Witch Hunter: Lord of Lust and Sin

Chapter 117: Land of Mystery [Part 10]

After dealing with the Valkyrie that was at the brink of death, Cindy turned her attention towards the army of the einherjar.

"This should be a good test for them"

Cindy muttered as dark portals manifested around her and hundreds of monsters rushed from these dark portals towards the army of knights.

Samantha once again bore witness to actual magic.

She had asked what was the difference between Cindy’s magic and Richard’s teleportation spell.

Samantha had expected Cindy to stay silent and not answer her but she did get a good response.

Maybe it was because the young witch did not expect her to understand but the explanation she gave was quite simple even for Samantha’s standards.

The difference in the spells, as explained by Cindy, was the state of the people moving through space.

Richard’s spell was basically one that rip apart space and time, bending the rules of space and time to allow someone to go from one point to another without traveling the distance in between.

Whether it was a short distance movement or one that would skip thousands of kilometers-

The usage of energy was the same, the difference lay in how much power the user had to influence the world.

On the other hand, Cindy’s spell was the exact opposite.

Unlike Richard who bends the laws of space and time, CIndy "tricks" it.

Technically, the spell Cindy used was something akin to "summoning", the monsters she called upon are only temporarily stuck in this place.

Richard’s spell bends the rules so one step = X distance, Cindy’s spell makes the world believe that the monsters she had stored in a secret space belonged to her current location.

Of course, CIndy’s spell needed a few bits of preparation, the biggest factor that allowed for the displacement was the existence of her subdimensional storage.

Much like how Morgana created a whole world, Cindy created something similar, but it was smaller in scale.

But unlike the second world that Morgana created, Cindy’s subdimension was not as habitable.

Most of the inhabitants of her storage space were corpses, monsters and individuals who were being tortured by simply existing in a world that killed living beings passively.

The space did not exist in reality which allows it to superimpose its contents with reality albeit for a limited amount of time.

It was a complex spell that required a lot of set-up but watching Cindy summon giant skeletal arms and monster limbs to use as magic spells for attack showed just how versatile it was.

Though right now, the spell Cindy used was something closer to summoning an army as a wave of monstrous beings rushed towards the knights.

When the monster wave clashed with the knights, the witches who were inexperienced in large scale battles, much less, large scale magical battles- these novices finally got a breather.

Samantha did not let this window go to waste as she quickly started to check upon the witches who finally got time to rest.

Among the fighters, there were women who used to be members of an anti-government force and there were also men who became vessels for mystical beings from Japan.

One could see the difference between the groups in the way they reacted.

Those from the anti-government force did not waste time, they immediately started to check their weapons and ammunition, they treated injuries, checked for minor wounds that went unnoticed due to adrenaline and some went ahead and did an inventory check.

They acted like a true fighting force, likely born from their time fighting against government forces.

Compared to them-

"I thought I was going to die!"

"How could those armors block armor piercing weapons! My shoulders are likely bruised from firing the guns and those guys don’t even have a scratch on their armor!"

"I wanna go home"

"Can I quit?"

"Death is better than this..."

The battle barely went on for an hour and the mystics whose entire lives were spent manipulating people and hiding in the background of big events quickly broke down.

Even though most of them were unharmed-

Most of their problems were related to exhaustion and stress, few actually got hurt as the Valkyries were quickly dealt with and aside from a few stray rocks that rained on them when Samantha attacked the valkyrie charging at her causing a huge commotion-

Simply put, the worst injury the mystics got were bruises.

The army of knights did not have any long range capabilities thankfully but they were basically a moving iron wall.

While some of them were felled by pure luck and chance, the slow and steady advance had caused many of the witches to panic.

"Don’t we have armor like theirs?"

"I wish we also had that kind of armor..."

At some point the mystics started to complain about their equipment.

Samantha glared at those that were saying such stupid things silencing them.

While it was indeed preferable to have some actual defensive equipment, their current situation was better than the knights that were being mauled by monsters.

After all, the mystics spent most of the short clash shooting guns from a safe distance.

The knights barely got a chance to hit them back and they even lost some of their companions during the clash and yet they remained steadfast.

If the roles were switched, instead of a steadfast wall that moved forward at a steady pace- the knights would have rushed to escape if it were her companions under the armor.

