novelraw Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Chapter 8: The Lowest Combat Readiness Ran into a Cheating Dog, and Even Fighting with All Her Might She Couldn’t Win
How could she run into a cheating dog even here?!
How was she supposed to fight in this state of readiness? This guy was at least an A-rank witch! Was she supposed to beat him to death with a breadstick? What a joke!
She couldn’t beat this guy head-on, so she had to find a way to get away!
This guy was either an impostor, or the ‘real thing’ revived through some special method.
She had to find a way to stall him first, at least get one or two people out to spread the news!
Right, wasn’t her eldest disciple outside? How had she not noticed these people?
“Hey, Norsen,” Lina suddenly spoke, her tone carrying a trace of provocation, “did you ‘Returners’ fail to meet your quota? You actually came to a newbie village to farm for attention?”
The shadow beneath Norsen’s hood shifted, but his voice remained hoarse: “You know me?”
“Of course I know you,” Lina said, swinging the black breadstick, the corner of her lips curling up slightly. “After all, you were personally taken care of by that one... the ‘Star Witch’. It’d be hard not to know.”
The moment the words “Star Witch” left her mouth, Lina clearly saw that the muscles on half of Norsen’s face tensed up for an instant, almost imperceptibly!
Although the change was extremely brief and he regained control of it in an instant, how could it possibly escape Lina’s eyes?
Norsen let out a low, puzzled sneer, and his scarlet gaze flickered beneath the shadow of his hood. “Star Witch? What’s that?”
This guy still remembered the Star Witch!
He was playing dumb!
That instinctive reaction just now couldn’t fool anyone. He definitely knew, and that name had clearly hit him hard! His denial now only made it more obvious that he was trying to cover it up!
Beside them, Annie’s eyes widened as she looked at Lina and Norsen in surprise.
Could this ugly uncle in black also be a fan of ‘The Star Witch’s Ninety-Nine Sleepless Nights’?
“Oh? You don’t know?” The smile on Lina’s face deepened, tinged with mockery. “Then maybe I remembered wrong. Then how exactly were you Returners wiped out? Ah, if I remembered correctly, I even went to your church before... hmm, to use the bathroom~”
The aura around Norsen turned a few degrees colder. “Sharp-tongued. But this ends here.”
“Sure, then go ahead and kill all of us~” Lina spread her hands, putting on a helpless expression. “Then you can spend your whole life never finding out any information about the ‘Star Witch’... oh, though maybe you won’t have that long to wait...”
“What do you mean?” Norsen’s voice was hoarse as he cautiously observed the surroundings, then locked his gaze back onto Lina. “Little thing, what exactly do you know?”
“Anyway, those girls don’t know anything.” Lina shrugged, her gaze sweeping over the five apprentice witches behind her. “Let them go, and I’ll tell you.”
“And let them go report to that Witch of the Moon?” Norsen let out a cold laugh. “Little thing, don’t play tricks with me. Talk, and I can let you die without pain.”
“All right... all right, I’ll tell you...” A faint smile appeared at the corner of Lina’s lips. She raised her right arm slightly, her gaze blazing, as magic power gathered in her palm! “Transcendent Disintegration!”
That magic! It was her!
Norsen was startled. Gathering the magic power of his entire body, he turned into a mass of black mist without the slightest hesitation and fled toward the depths of the secret realm!
That magic could not be defended against!
In his mind, the despairing memory of being burned to ashes by that radiance, brilliant as the stars, surfaced once more, and he desperately fled into the distance with all his might!
The moment she saw the cultist flee, Lina immediately turned and shouted at her five companions, “What are you standing around for?! Run!”
Please, did they really think she could actually throw out a Transcendent Disintegration?! What did they take her for, the heroine of some overpowered power-fantasy novel?
If she really had that kind of ability, she would definitely burn to death that dog author who had given her this hellish starting situation first!
The first to react was Sibyl. A flash of green light passed through her palm!
“Blessing of Wind!”
Invisible magic rapidly spread outward from her as the center and fell upon everyone.
