Chapter 45
Chapter 45
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 45
Chapter Title: Preliminary Round (4)
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Franz Eldin was a genius.
He had never thought of himself that way, nor had he ever felt the need to.
Others had started calling him that first, and he had simply grown accustomed to the label.
To him, it wasn't strange at all, and he didn't dislike hearing it.
But old praises cooled like rusting iron.
Until nothing hot remained in the hand that gripped his sword.
A flickering ember on the verge of dying out.
That was himself right now.
Franz lifted his head and searched for one person.
Ian Valencia.
The man rumored to have cleaved a mountain with a single sword stroke.
Though it was just a rumor, Franz already knew it was true.
During the Ereveon subjugation battle, he had seen Ian buried in the rubble, piercing the heavens.
Even if he had been there, the sky would have remained intact.
It wouldn't have split or torn.
Franz knew well what he could do and what he couldn't.
This was clearly something he couldn't do.
There was no pointless emotion like inferiority or anger.
Even if he felt such things, what he couldn't do wouldn't become possible.
Franz simply knew his next goal.
Cleaving the heavens.
Franz averted his gaze and drew his sword.
Rivalry was fine, but this wasn't respect for his opponent.
Hadn't he come here to face Asel Hartmann?
Franz and Hartmann faced each other.
"You're aiming for Ian... no, Sir Valencia?"
It was Hartmann's words.
There wasn't the slightest tremor in his eyes.
Franz fell silent for a moment, then spoke quietly.
"Yes."
Hartmann smiled faintly and replied.
"Me too."
There was very little time left before the duel began.
Franz asked about the sense of déjà vu he had felt while watching the duel.
"You faced Rio Ainworth. What was he like?"
"He wasn't a normal opponent."
"That was due to an enhancer."
"Hasn't the Red Star been eradicated?"
Thanks to Ian Valencia's exploits, the Red Star had been uprooted.
All their activities had been exposed to the public.
Among them was the enhancer.
A drug that amplified the user's strength and Aura Energy.
With the Red Star gone, it was reasonable to assume the enhancers had vanished too...
"Of course. But that's not what I mean."
Franz quietly looked up at the Empresds.
The Empresds looked down at him.
With golden eyes that seemed to know exactly what Franz was thinking.
It was simple intuition.
The basis wasn't clear, but it always turned out right somehow.
Confirmation bias, if you wanted to call it that.
Franz actually hoped it was that confirmation bias.
'If I don't know, I'll just test it.'
The reason Franz had accepted the Empresds's proposed duel was simple.
He wanted to show Ian his sword.
But now, one more reason had been added on top.
Suspicion. And verification through the sword.
That was enough.
Before the signal sounded, their eyes met.
A conversation without words.
And with the start signal, the ground rumbled.
Both exploded into motion simultaneously.
Sword clashed against sword.
Red Aura collided with blue currents, illuminating the battlefield like an explosion.
The impact was unbelievable for mere sword strikes.
Their movements didn't look human at all.
This was far beyond what Hartmann had shown in his duel with Rio.
Hartmann lowered his stance and lunged low.
A weighted slash aimed at Franz's waist.
In response, Franz lifted his heel half a step and twisted.
He rotated his upper body nimbly to the side,
and reflexively flicked his sword upward from below.
Continuous slashes.
Sword strikes reaching point-blank faster than the sound of cutting wind.
As if folding and rejoining space, blinking in and out.
Hartmann belatedly recognized the blade.
He reflexively lifted both feet off the ground.
Rotation. Hartmann thrust his sword down from above like stabbing into the sky.
Franz bent his knee, sliding backward to evade.
He bounced the sword tip off the ground, using the recoil to spin his body, stabbing into the gap as Asel landed.
Peeeng!
It sliced through empty air.
Instead of landing, Hartmann twisted his foot as if stepping on air to evade.
He spun in midair and landed beside Franz, immediately swinging from the side.
The two exchanged dozens of blows at shirt-brushing distance.
Metal crossed faster than sound.
Sword fragments scattered, Aura clashed and gouged the ground.
Exploded earth, flung debris.
A single sword wave split boulders, swirling currents reaching the spectator stands.
Without a moment to catch their breath, they clashed again and again.
Then Franz's eyes changed.
He took a deep breath and pulled his sword back.
The ground held its breath for a moment, the air freezing.
He raised his sword toward the heavens.
