Magic Academy's Genius Blinker Chapter 524: The Story of the Blood Witch (8)

In days of old, the Witch Queen Scarlet, renowned as the ’Blood Witch,’ reigned supreme at the world’s highest peak, surpassing every other creature.

No other phrase could define her.

She stood as the absolute summit, plain and simple.

A entity that had touched the very boundaries of human capability.

Weakness was a concept utterly foreign to Scarlet from the moment she drew breath.

Magic flowed into her body on its own, requiring no practice whatsoever.

Spells, runes, and incantations imprinted themselves in her thoughts without any learning, flashing crystal-clear in her vision.

Talent didn’t begin to cover it... she personified godlike essence.

Mere respiration fueled her ascent in power. Scarlet’s might swelled without bounds, her possibilities verging on endless. She embraced it with serene composure, as if it were everyday normalcy.

At times, she even contemplated ascending beyond all reality to claim godhood for herself.

However, advancement held no eternity.

The endless surge of Scarlet’s development came to a grinding halt.

Eventually, no further progress was possible for her.

By that stage, her strength had ballooned to unrivaled heights, making her the globe’s mightiest. She possessed the solo capacity to overrun more than half the planet, but contentment eluded her.

Awareness of the Twelve Divine Moons fueled her discontent.

Superior existences had eclipsed her tier.

Entities wielding vastly superior, mesmerizing might thrived out there.

If they scaled those pinnacles, what barred her from the same?

It was then that Scarlet, capped at her innate zenith, threw herself into fervent practice and scholarship for the very first time.

Throughout that period, Scarlet crossed paths with innumerable souls.

Sword virtuoso Ha Tae-Ryeong entered her life. She confronted—and battled—figures from the Twelve Divine Moons. Oppressed witches found rescue and refuge under her wing. Partnerships with sorcerers birthed fresh incantations from their shared insights.

Still, after close to a hundred years of wandering and rigorous toil, not the tiniest increment of growth marked her.

Heaven itself seemed to whisper, ’This marks your ceiling.’

A profound void gripped her.

Her colossal strength, seized without toil or trial, offered zero rush, delight, or satisfaction.

Seeing a Class 1 mage erupt in ecstatic celebration upon reaching Class 2 stirred nothing but stark envy within her, untainted by spite.

Endless labor changed nothing; Scarlet realized solo efforts couldn’t propel her onward.

Surrender never crossed her mind.

Centuries upon centuries, even millennia.

Tireless pursuit promised that growth’s rewarding bliss would one day be hers too.

That conviction sustained her.

Until encountering that one.

— You are an anomaly in the plan.

The silhouette dripped enigma. Or was it female? Discernment proved impossible.

Swathed in a pristine white robe, gender, years, and origins stayed utterly veiled.

They declared:

— Your very existence creates a massive disruption in the flow of the world. Therefore, you must slumber for a while.

’Slumber? For how long...?’

— A thousand years should suffice.

’What?’

This apparition materialized from thin air, insisting on a millennium-long nap. Outrageous nonsense.

Yet Scarlet embodied worldly supremacy. Only a Twelve Divine Moon could possibly topple her.

Thus, the Blood Witch for the first time unleashed her complete arcane arsenal, clashing in earnest with the enigmatic intruder.

— You’ve lost, Witch. I’ll awaken you in a thousand years.

Defeat claimed her. Total and devastating.

’I... lost...?’

Their clash rent continents, cleaved oceans, and fractured the vault of heaven.

As shooting stars poured through celestial fissures, doomsday loomed inescapably.

Even so, the white-robed sorcerer proved unconquerable.

Who hid within that mystery?

The brutal fray whipped the robe time and again, granting fleeting peeks at the face beneath.

But intense scrutiny yielded only nothingness... a humanoid void, stripped of features.

Consciousness returned to Scarlet amid boundless whiteness.

Encircling her form, a scarlet ritual array sprawled across a 100-meter span, while twelve columns thrust skyward to the roof.

The enclosure evoked a gilded birdcage, hinting at domestication, yet no gentle warden came to tend or sustain.

Nothing but desolation.

Stranded in that abyss of nullity, Scarlet lingered solitary.

And so, almost a thousand years slipped away.

"Sigh... Back here again!"

Scarlet raised her leg, her toes delicately prodding a drifting orb of light suspended from above.

Roughly a century into her imprisonment, faint magical residues leaked from her core. With this scant force, she slowly embellished the enormous confinement.

She fashioned a desk, a bed, lights, toys, mobiles, and dolls as well, filling her cage with all kinds of furnishings.

She even made her own clothes, now dressed in a gown she'd crafted herself.