A light magical force instantly enveloped them all. Lina felt her body grow lighter, and her movements became much swifter. Without another word, she grabbed the still-dazed Annie tightly with one hand and rushed toward the exit portal!
“Move!” Sibyl also shouted at the rest of her companions at the same time.
Their desire to survive overwhelmed all confusion, and they burst out with unprecedented speed, desperately charging toward their only path to life!
However, at the very instant they were about to touch the portal’s curtain of light—
“Boom!!!”
An incomparably violent and terrifying aura came surging from the depths of the secret realm like a tidal wave! The entire cave shook violently! Stones pattered down one after another, as if the whole secret realm would collapse completely in the next second!
Norsen’s roar, twisted and warped by extreme fury, resounded through the entire space, coming from far to near with astonishing speed:
“You little thing! You dared to trick me! I’ll drain your souls dry and make sure you can never reincarnate for all eternity!!”
He had realized it!
“Move!”
Lina only felt a chill shoot straight from her spine to the top of her head. That killing intent, dense enough to feel tangible, nearly seemed ready to slice her skin apart. Using all the strength in her body, she violently shoved Annie toward that blue curtain of light, then followed right behind her, throwing herself into the portal without caring about anything else!
Sibyl and the other three apprentices also scrambled forward with both hands and feet, rushing clumsily into the curtain of light.
At the exact instant the hem of the last apprentice’s clothes disappeared into the portal vortex, a pitch-black shockwave condensed from all of Norsen’s fury, carrying a world-destroying power, slammed viciously into the spot where the portal stood!
“Boom—!”
A terrifying explosion burst out behind them. The intense light and shockwave even tore through the spatial crack that was about to close, erupting out above the group’s heads!
“Thud! Thud!”
The six of them tumbled out of the violently fluctuating portal like rolling gourds, crashing hard onto the hard stone-paved square in front of the Witch Association.
The afternoon sunlight was a little dazzling. There had originally been quite a few apprentices in the square waiting for the assessment results or simply there to watch the excitement, but now they were all stunned by this sudden upheaval, staring in shock at this group of soot-covered escapees.
However, what made hearts tremble was that the expected response from the proctors never appeared, and the figure of the S-rank Great Witch Fennis was nowhere to be seen either.
And in that brief, suffocating interval of blank confusion after narrowly escaping death—
“Crash!!!”
The portal’s curtain of light, which should have already closed, suddenly shattered with a thunderous crash like fragile glass! Darkness and resentment, thick as ink, gushed out of it like floodwaters from a burst dam!
Immediately afterward, a jet-black destructive shockwave followed close behind, aimed straight at Lina!
It was Norsen! That madman had actually torn through space at all costs and forced his way out of the secret realm!
The speed and power of this strike far surpassed the last one, and that terrifying pressure instantly enveloped the entire square!
The surrounding apprentices let out terrified screams, while Sibyl, Annie, and the others all turned deathly pale, watching helplessly as that deathly blast was about to swallow Lina whole.
The distance was too short, the speed too fast. There was no way she could dodge it!
Lina’s pupils shrank to pinpoints! The warning sent by her divination was so sharp it nearly tore through her nerves! If she took it head-on, she would definitely die!
Yet in that instant between life and death, Lina’s mind was calmer than ever before!
She did not retreat, nor did she block. She raised her hand, and a blazing fireball instantly slammed into the ground right in front of her feet!
“Boom!”
The blast wave and flames suddenly surged upward! At the same moment the fireball left her hand, Lina twisted her waist with explosive force, planted her feet, and used the shock from the explosion to hurl herself backward in a roll!
At that instant, her body entered a strange state, as though it had been briefly peeled away from real space, taking on an extremely fleeting semi-intangible form!
The dark shockwave that should have hit without fail passed straight through that semi-intangible afterimage and slammed heavily into the empty ground behind Lina!
“Bang——!!!!!!!!!”
A world-destroying explosion sounded out immediately afterward, and half the square was reduced to ruins, yet the flying stone fragments strangely passed right through Lina’s semi-intangible body.
