Chapter 38
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: The Seal of Mauna Loa
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Vision.
As the path to the demon's heart, beyond the volcanic ash, was cleared.
The blade of the holy sword, having locked onto the world's nemesis, began to roar, sharp and red.
─ Sipmunjado Style 4, Release.
Inside the scabbard, a wave of power was focused and honed into a single stream of killing intent.
The blade.
The guard.
The hilt.
As the entire sword began to creak and tremble from the force of the recoil, he kicked off the ground with all his might, closing the distance in a single breath.
「!」
In that instant, the demon, about to spread its wings, shot out an arm at an unnatural speed.
And in that same instant, Kaisen's body spun like a top, deeply slicing through that arm.
As he cut, Kaisen's form pivoted alongside the demon's arm, the force of his spin cleanly opening the wound.
「───!」
A dull rupture, like bedrock being crushed.
With that sound, lava poured from the severed limb.
Kaisen was already gone from the spot where the primeval lava, far exceeding the boiling point of human flesh, had scattered.
─ Release - Sipmunjado Style 6, Flashing Dance Cut.
Faster.
Even faster.
A single strike is too shallow. To aim for the kill, I must be faster.
─ Release - Sipmunjado Sword-Drawing Technique, Wood Splitting.
Like Camilla.
Just as Camilla did.
I have to weave the countless sword dances into one. Not as separate forms, but as a single, unified dance.
─ Release - Sipmunjado Style 10, Cross Slash.
Before the afterimage of light from one slash could fade, another flashed.
Again.
Again, and again.
Again, again, again, and again.
The afterimages overlapped and layered until, to the eyes of others, it looked as if a red flower was in full bloom around the demon.
“That's... no...?”
At that moment, everyone present watched the scene as if overwhelmed, but Roveris’s observation was different.
That sword dance, she had seen it before.
That illusion of a flower, she had seen it before.
At the end of the 'Black Summer,' when the 'Hero' cut down the Incarnation-class Mauna Loa, just like now...
“...Lady Raminea's?”
The Sipmunjado was originally a sword of dance.
A sword that targeted the opponent not with a single, independent motion, but with a continuous one.
But she had heard this was impossible, as Kaisen's chosen fundamental move was only 'Release.' How...?
*Shing, shing, shishishishishishing!*
The answer to that question was simple.
He was pushing the limits of the human body and the power of the Dragon Spirit to continuously sheath and draw his sword.
In a word, at maximum speed.
─ Release - Burst Strike.
─ Release - Thunderquake Dragon.
─ Release - Severing Thunder Blade.
The power of the fake holy sword couldn't target the demon's soul, but it certainly managed to seize it by the ankles.
“The demon's movements are sealed!”
“Kaisen Alter Aradamanthel's desperate battle has greatly weakened the demon's mobility!”
“Grand Juyeosogyedaeban, power convergence at 88%!”
The words spat out by the excited dark elf attendants sent a heart-pounding thrill through Mirngadia.
‘Kaisen, descendant of the Yonghyeon who embraced the soul of the Light Dragon...’
Within the light of those slashes, Mirngadia couldn't help but recall the end of the 'Black War.'
Raminea Alter Aradamanthel.
Raminea was a pure child from the moment she was born.
Like her ancestors, she had a pure laugh even as a child, and she was a child who would cry even at the small sadness of an animal's death.
Her face was a combination of the Yonghyeon's purity and the purity of Miria, who was like a mother to the Three Spirit Dragons.
When she smiled, all the light in her body and soul blossomed like a flower.
She was a child who had walked the path of the Hero solely because she wanted to help the Three Spirit Dragons.
- I want to help the elders with all my heart and strength.
One person.
Born as the child of one person.
Mirngadia was time and again astonished and moved by the primordial beauty of one who inherited the face, expressions, scent, and heart of those from the past.
- Uncle Mir, I wish to end my path here. You're badly hurt, aren't you? Please, rest now.
