Chapter 10
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: Unstable Holy Sword
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Dragons were sometimes depicted as equals to gods, but naturally, being living creatures as well...
No myth could deny that they bled, breathed, were born, and died.
Thus, dragon society was no flawless collective either.
A world where power determined rank.
Within them existed hierarchies far clearer and more brutal than in human society.
At the very bottom were the entities commonly called Earth Dragons.
They had wings but fell short of being rulers of the skies.
According to texts, they could destroy a village but were insufficient to shake a nation's fate. Skilled knight orders or mage groups could even subjugate them.
Above them ruled the True Dragons.
At this level, they were no longer mere disasters but treated as "wars."
Power to incinerate a fortress and lay entire territories to waste.
Ordinary armies stood no chance against them. Only by summoning heroes on a kingdom-wide scale could one barely confront them.
And then the Great Dragons.
From these onward, the name "dragon" itself became synonymous with terror and myth.
Challenging them was reckless unless one was what the world called a Swordmaster—or an equivalent Grand Mage.
Just the news of one appearing would seal borders and rob kings of sleep.
But above all those classifications existed beings passed down only in history and legend.
The first dragons, said to have been born since ancient times.
Known as Ancient Dragons.
Among them, the one bearing white scales was particularly special.
Not merely the apex entity, but the God of Dragons.
Depicted as equals to the gods of the heavens, even human kings and heroes—not to mention other dragons—bowed their heads in awe and fear, or so the tales go.
Before it, humans and dragons alike were mere living beings.
"Yet that white Ancient Dragon came out to greet us personally...?"
When my explanation ended, Miya had already crouched even lower.
Her back hunched deeply, fingers extended sharply like a cat's.
She looked ready to pounce at any moment, but I could feel her thin shoulders trembling faintly even from behind.
Cold sweat trickled down one bead at a time between her collar.
Well, it couldn't be helped.
What stood before us now wasn't just a "top predator."
Not some beast at the pinnacle of the food chain, but the one commanding such predators.
It wasn't something we could dismiss as a mere winged reptile.
Indeed, the white Ancient Dragon's gaze looking down at us resembled emotionless glass orbs.
It wasn't even staring straight at us, yet those pupils alone felt like invisible hands gripping our lungs.
Breath crushed.
Lungs moving only halfway.
I wanted to flee this spot right now.
Screw the Ice Boundary or the dragon's lair—I just wanted to turn around and dash into the blizzard.
This place was too terrifying.
I hated it.
Yes, even if it meant ending my own life.
I couldn't bear standing here any longer.
"Gasp, gasp...!"
"Hoo... ha... ha..."
My hands moved on their own.
Both Miya's and mine.
Without even glancing at each other, both pairs of hands slowly—but surely—rose to our necks.
Fingertips brushing napes, wrapping around throats, slowly beginning to tighten—that instant.
"Both of you, it's okay."
A short phrase sliced through that momentum.
"...!"
"Ah, Lady..."
"I'll protect you."
The moment those words fell, the pressure crushing us seemed to peel away a layer.
Not so much the overwhelming weight filling the air being lifted at once, but closer to someone else shouldering it and taking a step forward.
When I came to my senses, she stood right before our eyes.
Lady Elysia.
The saga of a hero passed down from the ancient German lands of old Earth—standing in direct opposition to that white Ancient Dragon.
The Song of the Nibelungs.
The holy sword Balmung, gripped by Siegfried—the man who slew the black Ancient Dragon Fafnir in that myth.
Lady Elysia, clutching that sword, silently took one step forward.
Positioned between us and the white Ancient Dragon, her silhouette truly resembled a massive "shield."
I could breathe again.
Hands loosened from throats; clenched teeth relaxed.
Moments ago, I'd thought fleeing was the only path to survival, but now simply standing behind her back made me feel like "I can live."
"Hooh..."
Meanwhile, at that sight, the white Ancient Dragon uttered its first note of admiration.
A very faint smile ghosted across its coldly rigid face.
"I intended to use the Ancient Dragon's presence as an example, pressing those lowly souls until they fled of their own accord..."
Its gaze shifted to Lady Elysia.
"So you're the bloodline of the hero who slew two Great Dragons. Indeed, you seem qualified to inherit the name."
Those words rang as praise, but they were ultimately a lofty judgment from on high.
Lady Elysia didn't retreat.
She held Balmung's blade upright and replied calmly.
