Draig Goch (3)
Platinum sword aura was a dragon’s reverse scale.
Merlin had said so once.
A platinum blade-light that resembled starlight. In the whole of human history, only one person had ever been able to wield it—Arthur. A thousand years ago Arthur had cut down countless demons with that platinum aura and brought dragon after dragon crashing from the sky.
Whether she obtained the platinum aura because she pulled Excalibur, or whether she could pull Excalibur because she already had the platinum aura—I don’t know. But the order doesn’t matter.
What mattered was the property the platinum aura carried.
Arthur’s sword aura resisted Mystery.
It resisted the things that defy the natural order.
As if commanding the world to keep its rules.
The rules fixed upon the world. What people called natural law, providence, and the like.
Witches, demons, dragons, fallen stars, the cursed things of the Abyss. Do you know what they all have in common?
They’re beings that have stepped outside providence.
Existence that oversteps, shatters, and twists the established rules however it pleases. Things that are themselves a kind of rebellion.
Now you know what I’m getting at, right?
Arthur’s sword aura punished those who refused to keep those rules—as if demanding they obey. She split their Mysteries, tore open their scales, and made those who did not bleed bleed.
Your sword aura is fundamentally different from Arthur’s.
But that trait alone is similar.
You remember when you fought the black mage, right? You weren’t a Seeker yet then… but you endured a Masterpiece’s Mystery and tore the black magic apart.
Merlin had smiled as she said it.
So what about now that you’ve reached Seeker?
It was time to confirm that.
Najin poured his sword aura into the Echo Roselyn had created—the strongest output he could produce. Because the white star still burned fiercely inside him, pure white light burst forth first.
And following it came gold. Gold mixed into the pure white flash. What took shape was a sword aura infinitely close to platinum. Under ordinary circumstances he would have hidden it, but Najin had no room left for that.
This was a fight for their lives. There was nowhere to run, and no option to stall for time. Before an enemy he had to smash with everything he had, Najin revealed the power he had been concealing.
Flash!
Light blazed. Word had already spread that Najin wielded white and gold sword aura, so one might have mistaken this flash for a variation of that. But not Roselyn Ascalo.
“Hah.”
Roselyn felt the sword aura riding her Echo. A blade-light that made the other half of her soul scream. Her skin stung; her heart hammered hard. At that sharp, aching pain, she clicked her tongue.
Yeah. This’ll work for sure.
A smile touched her lips.
Roselyn clenched her teeth and swung her twin blades. The resonance spreading from the Masterpiece Echo took the form of a net. Following the tips of her swords, a net of sword aura draped over the dragon’s wings.
Kiiiiiiiiiiing!
Najin’s and Roselyn’s sword auras raked across the dragon’s wings. The scales scattered the aura, but the scales were being pared away faster than the light could be disrupted. Tiddiddiddick! Scales began to split with that sound.
———————!
The red dragon screeched and beat its wings; the net tore amid the howling wind. The sword aura scattered. But the Echo Roselyn had created had already done its job.
It had cracked the scales into footholds.
It had opened gaps to drive sword aura into.
Enduring the swirling wind, the two clung to the dragon’s wings. Infinitely small humans against that massive body—yet the radiance clinging to the blades in their hands was what let humans hunt monsters while remaining human.
Left wing and right wing. Roselyn and Najin each mounted one and began to race across the scales. They jammed their swords between scale and scale and poured out sword aura without restraint.
Kiiiiiiiiiiing!
Sword aura like a beast’s fangs echoed—
Flash!
—and sword aura like a constellation continually spat flashes of light.
A dragon’s wings were made for flight. Because they had to generate and ride the wind, the membrane wasn’t entirely covered in scales. The outer side was armored; the inner side was not.
Shhhhhhk!
Roselyn and Najin relentlessly targeted that part. They butchered and tore the wings so the dragon could no longer fly. Blood sprayed; the wings hung in tatters. The plan was succeeding, but…
The red dragon did not simply sit still.
Its long neck twisted. The red dragon stared at its own wings and wrenched its jaws open. Fire whirled in its maw. Breath. To shake off the humans clinging to its body, the red dragon spat fire at itself.
The completed red dragon’s flames were less fire than pure flash. Stones around them melted soft under the heat; the ground went soft.
Roselyn and Najin kicked off the wings the moment the jaws opened and fled the field, but they could not escape the heat. Soot marked their skin; melted flesh fused with their clothes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Setting fire to its own body?”
Roselyn grumbled and coughed, hacking out a blocked breath. Najin brushed residual embers from his clothes and looked ahead. There was the red dragon wreathed in flame.