That child faced Mauna Loa in Mirngadia's place at the end of the 'Black Summer' and died, on paper.
Yes, on paper...
Did the heart and soul of that child—who gave birth to a daughter and a son, lived happily, and then truly died protecting her son—reach the heavens?
- Mir, I saw Raminea today. Her daughter and son both take after their mother so much, they're so lovely. I wish you could have seen them yourself...
Just like the Yonghyeon.
Rather than sending others to their deaths.
Did that child, who always walked into death's maw herself, finally meet the Yonghyeon somewhere other than here?
And if you met, were you able to stand tall, without a shred of shame?
Camilla would have been able to stand tall before you. For like you, she completed her mission of willingly walking to her death for the sake of others.
‘I am sorry...’
If my wisdom had been deeper, if I had been strong enough to face the Yonghyeon without shame.
I would not have drawn you onto that sad path of duty that caused you so much pain.
As he recalled old memories, a tear seeped from the eyelid of Mirngadia's sleeping form.
‘Yes, and your son... he truly takes after you...’
The prelude to an all-out war,
The Battle of the Red Mountains (6)
At a moment when the endless chain of techniques crisscrossed the air in countless diagonal flashes of light.
Mauna Loa's tail instantly broke through space and aimed for Kaisen's heart.
But in that instant, a dull black light flared, and the tail was caught in mid-air.
“Hah, for a beast the size of a mountain—”
In a word, absurd brute strength...
“—you've got no grit! You're weaker than my dead wife!”
Tval had stopped the tail with both hands, his feet cracking the ground and sinking deep into it.
“Mr. Tval...!”
The moment the demon tried to lift its tail to smash Tval, a crack spread across the space where the tail resided.
*Crack, crrrrackle, shaaaatter!*
Spacetime Slash.
The fractured dimension split apart, and the severed tail was sucked into the rift.
“Don't stop!”
At that shout, the corners of his mouth twitched.
Amidst the infinite succession of techniques filled with transcendent power, his sword and body were trembling as if they would break.
But Roveris's words, shouted as she coughed up blood—*Don't stop*—seemed to whip his body onward.
Beyond this pain and trial.
Toward the destiny of a sword that must carve its own path with but a single blade...
Kaisen grasped the hilt again.
Again, he focused.
To the point that he knew the sword was swung properly only when the recoil shook his bones.
─ Release - Thunderstrike Cleave.
Between the slashes.
In every fleeting opening that inevitably appeared between sheathing and drawing the blade.
─ Release - Thunder Flame Sword Dance.
The demon's counterattack came in, tracing an unnaturally sharp trajectory.
─ Release - Shadow-Annihilating Flash.
Tval's dragon spear, Mern's arrows, and Alidona's spells pulled Kaisen away from the attack.
「Pu Hasas!」
As Mauna Loa slammed its foot on the ground, lava began to boil up from the earth's veins within.
Lava was the authority of the lizard monarch.
The breath of lava flowed along the contours of the Red Mountains... and the fine hairs on Kaisen's arms stood on end.
‘This bastard, don't tell me...’
Like poison spreading through the bloodstream.
The lava that seeped into the earth's veins was rising, dyeing the three peaks that circled the highlands red.
The three streams of light were now on the verge of weaving into one in the sky above the highlands.
- To turn every death from a meaningless one into a noble sacrifice, that is our mission.
I have to stop it.
If I let it get away here.
Every death will have been in vain.
“Wait, you're too hasty!”
A desperate leap without a secure foothold due to the lava severely restricted his charge's trajectory.
Did it read his movement perfectly?
No, it must have guided him to do so.
Mauna Loa's hand was already spread wide in his path, massive and black.
There was no way to escape it.
Before he could even swing his sword, his body was caught in that grip, and...
‘This is...’
Lightning flashed in his vision as every bone in his body, except for his head, was crushed to dust...
‘Like this...’
Crushed by a weight and heat that defied all providence, his consciousness began to flicker as if it would go out...