Unfortunately, even Samantha lacked experience, instead of becoming a proper commander, she ended up becoming nothing more than a tyrant.

She tried to make her comrades follow the lead of the former anti-government people but with her inexperience-

"Huh? We still had other weapons?"

"These are grenades right? We’re supposed to use them when the knights get within 100meters... should we prep them already?"

"How was the distribution of ammo again?"

"Did anyone see my pistol? I think I dropped somewhere during the switch in positions...."

From people who were not in their proper stations to those who had used the supplies of others-

Based solely on their words, Samantha could already tell where the problem came from. TThe reasons why the knights were able to move forward was not solely because of their powerful spell that allowed them to ignore bullets.

While most of the bullets the mystics shot had been blocked, it appears that their distribution and shot placement was uneven and disorganized.

The wall of lead that had a few magic bullets mixed in and the spells that were shot should have caused a disturbance but the way the attacks were delivered caused more problems for the defense than it did for offense.

The spells that disrupted the terrain which should have forced the knights to move in predictable paths became a secondary defense the knights used.

Moreover, the altered terrain caused more problems with the distribution of firepower than it did for the knights’ formation.

The offensive had used the disrupted terrain to make an uneven offensive which caused the amateur defenders to panic whenever a group of knights charged while some maintained their pace.

This uneven offensive charge allowed the knights to dictate the pace of the combat and also allowed them to focus the defensive power of the spell towards certain groups and allowed other groups to charge quickly without the need for the defense.

The knights moved like a proper organized army while the mystics with powerful weapons were just a group of crying babies.

While they could still kill their enemies with their spells and weapons, they weren’t facing a group of unarmed folk.

Against an actual army with proper training and actual combat experience, the mystic had been outmaneuvered.

The only reason why the mystics were able to mount a decent defense turned out to be because the former revolutionaries had taken the lead in command.

Unfortunately, with Samantha taking control forcefully, what should have been a slow but steady prep during this window for rest became a chaotic rush to get ready.

Samantha did not understand this, instead, to Samantha, seeing her comrades running around carrying supplies and distributing ammunition and weapons equally was what was the "optimal state".

What Samantha didn’t understand was the fact that the uneven distribution and the reorganization of personnel was done by the experienced members.

The former resistance fighters had made quick decisions based on the battle situation and the performance of each mystic.

Less capable mystics were repositioned in spots that would not be under too much pressure while those that performed well were concentrated on specific hotspots and predicted breakthrough points.

Moreover, weapons such as grenades and other stronger armaments were distributed based on predicted spots where such weapons were likely to be most effective.

But Samantha saw such a distribution as "wrong".

In her mind, the unequal distribution was caused by some of the mystics hogging ammunition and arms. Samantha believed that leaving some spots with less weapons than others would be an obvious weak point that the enemy could exploit.

Of course, Samantha did not consider whether the enemy had a way to get such information, she based her orders on the movies, games and TV shows she had watched and played.

A character dying because they found themselves lacking ammo and being unable to receive supplies on time was a common trope and Samantha believed that such tropes don’t emerge from tin air. There should have been soldiers who died because they lacked ammo so she wanted to ensure that everyone had equal access to the supplies.

Some of the veterans of defensive battles from the former resistance force wanted to speak up but...

Samantha was someone who held a higher position than their previous commander in the world of politics and now? Samantha was basically part of the "leadership circle".

No matter how wrong she was, speaking up now could cause them to lose their life so many of those who wanted to speak up ended up keeping silent.

Unfortunately for them, even their experience was based on crude training. They didn’t go through proper military training and all their knowledge was born from being in actual combat.

If the battle was still going on and tension was still high, they may have gotten the balls to speak up but now?

With the atmosphere calming down a bit due to the reinforcements, Samantha went about issuing her command without any resistance.

Of course, no one tried to defend the people who caused the unequal distribution.

In fact, some even tried to frame the former resistance members.

After all, who would want to lose ammunition in a fight?

When they had to give up even their grenades which were their defensive weapons for when the enemies get "too close", many tried to object but were unable to as the former resistance members had a very threatening aura during combat.

But now that they had the support of Samantha, voices of accusation and attacks on the former resistance members started to echo.