Chapter 507: Jealousy is My Power (7)
Chapter 507: Jealousy is My Power (7)
The exchange that unfolded in a heartbeat was incredibly swift.
The hand axe that had torn through the air was now spinning uselessly in the void. Having already pushed myself up, I immediately placed my hand on the hilt of my sword.
Even then, the Emperor remained silent. He simply stared at me with a vacant expression.
In truth, the Emperor hadn't been my target. The silver trail still lingering in my vision was proof of that.
At the very edge of that laceration in the air stood a man.
He was clad in black, a figure that evoked a sense of déjà vu by his mere presence. His cold eyes and agile movements spoke of a life lived, yet neither breath nor pulse could be felt from his body.
Whether he was alive or dead was impossible to tell. It was the unique aura of a martial artist who had undergone years of training to specialize in stealth and escort duties.
I didn't even need to trade blows to know.
The man before me was a formidable powerhouse.
The true elites of the Imperial Intelligence Agency.
The "Shadows" boasted by the Findleston family—one of the Empire's Five Great Noble Families—had revealed themselves.
Looking back, it was only natural. This was my first meeting with the Emperor, and coolly speaking, I wasn't someone he could trust unconditionally. It meant he couldn't rule out the possibility of me harboring treasonous intent.
Naturally, he would have assigned his best escorts.
Powerhouses who could guarantee the Emperor's safety for at least a few minutes, even if I were to aim for his throat.
And after those few minutes?
Such a hypothesis was meaningless.
Because the Sword Duke would return by then.
The fact that the Emperor quickly wiped the agitation from his face was likely related to this. Moreover, the fact that I hadn't yet displayed any murderous intent must have played a part.
Instead, the Emperor merely let out a sigh, as if he were worried about me.
"Sir Ian, what is the meaning of this?"
"Shall I prove myself here?"
It was a brief retort.
However, because my tone was firm and without a hint of hesitation, the Emperor's gaze sank deep once more, as if trying to gauge my sincerity.
I asked again in an even calmer voice.
"Whether I am qualified to hear the secret of the Imperial Secret Garden."
"It will be a burden too heavy for you."
"Then test me."
Immediately after, with a clear sound of friction, the pure white blade revealed itself.
It was an overt provocation.
Despite this, the man in black showed no reaction. As if his emotions had been excised, he merely glanced at the Emperor, waiting for instructions.
The Emperor's deliberation did not last long.
A small sigh escaped him, and the old man turned his back.
"…Do as you wish."
Tacit permission.
In that case, no further conversation was necessary.
In the stillness, the two swordsmen lowered their stances.
And then, a rupture.
The atmosphere shrieked belatedly. The torn air scattered haphazardly, and an explosive sound erupted.
The man's figure, kicking off the ground without a sound, was like black lightning.
In the hands of the man who rushed in an instant were two daggers. The blades were curved and winding, looking ominous even at a glance.
This was one of the reasons why the Imperial Intelligence Agency was difficult to deal with.
The Empire's intelligence agents receive special training from childhood. In the process, they learn to handle all sorts of bizarre armaments, and many choose these as their primary weapons for life.
Even with those daggers, it was hard to guess their exact purpose.
But I didn't have the luxury of idle contemplation.
Fuu. My breath shook the quiet space.
As if ripples were spreading, my vision began to be dyed in monochrome. A world where momentum was slowly being stripped away, like a machine that hadn't been properly oiled.
Just before the daggers could reach me, the man's movements stopped completely.
Even so, it was only for a fleeting moment.
Splat. Blood erupted along a silver diagonal line.
"…Hmm?"
In the flow of time that had returned to normal, the man in black wore a look of incomprehension.
My sword had already slashed across his chest and passed through.
A strike at the speed of light that even the word "lightning" failed to describe.
However, the man in black wasn't the only one who took a hit.
"Urgh…!"
I clenched my teeth, but it was hard to fully swallow the groan that rose up my throat.
Silver Aura was raging within the meridian points of my entire body. It meant I still couldn't fully control this power.
This was a technique that stopped time itself.
It wasn't the kind of Mental Imagery one could master just by glimpsing the "Boundary" once or twice. I even needed a gap of a few seconds to enter that frozen time.