‘It ends...?’
His five senses, amplified to their limit.
The process of a death that approached with chilling futility...
Explained the type and magnitude of that pain to his mind with far too much clarity...
‘Here...?’
That clarity was so terrifying, so empty...
「It is done.」
Into that clear awareness of death came a sound... the clap of two hands coming together.
Then, a light.
A radiance warmer than the sun.
Gently pulled him from the cold, chilling sensation of death and embraced him warmly.
「You have endured much.」
It was the same light he had felt when escaping from Aristapho... the power of Thunderous Fragrance that reweaves space and time.
Beyond his flickering vision, which went from pitch black to stark white, he saw noble, sun-gold hair and cross-patterned eyes.
Kaisen choked on blood, trying to speak his mind, but his crushed lungs couldn't form the words.
Not yet...
There's still something...
...that must be cut...
But Setsunen saw his heart clearly and, with a weary smile, shook her head.
With the power of Thunderous Fragrance, Setsunen's authority.
Setsunen, too, was covered in wounds from protecting the defeated soldiers of the 2nd Front, yet a trace of a serene smile appeared on her lips.
「Rest now. Thanks to you, all has been accomplished.」
The storm of blue light that had been swirling and converging in the sky above plummeted to the ground like a lightning strike.
A radiance so blue it made the eyes ache.
The seal of immortality devised by the great magician Lin was activated.
Its name, Juyeosogyedaeban.
A high-level spell that completely freezes the caster's body until they have recovered from a mortal wound.
[Grand Juyeosogyedaeban, hit confirmed...!]
That magic, originally designed to protect the caster's life, was modified into a sealing ritual by Lin's disciple, the Miko Tureina.
[Cryogenesis in progress across the demon's body, conversion at 35%!]
Its power, which completely freezes a target and forces it into a state of dormancy, could put even an 'Incarnation of Kings' into a limited state of eternal sleep.
「KAAAAAAAAAsssssEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!」
Wheeling its wings to break free from the mountains, Mauna Loa charged toward Setsunen, who held Kaisen in her arms.
A fleeting moment.
This one moment, with only an instant remaining.
Tenaciously, as if to claim one more life.
“Kaisen!”
“Your Excellency, Thunderous Fragrance!”
“Mern, Alidona! Provide support!”
Just as everyone's reaction was a beat too late.
As Mauna Loa suddenly closed in, Setsunen reached out a hand and whispered.
「Are the lives you have taken still not enough?」
The moment the hand of Thunderous Fragrance touched its forehead, a bolt of lightning tore through the heavens and struck down.
It slammed Mauna Loa down to the bottom of the cliff.
Mauna Loa fell, unleashing its absolute killing intent and hatred in a piercing roar.
Was that its final roar?
The seal of Juyeosogyedaeban reached its peak.
Mauna Loa's colossal body.
Was enveloped by a power that froze it at a cellular level, instantly transforming into a single block of ice, along with the lava that had been boiling beneath the ground.
[68%!]
These three peaks were the place where, 270 years ago, the ancient Miko Tureina had created the sealing ritual of Juyeosogyedaeban to put the Old Nobles to sleep.
Mirngadia had prepared that power as it was—no, he had augmented it several times over with his own intellect.
If Mauna Loa kept reviving, then instead of killing it, he would simply put it to sleep until the war was over...
[82%!]
That was Mirngadia's judgment.
To make that judgment a reality, countless corpses had to fall and become fertilizer for the mountains.
That was why, until the day his life ended, Mirngadia never called such victories 'victories'.
[97%!]
That was the full story of this event, which Setsunen conveyed to Kaisen through Thunderous Fragrance Resonance.
Why...
...to a mere FakeWarrior like me...
...would she personally explain such inner workings...
In the moment his consciousness faded, the dark elf attendants gasped for breath and cried out with shouts of relief.
[100%... Complete cryogenesis! The Incarnation-class demon... sealing... is a success!]