Chapter 87
Chapter 87
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: Ilryun Jicheon Sword (2)
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Yusik.
The ability to control emotions and sensations.
The perception to see, feel, derive correct information, and make judgments fitting the situation.
And the Five Skandhas.
Perfectly controlling the body, refining the vessel of humanity to its utmost.
Master both, and one could clearly claim to have reached the limits of humanity.
Damian had undoubtedly attained the realm of the Five Skandhas.
He had reached the supreme domain called "Grand Sword Master," becoming a powerhouse with no equals.
Yet.
It didn't work at all on the opponent before him.
"Huff, huff!"
He spat out ragged breaths and fell to his knees. His body, pushed to its limits, could barely stand.
Damian charged at Gransesia several more times.
He poured everything into it, unleashing the ultimate techniques and strikes of the Moon-Cleaving Divine Sword that he had honed over long years.
"Disappointing."
But all that returned was Gransesia's cold gaze.
"Damian, is that all there is to the Moon-Cleaving Divine Sword you sought to perfect?"
She spoke in a dry tone toward the swordsman who had reached such heights.
No emotion filled her eyes.
They held the look of someone seeing a roadside pebble, as if asking if this was truly everything.
Damian could not reply.
Not to boast, but no one who had seen the Moon-Cleaving Divine Sword had ever said such a thing.
They praised it as magnificent swordsmanship, some even calling it the pinnacle of the art.
Each time, Damian had thought.
'This isn't it.'
Gransesia was the first to point it out.
She was angry now.
Her ferocious aura, prickling the skin, proved it.
'But even so, how can I change now...?'
He had already lived for centuries.
Though his body had died, his mind remained sharp, allowing him to temper his sword over endless years.
He didn't believe anything could change now.
Gransesia was as strong as in his memories.
She loomed so impossibly high that even looking up at her was exhausting.
Why was that?
He was no longer the young Damian of the past.
"Sir Damian."
Someone called out to him.
He knew it was Clay without turning.
"Gransesia said you're suppressing yourself right now."
"......!"
"She said that even though you could go further, you're rationalizing it and spinning in place."
That was exactly why Gransesia was angry at Damian now.
Clay could tell.
To Gransesia, Damian was a profoundly special existence.
A bond from the past, the one and only person who swung his sword to catch up to her.
If such a Damian had stalled and gone astray—and if she was the cause—how could she not be furious?
"Sir Damian."
Clay called his name again.
"Why did you pick up the sword?"
Damian had no answer to that question.
For a moment, no thoughts came.
'Why did I take up the sword?'
At first, he hated holding it.
What meaning was there in a sharp, heavy lump of metal?
Everyone praised his talent for the sword, but Damian wasn't pleased.
Swordsmanship was ultimately a skill for harming others.
Having great talent in such a thing brought little joy.
'When was it?'
When did that perception change?
It must have been when he met that one woman.
"......Clay."
"Yes."
Damian slowly rose, gripping his sword tightly.
"It seems I taught you the wrong swordsmanship."
He had forgotten.
Something so important.
Moon-Cleaving Divine Sword?
Ridiculous. He had never cared about the "moon" in the first place.
His swordsmanship wasn't made to cut the moon.
"I wanted to cut the sun."
It was long ago.
Monsters invaded a peaceful village.
It happened often. Due to climate shifts or other reasons, monsters migrated in masses and overran nearby villages.
People screamed and fled, but it was too late. No human could outrun the beasts closing in.
In that moment, Damian felt nothing. He learned that when humans despaired, they gave up everything.
It was over. He truly thought so.
If a certain priestess hadn't visited the village that day, it really would have been.
"It happened in an instant. Those countless monsters fell as if struck by disaster."
A woman walked calmly through, annihilating hordes of monsters.
Those who saw her knelt naturally, without command.
She was the sun.
A sun so hot and radiant no one could approach.
"Foolishly, I reached out toward her."
Even those who called him a genius tried to stop him.
She's no human. She's beyond what humans can covet, they said.
No one dared approach her side.
'I want to go.'
Yes, that must have been his heart.
The first time he gripped a sword himself, Damian thought that.
'I want to be like her.'
He wanted to become the sun himself.
No—he wanted to be the swordsman who could cut even that sun.
That was when he first harbored such feelings.
"Yes, she's right. I've been rationalizing myself."
But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't reach her. No fight satisfied him; he couldn't step into realms beyond.
She was too high, too dazzling, and at some point, he gave up looking up.
The sun vanished, and he began gazing at the moon.
'Isn't this bright enough?'
So he thought.
He buried everything in memory.
Over centuries.
"I'm worse than Rugal, who never gave up until the end."
Damian looked at Gransesia standing before him.
She gazed back silently.
"Clay."
