Skirmish (6)
Even magic that seems all-powerful has its constraints.
Most spells, as a rule, draw upon the surrounding environment; creating something from absolute nothing is a difficult feat. True, those who have transcended may free themselves from that restriction to a degree…
But even that freedom has its limits.
Even the renowned constellations of the Outer Land could not comprehend the phenomenon unfolding before their eyes.
Was that really magic? Truly?
A sea had suddenly formed in the middle of the battlefield. The ground had become a water’s surface, and beneath that surface stretched a deep ocean with no end in sight. That abyss pulled Siegfried down, dragging him toward the Abyss itself.
There was nothing special about the magic—nothing of the usual mystical flourishes. Whether one could even call something that simply crushed its target with overwhelming mass “magic” was open to debate.
The gazes of countless stars turned toward the woman who had cast it.
White hair tinged with a blue aura spilled down. Pale skin so white it was almost translucent, and blue eyes. A woman cloaked in a mysterious air that called to mind the fairies of hero tales and fairy stories stood there.
The Staff of Selection—Merlin.
The mage once called a nightmare by the witches. The being who had buried, with magic, the very race beloved by magic. As the constellations held their breath before her spell, one among them let out a short gasp.
“Ah… over there…”
A single thread of light surged upward. From the bottom of that abyss, a streak of radiance shot toward the sky. That single streak became ten. Then a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand—multiplying without end.
Too late, they understood.
All of it was sword aura.
A single blade parted the sea. The surface heaved, then exploded upward in a towering spout of water. Through the scattering droplets, he finally broke free and soared above the waves. Even an ocean of unfathomable depth could not hold him.
Was even that not enough to stop him?
What more were they supposed to do?
While the constellations who had poured out their full strength collapsed one by one into exhaustion, one figure still refused to fall. A star staggered forward on a body reduced to ruin, forcing each step ahead.
Boom.
Najin, who had been running since the moment Siegfried reappeared, kicked off the ground and accelerated. With his sword held sharp, trailing platinum-gold sword aura as he charged, he looked to the other constellations like a single streak of meteor.
“That friend of ours…”
Anton Quijano, still stemming the bleeding from the stump of his severed arm and gasping for breath, blinked.
“Did he always shine like that?”
Even before, the light Excalibur produced and that platinum sword aura had made Najin resemble a meteor whenever he crossed a battlefield. Yet to Anton’s eyes, the Najin of now was somehow different from the Najin of ordinary days.
How to put it?
It wasn’t merely the sword aura or Excalibur. It was as if his very body itself were shining…
This was the chance. A chance that would never come again.
Kicking off the earth as he ran, Najin forced his eyes wide. He saw the droplets leaping upward. Rain-like water fell in slow motion. The instant he took a step, a droplet that touched his face hissed and evaporated with a sharp ssss.
One step.
He planted his foot and drove off again. The speed at which the scenery blurred past him quickened a fraction more. Accumulated wounds made his body creak and scream in protest, but Najin clenched his teeth and endured.
Eight minutes since the battle began.
Dozens of constellations had poured their full power simply to buy those eight minutes. Two minutes still remained, yet the constellations no longer possessed the strength to hold out that long. Najin knew it.
So.
It had to be now. Not anyone else…
Me.
What he needed was speed.
Speed enough to catch the man ahead of him. Yet Najin knew his own limits. At this point, matching that man’s speed was impossible.
The years they had piled up were different. The decades of tempering were different. Siegfried, who had slain countless dragons and forged his flesh ever stronger, stood dozens of paces ahead of Najin.
He still could not catch up.
He accepted that fact. But acceptance did not mean he could simply stand still. Najin whipped his body as it ground against its own terminal velocity.
Just a little more.
In the slowed world, Siegfried was beginning to move. At this rate it would be too late. Before Najin could reach him, Siegfried would swing first, and then Najin would have to shift from offense to defense.
One instant. Just once is enough.
Thoom.
Even once would do.
The limit. The line drawn before him entered Najin’s eyes—a line only he could see. The moment he faced it, Najin found himself smiling. If a line appeared, it had to be crossed. That was the way he had always lived.
Thud.
He stepped onto the line and drove one more stride forward. In that instant, pain as if every bone in his body were shattering flooded through him. Muscle tore. Burst blood vessels painted his vision red.
Crack, crack-crack-crack-crack…
Sparks leapt before his eyes. Watching those sparks in the slowed perception of time, Najin thought:
The realm where the sword feels like an extension of one’s own body.
A domain said to be reached by only a vanishing few among transcenders.
The state of sword-body unity.
Once before, Najin had set foot in that realm. Granted, it had been thanks to Excalibur’s unique nature—but having experienced it, a bolt of lightning flashed through his mind.
If the sword is me…
Blood sprayed from the open wounds. In those droplets, platinum-gold particles flickered.
Then I, too, can become the sword.
Unconsciously, that was what he thought.
In a fragment of an instant, Najin stepped into the realm.
Tick, ti-di-di-di-dick…
The mana circulating through his entire body accelerated as if exploding. Just as Excalibur released particles of light, platinum-gold particles burst from Najin’s body. The moment he took the step, those particles shoved him forward.
Screeeeeeeeeech!
Hyper-acceleration. His body accelerated at a speed even Najin himself could not register.
…This was an insight gained in the unconscious.
And as such things always are, the insight evaporated almost at once. All he managed was a single step. After that one step, Najin’s body returned to normal.
Yet that single step rewrote the situation.
