The Sword of the War God
The Sword of the War God
Sword of the War God.
A being once called Myth Killer.
The blade he wielded carried technique within it.
A technique no other being had ever matched—one only a single existence had ever approached and then surpassed.
That swordsmanship, taken to its far extreme, blazed forth despite the grievous wound of a lost arm.
While the being whose combat skill exceeded that swordsmanship screamed inside the agony of amputation, the Sword of the War God swung his blade without pause.
"Aaaagh!"
A scream erupted, groans spilled out, agony spread. What filled the void left by the severed arm was physical dismemberment and death.
Scattering both, the Sword of the War God barely distinguished shapes through clouded vision.
He had no allies on this battlefield.
And so there was no problem.
There never would be.
The Sword of the War God swung his blade without the faintest regret.
Each time Victory flashed, humans split apart and scattered, and more humans shattered themselves to shield those who had not yet been split.
A slaughterhouse where humans scarcely looked human. Its master was the Sword of the War God.
Unless the Sword of the War God permitted it, no one seemed able to escape.
And there was truth in that.
The Sword of the War God danced across the battlefield.
As the blade flashed through bodies and flung blood everywhere, Frida charged in, swinging a newly gripped axe.
A roar burst from a mouth reeking of blood, and her legs, shoving her body forward in desperation, buckled with exhaustion.
The mana tattoo's effect had faded long ago. No mana remained, and no other means. The beast that had fought beside her for half a lifetime was already dead.
Yet she had to buy time. If this battlefield was not to become yet another failure, if they were to greet a radiant future where humans reclaimed the world through Victory—
She had to give her life here and now.
Just as the soldiers and warriors who died and scattered here had done, she too staked her life.
Clang!
A full-strength downward chop. But it fell far short of the strength she had when the mana tattoo was active. Victory blocked the descending axe and did not even tremble.
The Sword of the War God oozed killing intent with indifference, then swung it lightly.
Scrrrape—the axe blade slid down the blade, and Frida instantly released the axe and threw her body back.
Boom!
A rising slash split the ground apart. Upturned earth dust swirled. The billowing dust looked red. The blade he swung had drunk too much blood.
The strike had not even grazed her, yet the force hurled her backward and sent her tumbling across the ground. Overwhelming power. Divinity still formidable despite the loss of an arm.
Frida retreated, swallowing the blood that surged up her throat, and dragon-kin filled the gap she left.
"Great Flame, watch over us!"
Roars from charging dragon-kin. Amid the wild-eyed warriors, one elder alone bore white scales. Raised swords, spears, axes, and maces emitted a dim light.
A well-trained dragon-kin warrior could do the work of five ordinary human fighters.
As the common saying went, they numbered only ten dragon-kin warriors, yet their ferocity was overwhelming.
Even surrounded by human fragments scattered in every direction, they advanced without fear.
'Knight Slayer.'
Along with a voice they could not hear, Victory stained itself black, and the foremost dragon-kin—the one carrying a shield—split in half.
"Urgh...."
A single human cleaved, yet the slash remained unspent. The Sword of the War God twisted his waist to absorb the recoil, then layered several more trajectories over the charging dragon-kin as if to erase them.
He swung with his waist, flipped his wrist to thrust, moved his shoulder to cut upward, bent his elbow and then extended it in a thrust.
Each time a red arc traced itself over the rushing dragon-kin, death scattered.
A flurry of strikes, at a speed and level scarcely believable from a one-armed fighter. As the dragon-kin warriors were sliced to pieces, a warrior who had been holding his breath among them burst out.
His name was Bahot Head.
"Hrrraaah!"
Stifling his battle cry inside, the old dragon-kin hurled his round shield. The shield, spinning perfectly horizontal, had blades sprouting from its edge.
The Sword of the War God reversed his thrust and slashed downward without hesitation.
Crack!
Earthen dust scattered along with the split shield. Beyond it, the old dragon-kin approached, holding a long blade. The Sword of the War God took it all in and moved.
He aimed for a bisecting cut. Split the waist in one stroke using superior reach.
The blade tilted back with that single intent. As the Sword of the War God intended, the old dragon-kin's blade would never reach him.
