Chapter 24
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: The Sword that Cuts Demons (2)
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Pure strength or skill alone couldn’t defeat a mid-level demon.
That’s why I’d been biding my time, curling up and waiting for the right moment. Until the instant when I could take it on.
‘Divine Blood is lethal poison to them.’
The ability of Divine Blood, confirmed through the settings, wasn’t just limited to immunity to diseases or poisons.
If the opponent belonged to the demonic realm, it wielded the power to annihilate that existence entirely.
On top of that, I’d mastered Blood Magic and knew something crucial.
When the demon released the magic on the blood sword in its hand, the blood would be reabsorbed back into its body.
That meant the blood from my wound on the sword would flow straight into it.
And the blood that had splattered from my torn flesh was already soaking its body.
“Gah! Grgh! D-Damn it! Why won’t my mana move properly?!”
It screamed like it was in agony and thrust out its arm.
The mana gathering in its hand scattered away, turning the motion into nothing more than a futile flail.
I seized the opening that created and drove my fist right into it.
BOOM!
“Guh!”
A sound like a hammer smashing rang out, snapping Veil’s head back.
Staggering, it stared at me with eyes full of disbelief.
“That ring... what the hell is it...? And that fist... what...?”
Panting heavily, it glared at the Eye of Simosa on my finger.
Every time my ringed fist smashed into it, its skin melted away, and its armor crumpled.
But my punches weren’t just ordinary blows.
「Holy Heaven Martial Extreme」
Gransesia’s sacred ultimate technique and foundational fist art.
That’s what I was using right now.
[It’s still just barely taking a single step forward, but still.]
Gransesia spoke in a voice brimming with pride.
[Even that’s more than enough to crush a mid-level demon like this.]
Her arrogant tone was on point this time—I had to admit it.
Holy Heaven Martial Extreme stood above any technique I’d ever learned.
There hadn’t been enough time to achieve full plausibility, and the difficulty was sky-high, so all I’d managed was toddler steps.
Even so, its power was beyond imagination.
BAM! BOOM!
Pummeling its face, abdomen, and chest with my fists sent its body shaking wildly.
Poisoned by Divine Blood and relentlessly hammered in the head, Veil couldn’t properly respond to my attacks.
A single step—that was all it took. The flow of mana and power starting from there unleashed unbelievable force by the time it reached my fist.
“Me... lose? Me, Veil Gaber?”
Veil staggered as it muttered to itself.
It couldn’t comprehend the situation at all, half out of its mind.
“To a mere human? And a trash one who can’t even handle mana properly?”
Its once-pristine clothes were rags, its face and body melted into a grotesque mess.
Yet Veil still hadn’t died. Even poisoned by Divine Blood and battered by fists infused with Holy Heaven Martial Extreme’s principles, it clung to life.
A mid-level demon—and a vampire at that—had monstrous vitality.
“Quit screwing around.”
Crunch!
As it fell from my punch, it rolled across the ground to dodge the follow-up.
I chased after it quickly, but it grabbed a handful of dirt while tumbling and flung it at my eyes.
“Ugh!”
I hadn’t expected a demon to resort to something so dirty, so I faltered.
When I opened my eyes again, I realized where it had rolled to and cursed under my breath.
It was heading for the knight’s corpse—the one it had killed earlier.
“Damn it!”
I rushed over and kicked it hard, sending its body, half-buried in the corpse, flying off twisted.
“Cr, heh, cough!”
Rolling several meters, blood dripped from its mouth.
The telltale sign of it sucking blood from the dead knight’s body.
“Still... not enough...”
I could see some of its melted skin regenerating.
It had regained enough mana to move again, and Veil slipped away through the shadows in an instant.
[That thing’s running? Where’s it going?]
‘It’s not running.’
It had just retreated for now.
It must have realized charging in recklessly offered no chance of victory.
[Wait, then... don’t tell me that thing’s after...]
‘Yeah. It’s trying to recover.’
Veil was heading straight for the battlefield right in front of us.
If it reached that corpse-strewn hell, it would heal up in no time.
I couldn’t let all my setup go to waste like that.
“Gelvin! I’ll chase it—you get the prince and pull back!”
Chasing the demon was vital, but so was dragging the barely secured prince back to our lines.
“Fortune favor you.”
Understanding that, Gelvin nodded with resolute eyes.
‘Who’d have thought a mid-level demon would tuck tail and flee.’
I hurried after it, but keeping up with Veil riding the shadows was impossible.
I’d lost too much blood—my head spun, vision blurring.
‘Damn, if only I had a skill like that...’
[Can’t you use that Meteor Step to catch it?]
‘What? Meteor Step might close the gap, but then how do I fight it afterward?’
Silver Star Sword’s latter half, third form: Meteor.
That leaping thrust that closed distance in a flash could indeed catch up.
But to cover this range, I’d need full power—no holding back.
By then, I’d be exhausted. Closing in wouldn’t help if I couldn’t finish it off afterward. It’d just make things worse.
[What are you talking about? Just adapt the leap part. Now I get why you haven’t used it till now.]
Just adapt the leap?
I rifled through Silver Star Sword’s settings in my mind, but nothing like that was there.
[Don’t get bogged down in the settings.]
Reading my thoughts, Gransesia spoke up.
