Chapter 283
Chapter 283
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 283
Chapter Title: Hero, Gallaher (2)
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Light leaked from the robe.
Raniel pulled out the wooden box stored within her robe. A box large enough to hold a single human arm. Light seeped from the cracks in that box.
The box, unable to withstand the light, opened on its own.
Inside was the arm of the first saintess, obtained long ago in the north. The vessel meant to hold the stars, the cyclical device prepared by the great sage for the future.
Four stars orbited around the arm.
One of those stars began to crumble.
It was the dimmest of the four stars, the one that had never truly shone properly throughout years of time. And now, it scattered the brightest light.
More brilliantly than any other star.
And more fiercely.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Lifespan is the most precious asset a single human can offer. The heavenly life granted by the stars to humanity cannot be replaced by anything else, and that uniqueness is precisely what gives lifespan its value.
However, not all time holds equal worth.
A second lived by one who exists in a fleeting moment holds more value than a century lived by one who possesses immortality. Time is both absolute and relative.
"I bet."
Here stands a single human.
"Everything I have."
A human who has lived every minute and second without waste.
This human dreamed of becoming a hero. The path he chose was long and perilous, forcing him to run without rest his entire life. Thus, the path he has walked is beautiful.
Beautiful, therefore valuable.
The star acknowledges that value.
The life of a human who has lived with utmost effort is recognized by the star. The star also acknowledges that the remaining fleeting moments of this human's time hold more value than anything else.
The star asks the human.
What is it you desire?
The human answers without a moment's hesitation.
An answer spoken without hesitation is resolve, and that resolve is the human's wish. The star is a being that answers wishes. The star gladly provides the answer to the human.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ The deal has been established. A fleeting moment held the value of eternity.
Eternity becomes starlight.
Crack.
The scales, having completed their final transaction, crumbled away.
The crumbling scales turned into starlight, seeping into the body of the human who had dreamed of becoming a hero. Starlight overflowed.
"Wait for me, Chloe."
Gallaher smiled.
"I'm coming to save you right now."
Gallaher took a step forward.
He advanced, trailing brilliant starlight. With every step he took, the starlight shattered. But it wasn't only the starlight that shattered.
Gallaher's flesh crumbled as well.
Even knowing this, Gallaher stepped forward all the more boldly. As he did, he thought to himself.
His body felt light.
So light that it seemed he could do anything.
Gallaher charged forward, trailing starlight.
2.
A wave of magic beasts crashed down upon Gallaher.
However, mere magic beasts could not block that brilliant light. Light seeped through the gaps in the wave, and Gallaher emerged, cleaving it apart.
Light burned away the darkness.
Behind Gallaher, who advanced while trailing light, lay the charred corpses of magic beasts. Yet their numbers did not dwindle. They kept increasing. The waves crashed endlessly.
The Apostate, Gletus.
This was the reason she was considered a horrific calamity on the battlefield.
With a mere gesture, she commanded armies, pouring forth an endless tide of magic beasts. This dreadful calamity had no weaknesses even as a summoner.
Magic beasts continued to emerge from the torn rifts in space.
Watching them pour from the empty air, it seemed less like summoning and more like birth.
Grip.
Gallaher tightened his hold on his spear shaft and leaped toward the horde of magic beasts. His body moved several times faster than usual, and with every swing of his spear blade, starlight followed.
Like Kyle, called the strongest hero, Gallaher cleaved through the Apostate's forces. He cleaved and cleaved again.
Yet the distance did not close.
Even after swinging his spear until his arms went numb, piercing through magic beasts and looking up... the distance hadn't shortened at all. The Apostate was still far away. The magic beasts kept pouring forth.
There was no end.
With a light gesture from the Apostate, the armored dragon at her side moved. The armored dragon burrowed into the earth, heading toward Gallaher. Rumble, the ground shook.
Gallaher ran.
Across the quaking earth, toward the approaching armored dragon, he ran with steady steps. Crack, he slammed his spear shaft into the ground and leaped into the air.
Kagagagagagak!
In that instant, the armored dragon erupted from below.
A mound of dirt exploded upward, and the armored dragon's gaping maw sought to swallow the airborne Gallaher. He plummeted straight toward that maw.
The armored dragon, the Apostate's strongest magic beast.
Gallaher knew, at least in theory, how to deal with it. He recalled the stories Kyle had told him, the man who had repelled it countless times.
"The armored dragon's hide is hard to breach even with star-forged weapons."
"So dive into its maw."
"Ripping it apart from the inside will be easier."
Advice he could scarcely have dreamed of before.
But with his current body, it was possible. Snap, the moment the armored dragon that had swallowed Gallaher closed its jaws. He twisted his body.
Spin.
Twirling in midair, Gallaher swung his spear wildly. No technique guided those swings.
