Siruntel Demonic Realm (8)
The soft rustle of turning pages and the scratch of a pen filled the quiet study.
With calm, indifferent eyes, a black-haired middle-aged man worked through a mountain of documents. He was Roque Crusif, head of the Crusif ducal house that ruled the eastern reaches of the Empire.
Without lifting his gaze from the papers, Roque suddenly spoke.
"Come in."
The window behind him slid open with a scrape, and Leon vaulted lightly inside.
"For heaven's sake, use the door."
Leon shrugged off his father's blade-sharp stare.
"New skills need constant practice. That's how you get them into your body faster."
Roque let out a small sigh at the shameless answer. True enough, Leon's stealth techniques were improving at a startling rate — the range at which Roque could sense his presence kept shrinking. Whether he ought to be pleased that his son's exceptional martial talent was showing itself even in something like this left Roque conflicted.
"So. What is it this time?"
He still did not set the documents down.
"Haha. Anyone listening would think I only ever show up when I need something."
"······."
Under Roque's transparent, unblinking stare, Leon cut straight to the point.
"I found something."
From inside his coat he produced several sheets of old, faded paper. Strange characters, numbers, and diagrams of a human body in various stances covered their surfaces.
"······."
Roque's face hardened as he examined the documents.
"It looks like a sword form related to the Jecheon Sword Style. Could you teach it to me? I asked some of the other knights, but strangely, none of them seemed to recognize it."
The sound of pages turning grew faster. Roque's breathing roughened, almost imperceptibly.
"Well, if you're really too busy, just showing me once would be—"
"Where in the world did you find this?"
Roque exhaled a deeper sigh. He shoved the entire stack of papers under his desk and declared without hesitation:
"No."
The voice was firm and sharp, leaving no room for argument.
"······Excuse me?"
Leon furrowed his brow hard. Not that he didn't want to — that he couldn't.
"No, wait… why not?"
"Because that is not something you should learn."
Meeting the demand for an explanation in Leon's eyes, Roque continued.
"It is a sword form that was sealed long ago. Wicked. Unnatural. No one knows what powerful and dangerous side effects it might produce when used. It was created by the man considered the greatest disgrace in our family's history — it is not something to be shown to others."
"Do not even think of laying a hand on it. On this matter, I will not let anything slide."
Whether from anxiety over his son's recent string of disasters or something else, Roque drove the point home by striking the desk, making it clear there would be no compromise.
"······Fine. Understood."
Leon nodded reluctantly, thinking to himself:
······Good thing I already copied the contents somewhere else.
The bodies of the demons charging Leon went rigid.
A deep, rolling thunder shook the earth. The sky darkened. From Leon's sword, tracing its path with deliberate slowness, an immeasurable force poured forth — something beyond description.
"······?!?!"
What was this? What kind of trick had he pulled?
They wanted to scream it, but frozen mouths and tongues would not allow it. Like mice before a cat. Like rabbits before a tiger. The overwhelming gulf in power filled them with the terror and despair of prey.
"Ghhhk!"
Blood vessels burst across Gruzer's eyes.
"This is— impossible······!"
To feel this way because of a mere human? Every demon in the Demon Realm would laugh them to scorn. No — right now, far off, Squad Leader Talkan would tear him apart for it.
Gruzer bit down until his jaw threatened to shatter. A jolt of pain lanced through his brain as a sharp fang tore a strip of flesh from his tongue, snapping his mind back into focus. The locked muscles loosened, just a fraction. He crouched, ready to hurl himself forward again.
"I'll kill you!!"
But the moment Leon raised his sword—
The world convulsed once more. The demons froze solid all over again.
A vast, irresistible power gathered along the tip of Leon's blade as it rose toward the heavens. From the blackened sky, an ominous energy descended and soaked into the steel. It defied reason. It denied providence. It concentrated chaos and calamity, as if the abyss itself had been draped over the blade — the pure crystallization of violence.