At the same time that she rolled to the ground, Lina’s figure instantly solidified again.
She dropped to one knee, gasping violently.
Damn, abusing dodge invincibility frames like this was way too close... thank goodness the rules of this world were exactly the same as in the game!
With lingering fear, Lina glanced at most of the square, now scorched into charred earth.
If she really died and ended up in the Underworld, and ran into the Queen of the Underworld... there was no way she could beat her right now!
Around the furious Norsen, dark energy began to gather madly once more. This time, his killing intent locked firmly onto Lina, and he clearly had no intention of giving her another chance to pull tricks.
No, if it happened again, she definitely wouldn’t be able to dodge it! Fennis, oh Fennis, where the hell had you run off to? Come save your master! Otherwise your master was really going to get dragged off by the Queen of the Underworld and made into a maid!
At that moment, the two magitek walkers guarding the entrance to the Witch Association also noticed that something was wrong. They immediately raised the magitek machine guns in their hands and began firing wildly at the uninvited guest.
“Hmph, scraps of metal!” The magic around Norsen suddenly solidified, and though bullets rained down like a storm and sparks flew from the black barrier, they could not harm him in the slightest!
He snapped his fingers, and two black spears condensed at his side.
“Die!” Norsen pointed casually, and the two spears instantly shot forward through the barrage of bullets, piercing the alchemical cores of the two walkers in an instant! Sparks burst from the two walkers, and they slowly ceased moving.
Even so, the attacks from those two magitek walkers had still bought Lina a few seconds to catch her breath.
Lina’s mind raced at top speed. Her gaze swept over Norsen’s face, twisted by fury, and an extremely reckless idea flashed through her mind like lightning.
Got it! That stingy, grudge-holding dwarf!
She would gamble on it!
Lina forced herself to stand, an expression of fear and anger on her face. “Just you wait! You bastard! I am a loyal servant of Lady Witch of Destiny! You, and your laughable lord, will both fall apart before Lady Fantasia! She said your god is nothing but a stray dog, only capable of yapping beneath the feet of the great God of Holy Light!”
She spoke extremely fast, but every word reached Norsen’s ears clearly.
Norsen was stunned at first, then was completely enraged by Lina’s seemingly nonsensical insults!
Where had this nameless nobody come from? And she dared speak recklessly of the Lord’s majesty!
Without even thinking, he roared along the lines Lina had laid out: “Fantasia? What the hell is she supposed to be!”
The instant his words fell, the originally clear sky was covered without warning by rolling dark clouds.
The clouds, heavy as lead, slowly pressed downward, while silver lightning wriggled through them like giant pythons, radiating a heavenly might that made hearts tremble!
An immense pressure descended abruptly, as though he had been locked onto by the will of the entire world!
The fury on Norsen’s face instantly froze, transforming into shock and instinctive unease.
The next moment!
A blindingly pale bolt of lightning tore through the dark clouds like a spear of judgment hurled by a god, striking the top of Norsen’s head with absolute precision!
“Rumble——!!!!!!!!!”
The deafening thunderclap nearly overturned the entire square! The dazzling lightning completely swallowed Norsen!
The black mist protecting his body melted away instantly like snow beneath the sun. His entire body was charred black, smoking, and he dropped stiffly from midair like a puppet with its strings cut. With a “bang,” he crashed into a pile of rubble on the ground, twitched twice, and for the moment was clearly unable to get back up.
A dead silence filled heaven and earth.
The dark clouds rapidly dispersed, and sunlight poured down once more, as though that world-destroying strike had only been an illusion.
Lina looked at Norsen in the huge pit, giving off the smell of something nicely charred, and the corner of her mouth twitched.
Fantasia’s percentage-based HP reduction skill was way too vicious. Back then, before she had obtained divine protection, even she would have been left flat on the ground for half an hour after taking one hit.
But then again... with such a huge commotion, Fennis still hadn’t noticed?
Where exactly had she gone?