Those who master Aura Energy to the extreme awaken Aura.
Here, "to the extreme" meant refining Aura Energy.
Compressing the endlessly accumulated Aura Energy, akin to an ocean, down to the size of a lake.
A direction that sacrificed endurance for destructive power.
But Franz decided to think differently.
This one sword strike would be the end. He wouldn't think beyond it.
Ocean to lake. Lake to puddle.
Puddle to a single drop of water.
Compress the Aura refined to the extreme, and smash it into one strike—
—slash.
Immense light gathered in Franz's sword.
As if all the world's light was being sucked into that one blade, it flickered.
Beyond the black-and-white world reached in an instant, a straight line extended.
What appeared first was the result.
A massive cloud twisted and warped.
The sky tore open.
Red Aura surged up like a beam of light belatedly,
and Franz's sword came down in a massive crescent arc.
Kuwaaaaaang!!
A ring-shaped shockwave swept the ground.
Tremendous currents blasted outward in all directions.
Even Hartmann, who had tried to block Franz's sword, was caught in the shockwave.
He resisted with his sword to hold his center,
but the heaven-cleaving strike was too heavy.
The ground quaked, the floor erupted.
The stone pavement split horizontally, the crack extending beyond the battlefield.
Dust, debris, silence.
Before even recognizing victory or defeat, Franz let out a low sigh.
"...Failed."
Franz raised his head, staring toward the jade throne where the Empresds sat.
Someone stood there, blocking his sword strike.
A man with black and white hair streaked in stripes.
Walter Gernhardt.
The sword strike Franz had unleashed had been stopped by him and gone no further.
It had been perfectly aimed only at the wall, not reaching anyone.
Franz had swung at the wall.
He even had an excuse prepared.
As the duel intensified, Franz's sword had veered off target.
A plan to test the Empresds's intentions without killing anyone or facing charges.
Not sharp or meticulous, but Franz's own way of getting results somehow.
Blue veins bulged grotesquely around Gernhardt's neck.
He looked unharmed, as if he had blocked Franz's sword without issue.
But Franz could see it.
Unknown steam leaking from the wound Gernhardt had taken.
The same incongruity he had felt observing Rio Ainworth was emanating from Gernhardt too.
The claim of copying a technique after seeing it once.
It sounded cool, but Franz knew better than anyone how absurd it was.
Grasping the core principles of a movement in one glance was impossible.
Humans weren't flat beings.
They moved in three dimensions, organically,
and thus required observation from multiple angles to see the trajectory and flow.
...And yet.
'The trajectory was read before I even swung. Either way, it's abnormal.'
His reaction wasn't just to the sword's path.
Even without aiming at the Empresds, the mere possibility required blocking it.
'I think I know roughly what's going on.'
The reason the Empresds had proposed this duel to him.
The existence of Rio Ainworth too.
Franz clicked his tongue and turned away.
Immediately after, massive cheers enveloped the arena.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ After the duel, things proceeded as planned.
Once the victor of the Sword Saint and next First Knight Order Captain's duel was clearly decided.
Irena's retirement ceremony and the succession of the Knight Order Captaincy took place.
When the arena's ground had barely recovered from its deathly silence, the Empresds raised his hand again.
The quieted cheers, on earth still humming with vibrations.
The Empresdss quietly stepped forward to the edge of the platform.
Before her stood a woman in silver armor.
First Knight Order Captain, Irena Krause.
She slowly knelt.
The final rite of stepping down from the Captain's position, per imperial custom.
"You were the sword that protected the Empire. A shield that never yielded even amid the Great Beasts' fury."
The Empresds drew the sword at her waist,
and lightly placed it on Irena's shoulder.
"You may now lay down that sword. It shone brightly enough with what you left behind."
Asel Hartmann ascended the platform laid with red carpet.
Hartmann took Irena's place before the platform.
Irena quietly unbelted her sword and set it down before him.
"From here on, it's your path to walk."
Hartmann bowed silently in thanks, then lifted the sword with both hands.
He knelt before the Empresds.
"Asel Hartmann, become the Empire's First Knight Order Captain and be the sword of this northern frontier. Be the Empire's shield, allowing none to trespass."
Red flags unfurled all at once atop the walls surrounding the arena.
Upon them were emblazoned the First Knight Order's crest alongside the Empire's emblem.
The time to present the artifact gift had arrived.