Demon Knight Bernhaigen (5)
Demon Knight Bernhaigen.
The house he had once belonged to was Shulhauser. The relic said to contain the demon he had seized was likewise an artifact the Shulhauser family had guarded for centuries.
The information written on the commission request.
From the instant she confirmed that information, Merlin saw through everything—the true name of the demon Bernhaigen had contracted with, and the concepts it governed. There was no way she could have failed to know. The Shulhauser family had already existed in the age when Merlin herself had walked the world.
"A high-ranking demon."
"The concepts it governs: darkness, fear, and blindness."
"Its true name is Arcand."
An ancient demon from the era when Merlin and Arthur had been active, hundreds of years past. A demon sealed by Shulhauser, then known as a frontier hero. Recalling what she knew of that demon, Merlin smiled.
Arcand was a powerful demon.
She had no intention of denying that fact.
Even if centuries of sealing had weakened it, the authority Arcand possessed was nothing to take lightly. From the moment he brought that authority to bear, Najin could never defeat Bernhaigen. Charging in would only earn him a wretched death.
Inside the barrier, Bernhaigen wielded power that overwhelmed even the mid-to-upper ranks of Sword Seekers. By contrast, Najin's body was weakened and his mana output plummeted.
A barrier that weakened the foe and strengthened its master.
Within that barrier, Najin could absolutely never defeat Bernhaigen.
That was an absolute disparity—and a rule.
And yet Merlin did not stop him. She left Najin free to choose the path of facing Bernhaigen alone for one reason alone…
"Arcand's authority is complete isolation from the outside."
It was the nature of that authority.
"Creating a space of his own that no one can peer into—that is Arcand's power."
A space utterly cut off from the outside world.
A sealed chamber where neither starlight nor sunlight nor anything else could reach. Inside it, holy knights who borrowed the blessings of the stars to swing their blades lost their light, and mages who fought with the support of the magic towers became utterly powerless.
That was why Arcand had earned its notoriety.
But for Najin, that barrier meant something entirely different. Isolation from the outside. No external eyes able to reach him. A space of pure solitude. For Najin, that meant—
"No watching eyes."
"And a demon that needs cutting down."
It meant he no longer had to hide his power.
"Tell that ancient demon."
Merlin laughed.
Najin slowly lowered his sword.
"That your natural enemy has returned."
With a click, Najin slid his longsword into its scabbard. Then he stretched one hand toward the sky.
"Across a thousand years, your natural enemy has returned—the one who will grant you nothing but eternal death."
The hand raised to the heavens.
The constellation engraved upon that wrist shone.
…As I said before.
Inside the barrier, Najin cannot defeat Bernhaigen. That is an absolute disparity, and the rule of the barrier itself.
But Najin possesses something else.
Something that stands above every rule. A colossal variable capable of overturning every disparity. A brilliant light that no darkness a demon can weave will ever obscure.
Thunk.
Najin clenched the hand he had raised.
Thirteen constellations floated in the empty air.
In the next instant, starlight flooded the darkness.
2.
Demon Knight Bernhaigen saw it.
Najin suddenly sliding his sword back into its scabbard. Sheathing his blade while the enemy advanced? Had he given up resistance? No—looking into those eyes, it did not seem like surrender.
Those eyes still burned with the hunger for victory.
Eyes that radiated an obsession with winning. Platinum-gold eyes that had not lost their light even in the dark. The moment Bernhaigen felt a strange unease at those eyes—eyes that had shifted from sunset-colored to pure platinum—Najin stretched his hand toward the sky.
The thirteen stars carved into his wrist flared for a single heartbeat, and starlight flooded out of the darkness.
Whoosh!
Even darkness that swallowed light could not cover the starlight Najin had called forth. For what he now grasped was a light nothing in existence could dare to veil.
Even in the deep places beneath the earth where starlight never reached.
Even in the demon-haunted wilds where monsters ran free.
Even in Kamran, the land of the Abyss where stars themselves fell.
Because it had never lost its radiance anywhere, it had been the symbol of heroes, the lamp that lit humanity's road ahead… and a single sword that stood as the emblem of victory itself.
