Chapter 58
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: The Fledgling Master
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In truth, I had never once thought of drawing deeply on Aiden's power.
There had been no need to go that far, and just sending a word was enough to resolve most matters on its own.
‘Having the title of Master was more than sufficient.’
Most things could be settled with words alone.
They were already giving me the best treatment they could afford, so demanding more would be nothing short of tyranny.
They knew they couldn't refuse if I asked.
They would strain themselves to meet my demands, but that was the last thing I wanted.
In the end, they would be satisfied and humbled.
Whether "humbled" was the right word for receiving top-tier treatment, I doubted they would voice any objections like "you could give a little less."
As a result, there had been no disputes, no raised voices, not even a hint of dissatisfaction.
There would be even less need to resort to force.
‘Has there ever been such a sharp confrontation?’
An enemy who knew full well what it meant to challenge me yet stood in direct opposition.
It had been ages since Aiden last faced anything like this, too.
I slowly steadied my breathing, as if cracking open an eggshell.
My body grew languid.
It loosened, as if sinking into water.
After drawing myself down to the depths, I closed my eyes.
The deep sea floor, where no light penetrated.
Stifling, with nothing in sight.
As I blocked out external stimuli one by one, silence followed.
In pitch-black darkness, I opened my eyes.
Nothing visible, no sensations to feel.
With that state of mind, I gripped the rapier, and stray thoughts melted away like snow.
No sooner had I cleared my mind than distractions piled up around me.
Mainly the obligation to protect the buildings.
The beasts I hadn't managed to cut down, or worries about whether my students had been hurt.
All of them huddled quietly in a corner of my mind, clutching at my ankles.
So, I erase them.
Slowly, I erase them.
Until I am completely empty.
I watched air bubbles rise from my lips, not yet fully ripened.
After letting the tension simmer and my body unwind, nothing escaped my mouth.
So, I sealed my lips.
With that, I sank fully.
Nothing to see, no emotions to harbor, no words to speak, nothing to hear.
Embracing perfect stillness, I gradually awakened my spirit.
When facing battle, Aiden severs unnecessary emotions in clumps.
The more stray thoughts, the more they snag at the ankles and restrict movement.
Even trivial ideas held no meaning.
To reach this height, he had swung his sword countless times—too many to count.
Even if his mind forgot, his body remembered.
It extended instinctively, a spinal reflex before thought could form.
Cold reason merely oversaw and directed it all.
Thus, Aiden does not hesitate.
There is no faltering in his movements.
‘But that’s not all there is to it.’
Simply shedding them wouldn’t make one a Master.
Neither Aiden nor I sought Buddhahood or the Taoist path.
Emptying the mind was merely a expedient means—no religious enlightenment in it.
At the end of all this shedding lay only the fervent wish that all desires would be fulfilled.
We empty ourselves precisely because we do not cling.
Knowing that the more I fretted, the further my ideals would slip away, I waited in hopes that fulfillment awaited at journey’s end.
Such a paradox dwelled in Aiden’s emptying.
Only after battling day after day in fields where lives perished endlessly could I comprehend it.
And so...
“Huno ni, I pray.”
May I become nothing more than a honed blade.
Soon, a corner of my vision sliced away, leaving only enemies in sight.
The beast tamer sensed something amiss and unleashed fierce magic.
A Master, yes—but still a fledgling.
He had witnessed only two Masters in his life.
The first during the northern advance, when the Empire’s Sword Duke single-handedly swept a legion.
The second, when a desert great warrior in alliance lent an earth dragon.
Both unleashed unstoppable fury.
Superhumans who proclaimed they could shatter mountains with swords, split the earth, and even cleave the heavens’ clouds.
Beings who touched the supreme realm of solitary might, beyond mortal gaze.
The beast tamer had not reached that height.
When the Empire’s Mage Emperor Oshua ascended to Master despite being a mage, he had envied her sincerely.
Yet deep down, he still hoped.
‘Is the divine will so indifferent, declaring this servant’s growth at an end?’
But fervent prayers yielded only despair.
No matter how he begged, the wall of talent remained insurmountable.
When Oshua reached Master at fifty, the world cowered before this new divinity.
Some called it a heavenly mandate received from the skies, others rejoiced at the Empire’s promised 300 years of peace, while countless envied her...
A genius.
None could deny the record-setter.
Yet that record shattered soon after.
This fledgling, not even three years old, stood boldly at the pinnacle.
“Infuriating.”
While he had crawled the fringes for a century.
As the beast tamer spat blazing venom, an alien aura spread from Aiden’s center.
More fittingly called presence than mere energy.
No anxiety, no emotions whatsoever.
A chilling, razor-sharp edge permeated the air, numbing the body.
Watching it, the beast tamer’s breath caught for a moment.
Piercing twin blue eyes.
