Floor 41: Sword Master Ryun
The sword aura gave no warning at all.
In a heartbeat—just before sword and axe met—something transparent rippled along the length of Ryun's blade. A power beyond my understanding. It was the materialized natural force the Ent had spoken of.
Instinct told me that meeting it head-on would be a mistake. At the last instant before impact, I bent my wrist and twisted the axe aside, aiming for the flat of his blade instead.
Damn it!
But Ryun was a Sword Master. He read my intent just as quickly and rotated his arm to match. We were back at square one, with no time left to think. I was losing the contest of speed, too. Desperately, I threw my strength into both arms and hauled the axe back toward me—a motion that fought against its own momentum. My arms screamed under the strain, but Pungro lent its aid to the movement.
Clang—!
Sword met axe. Amid the clear ring of metal, I gritted my teeth. Pulling the axe in to soften the impact had been pointless—no, to put it precisely, even having done that, it felt like swinging an axe at a towering mountain. And without a moment's respite, Ryun's blade came surging in horizontally.
Against my will, the axe was half-torn from my grip; I barely clung to it as I rolled sideways across the ground. The edge hadn't chipped. But I knew without looking that it had taken damage.
I thought with my buffs running at full power, I could manage a little even without Flash Lightning—
I'd been wrong. Arrogant, to think that way against a Sword Master. I'd tried to test the waters and paid dearly for it. Ryun was already lunging at me, so I scrambled back to my feet.
An honest horizontal slash, arcing in on a diagonal. I backpedaled fast and twisted my body out of the blade's path, its killing intent grazing my cheek. The evasions came one after another—bending left and right at the waist, rolling along the ground whenever there was no room to dodge. All of it just to buy time to think before I had to cross weapons with him again.
He's less hostile than I expected.
It felt less like bloodlust and more like he was fighting simply because there was no other choice. No anger, no killing intent directed at me. The truth was, if Ryun had wanted it, I'd have been wounded somewhere in that very first clash. No enemy I'd ever faced had been this strong.
I'm being overpowered by the sword aura.
It wasn't that pure strength was failing me—I simply had no way to kindle an aura of my own in the axe. Mana and the Essence of Lightning would have to stand in for the sword aura.
I invoked Flash Lightning and drew my mana up in the same breath. The lightning sheathing my axe crackled up far more savagely. And at the same instant, the corners of Ryun's mouth curled upward. Unlike the other Ents, his face was expressive, and I could read it plainly: it was a smile of pure enjoyment.
Was Ryun holding back in that first clash, too?
It seemed so. He hadn't felt like he was fighting at full strength…… I tightened my grip and called Ryun's sword path to mind. Reading an opponent's movements as we clashed was my specialty, after all. And I swung my axe simply, honestly.
Inside the slowed time of Flash Lightning, I was the faster of us. But Ryun shifted only the position of his blade and turned my axe aside with ease.
Clang—!
Even with the lightning surged to its limit, I was still losing the contest of strength. It felt as though the moment I'd used Flash Lightning, Ryun's sword aura had grown sharper to match.
The clashes continued. Anxiety crept in, and my hands seized up with tension. An Ent Sword Master. He didn't move with the lithe, flamboyant grace I'd imagined. Ryun's sword was stiff, rough, and honest—true to his Ent nature. But it was not a sword I could resist. There was no opening anywhere that I could turn into a successful strike.
Phew……
Whenever I swung first, Ryun deflected it with ease and answered with a slash of his own—aimed precisely where I, having committed first, would find it hardest to defend. Pungro, which in battle had sometimes shown me the paths of the wind, offered no hint at all in this fight against Ryun. It simply aided my movements. Its level must still have been lacking. I wanted to put my advantage in speed to use, but that eluded me as well—Ryun moved only as much as he needed to, as if he could see my attacks coming before I even threw them.
He's too strong.
That said, I was growing in real time through this duel with him. The Sword Master's sword path was superb teaching material, and I strained to follow it with every passing instant. I could feel my own attacks sharpening. But the gap was simply too wide. I couldn't dare an attack of my own; all I could do was keep turning aside the blade Ryun swung at me. Now and then I brought lightning down on him, and each time, his sword aura turned it away.
