Chapter 20: Raiga vs Agatha the Dark Witch

Raiga made a full recovery one week later.

Exactly twenty-one days remained before the attack on the halfling capital, but neither of them wanted to rush and risk fighting while in anything less than ideal condition.

The path remained steep, the rocks seemed endless, and Emi was gradually adapting to the dense mana flowing throughout the area. There was no wind, nor were there any clouds, only a bitter silence remarkably similar to the calm before a predator strikes.

“It’s way too quiet.” Raiga had a bad feeling. He stopped walking and placed a hand on Emi’s shoulder, signaling for her to do the same. “Behind me.”

“Huh?” the blonde grunted.

“We’re being watched.” Raiga summoned his great helm to conceal his face, stepped forward, and brought his left hand to the pommel of his sword. Emi immediately understood the signal. Just as they had practiced during their days at camp, she dropped to the ground and crawled away from the area.

She had no desire to get caught in the middle of a supernatural battle.

“You’re quite perceptive, Heretic. So much for my ambush.” A dark glow appeared before the pair, and seconds later, a woman dressed in black emerged from it. She had pale skin, gray hair, and eyes as red as blood.

She held an oak wand in her left hand, the kind commonly used by spellcasters from the academy. Yet there was something in her gaze that did not seem human, an inherent emptiness belonging to monsters that viewed humanity as nothing more than prey to devour. Raiga felt no fear, but Emi did. She had spent nearly her entire life around mages, yet she had never encountered anyone who radiated such a desolate presence.

“You were planning to hit us with a spell from hiding. Sorry, but that isn’t going to work,” Raiga said. “I’ll give you one chance. Leave and don’t come back. Let us continue on our way.”

“That will not happen,” the witch replied. “The gods have ordered me to kill you. I am Agatha, the Dark Witch, Champion of the Goddess Hecate.”

“A Champion? So the gods already know about our plan and have sent their own chosen warriors after us. I’d heard stories about Champions before, but I thought they were either a myth or a title invented by charlatans trying to glorify themselves. I see I was wrong.” Raiga drew his longsword.

“Agatha, something is wrong with the gods. If you’re truly their Champion, then you should let us pass and help us! We’re trying to cure them! The gods are sick, and they could die if we don’t do something!” Emi realized that this woman was nothing like the Minotaur, a beast incapable of reason.

The simple fact that they could exchange words with her gave Emi a small amount of hope.

“The gods are perfect, and I am one of their Champions. I’m sorry, blonde woman, but I will not step aside. I will fulfill my oath as their chosen warrior and destroy the Heretic. His very existence is an affront to my beliefs.”

“No, wait, please! That’s not what’s happening!” Emi exclaimed. “Agatha, the gods aren’t perfect anymore! As their Champion, you should be protecting them, not interfering with us!”

“Your words are heresy. Say one more thing and I will kill you as well. I will not tolerate anyone insulting the gods in my presence.” The witch’s cold, merciless voice left no room for a second or third interpretation.

She meant it.

If Emi moved her lips again, her life could be in danger.

“Emi, don’t say anything else. Let me handle this,” Raiga ordered.

“We’re not wrong!” Emi ruined it.

If there had been any chance of talking their way out of the situation or at least saving herself, she had just thrown it away.

Agatha stared at her with such murderous intensity that Emi nearly fainted. Such was the overwhelming aura of a divine Champion, a woman personally chosen by the gods to become their executioner. Each deity could have only one active Champion at a time, and Hecate, Goddess of Magic, had chosen an exceptionally talented woman.

“Very well. If negotiation is useless… I accept your challenge, Champion Agatha!”

Raiga went straight for the kill. He moved like lightning and thrust his blade toward the witch’s neck, but his sword passed through nothing more than an afterimage rather than her actual body.

“Curse of Blood!” The ground beneath Raiga’s feet suddenly split open. His superhuman reflexes allowed him to evade the enormous spear that erupted from below just in time. It had clearly been intended to impale him alive. Agatha did not stop there, summoning spear after spear beneath his feet and forcing Raiga to move constantly without a moment to rest.

Emi retreated even farther away. She wanted no part in the battle, but it was already too late.

A dark boar stood directly in front of her, scraping the ground with its hooves. The creature stood nearly a meter tall and measured two meters from head to tail, with two enormous tusks dripping with blood.

“Raiga!” Unable to dodge or even react, Emi screamed her protector’s name. In less than the blink of an eye, the demonic animal was sliced cleanly in half. It had not even managed to get within three meters of the blonde.

“Think you can keep up?” The Dark Witch continued summoning more and more boars. The beasts appeared one after another like cockroaches, charging with powerful tusks overflowing with magical energy, only to be carved apart by Raiga’s longsword.

A single one was no match for Raiga.

More than forty at the same time, however, was an entirely different matter, especially since he could not destroy them as quickly as he normally would. Doing so would leave Emi exposed.

“Shit!” Monster blood soaked the adventurer’s armor. He cut them down as quickly as possible, but the moment he butchered the thick flesh of one boar, five more were already attacking him from every direction.

Thirty dead.

Sixty dead.

One hundred dead!

