Chapter 42: The Holy Sword Witch Makes Her Entrance
Abandoning the scattered documents, Uriel approached the window. He stood in absolute silence, staring at the bizarre harvest of cultists swaying gently against the eaves.
"I found another one in a brown coat. Probably one of theirs. I took care of him, but I didn't hang him up with the rest."
The Witch delivered this update with the exact same tone one might use to announce a good deal on fresh salmon at the market.
Uriel didn't bother questioning it. He stepped outside to check. The corpse was still there. There were no visible external wounds, but the man's eyes were bulging out of his skull, and dark blood had leaked from every orifice.
Uriel activated his Observer skill. The man's residual aura flared into a dim, Mithril-tier glow.
Not bad, Uriel thought. He'd held out for a minute or two. That was genuinely impressive.
Outside the academy, he'd have been a renowned master. It was a shame he had to die here. Rest in peace, buddy. Try to be a good person in your next life.
However, this whole human-meat-hook display was entirely too occult for his taste.
Uriel climbed onto the roof and started taking them down. He untied the ropes one by one and dropped the bodies onto the wide ledge. He stacked them neatly in a corner, piling them up like sandbags.
He stepped back and evaluated his handiwork. It looked less like cleanup and more like someone building a battlefield trophy, but it was at least marginally more normal than a string of sausages.
He grabbed a spare weapon from the pile to use as a prop for the Witch.
He had already skimmed the files in the headmaster's office. The conclusion was undeniable. Oswald Rutherford, the esteemed Academy Headmaster, was a certified member of the Curse Cult.
Uriel had originally assumed the man was just a sleazy pervert. Now, the guy had upgraded from a walking HR violation to a bona fide mid-level cultist. And the man was nowhere to be found.
He wasn't among the bodies outside. That meant Rutherford had fled the building long before his mother started her cleanup operation.
Typical middle management, Uriel thought. First to vanish when the quarterly targets start killing people.
"Let's go."
Uriel clapped his hands and turned to the Witch. She stood quietly at the edge of the roof in her dark military uniform, waiting for his next command.
"We're heading to the auditorium roof. We can figure out the rest of the script on the way."
He scratched his head. Before he could finish the sentence, two arms wrapped securely around his waist.
Uriel jolted. His center of gravity vanished instantly, and he tipped backward. For half a second, he had absolutely no idea what was happening. A rush of weightlessness shot up from his soles.
He looked down. The ground was already far away. He turned his head and realized he was sitting on the Witch's arm.
She had picked him up.
He was not five years old. He was nearly as tall as she was, yet she had scooped him up by the hips and settled him onto her forearm like a toddler. His line of sight shot up half a head higher than his normal standing height. The wind bit at the back of his neck.
"Mom, you—"
He forgot to use her codename.
"Shh."
The Witch frowned slightly. She wasn't correcting his slip of the tongue. The posture was just a bit awkward. Uriel was too tall to be carried this easily with one arm. It wasn't a weight issue, but a matter of leverage.
She adjusted her arm angle and looked up at him. Her golden eyes were calm and serious.
"Little Uri, hold onto my head."
Uriel froze. Before his brain could process the command, his feet left the roof entirely.
His mind screamed in absolute protest.
I'm way too old for this. I am practically an adult. My mother is carrying me across rooftops like a sack of groceries.
His body reacted on pure instinct. She gave him a light bounce to shift his weight, and he lurched forward. His arms wrapped around her head, his fingers burying themselves deep in her short silver hair.
The stomach-dropping sensation of freefall seized him. The wind roared past his ears, and his toes curled inside his boots. The rooftop shrank below while the sky stretched wide above. He clamped his mouth shut, choked back a yelp, and refused to look down.
It was over in seconds. His boots tapped against solid stone, and the wind died.
"Little Uri, we're here. I am putting you down."
Her voice drifted up from below, soft and sweet, dragging out the vowels with ridiculous affection.
Uriel opened his eyes. The cold, solid dome of the auditorium was beneath his feet. He hopped down immediately and flicked her right on the forehead.
"I am a grown man!"
His voice dripped with pure accusation.
"Stop carrying me around like a baby!"
The Witch tilted her head back from the impact. She rubbed her forehead, but her eyes crinkled into happy little crescents.
"You'll always be my baby."
Uriel opened his mouth to argue, but watching her gently rub the red mark on her forehead dealt massive critical damage to his conscience. He swallowed every single word of his protest. He took a deep breath and forced his attention back to the mission.
He crept to the edge of the dome and peered through the translucent glass. The scene below was perfectly clear.
There were so many men in black. And so many students.
