It Feels Good in the Hand
The sword fluttered.
It sprang into the empty air and came down again, and the descending blade caught the wind and shot forward. It rose like a butterfly and stung like a bee; it crawled like an earthworm and bit like a viper. Swung with no apparent care, it looked at a glance like a headsman's dance. Inside it, though, lay the experience of a man who had walked battlefields beyond counting, and a talent he had honed himself.
The technique dazzled. The motions were heavy. One stroke branched into ten, and those ten became possibilities made flesh, and stabbed. There was no feint in it, and no true blow. All he carried was killing intent: a single will to kill, and nothing else.
The evil spirit who had reproduced a demon in a human body broke through the limits of what he possessed and hurled himself at his enemy. Anyone who stood before him would have been hard-pressed to promise victory.
The one immortal under heaven stroked her throat against the chill. Heaven's tiger bristled. Heaven's tenth criminal went rigid. The shrine maiden who served the sun god gasped and steadied body and mind alike. The goddess of volcano and flame lit her eyes. They were outsiders, well clear of the evil spirit's aim, and still they braced as if his gaze had found them.
"────!!!"
A monstrous cry. A sound no human ear could parse rang out.
The goddess swept her spear and burned the sound. Crimson-black cinders drifted down like ash. When the next cry rose, fire burned that one too, and the work left her faintly dizzy. She spent herself because if that cry wandered loose outside, catastrophe would follow. Hearing alone would kill, and the souls of the dead would be signed over to the evil spirit. Spirits adrift in the netherworld would be drawn to him and swallowed.
Seized by rage, the evil spirit had climbed high enough for a god to take notice. A formidable achievement, for a man who had been nothing but a swordsman.
And yet.
"A barking dog isn't frightening."
What the evil spirit faced was no opponent before whom such an achievement could be laid.
A demon, reproduced? A god's regard? Absurd. Worth is relative. Its measure had no equal on the earth, nor anywhere in the universe beyond.
The evil spirit's caliber? Remarkable. Praise it, if one felt like praising. Only now was he putting out a strength fit for a human being.
So? And what was anyone supposed to do about it?
A toe set itself on the face of the evil spirit's sword. The edge scattered like shards of glass melting red.
The blade's keenness gathered. In about a second, the foot was due to be cut to pieces.
Due, of course.
Srrk.
Guided by the toe, the sword went down. A greatsword a grown man could barely lift seated itself in the earth, light as nothing, without a shred of weight.
The evil spirit's pupils shook. Bewilderment cut into the rage.
"Where are you looking?"
Pap—pap—pap!!!
Another One's kicks landed in a flurry. The evil spirit's head turned three times. Blood flew, as if to prove he was human after all.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Exactly three drops fell from beneath his jaw.
Another One still slouched along with both hands in his pockets.
"Finished?"
"Krrrgh!!!"
With a rattle of boiling phlegm, the evil spirit's eyes burned red. The greatsword's killing took impure feeling for fuel and whetted an edge. The blade tore free of the ground it had gouged and threw a slash.
"Hm. Same attack pattern. Dull."
Another One gave the slash a perfunctory dodge and looked over at the Phantom Thief.
"Mind taking him? I'm yawning."
"If the two of us fight, can the Republic of Korea survive it? Isolate the world first. Then we can talk."
The Phantom Thief picked at his ear as he answered.
Another One smacked his lips, plainly disappointed.
"Tsk. I spent too much strength. I don't think I can."
"Then why ask for something you can't do? Just focus on dodging."
"What is this. I'm not some uncle stuck entertaining his nephew..."
He grumbled, and kicked the evil spirit in the solar plexus.
"No. I hate taking a loss."
Another One drew his hands from his pockets.
The Phantom Thief's face went sharp.
"I'll leave the real work of my hands out of it. Get your eyes clear."
He flicked a hand, and a greatsword dropped out of empty air.
The grip was old and ragged, as if it had drunk the blood of battlefields. There was no collar beneath the blade at all, and the joint that bound the weapon was crude, like stone melted and slapped into place. The fuller had grown so thick it was one with the blade itself, and the edge was gone entirely, rougher than the face of rock. It was so enormous it seemed only a presence vast enough to cover the sky could lift it.
Another One caught the greatsword, closer to a club than a sword.
And then the evil spirit's killing intent was crushed flat beneath the aura pouring off it.