"Yes."
Damian gave a faint smile toward the quietly responding Clay.
Then he slowly removed his helmet, long white hair cascading down.
The heavy armor he wore crumbled and fell to the ground.
There was no need for armor in a dream. It all symbolized his heart.
It was merely a disguise of memory hiding himself.
"I don't know if I can do well, but..."
He flexed his hand, gauging his body's state.
His flesh hadn't rotted; it was in its prime.
"From now on."
He gripped the sword with excessive force, like the first time he held one long ago.
"I'll try to cut the sun."
Pure white radiance flowed from Damian's sword.
It was the signature white sword aura of the Moon-Cleaving Divine Sword, but different from usual.
If before it was akin to chill, now it was flame.
White flames oxidized his mana, scorching a white world from the blade.
Shedding all delusions, Damian felt his vision change.
Boom!
An explosion rang out as Damian's form shot toward Gransesia.
The white sword aura burned the ground in a massive arc toward her.
"Not bad."
A smile finally graced Gransesia's lips for the first time.
She raised her palm and slammed it down, extinguishing the flames in an instant as they scattered.
Damian's sword aimed vertically at her shoulder; she rotated her left hand, flicking it away with her knuckles.
The deflected sword spun in a half-circle toward her neck.
Gransesia's right fist struck the swinging blade from below upward.
Using that momentum, she half-rotated her body, her right foot kicking up at Damian's chin.
Each clash of sword, fist, and foot sent massive shockwaves ravaging the white space.
'This is...'
The world as she saw it?
Unlike the expanded vision from becoming a Sword Master or Grand Sword Master, this was far greater.
Everything in the world felt graspable in his hand.
Shrrrr!
Hundreds of white swords materialized behind Damian, raining down on Gransesia like a shower.
The moment the sword aura storm embodying sword flight reached her, white heat enveloped her body.
"Not yet, Damian."
As if reading his thoughts, Gransesia spoke.
The blinding white heat shed its hue, gradually turning blue.
"That's not all."
The atmosphere was utterly different from before.
'Is that...'
Yusik? Five Skandhas?
Recalling the realm of Holy Heaven Martial Extreme, Damian soon realized what it was.
──Muah (No-Self).
The end of Holy Heaven Martial Extreme.
Human perfection, transcending to divinity.
The ultimate technique she had never used in life.
'Can I reach that?'
Damian shook his head.
Not because he couldn't.
Gransesia had said it.
Why suppress yourself? Why rationalize and halt in place?
'I've already... long ago...'
Reached it.
He just hadn't realized.
'I'll cut.'
Forget everything else.
Discard all delusions piled over centuries, see only one thing like when he first gripped the sword.
He had gazed at it too long.
Always reaching toward it.
He wanted to cut the sun.
To bring that nobly floating sun crashing to earth.
Because it shone too brightly, burned too hotly, allowing nothing beside it—he wanted to make that sun an ordinary human.
His sword responded to his heart.
If he willed to cut, even the sun could be severed.
Kwaaaa!
Gransesia's fist clashed with Damian's sword, white fervor incinerating the ground.
And silence fell.
"......Lady Gransesia."
Damian's sword crumbled to ash, slowly scattering.
Not just his sword.
His body fragmented bit by bit.
Gransesia spoke, looking at such a Damian.
"Yes."
"Did I... cut you?"
Though everything was white space, Damian saw only darkness.
He had lost his sight.
Clay approached Damian, kneeling before Gransesia, suppressing surging emotions.
Toward the one human burning to ash.
"......You did."
Gransesia's hem was slightly cut, charred and torn raggedly.
She gazed at it with nostalgic eyes.
"Well done."
Damian lifted the corner of his mouth slightly at the answer.
His eyes saw nothing, but he knew. All he had cut was her hem.
He hadn't reached her body.
Yet there was no resentment.
His life ended, but his sword remained.
"Clay."
He quietly addressed Clay, who must be beside him now.
"......I leave it to you."
He didn't specify what.
Clay didn't ask.
He already knew everything.
"......"
Gransesia watched Damian turning to ash with sad eyes.
Only then did Clay finally understand.
Why Damian wanted to cut the sun.
'Loneliness?'
A sun so dazzling, so searingly hot, it was lonely.
He must have wanted to stand by that sun, to ease its solitude even a little.
"......Farewell."
Unlike usual, Gransesia's lonely voice carried unconcealed emptiness.
It felt like the void of a lost child alone in the world.
At that sight of her, he unwittingly took a step forward.
"Huh?"
Was it because of Damian's words?
Or because of her unusually pitiful appearance?
When he came to, he was hugging Gransesia from behind.
"Wha, wh-what......"
As the flustered Gransesia opened her mouth to say something.
The white world drew its curtain.