Chapter 153
Chapter 153
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 153
Chapter Title: Dragon's Descent
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The noise from the ecstatic audience seats was dismissed as mere white noise amid the battle.
Sword and staff clashed using nothing but pure strength and technique, without manifesting aura or sword energy.
Yet precisely because of that, Esther and Ovarna found it tricky.
‘To think I’d encounter a powerhouse like this in a colosseum crawling with criminals.’
Ovarna grimaced in pure astonishment, while Esther wore a faintly pleased expression.
Ovarna—as her name indicated—was Orville’s adopted daughter.
A figure born and raised in the tower, who had scarcely ever ventured outside.
For the first time in her life, she suffered the humiliation of a group beating at Kallias’s hands, which propelled her into the secular world.
But no sooner had she emerged than a con artist, feigning kindness by offering directions, tricked her into signing a slave contract herself.
Passed from hand to hand while raising hell everywhere she went, she had ended up here.
In any case, she figured she could smash through these worldly thugs in no time, pocket some coin, and splurge to her heart’s content—yet it proved far more difficult than expected.
The swordsman before her eyes.
‘A transcendent, just like me.’
She wasn’t overly surprised at first.
Originally the Layer Lord of the 61st floor.
She even played the role of personally thrashing those freshly ascended to transcendence, warning them against arrogance.
The first to teach them that surpassing human limits meant little in a vast world.
That was Ovarna’s role.
Thus, her surprise lasted only a moment.
In Boltan’s colosseum, Ovarna fought as if she were once more a Layer Lord, almost unconsciously.
As anticipated, the blue-haired swordswoman was a fresh transcendent—still raw, one might say.
Those who shatter their walls inevitably draw on the long-accumulated power pent up within their shell.
A habit forged over countless years. Even after piercing their limits, wielding greater power felt awkward.
Forcing it out only disrupted balance, weakening the transmission of force.
Ovarna had faced and instructed such novices for ages, so Esther’s flaws were plain as day.
Tap, tap, tap.
In just three thrusts.
Esther’s movements halted like a marionette with severed strings.
“Everything has its gaps. Without sufficient spacing, power fails to transmit fully.”
Ovarna preempted her: before Esther could fully extend her arm, flex and stretch her legs, or properly engage her waist.
“You can’t beat me like that.”
“…….”
But then.
Thud!
Esther abruptly flung her blocked sword into the air.
“Eh?”
Simultaneously, she lightly stepped onto Ovarna’s staff, spun with a whirl, snatched the sword midair, and slammed it down.
Boom!
‘The aura’s changed.’
A chill ran through her—
Ovarna’s body hairs stood on end.
No grand motion.
Yet that judgment, that movement—it symbolized an epiphany for her.
From the advice just given, she had grown.
Her flowing blue hair whipped as crescent sword energies fired forth.
Rrrumble rumble rumble!
Dozens of crescent bundles launched; Ovarna summoned her own energy to shatter them all, then thrust her staff.
She stamped it into the ground for a kick, swung it in dazzling arcs while weaving thrusts.
Just like before: to preempt and seal her movements.
Yet right then.
Swish.
Sensing Ovarna’s motion, Esther lunged with her sword.
“Fool’s errand!”
Tap.
Ovarna deflected the incoming elbow with her staff, lips curling smugly.
Esther smiled too.
Her half-extended blade slid downward. Her left hand snatched it, whipping it upward like a thunderbolt.
Slash!!
Ta-ta-tat! A backflip through the air dodged the sword, widening the gap.
Slide.
Ovarna wiped the blood bead from her chin; her eyes quivered blankly.
“Hoo, haa…….”
One deep breath.
With it, Ovarna quelled her turmoil, regaining composure.
Secular world, colosseum, gladiator, slave—all forgotten.
Her vision held only the blue-haired master before her.
“I’m coming.”
Aura cloaked her staff.
“Come.”
Esther’s sword gleamed likewise.
A coating so thin it evaded the eye.
Yet denser than anything: a quintessence of qi enshrouding it.
Strength poised to collide with strength.
“Masters from foreign lands!!”
“Heresy!!”
Vivid aura.
Even commoners grasped its meaning.
Shouts erupted from all sides; Esther and Ovarna’s shoulders twitched.
“Ah….”
Swept in the thrill, they’d forgotten their whereabouts.
Click-click-click-click.
In moments, soldiers bristling with spears encircled them within the colosseum.
Among them stood empire knights of captain rank—and a few who scarred the earth as masters.
And one Empire’s Spear.
“What lunatics we have here. Foreign masters brawling on imperial soil, no less—in Boltan’s colosseum. Protesting to be captured?”
* * *
“What’s this? What’s happening? What about my money?!”
“W-who won?!”
“No draws, right? Where’s my money!!”
Heresy in the empire.
Foreign masters.
The stands descended into chaos, split between cries of outrage over lost bets.
Some bolted from their seats.
