Chapter 99
Chapter 99
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 98
Chapter Title: Crimson Skies and Severed Arms
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“Kyaaaak!”
The bloodcurdling scream didn’t belong to Raf.
He’d been staring straight at his opponent even after his right arm got lopped off.
That was his master’s teaching.
Don’t close your eyes.
Fear isn’t something you turn away from—it’s something you overcome.
Watch the enemy until the very end.
That will save you.
The nagging that had been drilled into his ears.
That nagging had just saved his life in this moment.
Swoosh!
He spotted the blade flying in, trailing a deep navy afterimage. It was an attack he couldn’t have blocked even with both arms intact. Without a word or hesitation, he threw his upper body back sharply.
The blade grazed his clothes by a hair’s breadth, accompanied by a chilling slicing sound, and Raf began to tilt toward the floor.
At the same time, his now-lonely left arm blurred.
A short flash ejected from his waist.
The dagger cleaved through the air.
Even as his stance crumbled, it was a perfect throw.
But it didn’t connect.
Clang!
The summon slapped the dagger aside with a burst of sparks.
The speed at which it recovered its swung sword was insane.
His desperate throw went to waste, and Raf executed a half-baked landing roll at almost the exact same instant.
This was all one breath.
The severed arm dropping beside his head came right after.
Raf clutched the stump spewing blood like a fountain, and the summon’s blade came plummeting down straight at him.
A split-second moment.
Once again, Raf didn’t look away.
Because this was his master’s teaching.
Out of the hundreds of techniques he’d been taught, the only one applicable here was [Stare Death in the Face], which was pathetically limited, but he stuck to the lesson faithfully.
And thanks to that...
He saw it clearly.
The sticky, drawn-out instant.
The two figures appearing before him.
The flashing sword draw and the crackling surge of lightning.
In the center of the X formed by the clashing downward strike and blocking sword, Ryukard’s eyes locked onto the ancient helmet.
And that wasn’t the end. There was a hand gripping the summon’s gauntlet firmly—Jin, who patted his chest in shock, whoa, that was close.
Honestly, his body had moved before his brain caught up.
Festival, my ass.
Cutting off an arm? That’s crossing a line.
His gaze, dripping with absurdity, naturally turned to Cecil.
“Got someone you need to kill?”
Was Ryukard thinking the same? Amid the razor-sharp standoff of blades locked together, he spoke up.
“You’re crossing the line. Since when was the arena a place to harm others? If I hadn’t blocked, his head would’ve been sliced off.”
Cecil lifted her head.
Her expressionless face turned to the two intruders.
“Yeah, it would’ve.”
It was an absurdly quick affirmation.
Her resigned, listless voice continued slowly, gazing at the audience holding their breath in disbelief at the situation.
“Right, it would’ve. That’s what I wanted.”
“...Sis?”
“I don’t get it anymore, Ryukard. Have you ever felt this? Wanting to make up for a mistake, but it’s so massive there’s no going back. Probably not. You don’t make mistakes. You’re a genius. Unlike me.”
Cecil’s eyes shifted to Jin standing beside Ryukard.
“And you too.”
“What?”
“Saw you fight Kendrick. Dazzling. Made me wonder how pathetic I must’ve looked. Asking a trembling newbie girl if she wasn’t shaking? How lame was that? Huh?”
Jin furrowed his brow.
It wasn’t her arbitrary judgment of his thoughts that irked him. The sticky inferiority complex oozing from what he’d thought was just a weak face wasn’t the issue either.
His palms were just drenched in sweat.
His heart pounded wildly as a bonus.
Why? No clue.
But one thing was clear.
Something was happening right now.
Meanwhile, Cecil kept talking.
“Why do you take everything from me? Couldn’t you share a little? I was always the only one alone. No one cared. Why did Grandma pass the family name to Sis? If she’d thought of me even a little, she wouldn’t have needed to go that far. That was too cruel...”
Jin tuned out the voice.
Now wasn’t the time to listen to bullshit.
And then the sky turned red.
“Ah?”
The audience looked up. One by one, then more and more, sharing the same view. Mouths fell open unwittingly.
What they thought was an early sunset was the blood-red mana pouring from a single being.
Moments later, as the wingless floater slowly descended to the ground, the vast circular arena was forcibly bathed in crimson light.
This was an unstoppable natural disaster.
The moment panic gripped the audience as their vision turned blood-red in the blink of an eye—
A blinding flash erupted from the first-floor seats.
────!!
A typhoon-like gale slices through the air.
The blood-red sky that had plunged everyone into terror split in half, revealing clear blue skies beyond.
But the shockwave still had power left, spreading like a temple bell’s toll across the entire arena, brushing everyone trembling in anxiety before fading into the distance.
Then, a magical thing happened.
The audience’s heads began drooping one after another.
Screamers, the dazed, those unable to grasp the situation.
No exceptions.
Aside from a few with iron wills, everyone bowed their heads—thousands upon thousands.
A truly overwhelming sight.
Turning his head following the lingering wind still tousling hair, there stood the Sword Saint.
Sword already gripped in his right hand.
The next instant.
The swordsman who had slashed the heavens with one stroke turned his serene eyes toward the being that had just set foot in the arena.
“...”
The opponent gazed back at the Sword Saint.
Then, he threw back his hood, revealing a man with a corpse-like pallor who opened his mouth.
“Greetings, Sword Saint.”
“A hooded beast has lost its fear.”
The Sword Saint seemed to recognize him as well.
Then slowly spoke.
“I remember you as the 11th Apostle. Still are?”
