Carpediem (3)
To a constellation, death is an ambiguous domain.
They are the undying, the immortal, and the transcendent all at once. After living a hundred years, two hundred, five hundred… after enduring nearly a thousand, the boundary between flesh and soul grows indistinct.
Transcendents who have lived so long often come to regard not their bodies, but the constellations overhead, as their true selves. Does that place not hold the entirety of their lives? The flesh is nothing more than a shell confining the soul. So they believed.
If one regards the star above as oneself—
If one's tale is spoken again and again through the mouths of others—
If someone remembers the story sealed within the constellation—
If one does not lose oneself—
When those few conditions are met, a constellation may lose its flesh and still not die. The world calls this Ascension. Among long-lived constellations, a fair number of transcendents have reached it.
The Martyr of the Thorn Vines was no exception.
She had lost her body long ago, yet her soul remained uncorrupted, and the faithful who followed her never regarded their patron's death as annihilation. Thus the Martyr of the Thorn Vines attained Ascension.
"Ascension isn't such a good thing," one constellation said.
"Without a body you can't interfere directly with the world. You can't move your limbs to work miracles. All you can do is watch."
She shrugged.
"You can only act upon the world through accumulated starlight, or through your devotees. How stifling must that be? And you can't grow anymore. From the moment of Ascension you become an immutable existence."
It's no different from being stuffed and mounted.
In a way, it's horrifying, she murmured.
"But."
But, she went on.
"There are things that must be accomplished even so—even if you endure all of that."
With a faintly bitter gaze, with eyes touched by pity, Merlin looked upon a certain constellation. The constellation of the Martyr of the Thorn Vines. The star that, even after Ascension, had never ceased killing demons, never ceased seeking revenge upon them.
"Poor child."
You're still dreaming.
Merlin murmured so.
The domain of the Demon King of Grief.
What Yuel did upon arriving at Carpediem's stage was simple, and brutally crude.
"We're going in."
Forcing entry into a constellation's stage that was already fully deployed was extraordinarily difficult—yet Yuel did not hesitate. She had the tool to punch a hole through the stage.
"Seongyuksin."
"…"
Seongyuksin, who had been heaving a sigh heavy enough to cave in the earth, reluctantly raised her hand. The instant her constellation aligned as one, Yuel lifted her sword.
Crunch.
She twisted the blade she had driven into the stage's curtain. A small rent opened in the veil; the moment the crack began to seal, Yuel shouted.
"Now."
"Aurora."
A pillar of light slammed down. In a flash of brilliance the curtain blazed pure white. With a sound like shattering glass, Yuel and Seongyuksin plunged into the stage's interior.
The stars of Heavenly Slaughter and Extreme Night shone.
Falling with the curtain that had been smashed to pieces, Yuel looked down. Her eyes met Carpediem's—the Demon King of Grief, who was staring up at the uninvited guests who had come to her stage.
A stage crowded with inverted crosses.
A stage where screams echoed without end.
And its master, the Demon King of Grief.
Dropping from the sky, Yuel narrowed her eyes. In a single glance she took in the state of the battle, decided what she must do, and which part of the enemy her sword needed to pierce. All that remained was to act.
Flash.
Starlight settled upon her blade. It was not Yuel's own starlight. It belonged to her patron—the Martyr of the Thorn Vines. What she intended now was to open a passage. When Yuel swung her sword, a small corridor took form.
Unlike the one during the previous battle with the Revelry Emperor, this passage was small and meager. It could hardly be otherwise. Too much starlight had been spent then.
The passage the Martyr of the Thorn Vines could open now was barely large enough for a single star to pass through. Not even a transcendent could cross it—at best it might summon a few Sword Seekers.
At that, the stage's master burst out laughing.
"What a pointless gesture!"
Carpediem sneered.
The intervention of Seongyuksin and Yuel was surprising, but the surprise ended there. Bringing a handful of extra Sword Seekers onto a battlefield of transcendents would never turn the tide. She mocked them for wasting starlight on something so meaningless.
"Now."
