Demon Knight Bernhaigen (3)
The Knight of Atanga.
The instant that name left Najin’s lips, Bernhaigen’s pupils trembled. Atanga had already tracked him this far? Impossible. Unease and agitation rattled through the fallen knight’s mind.
Yet even a rotten fish still had bones, as the old saying went.
Bernhaigen was a knight himself—once a knight commander, no less. It took him little time to sort through the chaos of his thoughts and reclaim his composure.
He said he was a seed. A vanguard of the order… or pure bluster.
Either way, it hardly mattered. The presence radiating from the youth before him looked utterly insignificant. Best to cut the boy down quickly and flee.
Judgment. Conclusion.
Barely two seconds had passed.
A swift decision, and swifter still the response that followed. But time is always relative. What Najin had spoken was no empty boast meant to rattle Bernhaigen. He had simply declared his identity before the fight.
In other words, the moment those words left his mouth, Najin’s preparations for battle were already complete.
BOOM!
Two seconds. More than enough to close the gap. Najin erased a distance of more than ten paces in a single breath. By the time Bernhaigen finished deciding, Najin was already in his face, sword whipping through the air.
“……!”
Fast. Faster than expected.
Bernhaigen’s eyes flew wide. Too little time to counter. He yanked his arms inward, shielding his neck and heart. So long as those vital points remained intact, he could regenerate as much as he needed.
Shhk!
Najin’s aura-edged blade skimmed across Bernhaigen’s forearm, leaving only a shallow cut.
Shallow, just as expected.
Confirming his arm was still attached, Bernhaigen’s lips curled into a smile. The speed had been startling, true—but the aura itself posed him no real threat. That thought lasted only a heartbeat.
“Guhhh—!”
Bernhaigen’s eyes bulged.
The wound seared as if set ablaze. Sparks of pain exploded behind his eyes. A body long inured to agony, further numbed by his demonic transformation, should have felt nothing. Yet the torment flooding him now was a kind he had never known in his entire life.
It felt as though his very soul were burning.
The demonic energy within him churned violently.
The posture he had taken for an immediate counterstrike collapsed under the pain. Najin was never one to miss such an opening. Crack! His kick slammed into Bernhaigen’s knee. The already-ruined stance shattered completely.
Then—
Najin clenched his sword and brought it down on Bernhaigen’s crown like a guillotine. A pure white line of aura carved a single, merciless stroke through the air.
“You little—damn brat—!”
But the blade never split his skull. Bernhaigen flung an arm up in desperation, catching the sword on his forearm. The edge sank halfway into the flesh before the bubbling, regenerating meat forced it back out.
Face twisted in agony, Bernhaigen reached behind his back. In that same instant Najin’s eyes went wide and he leapt away.
Instinct had screamed at him. Distance. Now.
The judgment proved correct.
The moment Najin opened space, Bernhaigen seized the hilt protruding over his shoulder. He tore the sword free—drawing it with such force that the scabbard itself split. A jet-black arc carved the air.
SHHHHHRAAAK!
Trees caught in the aura shattered.
Wind howled. From a safe distance Najin studied the weapon now gripped in Bernhaigen’s hands: a blade two or three times thicker than an ordinary longsword, closer to a greatsword than anything else.
A sword of that size.
Swung at that speed.
The raw strength was menacing, and the murky black aura coiling around the greatsword was no less so—sinister in every sense of the word.
Crack. Crackle.
Bernhaigen rolled his shoulders.
He had not intended to draw the sword at all. That changed the instant he weathered Najin’s first assault. The boy’s aura was… alien. That much Bernhaigen could tell.
Its raw power was not the threat. The problem was the soul-searing agony that followed every cut.
It doesn’t feel like elemental aura, either.
Aura that carried a unique property and form was the hallmark of a Sword Seeker. To Bernhaigen’s eyes, Najin did not look Seeker-class. Yet there was no denying that the aura he produced was something special.
Prolonging the fight would gain him nothing.
Bernhaigen reached that conclusion and settled into stance, greatsword resting across his pauldron. In a single breath his entire presence shifted.
Bernhaigen, former knight commander of the Shulhauser family.
Even before contracting with a demon he had stood at the absolute peak of Sword Expert. With the explosive physical enhancement the contract granted him, he now possessed strength that could match a Sword Seeker at the very first step of that realm.
And so Bernhaigen was certain of victory.
At best the boy was only Sword Expert. Quick, yes—but that was all. In combat, realm was absolute. That was the truth he lived by.
……And for the most part, he was right.
But the gap in realm did not always decide the outcome. Subtle variables that realm alone could not measure sometimes tipped the scales of victory and defeat.
“Hoo…”
And Najin—
the boy who had survived the subterranean city—
had always created those variables with his own hands and seized victory. This time would be no different. He exhaled a long breath and opened his eyes wide.
Bloodshot pupils.
What those eyes reflected was a fleeting future.
2.
Since arriving in the City of Opportunity, Najin had grown.
The growth was steep and unbroken, yet he remained a Sword Expert. Naturally he was weaker than Bernhaigen, who stood on the threshold of Seeker. In absolute strength he would always fall short.