So many corpses surrounded him that maneuvering was becoming nearly impossible. If this continued, he would soon lose the space he needed to protect Emi, and that would mean defeat. Raiga decided to take a risk.

“Dark Arts: Twin Lightning!” His longsword glowed with black light as the mana from both the environment and his own body converged upon the Heretic’s blade, increasing the power of his attacks. Raiga swung his sword, unleashing two enormous bolts of lightning that tore through the boars and roasted them instantly, creating the opening they desperately needed. “Run, Emi!”

“Curse of Blood!”

“Stop!” Raiga pulled her away just in time.

The ground beneath his beloved suddenly split open, and another crimson spear burst forth. Agatha’s attacks were no longer focused on him.

They were aimed at Emi.

The balance of the battle had shifted completely. Raiga was now at a severe disadvantage, and there was little he could do about it.

He was an elite duelist, a nearly flawless warrior capable of fighting head-on against the finest swordsmen in the kingdom. But acting as a guardian and protector was not exactly his specialty.

For years, he had fought alone without caring about his own safety.

Switching to a more defensive, less suicidal fighting style was extremely difficult for him. Add the burden of protecting someone he loved, and his combat effectiveness dropped considerably.

A stupid opponent like the Minotaur had failed to notice that weakness.

Agatha had not.

“Come on! Keep running! You can’t do it forever!”

Raiga wrapped his left arm around Emi’s waist. She offered no resistance, allowing him to carry her while he performed evasive maneuvers to keep them both alive. Her weight barely registered to Raiga, but the fear of losing her disrupted his concentration and prevented him from fighting at full strength.

SLASH.

A flaming boulder nearly crushed them. Had Raiga not instinctively leaped to the right, the battle would have ended then and there.

“Ah!” Emi bit her tongue from the constant movement. She looked like a rag doll being thrown from side to side.

Agatha conjured seven more boulders, each nearly three meters in diameter and burning fiercely with crimson flames.

“Blazing Death!” Agatha shouted.

The massive projectiles moved faster than they had any right to, scorching the ground along their path and coming dangerously close to striking their target. Raiga could not dodge them, and with only one hand available, his longsword was useless against such enormous spheres of death.

The battle should have ended there.

Sacrificing Emi in order to win was out of the question.

“AAAAAGHHHHHH!” Raiga unleashed an overwhelming roar that shattered all seven burning boulders in less than a blink. Emi felt the force of the attack and nearly lost consciousness. Her vision blurred, she gasped uncontrollably, and her ears began ringing. “Dragon’s Roar!”

Better stunned than dead, Emi thought as she struggled to catch her breath.

“Sorry! Are you okay?” Raiga retreated several meters while still holding his beloved securely. He then gently placed her on the ground and returned both hands to his sword.

“M-More or less. That was incredible and painful at the same time,” Emi grunted with a weak smile.

Raiga discreetly handed his beloved a magical seal. He said nothing and did not even look at her. Emi held the piece of paper between her delicate fingers, remained silent, and kept her attention fixed on the enemy.

“Damn you, Heretic! Has your heresy gone so far that you’ve learned to use the techniques of dragons?!” Agatha sounded angrier than ever.

To a mage, dragons were the embodiment of everything wrong with the world.

Beings born from Chaos and darkness, with no clear order or defined origin.

They defied everything the academy preached.

“My Dark Arts still have plenty of surprises. Want to discover the rest of them right now?” Raiga was thankful his closed helmet concealed the thin stream of blood running from his lips. Dragon techniques were far from easy to perform, and casting them demanded an effort beyond superhuman from their user. His eyes turned red, while his skin became alarmingly pale.

“Ouroboros Dance!” Agatha levitated four meters into the air. Ten dark spheres danced around her while the mana in the surrounding area gathered within her palms.

“Dark Arts: Blazing Flames!” Raiga answered her spell with a torrent of his own fire.

Nine spheres collided with the Heretic’s spell and neutralized each other. The tenth, however, was not aimed at Raiga.

It was aimed at Emi.

“Eek!” The young woman threw herself to the ground again, covering her head with her delicate arms just as Raiga had instructed. She waited for her noble knight to slice the dark sphere apart with his longsword. “Th-Thank you…”

“Ouroboros Dance!” Agatha repeated the technique. The spheres danced around her before launching themselves at tremendous speed, except this time all ten were aimed directly at Emi. The Dark Witch had discovered the key to victory: attack the helpless girl, then exploit Raiga’s distraction and finish him off.

To hell with honor.

There was no such thing as mutual respect in a duel to the death.

Agatha did not follow the rules of chivalry. She did not give a damn about them, nor did she have any intention of becoming some noble spellcaster like her counterparts at the Academy of Magic. As the Champion of the Goddess Hecate, her highest priority was victory and the approval of her deity.

Nothing else mattered.

“Dark Arts: Dragon’s Roar!” Raiga pushed his mana to its limit, concentrating all of his magical energy into his throat. Instead of regulating it as he normally did, he released everything at once without aiming in any particular direction. The roar lost some of its raw power, but its range increased dramatically.

The spheres missed their target as the shock wave altered their trajectories and sent them flying off to the sides, raising an enormous cloud of smoke that temporarily blocked all visibility.

