The Witch's Anatomical Notes

Chapter 77

The Addicted Girl

The deafening roar gradually faded. When Lucy parted the last patch of shrubs, the chaotic melee she had expected did not appear.

Five witch apprentices stood in the clearing, locked in a strange stalemate. Two young men draped in the blue robes of the Tower of the Four Sages stood back to back.

On one side, an apprentice of the Eternal Silence Blackthorn churned blood-colored mist between his hands.

On the other, a witch of the Witch’s Cottage was readying a spell.

Everyone’s gaze was fixed on the cave entrance, where a giant tree over ten meters tall stood.

A weeping human face was embedded in the twisted trunk. Dozens of vines lashed and writhed in the air like whips. The ground was covered with whip marks an inch deep and splattered with fresh, pulpy flesh.

"Is that really a Ghostface Tree?!" Lucy’s fingertips unconsciously brushed the scalpel at her waist.

Unlike those Ghostface Trees that could not even move, this tree, judging from its magical energy reaction, was undeniably a genuine Tier-1 lifeform, and moreover possessed formidable combat power.

Judging by the entrails and fresh blood hanging from the vine tips, at least one apprentice had already been turned into nourishment.

The crisp snap of dried twigs beneath the little sheepskin boots broke the tense equilibrium.

"Lucy?!" From the Tower of the Four Sages’ side, a voice suddenly cried out in surprised delight.

Lucy turned toward the red-haired male apprentice who had called her name.

"Barry!"

Barry King, one of the seven official apprentices who had attended the Principality’s enfeoffment ceremony with Lucy two months before.

His striking short red hair made Lucy recognize him almost instantly.

Once he confirmed that he had not mistaken her identity, Barry and another male apprentice immediately approached Lucy.

He lowered his voice and spoke in a rapid rush. "Lucy, listen to me. Inside this cave, there’s an exposed vein of precious magical metals. If we join forces to deal with these people and that tree, we can split the minerals evenly!"

For a material to be called "precious metal" by witches, it clearly was not ordinary gold or silver.

The most common magical precious metals included mithril, adamantine, raven copper... The mithril filtration mesh Lucy often used when refining potions contained minuscule traces of mithril.

Yet compared to those so-called precious metals, Lucy was far more interested in the crying-faced tree at the cave entrance.

This massive living tree with a weeping face had never been mentioned even in The Pale Scalpel’s travel accounts. It was obviously a newly emerged enchanted beast born after his departure.

Thinking of this, Lucy unconsciously stretched out her tongue and licked her dry lips.

While Barry was recruiting Lucy, the two apprentices of Eternal Silence Blackthorn also wasted no time in pulling in the lone Witch’s Cottage apprentice.

When Lucy agreed to join, the scene instantly shifted to a three-on-three formation, each side with two Tier-1 apprentices and one trainee apprentice.

Just as both sides were gauging each other’s strength, Lucy, who had arrived less than three minutes earlier, suddenly struck.

"Three against three is fairer." She let out a soft laugh, and from her sleeve, a poisoned bone fang shot through the air without warning.

By the time everyone raised their defensive witchcraft, the venomous fang had already pierced through the chest of the enemy trainee apprentice.

Before the trainee could even scream, the multicolored poison had corroded a bowl-sized cavity in his ribcage.

The Tier-1 apprentice of Eternal Silence Blackthorn swung his arm in fury, releasing a billow of blood mist.

Lucy did not dodge. She simply let the blood mist crash against her Fractured Crystal Reverse Scale Shield.

From the thick haze, three advanced venomous fangs shot out.

The defensive witchcraft the Tier-1 apprentice conjured blocked only two of them before the third fang pierced straight through his throat.

"Roar—!"

Only then did the last surviving Witch’s Cottage apprentice finally transform into a massive brown bear.

After watching his two "teammates" die before his eyes, he turned and fled without the slightest hesitation. His huge body crashed through the forest with a booming noise.

Yet the bear’s face was filled with terror and panic.

What the hell was this monster!

Was she really just a Tier-1 witch apprentice?

