Chapter 213
Chapter 213
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 213
Chapter Title: Dawn's Return, Against the Sword God (5)
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11.
Roooaaar───────
From that sword.
The dawn sword aura blazed more brilliantly than ever before, and then.
───Kaaaaaaaang!
It clashed with the divine sword, <Valkalrich>.
The shockwave from those sword pressures scattered the thick dust clouds in all directions in an instant.
“You call this... humanity...?”
The divine sword <Valkalrich> trembled.
In a split second, it spewed a storm of sword energy toward me, shoving me far back.
“Those pathetic little shards are utterly meaningless, no matter what they are!”
I didn’t yield.
I didn’t fall.
I rose again, charging at Choi Sin-yul and clashing blades once more.
“Behold!”
Chaaaaaaaang───────!
The clash with the glacial divine sword.
Along with a piercing ring that threatened to tear my eardrums, fragments of dawn shattered helplessly.
“With a single swing of my blade, hundreds of your shards break.”
But.
Each time, I cried out.
Again, I shouted. Again and again and again and again.
“Even if you had ten thousand instead of a thousand, they’d still seem meaningless?”
Again, again, again.
The fragments of dawn flying back toward me.
What is it? The flame of life. The measure of existence. The limit of the power granted to humans.
“Then go ahead—try breaking all ten thousand of these blades...!”
Soon, my life itself.
My very lifespan.
All those things shattering in the outer universe’s glacial cold—they were my vitality.
“But remember this────!”
It was fading away.
One by one. The years of life granted to me.
“────Even if you break all 999 of these!”
It was being whittled down.
Chaeang, chaeang, chaaaaang! One, one, another one. Memories I truly cherished.
“If you can’t break the very last one─────!”
A lifetime.
Memories I wanted to hold onto for a lifetime.
“─────Then it’s my victory!”
I didn’t want to lose any of them... but right now, I had to fight like this.
“It seems every time a fragment vanishes, your life force completely dissipates... Is that right?”
Yes.
Because I am human, and thus frail.
Because a lone human is so powerless before a divine being.
“You idiot!”
Jeeeeeeng──────!
“Kim Baek-jun, this mad world we live in!”
──────Puhwaaaaaak!
“Has always been about power, even before it went insane!”
[Warning: Current available life force: 512]
“Survival of the fittest!”
Why?
Why did the Genesis Gods make humans so fragile?
“Those who have power take! Those without lose it all! That childish truth has reigned since prehistoric times!”
Why on earth? Why?
If humans had been made strong, we wouldn’t be toyed with by the outer universe like this.
No, that’s not it, 101st.
Tersia...?
That’s not weakness.
Look at the world... look at people. Because there are things one person can’t do alone.
- Live.
- Step on me and go, Kim Baek-jun.
- Mister, I’ll clear the way for you.
Doesn’t that make humans learn to help each other, to understand one another?
“What the hell do you even want?”
One person.
One by one, one more.
“Now you’re trying to practice the law of the jungle in reverse?”
The more hands that joined.
The heavier the burden became lighter, and the impossible became possible, didn’t it?
Kaaang! Kaaang! Kaaaaang───!
That way.
We learned to love one another.
To unite, didn’t we?
“Enough with the hypocrisy!”
Ah.
Yes... so that’s what it was.
“Why try to help?”
Yes.
The power wielded by the beacon keepers of Bonghwa... it’s not divine authority or miracles.
“Why try to protect?”
It’s.
Simply the human soul.
The soul of humans who, with one heart and one mind, overcame despair together through tears.
“Why sacrifice even your life?”
Berkenxia is.
Those very human souls.
The souls of these frail yet resilient lives.
“What’s in it for you on that path? What reward?”
Merely, just, in however small a way.
A bridge connecting eras, transcending the world.
“There’s nothing!”
Transcending eras.
Transcending worlds.
So that we humans could join forces... just like you and I, the 101st, could meet...