In a world growing steadily darker, only a pair of wickedly gleaming red eyes blazed.
Then that radiance narrowed to a thin curve. The sword that had touched the sky came down.
Jecheon Sword Style — Dark Form
Cheonjusu-sik
Like a monster that devours the sun. Like darkness that hunts the light. A deep blue sword-qi, thick with vicious, malevolent, bone-chilling power, shot toward them.
The ground heaved. Trees snapped. The air itself tore apart. Just as one cannot escape a cloudburst on open plain, the force behind that strike was absolute — irresistible. Like watching the blade fall toward one's neck on the executioner's block, all they could do as the merciless torrent of sword-qi bore down was stare, vacant and hollow and lost—
"Th-this······."
—and meet their deaths.
Where the sword-strike had swept through, only a desolated stretch of earth and an eerie silence remained. The faint black ichor of demons was the sole proof that they had, for a brief moment, lived and breathed in this place.
"Ahh. That feels better."
Leon took a moment to appreciate the terrifying power of the form he had just unleashed, then turned and walked toward Celia.
"······."
She seemed to have forgotten she was dying of shock. Eyes wide, mouth stretched to its limit, her expression was almost comically vivid.
"······H-hey. What the hell was that just now······."
"You promised to keep it a secret, remember?"
Leon took one look at her face and snickered.
I really owe Bergopf for this one.
The man Roque had called the family's disgrace — he had been a swordsman who contracted with Bergopf. Among the memories sealed in the Demonic Soul Pill was a man who had used the Crusif family's forbidden sword forms.
Thanks to that, I got myself a trump card.
Once he had experienced swinging the form even once, the secret manual he had copied earlier became easy to understand.
"······Of course I will. Do I look like the kind of person who'd repay a debt with betrayal?"
How could she turn on a man who had gone this far for her? Did he really think their trust was that thin? Celia's tone carried a faint note of hurt.
"Just making sure. Let's get moving again."
Leon bent to hoist her onto his back—
"Alright, hop o— khack!"
—and suddenly coughed blood, collapsing against her.
"Kyaa! L-Leon?!"
What sprayed from his mouth was black blood, like a beast's. Eyes bulging, he spat blood without pause.
"Ah, shit— khack, khack! Damn it, cough!"
The backlash from the forbidden technique was hitting him. The arm braced against the ground shook violently. His mana circuits burned as if boiling oil had been poured through them.
"Leon! Leon!"
Celia's face went deathly pale.
"Cough— ghk······!"
Leon fought to stay conscious through the shattering agony. Pain like shears carving his dantian into pieces. Needles flowing through his veins instead of blood. Heated iron rods driven into the places where his bones should be.
"No, no… please······!"
As Celia's trembling hands cradled his head, Leon gritted through the torment and began suppressing the internal damage. In the midst of pain that set his brain on fire, he soothed the worst of it first, like melting ice into boiling water — unknotting twisted blood flow, calming the rampaging energy, forcing the reversed mana back into its proper course.
Gradually, the energy began to settle.
Even a few seconds of this would knock an ordinary person unconscious. To endure it while finely controlling mana — that was a willpower bordering on madness, something no ordinary person could achieve.
Those few minutes stretched like an eternity. Then—
"Haa… haa······."
"A-are you okay?!"
"Huu······ more or less."
Having temporarily stopped the runaway energy, Leon slowly pushed himself upright. His limbs still trembled like aspen leaves, and he could not stop the muscle spasms. Watching him, Celia felt her chest tighten as if it might burst.
"Leon, maybe you should just—"
"I'm fine."
As if he already knew what she was about to say, Leon cut her off cold and hoisted her onto his back. He still had enough strength left to carry one person.
Before the rift in the Demonic Realm, Talkan was casually smashing the demonic beasts that crawled out of the tear with single blows.
"······!"
His head snapped toward a distant point. At the end of his gaze, the sky was turning pitch black.
"Strong power."
Talkan heaved his massive frame upright.
"Kill."