.

At the same time, his Ain was split into two.

One version of Shin Siwoo rose above.

And the other Shin Siwoo stayed below.

Banished deep into a place he never wanted to go.

A place where he could no longer gain magical inspiration.

The deep abyss where he could only break things down and build them back up.

But he didn’t feel discouraged.

Nor did he feel anger.

Instead, he only felt a heavy sense of regret that pushed him to take one final action.

Right before the black Ain was completely sealed shut…

He threw out a single thread, connecting himself to the Ain above.

So that his ‘yearning’ would come out whenever he caught the scent of a witch possessing a different magic than what he had.

And so that when a crisis that would make him unable to continue to research his magic in the depths of his subconsciousness came…

He could rise up again.

Such a thing was linked to his autonomous defense.

Then, time passed. A long time passed.

Boring days where only bits and pieces of magic occasionally drifted in.

For an ordinary person, they would think that it was a mind-numbingly dull period of time, but it wasn’t the case for him.

Each time he absorbed good magic, he found satisfaction in blooming, transforming, and refining it.

In that empty Ain, he built his own world.

Striving for something more perfect, more beautiful, something higher.

That was the duty of a witch.

Then, forgotten memories started to return, one by one.

The fragment of the Elemental Magic he had once obtained…

The fragment of Covenant Magic…

And the fragment of Barrier Magic…

Time continued to flow.

At one point, a door appeared, but it looked a little different from others.

Unlike the tightly closed black door, it had a somewhat crude appearance.

And it faintly reflected a pinkish glow, with a pattern of a Covenant etched on the door.

Let’s open the door.

“Sorry, but I believe this is the best course of action for now… I will bear the responsibility for today’s events to the day I breathe my last…”

He saw Eloa pressing her head against his nose.

Unlike the other memories, Eloa’s voice came through clearly. Every word she spoke, every tremor of her body, every bead of sweat from her struggle against pleasure vividly flashed past his eyes.

After some time had passed…

When they were alone inside the twins’ carriage…

Siwoo, under the influence of aphrodisiac, shared a heated night together with Eloa.

Under the guise of roleplay, her true feelings spilled out.

“I think… I love you… Siwoo…”

But then, she suddenly drew out her Sword of Covenant.

“Hereby, I declare a covenant.”

And with that, this memory came to an end.

Finally, he faced the last door.

The time when Takasho was taken hostage, and Siwoo confronted the Witch of Desire to save him.

From here on, the memories connected rather smoothly.

Before Siwoo wandered through this particular Palace of Memories.

This was the last memory.

The fragments of magic he had gathered along the way.

The new Siwoo, intertwined with a massive tree, faced Bianca.

The magic he wielded was astonishing, so beautiful, it was hard to believe it was his.

He believed he had won, he had mistakenly thought that this was his victory.

But the Witch of Desire had prepared for this moment, setting a trap to ensure their mutual destruction until the very end.

Then, when the bars-like teeth were about to pierce his entire body, a forest of wild flowers fell down, together with the cold winter rain.

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He saw Amelia.

And Amelia saw him.

Why was she there?

From what he heard, she had abandoned her job as a professor and left her workshop behind to go somewhere far away.

His chest tightened.

He didn’t know what to say, but seeing her body stiffened the moment their eyes met filled him with discomfort.

It reminded him…

Of the way she looked when he had cruelly lashed out at her right after regaining his memories.

It felt like the emotions he had tried so hard to forget and suppress were crawling back to the surface.

Had she read my letter?

How did she end up here?

Siwoo wanted to carefully choose his words and speak to her, but this was merely a memory, a moment long gone.

He looked away from Amelia.

And shifted his focus to the faint presence disappearing beyond the wide sea.

He couldn’t afford to lose the prey he had almost caught, but the extreme exhaustion and strain forced him to stop.

With that, the part of Shin Siwoo’s memory that even Shin Siwoo himself didn’t know existed ended.

2.

“Guhh…ugh…! Ugh…!”

Inside a dark basement…

An artifact sat in the center.

It looked like a cocoon made of a giant mammal’s embryonic sac, or maybe like a grotesque sleeping bag made from raw meat.

This was the Cocoon of Rebirth, an artifact that Bianca Belleli had prepared as her last resort.

Originally, it was Ea Sadalmelik’s artifact, but she plundered it from her.

Gagging, Bianca coughed up the sticky liquid that not only drenched her body, but also filled her nose and mouth, making her shudder.

It was a horrible experience that she never wanted to go through ever again.

Part of that feeling stemmed from fear.

For a witch, a fall in rank could be considered as worse than death in a lot of ways.

Although Bianca had customized the artifact so that it could save her life once without dropping her rank…

The outcome was something she wouldn’t know until she actually experienced death firsthand.

Fortunately, the 22 marks on her brand were still intact.

