Chapter 38
Chapter 38
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: Play (3)
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KABOOM!!
Ian’s descent onto the snowcapped peak, plummeting like a falling star, unleashed shockwaves that rippled outward in all directions.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the marble floor.
One statue crumpled inward as if crushed, and the nobles’ screams, shouts, and the guards’ cries tangled together in a storm of chaos.
Ian, who had blasted away the stone palace’s ceiling, silently drew his sword.
For an instant, it felt as though time itself had frozen in silence.
Even the snowflakes drifting down from the sky seemed to fall in slow motion.
The silence shattered with the snapping sound of Pale’s sword bending.
BAM!!!
Pale raised his sword in a motion bordering on pure instinct.
The pitch-black blade clashed against it from above.
Ian had slid forward and charged straight at Pale.
The impact made the ground heave upward, sending chunks of stone flying everywhere.
At the point where their swords met, a thunderous roar shook the earth itself.
‘What kind of power is this…!!’
GRIT!
Ian and Pale both stepped back at precisely the same moment.
They opened some distance, then exchanged blows countless times in less than a second.
Identical trajectories. Identical timing.
Their swords collided as if choreographed, sending out countless concentric ripples like waves on water.
RATATA-BOOM!!
The air-tearing explosions overlapped with thunder-like clashes.
After a frenzy of exchanges at insane speeds, Pale was the one being pushed back.
Atop dozens of clashes, Ian advanced half a step, his sword strike aimed straight at Pale’s throat.
Pale rolled ignobly across the ground.
“Damn it…!”
Ian stared impassively at Pale as he staggered to his feet.
His face betrayed no emotion as he murmured lowly.
“Astier.”
It was someone’s name.
Pale snapped to attention and whipped his head toward his liege.
At the end of his gaze, he caught sight of a woman severing a guard knight’s head.
Brown hair. Grayish-blue eyes.
The woman, exuding an air of intellect, smiled warmly in response to Ian’s call.
“Then, I’ll leave it to you.”
Pale grasped the situation in an instant—his judgment came even faster.
The moment he realized the unavoidable peril and opened his mouth to shout—
KABOOM!!
Ian’s kick slammed down onto Pale’s armor.
With no time to block, Pale was sent hurtling dozens of meters, crashing into a wall.
“Cough!!”
Blood spewed from his mouth, but he refused to release his sword.
As Ian landed before him and swung, Pale countered with a desperate slash.
His sword screeched in protest, and the arm thrusting it forward throbbed as if it might snap.
The sword screamed and shattered.
Not the sound of metal breaking, but space itself tearing filled his eardrums.
Pale’s arm flew up, deflected by Ian’s monstrous strength.
His side lay exposed.
Ian didn’t miss the opening and moved first.
His sword moved with a smoothness that beggared belief for something wielded by human hands.
The instant his foot touched down, he blinked forward and whipped his blade across Pale’s flank.
“Ngh…!”
Pale twisted his body awkwardly, forcing it into an unnatural contortion.
If he couldn’t avoid the hit, he’d minimize the impact.
It was the best judgment from the Empire’s former elite knight commander.
But it was impossible.
KABOOOOOM!!!
The strike felt less like a sword cut and more like a direct hit from a cannon shell.
Pale’s body ricocheted off the walls like a billiard ball.
Ribs shattered into fragments, stabbing into his organs.
Ian closed in faster than Pale tumbled away.
A single sword stroke leaped through space, slashing wildly in all directions.
It carved out more ground than the visible arc suggested, wrenching it apart.
Even as he bounced, Pale flipped his body midair.
He ran along the walls, dodging what he could, taking hits when necessary, and counterattacking.
But it was impossible.
There were no attacks he could dodge, none he could land.
A direct hit meant instant death.
Perfectly evading was out of the question.
Pushed to his limits, Pale’s body and mind thrashed desperately to stay alive.
His senses, dulled since retirement, sharpened to a razor’s edge.
WHOOSH, WHOOSH-WHOOSH—!
The two danced like partners, trading attacks without a single gap.
Pale was always the one taking hits, getting sliced, accumulating wounds.
Since the fight began, Pale hadn’t landed a single scratch on Ian.
CLANG!
Pale’s sword met Ian’s head-on.
In that instant, Pale’s arm bent backward unnaturally.
His arm muscles and ligaments tore under the impact he couldn’t withstand.
Ignoring it, he pressed forward.