"...What!"
The aura was vast enough to stagger even a god. For an instant it could be mistaken for something Another One himself had released.
"Takes after its master. No ordinary colt."
"───!!!"
Swallowing the greatsword's aura, Another One swung at the evil spirit bearing down on him. Nothing but a vertical cut, high to low. The distance was too great; it never reached.
It didn't need to.
The greatsword did a sword's work, faithfully.
KWA-GWAGWAGWA!!!
A storm broke. A natural disaster no one could credit to a mere sword turned upon a single man. The evil spirit who had cursed the world was cut to pieces in it—overwhelming force, as if to prove a human cannot defeat a natural disaster.
"I wasn't planning to go this far..."
Another One watched the front, his face sour. Where the storm had scoured, nothing remained but shattered wreckage.
"Pele, are you all right?"
"Yeah. I managed to keep it from getting out."
The Phantom Thief glared at Another One.
"Hey. That wasn't my intent. This thing did it on its own."
Another One pointed at the greatsword and protested the injustice of it.
"Tsk. Of all the things you could draw, you draw that."
"It feels good in the hand."
Another One looked the greatsword over a few times. The blade that had been thrashing wildly went quiet.
"Better now."
Boom!
Through the wreckage, the evil spirit came again.
Crash!
Sword met sword. It was not the ring of steel. A bomb went off.
"It's been a long time since I held a sword. Alexei, as a swordsman, I'd rather you didn't disappoint me."
"───!!!"
"Speak like a person."
Another One clicked his tongue and met the evil spirit with the sword, no more and no less than the moment required. Sword and sword dyed the empty air gray, and a crude, close fight began.
"Pele, can you hold?"
"Obviously. What do you take me for?"
Pele split the swordsmen's battle off into another space. It lacked Hong Yumin's precision and depth, but its output and hardness were dozens of times greater, and in the end it far surpassed hers.
"We'll leave it like that until Mr. Sword's head cools."
"You're sure he won't kill him?"
"I'm afraid he can kill Sword whenever he likes."
The Phantom Thief judged Sword's position without warmth.
"The reason he's spending time like that is purely his interest in me."
"Child of Man. What is that thing, exactly?"
"You'll learn, in time."
The Phantom Thief ignored the look pressing him for an answer. Pele sighed, stifled.
"For now, watch this side. Something's about to happen."
Within their sight, an evil dragon was stirring.
It hurts...
Dan Miryong's fist punched through Dan Miryu's side. Guts and blood poured down over the scales. Dan Miryu swallowed the crashing agony clean with the restorative power of Life and brought his elbow down. The arm that had been about to pull free of the hole buckled under the blow from above.
It hurts...
Scales cracked, and the flesh beneath showed. Grit worked its way into the wound. A dragon's vitality would not permit a wound; it healed while still holding the foreign matter inside, and mottled lumps popped up through the skin.
It hurts... I said it hurts...
Life gathered. Dan Miryu's whole body blazed like a sun.
Dan Miryong's instinct rang the alarm. His judgment was quick. He severed the trapped arm of his own will, spread his wings, and tried to flee.
"...!?"
But the moment he tried to separate the arm, Life rushed in and restored it. Before dismay could even soak him, Dan Miryu's fist drove straight into his face. With the sensation of an arm coming loose, Dan Miryong was flung far, given over to the current.
Ah, and it hurts this much. Am I incapable of this...?
"Kraaaaaah!!!"
Crack. Crack.
He restored the crushed, shattered skull. As if the bones had set wrong, scales stood up and bit into the skin. Breathing alone tore his face in a dozen places. It felt like hundreds of needles driving in.
Dan Miryu did not have a single wound. Life took particular care with its master's appearance.
If I can't do it... then why am I here?
I came to avenge Dad. That's right, isn't it? I came to kill Dan Miryu, the one who killed Dad. That's right, isn't it?
She's Mom. That's right, isn't she?
Dad is dead, so it's right that I'm fighting like this. That's right, isn't it?
But, Mom. There's something I want to know.
In the blurring of his mind, Dan Miryong let out the question that had always sat there.
I've never once seen Dad's face.
The mother in the memory did not answer. She only looked down, her eyes cold.
Haha...
Dan Miryong laughed, empty, and closed his eyes.
The moment he let go of consciousness, the evil dragon opened its eyes.