54. Cohabitation with Erti (1)
The 1st form beast Graiel. A named monster whose name was etched into the history books.
True to its epithet of Fallen Angel, the angelic wings visible on its back were striking. Yet their pitch-black hue, akin to the darkest night, and its ominous red eyes made it indistinguishable from a demon.
The humanoid beast took to the air.
Its wings tore through the empty sky with a deafening roar, like a supersonic fighter jet blasting off.
Hahiiiii— Yeeeh—
Graiel began chanting its song of annihilation.
"Even hearing it again now, it's a horrific tune. Such terrible pitch."
Erti spoke playfully, but the shockwaves from the monster's cry crushed the surrounding air. It soared nearly ten meters high, gazing down at Atlin with arrogant eyes.
'That's a 1st form beast. No... a beast that has become a lord.'
Though classified as 1st form, Graiel was the lord commanding the beast legion from an empire-scale nest.
In truth, its power transcended 1st form, warranting the title of transcendent. Just the demon aura it exhaled with every breath made me feel like I was sinking into the deep sea.
Right now, my mind was intimately linked to this sub-space.
Nothing here could truly threaten me. But the suffocating malice stabbing at my vitals was felt in full.
Yet even that ferocious killing intent was defied. A flash of light surged toward the Fallen Angel.
"It's begun."
Atlin, who had finally breached the beast army's main camp at the cost of her subordinates' lives, thrust her sword at Graiel.
Of course, Graiel hovered far above the ground. Surprisingly, Atlin employed the same combat method as I did.
'Alchemy?'
Unlike Graiel, Atlin had no wings. Even as a Grand Master, she couldn't leap straight to its position in one bound.
But Atlin used alchemy to erect a massive pillar and launch herself skyward.
"Impressive, isn't it? Alchemy reaching such heights. Of course, Atlin didn't cast that spell herself. She had no talent for magic or alchemy."
"Then how?"
"Because the sword she wielded was so exceptional."
Erti grinned and pointed to herself. She explained briefly.
The holy sword Sielertia was blessed by Jedin. As a holy sword, it could harness the powers of Jedin's Six Gods.
'Like how I use the traits of multiple orders.'
With the alchemy's aid, Atlin's limitations vanished. She stepped onto the rising earth and closed in on the Fallen Angel in an instant.
The aura blade gathered on her sword, Sielertia, pierced Graiel's chest. But Atlin's expression hardened instead.
"A fake after all."
Atlin's murmur reached me in that moment. Graiel had created an illusion. She had stabbed one of its duplicates.
"Strictly speaking, not illusions. Graiel's body alone is Grand Master-level ferocious, and it wields high-tier magic too. Near 8th tier illusion magic."
In other words, Atlin had fallen under Graiel's spell.
But the holy sword blazed anew. Its sacred light evaporated the Fallen Angel's phantasm in an instant.
"What do you think? That's the majesty of a holy sword blessed by Jedin."
But there was no time to heed Erti's chatter.
The divine power shield from Sielertia.
Right after it incinerated Graiel's demon aura and illusion magic, the true clash between Graiel and Atlin erupted.
"Graiel!!!"
Atlin's roar tore through the scattered demon aura once more.
And in that cry echoed her despair at losing all her subordinates.
Yet it also carried the Lion Sword Empress's desperate resolve to tear Graiel apart, even if it meant burning her own life.
At last, the sword form born from that will unfolded before my eyes. Atlin's Lion Heart Sword.
Kwarung— Kwakwakwang—
"I didn't realize it when I fought myself. But watching like this, it's astonishing. Both Graiel and Atlin."
The ensuing battle transcended tactics. It was on the scale of strategy.
A transcendent beast versus a Grand Master swordswoman. The two, beyond human and beast limits, reshaped the terrain of the Bernige Plains in real time.
And I finally understood why Erti had critiqued my Lion Heart Sword and White Night.
'She was right.'
The sword forms drawn by the Lion Sword Empress. And Graiel countering those strikes.
Before these two transcendents, every sword technique I had built crumbled, all concepts rendered meaningless.
Atlin's body frayed from the prolonged fight. Despite her divine armament rivaling the holy sword.
Graiel's Fallen Angel spear in hand, and ceaseless magic, battered her relentlessly.
But Graiel was far from unscathed. Atlin's fierce blows tore its wings.
The holy sword summoned not just alchemy, but the four great spirits to aid the battle.
'So similar to my style. Atlin's way of fighting.'
The clash dragged on. A brutal exchange where mutual killing intent drove their bodies.
Yet even after hours, no victor emerged.
"Focus on Atlin's sword now. Soon, she'll reach the true realm of Lion Heart Sword's ultimate art. The genuine White Night."
In the interim, three more knights breathed their last. Atlin's face remained coldly composed. But I felt her mind drowning in vast despair.
She was silent, but tears streamed from her eyes. She had sacrificed all her soldiers and knights for this plan.
Only two knights remained. The Essemont forces were all but annihilated. In that despair, Atlin's golden hair faded to stark white.
"She even drew on her life essence from her mana heart. Atlin's hair turned white overnight."
Erti, borrowing Atlin's form. That explained her white hair.
'The portrait I saw had golden hair intact.'
Then, at last, Atlin's sword. The aura blade on the holy sword Sielertia changed form.
