Chapter 222
Chapter 222
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 222
Chapter Title: 65. The Deep Darkness is the Harbinger of the Dawn to Come (2)
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Grrrrraaaah.
A soul-shaking wail erupted.
Whoosh!
A sinister mist rose from somewhere, coiling around it.
And then it reached me, enveloping me from all sides.
Aaaah.
From beyond, I heard it humming mournfully.
My heart pounded wildly.
The vast mana dormant within me thrashed as if it would burst free at any moment.
Not yet. Not yet.
I forcibly suppressed the surging mana.
I readjusted my grip on the sword.
And resonated my heart with the small ring.
Ziiing.
A faint vibration ran from my heart to my shoulder, down my arm, and into the sword.
Hummm.
The sword trembled and sang.
A feeble, delicate sound compared to the chorus of thousands of wailing spirits.
I stomped my foot.
Thud.
The explosive crack of the ground shattering overlaid the sword's cry.
The sword's cry, the stomp, the heart, and the ring—all merged as one.
Hummmm.
A fierce wave burst forth.
The mist that had swallowed the world tore apart.
Beyond its fragments, the high elf revealed itself.
Its eyes brimmed with eerie light, its expression frozen like a corpse.
From between its ceaselessly twitching lips flowed a melody like the sob of the dead.
Its heaving shoulders suddenly stiffened.
Shhkk.
A long line sliced through the air.
A dull gray-white sword gleam stabbed toward my throat.
I twisted my neck aside. As I pulled my sword up, I deflected its blade.
It twisted the tip of its sword.
Gray-white sword light flowed down along my blade.
I spun my sword.
Its blade, clinging like a viper, flew off instantly.
And it charged again.
I spread my legs wide and slashed my sword down from above.
I severed its persistent trajectory toward my neck and simultaneously carved into its chest.
Boom!
Sparks scattered in the air.
Beyond the fragments of dispersing sword light, its eyes flashed.
Another barrage of sword strikes poured in.
I blocked, dodged, and counterattacked.
Boom boom boom!
Clashing blades roared thunderously.
The momentum of missed thrusts churned the training ground floor.
Fragments of aura dazzled my vision.
Aaaah.
Even amid it all, it never stopped humming.
I, too, relentlessly resonated my mana.
Countless fruitless strikes flew back and forth.
And at one point, it began to truly dance its sword dance.
Its feet created a multitude of sounds.
The gray-white trajectories, which had been raggedly severed by my strikes, now drew countless curves in the air.
Curves upon curves.
The moment those countless curves connected into one, a deadly dance incomparable to now would begin.
If not for my interference, it would have happened long ago.
Hummm.
While its dance continued, I ceaselessly disrupted it.
I thrust between strikes, blocked its advancing feet and stomped, drowned its humming with sword cries, and constantly resonated mana and the ring to sabotage its dance.
As a result, the high elf's sword dance became an ambiguous, half-baked performance.
Eerie light intensified in its eyes. Then, finally, blue ghostly flames ignited and burned.
At that instant, the tone of its humming began to change.
The mournful sob turned violent, like a howl of grief.
Its footwork grew thunderous, as if smashing the ground.
Hiyaaaaah!
The wail from its sword swallowed the sword's cry.
The sinister energy rising from its body began to overwhelm the resonance of my heart and mana.
Pale mist devoured the waves.
Hummmm.
I rang the sword louder. I clashed heart and ring even more fiercely.
But before its altered momentum and melody, it meant nothing.
Crack.
A fracture appeared in the makeshift ring I'd brute-forced into existence.
This seemed to be the end.
Facing a high elf's sword dance with a crude imitation ring.
That's what I thought.
But no.
Thud!
Suddenly, a heavy noise rang out.
Thud!
A sound like slamming a massive iron lump into the ground.
Thud!
The sound repeated.
At that moment, the sword's cry, which had faded under the crush of its melody, surged anew. The precarious ring and heart resonated even more vigorously.
I shook the sword fiercely.
A heavy wave bloomed from the tip.
The high elf staggered back.
In the meantime, I turned my head to find the source of the sudden noise.
Thud!
The royal knights stood in place, slamming their shields into the ground. Those without shields pounded their chests with iron gauntlets, joining in unison.
Thud!
The knights urged me on.
Thud!
Slamming shields, they told me it wasn't over yet.
Thud!
Pounding chests, they commanded me to advance.
"Such a fuss."
I laughed.
Thud!
And matched the knights' shield slams to resonate the ring.
Thud!
I stepped forward in time with their chest pounds.
Heart and ring resonated intensely.
The knights' waves overlaid it.
I took another step.
The ground exploded noisily.
This was the path humanity had trodden unceasingly during the 400 years I slumbered.
I stepped again.
I merely placed my feet upon that path.
