31 | The Crimson Witch, Part II

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Perplexed murmurs ran through the room.

"The Crimson Witch?" Emily asked. "Is she a new member of the Witches?"

"We don't know for sure." Brendan shook his head. "If you recall, there is someone in the Witches who can perform metamorphism magic, so for all we know, her facial features may have been altered. That would also explain her unusual eye color. So, we are still unsure if she is a new member they have recruited, or if she is one of the existing seven members who have changed their appearances."

"How do we even know she's one of the Witches?"

"Another great question, Emily. We know this because we have been chasing the treasure thief ever since the first missing treasure. We noticed that wherever the Crimson Witch goes, the Witches go, too. And if we manage to follow her far enough, we will be hit with Sybil's subjugation magic. So, it's clear that they are working together."

"But why would the Witches want to steal these treasures?" Jung-Soo asked.

"For the money, perhaps?" Carina offered.

Brendan shrugged. "We don't know either. As I've mentioned before, we don't know too much about the Witches, especially their goals. They have always been a low profile group too, never doing anything beyond escaping and destroying their hiding places, so this whole thing is surprising to us as well."

"So they're finally coming out of their shell and making a move, huh?" Emily remarked as she crossed her arms.

"But wait, doesn't this make it easier for us to catch them now?" Lyn frowned. "You don't have to track the Witches anymore, just follow the Crimson Witch, and we can just catch all of them."

Emily rolled her eyes. "What's the point of knowing where they are if we can't deal with Sybil's magic, idiot?"

"Ah, right." Lyn scratched her hair sheepishly. "We need to first get the antidote."

"You all make great points," Brendan interjected the two women's banter, "but this is where it gets weird. Lyn, you are right that we don't really have a tracking issue anymore; we can just stand guard over all the remaining treasures in the world and then chase the Crimson Witch from there, and this is exactly what we have been doing. And Emily, you are also right that, technically, Sybil's magic is the problem that we need to tackle first before we can capture the Witches. However, right now, the real issue is the Crimson Witch."

"What do you mean?"

The five team leaders stared at Brendan curiously as he gestured towards his assistant. Nodding her head, Rin placed a small crystal ball on the table and tapped on its surface.

The sphere lit up, and a three-dimensional moving image appeared in front of everyone. It was a compilation of memory images Brendan had obtained from questers who had fought the Crimson Witch: a fighter, charging forward with confidence, but quickly disarmed and knocked unconscious; another fighter, flailing his sword around as an avalanche of spears rained down on him; an elemental mage, his shot of water immediately disappearing into steam, before being pushed off the ledge; another elemental mage, engulfing the Crimson Witch in fire, only to have her emerge out of the ball of flames, completely unscathed.

Brendan watched as everyone's eyes enlarged in shock. "As you can see, we have sent many questers after the Crimson Witch, but whoever she is, she is formidable. She is so skilled that regular fighters stand no chance against her, and, worst of all, she seems to have the ability to counter elemental magic, so elemental mages cannot land a single attack on her."

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