Enlightenment in a Fleeting Moment
0.01 seconds.
That was the maximum duration I could maintain the Soul of the Sword Master.
It was such a brief moment that I barely had time to truly feel the skill's power.
I would simply blink, and my enemy would already be dead.
Perhaps that was why, despite using the ability twice, the 0.01 seconds of its activation remained uncharted territory to me.
...But things are different now.
Tick, tick, tick!
As I activated the authority skill, Ritardando Jin, that 0.01 seconds stretched out into eternity.
The Heavenly Dragon Bird's lightning moved like a slow-flowing river. I could clearly see the blue currents branching out in all directions, creeping toward me.
Rumble!
I felt my rock-bottom average stats instantly shatter their limits and skyrocket. A sensation akin to every cell in my body waking up washed over me. My muscles expanded, and my senses sharpened to a razor's edge.
Shring!
In that instant, my sword moved.
Its speed was so immense that even within this imprisoned flow of time, my eyes could barely track it.
Ah.
The lightning split.
The cleanly severed blue currents swept harmlessly past me.
The Feather Sword in my hand trembled slightly.
Even without my conscious command, the blade had moved on its own to cleave the lightning.
What in the world...?
Was this what they called the unity of body and sword? The Feather Sword felt like an extension of my own body. Sensing danger, the blade had reacted on its own.
Instinctively, just as one blinks when something flies toward their face.
Perfect defense achieved at a near-impossible, extreme timing.
Reward: You have acquired the passive skill Ultimate Auto-parrying.
Messages floated before my eyes.
I was stunned by a reward skill far more powerful than I had anticipated.
...But it was too early to celebrate.
The 0.01 seconds granted to me had not yet run its course.
Swoosh.
The Feather Sword swept horizontally, drawing a long, straight line.
Where the blade passed, a thin golden line lingered like a scar in the air.
*Crack!*
A brief silence fell.
The Heavenly Dragon Bird, which had been writhing minutely in the slowed time, froze.
The faint line splitting its body grew increasingly distinct.
Like cracks spreading across a massive pane of glass, the fracture spiderwebbed outward.
And then...
*Whoosh!*
...Time began to flow once more.
The raindrops that had been suspended in midair plunged to the earth, dragged down by gravity.
My heartbeat, which had slowed to a crawl, pounded furiously once again, and the stagnant air began to stir with the wind.
The duration of Ritardando Jin had finally expired.
"..."
Yet, the world I looked upon remained frozen.
I stood still in the follow-through of my swing, and the massive body of the Heavenly Dragon Bird did not budge.
*Creeeeak!*
It happened in the very next instant.
The upper half of the Heavenly Dragon Bird's body began to tilt.
Sliding along the thick line of the cut, the top portion of the colossal beast crashed straight into the ground.
*Boom!*
The Heavenly Dragon Bird fell with a tremor that shook the earth.
Dust billowed in all directions.
From the cleanly severed cross-section, dark blue blood gushed like a waterfall.
"..."
Yes.
That was the end of it.
...It's dead.
A Divine Beast.
Once an agent of the Elders, but now destined to become one of the worst monsters on the continent—a harbinger of the apocalypse...
Had been sliced in half by a single stroke of my sword, unable to do a single thing.
"Oh..."
A dazed voice drifted from behind me.
Adelia was staring at the corpse of the Heavenly Dragon Bird, her face completely blank with shock.
"Adelia,"
I said, tossing the words out in a deliberately nonchalant tone.
"Was that of some help this time?"
Adelia snapped her head up.
Her pupils trembled violently as she looked at me.
Still unable to recover from the shock, she couldn't utter a word.
She merely opened and closed her mouth repeatedly like a goldfish.
Well, still...
I looked at Adelia with a faint smile.
Or rather, I looked at the semi-transparent system window floating above her head.
...I guess she did gain a major realization.
Indeed, there was no need to hear her answer.
She had reached level 78 while fighting the Heavenly Dragon Bird, and now she had already climbed two more levels.
It seemed that simply witnessing my strike had triggered an immense growth spurt.
A genius really is built different.
To grow that much just by watching someone else swing a sword.
She wasn't the character with the highest potential in the world of Lost Elder for nothing.
Ah, of course...
Adelia wasn't the only one who had achieved something remarkable.
...
A cascade of notification windows floated before my eyes.
I reviewed them one by one, and only when I saw the final message did a smile spread across my face.
The sealed talent Sword Lv. Max has been unlocked.
...It worked.
The moment all my efforts finally bore fruit had arrived.
"..."
Adelia stared blankly at the corpse of the Heavenly Dragon Bird.
Her eyes still held the image of that unbelievable sight.
The trajectory of the blade cleaving the lightning, and the golden line that had bisected the beast.
Every single movement was deeply etched into her retinas.
So this is the realm of a Sword Master...
Until now, she hadn't had a proper chance to observe Sir Gaon's swordsmanship.
The incident in the underground arena had been too sudden, and when they fought Pean, she had been too preoccupied to pay attention.
But this time was different.
Thanks to Sir Gaon's advance warning, Adelia had been able to focus entirely on his strike.
—Watch closely, and engrave it into your eyes.
She had focused on Sir Gaon's sword, forgetting even to breathe.