“Answer me, Kim Baek-jun!”
Ah...
Now I truly understand.
“Convince me of your beliefs!”
Berkenxia’s power.
It may seem truly insignificant... but in truth, it holds a value greater and more noble than anything else.
“Tell me what’s left on the path you walk─────!”
It was... the power born from unity...
Jeeeeeeng……………!
The next moment, the Berkenxia in my grasp shattered into motes of light under <Valkalrich>’s slash.
“──────I’m standing right here in front of you!”
I reached out my hand again.
The [Master of the Broken Dawn] flew into my grasp—the blade completed by her very life.
“Thanks to the [Master of the Broken Dawn] walking this path────!”
I gripped that sword with all my might.
I swung it wildly at the overwhelmingly sturdy divine sword’s blade, again and again, howling desperately.
“───────Thanks to Valerin! To Alkimeres! And to Liam walking this path!”
[Palms of a Hundred Laws].
[Twilight Bow].
[Dawn Radiance Ten Crimson Mirror].
Blades of light flying in one after another.
These blades were proof of life itself.
Emblems of devotion, of loving the world even unto death.
“Thanks to Tersia blazing the trail at the start of this path─────!”
They’re clearly weapons... yet they feel so warm.
All of them.
Because they weren’t blades to cut others—they were blades to cut oneself.
“───That’s why I can!”
Ahhh...
Did the Genesis Gods know this dazzling truth even before creation?
“That’s why I can stand here before you right now───!”
Only through this weakness.
Humans learn the value of unity... and together, turn weakness into strength.
And.
Berkenxia.
This sword, so warm.
Was the divine sword that had borne witness to that primordial truth against the outer universe.
─────Kaaaaaaaang!
The next split second.
The moment the dawn’s blaze ignited fiercely.
The moment a faint crack spiderwebbed across <Valkalrich>’s blade.
“─────────?!”
Choi Sin-yul kicked off the ground violently, retreating to widen the gap.
“You think I’ll let you escape?!”
Here.
Right here, right now—it ends.
As I moved to pursue with 《Thunder Spirit Step》, cold sweat drenched my body.
No, what... is that...?
Choi Sin-yul began spinning that unrealistically massive seven-star greatsword in his left hand.
“Ultimate Art, 《Absolute Frozen Earth》………………!”
Danger.
I knew it instinctively.
If that hits... I die.
Whoooooooosh…………
In the whirlwind of that blade.
Silence became chaos, and chaos became silence.
[Lord of Silent Chaos].
The mystery of Sherashl’Toryak’s power, disrupting providence itself and manifesting an aura that froze the world.
………Kugugugugugu.
I jerked my head up for a moment.
The fragments of 《Western Dark Scripture》 were down to less than half... but I had no other choice.
“Come to me, Dawn Sword!”
Two hundred uses.
Forty percent of the remaining fragments vanished in an instant.
Chaaaaaaaang─────
That broken greatsword.
I gripped it reverently with both hands, hoisting it overhead.
───Charararararang!
Jade-green sword aura.
It surged over the blade like waves.
Gradually, ever gradually, it grew into an overwhelming blade stretching to the heavens—a miraculous sight.
“Brighten this land with dawn───────!”
It was almost simultaneous.
Choi Sin-yul’s spinning divine sword.
He whipped <Valkalrich>’s blade in a diagonal slash, whipping the whirlwind into sword energy.
“Annihilate───────!”
And my dawn blade.
Aimed straight at him, I swung down with all my might.
“───────Tarhye Rondel!”
A storm of pure white sword energy.
A tsunami of jade-green sword energy.
The absolute, overwhelming clash of two forces capable of reducing a world to nothingness.
“Nuuuuuwaaaaaaaa!”
And.
The clash of roars from the sword auras’ cores.
“─────Oooooooowaaaaaaa!”
Jjejejejejejejeje───
The pure white sword energy.
Froze all creation in an instant.