Now!

Raiga moved like a bolt of lightning in the middle of a storm, pushing his bones and muscles to their absolute limits as he crossed twelve meters in less than a blink. He leaped toward Agatha, raised his blade over his head, and mercilessly struck at the woman’s left shoulder.

SLASH.

But he missed.

The Dark Witch had already vanished.

“Die.” With a malicious, almost seductive voice, Agatha appeared behind him with her wand aimed directly at his back. Raiga allowed gravity to pull him toward the ground, and only then did he manage to evade the golden beam that nearly killed him.

Emi!

The adventurer immediately rushed back toward his beloved, convinced that Agatha would exploit that opening to kill her. It was the perfect opportunity. For those two seconds, Emi’s life had been completely vulnerable.

But Agatha did not attack.

The smoke cleared and visibility returned.

“You missed your chance,” Raiga murmured as he returned to his fighting stance.

Emi had noticed it too.

During that brief moment when Agatha could no longer see her, the witch had not attacked.

Could she not sense Emi’s presence?

“You won’t be so lucky again, Heretic. You’re going to die.” The woman levitated once more, this time rising nine meters into the air until her figure appeared increasingly small from below.

The Prophet said Emi is dead as far as the gods are concerned. Does that mean their Champions can’t detect her either? Interesting.

Raiga gave his girlfriend a quick glance.

No words or gestures were necessary to plan their next move. Emi understood immediately and retreated another four meters without hesitation.

“Last chance. Surrender or die,” the adventurer warned.

“I swear by my Goddess Hecate that I will have your head! I will destroy you!” Agatha drained the mana from the entire mountain. The rocks lost their color, and the little grass that remained withered instantly. Seconds later, an enormous sphere nearly eight meters in diameter appeared above the witch. Waves of energy surged back and forth within it like atoms on the verge of fission. “Final Death!”

Agatha the Dark Witch had finally unleashed her ultimate spell.

Raiga could hardly believe such power existed. Even the strongest demons he had ever faced paled in comparison to that terrifying technique.

The sphere contained streams of energy moving at incredible speeds. If it struck the ground, it could destroy not only the mountain but all of Olympus.

Damn it! I’ll have to use my trump card!

All or nothing.

“Dark Arts: Malakor!” The adventurer’s longsword was replaced by an even more imposing weapon. Its blade remained black, but golden engravings from an age long forgotten by humanity covered its surface. Raiga’s fighting aura increased a hundredfold, pushing both his muscles and his mana to their absolute limits.

“Ah…” Emi stared in astonishment.

Malakor, the Sword of the Heretic.

A taboo weapon born from the gods’ hatred and resentment toward mortals.

Whenever someone was named the Heretic, they gained access to this peculiar weapon. Since most Heretics died within less than a year, none except Krizalid had ever managed to master it completely. The lives of Raiga’s predecessors had been short and violent, leaving none of them enough time to study the weapon properly and learn how to draw out its full potential.

But Raiga was different.

He had possessed fourteen entire years to train and push this divine scourge to its absolute limit.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Agatha launched the sphere.

Raiga answered with an enormous bolt of black lightning powerful enough to make the ground tremble beneath his feet.

The two techniques collided.

For four full seconds, the gigantic sphere and the deadly lightning remained locked in a clash worthy of legend. Not even during the ancient era were battles of this magnitude common. Emi watched everything from the front row, and despite the imminent danger, she could not help feeling fortunate to witness something people might still talk about a thousand years from now.

Then came the explosion.

The two attacks neutralized each other, and once again, an enormous cloud of black smoke erased all visibility from the battlefield.

“I’m not finished yet!” Raiga leaped eight meters into the air and swung his blade toward the witch’s neck in a killing strike.

Agatha teleported back to the ground to evade him.

She did not need her sight to sense the Heretic’s presence. She prepared her wand for a counterattack and then…

“Huh?” A faint sound of wood being struck reached Agatha’s ears. The witch lowered her gaze toward her chest and froze in horror. Her face turned pale as bitter tears began flowing from her eyes. “N-No…”

A thick crossbow bolt had pierced straight through her heart.

Blood poured from the wound.

When the dark cloud finally disappeared, Agatha saw Emi standing directly in front of her with the crossbow still aimed at her.

It had been a precise and fatal shot.

“I knew it. You couldn’t detect me,” Emi said sadly before lowering her weapon and letting out a sigh.

“I warned you. I told you to surrender.” Raiga landed on the ground and walked toward the wounded woman. Agatha dropped her wand as her legs gave out beneath her, leaving her kneeling before the Heretic.

“Ah…” she stammered. “M-Mom…”

Those were her final words.

The Heretic drove Malakor through her neck to grant her a merciful death. Agatha fell backward, lifeless, drowning in her own tears and pools of blood. Raiga had no desire to learn anything about his fallen enemy, nor did he care why she had spoken those final words.

She had been an obstacle to his mission.

Nothing more.

He refused to humanize her in death, knowing that doing so would only burden him with unnecessary guilt.

“We won,” Raiga said, raising his left hand toward the sky in victory.