In exchange, the Cocoon of Rebirth was reduced to dried jerky and disappeared after that single use. Which meant, her customization worked.

Losing her ‘final escape route’ was regrettable, but on the flip side, it meant she had gained a chance for revival that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

As long as she stayed cautious, she wouldn’t be defeated the same way twice.

“Cough—! Cough! Well, that was amusing…”

In any case, right now, her priority was to regain her strength and mana.

Still on the ground, Bianca tried to catch her breath and push herself up.

But then, her body froze.

-Tak, tak, tak!

From the circular stairs leading to the basement where she was…

A sound that shouldn’t be heard echoed.

This was Bianca’s hidden hideout, her personal treasure trove. No one was supposed to know where this place was.

Nothing was supposed to be here either, not shadow, not even the flicker of light.

Especially not this woman—Ea Sadalmelik.

“Ola! This is how your normal greeting sounds like, no?”

Ea Sadalmelik’s shadow loomed over Bianca, who was crawling on the floor like a newly hatched caterpillar.

Under the crescent moon, her blood-red eyes reminded Bianca of spider lilies.

She wore a bobbed haircut that cut sharply at her shoulders and a sleeveless dress adorned with her beloved aquarius-themed lace pattern.

“Ahahahaha…. You crazy bitch….”

Bianca let out a bitter laugh.

She couldn’t help it.

After all, just a few days ago, Ea Sadalmelik had been drooling while crying out, ‘Master, Master!’ in front of her.

Just the other day, she had ordered her to engage in a cat-and-mouse play in Hongkong, but seeing how she was here instead of obeying her order…

Bianca couldn’t suppress a sarcastic chuckle.

“How was my acting?”

Bianca was at the 22nd-rank.

While Ea was still at the 13th rank.

But, right now, Bianca’s mana was completely depleted, and that brutal fight from before left her with no strength at all. There was no way she had a chance to go up against Ea.

She was like a missile without fuel, a mere scrap metal without any use.

“Acting like a complete idiot, sobbing with snot running down your face?”

Bianca sneered, half spiteful, but Ea didn’t even blink.

Instead, she crouched down to meet Bianca’s eyes.

“Tsk, how could you be so careless? You even let the Headband slip off and gave me so much freedom… Seriously, if you were going to take something off, limit it to my clothes. Ah, right, were you looking for this?”

As she said that, Ea pulled out her hand that she had been awkwardly keeping behind her back, revealing a small lotus the size of her palm.

It shimmered like it was made of crystal, radiating a mysterious rainbow-colored light.

“You should’ve hidden something this important better.”

No matter how broken Bianca thought Ea was, she had never shared the location of this workshop with her.

But if Bianca had truly been as careless as Ea suggested, then there was a chance that she had dropped a clue of its location through one of her minor actions or words.

This whole situation was a high-stakes, no-risk gamble for Ea.

If Bianca had won the fight, she wouldn’t have returned to the Cocoon of Rebirth, and Ea just needed to continue her act as usual.

But she had lost, returned to the Cocoon and suffered far too much damage to fight back against her.

Bianca had no choice but to admit it.

She had been completely fooled by Ea Sadalmelik.

Ea grinned with pure glee, clenching her teeth.

It wasn’t hard to see she was holding back her laughter.

“What did you say about the lotus again? With enough sacrifices and mana, I can restore my rank, right?”

“…Kill me.”

Bianca knew her end was near.

If this was the Ea that she knew, she would never, ever let Bianca live.

“Already? Oh, c’mon, don’t be such a bore. We’ve finally reached such a satisfying moment! Besides, I still need to get revenge for everything that you’ve done to me.”

Indeed.

Bianca had tormented, degraded and humiliated Ea in every way imaginable.

There was no way that a witch with as much pride as Ea didn’t want to enact revenge after receiving such treatment.

And this was an opportunity for Bianca, a very slim one, but an opportunity nonetheless.

“Sorry, just kidding.”

But then, Bianca felt a burning pain sweep across her neck, like a searing blade had grazed her skin.

She could feel blood slowly trickling down her windpipe, flooding her lungs.

Before she could realize it, Ea had slashed her throat with the precision of a butcher, hitting her vital point.

For the completely exhausted Bianca, incapable of even activating her autonomous defense, this was a fatal blow.

“Ack! Cough… cough…!”

“You’ve taught me before, remember? Only a fool would let their guard down. Well, I’ll give you a small word of comfort. I’ll put your brand to good use. It’s going to serve as a fuel for the great resurrection of Ea Sadalmelik! As for your useless body… Well… I guess I can throw it for the pigs.”

When Ea let go of the hair she was holding onto, Bianca’s head drooped forward heavily.

Her nails snapped as they futilely clutched at the cement floor.

Over the sound of her blood bubbling in her throat, Ea’s eerie laughter echoed through the room.

“Thank you, Bianca Belleli. You were a truly wonderful /genesisforsaken