A Knight's Valor Knows No Recklessness (10)
Wreeeeee!
A bee's wings beat more than two hundred times in a second. In much the same way, knights who have reached Sword Resonance set a blade shivering, on average, more than two hundred times a second.
That is only the average. The higher a knight stands, and the more accustomed they become to waking the resonance, the more sharply the tremor climbs, until it passes a thousand vibrations a second and earns its bearer the name of high knight. It is near enough to the high-frequency blades of a science-fiction film that one can see why, across more than tens of thousands of years, the realm called Sword Resonance has been named the height every swordsman must reach.
To awaken it is not to become invincible. But when a battle turns deadly, it will serve as the last desperate measure that keeps a life from slipping away, and as the all-or-nothing stroke that closes a hand around victory. Resonance, then, is a mighty power. This may be an age in which greater heights have appeared—the manifestation of fighting energy, Sword Qi itself—and still Sword Resonance is not a realm one may dismiss. If Sword Qi, however tremendous, resembles some unknown abyss of the deep sea that one may never reach, then Sword Resonance is a mountain: climb it a step at a time, and the results show themselves without fail.
And so—
My Sword Resonance was definitely vibrating five thousand times a second. Wasn't it?
The harder one strives, the more one thrashes, the more the power of resonance grows—exponentially. Just so, the resonance raised by a knight whose particular gift was thrashing harder than anyone else came out five times stronger than that of other high knights. The figure was not exact, of course. It might have been less. It might have been more.
But now—
The vibration's climbed, hasn't it?
In this moment, at least, his resonance was stronger than it had ever been. Spread through his whole body, it was throwing off far more vibration than when he unleashed it through a sword alone: about twice the usual, some ten thousand supervibrations a second. Even Lee Han thought he had made something vicious. For all that the name Repulsion Qigong sounded as if it would only glance a blow aside or block it, the art would do more than block. It would grind an enemy down to nothing.
...Can't keep this up for long, though.
Lee Han gave a slight shrug. He could hold it for roughly ten minutes. Any longer than that—
My body will melt.
This was a double-edged sword in a sense different from Unbreakable. He might as well have girded himself in a peerless treasured blade; one mistake, and his whole body would melt until not even its shape remained. Even so—
Ten minutes is... well.
Boom!
"Plenty, in its way."
Bang!
This time, Lee Han moved first.
Godspeed. The body becomes the wind, and the wind becomes a shot loosed at the enemy.
Fwaaash—!!
Divine Bow, Elastic Shadow burst forth at godspeed. In an instant Lee Han's body moved like the wind and shot straight for Ninshubur.
"Hm!"
Ninshubur's face hardened, and he dodged at once, unwilling to meet the man head-on.
However dangerous it is, it doesn't matter if it never touches me.
No matter how fearsome that art might be, it meant nothing so long as it never made contact. In speed and in skill Ninshubur still held a clear advantage, and so dodging ought to have been no trouble at all—
Bang! Boom! Boooom!
"Being faster than me doesn't mean I can't stop you from moving."
"!!?"
Not a strike to wound—an obstacle. Every path of escape is seized before the foot can take it.
Strike the Mountain, Hit the Ox, the fist art that had settled into place as Lee Han's main technique, became not an attack but a barrier raised against the enemy's movement, claiming Ninshubur's lines of evasion before he could commit to them. If he could not match the speed, then he would simply wall off every direction the man might move. A simple strategy, and in this moment effective beyond measure. For about one second he halted Ninshubur outright. To some, a second seems endlessly short.
Whoosh!
"Got you."
To someone else, it is the opening that turns a fight on its head.
Shwaaaak!
"!!?!"
Lee Han's huge palm seized Ninshubur's face with brutal force and drove it straight down into the ground.
Kwaaang!
Hard.
"Nngh!!"
But the pain Ninshubur felt was not merely the shock of being slammed into the earth. An outside blow had little effect on him. Simply being touched was enough.
Ssszzz!
Agony tore through him as if a saw were slicing flesh, and the more Lee Han's blows hammered down, the worse it became. Skin split. Blood poured. The wounds grew cruel enough that bone began to show.
Even so, however grave the injury, the body of a god restored it, as if a wound like this were nothing at all.
"Whelp!"
Restored in a flash, Ninshubur burned with fury at the impious man who had damaged a god's body and slipped free of Lee Han's grip as if it were nothing. His skill was tremendous. At once the same torrent of blows as before came down without a pause for breath—and yet the one who took the wound was not Lee Han.