Technique. Muscle. Everything else.
In most respects he would be outmatched.
But there were two things in which Najin never yielded: senses and vision. Senses honed to a razor’s edge. And those uncanny eyes that missed nothing.
The boy who had always been peerless at “seeing” had awakened to his own gift only a few months earlier.
Najin’s eyes already existed beyond the bounds of common sense—something akin to a Mystery. The world they revealed was a landscape no ordinary person could comprehend. Only Najin could understand it.
The trembling grass.
Breath. The flicker of Bernhaigen’s pupils.
The way he gripped the sword.
The black particles of rising aura.
And the surge of muscle.
The instant Bernhaigen stepped forward, Najin had already kicked off the ground and launched himself. By the time Bernhaigen swung, Najin was already driving into his flank.
CRACK!
Bernhaigen’s greatsword gouged a deep furrow in the earth just as Najin’s blade sliced across his flesh. The wound was shallow, but Najin did not stop. Eyes locked on every twitch of Bernhaigen’s body, he drew in a great breath.
Mana surged.
His mana cultivation method, voracious, drank the surrounding mana dry.
Under normal circumstances, using that method against a demon was little better than self-harm. Drawing in mana saturated with demonic energy would have ruined his body from the inside.
But Najin was the master of Excalibur.
The moment mana entered his body, the demonic taint was purified completely. He took the purified mana—together with everything already within him—and slammed every last scrap into reinforcing his flesh. An amount that once would have shattered him.
Now, he could endure it.
SHK-SHK-SHK-SHK!
Acceleration. Blades trailing afterimages carved Bernhaigen’s body to ribbons. A single opening, and three strokes raked across him.
Grit.
Teeth clenched, Bernhaigen slammed a foot into the ground. Dust exploded upward. Shallow wounds like these could not threaten his life—he knew that. And because he knew, he chose the strategy of trading flesh for bone.
The greatsword howled through the air.
Najin snapped his head back; the blade skimmed past above him. A swing that large should have left openings, yet Bernhaigen’s motion held none. Before the greatsword completed its arc he twisted his waist.
The trajectory bent. The blade stopped unnaturally and crashed down toward Najin.
Having read the motion in advance, Najin threw himself backward. Even so he could not entirely escape the sword-wind. Flying grit and shattered stone slammed into him.
Tsk.
Troll-hide armor protected his body but not his face. Blood sprayed from torn skin. For a single instant dust blinded him. Through the cloud came Bernhaigen’s greave—iron slamming into Najin’s gut.
CLAAAANG!
Najin yanked his sword across just in time, but the arm bracing the flat of the blade gave a sickening crack. Superhuman strength. Najin’s brow furrowed.
He slid backward, catching his breath.
Reading a motion was one thing; stopping it was another. His forearm throbbed. Strength refused to gather properly in one hand.
“You’re a damn slippery little bastard.”
Grit. Grind.
Face contorted against the burning of aura-wounds, Bernhaigen swept the dust aside with a swing of the greatsword and fixed Najin with a crooked smile.
“What the hell gave you the guts to pick this fight? You must’ve seen plenty of knight corpses on the way here. One look at those thick-headed fools with their skulls split open and you should’ve gotten the message.”
Grinning, he kicked off the ground.
Superhuman leg strength closed the distance in a blink. Greatsword already swinging, he sneered.
“You’re not an opponent you can handle.”
Black aura cloaked the descending blade. Najin raised his sword with a blank face.
“I know.”
Aura met aura. The weight of the greatsword buckled Najin’s knees, yet his own aura did not yield an inch. A flicker of dissonance crossed Bernhaigen’s face.
CLANG!
Najin turned the blow aside. Forcing his protesting body to hold firm, he met the next strike, and the next.
Clang. CLANG. CLAAAAANG!
Under the crushing weight of the greatsword his body screamed. Still Najin received every blow head-on—sometimes borrowing the Church’s swordsmanship, sometimes the flowing deflection techniques Ivan had once shown him.
“I know all that.”
Najin lifted his head.
The moment their eyes met, Bernhaigen felt a chill. The boy’s bloodshot gaze never wavered. It was the gaze of a beast.
The kind of eyes that promised fangs in your throat the instant you let your guard slip—glittering with a feral light.
For a fraction of a second those eyes overpowered him. Bernhaigen swung savagely, forcing Najin back. Then—BOOM—he stamped the earth and poured strength into the hilt.
Crack. Crackle-crack!
A stance as if compressing power itself. With a shout he whipped the greatsword horizontally from behind his back. In the days when he had made his name as knight commander of the Shulhauser family, this technique had been his signature.
The sword art that had once bisected a troll in a single stroke.
Black aura formed a crescent moon. The moment the arcing blade met Najin’s sword, a shockwave of air exploded outward. Trees flanking Najin split with a thunderous crack.
Even Najin could not fully absorb the force; he skidded backward more than ten paces before his back slammed into a tree and finally stopped.
…He blocked that? That?
Bernhaigen’s eyes went wide.
