The Blade That Splits the Sea
With a thunderous thrashing, the tentacles came crashing down, filling the air in a dense, writhing wall. Simon swept his cloak aside, gripped the greatsword in his right hand, and swung.
Chaaaraaaaak!
The sky split open as dozens of tentacles were cleaved through in a single stroke, tumbling across the deck in bloody heaps.
"……?!"
Watching the severed limbs flop and spasm at his feet, Finch's expression froze solid.
The balance of power had shifted in an instant. Only moments ago, he had been overwhelming this opponent utterly — and now, as if he were facing an entirely different person, even the very air had changed.
The moment Finch instinctively stumbled backward, Simon's new form arrived at his back like a bolt of lightning.
'What the—!'
Shring!
Simon's upward swing was faster than Finch could recoil. Finch's right arm went spinning into the sky, trailing a fountain of blood.
"G-Gaaargh!"
Finch twisted in agony.
"My arm! My arm!"
Even as he thrashed in excruciating pain, a question gnawed at him.
The tentacles earlier, and now this — why wouldn't his wounds regenerate?
His gaze dropped to his severed limb. The flesh where the blade had passed had turned necrotic, as though that part of his body no longer belonged to him at all.
"Give it up."
Simon, wearing his skeletal helm, raised the greatsword effortlessly with his right hand alone. His shadowless, verdigris-blue cloak billowed in the wind.
"Next, I'll take your head."
"……!"
He was being crushed.
By a junior years younger than himself, Finch felt a deep, crawling fear take root.
More than twenty tentacles, one arm — all rendered beyond salvation in a single strike. Pier's greatsword was the perfect counter to Finch, whose wounds would not close.
He bit down hard on his lip, then at last let out a resigned smile and tilted his head back.
"……Haaah. Fine. I concede."
"?"
"I was called a genius at seventeen myself, but I was never as strong as you. If Special Admission No. 1 is at this level, then I suppose I can accept why I never made it into Kizen."
Simon's face twisted in disgust.
"Even now, your grades are that much of a complex to you? What you should be thinking about isn't Kizen — it's the innocent people who lost their lives because of you."
"Well."
Finch, still holding his head at an angle, rolled only his eyes to look at Simon.
"To a necromancer, death is as familiar as sleep. Since my sister's passing, the deaths of others have never stirred so much as a ripple in me."
"……"
"More to the point — those undead you command look quite formidable."
Finch tore away the tattered remains of his shirt. Across his entire chest was a massive jet-black magic circle.
The formulas were far too intricate for a first-year like Simon to parse, but the ones inscribed at the four cardinal points he could recognize.
'The Eternal Formation!'
Once embedded into a living body, it parasitized directly upon the host's jet-black, sustaining its effects until the day that body died.
So that was how Finch's flesh had liquefied and reformed at will — the power of this circle.
"Your undead, versus the monster I control. Aren't you curious which is stronger?"
Finch pressed his palm flat against the Rune Script at the center of his chest and twisted it like a dial. Click. The jet-black within his body began to run wild.
"……What are you doing now!"
The instant Simon lunged forward, sword in hand, Pier blocked his path.
[Stand back, boy!]
"What—?"
Finch's entire body liquefied and swelled like a balloon before bursting with a resounding pop.
Simon's eyes wavered, hollowed by disbelief. Chunks of Finch's flesh and organs pattered down onto the deck.
"Ugh……!"
The sight was so grotesque that Simon gagged before he could stop himself. Then, wheezing for breath, he stared at the scattered remains of what had once been Finch.
Even the organs and flesh that had throbbed as if alive soon went slack and still.
'He ended his own life.'
"P-Pier……! No — my lord!"
Erzsébet, shifting into her human form, climbed up onto the deck.
Shun was cradled in her arms, and she was covering the girl's eyes so she wouldn't see Finch's remains.
"Is it over?"
"It seems so."
Simon swept his gaze across the surroundings.
"……Something's wrong."
Hweeeeeeeeng!
The wind and rain surged violently. The strange sea fog, whose origin no one knew, thickened further, blotting out even the sunlight in the open sky.
Shaaaah!
The ocean currents intensified, churning into massive whirlpools. The three tangled pirate ships rocked violently.
"My lord! Behind you!"
