Faust slowly pried her eyes open.
The mont she did so, blood rushed out of her mouth.
Her body felt abysmally weak.
During her ti under the rcenaries’ captivity, there had been brief monts where she regained consciousness, only for them to inject sothing into her system and force her back into darkness.
Those fragnts were all Faust could recall as she struggled to push herself up.
She looked around.
"...."
Bodies were scattered everywhere, torn apart as if by a blade.
Confusion set in, but it didn’t last long.
Faust suddenly retched, coughing up blood.
"Cough! Cough...!"
Her body was in no condition to move, and even as she tried to gather mana, she could feel her circuits fluctuating dangerously.
Still, she attempted to cast a healing spell.
"Akh...!"
Only for her body to give out again, lurching forward as another wave of weakness hit her.
"Haa...."
Faust knew she was in bad shape.
Most likely, it was because of the drug still inside her system. For sothing like this to affect her to such a degree, it couldn’t be an ordinary toxin. If it were, her circuits would’ve expelled them imdiately.
That ant... it must’ve been a drug made specifically for witches like her.
Faust coughed a few more tis before turning to the side to see Fiore lying there, in just as bad a condition as her.
"Fiore..."
No, Fiore was in an even worse shape than her.
Faust knew the mont her fingertips checked her pulse that Fiore wouldn’t have much longer to live.
An apprentice witch like her, with circuits at an infancy level, wouldn’t have the proper systems to expel a toxin like this.
The only reason Faust was able to move this much was that her circuits were still trying to fight off whatever was inside her.
"Cough...!"
Faust then turned toward the distance, where a powerful force was emanating. Whatever had caused all of this, it was certainly there.
Faust then got up and forced her broken body toward the distance.
Just one spell was all she needed.
If she could deal with whatever was responsible for all of this, then at least she would not go down without a fight.
But the mont she crossed the threshold, what she witnessed made her jaw slacken.
"L-Lancel...?"
* * *
Heidi Erngarde.
Over two centuries ago, she had been a respected mber of the Erudition Society.
She was regarded as an up-and-coming genius who would have redefined magic, particularly known for her specialty in dinsional-type magic.
It was a field not even the Grand Witch at the ti, Cyrene, was fully proficient in.
That alone set Heidi apart.
She was the only witch of her generation to possess mastery over a branch of magic that could rival, if not surpass, the Grand Witch herself.
However, everything ca crashing down the day her experint malfunctioned, causing the lives of ten fellow mbers of the Erudition Society.
"It was a mistake..."
It had been a mistake.
She had begged for leniency, but she was thrown to the wolves.
That day, a newly appointed mber of the Erudition Society, Faust Lieber, had rcilessly beaten Heidi, who at the ti was not well-versed in magic duels.
In the end, Heidi was expelled from the Erudition Society and ultimately exiled from Riviere, without any chance to properly explain herself or receive a pardon.
To Heidi, it had been an unfair judgnt.
The witches had agreed to participate in the experint.
Who could have known it would end in their deaths?
And even so, it wasn’t as if Heidi had intended to kill them in the first place. It had simply been an honest mistake.
Yet the Erudition Society had shown no rcy. The Grand Witch, Cyrene, had deed her defective, a danger to Riviere.
That day, Heidi swore to take her revenge.
She drove herself into isolation in the human capital, researching and refining her magic, forming connections with the underworld along the way.
Over ti, she discovered a special property, sothing only those proficient in dinsional magic could truly grasp.
Like a black hole, dinsional magic could be refined to the point that it could draw in a witch’s magic circuits.
And from that, Heidi had beco an infamous killer who had devoured an innurable number of witches’ circuits across the continent, either killing them outright or leaving them alive, forced to suffer without ever being able to use magic again.
And finally, the first target of her revenge had to be the one witch who had forced her into suffocating humiliation, Faust Lieber.
Snap——!
With a snap of her fingers, the spine-like monster, which had been surprisingly resistant to magic, finally disintegrated.
As the snow that had obscured the vicinity began to fade, Heidi looked ahead, toward the erging silhouette within the thinning haze.
"Hahaha... Fuck... This is crazy..."
Standing there was the man who seed capable of using magic.
Heidi was certain that this man was yet another one of the Grand Witch Cyrene’s twisted experints.
And so, she wanted to devour his circuits.
Just from the substance of his magic alone, from what little she had already felt, she could tell that his power was sothing entirely different, despite the surprisingly faint amount of mana his spells seed to emit.
Heidi was no stranger to Cyrene’s eccentricity. This man’s existence, strange and unnatural as it was, could only be her doing.
"Oho?"
Yet for so reason, the man was just standing there, laughing like a crazed maniac despite his failing body.
Heidi’s amusent quickly faded.
She had seen enough.
It was about ti she stopped indulging his little display and simply end him.
"Chains of Dominion."
But unfortunately for Heidi, ti was up.
────────────
[Ergency Objective Completed!]
────────────
[Condition:]
∎ Survive for one minute
[Rewards Obtained:]
∎ Strength: 2.0
∎ Vitality: 2.0
∎ Endurance: 2.0
∎ Agility: 1.0
∎ Mana: 1.0
────────────
[Level: 8 → 10]
────────────
[Special Objective]
────────────
[Condition:]
∎ Reach Level 10
[Rewards Obtained:]
∎ Contract Capacity: 3
∎ Chains of Dominion Upgrade
────────────
"...!"
At that mont, unseen chains wrapped around her body.
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