Chapter 420
Chapter 420
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 420
Chapter Title: Awakening the Sword of Death
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From ancient times, humans have offered up prayers.
To the heavens. To higher beings. To humans superior to themselves. Even sometimes to exceptional individuals, humans would voice their deepest wishes. Hoping against hope that they would be heard.
Wishes became prayers.
Longing curdled into faith, and desperation birthed miracles. And so, religion was born.
Thus, in the primordial era, people called the human most desperate for their own wishes a priest. One who conveys prayers.
Tens of thousands of years later, the meaning of priest has been corrupted.
The church has rotted away, and humanity has forgotten the past. The definitions of words have shifted, drifting far from the essence. Modern humans revere the act of prayer as sacred, but the true essence of prayer is not faith.
Prayer is desire.
Desperation for one's own wish.
The hope that one's voice reaches someone.
That alone imbues prayer with power.
Even if the target isn't a god, if that voice reaches someone...
"...I pray."
The Saintess, Natida, reached out her hand.
A single sword embedded in the Sword Grave. The blade once wielded by the most fearsome calamity. Natida gripped its hilt.
Slash!
The instant her fingers closed around the hilt, they were severed. The sword's lingering sharp aura tore into Natida's hand. Blood spurted from the stumps of her fingers, from her palm.
"Please... I pray."
Natida extended her remaining hand, covering her bleeding knuckles. As if offering a prayer. Her mangled fingers. The blood trickling down the hilt. Amid the agony of her torn flesh, Natida closed her eyes.
...They say that to a master swordsman, the sword is like half their soul. The moment she grasped the blade of death, Natida felt overwhelming terror.
With her eyes shut, she sensed a gaze watching her from the darkness. Death itself was staring at her. Before the most fearsome calamity, Natida trembled in fear. But she would never let go of the sword.
I pray for a miracle.
Before death stood resolve.
Unyielding will, even amid terror.
Natida voiced her wish. Whispering to the blade of death along with it. I will be your justification. There is one here who wishes for a rematch with you. As a swordsman, shouldn't you accept that challenge?
And death answered.
Whether it responded to Natida's wish or her whisper, none could say. But one thing was certain: death had given its reply.
From the depths of darkness, death stirred.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ The Beast King gripped the sword in his left hand.
The moment he readjusted his hold, the flow reversed.
The air quivered. The currents before the king knelt. Of course, this wasn't the cataclysmic shift when the Sword of Death had regripped its blade. Barta wielded his swordsmanship with his right hand as well. The only change from switching to his left was the atmosphere.
A flawless stance, an unwavering sword tip.
Kalt watched Barta as he steadied himself.
Barta's form no longer wavered. A calm wind blew through the stillness. It carried the stench of rot. The smell of death. Just like Ganicardt's.
...It's coming.
A strike rivaling the Sword of Death.
All the futures Kalt saw shattered into fragments.
With every future crumbling, only the present remained.
Churning air. Boulders rising into the sky. What Barta was about to unleash was surely his finest strike.
"My gratitude."
As if paying respects to the swordsman who had taught him, Barta prepared to unveil his best technique.
...I have to endure that strike.
And Kalt steeled his resolve.
Rak had said it: Hold out for 10 seconds. Kalt now understood why. Beyond Barta's shoulder, Natida clung to the Sword of Death, offering her prayer.
...What would happen next was unknown.
But if I endure, a path will open.
A way out would appear on a road that led only to death.
But how?
His fingers were broken. His muscles torn. His body had long reached its limit. With this flesh, he could swing his sword only once more. That single swing had to deflect the incoming strike.
Could he do it?
To the question he posed himself, Kalt answered.
No—he had to.
"...Hoo."
Kalt exhaled deeply.
Exhaling as he stepped forward one pace ahead of Rak, Kalt assumed his stance. Glancing back at Rak, who watched him, Kalt spoke.
"Rak."
Kalt smiled.
"I'll clear the path for you."
2.
Boulders soaring into the sky.
Shaking air, trembling earth. Amid the chaos, the sword in Barta's grip remained utterly still.
Boom.
The ground exploded the instant Barta stepped forward. A crater formed. Boulders flew up. Channeling power into his advancing foot, Barta swung his sword. The blade tip no longer drew in currents. It didn't pull at the air.
It simply severed everything.
The soaring rocks split in half.
The air snapped with a crack.
Disrupted flows whipped outward in all directions. Barta's sword aura raced forth, slicing everything it touched. Tearing up the ground, the sword aura hurtled toward its target: the human gripping his sword.
A mere human, assailed by the sword aura.
Kalt narrowed his eyes, staring ahead. The sword strike approaching, shattering every future he saw. Even in his perception of slowed time—where the world seemed frozen—that sword aura alone moved.
Death was coming.
A sword no human body could deflect.
Kalt watched the fragments of splitting futures.
Every future pointed to his death. No technique he possessed could parry that blade. And yet, Kalt's sword moved.
Recall it. Your experience.
Find it. The path to victory.