For the first time, Siegfried shifted into a defensive stance in response to Najin’s sudden acceleration. For a single instant, Najin had moved a half-step ahead of him.
One step.
In that final surge, Najin’s sword moved.
Techniques with large motions—like Gaeseon or Jeol-ya, Night Severer—were impossible. And those were techniques meant to cut the opponent down; they did not suit this moment. As he was now, Najin could not cut Siegfried.
So what technique should he use?
A technique to fling him away.
A technique to shove the opponent and hurl him into that Abyss. The most fitting one that came to mind was Ramming. Until now he had used it exactly as Kruenbel had taught him, but as a fully matured transcender he no longer needed to.
He refined Ramming. The breathing, the footwork, the way the body moved, the momentum that coiled the storm—he honed the technique itself to a razor edge…
And remade it into something that fit him alone.
Conveniently, an excellent textbook stood right before him. He dismantled the movements of Siegfried charging like a streak of lightning and corrected them to suit his own body.
The technique was complete.
The moment Najin thrust his sword forward, the air split along the edge. Unlike the original Ramming that gathered force in place before launching the weapon, Najin poured the full momentum of his charge into the thrust.
Ordinarily such a motion would destroy one’s balance, yet Najin’s superhuman sense of equilibrium forcibly held the collapsing balance in place and finished the technique.
Siegfried, three-meter sword raised like a shield, and Najin collided. The instant Excalibur met Gram’s flat, a shockwave erupted along with a massive surge of heat. The ground split; the falling rain was swept up by the heat and vanished.
For the first time, Siegfried was driven backward.
As one of his feet lifted into the air, Najin twisted his blade. In that instant the storm coiled around the sword was released, and Excalibur’s blade shone like a star.
Release.
Najin poured out every last scrap of the starlight he had accumulated. The battlefield, darkened by its proximity to the Abyss, flared bright in a single heartbeat. Starlight that had burst from the darkness flooded outward.
A storm wreathed in starlight smashed into Siegfried.
The phenomenon came first; the sound lagged behind.
KRAAAAAAAAAAK!
A thunderous roar split the earth. Body lifted into the air, Siegfried was hurled like a cannonball, caught in the storm. The tempest that tore up the ground as it raced across the battlefield finally slammed into the boundary line of the Abyss.
Caught in the storm, Siegfried was flung inside the boundary. Barely more than eight minutes had passed, yet the moment he entered, chains erupted from every direction and bound his body.
Chaaaaaaaaak!
He roared, cutting and slashing and sweeping aside the sealing formulas that sought to bind him… yet his steps finally halted before the boundary line. Accumulated wounds refused to let his body move as he willed.
The tattoos carved into his flesh blazed scarlet.
As if venting unquenched rage, he began to rampage inside Kamran. But even that sight soon vanished from view.
Because the thick black mist that blanketed Kamran—the Black Fog—swallowed him whole. All that remained were the successive cracks of thunder, as if lightning were striking from within the fog.
“Ghk… koff.”
Spitting out a mouthful of clotted blood, Najin let his arm hang limp. He no longer had the strength even to grip his sword. Forcing his eyelids open against the urge to close them, he watched Siegfried until the very end.
If this somehow failed to finish it, he would have to move at once. Clenching his teeth and remaining on his feet without releasing his sword, Najin finally let the blade fall only when the sounds of Siegfried’s rampage could no longer be heard.
“Keuh… ghk…”
His eyes slid shut. His body felt impossibly heavy.
Najin coughed up blood and collapsed where he stood.
The rebound of having moved beyond his limits.
Najin slowly blinked. The surroundings were bright. It seemed he had returned to the Continent rather than the Outer Land, yet his head felt dull and heavy.
He had been out for quite a while. How long had it been since he last stayed unconscious this long?
As far as he could tell, the Release had been the main culprit. He had poured out every scrap of starlight stored in his body and his sword; exhaustion was only natural. And because he had even drawn on the starlight meant for regeneration, recovery had slowed and it had taken far longer for him to come around.
His vision was blurry.
Only after blinking a couple of times did it clear. The first thing that entered his restored sight was someone sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at him intently. Realizing he had opened his eyes, she leaned closer.
Still perched on the bed, she inclined her body toward him. Her upper body tilted, her face drew near, and her hair spilled forward.
Shhhk.
Snow-white hair that held a blue light cascaded over Najin’s face. Through the curtain of swaying strands, their eyes met.
She was beautiful.
Beautiful enough that even Najin, for a brief moment, found his gaze stolen.
Belatedly he recognized who the woman meeting his eyes was. Merlin. Yet it was not the Merlin he knew. This was a form far closer to the Merlin of the past—someone who looked as though she had aged considerably more.
Long hair flowing like waves. Not a trace of the playfulness or awkwardness that should have belonged to Merlin; instead, a woman whose presence felt precarious and cold…
Having confirmed that much, Najin was certain.
Ah. This is a dream.
Was he seeing another of Arthur’s memories? Just as the thought crossed his mind, the Merlin who had been staring at him made a dissatisfied face. Then she reached out and flicked his forehead with a soft tok.
“It’s not a dream.”
Najin blinked.
Merlin let her long hair hang as she brought her face a little closer still.
“I said it’s not a dream.”
Blue eyes revealed between long lashes gazed steadily into his.
“Merlin?”
“Yeah. It’s me. Your guide.”
Only then did Merlin smile. And when she smiled, she was exactly the Merlin he knew.