A Knight Defies the Seasons (1)

Harpoons jutted from the Ghost King everywhere one looked.

There were so many of them that he might as well have been arranged as a flower display. All thirteen had struck true. It was shooting of an almost impossible precision; not even an archer praised as a divine bowman could have run the thing through so exactly.

Blood poured in a maddening sheet. Thighs, forearms, and the chest itself had all been pierced. Wounds of that order ought to have brought the footsteps of the dead at once, but the dead, regrettably, could not come near the Ghost King. Before a majesty like his, even the dead could only be expected to take fright and flee.

And more than that—

The Ghost King was not a creature that would die of wounds like these.

Boom!!

Hurt or not, his vitality had not dimmed in the slightest. An ordinary living thing with a hole through its chest and its neck half severed would be staring death in the face, but for the Ghost King this did not even qualify as a scratch. It only stoked his rage.

His fist came crashing down toward Lee Han.

Kraaaang!

The air tore, and a shockwave rolled out after it. The tremor was violent enough to pass for an earthquake. All around the Academy, people lost their footing and went down in droves. Aftershocks made it hard even to stay upright, and the source of those waves was obvious. The ground did not merely dent. It crumbled, on the verge of caving in altogether — power enough to end a nation, and proof, if any were needed, of how such a thing could exist.

And into that—

"I'm right here."

At some point he had climbed onto the Ghost King's shoulder, and from there he swung without mercy. There was no named art in it. It was simple butchery. The edge traced countless paths and carved the arm apart — more than ten cuts.

But the Ghost King's hide was not something easily opened. A great harpoon had only just punched through it; by any ordinary means, even scratching him would have been difficult.

That was assuming the body was in its proper condition.

Blood sprayed. The thing howled in pain.

"That's what you get for leaving them stuck in you."

Lee Han was revolted by the stupidity of ignoring the harpoons buried in its flesh, and glad of it in the same breath. Stupid made him easier to fight, didn't it? The harpoons the Ghost King had failed to tear free, and the cracks they had opened around them — he butchered those exact places and ripped them apart, and the arm split in a wretched mess.

A fist came whipping in. For a body that size, the blow was absurdly quick and exact. Anyone watching would have pictured a boulder dropping out of the sky. Intelligence and physique stood in inverse proportion; the flesh, at least, was extraordinary.

Lee Han slipped the falling fist at once.

"Damn. I'll give you this much — your physical specs are something else."

It was the method of Divine Bow, Elastic Shadow: movement like a loosed arrow, his own art of high-speed travel. He became the wind itself, and every time he did, the blade came around again. Back and legs. Shoulders and knees. Groin and throat. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee — he reproduced the words exactly, and showed in the flesh what a perfect hit-and-run was supposed to look like.

Even so, no matter how fast he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was, no matter how seasoned his toying with the thing, carelessness was forbidden. And for good reason.

Kraaaaa!

A single mistake would be enough to kill him.

"Ha. You monstrous bastard...."

Lee Han gave a dry laugh, cold sweat soaking him. Every time those arms and legs swung, a pressure poured over him that left his whole body numb — as if razors made of wind were raking him, and a heavy hammer were pounding him, both at once.

Where exactly is this thing weakened?

It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was absurd. This was supposedly not even thirty percent of its ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠prime. At a hundred percent, he would already be dead.

No. Even short of its prime, if it just had a bit of a brain, this would already be over.

He could fight it only because the thing used nothing but ignorant brute force. If its wits were even a little sharper — if it brought martial arts to bear, or fled to fall on some other place — the fight would have turned meaningless long ago. There had been a point, then, in provoking it on purpose and pinning every scrap of its hostility and killing intent on himself alone. At least until it killed him, it would not leave this ground.

Which meant—

I really can't afford to die.

The moment he died, the disciples in the Colosseum, and every student at the Academy besides, would be wiped out with him. Somehow the task on his shoulders had grown unbearably heavy. As the Ghost King began to grow used to his movement and gathered itself to strike, Lee Han set a new resolve: he would not be broken through. Not once.

Then I won't give you time to get used to me.

He decided to show it something louder still.