If I hadn't been prepared in advance, it would have been impossible to respond to the man in black.
But it was a technique worth the cost.
Blood spilled from the man's mouth. Staggering back a couple of steps, he lost the strength in his grip, and the two curved daggers fell to the floor.
A single exchange.
That was the number of clashes it took for the elite agent of the Imperial Intelligence Agency to be brought to his knees.
Yes, the duel should have ended there.
But a sudden pain grazed my skin. Now it was my turn to wear a vacant expression.
My gaze slowly drifted toward the source of the pain.
There lay the curved daggers that had fallen to the ground. No, those winding blades had suddenly straightened out and were tearing into my skin.
Like a snake that had been coiled up.
What kind of weapon is this…?
Before my fragmented thoughts could even connect, the man who had been kneeling lunged at me as if springing forward.
It was a defenseless posture, as he couldn't even maintain his balance properly. To the point where he wouldn't be able to survive if I simply swung my sword down again.
Nevertheless, the man's charge did not stop.
It was as if the part of his brain governing survival instincts had been severed. Then again, they wouldn't have deployed an escort who would fall to a single sword strike when they knew my strength well.
That was why I needed to prove myself all the more.
Thud. With a heavy sound, the man's upper body tilted forward abruptly.
His eyes silently turned toward his back. There, the hand axe I had thrown earlier was rising into the air once again.
The Secret of Stillness in Motion.
A faint light flickered in the Emperor's eyes as he witnessed the secret technique of the Sword Circle.
However, my opponent wasn't just one person.
A faint gaze tickled my Qi sense. There were two more in total, and even their positions were uncertain.
The best I could do was make good use of this opening.
Haa. I closed my eyes and calmed my breathing once more.
And then, they came.
From the empty air, an arm reached out. It was before my Mental Imagery could fully manifest, and it didn't seem like time would stop completely before those fingertips reached me.
Even so, the movement was significantly slowed.
This was the true terror of my Mental Imagery. Even if time didn't stop, there were countless advantages I could take within the slowed flow.
For example, sinking deeper into the depths of the unconscious.
My hand moved on its own and grabbed the reaching arm. The opponent began to be dragged toward me without even being able to respond properly.
Soon, another silhouette revealed itself in the air.
I felt a faint sharpness from somewhere. It seemed the other enemy was holding a blade.
There was no need to worry.
I only sank my breath deeper.
I recalled a landscape I had seen one day.
At the summit of Mount Siendel, what did I see?
The Saint was like a great mountain. His techniques, which I didn't even dare to face, had broken me hundreds of times.
In that process, a teaching had been engraved into the depths of my unconscious.
Each movement of the Saint, as he swam through frozen time, floated through a suffocatingly heavy silence.
Just before the sword and the arm flying toward me could cross.
My body burrowed into the embrace of the man who had reached out his arm. The indifferent gaze of the man reaching for me with a sword from the ceiling swept over me.
They were the eyes of a predator, aiming for the next place to stab.
It was a futile effort.
In an instant, the world tilted.
In that inverted world, I was throwing a body toward the sky.
The Holy Kingdom Secret Martial Art: Moon Reversal.
It was the technique the Saint had personally demonstrated to me.
The core of "Moon Reversal" wasn't the throw itself.
It was to slam an indiscriminate mass into the opponent's body, as if reversing gravity.
The weight of a star.
My mastery hadn't reached that level yet. But it was enough to make the two men collide in mid-air.
Crack. A bone-chilling sound rang out.
It was the sound of bones shattering as the two men's bodies slammed into each other. They wouldn't be dead, but they wouldn't be able to move for a while.
As those two groaning bodies fell one after another, another shadow blocked my path.
He had an incredibly calm expression.
"…Stop."
It was a heavy word.
I tried to ignore him and swing my sword, but my body suddenly faltered and refused to listen.
In the end, I couldn't take another step.
The man silently crossed his arms and let out a sigh. In the gaze he directed at me as I leaned on my sword against the floor, I could feel a sense of weariness.
I realized it instinctively.
This man is the Captain of the Guard.