I can't keep Flash Lightning running forever.
I needed a next move. But Ryun kept his blade in motion, and thinking was easier said than done. The sword came flying again, honest and true along its diagonal. I twisted at the waist and slipped past it by a hair—and as I did, the Shadow Monarch surfaced in my mind. The Shadow Cloak seemed useless here, because Ryun wasn't moving off what he saw. Even now, I was the faster of us. And yet Ryun sensed everything around him and acted before I did.
I drew my hips back out of his blade's arc and swung the axe. Ryun bent only his wrist and batted it aside without effort. Attack failed. Now it was his turn. The difference in reach forced me a full step backward, fast.
I'll have to use the shadow arms.
I had never unleashed them against an opponent this strong, but it was the best card I had. I didn't imagine the shadow arms alone would beat Ryun. Still, they might wrest back a sliver of the initiative in this fight where I was pinned on the defensive. And there was Lungkshak's Dagger, too.
If I'm holding Lungkshak's Dagger, I can use its automatic defense.
The automatic defense wouldn't trigger while the dagger sat sheathed. And if I truly meant to beat Ryun, I would have to gamble regardless. To cut the odds of that gamble costing me my skin, Lungkshak's Dagger was indispensable. While I was thinking, a sword trajectory that would not be so easily dodged came rushing in. With no other choice, I rolled my body sideways and drew out the shadow arms. In a blink, they took up Lungkshak's Dagger, split into its twin blades.
Pushing off from a half-kneel, building momentum, and hurtling myself at Ryun—even to my own eyes, the sequence flowed as smooth as water. Not bad. An axe and a pair of daggers. With the shadow arms, I reproduced Ryun's own sword path against him. The assault from three directions made him falter, if only for a moment. The shadow arms knew no limit of form, so they could strike along crooked trajectories no ordinary blade could follow. And long practice had made me deft with them.
For perhaps twenty seconds, I overwhelmed the Sword Master. Brief as it was, a riot of metallic ringing filled the plain.
Oh no……
But soon enough, Ryun found his footing again. He looked as if he had simply grown accustomed to the assault from three angles.
"Haha…… How… fun……"
He spoke slowly, in the breaths between knocking my blade up and driving his down again. His voice was giddy with elation. Ryun was enjoying this. No—he was unmistakably delighting in it.
"It's… been… a long… time… since… I met… an opponent… I could… fight… like… this……"
Our weapons collided dozens more times over the next few seconds before he picked the thread back up, unhurried. His tone was perfectly tranquil. I wanted to groan, but I had no breath to spare for it.
That damned Sword Master. How on earth is anyone supposed to break through a trial like this?
Was this trial really about stealing after all?
I shook my head inwardly. There was no room for stray thoughts. And yet neither did I have anything left in me to squeeze out something greater. I clenched my jaw and attacked in broken, off-beat rhythm with all three weapons. Ryun moved his stiff arm in three dead-straight lines and stopped every one.
Clang—clang—clang—!
Optimal trajectories, stripped of every wasted motion. The trails left behind by Ryun's sword aura hung in the air between us, tracing a transparent triangle. And the instant I saw that triangle, something slammed through my mind. It was the harbinger of an epiphany.
Ha, damn it… of all the times.
We were mid-battle; I couldn't chase the thought. Then, abruptly, Ryun stopped his sword. And then he gave a small nod in my direction.
Is this…?
It was consideration. I had no idea why he was granting it, but I refused to let the moment slip away. Standing rooted where I was, I sank into thought in an instant.
A triangle of sword aura. A sword path with all of Ryun's martial art woven into it. It was beautiful. I couldn't recreate it with an axe, but that triangle kept burning behind my eyes.
Come on… please……
The thread of enlightenment hovered at the edge of my mind, caught and slipping, caught and slipping. Think of Ryun's sword again. A rough, honest path. Ent or no, it was a sword path that a Sword Master had mastered. Measured against it, my own style was lacking, and yet sprawled across far too many modes of attack. Was I not thinking too much each time I swung the axe?