Bahot Head knew this well.
So he released his blade before the tilted sword could shoot forward. The blade clattering against the ground made the slash the Sword of the War God was about to execute falter for an instant.
A delay so fleeting it could barely be called an opening, shorter than a moment. But it was enough time to use magic. Bahot Head extended his hand, and light bloomed at his fingertips.
Shriiing!
A flash surged forward with a sound like shattering glass. Mid-tier Manifestation magic, Flash Storm. A more potent sight-disruption effect than the lesser magic, Flash.
Before the light that had struck the Sword of the War God's face could even disperse, the old dragon-kin lowered his body and murmured.
He chanted three spells.
One was Giant's Strength.
Another was Acceleration.
The last was Rock Creation.
He shaped rock to make the footing unstable, then charged before the disrupted stance could be corrected.
Even Giant's Strength might prove insufficient, but the old dragon-kin trusted his own skill.
He trusted the martial arts he had built over a lifetime.
His aim was to topple. It was a certain-kill strategy combining Acceleration, Giant's Strength, Rock Creation, and Flash Storm, a technique that should never miss.
Normally, that would have been true.
Had the Sword of the War God's martial arts not been vastly superior.
Had the Sword of the War God not been the first Emperor and the first Master of Combat.
The moment the charging dragon-kin seized his leg and shoved to topple him, the Sword of the War God slid his leg back and corrected his balance.
Before Bahot Head could react to the sudden shift, Myth Killer's knee surged upward.
Crunch!
"...Gurk!"
The sound did not belong to a knee striking a human body. It was close to an explosion. The sound of a water-filled leather sack being hurled down hard.
In this case, the leather sack was a human body, and the water was blood and entrails.
As the shock liquefied his insides and Bahot Head's body folded backward, the Sword of the War God drove his raised elbow straight down.
Crash!
The broken body slammed into the ground and then bounced back up, eyes rolling white. Instant loss of consciousness. The Sword of the War God began to swing Victory down at the unconscious form—
Fwish, crack!
A sniper shot from Tiyamal flew in from afar and struck.
The shot glanced off, shattering carapace. The attack naturally skewed, slicing Bahot Head but failing to split him in a single blow.
Instead of the old dragon-kin flying back with entrails spilling out, the Sword of the War God turned his head at once and kicked the ground, accelerating.
His target was the mage. The mage, who had been weaving spells with hand signs and incantations simultaneously, saw the approaching Sword of the War God and grimaced, firing magic indiscriminately.
Boom!
Lightning and flame, ice and rock burst from those hands. Countless attributes and sharp edges aimed at the Sword of the War God, but his speed was not slow enough for sluggish incantations to track.
Gradually building acceleration, the Sword of the War God leveled his blade and charged. The sword's point aimed for the heart. Frida knew this was the moment to intervene and threw herself between them.
A woman appeared, clutching an unfamiliar large shield close to her body. Her other hand held a mace she had picked up from a soldier's corpse. The Sword of the War God collided with the shield.
Crunch, snap!
"Urk...!"
Victory was not a weapon so easily stopped by a common shield. Pierced through in one strike, the shield was effortlessly wrenched aside, and the blood-soaked blade crushed the woman's arm as it drove her back.
Frida's armored backplate scraped across the ground, and she barely managed to rise at the end of it.
She had no leisure to consider odds of victory or her own life.
Even using her life as bait, she could not guarantee Victory.
Overwhelming despair. The one who stepped forward at the end was Bahot Head. The gaunt dragon-kin came charging, his split flank leaking a long trail of entrails.
The Sword of the War God glanced at the dragon-kin and immediately reversed Victory into a thrust.
One strike. Just one strike, yet it was fatal. The blade tore through the protruding entrails, burrowed through the dragon's hard scales, and burst out his back. Bahot Head's eyes widened, and he grabbed the blade.
"N-n-now!"
He shouted the words through bubbling blood. Frida lunged immediately.
The raised mace glowed brilliantly, and magic cast by Anna, standing behind Frida, heated the mace red-hot until it blazed.
Crrrack!
