Chapter 20
Chapter 20
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Empire (8)
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Irena's first strike was a straight thrust.
It came from a low-centered crescent stance, pushing off with her feet.
The spear tip aimed slightly below the upper body, at an angle targeting the abdomen.
I raised my sword blade vertically and deflected the thrust.
I tilted the blade at an angle to the incoming spear tip, minimizing friction as I glanced it aside.
Then I stepped one foot out diagonally, leaning to the side.
I brought my sword down low, but my center of gravity never wavered.
Over it, Irena thrust three times in succession.
Straight, low, upper diagonal.
The spear's central axis and the pivot of its handle moved freely, disrupting my vision.
I blocked the first head-on, dodged the second by stepping back, and for the third, laid my blade at an angle to flick the spear tip upward.
The spear's advantages—continuity and reach—came crashing like an unbroken wave.
Even deflected or flicked thrusts were turned back into her flow.
She repeatedly adjusted the subtle tension in both arms gripping the spear, maintaining control of the assault to the end.
She swung the butt end like a club and slashed horizontally with the blade.
Her inhuman strength pushed my body back even without a direct hit.
With wind pressure like she was ripping up the training ground from the ground itself, Irena charged.
A horizontal sweep tracing a semicircle around the shaft as its axis.
A continuous technique that recovered the recoil from the previous thrust and kept the momentum going.
She twisted the glancing force with raw power, accelerating even further.
In an instant, the spear's curving trajectory targeted my right shoulder.
Overwhelming speed against an unaware opponent was one of her specialties.
Anyone who didn't know her would be helplessly drawn in, but we knew each other far too well.
I focused on her habit—one even she might not be aware of.
The split second after the spear's joint rotation, when her wrist twisted in the opposite direction.
In that 0.4-second gap, I moved.
I kicked off the ground.
Irregular snaps from my knees, ankles, and toes accelerated me three times over.
Before her thrust could pierce me, I closed in to point-blank range.
With my left hand, I shoved the hand gripping the shaft.
I thrust my reverse-gripped blade straight at her.
Irena sensed she'd been stopped, and her presence flipped.
Aura erupted around her as the throat-targeting thrust's path twisted.
Undaunted even by my blade grazing her neck, she kicked my body with her foot.
Irena swiftly swung the spear behind her waist to secure it.
She pushed off her left heel, spinning counterclockwise.
Using the centrifugal force from her twisting waist, she spun the spear wide for a slash.
A circular attack loaded with rotational weight and recoil—a powerful strike that shifted her axis.
The massive Aura on the spear came crashing like a tidal wave.
I summoned my Waves as well.
I wrapped two strands around my blade like crossed waves, countering her Aura surge.
As I slashed downward, I twisted my wrist and fingers in opposite directions.
With a sound like a snapped thread, concentric rings burst from my sword tip.
A massive hole tore through her wave-like Aura.
Through the gap, Irena's pupils widened as her thrust came at me.
Hiding my sword behind my back, I planted my left foot hard.
An upward slash tracing a crescent arc.
Sword and spear collided.
The shaft rang out, and my sword tip grazed and pierced the muscle inside her right arm.
I pursued Irena as she retreated without counterattacking.
I attuned myself completely to the Waves, unleashing dozens directed at her.
I crossed my blade horizontally and vertically, thrusting, slashing, and shaking in rapid succession.
Irena could see the Waves too.
She followed the ones I created, thrusting, slashing, and deflecting with her spear.
It looked forceful, but her strike lines bent at every end.
She introduced variables into my response angles, baiting me into defensive errors.
Once, twice, three times.
Each time Irena raised her spear vertically in a guard stance, I came in diagonally to slash her wrist or sidestepped to disrupt her shoulder angle.
Dozens of Waves flickered in and out of sight every second.
At first, Irena tried to counter-thrust along them, but soon gave up and detonated her Aura explosively.
Waves were my domain.
She judged there was no chance of winning with the same Waves.
Aura and Waves clashed, drawing vast concentric circles.
Waves surged like blue lightning, while her northern-chilled Aura froze the training ground.
