Opening Skirmish (3)
The First Sword Saint.
A hero who walked the same age as Arthur a thousand years ago. He has been known by other names—Sigurd, Sigurðr, Sigfried—but the name that endured above all others is Siegfried.
Sword Saint Siegfried.
To those who shared his era, Siegfried was, in a certain sense, even harder to understand than Arthur. Because he was a man whose background and temperament could have belonged to anyone.
He knew nothing of honor or pride. He was no knight, and he possessed not a shred of dignity. He carried no grand cause, no ideal of saving the world. He had never studied under a great master, and no secret of extraordinary birth clung to his name.
Siegfried was simply a man who might have been found anywhere.
An ordinary human who could have been found anywhere.
And that ordinary human came closer to King Arthur than anyone else.
So the imperial histories record it.
Of course the constellations themselves often frown at the phrasing. To say he came close to Arthur is the crude scribbling of later historians, they insist—an insult to the man himself. Strictly speaking, Siegfried was not Arthur’s near-equal but his rival, and in more than one battle he had actually outstripped her.
Whatever the distinction, one truth remains clear.
Siegfried stands as a great hero second only to Arthur.
If Arthur was the greatest demon-slayer, the one who slew more demons than any other, then Siegfried was the greatest dragonslayer, the one who slew more dragons than any other.
Wielding a holy sword forged of divine wrath and lightning, he challenged the rulers of the sky. He bathed in their blood, chewed their hearts, and adorned his own stellar domain with dragon bone and scale.
The constellations say the lofty title of Sword Star does not suit him. And Siegfried himself preferred another name far more than “Sword Saint.”
Dragonslayer.
Dragonslayer Siegfried.
Thunder rolled.
Though no lightning had struck, a peal of thunder crashed across the field—the sword-cry of the blade in Siegfried’s hand.
A sword forged of divine wrath and lightning.
Its true origin is unknown, yet scholars believe it was tempered in much the same age and manner as Excalibur. The blade had been thrust deep into the stump of an ancient tree that looked tens of thousands of years old, and though countless warriors tried, none could draw it free.
Heroes and noble souls alike had set their hands upon the hilt. None succeeded.
Because what the sword desired was not a hero.
It wanted neither hero nor knight nor pure-hearted soul. Honor and pride meant nothing. Grand conviction was worthless.
It wanted only the one who would wield it best—the swordsman who would stain its edge with the blood of the greatest beings. That is why it chose Siegfried as its master.
Gram.
The only weapon in this world regarded as equal to Excalibur. Yet Gram possesses none of Excalibur’s many powers. Its mystery is brutally simple.
It cuts what cannot be cut.
It pierces what cannot be pierced.
It offers no reinforcement of its owner, no heightened regeneration, no absorption of starlight. Gram concentrates solely on the essence of the sword itself.
Ah.
A weapon that has reached the absolute limit of the concept of “sword” now rests in the hand of a swordsman who has reached the absolute limit of the sword.
It’s coming.
Najin’s instincts sharpened to a razor edge sharper than ever before. Every sense stretched taut; a lightning-like chill raced down his spine.
He had no need to look into the future.
Najin froze every other motion and dropped straight into a defensive stance, drawing his blade close to guard heart and throat. In the slowed crawl of time, his body moved with equal deliberation.
It was not Siegfried.
A flash like a thunderbolt, and Siegfried’s form vanished for an instant—or seemed to. Najin could not follow the movement with his eyes.
For the first time, Najin lost track of an opponent’s motion.
It had not been a sudden ambush, nor had Najin been careless. Even with every sense strained to its limit, he still lost Siegfried for a heartbeat.
Where—
When his bloodshot eyes finally caught up, Siegfried was already thrusting. The blade drove straight toward the boundary that divided Kamran from the Outer Land—the veil itself.
Time, which had been crawling, snapped back to full speed.
In that single instant everything happened at once. A thin line was scored from far away all the way to the face of the veil. Along the trajectory of Siegfried’s charge the air itself expanded.
It was as though thunder had struck the ground.
The dead nearest the line melted away without a trace. Those farther out were caught by the shockwave as the expanding air crossed its critical point and detonated; their bodies burst apart.
Dozens of meters around the line were reduced to scorched earth.
Fragments of the dead sprayed in every direction. Bodies caught in the charge exploded with wet, meaty sounds, painting the boundary of Kamran a deep, wet crimson.
Only after every one of those events had finished did the sound arrive, a beat late.
A thunderous crash rolled across the field.
Then silence fell.
In a battlefield crawling with millions of the dead, the place where Siegfried’s feet had struck was utterly still.
His sword stood motionless.