Crash!
Before she could close the distance, Bahot Head split in two and collapsed to the ground. Frida swung the mace before Victory could reach her body.
The mace surged in a straight arc. The crescent-shaped iron mass smashed through the carapace and crushed one side of the head—then the mace shattered and rolled across the ground.
A little crushed carapace and a scrap of flesh. That was all she had taken.
Beyond Frida's expression of dismay, Tiyamal's arrow flew in.
It aimed for the part of the face not covered by carapace.
A strike that seized the perfect opening.
Crunch!
It did not land. The moment the Sword of the War God opened his maw, the hideously distorted maw of a human and insect snatched the arrow out of the air.
Between the teeth that shattered and scattered, baleful eyes gleamed eerily, and Victory swung.
Wham!
Frida's leg was pulverized and torn away.
Crash!
Anna, who had frantically raised a barrier, took the blow and tumbled across the ground.
Next was Tiyamal. The Sword of the War God opened his split and crushed maw and rushed at Tiyamal.
The maw gaped hideously, as if he meant to bite down and tear out a throat. Tiyamal anxiously drew an arrow and nocked it on the string—
Crunch!
He saw the small girl who had blocked his front, and his eyes flew wide.
"Grgh, grrraaagh!"
An arm was torn off in a cascade of blood. The girl—her scarlet hair now dyed a deeper red with blood—screamed the moment her arm was ripped away.
Angie was hurled helplessly as the Sword of the War God jerked his head, tumbling across the ground. The time she had bought was a mere instant. Not even enough for Tiyamal to take a shot.
What came at Tiyamal, aimed at that opening, was a blow too effortless to even be called retribution.
The moment Victory's arc blurred faintly, Tiyamal's bow split apart and his massive frame sailed into the scattered remains of entrails.
"—!"
The battlefield was buried in human corpses.
The word slaughterhouse did not do it justice.
Human entrails hung from every tool and feature of the terrain, and the sour stench of metal rose from the earth stained red with human blood.
All manner of filth and terror littered the scene above it—truly a vision of hell.
The one who had built this hell let out a long roar.
The next objective was the fortress.
Once he killed everyone in the fortress, he would climb to the city and kill more.
The Sword of the War God thought this amid his tearing roar and moved to step forward.
Splat.
Had someone not appeared, stepping through a pool of blood.
It was a girl.
Scarlet hair and golden eyes, the last descendant of the Ancient God, her freshly torn-off arm barely regenerating.
Angela Tail.
Gasping, streaming blood, the girl blocked the path the Sword of the War God was taking.
"Stop it. Stop killing. You goddamn bastard!"
And she shouted.
Her voice, thick with rage and indignation, was drenched in emotion.
"Are people your toys?! Do you enjoy killing?! You fuck, I said stop killing them!"
Tears did not come, but her voice was steeped in grief deeper than tears. Standing atop the sprawl of hell, the girl screamed and then ground her teeth and shouted again.
"I'm your opponent! Goddamn it, stop killing people and fight me!"
There was no logic in her words.
No hidden scheme.
Only obvious fear hovered there.
Legs trembling from fear. Pupils dilated and unfocused. Even her shoulders shuddering from the relentless pain she had endured.
The marks of fear were vividly plain. The Sword of the War God looked at the girl blocking his path, vowing she would not let him kill any more, and his face twisted with displeasure.
"—."
It was not a human language.
The Sword of the War God, having long lost language, spoke in what was closer to the tongue used by the War God.
A crude tongue whose words conveyed nothing to those who could not understand, yet whose emotion reached everyone.
And deep hatred resonated in that voice.
The origin of that hatred was simple.
A girl with the same hair color and eye color as the Emperor.
A last descendant of the Ancient God who had been chosen by War and Knowledge for such trivial reasons, bursting with indignation as if the suffering she endured was genuine agony. He did not like it.
One who had so comfortably acquired overwhelming power.
One who was nothing more than an insect.
One who did not know what true hardship and agony were.
He found the sight of her raging over the deaths of a handful of people contemptible.
It was ugly.
It was loathsome.
So the Sword of the War God ground his teeth and roared.