A blow that could cleave a troll, further empowered by his enhanced strength—how had the boy stopped it? He had no way of knowing the strange, anticipatory movements Najin had used against the swinging greatsword.
“……There was something I wanted to ask you.”
Najin pushed off the tree, breathing hard.
His breath was ragged. One arm had completely broken under that last strike; he let the right arm hang limp and raised the sword with a single hand.
Pointing the tip at Bernhaigen, he spoke.
“What does being a knight mean to you?”
Perhaps the question was meant for himself as much as for the man before him.
3.
What is a knight?
Faced with the question, Bernhaigen barked a hollow laugh. Stalling for time, was he? He saw no value in answering. BOOM—he took another heavy step toward Najin.
“What are honor and pride to you?”
Najin asked again, settling into stance.
The greatsword tore up the earth.
If the boy meant to buy time, Bernhaigen had no intention of playing along. He drove Najin relentlessly backward until the youth suddenly dropped his center of gravity.
“Answer me.”
A burst of acceleration that outstripped Bernhaigen’s own.
Najin sliced across the wrist of the arm swinging the greatsword. The blade did not sever the hand, but it carved a wound a finger-joint deep.
Shhk!
Blood sprayed. Bernhaigen scowled. Flesh was already knitting, but he could no longer swing the greatsword properly. He kicked Najin away.
Najin did not rush back in.
He simply kept asking.
What is a knight to you? What are honor and pride? I need to hear the answer. Bernhaigen let out another empty laugh and exhaled a long breath. Until the flesh on his wrist finished regenerating, he decided he might as well humor the meaningless exchange.
“You asked what a knight is?”
Bernhaigen answered.
“A knight is a means to climb the ladder. Nothing more than a tool for seizing money, power, and strength.”
That was what a knight meant to him.
It was the path that had allowed a commoner to raise his station, the title that had placed wealth and authority beyond a commoner’s reach into his hands.
“Honor and pride are the same.”
Bernhaigen smiled.
“Keeping them gets you nothing. But sell them or throw them away and they fetch an enormous price. You have no idea, brat, how high a knight’s pride—that worthless scrap—can sell for.”
When he betrayed his lord. When he sold that lord’s secrets to the nobles of another fief. When he turned a blind eye to the disloyalty of a family’s retainers. Each time they pressed hundreds of gold coins into his palm, calling it the price of a knight’s compromised pride.
Keeping it earned him nothing.
Breaking it earned him sweet gold.
“Pride, honor, codes… You must have seen them on the way here. What happened to the fools who clung to those worthless things. Look at me. I threw every last one of them away and gained power like this, didn’t I?”
Using a knight’s honor as excuse, he had slipped deep into the family vaults and stolen the sealed demonic relic. Using a knight’s pride as pretext, he had drawn his comrades out and slaughtered them.
The thick-headed fools obsessed with honor and pride.
Nothing was more entertaining—or easier—than toying with such men. Bernhaigen knew that well. A smile spread across his face. The youth before him was no knight, yet he carried the same foolishness.
“You’re no different.”
When you cut my wrist—
If you had just kept pressing the attack you might have landed a real wound. Instead you gave me time just so you could hear some answer about honor and pride.
“Nothing but a pack of idiots.”
Bernhaigen truly believed it.
Najin, who had been listening, lowered his head. Was he angry? Or despairing that he was being pushed back by a man who understood neither honor nor pride?
Neither.
When Najin raised his head again, he was smiling.
“……Why are you laughing?”
“Just… I suddenly realized how lucky I was.”
Still smiling, Najin spoke.
“I’m glad the first knight I ever met wasn’t someone like you.”
A knight who knew honor and pride.
A knight who, even after falling to the very bottom, never lost his pride—who chose to remain a knight until the final moment. The Knight of Atanga.
The first knight he had ever met.
The knight who had planted a dream in him.
That it had been Ivan—Najin felt fortunate. Listening to the demon knight Bernhaigen weigh honor and pride against gold coins, Najin finally understood.
What kind of knight he wanted to become.
What rose in his mind was… the first knight—and the first star—he had ever faced. In a subterranean city where no starlight reached, a certain knight who had carried stars in his eyes.
No matter how far he falls.
Even if he plummets endlessly—
even if he drops to a place no star can touch—
Still hoping to reclaim what was lost, still guarding the pride that remains…
Never forgetting that he is a knight.
A knight who chases the stars.
A knight who pursues the stars of the night sky.
That was the knight Najin wished to become.
A knight who holds honor and pride, and chases the stars.
Honor. Pride. And stars.
The image of a knight that had never quite cohered in Najin’s mind was, paradoxically, completed the moment he faced the man farthest from knighthood of all. A goal drawn clear. A picture finished.
It was in that instant—
that Najin’s sword aura surged pure white.
Output skyrocketing in a single breath. A method of control he had unconsciously grasped during his life-or-death clash with Ivan, yet never once used since. This time, however…
Within the violently rising aura there was not a single particle of platinum-gold.
Because in this moment, what Najin envisioned was not a star, but a certain knight.