At Erzsébet's cry, Simon whirled around. Rising out of the sea was a tentacle of such monstrous size it defied belief.
[What in the world is THAT!]
Shaaaah!
Shaaaah!
More limbs erupted from the water.
There was nowhere to run. The tentacles encircled the entire ship, coiling around the anchor posts and slithering up onto the deck itself.
"Ugh, it's hideous!"
"I hate it!"
Erzsébet and Shun shrieked and scrambled back.
Then, at some distance from the pirate ships, the surface of the sea began to heave upward, swelling like a rising tide.
'That's……!'
Simon's eyes went wide. Moments later, what emerged from the water was the enormous body of a monstrous octopus.
-Even at this size, it's not yet fully grown. No one has ever captured an adult Kraken, you see.
The memory surfaced — his first day at Blue Harbor, when Finch had explained the Overlord to him at the exhibition.
That was an adult Kraken.
"My lord! Why is that thing attacking us?"
"How should I know!"
WHAM!!
The Kraken's body slammed against the hull.
The mouth bored through the middle of its mass gaped wide, and one of the Kraken's limbs wrapped around Finch's corpse lying on the deck, stuffing it into that maw. Moments later, it was greedily chewing, devouring Finch whole.
'What on earth is happening?!'
Having swallowed Finch, the Kraken's body peeled away from the ship once more.
Its mouth sank beneath the waves, leaving only the crown of its body exposed above the surface. And then the skin at its very top bulged and heaved.
Thud! Thud-thud-thud!
Bulges swelled across the Kraken's flesh — twisting, coiling over themselves.
Arms sprouted. A face took shape, riddled with holes that punched open one after another — holes that formed eyes, nostrils, ears, a mouth.
It was too warped to call a human face — the eyes sat too far apart, the mouth hung crooked — and yet it had become something you could call a person.
And small wonder.
[Do you see this, Simon!!!]
Because now it had a name it could be called by.
[I have surpassed you now! I have surpassed THEM! Fused with the Kraken, I am the strongest force upon the sea!]
Grgrgrgrgrgh!
More than twenty limbs rose from the ocean.
[With this body! With this power! I will drown every last human in Blue Harbor beneath the waves! And then I will go to Roc Island! Nephthys will pay the price for her wrong choice! I — Finch, the very one that witch failed to choose!]
The mouth positioned vertically down the center of his face split open, tearing his eyes, nose, and skull cleanly in half.
[I AM THE STRONGEST!!]
Shaaaaaaaaa!
Twenty limbs launched forward in an explosive rush. Simon hastily drew on Pier's power and leapt skyward.
Shaaaak!
Shlorp!
Suckered tentacles grazed past his body at every angle. Bright sparks burst off Pier's armor, and Simon felt every jolt of pain Pier suffered.
The power, the speed, the flexibility — it was on a whole different plane from the tentacles Finch had wielded by liquefying his own human body. There was no comparison at all.
"Erze! Take Shun and get inside the ship!"
"Yes, my lord!"
The cloak of shadowless black spread wide. Simon's speed climbed higher and higher and higher still, until he was streaking like a flash of light. A single point raced across the deck's railing, and dozens of lines and curves gave chase.
"Hrrragh!"
Simon glanced back and swung the greatsword.
The massive limbs were hacked apart and fell away — but this time, new tentacles sprouted from above the severed stumps instead of regenerating from the wounds.
[Hahaha! You won't catch me twice with the same trick!]
KWAKWAKWABOOM!
KUUUUNG!
Everywhere he looked, the Kraken's suckered limbs filled his vision.
And above all — the hull wouldn't hold at this rate. The ship was going to sink. He couldn't afford to drag this out.
[Boy! Behind you!]
"!"
Simon thrust the greatsword up over his head. A Kraken limb plunged down like a spear from the heavens and drove Simon's back flat against the deck.
"Ngh!"
The overwhelming force punched through the floorboards, and Simon's body crashed down to the level below.
He'd escaped being impaled by the sword's edge, but two more tentacles tore through the ceiling after him — and then three more pinned his body down.
CRASH!
WHUMP!
CRACK!
Simon's body fell from the third deck to the second, from the second to the first. And then—
Grreeeetch!
Five tentacles shoved against him, finally punched a hole clean through the bottom of the ship, and forced Simon out into the open sea.
