Chapter 140
Chapter 140
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 140
Chapter Title: Death Knight Bladi
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Thirty years had passed since the Dragon-Demon War reached its peak, laying waste to the continent.
Humans could no longer stand idly by as the war between dragons and demons expanded endlessly.
Heroes wielding swords, spears, axes, maces, hammers, bows, fists and feet, scythes, staves, and more gathered together.
They formed a single army, uniting as the Allied Forces to slay the dragons and demons.
A dazzling tale etched into history.
A brilliant true story that would draw a single stroke.
Yet the process was horrific.
“Snap out of it!!”
Boom!!
A brave warrior of the tribe.
Titeo witnessed the corpse of his comrade—who had died trying to save him—turn to ash without a trace and vanish.
The dragon roared, spewing fire and poison, while all sorts of divine powers erupted from its maw, massacring his comrades.
The demons were even worse.
They corrupted comrades, blasphemed against the gods, and cursed all living things. Preaching that gods were not beings who rewarded faith, they swung grotesque weapons and committed slaughter.
“Damn it, Matana's fallen!!”
“Goddamn it! I knew something was off! What are you waiting for! Cut him down... cut him down now!”
Even in sleep, we had to shake off the demons' whispers, and at the slightest sound of wind, we had to leap up with weapons in hand.
Demons whispered, and dragons soared through the skies, incinerating everything on the ground.
It mattered not whether it was day or night. Dragons, with their superior physical prowess and innate ability to cloak themselves in aura from birth, were foes everyone feared.
Demons' cursed armaments tore apart humans who cried out to the gods and deceived the dragons' eyes.
[I was afraid.]
With every step forward, a comrade with whom I'd shared talk by the fire died.
With two steps, a father of one child met a gruesome end, and with the third leap, a hero representing our armaments fell to corruption and turned enemy.
We had to kill them after they became moving corpses, slaves to the demons.
Yesterday's comrades. Today's family.
Tomorrow's lovers.
We had to kill them, or watch them die.
The war for peace.
The war to preserve tranquility.
It tormented everyone and plunged them into despair.
[Humans are weak.]
The war, escalated into a three-way conflict, was chaos incarnate, and between dragons and demons, humans were infinitesimally small.
Numerous, but that was all.
Weak in strength and spirit alike.
“Titeo!! Don't space out!”
Yet amid it all, shining stars existed. She was the light itself.
The dream held in our hearts.
Hope.
“Snap out of it, you bastard! How long are you going to keep staring at Stella!!”
“Got it! Bladi.”
Slash!!
He cleaved through the moving corpses.
Trampling lesser dragonkin, he took in the battlefield.
Heroes battling dragons.
Demons aiming for gaps between them.
“Lady Stella!!”
Around Stella, who raced along trampling a dragon's tail, sword petals bloomed in profusion.
She severed the tail. Slashed the body.
Scaled the neck to behead it.
Her movements held not a shred of flaw, her divinely inspired swordsmanship defying the heavens.
Rustle.
Before long, the battlefield was carpeted in petals.
In a field of nothing but despair, we loved her for making flowers bloom.
“Flower Breaking Path.”
Kwaaaaaaaa!!
Ruuuuumble!!
With her single stroke, the earth warped, a gale of blood raged, and earth-shaking thunder roared from all directions.
Before her sword, demons and dragons were equals.
Countless times, a hundred dragons lost their heads to her single stroke.
One stroke.
A mere stroke that shook the entire battlefield.
That was transcendence itself.
Dragon slayer. Sword Saint.
One who neared the divine.
Stella.
Her petals swept the area, splattering dragon blood across the ground and turning demonic filth into fertilizer for the soil.
But the dragonkin and demons had many with skills matching hers. She, humanity's beacon, was growing steadily, yet the war hurtled steeply toward its climax.
Humanity relied on her.
Demanded her sacrifices.
Humanity was weak, and she was strong.
Even so, the battlefield tormented humanity, piling grudge upon grudge until emotions swirled that could no longer discern good from evil.
“…….”
So many died.
Dragons, demons, humans.
All died.
Died, died, and died again.
The verdant earth was laid waste, shattered and pulverized into sand.
The fine sand drank blood.