Blood streamed from his eyes. From his nose, mouth, and ears. Vomiting blood, Kalt remembered. He had once deflected a strike from the Beast King now swinging at him.
It was before he became a superhuman.
The experience of surviving a blow from the Sword of Death.
Drawing on that memory, Kalt sought a path. Through vision stained red by burst vessels, he saw countless futures. In them, he died repeatedly. Failed again and again. Through endless deaths, Kalt pressed forward.
...A superhuman is like steel that never cools.
At the crossroads of life and death. In crises of mortality. Amid pain and trials, the superhuman is endlessly tempered. Sharper. Sturdier. More beautiful. Like quenching hot steel, forging a legendary sword. Thus purified of impurities, the human begins to shine.
The tip of Kalt's sword gleamed.
Sword aura is ultimately the qi of the body and the color of the soul. Defined by the life one has lived. The body one has honed. Freed of impurities, Kalt's shining sword aura took the form of moonlight.
Shing.
His sword aura, reminiscent of moonlight rippling on the sea, undulated softly. The blade advanced, cloaked in faint glow. In this moment, the path Kalt's sword traced existed in no future. The sole answer unearthed from failed timelines.
Moonlight etched a sword path.
Gently, obliquely, seeping in.
Kalt's sword slipped into the path Barta had drawn. The moment moonlight touched the oncoming sword aura that cleaved all, a change occurred.
Barta's sword aura wavered.
The straight line bent. It twisted. Following Kalt's swing, Barta's sword path distorted.
Whoosh.
Kalt's sword, arcing in a crescent, plunged into the earth. Slicing smoothly, it surged back up. Finally, the tip pointed straight ahead. From crescent to full moon. Tracing a perfect circle, Kalt unleashed an upward strike.
Trailing Kalt's sword path, Barta's launched sword aura curved in a circle—back toward him.
Shrieeeek!
Barta's eyes flickered for an instant as he beheld the returning aura. In that moment, he felt astonishment. Flustered by the human's technique, he still swung at the incoming strike.
But what returned was his own finest blow. Unable to fully parry his own sword strike, Barta staggered back. His stance crumbled. Bleeding, he exposed an opening.
Seeing it, Kalt let out a laugh.
An opening revealed. But exploiting it wasn't his role. With no strength left to stand, Kalt slowly toppled sideways.
"Go, Rak."
Kalt stepped off the stage.
Taking his place was Rak, who had stood behind him. Dazzling starlight bloomed from the holy sword.
Boom.
Slamming his foot down, Rak swung.
His overheated body. The blizzard rising from Rak's form coiled around the holy sword. Into the blizzard, Rak inscribed a single spell. If Raniel gathered ashes to obliterate an area...
Rak chose to use the scattered mana remnants like this. The spell etched into the blizzard was simple.
Shock.
The raging blizzard transformed entirely into shockwaves. They battered the flat of the holy sword in succession. Rak's blade accelerated repeatedly, trailing afterimages. From the accelerated tip erupted the pinnacle of Grace-style swordsmanship.
A brutal slash carved diagonally across Barta's body.
From his collapsed stance—left shoulder blade to right flank. Blood welled along the gash. Then it erupted like a fountain. Barta convulsed briefly and retreated several steps.
Barta gazed at the blood flowing from his own body.
Staring at the wound carved by a human sword—one that wouldn't heal—he felt a sharp ache. And Barta burst into laughter. As if more delighted than ever.
Teach me more.
Show me techniques I've never seen.
As the staggering Barta prepared to swing again in ecstasy, Kalt—crumpled on the ground—chuckled absently. It wasn't the laugh of a despairing human.
"10 seconds."
The allotted time was up.
"It's coming."
Kalt's gaze turned to Barta's back.
"The most fearsome calamity."
A chill ran through him.
In an instant, Barta's fur stood on end. His head whipped around. Looking back, Barta saw the greatsword embedded in the ground—and the human collapsed beside it.
And.
A hand emerging from splitting space.
"The Sword of Death, Ganicardt, has arrived."
The emerging hand was that of the Beast King.
Barta's lost right arm. The moment he beheld his half-soul, lost centuries ago, Barta's body spasmed. His eyes trembled. Not with fear, but ecstasy.
"Ah, aah."
Barta groaned.
"Aah, aaaahhh!"
The Beast King's hand seized the greatsword.
At that instant, the space—torn just wide enough for a hand—shattered with a crack. From beyond the rift, he emerged.
The most fearsome calamity.
The swordsman symbolizing death.
Boom.
In that moment, the canyon's air grew heavy. Fierce winds blew. Winds carrying the scent of death. An immense presence crushed the canyon.
"......"
The Sword of Death who had appeared, Ganicardt, drew his own blade from the earth. A low, resonant shing—the sword's cry. The blade of death sang.
At that moment, the dozens of swords embedded in the Sword Grave began to quiver in resonance. As if trembling in terror before the arrived death, or bowing their heads. It proclaimed one truth.
The Sword Grave, Galatric.
The master of the defiled land had returned.