Scarlet’s real body, looking two or three years older than her avatars, radiated a grown-up allure. Lounging casually with her legs raised in a short dress, her pose would mortify any accidental viewer.

Yet over a thousand years, nobody had ever set foot in this spot, so she behaved however she liked.

Silence hung heavy.

By steadily collecting the smallest scraps of magic across centuries, she might eventually gather enough strength to form a new avatar.

But could Scarlet really last that long?

Prior to her sealing, solitude had been her norm. Thus, even sealed away, loneliness hardly bothered her.

That changed after she birthed an avatar, roamed the outer world, and crossed paths with Baek Yu-Seol—imprinting forever the cozy bliss of companionship in her heart.

Loneliness now clawed at her.

Icy and barren.

No one to talk to.

No one to hear her out.

At last, she grasped the sheer horror and torment of it.

"It’s all his fault..."

Without Baek Yu-Seol, she’d never have tasted loneliness, not even while drifting through the outside world.

Her avatar’s destruction in Fawn Prevernal Moon’s ambush might have earned a mere shrug before: ’A few more centuries of waiting, then craft another.’

No such nonchalance now.

"A few centuries..."

"Can I endure that again?"

Doubt gnawed at her.

The man who’d eased her isolation boasted a mere century of life at best.

Even breaking free, he’d likely be dust by then.

And should he miraculously outlive centuries, the endless void alone would crush her.

How to suffer through these endless tormenting days?

Her eyes clamped shut tight.

The mage who imprisoned her probably knew she could siphon tiny traces of magic from her own form.

He likely foresaw her forging another avatar to slip into the world beyond.

And predicted her crushing return, loneliness shattering her will against isolation.

He might have seen it all coming.

Scarlet ground her teeth.

"I am the Witch Queen. My pride will not allow me to fall for such petty tricks... How dare they..."

Her words trailed off.

She plunged her face into the bed, hands sealing her ears.

One fleeting thought, and voices from her outer-world friends seemed to whisper.

By now, they’d surely noted Scarlet’s vanishing and scoured everywhere wildly for her. Yet no search, however fierce, would uncover this hideout.

She’d once joined their hunt for her seal’s clues—zero hints found.

Not even Scarlet knew her prison’s location.

Her confining magic circle measured a mere 100 meters across.

Just dispatch an avatar past that edge—cramped for confinement, trivial in the vast cosmos—and she’d shatter the jail with ease.

But to what purpose?

"In the end, no one will ever reach this place anyway..." Scarlet mused, shutting her eyes.

***

A sudden static-like jolt spiked her hair upright, snapping her eyes wide.

"W-wait, what’s this...?!"

The feeling rang familiar.

"A witch hunter?"

From time to time, novice witch hunters had trailed her scent toward this lair.

Ironically, her deadliest foes edged nearest to her cell.

None ever broke through.

Invisible guardian spells, woven from outside her bounds, doomed every witch hunter who neared.

Once tales spread of the Witch Queen flipping the script to slay her hunters, they forged a tacit vow.

’Do not mess with the Witch Queen.’

Nearly centuries passed without a witch hunter daring close.

Still, abruptly, the unmistakable chase of a witch hunter prickled her senses.

"Could it be...?"

Baek Yu-Seol.

No other soul would attempt it.

"Is he really trying to come here...?"

This had to be his signal.

She knew it deep down.

His voice seemed to pulse through her thoughts:

Though hearing him was impossible, it rang in her ears.

Scarlet bolted upright without thinking.

"Ah..."

She lurched ahead, clutching a bar of the cage-shaped pillars guarding her prison’s entry.

No one had ever made it here.

She refused to let hope flicker.

He was merely a young human, not yet 20 years old. Then why?

Thump! Thump...!

Her heart thundered without restraint.

Scarlet gripped her chest tightly, struggling to compose herself amid the frantic racing of her heartbeat.

Despite once reigning at the world's summit, taming her own feelings proved an ongoing challenge.

Hope was something she resisted, but the surging thrill in her pounding heart defied her control.

Ultimately, she surrendered to those emotions.

"...I don’t care anymore. This is on you."

Scarlet whispered to her heart as if addressing it directly, then struck her chest with a firm fist.

Should Baek Yu-Seol falter or fall like the witch hunters before him...

The crushing disappointment would fall squarely on her shoulders.

Still, Scarlet resolved to savor the moment at hand.

Just the awareness that someone sought her out was enough to soothe her isolation, diminishing her sense of desolation and solitude.

The mere effort of another to connect with her brought her genuine happiness.

Until Baek Yu-Seol flung open the door to this cursed prison and stepped through, she would hold fast to this warmth and persist.