Chapter 123 - METANOIA (19)

I know who I was this morning, but I have changed a few times since then…

-Alice in Wonderland-

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"How do you know her name?" Lidya stared at Raine, her eyes opened wide, she looked afraid of her now. "Serefina is a witch that belong to the Donovan brothers…"

Lidya looked at Raine with unexplainable feeling that constricted in her chest, and then she shifted her eyes to stare at the back of the woman not far from them.

Lidya even didn't know the real appearance of Serefina, except of her red hair that was well known among the creatures, but everyone knew her name as the most powerful witch in this realm, as Serefina had brought a bitter taste for every people' tongue by only the mention of her name. She was no better than the Donovan brothers, in bad terms.

"I have met her before." For more precise, Raine had met her four days ago, just a moment before she disappeared and found in this strange place. "She knows me, I will talk to her."

However, Lidya hastily grabbed her hand to stop Raine and shook her head vigorously. "No, don't go there, she probably could do something worse to us…" She took a glimpse of Serefina's back view and felt chill rundown on her spine. "She could harm you…"

Raine frowned.

Serefina wouldn't harm her, right? She knew her. Probably she was here to look for her.

"No, she will not. She knows me." Raine tried to pry open Lidya's fingers that clutched onto her overcoat. "If this fire is her doing, then I will ask her to stop."

Raine casually words made Lidya cowered even more.

Could she make the witch to stop? But, the witch only listened to the Donovan…

"Raine… don't do it…" Lidya stubbornly clutched onto Raine. "She is not someone that you can approach casually."

"Stay here, I will talk to her…" Raine was so eager to meet Serefina now and asked her a lot of question, but first of all, she needed to put off the fire.

"But, Raine…" Lidya was hesitated to let Raine go and be near the witch.

Probably because of the noisy sound from the chatter between Raine and Lidya, finally Serefina realized that she wasn't the only person there.

She was too occupied with the task at hand, so she wasn't aware with her surroundings, she thought every shadow warrior were in the battle outside of the village while the guardian angel… well, they wouldn't be able to escape from this kind of fire.

Wherever they hide, in the end, they would come out from their hiding place and it would be a lot easier to catch them all.

However, the feeling of being approached made her alert and abruptly turned her back, to face the intruder.

Yet, the moment she caught a glimpse of a girl in her brown overcoat, who was approaching her hesitantly, out of the blue, something dark covered her line of sight and shoved her away from where she was standing.

Serefina felt her body was being lifted up and hung in the air before a second later she was being thrown to the cold river.

The Appricity River that had never been frozen before, now was starting to form a thick ice on its surface that cracked the moment Serefina's body collided with it.

the veil of darkness kept her beneath the water, gave her a hard time to even said her spell or did her magic.

Raine looked in horror when he saw the darkness under the frozen river, it moved and spun, spread and clotted, as if it was alive, trying to suffocate the person that trapped on it.

Whipped her head to the other side, Raine found the source of the shadow, it was Aeon!

"No, stop it! You will kill her!" Raine tried to stop Aeon, but she was immobilized by another shadow that coiled her body, kept her stayed in place. "No! Don't kill her!" She shouted in panic.

In this rate if Aeon kept doing that, Serefina would die! And Raine couldn't let Serefina die! There was something that she needed from her and even though Serefinaoften treated her badly, but to kill her was going overboard.

"Aeon! Stop it!" Raine cried desperately for Aeon to stop his action, but the shadow warrior turned deaf- ear at her plea.

Raine could feel the shadow that coiled her body tightened and finally she fell on the ground, kept struggling to get free, with no avail.

How she could fight something that she couldn't even grasp?

From her position, with her head rested on the ground, she could only see the surface of the river without knowing what was happening beneath it.

However, it was Serefina, the witch wouldn't get the title as the most powerful witch and be with the Donovan, if she let a lame shadow to take her down easily, Aeon needed more plan to tame her and suppressed her power.

In no time, the calm river turned into a maelstrom as big waves formed on its surface.

Droplets of water stopped mid- air, along with that, thousand tendrils soared and lashed out at Serefina's direction, but was also stopped before it could touch her.

An arrogant smirk, which Raine had seen many times, rose up at the corner of Serefina's lips. She looked at Aeon triumphantly.

Afterward, Serefina pivoted gracefully on the surface of the ice shards, as if she was weightless. Along with her movements, the current water under her turned into a vortex and climbed up the air like a waterfall.

And then two things happened at the same time, the moment the waterfall, which Serefina had made, pouring down rapidly on Aeon and Raine, a shadow with a shape of spear pierced through the witch heart.

Serefina groaned in pain when her body crashed on the surface of the water and blood gushed out from the hollow on her heart.

Before Raine closed her eyes to ready herself from the impact of the falling water, she saw someone else controlled the shadow that had attacked Serefina.

That shadow didn't belong to Aeon, but someone else…