Chapter 516: Contradiction

A figure covered completely in black as if drenched in ink.

The figure had extremely long hair and nails.

It was clearly present before his eyes, yet it gave off an eerie and otherworldly vibe. Oliver had seen that form before.

He had seen it once when Marie reappeared after leaving the Joseph family.

Whoosh—Boom!

Breaking through the magic power of the World Tree, Marie appeared out of thin air. As soon as she saw Lilith and Oliver, she raised her hand and swung it like a flash of light.

Her long nails slashed through the air like a sword at such a speed that they left deep gashes on the stone floor. However, Lilith dodged even faster.

It was an extreme skill where magic and black magic were systematically mixed.

Thanks to this, Oliver narrowly avoided being hit by Lilith’s punch.

“Marie… How?”

Oliver mumbled at Marie’s sudden appearance.

He thought she had left due to some problem with one of the branches under her command. So they hadn’t met even after she returned from the New Continent.

It suddenly occurred to Oliver that Nofton wasn’t far from Hamchess, where Marie’s branch was located, and that in order to return to Randa from Hamchess, she would have to pass through Nofton.

It was an amusing coincidence, but this realization became insignificant for Oliver.

Because Marie and Lilith were now exchanging deadly blows.

Marie, whose entire body was as dark as the night sea, became extremely furious, her mind clouded with anger. She moved so fast towards Lilith that it was hard to keep up with her.

Moving faster than the eye could follow, Marie suddenly became clear right before Lilith and swung her hand.

Swoosh!

The air split as a gust of wind swept in all directions.

The speed and power were incredible. Each attack was simple yet deadly.

However, Lilith, not to be outdone, swiftly ducked and evaded Marie’s strike. As she did, she aimed a spinning punch.

Ratatatata!

In less than a second, dozens of punches rained down like machine-gun fire.

Even when considering the enhanced physical strength and the emotions and magic layered on top of that strength, the speed was astonishing, and the power was beyond comprehension.

With each blow, Marie’s body was crushed, leaving gaping holes all over her.

Yet Oliver felt neither shock nor sorrow upon seeing this. In contrast, it was Lilith whose expression hardened.

Instead of collapsing, Marie, with her face and body mangled like ground meat, began to heal.

A mysterious black substance enveloping her body intertwined like threads.

‘What in the world is that?’

Oliver wondered as he watched Marie recover from injuries that should have been irreversible.

It seemed to resemble black magic, but the nature felt a bit different.

Oliver recalled having seen that form when he fought Marie in the past, but back then, he couldn’t grasp its true nature. Even now, despite his significantly improved skills and knowledge, he still didn’t know.

‘Something similar comes to mind… The Burned One.’

Oliver thought of the demon he had encountered on the New Continent, especially as an unknown hand appeared above Marie’s head.

Slash!

Marie, who had recovered her crushed body in an instant, swung her hand down once more.

Her nails, now seemingly two or three times longer than before, left deep gashes on the ceiling, wall, and floor.

But since the attack itself was simple, Lilith dodged using the quick evasive maneuvers she had shown earlier and prepared to counter without any delay.

This time, however, Marie also moved with almost unnatural speed and flexibility, dodging Lilith’s strike.

Moving as if she were painting, Marie started slashing everything around, sparing only the space where Oliver stood. Lilith dodged in all directions before counterattacking.

In a single breath, dozens of attacks, dodges, and counters occurred, making it feel like time was moving faster in this space, distorting and tearing the air around them.

By the time the accumulated shock started to make the magically constructed space itself tremble, Lilith’s breath wavered for just a brief moment.

It must have been due to the damage accumulating in the space.

It was a moment so short that an ordinary person wouldn’t have noticed, but it existed, and Marie didn’t miss the opportunity.

Slash!

Marie’s swing cut Lilith’s arm into six pieces.

Though Puppet must have removed the pain like with a Zombie Puppet, Lilith seemed unaccustomed to the visual shock of her arm being severed, causing her to momentarily freeze, unable to counter or dodge.

A grave mistake in a life-and-death battle.

Marie seized that opportunity and attempted another attack.

“Marie.”

Oliver called out, stopping Marie. While not founded on concrete evidence, he had a gut feeling that if Marie landed another blow, Lilith would suffer permanent damage.