I have to get word out about this terrifying woman.

But before he had run more than a few steps, a feather of light was already blocking his path.

Ah—

A blast of Screech of Agony made the giant bear briefly lose consciousness.

Just as Lucy was about to send him away as well, a blue teleportation array enveloped him.

Inside the array, the apprentice, who had returned to human form, looked at Lucy with a face full of dread. In the final instant before he vanished, his crotch went warm, and he actually wet himself in fear.

Picking up the three badges and a witchcraft tool from the ground, Lucy turned her gaze back to Barry.

At this moment, Barry and the other apprentice looked no different from the one who had just fled, their faces equally stricken with terror.

Only, mixed in with the horror was a hint of confusion.

Wasn’t Lucy the last of the apprentices to complete her Tier-1 advancement?

Could this be someone else in disguise?

It wasn’t until Lucy walked right up to them.

Barry instinctively took a step back.

"Lucy... Your Excellency, considering we are both apprentices of the Tower of the Four Sages, this mining site is yours. We will leave immediately..."

"Wait!"

The two of them shivered and instinctively clutched the badges on their chests.

"You don’t need to be nervous," Lucy said. "We will still split the precious metals inside three ways. But you two will have to go in and do the mining."

Barry and the trainee apprentice exchanged a glance.

Though they had no idea what Lucy truly intended, it seemed she did not plan to attack them.

"It is our honor," Barry spoke tentatively. "Shall we first join forces to take down that monstrous tree?"

But Lucy once again rejected his suggestion.

"You two just go inside. I will handle the tree."

After saying this, Lucy, still maintaining the Fractured Crystal Shield, began walking toward the crying-faced tree.

Pa pa pa pa—

The sound of vines whipping against the crystal shield rang out, echoing across the sky.

Watching this, Barry and the other apprentice shivered so hard their teeth nearly chattered.

Moments ago, they had watched a Tier-1 apprentice who strayed into the attack range get beaten into a pulp.

"Senior Barry, what should we do now?"

Barry clenched his teeth.

"Don’t... don’t be afraid. I know Lucy well. Let’s just grab the ore first."

"Alright."

Taking advantage of Lucy drawing the monster’s attention, the two of them slipped quickly into the mine.

"Each whip has only about 5° of magical energy, but the density really is excessive," Lucy noted, feeling the impact of the vines striking her shield.

Though 5° of magical energy seemed low, there were at least twenty vines overhead lashing down in turns, with five or six striking her nearly every second.

With such relentless attacks, even the Fractured Crystal Shield likely would not last long.

"I need to speed this up."

Lucy reached into her blue witch robe and drew out the No. 3 Alchemical Scalpel of the Midnight Dissector. She gauged her aim and slowly stabbed it in.

As the keen blade sliced open the bark,

the crying-faced tree let out an excruciating, high-pitched scream from its throat.

Under the coarse bark, there was no bast layer or wood layer, nor plant fiber or resin.

Instead, there was fascia that squirmed like an animal’s.

Beneath the pale-yellow fascia lay a complete set of pulsing organs. Pressurized blood pumped out, dripping to the ground where it quickly pooled into a slick puddle.

If one ignored the outer appearance, it was hard to imagine this was the inside of a plant.

Hearing the miserable wails, Barry reflexively turned back and caught sight of Lucy slicing the fascia as she began dissecting the monster tree.

The sky filled with writhing, twisted vine-whips, the human-faced tree shrieking in agony, and—

He might never forget the look on the silver-haired witch’s face as she opened up the crying-faced tree an expression of nearly blissful concentration. The sound of the scalpel parting fascia mingled with the tree’s screams, and she only let out a soft "Hm?" like a child who had discovered a new toy.

Even among the most deranged factions, this scene would have stood among the most extreme.

A chill prickled up Barry’s spine, raising goosebumps across his back.

The trainee apprentice quavered, "She’s not really going to dissect that thing alive, is she?"

Live dissection?!

Barry swallowed hard and couldn’t help feeling a flicker of pity for the monstrous tree.

"Don’t ask questions you shouldn’t. Move!"