He tore, stabbed, and slashed.
The simple barrage proved devastatingly effective.
The armored dragon screamed as its body tore apart. Shredding it from within, Gallaher burst out.
One down.
But there was no time to rejoice.
Standing with his spear blade embedded in the falling armored dragon's hide as blood poured out, Gallaher looked ahead.
Three more armored dragons charged.
Two surged in waves, one barreled straight on. The moment Gallaher gritted his teeth to leap. A question flashed in his mind.
The Apostate had five armored dragons.
One defeated, three charging. Where was the last one? Gallaher's eyes darted around. But it was nowhere to be seen.
Rumble.
In that instant, the ground shook.
From beneath the fallen armored dragon's corpse, another erupted. Gallaher's eyes widened. He tried to leap hastily, but what he faced wasn't just the armored dragon.
🐉 DRAGON ROAR! 🐉 【———!】
The dragons flying in the sky howled.
His body froze for an instant under the overlapping roars. A mere moment, but all battles are decided in moments.
Kwachik.
The erupting armored dragon bit into Gallaher.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ It's over.
Watching the armored dragon bite into Gallaher, the Apostate thought so. With Gallaher in its maw, the armored dragon plunged straight underground.
Kagagagagak!
Slamming Gallaher into the earth, the armored dragon thrashed its head wildly side to side. Gallaher's body shredded, blood and flesh spraying everywhere.
This effectively ended the fight.
However, the Apostate's expectation missed the mark.
The wildly thrashing armored dragon suddenly halted, unable to advance further. Through the shared vision with the armored dragon, the Apostate saw Gallaher.
Half his body swallowed, only his upper half exposed. Even in that state, Gallaher managed to jam his spear blade between the armored dragon's teeth.
Thud.
The thrust spear blade pierced the armored dragon's maw and embedded into the ground. In that position, Gallaher twisted his body. Vomiting blood through clenched jaws, he swung the spear shaft.
Kwachik.
The armored dragon's jawbone shattered, its mouth opening.
Escaping the armored dragon, Gallaher staggered to his feet. Blood poured from his torn abdomen, organs threatening to spill out.
"...Cough."
Vomiting blood, Gallaher pressed his palm to his abdomen. He shoved the organs back in and clutched the torn wound. His starlight-infused flesh heated up, and the wound began to heal.
The armored dragon's eyes met Gallaher's.
Gallaher's eyes, bloodshot to the extreme, burned with determination. At that resolute gaze, the corners of the Apostate's mouth began to rise.
"Ah."
The Apostate let out a thrilled breath.
"What a beautiful sight this is."
Vomiting blood, Gallaher moved again.
He threw himself toward the approaching armored dragon. Bitten by magic beasts, shredded by the armored dragon, his body searing under the breath of sky-flying dragons—yet Gallaher never stopped.
He pressed on.
Stepping forward one blood-soaked step at a time.
To the Apostate's eyes, his charge through the endless magic beast waves, toward what seemed an impossible task, was utterly beautiful.
Gloria Bell Armias reminisced about the past.
A brilliant past she could never return to, the radiant glow shown by her comrades who fought against the impossible. How beautiful that glow had been.
And now.
A human bearing that exact same glow charged toward her. In this situation, Gloria exulted and despaired. Amid these conflicting emotions, Gloria laughed madly.
"————!"
The human roared as he charged.
A human burning everything he had to challenge the impossible.
A figure more than worthy of the title hero. The Apostate's lips tore upward in a grin.
"How lovable."
But it wouldn't reach.
Just as with her past selves, that glow would never touch her.
Look.
Hadn't he already fallen?
"Kuhk, kuh..."
Collapsed on the ground, Gallaher vomited blood.
Above him, the magic beasts continued to surge. Still, the distance between Gallaher and the Apostate hadn't closed.
"How tragic."
The Apostate laughed.
Pitying the struggling human, finding his form so lovable, she laughed.
3.
Drip drip.
Blood poured out.
At first, his mouth was filled with the metallic taste of blood, but now even that was gone. Sensations faded one by one. Through his reddened vision, Gallaher looked at the ground.
The earth was red.
He couldn't tell if it was from his blurred sight or the blood he had spilled. Vomiting blood once more, Gallaher staggered to his feet. He couldn't afford to stop.
I must go.
Forward.
For what?
To save her.
With only that one goal in mind, Gallaher moved his body. His flesh, repeatedly torn and healed, was ruined beyond feeling any pain.
Gallaher walked.
He heard no sounds. He felt no pain.
Thus, his steps were light. Eyes wide, Gallaher walked on. Without cease.
A wave crashed in.
He pushed through the surging wave.
Something grazed his face. One eye went blind. Through his narrowed vision, Gallaher looked ahead. With vision so limited, he needed only see what mattered. So thinking, he walked on.
