44. Transcendence
Madness that hadn't been there before gleamed in Bricala's eyes as it charged. Like a warhorse lashed with a whip, it scorched its own body with lightning to forcibly maintain its awakened state. The sight of it lunging on two legs and four arms would cow any human.
But here, the man twisted from the human path moved first.
“Glory to Helmont!”
Jonathan, the Helmont zealot. The aura cloaking his greatsword had thickened into something sticky and viscous, no longer mere Red Aura in name alone.
Boom!
The moment the two monsters collided, aura and lightning sprayed in all directions. The balance of raw power crumbled from the start. The instant they clashed, Jonathan's greatsword bounced back as if repelled, and Bricala barreled through, trampling him underfoot.
“Guhk!”
“Acting all tough and then what?!”
Sharen's reaction came a beat too late, thanks to how swiftly Jonathan had been overrun. Before her horizontal slash could even swing, Bricala knocked her greatsword aside with its fist. Her eyes widened in alarm as she desperately unleashed Red Aura from her entire body to resist.
But “Kyaa!”
Sharen too failed to halt Bricala's charge and was flung back, slamming into the wall. A slight misdirection, and she would've plummeted straight down.
“......!”
Bricala's target had been Isaac from the beginning. It had precisely identified the only being here who had nearly taken its life.
Can't win in a head-on fight...!
Nor could he flee somewhere. With Sharen now distant, Isaac's body was freezing over again from the cold.
Thud!
He slammed his right foot forward. Abandoning the ruined longsword, he placed his hand atop the last remaining taedo.
[What do you think is the greatest power your master's sword holds?]
'Fear.'
Isaac had answered without hesitation back then. The Great Master had chuckled and grumbled, [Too brilliant, and it's no longer cute.]
Isaac's movements showed no hesitation. The moment his trembling, stiffened hand from the cold gripped the sword hilt, freedom returned as if by magic.
The beast knew how to think. It possessed wisdom, reasoned, learned, and grew.
And that was precisely why.
Thud!
Bricala halted before Isaac, spreading its four arms warily.
'It fears because it knows. It hesitates because it has learned.'
Isaac was questioning it now. His Quick Draw. Could you track it with your eyes?
That flash-like strike. The one you'd blocked by sheer luck—could you block it this time too?
Bricala's unwavering gaze locked onto Isaac's taedo. It focused intently on when that blade within the sheath might be drawn.
A bluff. A life-or-death lie, like in a card game.
Draw the taedo? The moment it left the sheath, lightning would ruin the edge.
It would become a sword unfit even to hold.
But didn't the beast fail to realize if the taedo at his waist was the same one as before?
'Thought hinders its steps. Knowledge piles up fear.'
Having felt that possibility once on its skin, and with fury awakened amid the chill dread.
On the contrary, Bricala couldn't easily close in on Isaac.
But of course, only for a moment.
“Graaaargh!”
As Bricala's fist smashed the ground, lightning surged along the rampart toward Isaac. A wave of electricity crashed down. He flung the nearby longsword to block it, but the effect was minimal.
In the end, the lightning engulfed him.
“Grrraaah!”
His body felt like it would burst apart. Just moments ago, it had been freezing solid; now his skin burned, the stench of charred flesh rising with steam.
“Graaaargh!”
Judging Isaac fully downed at last, it thundered forward.
Smack!
Its hand backhanded him with full force.
“Iiiiisaac!”
Sharen's scream echoed. It roused the stunned Jonathan, but too late.
Isaac's body floated up, shoved off the rampart, then plummeted vertically.
The impact felt like it would shatter his frozen limbs. Even the wind rushing past was agony.
So this is how I die.
“Tha—t gu—y! Fel—l!”
“Al—l of —it!”
“I—saac si—r!”
Choppy voices like echoes in delirium barely held Isaac's mind together. Through hazy vision like ground fog, he saw the towering rampart.
'Ah.'
Before he knew it, Isaac had reached the ground. No impact, though. He'd expected instant death.
“So what did you think you could do!”
He soon learned why. Warm green mana enveloped his body. The pounding pain throughout faded, seeping into his skin. His fingers twitched, and his blurred sight cleared.
Vivian, the mage from the infirmary.
“If I hadn't caught you with magic, you wouldn't even get treatment—you'd be dead!”
Even as he hacked up coughs from using healing magic, he yelled.
“You told us to run—! *Cough cough!* What were you thinking fighting up there—! *Guhk! Kek!*”
He turned aside to spit phlegm. Healing magic must strain him greatly; his face was pallid, most of his mana depleted.
“Ah.”
Isaac slowly rose. Not fully recovered, but fit to fight again.
“Lord Isaac, are you alright?!”
The Mallidan Wall soldiers surrounding him asked worriedly.
“Damage report?”
As he brushed off ice crystals, the answer came promptly.
“None beyond the initial ambush. Thanks to your swift judgment and retreat order, Lord Isaac.”
They seemed eager to reassure him his call hadn't been wrong.
But Isaac pushed past the blocking soldiers' shoulders, staggering toward the rampart.
“It's not over yet.”
Sharen and Jonathan were still battling Bricala above, weren't they?
