Chapter 10
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: The Man Who Overpowered the Ban Pellion Bloodline
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Carnokt Ban Pellion.
If Airen was Ision's old grudge from his training camp days, then Carnokt was Ban Pellion's grudge.
Carnokt despised Ser Noxia and tormented her in every way he could.
Naturally, that meant he clashed often with her Exclusive Knight, Ision.
Each time, Ision met Carnokt's aggression with full force in return, but even a rotten fish is still mackerel.
True to the Ban Pellion bloodline, beating Carnokt was never easy.
Back then, with just adult awareness and a bit of romance-fantasy knowledge, the gap had been impossible to bridge.
'Still, it helped me get close to the Lady.'
No matter what, Carnokt was one of Ban Pellion's own.
He wasn't someone worth drawing a sword over just because the Lady had been insulted.
But Ision always picked up whatever was at hand.
Partly because he couldn't stand the sight of Carnokt, and partly because back then, he saw him as one of the causes of Ser Noxia's downfall into darkness.
At the very least, he'd once tried to prevent Ser Noxia's corruption.
If his liege lady turned into the villainess, Ision's own ending was sealed too.
He'd fought desperately for his life.
It had all been for nothing in the end, but what could he do?
At least thanks to it, he'd made the Lady recognize him as the man who drew his sword for her sake.
And today.
He faced off against Carnokt, whom he'd clashed with countless times across all his playthroughs.
In Carnokt's hand gleamed a real sword with an extended reach.
Not a training blade, but the real thing.
Ban Pellion's sparring sessions used live steel for everyone over ten.
Sparring with practice swords alone offered no real benefit on the battlefield.
They wielded live blades in training to grow accustomed to life-or-death stakes.
It was teaching as quintessentially Ban Pellion as it got.
"What? Never held a real sword before?"
As Ision inspected the live blade he'd been issued, Carnokt's mocking voice rang out.
And just as he said, Ision had only used practice swords back at the training camp.
But there was a flaw in that logic.
Ision had rolled through countless battlefields at the Lady's side.
For him, live steel felt far more natural in his hand than the practice swords he'd swung for a mere two years.
"I needed a warm-up before facing the Lady anyway."
Ision swung his sword lightly and flashed a faint smile.
"Thank you, Young Master Carnokt."
A blatant provocation.
Needling an eleven-year-old brat wasn't hard.
Sure enough, Carnokt's face twisted instantly.
"Let's see how long you can keep yapping."
Sparring at Ban Pellion had no formal start.
The moment both drew steel, it began.
Before long, onlookers began to gather one by one.
Young swordsmen who had joined Ban Pellion early on.
They were the house's future strength, forged in its brutal training.
A new peer had arrived.
For kids, it was natural spectacle.
As Ision scanned the growing crowd, Carnokt suddenly closed the distance.
The blade of his long-reach sword thrust out from afar, as befitted its design.
Out of habit, Ision pulled his foot back and twisted his body slightly.
The sword grazed past his side.
Carnokt didn't stop there.
A seamless follow-up barrage.
One strike bit into the tail of the next, blades lashing out relentlessly.
Dodging for Ision was something he could do with his eyes closed.
The onlookers found it amusing to watch him evade Carnokt's sword like some circus act.
But Ision knew better.
Carnokt wasn't the type to crumble under something like this.
He was a boy who had gripped a sword and swung it amid Ban Pellion's hellish regime since he could walk.
At this age, Carnokt was already among the top among his peers.
Before long, he began subtly adjusting his sword paths to block Ision's evasions.
Carnokt's trajectories grew narrower by the second.
Ision's dodges started facing restrictions as a result.
Swords now arrived where he meant to evade, compressing his movements.
His speech might be arrogant and his demeanor haughty, but he was Ban Pellion blood through and through.
When he wielded a blade, Carnokt became a beast that tore into his foes.
Kaang!
Sure enough, Carnokt's sword finally caught up to Ision's evasion.
Their blades clashed, unleashing a thunderous ring.
Carnokt's lips curled up.
"Must've taken first at the training camp with moves like that. Won't work here."
"Young Master, you even knew I took first at camp? You've been paying a lot of attention to me. It'd be troubling if you like me that much."
"You—!"
Unfortunately, Carnokt's snide remark landed no blow.
"Oh, no, you meant you're interested in the Lady? Young Master Carnokt's such a doting little brother."
The rude eleven-year-old ended up getting burned instead.
Carnokt's face flushed beet red in an instant.
"Keep talking!"
It might seem petty picking on a kid, but he'd suffered plenty before.
If he'd tormented the Lady, then child or adult, he needed a proper thrashing either way.
Kaang!
Carnokt's sword lunged in a flash, striking Ision's blade.
Black aura bloomed from his hand.
A color befitting the Ban Pellion bloodline.
Moreover, manifesting aura's color marked the 3rd Circle Manifestation stage.
The benchmark of a strong fighter who could crush the weak through sheer presence alone.
"Soon as I shove this sword down your mouth."
Learning to spout threats like a kid that age.
His upbringing was clearly off.
So to correct it, Ision summoned his own aura.
Dull gray aura.
1st Circle Resonance.
2nd Circle Circulation.
Skipping those two to reach 3rd Circle Manifestation.
The stage where aura visibly manifested externally.
Two years.
A realm he'd reached through relentless honing during that time.
Admiration rippled through the onlookers.
At the same time, Carnokt's eyebrows twitched.
The Ision before him was just ten.
Even in Ban Pellion, achieving 3rd Circle Manifestation under ten was pure talent territory.