But the Martyr of the Thorn Vines did not smile. Neither did Yuel, nor Seongyuksin. None of them regarded this as a meaningless act.
They already knew.
Who would come through that passage.
"Najin."
The instant the small corridor opened, someone kicked off the ground on the far side. With a boom that split the earth, a single afterimage shot between Yuel and Seongyuksin.
The Dawn Star intervened upon the battlefield.
The Free Knight's coat snapped and billowed in the wind. Spinning once in midair, Najin put rotation into his spear.
Ramming.
The spear-tip vomited a storm. In the moment that storm burst apart the throng of jesters about to overwhelm the Sword Saint—in the moment it carved a meaningful change into the battlefield—the Demon King of Grief could laugh no longer.
As Carpediem's eyes flew wide and she swung her hand toward them, Yuel and Seongyuksin moved as one.
A sword-aura shaped like a guillotine, and a pure-white pillar of light, crashed down upon the Demon King of Grief. Seongyuksin and Yuel joined Gerd; Najin joined Caron.
Star of Heavenly Slaughter. Star of Extreme Night. Dawn Star.
With the intervention of three stars, the battlefield overturned.
2.
Joining Caron, Najin saw them.
The jesters surging forward like a tide. And beyond them, the Praiser, stitching his arm back into place.
"…"
Najin looked at Caron without a word. There was no time to exchange opinions. Caron simply took the left; Najin took the right. That was all.
Boom.
Caron kicked off the ground and began to run. With every stride the wave of jesters parted. Pure-white sword-aura cleaved the tide. Watching that figure, Najin set his foot down a single step later than Caron.
As much space as Caron carved on the left wing, jesters poured in from the right to fill it. Steadying his breath, Najin swung his sword toward them.
Flash.
Sword-aura resembling a constellation split the jesters. Burned them. Shattered them. Yet upon the stage they were infinite; cut down ten and twenty more would spring up, trampling the corpses of the fallen.
A wave. It was a wave in the truest sense.
A human who has not reached transcendence cannot part a wave with a single sword. Even if the blade cuts, the surging water simply fills the space again.
Shhhhhhhhk—!
But before his eyes stood a swordsman who was parting the wave. Every time the Sword Saint swung his blade, the tide split. The corpses of jesters that had failed to fill the gap piled high. Gazing at that back, Najin clenched his teeth.
The distance between Caron and himself.
Najin measured the gap between himself and Caron racing ahead. That was the chasm between the transcendent and the ordinary. Until now he had been forced merely to watch it—but not anymore. The corner of Najin's mouth twisted upward.
The Sword Saint left the right to me.
He was running out front as if telling him to follow.
Najin judged.
Right now was the time to run.
Steadying his breath, Najin kicked off the earth and sprinted. He plunged toward the jesters who spawned twenty when ten fell. That figure charging into the wave looked, from one angle, like a suicide dive—or like a madman who did not know the worth of his own life.
But Najin was neither.
Flash.
His sword blazed. It flashed in rapid succession. If one stroke could not part the wave, then two; if two would not serve, then ten—Najin swung as though determined to carve a path by sheer volume of cuts.
Spin—thunk.
He hurled the sword forward and, in the same motion, drew his spear.
Ramming.
The storm parted the wave. Jesters caught in the gale burst like balloons. His sword, swept away by the storm, flew far into the distance—but Najin paid it no mind.
Blue Hydrangea.
He swung the spear like a rake, and the storm that had been racing outward reversed. Jesters were shredded in the gale now roaring back toward Najin. Through the torn bodies of jesters, his sword came flying, slicing the wind.
Thunk—he snatched the hilt and swung at once.
Pouring every technique he possessed, Najin chased after Caron. The distance between them still existed, yet it was no longer abyssal. It was a distance the eye could measure.
And then, the moment Najin took one more step—
"Ha!"
Only then did Caron's laughter reach him. Looking back at Najin who was pursuing him, Caron twisted up the corner of his mouth. As if any swordsman who dreamed of transcendence ought to do exactly that.
"He's coming."
Caron said it shortly.
At once light flared beyond the jesters. Najin could not react in time—but Caron could. The beam of light rebounded from the sword he swung.
