Chapter 146: The Witch Who Wields Destiny

For Alfred, for the Harbinger of Death, for the Dark Lords, does killing require a reason?

The answer is self-evident—

When they commune with the blind and foolish will deep within the dark through bloody and wicked black masses, becoming its vessels manifested in the material world, their personalities have already completely warped and decomposed, turning into something neither fully human nor entirely alien.

Human concepts of good and evil do not apply to them.

Naturally, they are unbound by human notions of morality.

Therefore, the moment the petite girl with black hair and dark eyes appeared in their field of vision, without the slightest hesitation or doubt, the two prominent figures of the chaotic cult launched fierce attacks upon her simultaneously.

—Striking with fatal intent from the very beginning!

Alfred, the dark wizard in Hermetica regarded almost as the embodiment of plague and death, instantly awakened his three core authorities of "Familiar," "Plague," and "Avatar." Utilizing his avatar, he completed a shift between reality and illusion in a split second to evade any potential attacks, splitting off crimson-eyed, black-feathered crows imbued with horrifying pestilence akin to the Black Reaper. These hovered briefly at his fingertips before taking wing.

The gloomy man dubbed the Harbinger of Death was a step slower in his reaction.

Yet his attack was swifter and more insidious than Alfred's—

He met the girl's gaze, crimson pupils locking with pitch-black ones, reflecting each other's colors.

The condition was thus fulfilled.

The Dark Lord, exuding an ominous aura from head to toe, curved the corners of his mouth slightly and activated his authority.

—Die.

With that, he flung open the gates of the Netherworld, raising the throne of the God of Death high into the heavens.

Like the King of the Underworld from mythology, weighing the lives of the mortals, his crimson pupils gained the ability to stare directly into the eternal resting place of all things, granting an equal gift to everything in the world daring to meet the gaze of those inhuman, divine eyes.

Namely: eternal slumber.

However, his infallible authority failed completely at this very moment.

Within those blood-red, crimson eyes, not a trace of the girl's existence could be found.

Like a false phantom rooted in a dream, though her presence could be sensed, the moment those near-divine eyes linked with the unseen God of the Underworld, they reflected nothingness.

This is impossible—

The Harbinger of Death widened his eyes, filled with utter astonishment.

—His ability had been fundamentally negated by the seemingly harmless little girl standing before him.

Who on earth is she?

Does someone who does not exist in the eyes of the God of Death... truly exist in this world?

Doubts gnawed at his soul like venomous snakes, yet they yielded no answers—no, perhaps it was not that answers were lacking, but rather that he instinctively refused to believe the answer he vaguely suspected in his heart.

Such a being actually exists—

The Demon Duke, one of the three supreme pillars who founded the chaotic cult, is a magnificent entity transcending death and even the God of Death himself.

Yet... how could this be?

In mere Hermetica, how could there exist a being comparable to that Lord?

Unable and unwilling to acknowledge reality, the Harbinger of Death's thoughts spun into chaos. In the abyss of self-denial... he gradually lost himself.

Meanwhile, the familiar summoned by Alfred was just taking flight.

Then... it lost its direction in mid-air.

Where is the enemy?

...No, who is the enemy?

The crimson-eyed black crow spun aimlessly in place.

Damn it, damn it, damn it—

Glancing past his utterly useless colleague, the dark wizard's handsome face distorted entirely. Having carved a bloody path through the encirclements of the Glorious Ones more than once, this Dark Lord clearly recognized the perilous situation he had fallen into.

Without a shred of hesitation, his authority-born avatar was invoked once more. In the blink of an eye, his entire body transformed into a swarm of fluttering crimson-eyed crows that filled the sky, scattering in all directions beneath the chaotic firmament.

As long as a single one escaped, he would retain the chance to make a comeback!

To live—

Surviving mattered above all else, at any time.

Yet, not a single crow from the swirling flock managed to escape. The girl's delicate hands, which perhaps could not even properly grip a one-handed sword, merely made a grasping gesture. It was as if time were reversing; the scattered flock was dragged backward by some mysterious force, pulling them together amidst a cacophony of frantic shrieks. Forcefully twisted back into a human shape, the entity was reconsolidated.

The authority of the "Avatar" was shattered!

—Crushed at the slightest touch.

The scene before him completely defied Alfred's understanding. This was the first time he realized that the authorities wielded by the Dark Lords could appear so fragile, so utterly pathetic, and so thoroughly defenseless before a power far greater, more terrifying, and closer to the essence of the world!

Therefore, he chose pragmatism.

Yielding to his heart's true choice beneath the immense terror of death.

"I surrender."