"—!"
The roar, not human, carried violence with it.
Violence blazing with clear malice—the intent to break that will and kill it.
Angie raised her two half-regenerated fists.
And then she was split apart again and again.
Overwhelming technique and strength, and speed equal to her own.
An opponent that a girl who had barely grasped the fundamentals of martial arts could never face and defeat.
Against such an existence, Angie had nothing.
Her arm split apart along with a fist thrown futilely.
She wrenched her body back to dodge, and the twisted sword path raked across her eyes and stole them.
Then she tried to block the rising attack, and her arm, her flank, and her spine were cleaved open and she collapsed to the ground.
She had barely grasped how to handle the divinity roiling inside her body and focused it on regeneration, but the moment her spine regenerated she lost both legs and tumbled across the earth.
The girl was cut down again and again.
Shaved, sliced, broken, and shattered.
The only reason the girl did not die was the capricious malice the Sword of the War God displayed.
It was Myth Killer's stubbornness, his desire to shatter the girl's will before killing her.
It was because her will did not break—because terrified and in agony, she rose again and again.
And so the tattered girl rose once more.
She planted her severed ankle on the ground and let out a gasp that was nearly a sob.
She raised her two fists clumsily.
Because she thought she could win?
That was not it.
Angie could not possibly defeat the Sword of the War God, and no one knew that better than Angie herself.
The gap between those who possessed technique and those who did not was always brutally clear.
With Angie's clumsy skill, she could not overcome the Sword of the War God, who possessed strength equal to her own.
And so Angie did not retreat for an entirely different reason.
She did not retreat because she understood with perfect clarity that if she retreated, people would die.
Because she had come face to face with what Aslan always spoke of—'the thing only I can do.'
So the girl could not run.
Gasping, the girl looked ahead with newly regenerated eyes.
There stood the Sword of the War God, his displeasure laid bare.
A high priest, for reasons unknown, pouring utterly irrational fury onto Angie. He was looking at her now and raising his blade again.
The coming attack would not kill her.
It would be agonizing, it would make her want to die, but it was an attack she could endure.
If so, she could endure it as many times as it took. And she had endured.
The Sword of the War God raised his blade with an expression of pure irritation, as if sick of the sight. The girl watched him and thought.
That she was the tail.
If she, the tail, did not fall.
If she did what she was meant to do.
Aslan would surely come.
The girl believed.
And the man answered.
—Woooom!
A turbine sound. Sudden noise. The Sword of the War God reacted sharply to the sound arising from his rear.
The blade he swung in a spasm of reflex was rich in artifice. The swordsmanship he had reforged while cutting down hundreds of soldiers was, in truth, a murder-sword.
An attack with formidable power and exceptional technique that could not be dismissed as the work of a one-armed being. A perfect strike where mind, technique, and body all aligned.
A horizontal slash capable of splitting even the thickest fortress wall.
And so the Sword of the War God could not believe his own eyes.
Shriek!
Clashing steel. With that sound, silence fell upon the battlefield.
Until a scrape, metal grating on metal, cut through the silence.
Myth Killer's cherished sword, which no one had ever managed to block after he had taken this form.
Victory.
It was now held fast in a mere hand.
Scrrrape.
Beyond the grating sound of metal, a man stood.
His tattered body was drenched in blood.
His exhausted eyes were dark with weariness, yet they remained like a single unquenched ray of light.
Teal eyes that blazed as if on fire.
Near those teal eyes, a hand covered in black scales held the greatsword in place.
The turbine sound poured from that hand.
It was no mere magical tool.
It was Aslan's arm, obtained at the cost of a soul.
The arm of a true dragon.
Above the silent slaughterhouse, the howl of that dragon followed, and Aslan raised a sword.
A broken, rusted saber dropped by a soldier who had raised it to protect someone and then died.
A single soldier's weapon carrying no myth or legend.
Aslan gripped that sword and spoke.
His voice resonated beyond reason.
In the ears of the dying, of those who crouched holding their breath to survive, of those weeping in grief, and of those who had fallen dead at battle's end.
"Pure."
And human will blazed bright.