Its wings were burning away.
Elsewhere the scales kept it safe, but the wings Najin and Roselyn had butchered could not endure the fire. As if surrendering wings that would tear anyway, the red dragon had counterattacked. Najin steadied his breath.
The first button was fastened.
They had torn the wings and stripped its mobility. The red dragon could no longer take the sky. What next?
-You have to pierce the heart or sever the dragon’s neck.
Najin nodded. To seal an immortal dragon, you first had to kill it once. Drive death into it as a living thing by striking heart or neck. He adjusted his grip on his sword.
“Huu…”
Najin had no means to tank a dragon’s attacks. Taking them head-on would only shatter his bones like a moment ago. But dodging alone wasn’t easy either—not against attacks that fully exploited that massive body.
If he only dodged, distance would open. Open distance favored the dragon. He had to dodge and close in at the same time.
Not easy. But not impossible either.
A method surfaced in his mind. Chain stake. Sword in one hand, spinning the chain with the other, Najin began to run.
Roselyn, too, with a method of her own, was racing toward the dragon from another direction.
Different angles. The red dragon, rather than intercept one, chose to sweep both at once—spinning its body and lashing its tail.
The red dragon’s tail cracked like a whip.
The same blow that had shattered Najin’s bones. But he wasn’t stupid enough to take the same move twice. He kicked off the ground, leapt high, and hurled the chain. The instant the chain wrapped the dragon’s tail—
Ting! The chain went taut; Najin’s body was yanked as if flung by something. With the chain fixed to the dragon’s tail, his body was whirled like a sling-stone.
The chain groaned. The arm holding it felt ready to tear. But Najin endured. Instinct said this was the answer.
Bearing the centrifugal force until it peaked, he calculated the angle and released the chain. Like a stone loosed from a sling, he was fired at the red dragon. Shweeeeeek! Cutting the air at top speed, he reached the beast and reversed his grip on the sword.
Then—thunk.
Najin’s sword sank into the red dragon’s body.
Acceleration via centrifugal force. A strike that threw his own body. Platinum sword aura coiling the blade. All of it combined pierced the dragon’s scales. But this was only the beginning.
Even with the pain of landing still thrashing through him, Najin whipped his body into motion. Twisting the buried sword, he ran along the red dragon’s body.
Sword aura flared madly, scattering flashes. Max output. Without holding back, he poured everything into drawing aura and swinging. The all-out assault that punished his own body was clearly working.
Shhhhhhk!
Scales split; blood sprayed.
The fact that his attacks were landing made him move even rougher. He swung until his arms threatened to tear; he ran across scales whether his broken ankle screamed or not. He didn’t care that heat left on the scales was scorching his skin.
Najin immersed himself in the sword.
It was the realm he had attained in the last battle against the witch.
Blood boiled; his heart hammered hard. His vision narrowed until all it held was what he had to cut, and the swinging blade. Forgetting even to breathe, he swung in a trance.
In that state he moved faster and more efficiently than usual. His edge found deep, fatal places; his sword aura flashed infinitely sharp.
-…! Na…jin!
Dragon scales split; blood sprayed.
A mere human was tearing open a dragon dozens of times his size. Every flash of white and gold sword aura sent blood jetting skyward.
-Hey, hey! ……!
Najin’s sword moved a little faster. In less than a second it swung ten times. From a distance the sight looked almost ghostly.
-Hey!
Trance. Immersion in the sword.
A realm only some swordsmen could reach. Swordsmen strove to attain it, but Sword Masters who had transcended would say this:
You must not get drunk on the sword. It’s a double-edged blade with drawbacks as clear as its strengths.
Najin didn’t know that. Fixed on the fact his attacks were working, fixed only on making the dragon bleed, he failed to hear Merlin’s voice. So he noticed the anomaly too late.
Brrrrr.
The dragon’s scales were trembling. Since when? Probably a few seconds ago. In that moment the immersion broke. Najin’s eyes flew wide; his vision snapped open. Merlin’s voice echoed in his ears.
-Dodge! Get off! Now!
A voice that had probably been shouting for several seconds already. Najin moved, but it was already far too late. The trembling scales shot toward him. Dozens of scales the size of a forearm, all at once.
Pabababababak!
Where he stood, where he meant to step, every escape route—scales in all those directions surged upward. The scene looked slow to his eyes. But there was no way to dodge. It was already too late.
If he hadn’t narrowed his vision immersing in the sword.
If he had listened to Merlin’s voice.
If he had noticed the premonition—or if at least his leg hadn’t been broken—he could have reacted to the attack.
