The Regressor and the Blind Saintess - Chapter 99

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

◈ The Regressor and the Blind Saintess ◈

Chapter 99: Anilis - 2

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Golden wings.

Within them, Vera stared ahead, his eyes wide.

Spears hammered against the wings. Explosions rang out. Heat surged. Another spear formed amid it all, then shot toward him.

Divinity overflowed, allowing him to maintain his defenses, but the impacts still shook him from side to side. As he did, Vera quickly expanded his thoughts and recalled what he had just seen.

Sanctuary had split apart.

It was something he had never once considered possible. Naturally. Sanctuary was, quite literally, a god's authority.

How was that possible? Vera turned the question over in his mind, searching for the mechanism, until he found the answer.

It was in Anilis's words.

Spell Formula.

Strictly speaking, Sanctuary itself was not an Authority. It was a phenomenon created by weaving an Authority into a Spell Formula. And if it was a phenomenon, if Sanctuary was a Spell Formula, then the formula itself could be broken. That must have been the point Anilis was making.

Of course, it was not as easy as it sounded.

Even if it had taken form through a spell formation, its foundation was still a god's Authority. It was power from a higher plane, beyond the reach of an ordinary mage.

Even so, the reason Anilis could interfere with Sanctuary likely lay in that face, which was growing ever more similar to those corpses.

Her hair was taking on a deeper pink hue. Her expression was becoming gentler. Her voice was growing thinner as well.

She had clearly injected herself with serum. It must have been the serum's effect, born from the power of an ancient race.

Kaboom!

Flaming spears struck the wings again.

Vera frowned. Even so, his thoughts continued spinning rapidly.

She sees through every Spell Formula.

There was no way Anilis, who had even broken through an Authority, would fail to dismantle a Spell Formula he had woven.

The reason the wings remained intact was obvious.

Joy was visible on the face of Anilis, who was firing spears while grinning across from him.

She intends to toy with me.

Arrogant, and foolish. She only had to look at the sword in his hand to know that Spell Formulas were not his forte.

Gritting his teeth as he endured the impacts, Vera drew up his divinity.

The Authority itself can still function.

What Anilis broke was merely a phenomenon caused by an Authority. She could not interfere with the Authority itself.

In that case...

“I swear.”

He simply needed to amplify the power of the Holy Mark itself through a somewhat more primitive method.

A golden glow rose from his right forearm.

“From this moment until this battle ends, I will not release my sword from my hand. Thus, I shall suffer less harm from magic. Should I release my sword, I will lose the ability to make a fist.”

The wings grew sturdier in accordance with his oath. The storm of mana that had been churning within him until moments ago eased considerably.

“I swear again. From this moment until this battle ends, I will perform no magic or spellcraft of any kind. In return, I shall gain a stronger body. Should I fail to uphold this, I will lose every magical and spellcraft ability I possess.”

Divinity raced through the blood vessels across his body. It seeped into his muscles, bones, and organs. The divinity he could not contain within him became a golden mist that covered Vera's body.

Huff.

Vera exhaled, then drew in a breath and charged forward. The wings vanished, and Vera burst out from within them.

A deep smile appeared on Anilis's face. A red formation rose beneath Vera's feet.

Flame magic [Fire Whirl].

The formation blazed, transforming into a scarlet pillar of fire.

Fwoosh!

Vera accelerated even faster and barely passed the pillar.

The distance between them closed in an instant.

Vera drove his sword toward the left side of Anilis's chest. Her smile deepened.

“Idiot.”

With that mocking insult, Anilis's body turned into flames and scattered.

Her voice rang out from the air.

“You're so stupid, you think all you have to do is swing a sword? Did you think a mage fighting a knight would have no defense against close combat?”

Fwoosh.

Anilis appeared amid the flames blooming across the ceiling of the garden. Vera caught the faint sound of flames surging, twisted his body, and leaped upward.

“That's right. The way you struggle is just like a cockroach. No, you're worse than a cockroach. At least they know they're pathetic, so they hide.”

An enormous formation appeared, covering the garden's entire ceiling.

Watching Vera approach, Anilis activated it.

Not a spell well suited for indoors, but...

The formation burned. It became hundreds of fireballs, each glowing white-hot.

Wide-area annihilation magic [Meteor].

Anilis extended her index finger and wove a small formation before it.

Target-tracking magic [Stalker].

The white-hot fireballs poured down toward Vera all at once. Vera refined his divinity into a state similar to aura, then swung it broadly forward.

A golden wave collided with white calamitous flames. As the surface met countless points, ripples multiplied into dozens, then hundreds, before erupting.

Boom!

The shockwave flung Vera's rising body far backward.

Anilis watched him and wove another formation. With the face of a girl that had nearly lost its original shape, she smiled softly.

“You really are good at entertaining me. Try blocking this one too.”

[Meteor] and [Stalker] combined. Anilis layered another spell over them.

Gravity-amplification magic [Gravity].

Projectile-acceleration magic [Silver Wing].

Thud!

In an instant, the air throughout the space dropped. The white fireballs began growing silver wings, one after another.

As if unaffected in the slightest, Anilis waved her hand as though giving an order. The Meteors shot down toward a single point.

Vera watched the sight and wove divinity again. He was not drawing it out from within himself. He was drawing in the divinity of the divine realm floating high above Oriac.

A denser, more brilliant golden radiance wound around the Holy Sword.

Vera unleashed it, and another explosion erupted.

