On the ground lay Feliel, her body drenched in blood.
Sefina’s soles stepped onto the charred, shattered earth, making a faint sound. She looked at Feliel’s blank and hollow expression.
Her own face remained expressionless, as if covered by a layer of frost, and her burgundy eyes held only a bottomless indifference.
Feliel’s unfocused gaze met Sefina’s cold stare, and her lips curled into a bitter, desperate arc.
She no longer wondered why that powerful death dragon had crumbled in such a bizarre fashion, nor did she hope for any miracle to turn the tide.
At this moment, her mana was depleted, she was heavily injured, and she couldn’t even stand. She no longer had the strength to change her fate.
All her struggles and all her persistence seemed pale and ridiculous at this moment.
As for how Sefina had defeated the death dragon, only she knew the secret.
It was common knowledge — or rather, only Sefina knew — that the essence of magic could be compared to the running of a computer program.
The Magic Array Pattern’s structure was the written code, but there were differences in the operating mechanism between summoning magic and elemental magic.
Elemental magic was more like a one-time command output; once the result appeared, the process ended.
However, for summoning magic to maintain the existence of a summoned creature, its core control program needed to run continuously within the creature’s body until forcibly destroyed by an external force or terminated by the caster.
The Wind Element magic Sefina had finally shot into the death dragon’s throat wasn’t meant for an attack.
Instead, it served as a vessel to deliver a secretly prepared Magic Stone into the core node where the creature’s energy flowed.
That Magic Stone was the virus program that hindered the code running inside the death dragon.
Once the Magic Stone entered the death dragon, its chaotic energy and specific frequency fluctuations acted like a virus invading the main program, forcibly interfering with and blocking the magic program that maintained the dragon’s existence.
Deprived of its internal code, the powerful death dragon became like a machine that had lost its operating system, instantly collapsing and dissipating.
However, this program deletion technique had many limitations, and Sefina rarely used it. It was only effective against summoned creatures that relied on continuous internal energy cycles, and the virus core had to be successfully injected into their energy center.
If the death dragon hadn’t been so massive with such predictable attack patterns, Sefina would have struggled to find such a perfect opportunity.
Now, Sefina held her wand tightly, its tip emitting a faint blue light that looked like the gaze of a reaper. She stood before Feliel, looking down at the opponent who had lost all ability to resist.
Sefina slowly raised her wand, pointing the tip at the center of Feliel’s brow.
The ice elements in the air began to stir as a spell carrying the intent of the end rapidly gathered, seemingly ready to fall heartlessly at any moment and bring the curtain down on this battle.
At this moment, Feliel seemed to have truly accepted her fate. She didn’t struggle, nor did she let out a roar of indignation or a plea for mercy.
She simply used those eyes, which had lost all their luster, to stare blankly at Sefina and then up at the cold, starry sky that was about to swallow her.
Mana gathered at the wand’s tip, and the ice-blue Magic Array Pattern became increasingly clear…
“Wait.”
Just a moment before the end descended, Feliel’s blood-stained lips moved slightly, and she let out a weak voice.
Sefina’s movement to condense the magic paused briefly. The Magic Array Pattern stopped its formation, but the mana radiating a piercing chill remained locked onto Feliel.
She didn’t lower her wand. She didn’t let down her guard but simply looked at Feliel with those temperature-less burgundy eyes and spoke coldly, her voice like a winter wind blowing over ice:
“Have you changed your mind? Or do you have some other last words?”
Feliel moved her throat with difficulty, her voice intermittent and fluttering with the weakness of extreme blood loss:
“I want… I want to bury my dearest friend. Or, you could help me bury her. Just… just don’t let her be there… all alone… I’m begging you. This is… my last wish.”
Her gaze passed over Sefina as if looking through the woods to see the figure sleeping forever in the orphanage attic. In that look, there was no more anger or resentment, only a nearly pure plea.
The hand Sefina used to hold the wand trembled slightly, and a tiny crack seemed to appear in her icy expression. She stared at the pure plea in Feliel’s eyes and remained silent for a moment.
Finally, Sefina slowly lowered her wand. The ice-blue light gathering at the tip receded like a tide. She let out a soft sigh, and her tone no longer seemed as absolutely cold as before.
“Go do it yourself.”
***
In a secret underground base within the city of Oselenka.
“Argh — !”
Feliel couldn’t help but let out a scream of pain, her forehead instantly covered in cold sweat. The muscles near the hideous gunshot wound on her left shoulder were convulsing uncontrollably.
Sefina stood before her, her gaze focused and calm as her wand emitted a soft magic glow.
Using a High-level Levitation Spell, she controlled an invisible force field to carefully extract the bullet embedded in Feliel’s flesh and bone, bit by bit. Every millimeter of movement brought a piercing pain to Feliel.
After removing the bullet, Sefina didn’t stop for a second and immediately changed the nature of her mana.
A warm and vibrant green light flowed from the tip of the wand, covering the gruesome wound on Feliel’s left arm like a trickling stream.
The bloody gashes cut by the Wind Blade also gradually healed within the light.
At the same time, Sefina began using healing magic to treat her other wounds. Throughout the process, Sefina’s expression was extremely focused as she seriously tended to Feliel’s injuries.
However, Feliel, who was receiving the treatment, showed no gratitude. Instead, her face was tinged with annoyance. She looked at Sefina and couldn’t help but speak with a sarcastic and ill-tempered tone:
“Anyway… once Campbell is buried, you can kill me… Why are you wasting mana to heal me now? It’s completely unnecessary. I really don’t understand you, Ninth Seat.”
She truly couldn’t understand Sefina’s actions. Since her life would be taken in the end, why heal her before she died?
The light of the healing magic in Sefina’s hand flickered steadily. She didn’t even look up, responding only in her characteristically flat tone:
“It’s very late today, and the cemetery staff have already finished work. Do you want to be buried in the middle of nowhere with your best friend, without even a proper tombstone?”
Feliel was choked by those words. She let out a cold snort and turned her head away, no longer looking at her, but she couldn’t find any words to argue.
Indeed, she wanted Campbell to have a peaceful final resting place, rather than being discarded in the wild.
Sefina carefully healed the last deep wound on her arm. Watching the new, pink skin cover it, she added another line indifferently:
“Besides, having wounds all the time hurts, doesn’t it?”
Those words were very soft, but like one tiny needle, they gently pricked a corner of Feliel’s heart. Her body stiffened slightly, and she pressed her lips together, not making another sound.