Demon Knight Bernhaigen (4)
A pure white sword aura coiled around the longsword.
It was far too fierce an aura for a swordsman of the Sword Expert rank to produce. Not merely wreathed in light, but as if he gripped a blade forged entirely of light itself.
An impossible output of sword aura.
Yet it bore no special form or property. That was only natural. Najin was still a Sword Expert; he had not yet reached the realm of a Sword Seeker. For now he had simply pushed the output of his aura beyond every limit—by a method only he could use.
Najin’s mana cultivation method was special.
The amount of mana he stored within his body was vanishingly small; the greater part of what he cultivated went into reinforcing his flesh and the pathways through which mana flowed. There was simply no need to hoard it inside himself.
After all, the instant Najin drew mana from outside, he could put it to use. He could pull in the mana drifting through the air and weave it straight into sword aura.
The very sensation of handling mana was different from that of others, who had to rely solely on what they had stockpiled within.
And so, Najin knew, mana itself has no limit.
The raw mana circulating through the world. Handling it was no different from standing in the middle of a vast ocean with a single cup in hand. The amount he could scoop with so small a vessel was still meager—but he understood that if he enlarged the vessel, he could draw as much water as he wished.
One more thing.
Just before he escaped the underground city, in his decisive clash with Ivan, Najin had unconsciously grasped something. It was a special method of handling mana born of his craving for victory—a method only he could employ.
Not scooping water with a cup.
Leaping into the sea itself.
Even if he flailed and drowned, he would hurl his body forward for the victory of the moment. That was the gambler’s throw Najin had discovered. And in this instant he cast the same die once more.
You… that…
Merlin flinched at Najin’s method of mana control.
The paths carved through his body—the mana circuits—began to groan. An amount of mana far beyond what they could hold flooded into him.
Operation past the limit.
The circuits creaked, warped, cracked. Mana that would no longer fit leaked free. The raw, spilled mana ran wild and began to rake Najin’s insides.
Drawing in more mana than he could bear. Setting foot beyond the permitted threshold. Trading the ruin of body and circuits for overwhelming output—a reckless method that gave no thought to what came after. Even with Excalibur’s healing power…
“Cough. Ghk…”
The agony of his body being shredded from within by the rampaging mana was Najin’s alone to endure. He spat a mouthful of blood. His face twisted under the pain of being ground apart from the inside.
Yet the hand on his sword only tightened.
Bloodshot eyes wide, Najin glared at Bernhaigen. What burned in those sunset-colored irises was pure craving for victory. He gritted his teeth and stamped the earth.
…
Merlin fell silent.
The method Najin had forged from his hunger for victory was, by pure chance, the same one Arthur had once used. A method never taught to anyone, never left in any record.
Arthur, who had fought countless strong opponents, had craved it: a single strike that would tear out a stronger foe’s throat. A single strike that would smash the limits given to her.
She had always challenged those stronger than herself, staked her life for victory, and even when defeat seemed certain she had clawed for triumph. That was the method born of that journey.
Even when the mana thrashing inside her tore her body apart. Even when the circuits creaked and twisted under searing pain. She never retreated; she spat blood and charged the enemy and took their head without fail.
In Merlin’s eyes, Arthur’s figure and Najin’s overlapped. No one had taught him, yet Najin had awakened to the same method of his own will—driven by nothing but the single-minded resolve to win.
Honestly.
Merlin burst out laughing.
You’re even more of a madman than I thought.
Najin kicked off the ground and charged Bernhaigen. The pure white sword aura flared like a lightning flash.
2.
Bernhaigen’s pupils shook.
The boy who had been dying had suddenly revived. That alone was shocking—yet far from weakening, his speed had climbed higher, and the aura around his sword surged even more violently, as if he had been holding back all along.
Kaaaaaaaaang!
The instant their blades met, Bernhaigen was driven back. In weight of sword and raw strength he held the advantage, yet he lost in pure output. The fierce rebound of Najin’s surging aura shoved the greatsword aside.
What in the—!
Bernhaigen’s eyes flew wide. His grip on the hilt went numb. Najin’s next cut came on. He had been about to raise an arm to guard his neck as before—then his whole body jerked.
No. He could not take that bare-handed.
Belatedly he twisted aside. The blade meant for his throat skimmed across his shoulder. In that moment he knew the choice to dodge had been correct.
Seogeok.