"Regrettable. I have no hobby of conversing with enemies. Moreover..."
Her gaze briefly swept toward us.
"There's no reason not to demand payment for laying hands on my people first, while leaving me as the opponent."
That was the moment.
The white Ancient Dragon's smile froze solid.
And when I blinked once.
Clang!!
The clash of metal tore through the Ice Boundary.
Everything after transcended ordinary human perception.
"...What is this?"
An instinctive mutter slipped from Miya's lips.
"I can't see it..."
"Me neither."
It wasn't visible.
No, there was no way it could be.
Even when those blue and red dragons fell last time, those present had said at least the trajectories were visible.
But now was different.
Air tearing, ice pillar surfaces cracking in an instant, metallic echoes ringing a beat late—that was all.
In the gaps, Lady Elysia's slashes poured forth, unregistered even by our eyes.
Yet the white Ancient Dragon remained rooted in place.
It raised one hand, intercepting each invisible blade one by one.
Not blocking them all.
Letting harmless strikes glance off, dodging needless ones, clashing fist to Balmung's edge only as needed—like sifting through them.
As if not engaged in battle, but "verification."
Watching that, I realized.
That white Ancient Dragon wasn't simply a powerful dragon—it was truly worthy of the title God of Dragons.
That was when.
"Bal—mung!!"
With Lady Elysia's cry, the mana condensed along Balmung's silver blade converged to a single point.
The next instant.
A slash erupted from the blade, sweeping forward like a tempest.
The forest of ice pillars cleaved apart like paper.
The silence blanketing the Ice Boundary shredded as a deafening roar echoed across the entire mountain range.
The ground upheaved; ice crystals shattered into the air.
"A-Amazing...!"
Miya gulped.
"Lady... she's fighting head-on, evenly matched with a legendary Ancient Dragon!"
The white Ancient Dragon's form vanished completely into the massive slash.
Amid the quaking earth, Miya's eyes sparkled as admiration spilled unwittingly from her lips.
But.
Watching the scene, I couldn't close my mouth.
The hands that forged Balmung.
The position knowing better than anyone the myth that sword was designed to recreate.
So though I truly didn't want to, I gritted my teeth and spoke.
"...Not equals."
"Huh?"
"Not even."
I shook my head.
"That white winged reptile? Hasn't budged a single step from its starting spot the whole time."
"!!"
No sooner had I finished than the aftermath beyond the slash came into view.
The path of Lady Elysia's attack was utterly transformed.
Ice pillars pulverized or vaporized entirely; the ground gouged as if raked by waves.
Yet the white Ancient Dragon still stood there.
Arms lightly raised to shield its face.
Only the ground beneath it remained pristine, untouched as if nothing had occurred.
"..."
Silence flowed.
Breaking it, the white Ancient Dragon slowly spoke.
"Indeed."
Its gaze settled on Lady Elysia.
"Worthy of the Valenhardt bloodline that, precisely 4,000 years ago, entered our dragons' domain and waged war staking human realms."
It lowered its hand, brushing lightly torn hems.
The fabric reverted to perfect form in an instant, as if an extension of its skin.
The moment we witnessed that—all three of us, Lady Elysia included—froze solid.
We instinctively grasped that her strike hadn't merely "failed"—it had only been permitted from the start under the opponent's allowance.
And that wasn't all.
Crunch.
"...Huh?"
A sound like metal grinding—as if it shouldn't exist at all.
Crack!
What Lady Elysia gripped was unmistakably the holy sword Balmung.
The legendary blade from the Song of the Nibelungs, passed down as the one that felled the black Ancient Dragon Fafnir.
But.
"Balmung...?"
Fine cracks spiderwebbed across the blade's surface.
I gritted my teeth.
Siegfried was no mere sword-swinging hero.
After slaying the black dragon Fafnir, he bathed his body in its blood.
Dragon Blood Bath.
A human who donned dragon blood to elevate his flesh into mythical domains.
His entire body a weapon—one no blade could scar.
A great hero nearly invincible, save for a single linden leaf stuck to his back.
Thus, for Siegfried, Balmung wasn't a "powerful weapon," but a tool that completed the myth alongside his body.
But Lady Elysia was different.
She neither tempered her body in dragon blood nor paid the myth's full toll.
The result? The weapon itself seemed to deem its wielder unfit and buckled.
She simply hadn't yet fully shouldered the power that man Siegfried had borne.