‘A straight clash is suicide. Counters are impossible. I need a gamble.’
Pale’s body, enhanced by the Southern procedure, had gained the regenerative power and strength of a Great Beast.
He hadn’t fully adapted yet, so he hadn’t used it properly until now—but
“—Better than dying here…!!!”
Pale roared ferociously and swung his sword like a madman.
He accepted minor wounds and damage.
He was a step below Ian in both swordsmanship and power.
Pitting pure skill against him was suicide.
So he’d drag it into a chaotic brawl using his new strengths.
Ian spun his sword counterclockwise in midair.
His body vanished along the rotation, stabbing at Pale’s side.
Pale didn’t dodge. Didn’t parry.
The moment the black blade pierced his abdomen, he grabbed Ian’s sword hand.
“…?!”
Pale snapped Ian’s index and middle fingers in a flash.
With the sword still buried in his gut, he charged forward.
He circulated demonic energy through his body, pushing his physical abilities to the limit.
He seized Ian’s head and headbutted it viciously.
Pale ran faster than the flung Ian.
Accelerating.
If speed wasn’t enough, he’d overtax every muscle in his body.
If that still fell short, he’d abandon his humanity.
Pale’s body began fusing with his armor bit by bit as he charged.
The stone palace’s scenery compressed past him.
He overtook Ian, who righted himself midair.
Pale grabbed Ian’s head and smashed it into the ground, then dashed across the floor.
GRIIIIIND!!!
The stone floor crumbled, grinding Ian’s head.
In an instant, Pale stomped hard, hurling Ian’s body skyward.
For that moment, the world seemed to slow to a crawl.
The pulsing of blood in his head, the staccato beat of his heart.
It felt like waking from an ancient dream.
Ian’s airborne body rotated slowly, snowflakes filling Pale’s vision languidly.
The boundaries of his armor vanished.
He could no longer tell where flesh ended and metal began.
A broken body. Torn muscles. Mangled senses.
Yet Pale’s mind, tempered through cycles of collapse and regeneration, reached an exalted peak.
Ian, gripping his sword high above, looked small.
In that instant, it felt like ascending toward a god.
No inferiority over lacking Aura Energy. No concern for his post-prime, aging flesh.
None of it mattered.
Did the countless Great Beasts he’d slain feel this way?
Sheer overwhelming omnipotence.
He felt like he could kill anything right now.
Pale blinked forward like a phantom and brought his sword down on Ian—but
“Monsterization, huh.”
“…!!!”
“Thought it was gone, but guess not?”
Ian flicked upward at Pale’s descending arm.
A delicate technique to deflect it before power and momentum fully built.
Blocking the attack unscathed, Ian’s eyes gleamed coldly.
“Whether it’s from the procedure or your Aura technique… Let’s test it starting now.”
Ian kicked Pale’s armor to create distance, then switched his sword to his other hand.
Not the broken-fingered right, but the left.
Compensating for weaker grip strength, he squeezed the hilt until it creaked.
One man and one monster plummeted from the sky.
Head down, legs up.
The two twisted together midair, exchanging sword strikes.
The basics of swordsmanship start with the lower body.
Firmly rooting both legs to the ground provides the foundation to cleave anything.
But the two paid no heed, unleashing monstrous sword barrages as naturally as breathing.
The tips of their supersonic blades compressed and burst the air.
They fell.
Crashing into the deep snow piled high on the snow mountain.
In less than half a second, they obliterated the snowdrift and collided.
Pale, now fully fused with the armor enveloping his body, no longer looked human.
The demonic energy emanating from him like a Great Beast shook the mountain.
Pale forced his crumbling body—down to the cellular level—to hold together and swung his sword.
He no longer dodged Ian’s strikes.
Taking every assault on his body, he methodically shredded Ian’s flesh in return.
‘Pushed back in swordsmanship, no contest there.’
Even thinking to parry his sword was foolish.
From baseline ability onward, the gap was insurmountable—everything else followed.
His attempts to minimize damage were only eroding his own chances.
So discard caution entirely.
Pale abandoned any notion of taking wounds lightly or minimizing them.
His opponent was one he could barely hope to beat at full strength.
Without a near-suicidal gamble, no path to victory would open.
As long as regeneration allowed, don’t dodge—kill Ian first.
But even that—
SLASH!
Ian snatched Pale’s severed arm and said nonchalantly.
“Guess severed limbs don’t regenerate.”
—failed.