223
I Killed the Demon King. It was a mistake.
Chapter 223
Caesar received a basket of seeds from Agatha.
"I taught you how to grow them, so grow them well."
"Thanks, I'll plant them well in the garden."
"Then what are you going to do with the rest of your time?"
"I should stay here at least until Gloria wakes up. As for the troops... Well, they'll run fine with Jerry and Raven."
...Though he seemed to hear Jerry's scream somewhere, it must have been his imagination.
Caesar took out the millennium ginseng from his chest.
"I should absorb this in my spare time."
"Isn't that millennium ginseng? Did the beast people give it to you?"
"Yes. They gave it to me as thanks for saving them. If I eat it, I probably won't be able to do anything for about 3-4 days except running body strengthening techniques."
Belial.
After killing that guy Raum, there's no way Belial would stay still.
He'll need to eat at least the millennium ginseng to prepare for that guy's attack.
"If it's 3-4 days... Gloria will definitely wake up before then?"
"Though I want to see Gloria wake up, I probably won't have time. Please take good care of Gloria for me. Ah, and contact Raven too."
"Got it. Leave that to me."
"Ah, and please take care of this too."
Caesar handed over the seed basket that Agatha had given him.
As Agatha stepped back with the seed basket, Caesar put the millennium ginseng in his mouth.
The millennium ginseng was so big that it was impossible to chew it all at once.
Caesar violently chomped down on the millennium ginseng.
"...What's that sound like chewing on a wooden beam?"
Caesar couldn't answer Agatha's words.
It felt like if he spoke, he wouldn't be able to fully preserve the magic flowing from the millennium ginseng.
Caesar finally ate everything including the leaves and then held Thunder and Lefty in both hands.
Thump! Thump!
Caesar's heart and dantian began to beat frantically.
The effects from the millennium ginseng were starting to spread throughout his body immediately.
If left alone, it would just come out as waste or disperse into the air.
He needs to run body strengthening techniques right now.
Caesar unleashed Noisy Silence.
The aura raced madly along Caesar's magic circuits and flowed into his muscles and bones everywhere.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Eventually, he felt the veins throughout his body opening up and widening.
This must be because there was so much magic flowing from the millennium ginseng.
The problem is...
'It's too much.'
The millennium ginseng contained more magic than Caesar had thought.
There was so much that magic tried to escape through Caesar's pores.
Caesar ran Noisy Silence even more intensely.
He couldn't waste even a single grain of precious energy.
But the more Caesar excessively used Noisy Silence, the more his limbs became tangled and messy.
'Why is this happening?'
Since Noisy Silence is an active body strengthening technique, it absorbs more aura than other body strengthening techniques.
That's why Caesar had never pushed Noisy Silence to its limit until now.
If he used it to the limit and instead ran out of aura and fell into exhaustion, his life could be in danger.
But now because of the millennium ginseng, aura is not just overflowing but leaking out.
He needs to do something about this aura.
Caesar made a decision.
"Uriaaaaaaah!"
Berserker 1st stage.
Caesar's aura usage increased exponentially.
The amount of magic racing through his magic circuits increased dramatically and his muscles screamed from receiving excessive effects.
This probably means his magic circuits are rapidly widening and his muscles are becoming more aura-friendly.
However...
'The stamina consumption is too severe.'
With Berserk, not only does aura usage increase exponentially, but stamina decreases just as much.
Though his stamina increased a lot from eating the White Tiger's heart and the Torch Whale's heart, it's not enough to maintain Berserker for 3-4 days.
In fact, just using active body strengthening techniques for 3-4 days without eating or drinking is already close to gambling, but using Berserker too?
This was nothing different from a new way of suicide.
Then he must choose one of two options.
Either turn off Berserker and just keep running Noisy Silence while losing some of the millennium ginseng's effects.
Or test the limits of Caesar's will and stamina while continuing to run body strengthening techniques with Berserker activated.
'No, they're both wrong.'
Caesar decided to dig into the root cause of the problem.
Why do his hands and feet become messy and lose rhythm when pushing the Noisy Silence to its limit?
And why is there a limit to the amount of aura that can be absorbed?
Is it the physical limitation of being a doppelganger?
At that moment, Tatiana's words flashed through Caesar's mind.
-Rough and messy.
-Not organized.
Being rough and messy means there is unnecessary waste of energy, which means it is in an incomplete state.
