Chapter 39
Chapter 39
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: Play (4)
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“Gaaahhh!!!”
Fail clutched his left shoulder as he staggered back.
Blood flowed from the wound.
But strangely, it wasn’t red.
A murky purple, a mix of blue and red.
Ian examined the severed arm as if observing a specimen, then casually tossed it aside.
“Looks like the monsterization isn’t fully complete.”
“You... fucking bastard...”
Despite his right hand being wrecked, Fail wore a calm expression, as if it were nothing.
Ian snapped his broken fingers back into place.
A bizarre act of aligning shattered bones without so much as flinching.
After roughly finishing first aid, Ian spoke again.
“Even with monsterization in progress, no mental derangement or loss of self. What’s the difference, I wonder.”
Ian muttered to himself endlessly, as if Fail weren’t even there.
Drifting into unrelated thoughts mid-battle.
Speaking as if diagnosing Fail’s condition.
Every action from Ian grated on Fail’s nerves.
It felt like being told he was a failure, pushed aside by aura after once being hailed as the Sword Saint.
Fail’s face twisted in rage as he opened his mouth.
His voice was no longer human.
A grotesque scrape, like metal on metal, leaked from his throat.
His body’s transformation had altered his vocal cords as well.
“You act all high and mighty, but you’re the same. That strike that blew away the conference hall ceiling. You can only use it once.”
That was why Fail believed he still had a chance.
The blow that vaporized the entire ceiling.
If Ian could fire it twice—no, even once more—Fail would have no hope.
He’d only survived because Ian unleashed it from range; up close, evasion would’ve been impossible.
A rational judgment from a knight captain who’d survived countless battles and danced on death’s edge.
‘Neutralized his right hand. Next, the left.’
Without his right hand alone, his odds shot up dramatically.
Confidence swelled in Fail.
He realized he wasn’t fully transformed yet.
From now on, he’d evolve further.
And someday, he’d surpass that bastard Franz Eldin.
His arm was gone, but no problem.
As Fail began adapting to the monsterization, he erupted demonic energy from the stump of his right arm.
He shaped it into the form of his right arm.
Gripping his sword anew, he circled Ian, spinning round and round.
Throughout it all, Ian made no response.
He merely observed Fail’s state, murmuring analyses to himself.
“Different from what I saw in Luos. A difference in technique? The Aura Energy method, after all?”
“Quit your damn muttering, you shit...!!”
The moment Fail roared in fury and charged at Ian again.
A massive explosion rocked the stone palace in the distance.
The palace on the mountainside shook perilously, on the verge of collapse.
“!!”
“Shall we wrap this up?”
As Ian’s words fell, a chilling sensation raced up Fail’s spine.
A powerful premonition.
The eerie killing intent he’d felt at first, when Ian assaulted the conference hall.
Even the illusion of his throat being slit gripped him.
Fail recoiled frantically, hands fumbling at his neck.
His neck was still intact.
“H-How...!!”
“How? No idea what you mean.”
“You said you couldn’t use it twice...!!”
To Fail’s question, Ian wore a strange expression for a moment before bursting into laughter.
“If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t have killed Eleveon.”
“What bullshit—”
Fail cut himself off mid-sentence.
A possibility flashed through his mind.
That strike that carved out the ceiling had enough power to shake the entire palace.
A stone palace on a mountainside couldn’t withstand two of them.
Which meant—
Fail stared at Ian’s broken right hand.
The reason he’d driven Ian back to this spot.
To a swordsman, the hand held vital importance.
The hand linked sword and arm.
If it didn’t function, he couldn’t grip the sword.
Even if he did, he couldn’t infuse it with power or use wrist flicks for tricky techniques.
In that sense, the damage to Ian’s right hand was severe.
Enough for Fail, who’d been on the back foot, to sense victory.
Had Fail inflicted no such wound.
He surely would’ve pushed his guard knights forward and retreated.
He knew it was shameful, but that’s what Fail would’ve done.
After losing to Franz, he had no pride left.
Besides, charging in without a chance was just moth-to-flame suicide.
But Fail had wounded Ian.
That’s why they were here.
The right hand injury.
The one gamble he’d succeeded at.
A minor wound, but hardly insignificant—
Reaching the conclusion in an instant, Fail ground out the words.