Marie, who had been silently focusing on her attack like the Grim Reaper, stopped at Oliver’s call, allowing Lilith, who had almost been dealt a fatal blow, to barely regain her senses and leap to put some distance between herself and Marie.

Despite missing a perfect opportunity, Marie didn’t show anger. Instead, she looked at Oliver with her face, now blackened like a mask, and asked,

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

A sense of relief appeared on Marie’s mask-like face.

With the chaotic battle now halted, just as it seemed things could be resolved through conversation, the ground tilted.

Lilith, who had distanced herself, manipulated the space itself with magic power, tilting the ground at a 90-degree angle.

He knew it was possible by manipulating the spell, but seeing it in action was quite fascinating. The whole space moved.

As a result, the floor turned into a wall, and Oliver and Marie found themselves clinging to it, with Oliver wedging his Quarterstaff and Marie her nails into the surface to hold on.

Dangling from the wall, Oliver considered just descending and landing, but when he looked down, the space where the wall should’ve been was instead an endless abyss.

It was so deep that Oliver couldn’t see the bottom of the pit.

Sensing what Lilith’s next move would be, Oliver instinctively looked up.

As expected.

Lilith had released a great portion of the World Tree’s power within the space and used it to reconstruct her severed arm.

Debris like bricks, steel, concrete pieces, and other materials gathered like a ripple and converged at a single point, defying the laws of physics, reforming Lilith’s arm.

It looked like an ordinary woman’s arm, but through the Warlock’s Eye, Oliver could feel the mass of compressed magic beneath the skin.

How best to describe it? It was like compressing and compressing an enormous building into a single human arm.

In any case, this was far from normal.

Given the excessive compression of magic power, it wouldn’t be strange if it exploded at any moment. Yet the intricate spells inscribed on it not only prevented that but also maximized the arm’s power and efficiency.

Lilith, now in that state, aimed her arm back like the barrel of a gun.

Her target was Marie.

Surprisingly, Marie wasn’t scared; rather, she prepared to confront it head-on.

The hand above her head became even clearer, and Marie covered her body with her long hair, strengthening herself. Her nails returned to their original size.

By reducing the range of attack, she increased its power.

It was an unexpected turn of events in the battle. But one thing was clear.

If the two of them clashed as they were now, one would never walk away unscathed.

‘I don’t want that.’

Amid the urgent situation, Oliver made his decision and moved to avoid the unwanted outcome.

Originally, he had planned only to use magic on this mission, but considering the situation was beyond acceptable, he pulled out vials containing emotions and nature’s power from his coat and Extracted.

At the same time, Oliver made a request to his shadow.

“Shadow. Could you help me out?”

Oliver’s shadow, pitch black, opened wide with eyes that were eerily round and clear. At that moment, Lilith, with her arm compressed to the extreme, used gravity and leg strength to dive downward.

The overwhelming kinetic energy made the air scream. Lilith became a meteor, drawing a line as she plummeted toward Marie.

Marie, transformed into a black beast, thrust her hand forward.

[Bless]

In a moment seemingly split into hundreds and thousands of fractions, Oliver infused the wall he was clinging to with a mixture of nature’s power and emotions.

The infused emotions seeped into the cracks of Lilith’s spell that constructed the space, while the power of nature eroded the inner parts of the World Tree, which was the source of the spell.

Normally, Lilith’s control over the space would have been too strong to infiltrate. But ironically, caught up in her attack, she left gaps in the spell constructing the space, allowing Oliver to break through.

Meanwhile, Marie and Lilith had gotten close enough to collide in front of his eyes.

At that moment, Oliver, who had fully understood and taken over the spell, activated it, causing a magic circle to form between Marie and Lilith, onto which Oliver appeared.

Rumble!!!

A deafening noise impossible to describe with words rang out as the air compressed into a single point, creating a shockwave that spread in all directions like a sphere.

The shockwave, visible with the naked eye, became a catastrophe on its own. It expanded, destroying the spell that was maintaining the space around them.

With trembling and ripping sounds, the magically constructed space collapsed like a building crumbling and a mountain splitting apart, turning into a void with no top or bottom. In the midst of this, Oliver, with shadows wrapped around both arms, blocked the attacks of Marie and Lilith and reconstructed the space.