His reliance for survival effortlessly broken, the dark wizard's psychological defenses collapsed completely—the backbone of a powerhouse? The dignity of an expert?

What were those supposed to be?!

The more he spread plagues and death, the more deeply he understood the preciousness of life.

—Could something so fragile, so infinitesimal, so humble, and so easily shattered that it could still cross the long river of time to the present day be anything less than profoundly precious?

Yet... tragedy stems from the shattering of beauty, and the splendor of life lies precisely in the brilliance of its vanishing moment.

So he believed.

And he naturally detached himself from these mortals, indulging in this flawed beauty, this shattered beauty, this sinful beauty.

Yet this purveyor of death, who loved to watch humans struggle and hesitate in despair, slander and harm one another, and ultimately be stained black, never imagined that one day he too would become one of those fragile, infinitesimal, humble, and breakable lives—abandoning his dignity without a second thought before a stronger being, purely to beg for mercy.

"Sorry, one captive is enough." The petite girl with black hair and dark eyes seemed entirely unsatisfied. Much like humans feel no pity for mosquitoes and flies buzzing around them, she uttered chilling words in a light, playful tone: "I dislike you, so please—"

"Just go die."

Before the final words crossed her lips, Alfred had already foreseen the outcome of this compromise.

Flee?

There was nowhere to run and death was inescapable.

Through the experience that had just befallen him, the dark wizard soberly realized this truth, making his decision in a negligible fraction of a millisecond.

Fight!

The transition from cowardice to bravery took only an instant. Realizing that compromise could not avert his death, this native powerhouse born and bred in Hermetica advanced instead of retreating. With a heart-wrenching roar, drawing upon the absolute last reserves of his hidden potential, he crossed the barriers of space and time to appear directly before the girl—who looked no older than eleven or twelve—and slammed his hands onto her head.

Twist, twist, twist—

The profound terror between life and death completely shattered his self-imposed restraints, effortlessly channeling the power lurking deep within his body, allowing him to mercilessly wring the pretty girl's head into a twisted knot.

Yet... yet... is she smiling?

This bizarre spectacle sent a shiver through the experienced Dark Lord, causing him to instinctively leap back.

"That hurts a bit."

With a crisp, melodious feminine voice, the tiny girl used both hands to grab her own head, pulling it upright in an almost impossible fashion. Her twisted neck straightened out like a supple branch long held under pressure: "As expected... Alfred, you'd better just go die."

She paused, gazing at his blurred silhouette beneath the dim sky.

Issuing a cold, ghostly laugh, she raised her right hand and made an aiming gesture. An exquisitely crafted feminine pistol, utterly anachronistic to the steam age, materialized precisely in her palm.

She gently squeezed the trigger.

The firing pin struck the base of the bullet, their collision squeezing sparks from the air—

Flame erupted from the muzzle.

A gunshot rang out, and the flower of death bloomed.

Alfred the dark wizard, creator of the great plague twenty years ago, and mortal enemy of the glorious bloodline of Hermetica, died silently beneath a bullet that could not have been more ordinary.

No—perhaps the concept of a bullet was not ordinary at all, at least not in this era.

In this era where steam power was just beginning to rise, during this dark millennium of civilizational regression, in a historical process where matchlocks and cannons represented the pinnacle of gunpowder civilization, the delicate pistol still lazily puffing smoke in the girl's hand was unquestionably a product beyond history, beyond the era, something that should not exist in this world.

Yet, setting that aside, this was merely a pistol as ordinary as they come.

The projectile fired was nothing more than an ordinary bullet.

Neither contained a shred of mystery. To say nothing of the dark wizard's near-immortal avatar, even an ordinary Glorious One with some psychological preparation could have dodged it.

And yet... the nightmare of Hermetica for the past twenty years perished under this single, simple gunshot.

Simple and decisive, a kill in one strike.

Without the slightest room for struggle, he died just like that, perishing beneath the muzzle torn open by the bullet.

—Bullseye.

It was not a failure to dodge, but having nowhere to run; not a failure to evade, but having nowhere to hide.

It was not a failure to activate his avatar, for he had already activated it.

Yet he died nonetheless.

Because this was fate.

The petite girl with black hair and dark eyes, who called herself the Witch Gasu before Amy Ulysses, fired more than just a bullet from her muzzle—she fired woven destiny.

A destiny named death.

—Long before the bullet left the barrel, long before the trigger was pulled, everything was already sealed.

No matter how many times stronger the dark wizard Alfred became—tenfold, a hundredfold, or even a thousandfold—he was destined to have nowhere to hide beneath this single shot, powerless to resist, left to face his impending doom in utter despair.

Therefore, she was a witch.

The Witch of Destiny—

Witch Gasu.