Cracks raced outward from the blade he had driven into the veil of Kamran. Temporarily fracturing the seal, Siegfried forced his body through the gap to the outside.
Najin checked the position of his own sword without a word.
Excalibur, raised to protect heart and throat, still shone.
“…”
Even though his mind understood that the veil of Kamran stood between them and that the thrust would be stopped by that barrier… the moment Siegfried raised his blade, Najin’s body had reflexively taken a defensive stance.
A dry laugh escaped his lips.
So this is the feeling.
Millions of the dead swarmed, countless constellations watched, a colossal veil hung between them—and right now none of it meant a thing.
“…”
Their gazes locked.
This time, from a little closer.
Ripping through the veil, Siegfried stepped fully outside Kamran. The seal of the land immediately tried to seize him again, but he flicked his sword once and shook the binding formulae off like dust.
From this moment—ten minutes.
That was how long Siegfried could move freely beyond Kamran. And it was not hard to imagine what a transcendent of his caliber could do in ten minutes.
In that instant Najin understood perfectly why Merlin had said, If you weren’t here they would simply leave him alone. They’d let him run wild for ten minutes.
You can’t stop that.
If the forces present tried to stop Siegfried, everyone except Bedivere would die. Najin was certain of it.
Because—
Even now countless futures were flashing through his mind. He read them and settled into stance. The whole process took less than a second.
And the second hand began to tick.
A clock set to ten minutes started moving.
Tick. The second hand advanced one mark. One second passed; nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds remained—and once more thunder crashed across the battlefield.
That same charge.
This time Najin did not lose the movement. He saw the straight-line rush coming for him and acted at once.
Swing and deflect.
No. He would be the one knocked back, and the open heart would be pierced immediately.
Sidestep.
Also impossible. The trajectory of that charge could neither be redirected nor avoided. He would be run through.
Evade, counter, leap, flee…
A flood of options rose and vanished in Najin’s mind. When they were gone, only one path remained. For all his specialty of reading the future, Siegfried left him with a single forced choice.
Block it. That is the only answer.
I have to block it.
Najin raised his sword and set his arm against the flat. Unlike the loose stances of the past that always left room to reverse into a counter, he committed fully to defense.
Siegfried charged with blade leveled.
Faster than any charge Najin had ever seen—so fast even sound could not keep pace. The instant the tip met Excalibur—
———.
A soundless shockwave erupted. The dead that had been rushing Najin were caught in it and burst apart. The ground under his feet cracked; his boots ground furrows as he was driven backward, then lifted clean off the earth.
Najin’s body flew.
His eyes flew wide, veins standing out. While the shockwave hammered his frame he had to fight simply to keep hold of the sword.
Sound arrived late—a thunderous crash and the roar of air detonating.
Yet Excalibur was not pierced. Gram may cut and pierce all things, but its mystery does not reach a weapon that stands as its equal.
Realizing that fact, Siegfried changed tactics.
He halted the charge. He let the shockwave hurl Najin away. Standing still, he shifted stance. The motion was familiar to Najin’s eyes.
The foundational stance of the Sword Church.
Four basic postures that branch into hundreds, thousands of variations—the sword art of the order. The very man who founded that art settled into form.
Najin’s eyes went wide.
He could not read the future.
Not because no future appeared, but because too many appeared at once. Pierced, cut, struck down, lifted, shoved—more than a hundred futures unfolded. He could not fix on any one of them.
Because the moment he chose, the opponent’s choice would change as well.
In that instant Najin’s foresight became meaningless. The only thing he could trust was instantaneous judgment. He clenched his teeth. Sealing Najin’s greatest strength, pinning him to the present rather than the future, Siegfried moved.
A twist, a slam!
Still airborne, Najin wrenched his body around. He drove his sword into the ground for a brake and skidded in a long, grinding slide. No time to breathe.
Thud. Boom.
He stomped the earth and tore the blade free. Dirt sprayed as he swung.
Thunder.
By then Siegfried was already in close. A massive edge several meters long split the air and came crashing down. Najin barely managed to catch it—and there was no joy in the success.
Because that strike had been little more than a probe. Whether one could truly call a blow meant to take a head in a single cut a “probe” was debatable, yet from Siegfried’s perspective that was all it had been.
The moment Najin answered, the path of Siegfried’s sword began to shift to match.
The sword of the Sword Church.
Najin gritted his teeth. He knew that sword well. He was a priest of the blade, and he had spent much time with their leader, Caron.
Its hallmark is this:
It forces the opponent into specific postures, presses them, and drives them into a corner. With every clash of blades the enemy grows weaker and the wielder stronger. Slowly, surely, it eats the opponent alive until victory is absolute—that is the sword art of the Church.