“Twenty years ago, yes. Now the 6th.”
“The tail-between-legs runt’s grown up.”
“Back then, you were the Mad Sword, not the Sword Saint.”
Silence blanketed the arena, their voices the only clear sounds.
Even those few maintaining their wits in this madness didn’t dare interject.
They just rolled their eyes side to side, scrambling to understand—one of them being Jin.
What the hell, suddenly.
Raf’s arm gets chopped off clean, he steps in to stop the fight, Cecil starts spouting nonsense, palms sweat up, vision goes red so he looks up, some blood-aura-spewing zombie’s chatting with the Sword Saint?
Teacher, you’re going too fast.
Seizing the confusion, he checked the status window he’d missed earlier.
This bastard changed it up again.
First it pumps him up to win, now sneaks in an OR.
???? the ??? of ????.
What the fuck is this.
Listen to Cecil’s bullshit?
Reattach Raf’s arm?
Understand the status window’s whims?
You little shit, if you’re gonna tell me something, do it properly.
Not like you’re playing with a toy.
This fun for you?
His stomach churned at the utterly incomprehensible situation.
So he decided not to understand.
Why the hell should I?
With that, Jin resolved to tackle the problem right in front of him, his eyes landing on Raf, who’d somehow stanched the bleeding and collapsed. “You cut my friend’s arm?” The next moment, a knee like forged steel slammed into the summon’s gut.
Kwaaang!!
And it didn’t end there.
He twisted and yanked the hand clutching the stump, then cupped the summon’s head with his opposite palm and smashed it into the ground.
Then he snapped up his other hand, channeling imagery of thunder tearing storm clouds into his five fingers—
Eat this, Thunderclap Iron Claws!
Five bolts of lightning—the talons of the thunder god—slammed into the summon’s chestplate.
The arena flipped upside down. Jin kicked off the jagged edge of upheaved ground and yanked his arm back behind his head.
Bang—!
The moment he hurled the lightning spear elongating between his fingers with a whoosh—
“Kill Eiron!!!”
Cecil shrieked like a banshee.
Right after, a navy sword slash erupted from the pit, clashing head-on with the spear.
Kwaaaang!
The massive shockwave hurled his body into a full spin mid-air.
In his vision: the summon planting its sword to rise, and Cecil mumbling her chant.
Summoner first!
Judgment made in a flash, Jin blinked straight to Cecil’s front. The instant his body arrived at the target spot, his pre-extended fist hammered her side.
Bam!
A powerful rebound rippled through his skin. In the shuddering air, a translucent, scale-like outline flickered briefly before vanishing.
Cecil had survived the crisis with a barrier, but she couldn’t block being launched backward.
But that was enough.
Even as heaven and earth spun wildly, she finished her chant. Her fingertip locked onto the charging Jin.
“Explosion!”
A tiny ember raced along her finger like a lit fuse, chaining into a massive frontal blast the moment it reached the tip, swallowing Jin whole.
That was when—
Pop!
With the sound of feet stomping down, Ryukard appeared behind Cecil and brought his sword crashing down.
A lightning-fast overhead slash.
But a blade rose to block it.
Clang!
The summon, Eiron, had recovered its stance in an instant and unleashed a slash at Ryukard.
In the blink of an eye, the two swordsmen’s blades wove countless silver threads in the air—
And simultaneously, Cecil hacked up black blood.
It was backlash.
Backlash from summoning a summon that defied her rank using the cheats of the wicked.
But she gritted her teeth.
Veins bulging, she roared.
“Salrist!”
The chained explosions’ flames coalesced into a human shape.
[Ooooh!]
⟨ Salrist ⟩
With a thunderous bellow, it swung its fist, colliding mid-air with Jin’s kick bursting through the explosion.
A massive heatwave blasted back his forelock.
But Jin just grinned savagely.
Agni or whatever.
Compared to that fire spirit the face-collecting freak in Thea’s skin had summoned—one whose upper body alone nearly spanned a dozen meters—this flame humanoid was nothing.
With that certainty, his hammered fists punched massive holes through the fire spirit’s body.
Fwoosh!
Weak flames scattered. Beyond them, Cecil was rising.
“You geniuses wouldn’t get it! Me too! I just wanted to be acknowledged!”
Ripples stirred in the air behind her screaming form.
Unknown spirits poured out en masse.
The advancing horde that had once driven Carlos to defeat.
But it was different this time.
Eiron, the vanguard summon, was locked in swordplay with Ryukard.
So Jin didn’t hesitate.
Like a salmon battling upstream.
He smashed through the oncoming spirits, advancing and advancing relentlessly.
Wind blades tore skin, grasping hands from the floor snagged ankles, flames and ice battered and pierced his body—but he didn’t stop.
Weathering the tidal assault, he barreled forward like a flood until he shouldered the final obstructing boulder.
Kwang!!
Bursting through shattering debris, Jin stomped forward and hurled a fist at Cecil’s wide-eyed shock.
Unlike that soft-hearted blond chef from next door who’d never hit a woman, Jin—eyes rolled back in rage—held nothing back.
His thunderbolt fist smashed her face.
Crack! Her barrier shattered, and she skidded across the floor.
Confirming it, Jin panted raggedly and yelled inwardly.
Hand over the XP!
But nothing happened.
Status window silent, the ground rumbled like an earthquake.
No time to calm his shock, Jin whipped his head around.
And saw it.
A colossal blood-red tree—so massive the term World Tree felt inadequate—blanketing the arena’s sky.
And before it, the Sword Saint advanced with steady steps.