The Ghost King staggered. It had been certain it had him at last and had thrown its whole body into the motion, only for the opponent to vanish. Staggering was the least of what that deserved. But Lee Han had not vanished. He had only taken up a movement incomparably more tangled than before.

There was no fixed law in it — only a freedom that toyed with the enemy, and a confusion that unraveled him. In an instant the afterimages born of Divine Bow, Elastic Shadow dazzled the Ghost King's eyes and threw even its senses into delirium.

Lee Han could not even groan. He only clenched his teeth. The moment he unveiled the hidden ultimate art he had kept secret, his whole body screamed. The effect, though, was outstanding, and he moved more roughly still, dragging his opponent along after him. It had been a secret technique saved to show Baltar, and here he was revealing it first to some monster.

His knowledge of the eight trigrams was lacking, and trying to unfold the movement art while accounting for those principles overloaded him. Even so—

Beguiling a single monster ought to be possible.

High-speed travel, the phantoms it cast, and a subtle mystery dwelling inside that freedom: it was Lee Han's movement art, more than enough to dazzle a monster, almost excessive for the work.

His body creaked. Unfortunately, it was not a technique he could keep using. The strain was no joke. He would not last.

So there was only one thing to do.

"Hah!"

While the thing still could not get its head straight, he had to drive in something even more outrageous.

Crack!

The Ghost King's jaw whipped aside. It hurt — of course it hurt — but what the Ghost King could not understand was this.

He was down there. The presence was clearly below, so why had his head turned? Unable to make sense of it, the question ran ahead of the pain.

Hundred-Pace Divine Fist.

In boxing and in a fight, reach — the length of arm and leg — is one of the things that decides who dominates the match. Against a monster whose reach outstripped his by dozens of times, nothing served better than the method of Strike the Mountain, Hit the Ox. Hence the Hundred-Pace Divine Fist: Lee Han's fist art, that method recast as boxing. Strikes that ignored bulk and reach hammered the body from every direction at once.

Thud-thud-thud-thud!

The Ghost King roared, uncomprehending. Sensory disruption through the Phantom Eight Trigrams Step. Indiscriminate blows through the Hundred-Pace Divine Fist, rendering distance and direction meaningless. And on top of those—

Thoom!!

—force emission layered with the principle of the Weighted Strike Method.

Lee Han was unmistakably driving the Ghost King back.

......To a third party's eyes, however, it looked like something else entirely.

"H-how— if this keeps up, the instructor's going to die!"

He looked as though he might hit his limit and collapse at any moment. The one being overwhelmed just now was the Ghost King, yes, but its regeneration had not faded, and the majesty pouring off it was not a whit less than when it had first shown itself. It was only flustered by arts it had never seen. The instant it grew used to them—

"N-no!"

Just imagining it was horrifying.

"I'd help if there were an opening!"

Did they think Irene had no wish to help him? But ordinary magic did not take on the Ghost King's body. Even now, whenever she tried to force an attack through, the mana was simply nullified. It was a magic resistance fierce enough to explain why Odewal had lost the will to fight the moment he laid eyes on the Ghost King.

But Irene—

"Something big. I have to get one huge blast ready. No other way...."

She gathered mana with everything she had. The opponent possessed a powerful resistance to magic? Then she had only to answer with a saturation of force so vast that the resistance itself could not stand against it. So the girl hoarded mana with all her strength, watching for any chance to cast — if only to help him while he was in danger.

"Th-then... if I merely make an opening, will that suffice?"

"Yes! Just make an opening!"

"...How large an opening would be required?"

"Mmm, enough that he's about a meter clear of the instructor?"

"Ah. Understood. I shall try to make one."

"I'd appreciate that, but... who are you?"

"...You're asking that now?"

The boy, whose presence was faint enough to overlook, stared at Irene as if he could not believe her. Disappointment sat on his face, as though she had failed to match the image he had expected. Irene only blinked, unable to understand why he should be disappointed in her at all. He did not bother to satisfy the question.

"...Haa. Please simply regard me as some coward passing by. Someone who could do nothing, and only ever asked favors of that man...."

"Huh?"

"So I ought to help, even if it is late."

The boy with the striking gray hair muttered something that did not quite make sense, stepped forward, and unfolded his hidden card — a final measure with his life staked on it.

Derek let a rain of hidden weapons fall from the heavens.