The shoulder was carved deep. Had it caught his neck, nearly half of it would have been severed. Through the searing pain of the wound Bernhaigen locked eyes with Najin.
Bloodshot sunset eyes, gleaming wetly. Eyes that sent a chill down the spine. Bernhaigen understood at once: the entire flow of the battle had changed. That sword aura was fierce enough to cut even his demonized flesh. He could no longer block with his body.
What the hell are you?
Not Sword Expert level. It was common sense that a Sword Expert could never produce aura of that output, never move like that.
What the hell are you?
Cold sweat ran down Bernhaigen’s spine. Every time the blades clashed, every time Najin’s sword traced that uncanny path straight for his throat, he had to grit his teeth and meet it.
Until now he had toyed with the boy. Now he was forced to receive the blade on equal footing. Fail to receive it and he died. Rank no longer mattered. What decided victory was technique and split-second judgment. Every swing carved the line between life and death. And Najin’s sword forced those things upon him with every motion.
Death. Blood. Flesh.
Blood sprayed. Severed scraps of flesh scattered. No longer was Najin the only one bleeding. Bernhaigen’s body began to throw up blood as well.
The pursuit party hunting Demon Knight Bernhaigen.
At the head of the force composed of Atanga knights, Argo reined in his horse.
At the last place the signal had been picked up he halted and scanned the surroundings. Then the sound reached his ears—kang, kaaang—steel ringing on steel. He signaled the knights behind him and started toward the noise.
Pushing through brush, past dense trees, he came upon a clearing that had been carved artificially into the heart of the forest. Trees yanked out or cut clean through lay strewn about—cleared away, no doubt, because they had interfered with the duel. At a glance it looked like a makeshift arena in the middle of the woods.
Kaaaaaaaaaaang!
Two swordsmen were locked in combat inside that arena. One was the Demon Knight the Atanga Order had been hunting—Bernhaigen. The other was a youth who looked like an adventurer.
I heard an adventurer in Cambria took the commission…
That youth was almost certainly him.
Argo drew his sword, ready to thank the young man for performing the request so well—and to help put down the Demon Knight.
He was about to step forward when his brow furrowed. A sense of wrongness had struck him.
Bernhaigen’s movements, the aura he released, the dense demonic energy. The level Argo saw was far higher than what had been reported. Had the assessment of his strength been wrong? Surprising, but not a real problem.
I came myself precisely for contingencies.
Argo was a powerhouse who had reached the realm of Sword Seeker. And at his back stood his proud comrades of Atanga. Even if variables arose, they could handle them.
So Bernhaigen’s unexpected strength was not the issue… yet something else seized Argo’s gaze.
It was the way the youth fighting Bernhaigen moved. The young man swung a sword trailing pure white radiance. Even to Argo’s Sword Seeker eyes, the output of that aura was startling.
Chaaaaaaaaak!
Untainted pure-white aura struck aside Bernhaigen’s blackened blade again and again—sometimes soft, sometimes bold. The youth’s footwork was light and precise.
A thrust that never missed an opening. Stances that shifted with natural fluidity. Rooted in the swordsmanship of the Sword Church yet mixed with other styles into something strange and striking. The technique itself was admirable… but more astonishing still was the instantaneous judgment the youth displayed.
Bold.
He did not merely parry. He drove in boldly, inflicted wounds, and never let a single opening the opponent showed slip past—like a savage beast.
And so the youth was holding his own against Bernhaigen. Matching a Demon Knight presumed to be Sword Seeker level blow for blow. Someone of that caliber should have been known to him, yet the face was new. Then Argo’s breath caught as he looked at the youth’s face.
He had seen the eyes.
Eyes fixed solely on Bernhaigen burned with fierce intensity. A violent hunger for victory. Eyes so chilling they seemed ready to drag a man in.
“…”
The moment he saw them, Argo silently lowered his sword. He stretched out an arm and signaled the Atanga knights to halt.
A duel fought with the will to deny the opponent, with a fierce hunger for victory, with every ounce of one’s full strength.
That was something no outsider should ever interrupt or disturb. Argo watched Najin and Bernhaigen’s clash, ready to intervene at any moment. No—he did not merely watch. His gaze was stolen.
What the youth swung was a raw sword. Swordsmanship and aura still unfinished, not yet fully tempered. And precisely because of that, it seized the eye. There was an intensity that only something raw and unrefined could possess.