The impact tore Pier's sword from his grip.
"Khah!"
Simon held his breath. The moment he entered the seawater so toxic to the undead, he felt the strength draining from Pier's body as well.
[Boy!]
Shaaaaaaaaa!
Against that crushing downward force, there was nothing he could do.
Before he knew it, Finch — leading the Kraken's bulk down into the depths — extended his arm. A single tentacle coiled around Simon's waist and began dragging him deeper into the sea.
[It's over now!! Kizen's lapdog!]
Finch's laughter rang out, drunk on madness.
Strength seeped from Simon's body, bit by bit. His breath grew ragged.
[Boy!]
Even Pier's voice in his mind was going faint and blurred.
Simon felt his head emptying out. The seawater was so peaceful, so warm and gentle, that the memory of sprinting like a madman through the rain, dodging a monster's limbs on dry land, seemed almost laughable now.
[Snap out of it! Boy!]
His reason wavering, fragment by fragment, it was only Pier's voice that kept his consciousness tethered.
'Yes. I hear you, Pier.'
[What are you doing! Do you intend to give up just like this!]
'I'm not giving up.'
Simon stretched his right arm out toward the ship's keel, growing smaller and more distant above him.
'Too much is riding on this.'
The life of Shun, the client who had begged for their help.
The life of Erzsébet, who had followed him into this.
The residents and tourists of Blue Harbor. And the safety of his friends, somewhere on Roc Island, carrying out their missions or buried in their studies.
'Come to me.'
Simon's right arm, sheathed in Pier's bone, began to stain itself jet-black. Bubbles burst from the hull of the ship, receding ever further away.
'COME TO ME!'
Shaaaaaaaaaaa!
Simon's Absolute Order ignited.
Pier's greatsword came plunging down through the sea at tremendous speed, cutting the water like a fish arrowing through the current.
Finch shrieked and hurled his tentacles at the sight — but the blade, steeped in a power of pure annihilation, simply shredded and split them apart.
CHAK!
And then — in an instant, the sword was in Simon's hand. He clamped his fingers around the hilt with all his strength and swung straight down.
CRACK!
The tentacle coiled around his waist came away, showing a clean cross-section. The instant the crushing pressure around his waist released, Simon leveled the sword before him.
[I'll explain the principle of a true slash only once, so listen well!]
Simon tilted the blade sideways and, following Pier's instructions, began pouring every last drop of his jet-black into the sword. The blade rippled and roared with staggering intensity.
Bubbles churned through the surrounding water, and a riot of brilliant light blazed out beneath the dark sea.
Shlorp!
Shaaaaaaaaak!
Finch immediately sent all twenty of his tentacles surging in. Even as the enemy's assault swallowed his field of vision whole, Simon held his stance, rock-steady.
[A slash does not cut the thing before your eyes.]
Pier's voice flowed into him, clearer than it had ever been.
[You swing the greatsword to cut down an opponent standing impossibly far away. But the moment your mind registers the 'distance' between you, the strike becomes nothing — a futile swipe through empty air. So erase the distance! Maximize nothing but the image of cutting your enemy down through space itself!]
Grgrgrgrgrgrgh!
An immense torrent of jet-black boiled up along Pier's greatsword. The water around him whipped and surged like a storm.
With twenty tentacles blotting out his entire field of view, Simon clenched his teeth.
'Cut through space itself!'
His waist turned. His right arm moved. The experience and karma that Pier's bones, fused to his body, had accumulated over tens of thousands of battles reproduced themselves, perfectly, in Simon's frame.
'CUT HIM DOWN!!'
The instant the condensed jet-black left Pier's greatsword, a white slash tore through the sea and shot out in a perfectly straight line.
Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!
The deep sea split open.
The slash carved through the water and in a heartbeat reached the sky above the surface.
Everything caught in the parted gap — the Kraken's limbs, its massive body — was cleaved in two, all of it.
Finch's eyes shook in wild panic.
'How…….'
The Kraken's body split from the waist down, coming apart into pieces.
'……How can a power like this even exist?'
Glub-glub-glub!
At that moment, Simon came slicing through the current, closing the distance until he was right in front of Finch. He had whipped up the jet-black still clinging to the greatsword and used it like a jet spray.
Simon swung the blade without a word.
CRACK!
At last —
Finch's body split apart.