The students were corralled in the center of the hall. Some were still in their sleepwear, clearly dragged out of the dorms. The men in black controlled the perimeter. There were about thirty of them, and several were brandishing weapons to keep the students in line. The main doors were locked from the outside, with a guard stationed on each side.
Uriel ran the tactical assessment in a heartbeat. He held up three fingers.
"Mom. Listen carefully."
The Witch leaned in, her eyes locked on his.
"First. We break through the roof. Your entrance needs to be explosive."
The Witch nodded.
"Second. Keep the combat style elegant. It doesn't need to be fast, but it must look good."
The Witch nodded again.
"Third. Just stall until Lumina and the others arrive. You don't need to wipe them all out. Just hold the line until the barrier drops and the Brigade moves in to clean up."
The Witch nodded a third time, then tilted her head. It was a silent question. Anything else?
Uriel reached out and tapped her cheek.
"Watch your expressions and your voice. Stick to the Witch persona. Got it?"
The Witch stood up. She turned to face the glass dome, mentally shelving the mommy-and-son dynamic. Her face went completely cold.
Down below, the air in the auditorium suddenly shifted.
Uriel felt it. The oppressive weight suppressing his mana abruptly vanished. It felt like his ears popping after a sudden change in cabin pressure.
The barrier was down.
"Good."
Uriel took a step back and cleared the stage.
"Execute."
A shadow plummeted from the sky.
The translucent glass dome shattered inward. Shards rained down like a localized storm, but every single piece curved away from the student cluster. The largest chunk of debris slammed into the center of the empty floor, cratering the stone half a meter deep.
She rode the largest fragment down through the dust.
She wore a dark military uniform. The hem of her knee-length coat whipped in the shockwave of her landing, the dark embroidery catching the light through the dust motes. One hand was clasped behind her back. The other rested over her chest as she dipped into a flawless, theatrical bow.
The entire auditorium went dead silent for three full seconds.
The students stared up with their mouths hanging open. Their faces were caught somewhere between sheer disbelief and existential confusion. The men in black reacted on pure instinct. One of them actually dropped his weapon.
Finally, someone found their voice.
"Who the hell are you?"
She straightened up. Her golden eyes swept across the room.
"I am the Holy Sword Witch."
Her voice was utterly devoid of inflection. Every syllable was a frozen blade.
"I have come to deliver your ruin, and your absolute end."
She stepped off the rubble. Her boot heel struck the stone. She didn't even touch the hilt of her sword.
The moment her heel clicked, a concentric shockwave detonated from her center.
It was raw kinetic force, nothing more. The air compressed into a visible white ring. The men in black didn't even have time to raise their blades. The shockwave swept through the zone and launched them off their feet. They slammed into walls, tumbled through the air, and crashed to the floor in a tangle of crashing to the floor.
One strike. Twelve hostiles neutralized.
At the far end of the hall, a student tentatively raised his hand. A sphere of mana flickered in his palm, stabilized, and burned bright.
"My magic works!"
That single shout broke the dam. The suppressed students snapped back to reality. One grabbed a chair and smashed it over a dazed cultist. Another traced a magic circle and blasted a guard by the door. A third charged barehanded into the fray, screaming about who just shoved him.
The auditorium erupted into absolute chaos.
In the dead center of the riot, the Holy Sword Witch stood perfectly still. She didn't attack again. She just maintained that freezing, untouchable posture. Every student and every cultist in the room instinctively understood one fundamental truth.
She was entirely out of their league.
Then, the high stained-glass windows on three sides exploded inward.
Three figures vaulted through the shattered frames. One landed without a sound. One dropped with sharp precision. The third hit the floor with a heavy thud. An elf, a beastkin, and a human. Green hair, wolf ears, and dark blue bangs. They locked onto the remaining hostiles with lethal accuracy.
Lumina landed on the second-tier balcony. She swept her hand outward, her voice ringing out like a judge's gavel.
"The Witch Brigade has arrived."
The students had no idea what was happening, but they recognized a rescue when they saw one. Order re-established itself at a visible pace.
Uriel slipped seamlessly into the rioting student crowd. He casually kicked out the knee of a cultist trying to ambush a girl, then caught the eye of a frantic mage student struggling to aim a shield-break spell.
He silently mouthed: Shift five centimeters to the left.
The mage blinked, adjusted his angle, and fired. The spell caught a rising cultist squarely in the face, putting him down in a heap, robes still smoking.
Uriel dusted off his hands and looked away from the Holy Sword Witch. He scanned the battlefield.
The students had the upper hand. The Witch's opening shockwave had wiped out nearly half the enemy forces. The survivors were losing their nerve. Some backed toward the doors, while others exchanged panicked glances, wondering if surrender was an option.
Everything was proceeding exactly according to script.