Ka, gagagagagagak!
Aura scraped against aura; sprays of light leapt up. Where the tip of a blade skimmed past, blood burst forth and hissed into steam the instant it touched the scattering radiance of aura—chiit!
Flying blood. The ring of clashing steel. Footwork tangled in dizzying patterns.
The perfect balance of the scales began to tip gradually toward Najin. In the midst of battle Najin was still growing; Bernhaigen was merely treading water.
Kwajik!
Bernhaigen’s greatsword gouged the earth. The heavy impact shook the ground—yet by then Najin’s feet were already off it. He leapt lightly, spun his body, and the moment he landed he brought the longsword down on Bernhaigen’s blade.
Kaaaaaaaaang!
He drove the embedded greatsword even deeper into the ground, then swept his longsword along the slanted flat of the blade. With a harsh kagagak the sword scraped along the greatsword, its true aim Bernhaigen’s throat.
“…Kh!”
Bernhaigen hastily released the greatsword and thrust out a hand to seize Najin’s blade—
Seogeok.
Najin’s aura was already past the point where mere resistance could stop it. The palm Bernhaigen thrust forward was severed the instant it touched the light—from little finger to index finger. Cutting through skin and bone, Najin’s sword lost not a fraction of its speed.
Evaporating the blood that sprayed, the blade raced for Bernhaigen’s neck.
In that instant Bernhaigen knew his defeat. He felt unavoidable death. And so he brought out the card he had kept hidden until the very end.
“—————————!”
Bernhaigen howled. His eyes rolled back; black smoke erupted from his body in a single burst. In a flash the smoke swallowed both Najin and Bernhaigen.
Even the Atanga knights watching could not react. It happened in the space of a single breath.
3.
The trump card Bernhaigen had saved until last.
It was the move he had reserved for a battle against the Atanga Order. He could use it only once.
A power obtained through his contract with a demon. A one-time chance borrowed from that power.
He spent it to kill Najin—because he was certain that if he did not, he himself would die. Bernhaigen’s face twisted with fury.
“I was never meant to waste this on the likes of you.”
A relic the Shulhauser family had guarded for generations. The world believed only a mid- or low-class demon dwelled within it… but Bernhaigen knew better.
Hundreds of years ago, in the ancient age. What resided in the relic was an ancient demon that had been active in those days. Having stolen the family’s forbidden texts and learned the truth, Bernhaigen had seized the relic and contracted with the demon inside.
A demon of darkness, fear, and blindness.
The ancient demon Arcand.
That power manifested through Bernhaigen’s hand. The black fog that had surged up instantly became a domed barrier, sealing Najin and Bernhaigen inside.
The true Arcand could have swallowed an entire small domain whole… but the range Bernhaigen could unfold with his own hands was only this much. Even so, he knew it was enough.
The barrier’s reach was limited, yet its nature was the same.
Complete isolation from the outside. Creation of a perfectly sealed space that even starlight cannot reach…
And amplification of demonic energy. Bernhaigen’s wounds healed in an instant. Flesh filled in; the severed fingers regrew, dyed black. Power flooded his body; his physical ability was incomparable to moments before.
Black aura seethed around the greatsword he lifted.
Inside this space Bernhaigen held an overwhelming advantage. Even if his opponents had been the Atanga knights themselves he was confident he would not fall behind. No—he was certain even they would be no match for him.
The sense of omnipotence wrapping his body. The overwhelming power he felt.
Bernhaigen curled his lips and looked at Najin. The pure-white aura that had shone so brightly was already fading, smothered by the darkness the barrier brought. That aura would never blaze again. The barrier strengthened Bernhaigen even as it weakened his foe.
“This ends it, brat.”
Bernhaigen smirked as he regarded Najin. In the darkness a demon had wrought, the light a mere human produced was pitiful. Najin, dragging a white aura that looked ready to snuff out at any second, cut a wretched figure.
Bernhaigen was certain of his victory. He was already pondering how to crush the boy, how wretched an end he would give that insolent whelp, as he took a step toward him.
“…”
Bernhaigen met Najin’s eyes.
There was no fear in them. No tremor either. Eyes of perfect calm. A wrongness prickled through him.
…Had they always been that color?
Only moments ago they had been sunset. Now Najin’s irises shone platinum-gold.
Like stars in the night sky.
Finally used it.
Merlin’s voice rang in Najin’s ear, thick with laughter.