The jade-green sword energy restored the frozen world...
───Wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu───
Ah, no......
Heavy. And it’s pushing me back.
Gradually... gradually... definitely being pushed. If this keeps up... I lose.
That moment.
In that moment of crisis.
Liam Talorden’s advice flashed through my mind.
────Kwakwakwakwakwa!
I withdrew the Dawn Sword.
Immediately, the pure white sword energy swallowed everything, surging in as a murderous frost storm.
“Berkenxia, form change─────!”
At that moment.
I amplified my leg strength for an instant and launched my body upward.
But right below.
The Absolute God’s frost storm chased me, freezing heaven and earth.
“───────[Palms of a Hundred Laws]!”
《Unyielding Iron Extremity》.
It created a massive stake.
Another stake sprouted from the tip of that stake.
Again, again. Again, again.
Using those stakes as footholds, I kept ascending when.
Whooooooo─────!
Suddenly, the 《Absolute Frozen Earth》 storm rushed in from ahead. I instantly form-changed the Palms of a Hundred Laws.
“─────[Dawn Radiance Ten Crimson Mirror], alter!”
In my hand was a shield of mirrors.
In an instant, a curtain of ten crisscrossing barriers unfolded before it.
Help me, Liam.
And I.
Threw myself into the storm.
“Guh... Kraaaaaah………!”
Even with the cross-barrier out front, two of them shredded away in a moment.
In the end.
Taking the full brunt of the storm on my body, <Peytezla> and my bones creaked as if they’d shatter.
[Warning: Propulsion unit critical damage]
- Output: 7% -> 2%
Please, just a little longer.
Please, hold on just a bit more.
After gritting my teeth to endure that moment, I finally saw it.
[Psionic Assist AI, Kaduel: Visual obstruction detected. Penetration vision UI applied]
In that overwhelming frost storm.
Beyond it, where I never imagined I could survive—stood.
The Sword God, Choi Sin-yul.
How immense must that power be.
Even Choi Sin-yul looked fatigued, stabbing <Valkalrich>’s tip into the snow and catching his breath.
“Choi Sin-yul─────────!”
Berkenxia form change.
Twilight Bow.
“────One shot left!”
In a split second.
Choi Sin-yul heard my voice.
He saw me bursting through the storm, nocking an arrow on the great bow—and in that instant, he swung up the divine sword <Valkalrich>.
“…………?!”
You mad bastard.
Sealed your openings in 0.1 seconds?
It’s beyond tongue-clicking—it’s absurd.
But.
Thanks to that ultimate perfection, he fell right for it.
“Come here─────!”
I hurled the Twilight Bow.
My arms naturally extended into the air with the motion.
“────────Dawn Sword!”
Pachiiing……!
In an instant, the fragments flew up and split into two in midair. They settled into my outstretched hands.
- Remember, 101st. You must confound feint and reality.
Brilliantly flickering blood-red and golden dawn.
Dawnlight Yeomyeong Sword.
The Dawn Sword’s first authority, [Spacetime Manipulation].
- Turn killing blows into empty feints, and empty feints into killing blows.
My vision grayed out in an instant.
All creation slowed, but this slowdown didn’t affect Choi Sin-yul.
“Such───”
But.
If he anticipated an arrow and swung his blade loaded with destructive sword pressure, it was different.
“──────tricks!”
Yes, tricks if you call them tricks.
I had no confidence in beating you otherwise anymore.
Jeeeeeeng──────!
The roar was a feint.
The leap aiming for a decisive strike—a feint. Not using 《Dawnlight Yeomyeong Sword》 even once until now—a feint.
All for this one moment.
In a split second.
I stared straight at my target.
Not him, but the ground behind his back.
I pulled that spot right before my eyes.
The snowy landscape before me warped chaotically in an instant.
The next moment.
For the first time in this long duel, I seized the Sword God’s blind spot behind him.
“───────No?!”