“That was... bait...!!”
Ian shrugged as if confirming it.
“I can kill Great Beasts with it, but the aftermath’s too much in there. Especially on a mountain.”
“You fucking bastard—!!!”
A needle-like prick somewhere in his heart.
It spread, making his fingertips tremble.
Fail’s hands shook as he lunged at Ian.
The demonic energy forming his right arm vibrated fiercely.
Bursting it from his lower back, he accelerated five times.
Twisting the timing unpredictably, he snaked forward like a serpent.
Gliding smoothly, Fail whipped up frost with alternating deceleration and acceleration.
One step, another.
The steady rhythm suddenly shattered, approaching like a broken metronome in erratic bursts.
Fail’s sword left no trajectory.
Or rather, it seemed to, then blurred.
A supposedly straight path spiraled into a helix, shifting direction.
Utilizing full-body rotation while freely redirecting with demonic energy propulsion.
The result: an illusory sword ignoring inertia.
In an instant, Fail’s blade split into dozens, piercing Ian’s body simultaneously.
Ian tracked only with his eyes, following Fail’s shadow.
Reacting before his feet, a stone fragment.
Kicking it back while retreating, it overlapped Fail’s path and shot like a bullet.
Fail deflected with Rigid Body Armament, but the bullet’s trajectory warped.
The stone grazed Fail’s forehead precisely.
Blood trickled down.
His vision obscured for a split second, Ian vanished.
No snowflakes, no shadow.
Fail lowered his stance.
An instinctive move to sense hidden demonic energy nearby.
But what came from behind wasn’t footsteps or presence.
Schwick!
The sound of something being cleanly severed.
Light as paper being cut, clear and crisp.
As the blue blood blocking his view cleared, Fail opened his eyes.
For some reason, he floated in the sky.
The world flowed slowly, as if frozen, but his vision held only clear blue heavens.
Not a single cloud.
Dark storm clouds gathered around it.
Like a single white dot on black ink.
The sky had been pierced.
The thought hit, and his vision spun on its own.
Suddenly, Fail overlooked the mountain.
The peak was gouged in an impossible shape.
Like plunging a cylindrical rod diagonally into a snow mound and pulling it out—a massive hole.
His vision whirled madly.
Beyond the churning view, he glimpsed his own body, with only ankles remaining.
Then he realized.
“...Ah.”
The mountain was collapsing.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Right after I impaled Fail with a black Wave and killed him.
The mountain began to crumble.
The distant roar exploded right beside me.
The stone palace embedded in the sheer cliffside couldn’t hold its structure and collapsed in a heap.
Enormous boulders and snow masses plummeted toward my head.
‘Damn it. Knew this would happen.’
I’d intuited it when the palace shook from the first strike.
Before I could turn, my legs reacted first.
A silhouette burst through boulder gaps, dashing forward.
Slipping through debris, snow walls, and wreckage, I traced the mountain ridge in a curving line.
Soon, I leaped from the cliff edge into the air.
A storm of fragments grazed my clothes.
A surging snow mass rose to my nape, the entire range screaming in agony.
The mountain’s surface was no longer level.
Twisted rock, upheaved soil, swept-away trees.
I sketched over it, sliding along.
Irregular as a doodle, yet aimed at one destination.
Suddenly, a snow mass roared downward.
A white tsunami swallowing all vision.
I accelerated.
Kicking off a forward protrusion, using a side rockfall as a foothold.
Leaping over the fierce snow, I soared into the air.
And spotted Astier.
In a corner of the half-ruined palace.
Bloodied all over, but she was swiftly escaping.
Without hesitation, I grabbed her hand.
The moment her faint warmth touched my fingertips, I pulled her into my arms.
Our bodies entered a descent trajectory.
Spotting the landing from midair, I concentrated Aura Energy on my legs.
Dispersing the impact.
Twisting joint angles in an instant, I slid onto the snow mass.
Kwaaaaah—!!
A bursting roar.
Surging up from a massive snow pit.
Holding Astier tight, I cleaved through the snow and slid.
Trailing wreckage poured down like rain.
Vision cleared, revealing the Empire’s landscape stretching below the range.
Astier, cradled in my arms, muttered briefly.
“...Was this originally a live burial strategy?”