Kallias and Serena stayed put amid the lizard and dwarf scrambling for refunds, watching the scene.
“What now?”
“Nothing for us. They can handle themselves—real powerhouses.”
Ovarna’s status as a holy site Layer Lord would shield her once revealed.
The empire poured ample support into Agatodo and held them in respect.
“Her, though—she’s the issue.”
Whatever brought her here, she had motives.
‘Nearly a year back, she set off seeking relics. Why here?’
Hard to fathom.
No chance she’d been duped like Ovarna or swept up in the frenzy.
Likely deliberate.
Empire’s heartland.
Revealing herself to fight as a gladiator—what for?
‘Has she learned Lactus’s Tear’s location too?’
No other explanation fit.
But.
“Doesn’t look that way, watching her.”
Esther unleashed sword energy the instant she was surrounded. Hardly ideal, yet she slashed at the empire troops unabated, as if relieved.
Likely the empire’s grudge—born of Sullivian—still stained her blade. Kallias saw it so.
Arms crossed, eyeing the emotion in her sword, he asked,
“My money first—what happens to it?”
“Want me to check?”
“Surely someone’s fled with it by now.”
“I’ll take responsibility and drag them back.”
Dragons and their gold lust.
Kallias held his seat, ignoring Serena’s latest misconception.
They swarmed.
Empire troops like a pack of hounds.
Soldiers flooded the colosseum; Ovarna and Esther, backs together as if never foes, met the imperial onslaught.
“They fight well.”
Philo—once wailing for his money—now sat plopped in enlightenment, content to spectate.
He marveled aloud at Esther and Ovarna carving through the oncoming empire ranks.
“That’s them. Talent like no other—top in Karpe, easily.”
“You know her? Who?”
“The Sword Saintess.”
“Saintess? Karpe’s got one?”
“Candidate for now, but she’ll claim the title soon. Burn her face in memory—this chance. Fate might cross paths later.”
Crack! Boom!!
Ovarna’s staff.
It abruptly warped, elongating and thickening, blasting one side of the colosseum away.
Through the gaping hole, mountain ridges and sun gleamed.
“We’re not next to fly, are we?”
Rumble rumble.
The colosseum quaked.
Amid the battle’s throes, threatening collapse, Esther’s sword blazed.
‘Sullivian.’
The blade that forged her radiated verdant nature’s glow.
Soldiers struck by her rippling sword energy saw muscles in torsos and arms balloon unnaturally—then burst.
“Urgh—what the hell?”
“Long story… point is, excess poisons the body.”
“Huh?”
“That sword heals, at root. Mends wounds, clears mind and spirit.”
Yet.
“Overdone, it turns toxic.”
Take recovery: cells must regenerate.
Skip the blood cell jargon—regeneration heals, period.
But if regeneration overwhelms?
Tissue ruptures under unchecked proliferation.
Such was Esther’s sword.
Healing light for allies.
Ruinous light for foes.
Sword Saintess.
Her witch moniker would skyrocket post-war...
‘Rumors’ll swirl through the empire already.’
No great concern.
“What kinda terrifying sword...”
“The woman it made was that sort.”
Benevolent, yet stern.
Sullivian had been thus.
Shunning Philiche for decades over defiance—a resolute woman.
“Hmm.”
Kallias shut his eyes.
His superhuman sense snagged myriad presences.
Empire knights charging anew into the colosseum.
Standouts among them.
A faint entity creeping closer, unhurried.
Unignorable, drawing near.
“Sluggish.”
Then.
Sense fully extended, Kallias scowled, clutching his brow.
“What? Why?”
“Spotted.”
Someone pierced the qi sense woven of fairy power and divinity—shattered it.
‘Not the slow approacher.’
He’d been casual, ignoring Kallias’s probe knowingly.
This one? No.
Swift. Qi bloomed instantly upon detection, dismantling it.
“Something’s inbound.”
Whiiiiiing.
A razor wind howled suddenly.
At once.
KABOOM!!
A colossal mass plummeted from the sky, pulverizing the colosseum on impact.
Ruuuuumble!!
Titanic quake; stone shards flew every which way.
-KRARARARARARA!!
Bat-membrane wings.
Reptilian frame, slit pupils vertical.
Curved twin horns, body-wreathed aura, talons like blades.
KREEEEEEONG-!
“Guh!”
“Nngh!”
The roar reverberated everywhere.
Unmistakably absent from human ears for a millennium.
Dragon Fear.
The primal terror halted motion, breath—everything in the colosseum.
“D-d-dragon... why now?!”
Philo—least scathed, body shuddering—his cry rang out; the behemoth’s gaze locked on him.
“Ah…….”
The dragon’s emergence was unequivocal.
Fury aimed squarely at Kallias.
A dragon baring fangs his way.
Mastery’s inaugural foe: a dragon.
“Not bad at all.”
Kallias’s lips quirked; he clamped Loas’s scabbard.
In one fluid draw, the sword sang free.
Half the colosseum cleaved asunder.