In other words, it's because Caesar's reinforcement technique is not perfect.
Caesar's foundation, 'Noisy Silence', is a derivative of Red Wing.
Red Wing is based on 'sweeping away'.
It is a technique and reinforcement skill meant to advance faster and more lightly than anyone else to literally sweep away all enemies in the path of one's body and sword.
However, Caesar's Noisy Silence removed the 'charging' aspect from it.
The reason for removing the charging aspect was because the axe's center of gravity was too far forward, which could cause the body to be swung around by the axe if not careful.
Instead, it was changed to be defensive, sweeping away things around Caesar's center as if a typhoon was blowing.
'This is wrong.'
Suppressing and restraining a reinforcement technique with strong charging properties sets a limit on the growth of the reinforcement technique.
Caesar recalled Yan's advice.
-What's important is learning a reinforcement technique that suits you.
-Already developed reinforcement techniques are meaningless because they were developed to fit the body of the person who developed them.
-The same goes for swordsmanship and spearmanship.
A reinforcement technique that suits me.
What exactly does it mean to suit me?
Does it mean a reinforcement technique that fits the body?
If so, it would mean that the reinforcement technique Caesar can learn changes with each body change.
Or does it mean it should match Caesar's tendencies?
If so, it would mean the same reinforcement technique should be learned whether becoming Barre, Mill, or Caesar.
Or does it mean it should match Caesar's ideal that he seeks to achieve?
What Caesar ultimately wants is to become a hybrid-type knight.
Simply put, an arrogant and challenging form of knight that combines the advantages of a tank-type knight with a technique-type knight.
Perhaps that's why Pesson said 'you'll die soon' since no one had ever succeeded at it.
'Was it too ambitious?'
Both eating the millennium ginseng without any preparation.
And aiming to become a hybrid-type knight.
'No, it was wrong from the fundamentals.'
The 'Noisy Silence' that Caesar is learning is a reinforcement technique learned by technique-type knights.
Since it was made as a derivative of 'Red Wing', its limitations are bound to be clear.
And overusing 'Berserker', the awakening technique of barbarians, is also a problem.
Berserker is a technique that increases power by overloading muscles and magic circuits.
While power is important, it diminishes the finesse that Caesar seeks as a hybrid-type.
At this rate, he won't become a hybrid-type, let alone anything decent.
'Yan is right. I need to find my own reinforcement technique and skills.'
But how?
He can't seek advice from anyone right now.
The reinforcement technique has already been cast, and there is no master who can teach Caesar.
Does this mean he has to gain enlightenment alone?
At that moment, Caesar's psychometry activated automatically.
The direction of the psychometry pointed to 'Thunder'.
And it dug deep into 'Tatiana's' memories contained within Thunder.
Moonlight Sword Technique Form 1
Crescent Moon.
Tatiana's Moonlight Sword Technique penetrated Caesar's mind.
Tatiana used the Moonlight Sword Technique even without holding Flawless.
Using a sword technique while holding an axe and infusing 'sword energy' into the axe.
Surely Tatiana would have handled even a 'spear' as if handling a sword.
'How was that possible?'
He already knows the answer.
It was because Tatiana had a perfect understanding of her inner self and techniques.
While there might have been awkwardness at first due to using an unfamiliar weapon, her clear understanding of the technique allowed her to use sword techniques even while holding an axe.
This means that the weapon doesn't play such a big role in using techniques.
What's important is a perfect understanding of the technique.
More important than that is understanding of the body, and even more important than that is understanding of Caesar's inner self.
Caesar delved deeper into Tatiana's 'Crescent Moon'.
Crescent Moon isn't simply a technique of horizontal or vertical slashes.
Other sword techniques can also slash horizontally and vertically.
Through psychometry, Caesar confirmed that Tatiana was thinking of the 'night sky' when wielding Thunder.
Why would she think of the 'night sky' when the technique name is 'Crescent Moon'?
Moonlight Sword Technique Form 3
Wavy Moon
A new technique of Tatiana's penetrated through Thunder.
It was the technique where sharp sword energy rising from Thunder curved and struck Caesar's stomach.
At that time, what Tatiana imagined was not 'night' but a 'rippling lake'.
Moonlight Sword Technique Form 5
Moon Riding
It was a movement technique almost as fast as Mitchell's 'Form Shift'.
