Chapter 131: Dying Is So Easy

Magna was sure that if he relaxed his weapons even slightly, the owl would take the chance to attack him with its talons or beak.

But the deadly chill coming from behind him was forcing him to move and dodge.

At that moment, his heightened thinking kicked in, helping him quickly come up with an escape plan. He decided to use a trait he had never used before.

His golden eyes locked onto the owl’s huge yellow eyes, and in an instant they changed.

It wasn’t a massive change, but the way he looked now grew more intense, almost like an illusion, shifting from a child’s eyes to the eyes of a hungry lone wolf staring down an owl it had decided to eat for lunch.

At that moment the owl’s body trembled slightly. Its talons, which had been pressing so hard into the ground to steady itself, loosened, and its beak, which had been pressing hard against Magna’s weapons, hesitated and stopped applying force.

Not wasting even a millisecond, the moment Magna felt the owl’s will break, he suddenly pulled back his weapons and jumped into the sky, putting his high agility stat to use combined with his high strength stat.

Only a second later, the ice spears started bombarding the giant owl like a Gatling gun, pinning its body to the wall and opening many holes in it.

From the air, Magna watched what looked like the most disgusting kebab being made right in front of his eyes.

He didn’t dwell on the dying owl, but quickly spun his body in the air to turn toward the place the spells had just come from.

And then his eyes landed on a lone figure standing not far away.

There was an unfamiliar Witch standing there, her hand raised and currently aimed at him.

Magna was aware she was about to cast another attack spell, but he was sure he would find enough time to land and escape before she finished chanting.

But unfortunately, it didn’t go as he expected, since the chanting was so fast that Magna would never have thought anyone could speak that quickly at all.

"O Vein of the Living World, River that has flowed since before the First Dawn, Silent Mother of Rain and Sea. Form the water, hurl the ice."

Despite the spell being cast so fast, the voice sounded like lyrics flowing from the mouth of some godly rapper.

At any other time, Magna would have listened to it like it was rap music and enjoyed it, but in his current situation, facing dozens of ice spears forming and rushing toward him, he had to move fast.

He quickly moved his aching hands, his two heavy short swords in his grip, and started slashing at the incoming ice spears.

His hands and weapons blurred as they moved that fast, while the ice began to rain down in chips.

Unfortunately he wasn’t fast enough to stop them all, as three of them slipped past his blades by mere inches and pierced into his shoulder, his abdomen, and his hip.

"You are good. Very good." The Witch commented, looking amused, but she didn’t seem like she was about to stop.

She started chanting the same spell again, and new ice spears formed and rushed straight at him once more.

Though Magna felt pain from the spears embedded in his body, it was nothing compared to the tortures he periodically had to endure during his evolutions.

With his survival instincts and reflexes, he quickly moved his swords again to slash at the newly formed incoming spears.

This time, four more slipped past his weapons and pierced into his body.

Thankfully, none of them were fatal, and the ice instantly froze the blood that flowed out, preventing him from losing too much, but his speed had still slowed down considerably.

’The next one is my death,’ he thought grimly, since he had no strength left to face a third round of that spell.

Still, he moved his aching, tired arms to raise his guard again, not wanting to die without trying.

Thankfully, the third batch never came. Instead, the Witch’s slightly surprised voice reached him.

"Congratulations. You might be the first one to get a perfect score from me," she said, slowly lowering her hand. "You passed."

Hearing her words, Magna didn’t know how to respond, as his mind was already starting to go blank from the cold spreading through his entire body from the seven ice spears embedded in him.

At last, right before his mind completely gave out and his body fell to the ground, he said, "Yay, I’m getting my driver’s license."

The Witch laughed in amusement at his last incoherent words, though she couldn’t quite understand what he was trying to say.

She only grew more interested as his body fell, causing the two swords he had been holding to slip from his grip as well. They plunged into the ground at great speed, sinking all the way to their hilts.

"What kind of weapons did they give to a child?" She walked slowly toward the weapons.

After looking at them for a while, she bent down and grabbed the hilt of one, lifting it to take a closer look.

But when she tried to pull it, her expression changed, since the sword didn’t even budge an inch.

She didn’t try a second time. Instead, she straightened up again and looked at Magna, who lay unconscious on the ground, this time not smiling but wearing an expression of genuine acknowledgment.

"I changed my mind." Her emerald eyes, no longer looking at him with amusement, now held something calmer. "You’re the first one to ever go beyond a perfect score."

She was initially sent here to check a young Witch to see if she was qualified to pass her first trial, but along the way, she got another mission, which was to check a young Shadow candidate.

She had no high hopes at first because usually, when the Tower accepted a Shadow as a donation, especially on a temporary basis, the person had to be far above standard, in the genius category.

In the end, the Tower was using them for hard missions, so the person just had to be capable of taking those tasks without a problem.

Even more, when she heard the person in question was actually a child, her expectations were already rock bottom.

But now, after witnessing his talent and capability, her thoughts had completely changed.

"Let’s talk with your guardians," she muttered as she dragged her gaze away from the unconscious boy and turned to her impaled owl.

"Barn." As soon as she called out, the owl’s eyes snapped open.

It immediately flapped its wings as all the ice spears pinning it to the wall shattered and crumbled to the floor, and all the holes on its body rapidly healed and closed up.

"Remove the barrier," she commanded in a calm tone.

Upon receiving the command, the owl suddenly turned its beak toward the sky and let out a silent hoot.

Next, a faint shattering sound was heard, though nothing visibly changed.

Not long after that shattering sound, two figures were seen rushing toward her from the mansion.

Celeste and Titus, who had so far been unable to leave the mansion due to the invisible barrier, were now finally arriving at the commotion.