Boom—KRAAAAAANG!
The light-beam that struck empty ground roared. Watching the shaft of light that had punched clean through the jester horde, Caron clicked his tongue.
"No mercy even for allies."
"That's…"
"The Praiser's attack. Looks like he managed to reattach the arm. Best to dodge it if you can."
Dodge that? While Najin blinked, Caron laughed.
"Unreasonable demand, I know."
Thoom—Caron stamped the earth.
"One question."
He let his sword trail behind his back.
"The Praiser. Can you cut him?"
"…"
A question of whether he could cut down a transcendent.
Najin fell silent. At this point it was nearly impossible for him to defeat a transcendent. Yet at the same time he recalled: the Praiser was a jester. A constellation deeply bound to the Revelry Emperor.
"I can't cut a constellation," Najin said, shrugging.
He raised the tip of his blade and leveled it at the Praiser.
"But a jester? I think I can cut one of those."
"Indeed."
Caron snorted a short laugh. He did not need to be told that the jester in question was not any of the throng before them, but the masked one beyond.
"Then run."
He jerked his chin at Najin. Take the lead. Najin did not question Caron's words.
How, or—
Alone, you mean?—
Instead of wasting time on such questions, Najin kicked off the ground and sprinted. The spears and blades of jesters, the light-beams of the Praiser, all came flying—and he ignored them. The Sword Saint had told him to run. Najin was not so dense as to miss the meaning of those words.
"Duck."
He simply ducked.
"Thousand Swords."
A brief utterance.
A clean, ringing note of severance—sshk.
Yet what unfolded before Najin's eyes was neither simple nor clean.
Hundreds of jesters lost their heads in a single stroke.
The dozens of light-beams the Praiser had fired, the applause that had filled the stage, the screams, the crosses—everything was split in a single instant.
And in the brief silence that followed—
"Run."
Caron said.
"I'll open the path."
3.
Caron was a Sword Saint.
The title of Sword Saint meant one who had climbed to the pinnacle of the Sword Church; it meant one who had reached the extreme of the sword. Caron was not ignorant of the weight that name carried.
In other words: a Sword Saint was one who had attained mastery of the blade.
Caron had learned every sword art. If it was a technique for swinging a sword, he had mastered it without remainder. To him every swordsman was a teacher, every manual a textbook.
Countless, countless arts and techniques.
Having refined every kind of sword into something that was his own, Caron pursued efficiency. He pursued simplicity, honing techniques for the sole purpose of closing with the enemy by any means.
If the blades can clash, I win.
Closing that distance—until their breath could touch—Caron prioritized above all else. Because that was how he won.
And yet, paradoxically—
The technique he had refined to the point of calling it a secret art was not one that closed distance. It was the opposite. A sword swung after stopping in place and steadying the breath. It stood far from the extreme of the sword Caron himself pursued.
Even so, it was Caron's secret art.
It couldn't be otherwise.
Because the technique of the First Swordmaster, Siegfried, which he had glimpsed in the Abyss—the swordsmanship he had seen in that place where a thousand blades and ten thousand weapons were driven into the earth—had taken root in Caron's mind.
From that day, that moment, Caron could no longer imagine any other extreme.
"Thousand Swords."
Caron imitated the First Swordmaster's technique.
He swung a sword he had not yet made his own.
A thousand swords and ten thousand stances.
The Star of a Thousand Swords swung the Thousand Swords.
Everything in his vision was cut apart. The jesters' heads were taken; the light-beams were split; the Praiser's arm, only just reattached, was severed once more. Leaping across hundreds of meters, Caron's sword cut the Praiser.
And yet he could not fell him in a single stroke.
That realm was still distant—far, far distant.
I couldn't cut him down, but—
The path toward the Praiser had opened. Through the parted jesters, Najin raced.
Six stars shone in his wake.
Though he had not yet reached transcendence, Najin—who bore as many stars as a transcendent—flashed his blade. Sword-aura that had achieved Blooming dyed his surroundings platinum-gold.
Wherever the stars shone, that place was Najin's stage.