"Haah……"
My thoughts ran deep, but in the end, the thread eluded me. There had been a glimmer of insight—just nothing close to drawing out a sword aura the way Ryun did. I heaved a deep sigh at the waste of it, and only then did the world around me come into focus.
The plain that had held nothing but grass had, at some point, changed beyond recognition. Flowers of every color stood in full bloom all around us—to be exact, all along the path that Ryun and I had carved with our battle. I'd been too absorbed in the fighting to notice. Naturally, I had no such power; this was no miracle of mine.
Materialized natural force……
It had all sprung from Ryun's sword aura. Making flowers bloom with a blade…… That was a sword of life. Caught between gratitude and disbelief, I turned to look at Ryun. He stood with his sword lowered, studying me.
"…Why did you wait for me?"
"Because… I too… had… a moment… like… yours… once……"
He was speaking of the instant of enlightenment, most likely. An opponent you were fated to cross blades with. Even if that opponent were weaker than me—could I truly have done as Ryun did? My gratitude toward him was entirely sincere.
"Really… thank you."
"It was… only… a small… kindness… for one… who gave… me… joy… Few… Ents… wield… swords, you see……"
So his delight earlier hadn't been for nothing after all. Fair enough—an Ent fighting with a weapon had thrown me off too. Just as I'd suspected, such a thing wasn't common here either. Ryun went on, with a trace of regret.
"A pity… you didn't… attain… complete… enlightenment……"
"Still, something has changed."
"True… you could… say… you've… set foot… on… the path……"
Set foot on the path?
Before the question could even form, Ryun turned his head to look at the World Tree.
"You said… you wanted… to know… why… I stand… against… the World Tree's… migration……"
His voice was wistful. He'd refused to answer when I asked before, and now he was offering it of his own accord. Why the sudden change? I wondered—but I had no reason to turn him down.
"Yes. What is the reason?"
"That would be… because… I love… Sorien……"
"Sorien?"
"My… beloved… my… teacher… and… my… life……"
Ryun raised his sword and pointed it at the World Tree. I couldn't suppress my astonishment, but I kept it off my face. Come to think of it—Ryun had looked at the World Tree with sorrow in his eyes earlier. Now that image finally made sense.
Wait. Could the World Tree have been an Ent like Ryun, once?
"Is the World Tree an Ent?"
Even as the question left me, I doubted it. If that were true, the other Ents would have known the reason for his defiance, too.
"No…… Sorien… is… a name… I gave… her……"
Hm. For a moment, I had no words. How was I supposed to look at this situation? An Ent in love with the World Tree. A human loving a tree would be strange, but Ryun was an Ent. A tree, loving a tree. And I found I could not call that strange at all. Part of me felt oddly hollow, too. To think the reason Ryun stood against the World Tree's migration was love…… It was corny, it was almost laughable—and yet, somehow, it rang true.
Hold on.
Then I remembered the sight of Ryun playing his panpipe. I had felt it, clearly, in that moment—Ryun steering the wind. The wind that had circled the World Tree. Was the World Tree really just a tree? There was so much about Ryun that defied explanation. The way his face showed feeling when no other Ent's did. The fact that he was a Sword Master at all. Could the World Tree possess a living soul of its own? If it did, I could understand why Ryun had called the World Tree his beloved, his teacher, and his life.
Ryun turned his body to face me.
"Now… my consideration… for the warrior… Noebu sent… is at an end…… Give… up…… If you… could not… attain… enlightenment… then you… cannot… beat… me……"
"You still speak of Noebu so reverently."
"Because… he is… my… god…… He did… heed… the prayers… of my kin… but……"
"And even so, you'll protect the World Tree—Sorien?"
"The World Tree's… migration… was never… the god's… request……"
It had been his kin who asked. Ryun carried on, slow and deliberate. When the World Tree died, it would pass on to Noebu's garden. And he himself could never follow it there. The longer he spoke, the heavier and graver his expression became.
"And… even if… Noebu… commanded me… to kill… Sorien……"
Ryun leveled his blade at me.
"I… would refuse… a god's… command……"
There was no resolve in the world more complete than his in that moment. I could see he had made his peace even with dying. But……
I had a feeling I'd just found the clue to the 41st floor's hidden mission in Ryun's words.