Evenly matched. Deadlocked.
But amid it all, I steadily gained the edge in our contest of skill.
Stacking countless small victories to land a solid blow.
Boom———!
My sword strike, wrapped in deep blue Waves, smashed into Irena's spear shaft.
Wave afterimages lingered like sparks around the impact point.
Even as she blocked, the bone-shaking shock launched Irena's body into the air.
Her arms, unable to perfectly deflect the impact, sprang upward.
"…!!"
To end it, one solid success was enough.
I gathered the Waves.
I recreated that strike that had killed Eleveon, once more.
I wove the dozens of scattered Waves into one.
The trajectory bent, but the center locked straight.
All that remained at my sword tip was a single direction.
One step forward.
I pulled my sword back, then thrust it ahead.
The air at the thrust's tip compressed and burst, an eerie pull wrapping around Irena's body.
Not thrusting at her, but as if she were being dragged along the thrust's path—a bizarre phenomenon.
The moment Irena gritted her teeth and focused all her Aura on defense.
My black Wave pierced the wide-open ceiling of the training ground, obliterating the encroaching storm clouds.
The thrust grazed past Irena.
Her entire Aura shattered into fragments from that razor-thin miss on her right shoulder.
With the crumbling haze of Aura shards, Irena plummeted to the training ground floor.
I caught her falling body.
Even without the thrust touching her, her clothes were torn.
Before the training ground's dust could settle, silence descended.
The knights, their breaths shallow from the taut tension, finally realized they'd been holding them.
"Did you... just see that?"
"...Can we even call that a spar?"
"What was that last one? It wasn't movement... the space itself got pulled in."
"The Captain couldn't even react from that stance... you serious?"
"They're not human after all, are they?"
Thunderous applause erupted belatedly.
The squires watching the spar stared in awe, while the knights reeled in shock at their captain's defeat.
At the center of all the cheers, I looked down at Irena.
Her torn clothes fully exposed her right arm.
"...This."
Spiderweb cracks of fine wounds covered Irena's right arm.
Faint red light seeped from between them.
The blackened staining looked abnormal at a glance.
But it wasn't Monsterization symptoms.
'...No Monsterization at all, or suppressed for some reason?'
Franz Eldin hadn't been handsome, yet became so—and no Monsterization progressed either.
I'd considered internal rot despite the outer change, but...
Confirming Irena's condition made even that unlikely.
Regardless of my thoughts, Irena wrapped her right arm with her left hand and replied.
"It's not that serious."
"Then what is it? Why's it like this..."
"It's just the injury from five years ago—the one you saw—worsening a bit during the Eleveon subjugation."
It didn't worsen "a bit" into this.
I knew from countless battlefield wounds of my own.
This was a serious injury.
Too serious for "serious" to even cover it.
"The frontline can't hold without me."
Words failed me.
I forced out a response.
"Retirement... you're not retiring?"
"Actually, I have something to say about that. And a confession for you."
Irena slipped from my arms.
I draped my cloak over her.
Amid the deafening cheers ringing in our ears, our quiet conversation continued.
"Also, there's one thing I didn't tell you. The rumors about your fiancée on the frontline... probably spread because of me."
"...?"
What did that mean out of nowhere?
Why would rumors about a fiancée on the frontline be because of Irena?
"Before recruiting you to the special unit, I investigated your background first. I knew you were actually Ian Baltazar—and that you'd run off after breaking off your engagement."
Did the rumors leak during her background check?
Anyway, I found one correction in her words.
"Well, I was Baltazar, but I didn't go to the frontline because of the broken engagement."
Irena smirked at my reply.
"I thought you'd come to die from the shock of being dumped. Guess not."
Her question brought back our first meeting.
She'd definitely asked, "Did you come here to die?"
Was that why?
Before I could respond, Irena continued.
"And after you enlisted, people came looking for you. More precisely, not Ian Valencia, but Ian Baltazar."
She paused, looking at me with serious eyes.
"Right after, Duke Nordelheim spread the rumor that Ian Baltazar was dead."