The sand turned red.
The sky turned red too.
Yet the war did not end.
No matter how many we killed, endlessly killed, the war showed no sign of stopping.
Like the waves of reinforcements humanity threw in.
Dragons and demons were the same.
Yet.
Even so, we.
Had to press forward.
We were preserving peace with our deaths.
[I wept sorrowfully.]
* * *
Rustle.
Kallias opened his eyes and realized he had reached the door.
The door to the next layer.
But he did not touch it rashly.
[Swordsmanship of Humanity's Savior, Stella]
[You have witnessed the true Flower Breaking Path of Silver Flower Sword Wave. Technique +3.]
His Technique rose just from seeing it.
In that span of time, his barely 19 Technique had risen to 22.
The true realm of Flower Breaking Path lived up to its immense reputation.
[You have witnessed Silver Flower Sword Wave, Flower Breaking Path. You can now glimpse its true essence.]
[Report this to the Valterus Church, and you shall be greatly rewarded.]
[……]
[You have already acquired Silver Flower Sword Wave, Flower Breaking Path. But it was a degraded version with artificially reduced power.]
[Having glimpsed the true Flower Breaking Path, your technique advances one step further.]
Kallias slowly drew his sword.
Roas, emerging from its sheath, emitted a chilling tone.
The massive door of corruption.
Toward the door engraved with a scene from the Dragon-Demon War, Kallias raised his sword straight.
Whoosh.
Sword aura cloaked his blade.
Soon, the silver sword aura scattered in all directions, blooming into petals.
Each fragment of sword aura, resembling petals, held power incomparable to before.
And now.
‘Other Shore Flower.’
He could even infuse it with Other Shore Flower properties.
Each petal-like fragment of sword aura was akin to a bomb.
Of course, instinct told him he could not yet wield it like Stella at her peak.
Yet it clearly informed him that he was stronger than before.
A smile of joy surely formed.
But it was quickly withdrawn.
The battlefield's brutality.
Their sacrifices.
The powerlessness before mighty foes.
All of it had been transmitted to him intact through Titeo.
Hesitation clung to Kallias's hand as he sheathed his sword.
The emotion in his eyes was not fear.
Deep regret.
A kind of guilt.
But he shook his head.
He too.
Like them in that era.
Had no choice but to advance.
Kallias stepped forward.
Pushing toward the door to the next layer. Unlike before, the door was sturdy.
As if questioning.
Whether he was prepared.
Kallias answered.
Roooooar!
The wide-open door to the layer was Kallias's reply.
He did not stop.
* * *
“Hey, Titeo. You okay?”
“I'm fine. You're with a greatsword again, Bladi.”
Bladi was Titeo's comrade-in-arms.
His close friend, his family.
His greatsword cleaved even lesser dragonkin necks with ease and mercilessly shattered demonic temptations.
Titeo took pride in such a man.
Unlike himself, a coward.
Bladi was strong.
“Brought you a shield that suits you.”
“This?”
“Nagged the shield guys until they gave it up.”
“Ooh….”
“We don't worship the Shield God, so we can't use its true power, but even so, nothing's tougher.”
Bladi grinned contentedly, having gifted the shield to Titeo.
Because Titeo, rarely excited, was testing shield techniques.
After much testing and flashing a satisfied smile, Bladi spoke bitterly to Titeo.
“Survive, Titeo.”
“Of course! Bladi.”
Friends from the same tribe, raised together and enlisting in the Dragon-Demon War side by side.
With him, it was possible.
Though mentally and physically grueling, with Bladi.
They could return home together when this war ended.
He believed it without doubt.
...Four years since humanity joined the fray.
Fighting dragons had become routine for them, and resisting demonic lures grew familiar.
They ran following the backs of growing heroes like Stella and the other armament bearers.
And they, chasing behind, grew the same.
The faint hope that had glimmered spread into a strong spark.
Hope sprouted.
The sprout extended roots.
Perhaps.
Perhaps this war would soon end.
We, with finite lives unlike them.
Our growth was so steep it would write myths.
Hope bloomed into flowers.
[It was mercilessly trampled.]
Boom!!
“Gahk!”
The bloomed hope was crushed hollowly.