And when that step finally reached the high elf,
"Never underestimate humans again, fairy."
I swung my sword down at the demonically quivering elf.
Fwoosh.
Blue flames clung to the blade.
The dull gray-white sword gleam melted into the fire.
Its face twisted like a wrathful ghost.
Blue flames poured down upon it.
Silence filled the training ground.
Moments ago, it had been filled with all sorts of noise; now, it was so quiet even a pin drop could be heard.
In that silence, I sheathed my sword.
The high elf looked at me.
Plop plop.
A beat late, its severed hair fell to the ground.
It glared wide-eyed.
Then it caressed its own face.
Its eyes flashed with madness as it touched the hideous scar left by the blue flames.
"This isn't fair."
After a long while, it squeezed out the words to me.
Its gaze, grinding teeth, swept over the surroundings.
The royal knights met its eyes as if nothing had happened.
Those stubborn fools sure knew how to play brazen.
I couldn't help but laugh in disbelief, but it spoke to me again.
"I can't accept this."
Ghostly flames clung to its eye sockets once more.
Seeing the murder and rage flashing within, I asked.
What it wanted, then.
It replied that we duel again fairly, without anyone's interference.
"Fine."
I answered without hesitation.
Perhaps surprised at how readily I accepted, awareness returned to its face.
"But to reignite your cooled enthusiasm, we'll need proper motivation."
At my following words, it looked at me with an "as expected" expression.
"Motivation...?"
"Let's raise the stakes of the bet."
"How so?"
I answered without pause this time too.
"The loser must grant the winner three demands. No refusals, of course."
It accepted the bet without difficulty.
Even in this situation, its refusal to shed its arrogance was truly laughable.
"I say again, a pact with an elf is never taken lightly."
It even tried to threaten me.
Blind to its own pathetic state, with mangled hair and rags for clothes.
"We'll see if you say the same later."
I replied indifferently and flicked the sword tip.
At that perfunctory gesture, it clamped its lips and stepped back.
Shing.
Having created some distance, it raised its sword, aiming at me.
"This time..."
Seeing it still wary of others' interference, I ordered the royal knights.
"Fall back far."
The royal knights uniformly widened the distance from me.
"That's not enough."
Not satisfied, it imposed several more conditions on me.
"Don't move. Don't use even a scrap of mana. Just watch from there."
I accepted all the conditions.
"Yes, Your Highness."
The royal knights crossed their legs, placing hands sharply to their chests.
The perfect picture of spectators.
Seeing that, I asked it.
"Satisfied now?"
It nodded at my question.
An arrogant face that had completely forgotten its recent defeat.
It hadn't even properly realized that its race's mightiest weapon had just been dismantled. Nor what it had wagered in the bet.
Its eyes merely glittered bloodshot, desperate to avenge the humiliation somehow.
Truly an arrogant breed, immature whelps.
I curled my lips.
"Consider yourself warned."
I released my stance. I unveiled my full presence without restraint. My endlessly rising aura growled toward it.
Its confident expression hardened rigidly.
"If you plan to change your attitude after the outcome, abandon that thought now."
I unbound a fragment of my soul, adding binding force to our pact.
"I've staked my soul on this pact with you, so you must do the same."
"...Very well."
It hesitated briefly before staking its soul and swearing to honor the pact faithfully.
"Should you break this sacred oath, you'll pay the due price."
With the pact's ritual complete, I beckoned it.
"Then, let's begin."
At my words, it belatedly raised its aura and began mumbling.
From the start, it went all out; without prelude, its hum reached its peak.
Watching, I quietly infused mana into the sword tip.
When the glow clinging to the blade peaked, I swung down.
And slashed.
Karrarang!
The sword sang.
Flashy footwork.
Dizzying strikes.
Soul-shaking hum.
All it had conjured tore to shreds before it.
And still, the sword pressed on.
Terror dwelled in the high elf's eyes.
Instinctual fear of imminent death.
But I reclaimed the death that had come for it.
Poke.
The sword tip pierced its chest.
Blood seeped out quickly.
Its pupils shifted from its chest to me.
The disbelief and shock filling them delighted me.
"H-how...?"
From that gaze, its inner thoughts were plain to see.
It had pretended to be swept up in clumsy provocation during the spar, but what it truly sought from me was the Leonberger royal family's [Epic of the True Dragon].
In this mythic-forgotten age, it schemed to easily claim a faded epic of heroic deeds. It had viewed a mere successor to the Dragon Slayer as beneath it.
But it was mistaken.
The Leonberger clan's power was not merely the legacy of the True Dragon.
"It wasn't because we were Dragon Slayers that we slew dragons; we became Dragon Slayers because we slew dragons."
A sword that clove even the Light Dragon's scales—
What did a high elf's soft, feeble blade matter?