Thuk!
It was Ninshubur.
"!"
"A whelp, is it? I don't know. Isn't the real whelp the man who keeps charging even after his own advantage is already dead?"
A hand axe, drawn at no moment anyone could have named, sank true into Ninshubur's shoulder. It was not that Ninshubur had lost track of Lee Han's movement and failed to dodge. Simply—
"Told you. It doesn't work."
Lee Han had only let the blow land, and in the middle of taking it he had drawn the axe and thrown. A simple principle: while the opponent attacks, endure in silence, and give one stroke back.
Well.
Crack!
It was a thing only Lee Han could do, possessed as he was of an absurd art like Repulsion Qigong. In this instant his whole body was a weapon. Touch him anywhere and he was a chainsaw that would mince a man from head to heel—or a hedgehog bristling with needles the size of microns. Ordinary needles they were not.
Ssszzz!
"!!!?"
What they bestowed was an appalling agony.
Sword Resonance did not simply mean a vibrating edge. It was a martial art that released the essence of the sword, its sword-force, and in the same way Repulsion Qigong was the power that gave form to the human force within the man called Lee Han and turned it loose. In that sense, Lee Han's human force—!
"Bite down."
Kwaaaang!!
—was harder, and more destructive, than anything.
"Nnnnngh...!?"
Ninshubur barely swallowed the scream, but his face stiffened where all could see, and convulsions ran the length of his body. The instant Lee Han's fist struck, the energy pouring off the man called Lee Han seeped straight into him, like black ink invading a sheet of pure white paper.
Ssszzz!!
By rights, no matter how such human force arose, it should have been impossible for it to invade a god. But his opponent happened to be a warrior who had reached the realm of Intent. Energy that ought to have scattered was packed tight by that Intent, and in the moment it ruined divine flesh like a tattoo that would not come off—
Fwoooosh!
"Ninshubur!? Your arm is burning!"
"......"
"Ninshubur! You're all right, aren't you? You are winning, aren't you!!"
"...Forgive me, my god."
"—It seems I cannot grant your wish today."
The rest of it, which Ninshubur could not bring himself to say.
What Repulsion Qigong and Intent had made between them left Ninshubur's left arm burning. He did not truly understand why such a thing had happened. Only one thing was certain.
A sign in my favor. That's what this is.
And in the moment he felt the fight tilt—
"...I acknowledge it. You are a strong warrior."
"...?"
"Sword-force—no. The tremendous destructive power your human force gives off, mixed with the Hero's Light, is suppressing your recovery. Splendid."
"Hero's Light? What's that supposed to be?"
"The power you are wielding even now, is it not? A threatening power, awakened by those who are called heroes. This age seems to have no shortage of warriors who wield it."
"...Intent."
"So in this age, you call the Hero's Light Intent."
"......"
For an instant Lee Han felt envy in Ninshubur's eyes, as if the mere wielding of Intent were something to be envied that badly.
"...Ah."
"What is that look."
"Right. You died before you ever awakened Intent."
"......"
"That's why you didn't know. That's why you couldn't stand against it. I see."
"Hmph. Sharper than your face suggests."
"...Unbelievable. Now I'm hearing that from an ancient, of all people."
He had thought something was off. A martial artist of such skill, never once raising Intent, fighting on nothing but raw physical ability and technique...
He never learned it. No—he died before he had the chance.
Perhaps in his teens. Perhaps even earlier. His soul had gone on living, and so he had trained in martial arts alone. Even so—
He's still absurdly strong.
They said he had been called the strongest warrior of the ancient age. Which meant that while he was still in his teens, he had already thrown down every strong fighter of that time and climbed to the seat.
A genius who died young.
He knew it because he had fought the man himself. Had he failed to raise Repulsion Qigong, he would never have beaten him. That difficult an enemy. That strong. Even so, the fight had tilted, and now Lee Han was about to—
"Do you know why my god was called the god of war, and not the god of battle?"
"...What?"
"Because she waged wars that she won."
"??"
"I acknowledge it. Even if I take up a weapon, I cannot defeat you. Therefore—"
Whoosh!
In an instant, Ninshubur vanished from before his eyes. He had not moved at a speed the eye could not follow. Simply—
"...This bastard ran?"
Pride, and everything else with it, he had thrown away, and fled at full speed.
Leaving the other man dumbfounded.