"Pre-Dawn Eclipse. The dark sword form Atlin forged at despair's nadir. Shall we watch?"
As Erti said.
Instead of sunlight-like brilliance, a pitch-black aura like the endless night before dawn enveloped Sielertia's blade.
Darkness that devoured even demon aura. Like the heaviest gloom just before daybreak.
The Polar Night aura blade engulfed Graiel. Its strike reverberated through my space with electric intensity.
Yet Graiel did not fall.
"But after that deep night comes the eternal day of glory."
With those words, Sielertia's light illuminated everything. Instinctively, I recognized the sword strike that aura would birth.
'White Night.'
"Ultimate Art. White Night."
The moment was fleeting. Erti murmured softly. And as the sky brightened beyond the plains.
Atlin's sword finally severed Graiel's neck.
***
The Bernige siege. And the final duel between Atlin and Graiel.
To me, linked to this sub-space, it felt like an instant. But in reality, it was a grueling battle lasting through the night.
I replayed that eight-hour fight in my mind for a long while.
"Did you feel something?"
It wasn't mockery. Erti asked sincerely. I nodded.
"As Atlin's direct descendant, you'd have to feel something. Reinhardt blood is hard to pass on easily, but when it does, it flows thick in the lineage."
Erti spoke truth.
Wilhelm Margrave had only Agnes as his child. And he doted fiercely on me, Agnes's sole son.
"Everything you saw last night on the Bernige Plains is etched in your mind. Not just your mind—your body too. That's why we switched from soldier to knight. You're ready for the trial."
Erti reiterated why I was here.
Roia's trial. It couldn't end with merely viewing a fierce battle from a century ago.
"Shall we head back, then?"
She rose from a nearby rock, dusting off her rear. Standing beside me, Erti took my hand.
Borrowing the Sword Empress's form, yet her hand felt as soft as a country girl's.
"Not in that sense. Don't get the wrong idea or get flustered like some bachelor."
I didn't bother retorting in disbelief. Though the grip did feel exceptional, like holding a master sword's hilt.
The scenery shifted instantly. We returned to the village where I'd first met Erti.
'Here?'
An ordinary Essemont village. Wrecked as if attacked by beasts or monsters.
After the corpse-strewn battlefield, this scene felt almost peaceful.
"Not bad, right? Even I'd get queasy staying amid guts and bodies."
"Agreed."
My words made Erti's eyes sparkle.
"Curious why we're here? And why I'm dressed like a country girl?"
Not really. But as a trial space, it might hold meaning. I nodded, and Erti explained eagerly.
"This is Renaud Village. Just a plain rural hamlet in Essemont, nothing special. But to Atlin, it was."
Erti shared the tale. Atlin, just reaching adulthood. But at that age, she was in her rebellious phase.
"The girl got sick of swinging a sword endlessly. She also resented her role as margrave heir. Hated sword training most."
Unable to endure, Atlin fled the margrave's mansion at night. Her destination: this village, the birthplace of her carriage driver.
Fleeing with him, Atlin lived here as a country girl for a time.
"She just wanted to escape anywhere at first. But the driver was a young man too, so they... you know. Oh, he's your great-great-grandfather or so. You're their descendant."
Seemed Reinhardt women had a tradition of romancing mismatched men.
My mother Agnes too, with a mysterious bard.
'Though Riel... Lucifer was Demon King kin.'
But like this village's current state, Atlin's peaceful days didn't last.
"Peaceful spot, pre-Kaotic Gate. But precursors were stirring. A massive monster horde hit."
This scenery reenacted that. Yet Erti smiled.
"But for a village with houses half-collapsed, it's too intact, no?"
"Indeed. Monsters, not beasts, so smaller raid?"
"No. Over 300 orcs hit this 200-soul village. No armed guards—apocalypse for them."
But the true disaster struck the orcs.
"Atlin was there, after all."
No proper weapon. She'd abandoned the sword path, fleeing unarmed.
But when the village was threatened, Atlin grabbed whatever.
"She said... a rolling pin for dough? Rushed out with that in hand. Anyway, she massacred the orc horde with that wooden stick."
Some country girl. Reinhardt blood coursed through her.
"No need for mana against orcs. Swinging the stick popped their heads like melons."
Rumors of the orc-slaying village girl spread inevitably. Atlin returned to the mansion.
"The margrave hid it desperately for her honor. She'd even gotten pregnant. So folks today don't know."
But that orc massacre was the Lion Sword Empress's first feat. Erti's reminiscence ended.
"Anyway, this ties to you. Don't think it's just chit-chat to kill time."
"If it relates, then to the trial?"
"Yes. As this shows, Reinhardt blood's talents and power are abnormal. Your body too."
Erti was right. Reinhardt blood let a young woman slaughter 300 orcs with a rolling pin.
'And Atlin hated training, barely did any.'
I already knew my blood was special from Pantheon feats.
"So ditch relying on that body. Or you won't reach what you saw—Atlin's true White Night. And..."
Erti explained the trial. Like possessing a soldier's body on Bernige Plains.
"From now, you'll become an ordinary soldier. But I'll borrow Graiel's body."
Meaning, fight Graiel without Reinhardt physique—in a normal body.
"So, shall we ditch that fancy armor first?"
Thus, the pair headed to the small village house where Atlin and the driver had lived.
And my brief cohabitation with Erti began.