TALES OF A WITCHER - Season 8 Episode 98

“What’s your Lord’s name?”

Roland somehow sensed that this creature was much more emotionally rich than the Fallen Evil. He thus hoped to gather more intelligence by asking it more questions. While doing so, he gestured towards behind him for the two wounded persons, Faldi and Duncan, to leave the place at once. If a situation arose where the party had to flee quickly, he would certainly run faster than these witches.

“My lord’s a being that’s everything and nothing at the same time. A presence that none of you can fathom.” The creature spread its phantom wings, which emitted a red glow, and stretched its hands towards the floor. “Your clever tricks are useless here. You want them to escape now? Too late!”

Scarlet blood flowed from its body and rapidly extended across the surfaces of the room. In the blink of an eye, the floors, walls, and ceiling of the hall turned into a bright red.

Ling, whose hiding place was now uncovered, was pushed out of the wall by an unknown force, and she fell by Phyllis’ side.

“What… what’s this?” Faldi cried out softly from behind. When Roland turned his head, he saw that spiked tentacles had emerged out of the red and black void and ensnared the witches’ legs. He recalled that he had seen something similar before.

But he had no time to contemplate further as the situation was fast deteriorating.

With the warm current in his body spinning ferociously, Roland gathered all of his physical strength and charged directly towards the strange enemy.

“Ooh? You aren’t affected?” Astonished, the magical creature raised a palm at him. “How about this?”

An extremely powerful force burst forth from its palm towards Roland. It felt like a huge hammer blow upon impact, and sent Roland flying and crashing into the wall. After a heavy thud, he felt like his back was burning, and that all of his organs had displaced.

“Keke…” He coughed involuntarily, and smelled something sweet yet fishy that had expelled from his throat.

“Your Majesty!”

Phyllis let out an urgent cry. She was, at present, the only person who could move other than Roland. The blade claws on her back danced up and down, hurriedly cleaving the tentacles which had protruded from the floor. However, with an endless number of them to deal with, she was not able to draw close to Roland at the moment.

It was now the crunch time.

But Roland’s mind remained exceptionally clear.

There was entirely no fear in him, as if he had deleted the feeling of fear from his brain.

The warm current in him surged ever faster, accompanied by the vigorous beating of his heart. He could feel that an extraordinary change was occurring in his body.

All of the world’s magical power was gravitating towards him.

Even the red glow that extended across the walls became sluggish. The trails of blood circumvented his body as they passed by, and wherever he touched, a blue mark would appear.

This process was entirely out of his control – he was unclear about what was happening himself. A strange sound reverberated beside his ear, while the tones of the tumultuous cries seemed to harmonize.

“Kill it, kill it!”

The monster had also begun to notice that something was not right. With a slight fluctuation in its dry voice, it asked, “What’s happening… what’ve you done to my magic power?”

Roland did not reply. He could feel that the warm current had swelled to its limits, and his body subconsciously arched. The next thing he knew, he was charging directly at the enemy like a cannonball!

“Kkkkkiiiiilllllllllll iiiiittttt!!!!!”

“Die!” Repeating its old tactic, the monster raised its hand towards him once more.

But this time, Roland was not struck down by the monster’s force. For the first time, he saw the warm current rush out of his body to form a pair of blue light curtains in front of him. When the pair collided with each other, a dazzling radiance burst forth and hovered above his head, which then brought him flying directly into the monster’s chest.

He swung out a punch.

The impact of his fist on the monster’s chest was not as he had expected. It felt as if he had just struck a lump of soft liquid. He saw his arm sink into the monster’s body only a fingerbreadth away from the star jades. Gritting his teeth, Roland opened his fist and grabbed hold of the most prominent star ring on its chest.

At once, the monster let out a deafening roar. “No… this is the Lord’s strength, how did you… touch it!”

The galaxy-like ring began to quiver, and it gradually changed from its rich red into blue and white. This, however, occurred at an extremely slow rate, and there were several relapses. At this moment, Roland felt as if he was tussling with a fierce bull. Fortunately for him, more and more magical power flowed towards him, and it felt like the entire world was blending into one with him.

“So that’s it… I understand now!” A vortex-like eye on top of the monster’s head opened. “You’re… the one responsible for creating this world! It was you who defeated my Lord!”

“Didn’t you already call him ‘everything and nothing’? How could I even touch him?” Roland laughed sardonically.

“You fool! My Lord may be almighty, but he can’t stop all of this himself… Go back and never return here, your actions are destroying everything… Hssst… All living things, and not only yourself, will perish because of you!”

Its voice became increasingly unclear, as if it was affected by severe interference.

Roland could feel that the resistance of the star ring was weakening. The color change also became faster.

“All living things?” He turned his head and glimpsed at the witches sitting feebly on the floor, before he continued in a low voice. “No, the only ones who shall perish are your kind… I’ve no idea where you’re from, or what intention you possess, but certainly, this world will be better without you!”

“From… hssst… Bottomless Land… no intention… hssst… this is rule…” The monster was no longer able to spit out a complete sentence. Roland further noticed that it was not as emotionally expressive as it was. Its voice had turned flat and monotonous, as if it was one of those answering machines which provided a fixed response.

When it finished speaking, the resistance in Roland’s hand vanished instantly.

The star ring began to spin rapidly, and drew all of the surrounding star jades towards itself to form a dazzling white light. For a moment, Roland seemed to hear the heartbeat of the earth.

This time, the scene of the surging of magic power was even more spectacular than the previous two times. The monster shrunk into a round mass and released a column of silver light that shot straight to the ceiling for an extended period of time. Standing in front of it, Roland felt an indescribable satisfaction and bodily pleasure which exceeded the sum of his previous two encounters. There was nothing which could compare to the sight of this light column.

The witches’ conditions were nothing too serious, except that they had expended all of their magic power. They were still able to walk on their own. According to Phyllis, when Roland was in a deadlock with the monster, the magic power of all four witches was taken in by him. This was something which could never have happened in the real world.

However, it was simply one more thing to add to a night when so many unimaginable events had already taken place.

After a quick search, Roland, carrying a heavy safe together with the car key taken from the suited man, led the witches quietly out of the foothill villa.