As he advanced with heavy steps, other soldiers urgently blocked his path.
“You can't!”
“Going now is suicide!”
“Let us go instead! Rest here, Lord Isaac!”
“Defending Mallidan Wall is our duty from the start!”
To those insisting they'd go, Isaac asked with bloodshot eyes,
“Climb up? Want us all to freeze together?”
“......”
“You're the guardians of Mallidan Wall. That's why I'm telling you to stay here.”
If.
“If we die, you'll have to hold them next.”
The longer they kept Bricala on the rampart, the more damage it accumulated. Unable to kill it, they had to fight as long as possible from above, wearing it down.
“Because you're behind us. That's how we can fight with our lives on the line.”
The speechless soldiers couldn't stop Isaac's advance.
But the one blocking him next was utterly unexpected.
“What happened to your other swords?”
“Antonio...”
He snatched Isaac's taedo like reclaiming it, then drew the blade.
Scraaape!
The edge was completely ruined, charred black and unusable. It must've been damaged alongside Isaac in the lightning strike.
“The sword—.”
Isaac reached out. Demanding the silver taedo in Antonio's grip.
“Wasn't supposed to give it like this.”
But now wasn't the time. Antonio handed over the silver taedo. He pondered how to voice his conflicted feelings, then grinned ruefully.
“Save the thanks... for when you return. Tell the lady yourself.”
Isaac's eyes widened slightly. The taedo in his hand was astonishingly light, infused with a mystically clear aura. He recognized at a glance it was forged from frost silverlight.
With a small nod, Isaac strode onward, his body heating up.
“Kek! *Cough!* Guhk!”
Vivian was retching outright now. He'd apparently cast a final warming spell on Isaac.
Isaac headed for the rampart. Soldiers parted, slowly raising hands in silent salute. Wordlessly expressing respect to the swordsman's back as he went to fight.
[Enlightenment?]
Ascending the rampart stairs. Amid the chill numbing his brain once more.
The voice of his longed-for Great Master echoed in Isaac's ears.
[When did you gain enlightenment? Hah, I thought my disciples' progress had slowed lately, but you're asking something utterly trivial.]
Tilting her cup, the Great Master eyed him with a sigh.
[When do you think?]
'......'
[Well? Speak up. I won't laugh.]
'When staking my life in battle? When swinging my sword with all my might, or focusing to survive?'
[How romantic!]
Well, didn't everyone imagine it that way? The moment of shedding one's shell, reaching enlightenment. Surely in such desperate crisis. Backed against a cliff.
[On the contrary, let me ask you.]
The Great Master shook an empty bottle regretfully, adjusted her posture, and smiled at Isaac.
[Then why do people die?]
'......'
[Desperate moments? Life-threatening crises? Those come to everyone. Predictable situations. You think enlightenment hits every time?]
His steps grew heavy.
[Everyone dies. Don't weigh death so heavily. Enlightenment is called that because it doesn't come from the commonplace.]
The stairs' end neared; wind pressed down on his head like a blow. Traversing steps crusted with frost and icicles, Isaac reached the rampart top.
[Haha! Get it now?]
'What?'
High-altitude wind swept his body. White, frosty breath billowed.
Through the hazy white vapor, Jonathan and Sharen lay fallen.
[Still don't see? Enlightenment is rare because it's not universal. Think inversely.]
Bricala, pounding its chest with four hands, froze. Disgusted by Isaac's return, it snorted at him, unleashing a roar of blazing fury.
[Not from universal death, but situations rarely experienced— that's where enlightenment comes, no?]
Snowflakes scattered as lightning stabbed like spears in all directions. Mana condensed into lightning forms; amazed so much remained.
'What is that?'
Isaac assumed his stance. Right leg boldly forward. Left like a pillar anchoring his body. Hand on the waist taedo, naturally forming his familiar posture.
[What?]
The Great Master's crescent-moon smile.
[You'd know from compiling the manual.]
[When the moon shines brightest, who swung the sword?]
'......'
[At dawn watched by stars, who gripped the sword?]
[Who watched the sunrise sweat-drenched as the moon retreated?]
[Who shouted kiai before the rooster crowed?]
[Who repeated this daily?]
[Exceedingly rare. Few spend such time.]
Thud!
The Great Master's sheath-strike on the ground overlapped with Bricala's footfall in his ears. Isaac snapped alert, eyes locking on Bricala ahead, holding distance and glaring.
[That one.]
'......'
[He—you—reached what you call enlightenment.]
Craaaackle!
Bricala's lightning sprayed everywhere. To suppress Isaac's sword as before, it unleashed a wave of currents.
The sword slipped free like water.
Here, in the North.
When the moon shone brightest, he swung the sword.
At dawn watched by stars, he gripped it.
Sweat-drenched, he watched the moon retreat and sunrise rise.
He shouted kiai before the rooster.
And.
Repeated it daily.
“The moment it's drawn—”
Having reached beyond the end, it was called Great Quick Draw.
A line of silver was etched.
It stretched, stretched further, reaching some unknowable place.
Felling the beast's neck.
Was merely one process in its advance.
[Call it 'enlightenment,' and doesn't it seem trivial?]
[Thus, if we must name it.]
Transcendence.