Thunk.
The moment Najin clenched the hand he had thrust toward the heavens, the flooding starlight condensed into one blade. A sword that burned away every scrap of surrounding darkness and shone alone. There was no way Bernhaigen could fail to recognize it.
The Sword of Stars—Excalibur.
The holy sword forgotten for centuries had been dragged back into reality by the hand of a single boy.
Bernhaigen's pupils shook.
The light of the Sword of Stars burned the darkness to ash. The barrier heaved, desperate to devour the stars rising within it, yet the radiance Excalibur created could not be veiled by anything.
It was a light even the Witch of Camlann had failed to cover.
A light even the dragons of the Abyss had failed to swallow.
There was no chance the darkness of a mere demon could smother Excalibur's light. Bernhaigen's gaze reeled madly before that scorching starlight.
Ex…calibur…?
He could not believe it even as he saw it.
Why was that holy sword in that brat's hand? Hadn't one of the three Sword Masters been the one to draw Excalibur?
A counterfeit. A fake. A false thing.
Even considering those possibilities was impossible. No holy relic consecrated by the Church could burn a demon's darkness like that. Cold sweat slid down Bernhaigen's spine. The fingers gripping his sword trembled violently.
It was a primal terror.
Not the fear Bernhaigen himself felt, but the fear felt by the demon fused with his flesh. The ancient demon Arcand knew fear. It was the dread of a natural enemy carved into the very blood of the demon race.
The Sword of Stars—Excalibur.
That holy blade split a demon's mind. It burned a demon's soul. It made possible the contradiction of killing an immortal being.
Holding that single sword that stood above every law… Arcand remembered Arthur sweeping away hundreds, thousands of demons.
Across centuries, Arthur had appeared once more in the present age. Arcand, trembling with terror, tried to flee—yet there was nowhere to run. Sealed within the relic, Arcand could escape only through its contractor, Bernhaigen.
Arcand felt fear.
An undying being, a demon, felt the terror of death.
In that impossible contradiction, Bernhaigen faced Najin. Before the brilliantly shining Sword of Stars, the pitch-black sword-aura that had wrapped Bernhaigen's blade burned away. The sense of omnipotence that had flooded his body withered with it.
Sizzle…
The darkness that had weakened Najin's body and bound his mana likewise burned to nothing in the starlight. Within that vanishing dark, Najin released a long breath. From the moment he summoned Excalibur, the holy sword's blessing had intensified.
The wounds he had taken fighting Bernhaigen began to close in an instant.
Flesh knit; new skin rose. His insides, overturned from forcing mana past every limit, were restored completely. It was a recovery that could only be called miraculous. At a blessing incomparably greater than the one he had known in the underground city, Najin inwardly marveled.
"It's because you've grown stronger than you were then."
Merlin smiled.
Since arriving in Cambria, Najin had grown. His body had matured; his soul had deepened. Excalibur itself bore witness to that growth.
"No need to drag this out."
"We don't even know how long this barrier can hold back Excalibur's light."
So, Merlin said,
"You know what I'm about to say, right?"
I know.
Najin steadied his breathing and settled into stance.
Finish it in a single blow. That's it, isn't it.
"Exactly that."
End, in one strike, a being contracted to an ancient demon—one who even wielded that demon's authority. It was a feat impossible even for a Sword Seeker. Yet Najin merely took his stance with unhurried calm.
Whoosh!
Sword-aura coiled around Excalibur.
Above the pure-white aura amplified many times over, particles of platinum gold bloomed. What took shape was platinum sword-aura—the blade-force only Arthur in all of history had ever commanded.
"You… just what are you…"
Bernhaigen stumbled backward.
Facing the terror-stricken knight, Najin exhaled. What rose in his mind now was the single strongest strike he could deliver.
Only one technique came to him.
"Bernhaigen."
Najin bent his knees and raised the sword. He spoke deliberately because he now understood the meaning of the technique he was about to unleash.
"You discarded honor. You lost pride."
The swordsmanship of Atanga.