“Titeo!!”
Titeo, his wrist severed by a demon's sword, let out a groan.
Startled, Bladi fought demons at Titeo's side.
“Dragons have allied with demons!!”
Did they sense a threat from humanity?
Dragons and demons joined hands.
Making a mockery of the Dragon-Demon War's name, even those noble dragons allied with demons to trample humanity.
“Titeo! Pull yourself together! It's just one hand! You're a sturdy warrior!!”
Despite Bladi's shouts, Titeo could not regain his senses.
The shock of losing a hand he'd had since birth paralyzed his reason with terror, and unbearable pain prevented sound judgment.
The battlefield fear he'd suppressed burst forth like an explosion.
[Foolish.]
“Titeo!!”
Bladi struck Titeo's chest after he lost his hand, staring blankly ahead with hollow eyes. Before him loomed an unavoidable dragon claw.
Sharper than any sword, harder than any hammer, the dragon claw was cloaked in aura, while a demon sword flew from below.
“Sorry.”
Bladi's grinning smile.
Crunch! Slash!!
That was the end.
“Aaah, aaaahhh! Aaaaahhhh!! Aaaaaaaaahhhh!! Bladi!!”
* * *
[Pathetically, I survived.]
[Relieved by his sacrifice. Yet also enraged, and terrified.]
[What I could do]
[Was only weep sorrowfully.]
[There was nothing I could do.]
Rustle.
Kallias opened his eyes to the sight of a vast cavern and sensed presences.
Creak.
Clank, clank.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
Torches along the walls lit one by one.
What appeared was a knight.
An iron knight wielding a greatsword. A skeleton knight clad head to toe in iron armor.
Death Knight.
“Bladi.”
-Roooooooaaaaaaaaarrr!!
Clack clack clack clack clack clack clack!
Intense killing intent.
His body stiffened rigid.
Bladi, the hero who endured the Dragon-Demon War.
Though now a Death Knight, the power he'd held in life had not faded.
Soon Kallias's body grew leaden, a headache struck, and his vision blurred.
But it was a mere instant.
The [Hetaiia's Crimson Jade] on Kallias's hand glowed red.
As the notification of resisting mental attack appeared, Bladi charged.
The mindless skeleton lacked the justice or valor of the brave knight in life.
It held only murderous intent toward humans.
Clinging to life.
And longing.
Envy and jealousy alone.
The roaring Bladi's greatsword targeted Kallias's head.
Even to Kallias's eyes, the Death Knight Bladi's greatsword art, cleaving as if to split a dragon's skull, was astonishing.
It bore the might to sunder mountains.
Kallias, drawing Roas to counter, urgently twisted his body to evade.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!!
Power enough to shake the earth.
The cavern floor cratered deeply.
As Kallias sought to regain balance, the greatsword surged through the smoke.
‘Can't deflect it.’
A greatsword of domineering force.
Kallias judged it a sword his power could not deflect.
And that judgment was spot on.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!!
Once.
Bladi's swordsmanship that slew dragons and demons.
The power within it reached a trajectory Kallias could not rashly counter.
Even as a moving corpse.
It made little difference.
Dodging Bladi's greatsword, Kallias lightly brushed his own sword against it now and then.
Not deflecting.
Merely placing his sword against the greatsword while evading.
A subtle act to alter its trajectory ever so slightly, yet the recoil was immense.
“Urk.”
Throb.
His wrist already throbbed after mere grazes.
Power surpassing humans.
Techniques honed against dragons and demons.
And tireless stamina.
Death Knight Bladi was strong.
Too strong for him now.
Thus.
“Feels shitty.”
Kallias was in a foul mood.
Because Bladi was strong?
No.
Because he'd encountered an enemy he couldn't handle?
No.
Because Titeo had turned Bladi into a moving corpse? No.
Kallias, face as if enduring something unbearable, reached his hand into empty air.
And what he drew out.
Was an old shield.
Thud.
A shield that seemed it would shatter at a mere touch.
A crude round shield patched with worn planks and iron plates, fit for bandits.
Yet precisely because of that.
Even Bladi's greatsword, capable of shattering mountains, halted before the battered shield.
Kallias's mood was at its worst.