A style that can finish an opponent before they even realize they are trapped, if they do not know its nature…
And Najin knew the sword of the Sword Church thoroughly. He understood how the stances linked, how they herded an opponent.
He knew—
Crack.
The man in front of him was different. Knowing was not enough. The motion was simply too fast, the transitions between stances too swift.
A line aimed at the throat changed. It sought the leg. When Najin brought his blade down to block, the enemy’s edge rode up his own and immediately sought the throat again.
In the span of a blink the sword-path reversed any number of times.
With astonishing kinetic vision and reaction speed Najin somehow met every blow, but he could not keep it up forever.
A thick mouthful of blood burst from his lips.
Every impact of blade on blade sent a shockwave tearing through his organs. Excalibur’s regenerative power could no longer keep pace with the accumulating damage. The instant Najin’s posture twisted even a fraction, Siegfried did not miss it.
As Najin raised his sword to defend, Siegfried simply let go of his own.
The moment the hilt left his hand, Gram vanished into empty air.
Najin had spent a move; Siegfried had gained one. In a battle between transcendents, that single move decides everything.
Boom.
Siegfried drove his raised foot down. He stomped the slanted face of Excalibur that Najin had raised in defense and pinned the holy sword to the earth.
Crack—Excalibur was driven into the ground.
He was barefoot, yet the sword-aura wreathing Excalibur only scorched his sole; it could not sever the foot. Having slain hundreds of dragons and bathed in their blood, Siegfried’s flesh was like dragon scale itself.
Skin with overwhelming resistance to mana and the stars.
Only a blade with true edge could wound that hide. The aura coiled around the sword face could neither cut nor injure him.
What the hell—
With Najin’s sword fixed to the ground, Siegfried clenched empty air. He did not merely seize it—he swung. Amid a crack of lightning, Gram was drawn from the void and immediately swept toward Najin.
Lightning erupted before Najin’s eyes.
The blade that flashed like a thunderbolt bit into his shoulder. Mana-reinforced flesh meant nothing before Gram’s cutting power. Skin parted. Bone snapped. Vessels severed. Blood sprayed.
Gram that had sunk into the shoulder sheared through the collarbone, cracked the ribs, and drove for the heart.
In the instant the edge was about to touch the heart—
Crack.
Siegfried’s stance collapsed. The Excalibur he had been standing on vanished, then reappeared in a sudden flash and intercepted Gram. Of course that alone could not fully halt Gram’s advance.
A defense taken from an unstable posture? In Siegfried’s mind the future was clear: Excalibur would be forced aside and Gram would surge forward.
Not for Najin.
The futures the two men saw were different. The difference came from information. What Siegfried could not know, Najin already did.
Crack-crack.
Suddenly Najin’s wound froze solid. Even the blood that had sprayed froze midair, and the ground around them iced over. White frost raced up Siegfried’s body, dulling his motion and finally locking Gram in place.
With a body like a dragon’s, Siegfried possessed overwhelming resistance to magic. Only two beings in the world could cast a spell strong enough to affect him.
The Witch of the Abyss, Morgan le Fay.
And the Staff of Selection, Merlin.
One of them stood here now. Through the rising frost, hair the deep blue of a calm lake whipped in the wind. Manifested in true form, Merlin rested one hand on Najin’s shoulder and stretched the other straight out, pointing at Siegfried.
A spell she had kept “loaded” from the very first moment of the fight. Under normal circumstances Siegfried would simply have cut it apart with Gram before its power could fully form. But right now Gram was buried in Najin’s flesh.
Merlin snapped her fingers.
"Let all sound and motion cease."
⟨ Silence ⟩
Sound vanished. Everything froze. Even Siegfried could not take a direct hit from Merlin’s magic and remain unscathed.
Covered head to toe in frost, Siegfried locked in place.
The man who moved so fast that only someone with Najin’s reaction speed could even track him was, for the first time, held still.
“Now!”
Najin shouted.
At once stars blazed in the sky.
The Heavenly Sword Star, the First Star, the Heavenly Killing Star, and Anton along with other transcendents specialized in close combat charged Siegfried, while Lapis and the great mages unleashed every spell they had prepared.
Unlike Najin, who stood under Merlin’s protection, Siegfried was fully exposed to every attack.
A flash.
Dozens of ultimate techniques—each capable of burying an ordinary transcendent in a single blow—poured down on him at once.
And Siegfried—
the ancient hero who had fought so long in the Abyss that its curse had swallowed his reason—
still looked only at Najin.
As if those lesser things were not even worth a glance.