Chapter 79: The Sword That Splits Day From Night

The angry Witch stopped in front of Kargas.

Kargas was trying to dig himself out of the rubble. His half-demonized body could endure far more punishment than before, but every inch of him was screaming.

He cursed internally.

What the hell is this?

He lifted swollen eyelids and saw those golden eyes looking down at him. No expression. Not a trace of one.

Which made it worse than any anger could have been.

"Stand up," she said.

Kargas didn't move. Not because he didn't want to. His body had stopped taking orders.

The Witch didn't repeat herself.

She shifted her gaze upward, toward the thick rock layers overhead. Through stone and earth, she could sense the thing wriggling up there. The monster that had escaped.

Currently being mobbed by a group on the surface.

Not enough. That degree of force wasn't sufficient.

Uriel had mentioned something back during the academy attack. He'd asked for "deterrence." ：She'd bound them into bundles and strung them up like laundry. Uriel said that wasn't it.

Later, he explained. It needed to be cool, spectacular, and loud.

Now was a good time to test it.

She clenched her right hand.

Quintessence spread from her body, rippling through the underground—invisible to the naked eye, but the air itself screamed as it passed in the entire underground space.

A low hum rose from all directions.

Kargas's eyes went wide. He watched translucent ripples spread through the air, twisting everything around them. His mana perception recoiled the instant it touched the edge of that force, like it had been scalded.

What the hell. He couldn't sense any mana at all—mana itself had been erased here.

---

The quintessence stopped just short of Seraphina.

A circular, nearly invisible barrier enclosed her, soft but impassable. Seraphina pressed her palm against it. The surface felt cool and smooth, like touching a massive crystal pane.

She watched the Witch standing on the other side. Silver hair lifting without wind.

"What the—" Kargas forced his body upright, voice shifting from a growl to a ragged rasp. "Where's my mana?! What did you do to the air?"

He didn't know what he was shouting.

Mana perception had vanished completely. Every trace of magical element in the area had been drained. He felt like someone thrown into a vacuum, breathing desperately and pulling in nothing.

Worse than any direct attack—because this was deprivation at the level of natural law.

Empty. Like the world itself had abandoned him.

But his body moved first.

Destructive instinct overrode fear. He grit his teeth, clenched his swollen, deformed hand into a fist, shattered the stone beneath his feet, and charged the Witch.

"I'll crush you—!"

He threw everything into that punch.

The Witch didn't even dodge.

His fist struck an invisible, absolute barrier.

The sickening crunch of fracturing bone fired from his wrist, up through his elbow, and into his shoulder. The impact pulverized his forearm before the sheer force dislocated his shoulder entirely. Pain receptors long since overloaded, he launched backward, crashed into the rubble, that arm hanging at an unnatural angle before beginning to twist and heal again.

The Witch glanced down at him.

Then raised the western sword. Blade held vertical before her chest.

"Burn this into your memory." Her voice held no warmth, no inflection. "This is the power of the Witch."

The blade drew back slightly. Charging stance.

Her hem whipped in the surging quintessence current. Silver hair danced wildly. Her lips moved—the next line was right there, the one Uriel had taught her.

I am the Holy Sword Witch.

She'd rehearsed those syllables for days. The romaji notes Uriel had written were still taped to her nightstand.

But in that instant, her mind derailed.

She remembered Uriel humming a song sometimes while writing in his room.

Even in the bath, that same song would echo from the bathroom, louder version.

One line in particular he always sang especially loud, voice climbing unconsciously like he was playing some grand role.

I am the storm that is approaching—

She'd heard that pronunciation too many times to count. More than any script line. Standing here now, that melody looped through her head, those syllables Uriel kept repeating spinning in her ears. She didn't even notice she'd mixed them up.

So she spoke.

"I am the storm that is approaches."

Something felt slightly off. She decided not to worry about it.

Light erupted from the blade. Pure light.

Aether spun at high velocity along the edge, density warping the surrounding space. Light itself bent into strange arcs passing near the blade. The entire underground aether field began contracting. All diffused quintessence snapped back in an instant, condensing onto the western sword's blade, transforming that slender weapon into a sword composed entirely of pure energy.

A pillar of light erupted from the blade.

Hundreds of meters wide—thousands of meters wide—the column punched through the underground, through the First Academy's foundation, and exploded skyward.

The entire academy drowned in light surging from below. Main building, auditorium, library, field—every structure cast radiating shadows in all directions under the pillar's illumination.

The night sky ignited. Darkness became daylight in seconds.

But this was only the charging phase.

The Witch raised her head. Found an angle. Adjusted her footing. That trajectory avoided every building in the capital, every street, every sleeping civilian. She confirmed twice.

Then she swung the sword down.

The light pillar changed direction with the blade's descent.

From vertical ascent to diagonal descent. The massive column carved a straight line across the night sky, splitting it in two. The beam's terminus struck the ridge of the nameless mountain outside the capital, cutting in at the peak's dead center, following the mountain's contour all the way down, bisecting the entire mountain.

Stone vaporized on contact. Earth burned to glass under the heat. The mountain's internal waterways flash-boiled. White steam geysered from the fissure. The ground trembled for over ten seconds, like the earth itself was groaning.

When the light faded, one mountain had become two.

Between them: a mirror-smooth cut surface. Moonlight reflected off it in cold, scattered points.

---

In the distance, Estella stood on a ruined street.

She'd just witnessed the combined attack's power. Just finished processing what those three were. Just prepared to head for the First Academy.

Then the light on the horizon made her flinch.

When an existence stronger than you displays its power without reservation, bodily instinct moves faster than thought.

She watched the pillar punch from underground to the clouds, then descend from zenith to distant mountain. Watched that mountain split in two in an instant.

She was stunned.

There was no comparison. She was a candle; this was the sun. Even her full-power strike would only match what those three had done earlier.

And this one could have come down. If this had been aimed at the capital—she didn't dare finish the thought.

Radiance-rank.

No—beyond Radiance-rank. Radiance-rank didn't have this kind of range.

This release method. This energy density. This visual effect—this was a Demon King or a Hero in combat.

Two thoughts detonated simultaneously in her mind: Who is this? Which side are they on?

---

In the inn room, a notebook lay open on the desk.

Page corners creased, ink both fresh and old. Top line: "I am the Holy Sword Witch," with romaji notation beside it. Below, a rough list: technique names, entrance poses, line timing. The last item had been crossed out and rewritten, a star drawn beside it with four words—Make it big.

The curtain blazed white from the light outside.

Uriel's brow furrowed slightly in his sleep. He felt the flash. Mumbled something about lightning. Rolled over. Buried his face deeper in the pillow. A few seconds later rolled again, leg wrapped around the blanket, sleeping soundly.