It was truly beautiful.
A perfect strike, completely devoid of any wasted movement.
Thump.
The moment she witnessed it, Adelia instinctively realized that the wall blocking her path had silently crumbled away.
"Now..."
After a long silence, Adelia slowly parted her lips.
"...Now, I think I understand a little."
The light in Adelia's eyes had changed.
The answer she had searched for so desperately lay right before her.
Now, it was time to follow that answer. To keep moving forward until she reached her goal.
Sir Gaon nodded with a faint smile upon hearing her words.
What a mess.
I slowly looked around and clicked my tongue inwardly.
It was a truly gruesome sight.
Debris from broken carriages and corpses lay scattered haphazardly, and the metallic stench of blood stung my nose.
Finding survivors in this state seemed highly unlikely.
Surviving a monster wave followed by an attack from a Heavenly Dragon Bird was no easy feat.
Oh?
Murmurs began to rise.
Contrary to my expectations, quite a few people had survived.
As the surroundings quieted down, survivors who had been hiding began to crawl out one by one.
Their hiding spots were diverse: under carriage wreckage, beneath monster carcasses, in dugouts, and so on.
Ha.
I couldn't help but let out a dry chuckle at the sight.
...They all hid like cockroaches.
I smirked.
Though I thought of them that way, I was secretly glad to see their faces.
There were about five or six survivors.
While not a large number, considering the scale of the disaster, it was a near-miraculous survival rate.
Fortunately, the merchant leader was among them.
At the very least, it meant our escort mission hadn't failed.
Well, not that it matters much at this point.
It was while I was indulging in these idle thoughts.
The area suddenly grew noisy.
The survivors, spotting the corpse of the Heavenly Dragon Bird, were making a massive fuss.
"H-Heavens!"
"My god, what on earth is that...?"
The people stared at us in sheer terror.
It seemed they had been hiding so deeply that they hadn't witnessed what happened outside.
Even if they had tried to look, the raging storm would have made it impossible to see anything.
"How can something be that huge?"
"It's massive. Is that the legendary wyvern?"
"D-Did you two slay this monster? Just the two of you?"
In any case, the ordinary mercenaries and merchants didn't recognize the Heavenly Dragon Bird.
They were simply terrified by its colossal size and hideous appearance.
But the merchant leader was different.
True to his sharp eye—which had already seen through Adelia's identity—he recognized the beast at once.
"This is unbelievable."
The merchant leader wore a look of utter disbelief.
He crept closer and whispered,
"I-Isn't that the Heavenly Dragon Bird? One of the Divine Beasts of the great Elders..."
I nodded silently.
The merchant leader's eyes widened even further.
"B-But why on earth...?"
He trailed off.
I knew exactly what he wanted to ask, though. Why did a Divine Beast attack humans, and how did we manage to kill it?
"..."
I pondered for a moment before slowly opening my mouth.
In this situation, there was only one answer I could give.
"The world you once knew is over."
"..."
"Prepare yourself. After today, many things will change."
Slaying the corrupted Heavenly Dragon Bird did not delay the foretold apocalypse.
The corruption of a Divine Beast was merely the beginning of the crisis that would soon engulf this world.
"By the way..."
Once things had been somewhat sorted out, Adelia asked in a worried tone,
"...What do we do now, Sir Gaon?"
We couldn't simply rejoice at finding survivors.
The situation was grim.
The carriages were completely destroyed, and most of the horses had lost their lives.
To make matters worse, the surviving horses had fled in terror long ago when the storm raged.
*Snort!*
Just then, the merchant leader approached us, holding a set of reins.
A muscular horse followed behind him.
Its mane and coat gleamed with a healthy sheen, indicating it had been exceptionally well-cared for.
"This is the only horse we can use right now. A steed among steeds."
The merchant leader patted the horse's flank.
As if to prove its pedigree, the horse's eyes shone with intelligence.
Furthermore, considering it hadn't run away, its loyalty was clearly out of the ordinary.
"We can't fit everyone on it, so perhaps one of us should ride to the nearest village to call for help..."
The merchant leader stopped mid-sentence, looking puzzled.
He followed my gaze, staring out into the distance.
"Y-Young master? What are you looking at so intently...?"
"Wait,"
I interrupted him.
"They will be here soon."
"...Pardon?"
The merchant leader froze, looking utterly bewildered.
Not only him, but Adelia and the others also began to look at me with strange expressions.
Well, it was only natural.
Who on earth would come to such a perilous place?
The middle of the Silk Road was not a place where salvation would randomly appear out of nowhere.
*Clatter, clack!*
"Huh?"
But at that very moment, the sound of a carriage echoed from the distance out of nowhere.
Everyone perked up their ears and whipped their heads toward the source of the sound.
Something was visible beyond the distant hill.
Through the hazy sunlight, the faint silhouette of a carriage emerged.
It was approaching, deftly weaving through the debris left behind by the monster wave.
"Ah."
Adelia gasped once more, her eyes widening.
"That person is..."
"Ayyy! Tsk, tsk!"
Before Adelia could finish her sentence, a familiar voice rang out.
It was the gruff, raspy voice of an old man.
"See! I told you I'd get you there safely for two million shillings!"
"..."
"I told you it's dangerous to just take any cheap carriage!"