Carnokt himself had only just manifested aura at eleven.
The world might applaud it as blessed genius.
But in Ban Pellion, it was treated as a lack of talent.
His sister Ser Noxia, by contrast, had reached it at eight.
The day Ser Noxia hit 3rd Circle.
That was the moment the rift between Carnokt and her became irreparable.
It proved an unbridgeable gap in talent between them.
And now.
Someone had beaten him to 3rd Circle right in front of him.
Ision Calrad, who would become Ser Noxia's Exclusive Knight.
For a mere Exclusive Knight to surpass his own talent.
Carnokt could never accept that.
Tak!
Fury drove Carnokt to strike first.
A textbook overhead slash.
The most basic downward chop, loaded with power.
But basics changed when infused with aura.
The black aura held enough might to cleave through mere steel effortlessly.
Yet this time, Ision didn't dodge.
Kaang!
Aura flames erupted and scattered in all directions.
A head-on clash of auras.
Successive gasps of awe echoed from the crowd.
By not retreating, Ision had matched Carnokt's aura.
Naturally, it scraped at Carnokt's pride even more.
Carnokt said nothing, lips unmoving.
Instead, he poured his wounded pride into his sword.
The force behind his strikes grew heavier by the moment.
Ision's blade moved in tandem with Carnokt's.
At a glance, it looked like Ision was handling Carnokt's sword well.
But as time wore on, Carnokt's swordsmanship grew more cunning and refined.
Above his right hand's back.
A slender, oval eye-like stigma gleamed.
The stigma's lines darkened to red, creating an illusion of blood flowing backward.
Stigma: Blood Mark Insight.
Not merely observing the foe's movements, sword paths, breaths, or rhythms in combat.
It remembered them through the senses flowing via blood vessels.
The longer the fight dragged on, the better it dismantled the opponent's swordsmanship—a superb support ability.
Red lines writhed like palm creases, flowing toward the hilt.
As if defying gravity, they seeped from his skin onto the sword grip.
Just before Ision's sword moved, the air split first.
Carnokt's every sense captured Ision's motion.
The path wasn't drawn yet, but he already pierced where it would lead next.
Carnokt's hand moved on instinct.
Minimal trajectory, minimal force.
Distributing them optimally, he cornered Ision with perfect sword paths.
Meanwhile, Ision's stigma showed no sign of stirring.
Victory gleamed in Carnokt's eyes.
At this point, he'd realized Ision's stigma had nothing to do with combat.
Stigmas were talent incarnate too.
Ision lacked it; he, as Ban Pellion blood, possessed it.
Victory naturally tilted toward Carnokt.
Kaaaaang!
Until the moment his sword, clashing with Ision's, was blasted wide open.
Eh?
For a split second, Carnokt's face betrayed confusion at the situation.
Why had the arm wielding his "optimal" path veered off?
The answer lay in Ision's sword.
Gray flash infused in the blade.
Beyond it, swollen muscles loomed.
Veins bulging to the brink, the muscles broadcast their pent-up power.
Endless training pushed his body to the verge of ruin, then elixirs rebuilt it.
This simple cycle tempered his flesh like steel in a forge, yielding a body as unbreakable as iron.
Ision's physique had always boasted exceptional durability.
Now, fused with absurd training, it had reached completion.
A realm no mere brute strength could rival.
A human weapon, through and through.
How was that a ten-year-old's body?
Not even Ban Pellion knights trained lifelong matched it.
But this wasn't the time to gawk.
Carnokt hastily recovered his sword.
Leaning on his stigma again, he traced the optimal route.
Ision had already assumed his next stance.
A sword poised to impale Carnokt soared upward.
Carnokt's eyes shook wildly.
None of the optimal routes his stigma foresaw could block Ision's blade.
What did that mean?
Carnokt couldn't beat Ision.
The verdict from his own stigma.
All his paths crumbled before that judgment.
Kwaang!
Overwhelming impact shattered Carnokt's sword.
Shards scattered, embedding in the ground.
The ensuing blast of wind sent him flying like he'd been struck by a metal ingot—airborne across the training grounds before crashing to earth.
He rolled for a good while after hitting the ground before finally stopping.
By then, Carnokt lay unconscious, eyes rolled back, with a missing tooth.
"Relying solely on your stigma is why you end up like this. Even if it predicts failure, you have to push to the end to find a way."
Ision offered light advice, but Carnokt couldn't hear it.
The onlookers held their breath.
If it had been some Ban Pellion knight who'd lost, no one would care much.
But the loser was Carnokt of the Ban Pellion bloodline.
He might never inherit the ducal house, but blood was blood.
And that bloodline had been crushed by the new Exclusive Knight arrival.
One a year younger, no less.
Everyone knew what that implied.
"...Some fearless lunatic just joined us."
"Heh, wonder how he'll survive from now on."
"Could've just held back a bit."
The onlookers murmured one by one.
Ban Pellion was all about strength above all.
It applied even to its own bloodline, but there were still lines.
Not an honorable defeat, but a crushing, pathetic loss.
Naturally, word would spread through Ban Pellion.
Drawing this much attention guaranteed a rough road ahead here.
As everyone watched with pitying eyes.
Clack—
The click of heeled shoes echoed.
Heads turned toward the sound, and all flinched, bowing deeply.
A woman was approaching.
Snow-white hair framing stunning beauty.
A woman so youthful and lovely, you'd never guess she'd borne a child.
The Lady of Ban Pellion.
Sisril Ban Pellion.
She had appeared in the training grounds out of nowhere.