As if denying his own fear, the beast tamer bellowed.
“Blast them!!”
Yet the fledgling Master pressed on relentlessly.
Slicing golems, scorpions in thick armor, flying beasts lunging with gleaming claws—whatever blocked his path, he vowed to cleave.
In that instant, his form blurred.
Everywhere, beasts sprayed blood and shattered into minced flesh.
Judging this unsustainable, the beast tamer swallowed his losses and gestured toward his masterpiece.
“Move.”
One of his finest creations.
Life’s mysteries were the highest order.
Believing that gathering only pure elements forming life’s foundation would yield purity, he had attempted countless experiments.
Appending life to life for purity had birthed these tragic failures, now stirring with cries.
Chimeras—leagues beyond magic wolves in power.
‘Based on Hydra and Cyclops—a sturdy beast. This one should...’
Immense regeneration from Hydra, spewing flame and poison from diverse mouths, fused with Cyclops’ durable flesh and impossibly dense muscles.
Additional chitin and gene pools to reduce strain bolstered the Cyclops’ vitality even further.
A masterpiece overwhelming entire knight orders alone.
The beast tamer was certain it would halt Aiden’s advance, if only briefly.
As heretical mages prepared their next chant, he began designing a grand spell.
Right then.
Had that masterpiece not been so pitifully rent, he might have completed the grand spell unscathed.
The packed flesh regenerated endlessly, reinforced by Cyclops bone within Hydra’s thick hide... all these traits proved utterly useless against a single feather settling lightly.
Skin gouged, muscles severed, joints crushed.
Soon, entrails spilled from the slackened belly.
From just one feather alighting on the shoulder!
Feathers never moved alone; as another settled, white clumps evoked a red carpet swirling at its feet.
The chimera wailed in agony, legs sheared away from the masterpiece it was named, flailing before dissolving into a puddle of blood.
The beast tamer stood speechless at the futile death of his long-feared chimera beneath his feet.
‘What.’
What had done this.
That sight was like...
Blazing cobalt eyes.
The gaze of a seasoned wolf cornering prey.
He couldn’t move while preparing the grand spell.
Even as the heretics’ carpet bombing began, no spell pierced the feathers encircling Aiden.
Instead, magic touching the feathers dispersed outward.
Dust billowed thickly, earth overturned.
Acrid smoke veiled the ground from view, yet...
Those eyes.
That deep blue gaze prickled his skin, revealing its location.
‘Block it?’
Will it be blocked?
Throw in more beasts...
But the beast tamer’s thoughts never concluded.
Aiden had already leaped, slicing emerging tunnel beasts at invisible speeds before springing again.
Their eyes met.
Eyes holding quiet ferocity.
A blaze that could devour the world obeyed human command flawlessly.
How such rage condensed was unimaginable, but in that instant, the beast tamer knew intuitively.
‘Words won’t reach.’
Not in a state to comprehend them.
Sealed lips and a gaze stripped of intellect evoked a blade honed emotionless.
No rationality left to register words as such, whatever was said.
And one more thing.
‘I’ll die.’
The beast tamer flinched at the unexpected shift yet swallowed dryly, throat unyielding.
The rapier, fresh from mincing countless beasts, now plucked tiny feathers.
A dazzling flurry of plumes scattered like they might rustle underfoot.
Those extended feathers swayed on the wind, charging the beast tamer.
He squeezed mana for a barrier, but being swept away meant death all the same.
Tens of thousands of feathers arrayed in wide formation.
Adopting ring formation principles, they seemed frail and crushable—yet fatally so.
Never mistake their delicacy for weakness.
Within lay the lethal strikes of one who stood at the pinnacle.
“Neeeeeoooom!”
As he condensed mana in desperation to burst it forth, Aiden anticipated even that, drawing his rapier.
The horizontal slash convinced the beast tamer he would die doing nothing.
‘Should I have prepared more!’
With three thousand beasts, his masterpieces, earth dragons, and the cult’s heretic mages.
Even this proved insufficient.
In this era of peace where knights’ and mages’ skills waned overall.
Aiden proved Masters were beings beyond the heavens.
The beast tamer shrieked hysterically.
“This cannot be! This is a holy war! How dare you!”
From deciphering ancient texts, he knew traces of purity lingered in this land.
Purity.
The path to runes, the lost pure energy Aether.
Proof that humanity could shed its filthy flesh and usher a new golden age.
Thus, a holy war.
The beast tamer’s spell shattered; Aiden’s sword strike rent the air, reaching him.
Before it cleaved his body, someone interposed.
‘...Horns?’
Elongated horns protruding.
Hair curling like sheep’s wool.
The beast tamer let slip a sneer.
“Damn devil spawn, what business in our holy war?”
In response, the sheepkin with reverse ommateum eyes bleated, “Meeeh.”