The blade shown by Ivan, the knight who chased the stars.
"Therefore you have sullied the name of a knight."
A sword meant to punish those who had abandoned honor and pride.
Toward Bernhaigen—who stood at the absolute opposite pole from the knight Najin carried in his heart—he declared:
"I am Najin. Squire of Ivan, knight of Atanga."
He had not yet become a knight.
He did not yet possess honor.
But he had learned what pride was.
"I will cut you down."
That was reason and justification enough to swing the sword of Atanga.
The declaration that he would cut him down.
Holding the Sword of Stars, Najin took the stance of Atanga and recited its verse. It was the precept once proclaimed by Arthur, called the King of Knights—the oldest precept of all.
Cut down the demon.
Punish those who defile a knight's name.
The precept Arthur had declared was spoken again, centuries later, through the mouth of her successor. Before that declaration Bernhaigen understood: there was no escape.
Nowhere left to retreat.
In the end Bernhaigen chose. Roaring, he charged at Najin. The strengthened demon flesh was still formidable. With every step the ground shook and the darkness surged.
Boom!
Stamping the earth, Bernhaigen swung his greatsword in a horizontal arc. The technique that was his pride and symbol. The single strongest blow he could deliver. He unleashed the very sword that had once split a giant troll in one stroke.
Wind pressure rose with the swinging blade.
Darkness-wrapped steel accelerated.
Truly the mightiest strike Bernhaigen could show—a blow that contained everything he was. Najin had no thought of deflecting it, of dodging it, or even of catching it midway.
He would break everything from the front.
Because that was the sword of Atanga, and the sword of Ivan.
The instant Bernhaigen's greatsword reached its peak velocity, Najin's blade moved. Bernhaigen could not comprehend the motion. Dragging starlight with it, Najin's sword advanced.
Slash.
What rang out was a quiet cutting sound.
The greatsword Bernhaigen had swung parted with a soft seogeok. Najin split a blade at maximum speed as if it were nothing. And he did not stop. His sword drove into Bernhaigen's side.
The Star Sword cleaved the darkness.
The Holy Sword cut the demon.
The blade that entered Bernhaigen's left flank rose again, shearing through his right shoulder. There was not the slightest catch in the stroke. Before Excalibur, the resistance of demon flesh was simply meaningless.
Smashing the opponent's technique head-on and overwhelming him—perfect Atanga swordsmanship. Najin bisected the demon in a single blow.
Starlight surged along the path Excalibur had carved. The rising light burned the demon's soul and spirit, annihilating its existence. The ancient demon Arcand that had nested inside Bernhaigen's body crumbled into a handful of ash.
Thud.
Bernhaigen's upper body tilted along the cut. He met death without even a scream. The corpse struck the ground with a heavy sound. Beyond it, Najin saw what remained.
A long sword-scar carved into the earth.
As though cutting the greatsword and cutting Bernhaigen himself had not been enough, the blade Najin swung had left a deep, continuous mark across the ground.
Gazing at that scar, Najin sheathed his sword.
With the death of the man who had wielded the authority, the barrier began to thin and the darkness to recede. Feeling a faint regret, Najin stored Excalibur. The sword dissolved into starlight and was drawn back into the constellation engraved on his wrist.
"Huu…"
Just as Najin was steadying his breath and settling the afterglow of battle—
"Enter…! Enter now!"
A clamor of voices rose from outside the barrier. The barrier that had been fading with Bernhaigen's death shattered outward with a sharp crack. Someone stepped through the breaking wall into the interior.
Knights in armor, formed into ranks.
Emblazoned on that armor was the crest of Atanga. To save the brave youth who had been dueling the demon knight, they had charged bare into the demon's barrier.
"Protect the youth! Form ranks and press Bernhaigen…?"
The words of Argo, the Atanga knight at the head of the column, died unfinished. He had found the corpse of Bernhaigen split cleanly in two—and Najin standing unharmed beside it.
Rustle.
A moment later the barrier collapsed completely and sunlight poured down. Under the bright, clear light of the sun, an awkward silence settled over them all.