A technique closer to assassination that moves behind the opponent to instantly take their neck.
Tatiana thought of 'mist' when using Moon Riding.
Caesar delved even deeper into Tatiana's inner self.
Creating a crescent moon while thinking of night,
Creating a wavy moon while thinking of a lake,
And creating Moon Riding while thinking of mist.
"No. She didn't create it."
Tatiana drew.
She drew a crescent moon in the night sky.
She drew the moon rippling on the lake
And drew the moonlight scattering and sliding down through the fog.
Before creating the 'picture', Tatiana first created the 'canvas' to form the image.
What about Caesar's 'Path of the Wind'?
Caesar only tried to create wind in a certain form.
He used 'Single Wind' to create a sharp stream of wind.
He created 'Wild Wind' to spread sharp winds like bombs.
Caesar only focused on the 'form' without creating the 'background' for that form.
The strengthening technique 'Noisy Silence' is the same.
When Mitchell used 'Red Wing', he used the strengthening technique thinking of a hawk hunting rabbits.
Caesar also used Noisy Silence imagining a 'hawk' flying in the sky and diving down steeply to match, but he always felt it didn't suit him.
Mitchell's 'inner self' and Caesar's 'inner self' are clashing.
Caesar's inner self is not that light and urgent.
'I need to create my own canvas.'
Before drawing a bird flying in the sky, what should be drawn?
Is it a calm sky?
Is it a high sky?
Is it a rainy sky?
If not the sky, is it a forest?
Or is it a barren desert?
What is Caesar's canvas?
How was Caesar's life?
No, how was Seo-han's life?
***
Borden watched the swirling garden beside Agatha.
"It's noisy."
"The grass is badly damaged because of it."
"That's because Caesar's wind is too rough."
Agatha looked at Borden with a peculiar gaze.
"What do you see, Borden?"
"I've handled spears for nearly 180 years. I can see certain things."
"180 years?"
"I decided to seriously hone my spear skills when I started serving Queen Diana directly. Of course, like most vampires, I didn't focus solely on the spear but spent more time on arts like painting and sculpture."
"Really? I never knew that."
"There was no particular reason to mention it."
"Then if you had focused only on the spear, you could have become a Moon Knight?"
"Perhaps. But I only saw spearmanship as a profession rather than an 'art', so I didn't think deeply about it."
Borden focused again on Caesar swinging his axe in the whirlwind.
"Instead, I had several opportunities to hear the insights of other Moon Knights. What is strengthening technique? What is swordsmanship? What is spearmanship? What are weapons?"
"So how does Caesar look to you now?"
"You can tell by the wind, can't you? The winds are colliding, breaking, and driving chaotically."
"So what are you trying to say?"
"It looks chaotic and precarious."
"Precarious? Are you saying Caesar is in danger?"
Borden observed the wind emanating from Caesar's axe.
Though it was following a clear principle in cutting through the air, it felt like it kept deviating from that principle.
That must be why the winds were breaking and shattering, hurting their surroundings.
"Yes. It looks like his body can't handle the aura bursting out like an explosion, so he's using it randomly. At this rate, his body won't be able to withstand it and will collapse."
"What?! Then we should make him stop right now!"
"No. Now that he's started, he must see it through. Caesar surely knows this too."
"Then what should we do?"
"Watch quietly. That's how we can help Caesar. And there's no need to worry too much."
"You say it's dangerous but tell me not to worry?"
"Right now, Caesar is like a compass needle."
"A compass needle?"
"When you first put a compass on a table, doesn't its tip shake greatly? Then after time passes, the needle stabilizes and clearly points north. In other words, Caesar is shaking but in the process of finding a clear direction."
Borden saw the rough whirlwind slowly finding order.
"Of course, the problem is that he's pushed himself too harshly, making the needle shake greatly. It will take quite some time to find the right direction."
"Is there really no way we can help?"
"No. Just trust and wait."
Borden recalled when his spear master, who was a Moon Knight, completed 'Spear Mastery'.
He too didn't complete Spear Mastery by suddenly gaining enlightenment from a calm state.
There was always a great trembling first.
"Caesar's compass will become calm."
The swirling wind suddenly became quiet.
The sharp sound that seemed to pierce eardrums disappeared too.
But that didn't mean the wind had vanished.
A refreshing stream of wind flowed from around Caesar to Borden.
"Just like now."