Thunk.
The fired dragon scales drove into Najin’s body.
Not dragon blood but human blood sprayed up. Najin’s vision stained red.
His body was hot. His vision blurred.
A high-pitched ringing filled his ears. Najin realized belatedly that he’d blacked out for a moment. At the limit of abusing his body, the critical wound had simply cut his consciousness.
Cough, hack, cough.
He vomited a handful of blood. After blinking several times, his vision slowly returned. He realized he was face-down on the ground. Hadn’t he been pierced by the dragon’s scales?
“…ya… looks like…”
A voice reached his ears.
Najin slowly lifted his head. A man stood with his back to him. Vision returned, then hearing a beat later.
“Looks like you’re finally conscious.”
Reinhardt Folschen. He stood before Najin with his greatshield planted.
“Thank Roselyn. The moment you got spiked by those scales, she chucked you over here.”
“…How long was I out?”
“About three minutes.”
Three minutes. Not long, but not short either.
“Huu, huuk…”
Gasping, Najin barely forced himself upright. He opened his eyes and looked ahead. The red dragon rampaged while white-grade adventurers charged it. Three white-grades led by Roselyn were engaging the beast.
It had only been him and Roselyn. At some point the white-grade adventurers had joined.
“Watching you two, it started to look possible. I don’t like fights with long odds, but with the two of you going that hard, running away felt a bit wrong.”
Noticing Najin’s gaze, Reinhardt shrugged. He’d quit being a knight because he hated being bound by duty—but he wasn’t the type to run after being called a cowardly weakling either.
He shoved his greatshield forward, breathing hard.
A greatshield of rare metal, but its edge had melted—as if it had blocked a Breath. Looking around, Najin saw the ground melted in a radial pattern. Everywhere except where he’d been lying.
…He blocked it for me.
The moment the scales pierced him, Roselyn had thrown him here; under the circumstances the red dragon had likely fired a Breath at him. And the one who’d protected him from that Breath was Reinhardt.
“Thank you. I owe you my life.”
“Don’t mention it. I’m the one who should apologize for joining late. I hesitated too long before stepping in.”
Reinhardt smiled bitterly.
He looked at Najin and asked,
“Can you move?”
“I think I can manage somehow.”
Najin staggered to his feet.
“It’s a bit ridiculous leaving this to a wounded man, but it seems you’re the only one who can deal a fatal wound to that dragon.”
Reinhardt pointed at the red dragon.
White-grade adventurers kept charging without pause, but the red dragon bore no truly critical wounds. The only real damage was what Najin had carved into its back while riding it. Blood was still streaming down its spine.
“Going?”
“I have to. We need to take that thing down, don’t we?”
“In that condition?”
“I can still swing a sword.”
Najin raised his arm.
His fingers were broken, but melted skin had fused to the hilt, so gripping the sword was no problem. Seeing Najin’s state, Reinhardt clicked his tongue at that tenacity.
“You’re insane. Got a plan?”
A plan. Najin looked to the side.
There was Merlin, fretting restlessly.
-You, you, seriously…
I’m sorry.
Looking like she might cry, Merlin scrubbed her face. She let out a breath of relief. Her fingertips were trembling. Well—he’d almost died. Najin breathed hard and turned a method over in his mind, as if seeking Merlin’s permission.
His thought flowed into her.
Reading it, Merlin glared at him.
Are you crazy? Are you in your right mind?—eyes that said as much. But she didn’t voice it. She only exhaled and nodded. As far as she could see, that was the only way to break this situation.
The prepared means had collapsed.
Normal methods were impossible.
His body was already at its limit.
But Najin had exactly one means to overturn all of that. And to use that means, there was only one way.
“I have one idea.”
Najin answered Reinhardt’s question.
He pointed with a finger.
Following that fingertip, Reinhardt blinked. Then he frowned and asked back,
“You’re not in your right mind. Are you serious?”
“It’s the surest strategy.”
“People don’t usually call suicide a strategy. It’s crazy. Who in the world would…”
“Isn’t a feat something you achieve by doing what no one else in the world would do?”
Hah—Reinhardt barked a hollow laugh.
“No wonder you’re the youngest Sword Seeker. A brat who doesn’t know the value of his own life.”
Even as he said it, Reinhardt lifted his shield.
“Still—I can’t deny that’s the only way. At this rate we’re all going to die.”
“What will you do?”
“What else.”
Thud—he took a step one pace ahead of Najin. Greatshield raised, Reinhardt twisted up the corner of his mouth.
“I’ll play along with your madness.”
I’ll get you there somehow.