The impact shook the entire Mage Tower.

Even with her vision obscured by smoke, Anilis could clearly sense Vera's presence.

“You're tenacious.”

A shrill laugh followed. She had never considered defeat. She was fighting after taking serum, even risking damage to her great intellect.

How could she possibly imagine losing?

Suddenly, Anilis felt her insides boil.

All because of that brat!

Her rage surged. It felt as though heat were burning through her insides. No, they truly were burning. She could clearly feel her organs burning, melting, and regenerating without pause.

The pink in Anilis's pupils deepened. Veins began protruding all over her body.

Even as her emotions began devouring her reason, her thoughts rapidly assembled a Spell Formula.

Mana burst from Anilis's fingertips, becoming formations that densely filled the space.

They were not simple formations. Circular planar formations. Polygons enclosing the edges of each plane. Cubes formed by combining those polygons.

A high-level Spell Formula was taking shape.

The Spell Formula enclosed the space. Different Spell Formulas began operating on each face of the octahedral space, twisting the laws within.

The world inside the formula transformed in an instant. Lava surged over the ruined flower garden. Fiery rain fell from the sky. The heat had risen beyond what a bare body could endure.

“Kid, this is what you were trying to do, isn't it?”

Spatial alteration Spell Formula [Great Flame Realm].

“You're pathetic, struggling so desperately to use a spatial Spell Formula despite your station.”

Vera held his breath against the heat assaulting his body and wrapped himself in divinity. He could not block the heat itself, but he had to at least prevent the burns it caused.

Anilis looked at Vera struggling desperately to survive and wore an expression of contempt.

“Vermin.”

Anilis spread both arms.

Four more Spell Formulas woven by Anilis were added atop the eight that formed the space.

A total of twelve different Spell Formulas locked together, and the space began to warp.

Unique Spell Formula [Inferno].

Calamitous flames devoured the space. They burned all oxygen, burned the space itself, and burned the concepts beyond it into ash. It was magic that struck at existence itself. A Spell Formula that touched the shadow of Providence.

“Let's see how long you can hold out. It seems you're relying on the divinity of the divine realm, but how long do you think that will last?”

Vera ground his teeth and burned divinity. He had no answer to offer. It was the truth.

The gate into the divine realm that Rene had forced open would not remain open forever. It might close soon, perhaps even before he could escape this space.

He had to find a way.

He was enduring through his oaths and the divinity of the divine realm, but if he only continued taking this punishment, the battle would ultimately end in his defeat.

Think.

He needed to keep thinking, but the vanishing oxygen was making it difficult to breathe.

Gasp!

He drew in as much oxygen as he could and held it within himself. His gray eyes reflected red as they looked upon the world dyed by calamitous flames.

Interfere with the Spell Formula?

Impossible. It irritated him, but he had to admit it. His skill with spells was inferior to that fucking old hag's.

Wait for her mana to run out?

That was impossible as well. It was a game of chicken far too close to a gamble. He had no certainty over which would come first, the divine realm's gate closing or the Mage Tower Master's mana being exhausted.

As Vera watched Anilis floating in the air and looking down at him, he narrowed his eyes and followed another thought.

She is not moving.

Ever since she invoked the magic, Anilis had stayed in that spot, doing nothing but moving her mouth.

She could have drawn a sword and stabbed him. If not that, she could have worn down his divinity with simple magic. Yet she made no move at all.

There was only one thing it could mean.

She cannot move.

In that state, Anilis likely could not move. Not only that, she likely could not take any action other than speaking.

As his thoughts continued, Anilis spoke again.

“Kid, how long do you think you can endure? Why don't you at least swing your sword?”

She said it with a snickering laugh, but it only made Vera's heart grow cold.

It is a provocation.

She wanted him to move. She wanted to drain his stamina. No, she might be trying to make him lose oxygen faster through movement.

Realizing that, Vera grinned.

“They say people get more talkative when they get old. Looks like it's true.”

“...What?”

“I'm saying it's funny to see an old hag who should've keeled over dead long ago making such a spectacle of herself.”

The smile disappeared from Anilis's face.

Watching her, Vera continued his mockery.

“I should've known the moment you started liking little kids. Can't even act your age? Or is it because you know your age too well? That would make sense. When you're almost old enough to die, you probably want to suck the vitality out of little kids. But you know what? That won't make you young.”

It was counterprovocation, meant to shatter her composure. Anilis had shown emotional reactions for some reason, and Vera judged that she would surely be shaken by this.

The heat rose. It felt as though the entire world were burning, and his breathing grew increasingly ragged.

But he could not show it.

He already knew that maintaining this Spell Formula was a burden on Anilis. He had to press her further, even if only this way.

“Time truly is cruel. Has forgetfulness made you forget shame as well? If I were you, I would've hanged myself out of disgrace long before becoming like that. Ah, perhaps...”

“Shut uuuup!”

Fwoosh!

The flames surged fiercely.

Anilis's gentle expression, now exactly like those corpses, twisted at once into the face of a witch from a story.

“What do you know! Do you know how much I've sacrificed for this world...”

“What sacrifice? You're a horny old hag, yet you sure are good at making excuses.”

The provocation continued.

At that, Anilis's whole body shook, and bloody tears ran from her eyes, stretched so wide that the corners had torn.

Crack.

Cracks began spreading through the Spell Formulas forming the space.

Vera snorted and adjusted his grip on his sword.

Idiot.