[The settings do give you more knowledge than most. But in the end, it’s just one person’s definitions, right?]
That’s when it clicked what she meant.
‘I’ve been too obsessed with the settings.’
Sure, the setting ability revealed everything my father had defined for the work.
But that only covered what was ‘set’—not that it was ‘everything.’
Settings could be changed.
I’d already tried it multiple times and succeeded.
Like turning a villain into an extra—refining Silver Star Sword’s settings was totally doable too.
I lined up everything I’d learned so far in my head.
The footwork from the Banheart family’s Path Repair Inscribed Sword, the footwork from Silver Star Sword’s first half, and the footwork used when executing Meteor from the latter half.
Finally, the single step from Holy Heaven Martial Extreme.
The key was thinking beyond their fixed settings, breaking free of the frames.
‘I can probably make something work... the problem is...’
Mixing those elements, I could craft the technique I wanted.
The issue was whether I had the skill to pull it off.
Then Gransesia whispered softly.
[Focus.]
In that instant, the world turned monochrome, and flows began to appear.
The Eye of Simosa’s ability, Insight Eye, had activated.
I slowly moved my mana along the visible flows.
Mana stirred from my toes, circulating through my body and spreading out.
‘...Is this what handling mana really feels like?’
After becoming a Sword User, I thought I could wield mana.
Big mistake.
I hadn’t been handling it. I’d just been able to use it.
Only now did I grasp what true mana control meant.
‘Now... I can...!’
Kicking off the ground, my form sliced through the air at high speed.
The instantaneous burst didn’t match Meteor, but I’d overcome its sustainability limit with my own footwork.
[Not bad for a first try. Got a name for it?]
‘A name?’
Insight Eye showed the mana flowing inside me.
Paths appeared, and the unstable flows within me stabilized rapidly.
Mana intake from breathing increased, expanding the vessel inside me.
That’s when I realized it.
‘Meteor Step.’
I’d just broken through the wall I thought was coming soon.
“W-What’s that?!”
“Save me!”
Landscapes blurred by in seconds as I reached the clash of the two armies’ main forces.
Amid the clashing weapons, something alien caught my eye.
Veil rode shadows ceaselessly, ambushing soldiers left and right.
The battlefield plunged into chaos at the mid-level demon’s overwhelming rampage.
“Knights, protect the soldiers and fall back as far as possible! I’ll handle it!”
Tedric was stepping up to contain Veil’s movements, minimizing the damage.
But as Veil kept sucking blood to heal, holding it off was growing impossible.
“Kuhahaha! I’ll kill you all and make you my nourishment!”
The skin melted by the Eye of Simosa, the battered body—all regenerating.
Divine Blood’s effects lingered somewhat, but how long they’d last was uncertain.
Scanning for new prey, it spotted me and scowled.
“Tch! You got here faster than I thought. But soon... Once my mana flows right, I’ll crush you!”
Even partially healed, it seemed wary of facing me, vanishing into the shadows again.
‘Where’d it go?’
Taking a deep breath, I grabbed a sword lying on the ground.
‘Which flow is its?’
The battlefield teemed with web-like flows.
One stood out as alien amid the tangle, but spotting it was tough.
‘Focus.’
Isolate the single disturber amid the chaos.
I erased the flows from countless humans on the field one by one.
Repeating the process endlessly, soon only one shone clear.
A dark crimson glow.
Using Meteor Step, I pursued that light.
“Damn!”
Veil emerged to strike a soldier and tried diving back into the shadows.
Any more time, and it’d fully recover.
I had to end it here.
Gripping the sword reverse, I pointed the blade behind me.
‘Silver Star Sword latter half, first form: New Star.’
Mana swirling around my body converged on the blade, then exploded outward.
RUMBLE!
Using the sudden mana burst as propulsion, my body shot forward through the air.
“—Tough bastard!”
Realizing it couldn’t dodge, Veil thrust its hand forward.
Blood erupted from nearby corpses, coalescing on its arm.
Its mana had recovered enough for Blood Magic.
Shaky and ill-formed, but plenty to slaughter humans.
“I’ll rip you apart!”
Veil swung its massive blood-formed right arm with all its might at me charging head-on.
[Clay!]
Gransesia’s cry sounded like a scream.
The moment of truth.
But my mind was calmer than ever.
In the monochrome world, I saw its shaky flow and tightened my grip on the sword.
Shiiiing!
In that instant, the blade glowed red and sharpened.
Blood Magic ‘Blood Sword.’
I’d acquired it via demon Kario’s settings, but my mana pool made it hard to use.
Now as a Sword Expert, though.
‘And if it’s just coating the blade in blood...!’
Not forging a full sword—just painting blood over an existing one like varnish—my current self could manage.
“How do you have Blood Magic?!”
Veil’s shocked shout rang out.
I answered with a swift swing.
The crimson blade coated in Divine Blood.
SCREEECH!
It cleaved through the giant blood hand like tofu, advancing.
Slicing the blood-armored hand, then forearm and wrist in half, it reached Veil in one breath.
Veil’s wide eyes reflected only the crimson blade.
“No—!”
Slash!
With a brief death rattle, Veil’s head flew into the sky.
At the same time, the noisy battlefield fell utterly silent.