No sensation in his hands.
Upon noticing, one arm was gone. With a single hand, Gallaher swung his spear. In his fading mind, he desperately moved his body.
Swinging, stabbing, thrusting upward.
Displaying everything he had built over a lifetime.
His body grew lighter bit by bit, but the spear he swung grew heavier. The sweeps of his spear now covered wider ranges.
Step.
With every step, blood poured out.
The more he vomited blood, the clearer his mind became, for some reason. Gallaher, spraying blood as he cleaved the waves, no longer resembled a living being.
One who should be dead lived on.
One who should have fallen kept moving.
Watching this, the Apostate laughed. Chloe, captured behind her, shed tears. Chloe watched Gallaher approach without stopping. She saw him dying.
It was wretched.
A desperate struggle.
Far from the heroes of fairy tales. The sight of a human thrashing against death was utterly miserable. Yet, that very misery made it sublime.
Step.
Standing on death's threshold.
With one foot in death, Gallaher advanced.
At some point, the distance between Gallaher and the Apostate began to shrink little by little. Behind him lay mangled armored dragons strewn about.
Slash.
The charging armored dragon was bisected with a light swing of Gallaher's spear blade. He advanced beyond the halved beast. Fueled by resolve and determination, Gallaher moved his body.
However, cruelly.
In reality, unlike fairy tales where resolve and determination conquer all, this was no tale. As if to prove it, Gallaher's enduring pride finally broke.
Kwachik!
The spear shaft snapped.
The weapon blessed by the stars, said never to break no matter what, had now shattered. The shaft bent. The weapon that had been with him his entire life split in two.
The broken weapon spun through the air.
Gallaher stared blankly at the shattered holy spear.
A fractured shaft. A cracked blade.
It was much like his own life. Already ruined, having reached a point of no return. Gazing at the weapon that had accompanied him his whole life, Gallaher thought.
Is the end near?
In his hand, the broken shaft.
Spinning in the air, the shaftless blade.
It asked him.
Will you advance, or halt broken?
No, not yet.
Gallaher answered.
He released the broken shaft. Reached for the spinning blade.
I can't stop yet.
A weapon is half the soul of a warrior.
The moment it breaks, the warrior has lost. But not for Gallaher.
Gallaher was a hero before he was a warrior.
Even if his body shattered, even if the weapon of a lifetime met its end, even if his soul broke, Gallaher would not stop. He would not give up. For a hero must be indomitable.
Grip.
He seized the spinning blade.
The instant he grasped the blade, blood burst from his hand. With the holy spear now akin to a mere dagger, its advantages gone, he pressed on.
In this moment as the end approached, Gallaher suddenly recalled the question he had harbored his entire life.
Those with talent. Those with blades sharp enough to reach calamities. Why had the stars' blessing come to him, of all people, who lacked such gifts? Gallaher had never found the answer.
The human unable to comprehend the stars' whims had wandered his life seeking it. He believed his life was the process of finding that answer.
Ah.
And now, in this moment.
The mere human obtained the answer. Borrowed from another's words.
Reasons are made.
Answers are found.
If the stars willed it, that will resided in him.
Life is proof.
Proving the found answer to the world.
Thus, I advance.
To prove the answer.
Gallaher gripped the holy spear blade. At some point, he was running. On broken legs. His body felt light. The distance closed in an instant. The approaching magic beasts could not bar his path.
He ran and ran.
As he charged, Gallaher prepared his final strike. Human determination resonated with starlight. For a brief moment, his crumbling flesh accelerated. As payment for that acceleration, the starlight left his body.
Where did the departed starlight go?
It seeped into the blade he held.
Never once had Gallaher unleashed the starlight gathered on his blade. For this strike. Clutching the fiercely flickering blade, he thrust his arm forward.
In that instant, countless futures appeared in Gallaher's eyes.
...In history, there had been only one transcendent hero. The inaugural hero, Ganikalt van Garratric, long forgotten by history.
But now, in this moment, another example was born.
Gallaher transcended the impossible wall.
As starlight left his flesh, the moment he ceased to be a hero, he attained enlightenment. A mere instant of enlightenment. One that would vanish if grasped too tightly. Gallaher held it firmly.
Death's threshold.
The fleeting moment as his lifespan burned away.
Gallaher saw it. The countless paths drawn before his eyes. Among them, the single shining line. It was what transcendents called the sword path. The one path found amid innumerable futures.
Following that path, Gallaher thrust his blade.
The liberated starlight burned everything.
All that blocked his way vanished. Before he knew it, only the Apostate remained ahead. Roaring fiercely, Gallaher charged at her.
This would be the last.
Please, let my spear reach.
Gallaher wished and wished again.
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