The fragmented parts of the space, which had been flying around due to the destruction of the spell’s connection points, moved in reverse as if time had been turned back, restoring their original forms. Likewise, the distorted space reverted to its original state, allowing Oliver and Marie to stand instead of being left dangling.

“It really hurts… Especially my right arm.”

Oliver said as he looked at Lilith and Marie standing on either side of him.

“Did you understand the spell in one go…?”

Lilith asked, her voice filled with disbelief. Although she knew Oliver was capable of doing it, witnessing it firsthand left her stupefied.

It was understandable. Although the theory backing the spell had been perfected through research from the Tower of Magic and Puppet, it was only possible to execute because she herself was the essence of the World Tree.

Oliver responded nonchalantly.

“I was lucky. I was able to take control by intervening in a spell that Lilith had already completed. Hold on a moment.”

Oliver spoke casually to Lilith, who had struck him multiple times, without holding any grudges, then turned to look at Marie.

It was as if he trusted Lilith not to attack him again.

“Hmm…”

Oliver scrutinized Marie, whose whole body had turned black, and let out a contemplative hum.

She had attacked Oliver, perhaps unintentionally, but she seemed shocked by it, standing there frozen. This allowed Oliver to carefully examine her condition.

It was far from ordinary black magic. Though her physical strength was enhanced, it was vastly different from disease-related black magic.

Particularly, aside from the similarity to The Burned One, he couldn’t figure out what the hand above Marie’s head was.

“…Lilith. By any chance, do you know what the hand above Marie’s head is?”

Oliver asked Lilith, who had kidnapped Eve and beaten him up, genuinely seeking her opinion.

“Hand…?”

“Ah…”

As soon as he heard Lilith’s response, Oliver exclaimed in realization. It appeared the hand wasn’t visible to Lilith.

That meant one of two things.

Either the essence of the World Tree prevented her from seeing it, or it was something only Oliver could see.

It wasn’t a very difficult question to ponder. Was it because of that? Oliver suddenly recalled the puzzling question he had when he first faced Lilith.

Whack!

Just before he could dive deep into the puzzling question, Oliver swung his Quarterstaff at the hand above Marie’s head.

Fortunately, the mysterious hand lost its form like smoke and vanished under the impact of the Quarterstaff, and Marie reverted to her original state.

Startled by the sudden change, Marie lost her balance for a moment due to the recoil of strengthening her body, and Oliver caught her.

“Ah…”

“Are you okay, Marie?”

“Yes… Yes! I’m fine.”

Marie answered, still shaken.

After helping Marie stand up, Oliver turned his attention back to Lilith.

Though the World Tree’s power, concentrated in a single point, was a remarkable feat, her body had taken damage from its drawbacks.

Cracks covered her body like a battered doll that had been beaten with a club.

Oliver made a request to Lilith once more.

“Lilith. I’m sorry, but could you let Eve go and just leave? You seem to be very hurt.”

“Are you threatening me? Or just asking?”

“It’s a bit of both, but it leans more toward asking.”

“Hmph, that’s somewhat comforting… But it seems that some over there aren’t too happy about it.”

Lilith glanced toward a direction as she nursed her cracked body.

There, a group of mages was forcing their way through the weakened spell.

Not only were Derek, Yareli, Unner there, but also a mage Oliver had never seen before.

Judging by the atmosphere, they seemed to be part of the Tower of Magic. The fact that they broke through despite the space being weakened suggested they had considerable knowledge and skill.

Like a proof of this, they immediately recognized Lilith and Eve, who were trapped by the World Tree, their eyes gleaming with greed.

The mage at the front spoke with glistening eyes.

“Well done, Xenon. Now–”

Pop!

Before the unknown mage could finish, Oliver activated the control over the space and the World Tree, which he had taken from Lilith, and sent the suddenly appearing mages flying far outside.

While constructing that spell was difficult, it wasn’t hard to use a spell that was already constructed through the cheat that is black magic.

The situation happened in a flash and without hesitation. Lilith looked at Oliver, and Oliver spoke.

“What do you mean over there?”