Chapter 61
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 61
Chapter Title: Sharrilion
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[Kaisen, just a moment… just one moment is all I need… and I will end it all.]
He pulled the pin from the inhibitor on his left hand, and the Light Dragon's radiance swirled and condensed dazzlingly upon his body.
In an instant, the vortex of power shattered into multiple pieces.
There were ten fragments, which fanned out behind him like wings of light, uniform in size and shape.
“I am Kaisen Alter Aradamanthel.”
He cried out his own name.
And following that name, he roared.
A prayer from his soul, a desperate wish for it to be so.
“Neigallas.”
A thousand years ago.
Arthur Brius perfected this fantastical sword art while simultaneously fighting a True Dragon and three FakeWarriors.
Using only one sword inevitably exposed numerous weaknesses when facing multiple powerful foes.
“I will kill you.”
If that was the case.
Since it was impossible to multiply one's body.
One simply needed to increase the number of swords that could be wielded without hands. Arthur Brius pursued this fantasy, learning and researching, until he finally reached the pinnacle.
*Ting…!*
That ancient power.
He would draw it forth, right here, right now.
—Supreme Dragon Sword Art.
There is no need to swing the sword.
No need to hold it. No need to apply force. One must only command it with the mind.
This was the art of creating and wielding ten Heart-Swords, the ultimate secret of the sword reached by only one swordsman in history.
“Sword of Thunderous Fragrance Command, Unleash!”
A power situated at the very edge of the vast horizon of swordsmanship. If that power could be wielded more strongly with the might of the Light Dragon.
It was a level of mastery impossible to replicate after seeing it only a few times, but there was always a shortcut.
The soul of Thunderous Fragrance, the power of Thunderous Fragrance.
That power, capable of communicating with all things, made it possible to command even the divided streams of ki.
Did the Three Great Dragons foresee even this future? Did Roveris?
- Step on me, and go to the future. It is your turn now.
The abyssal lava seethed, and the ground spewed the stench of sulfur.
A nightmare, beyond the power of the mortal world to bear, was swallowing the world from the edge of that lava.
At its edge, corpses floated to the surface, forming a path. A stepping stone bridge of bodies.
—Sipmunjado, Fourth Form: Launch.
As he ran across the stepping stones of corpses.
Amid the stench of sulfur.
He heard the sound of waves crashing on the sandy shore where he had buried his mother in his distant homeland.
—Dragon Sword Art.
The sound of the waves.
As it receded toward the unseen horizon and returned.
The sound changed to the pitter-patter of the first monsoon rain on the day Camilla died.
—Ten Extremes: Sky-Shaking Thunder River.
Again, amid the stench of sulfur.
The sound changed to the scattered flesh of the Behe-Rik that had swallowed the plains' barrier whole.
And to the laughter of Isla, who had died leaving behind a smile that bloomed brightly from within.
All those memories shatter into fragments.
Shattered into fragments, they scatter in all directions like petals… fluttering ephemerally before settling into a fixed orbit and ceasing their movement.
They are the blades of sorrow and resentment.
The memories become but a single blade, a single lantern guiding the way, a single stepping stone upon a sea of blood.
Opening a path to the future.
A red flower blooms upon the torrent of flashes, drawn infinitely with infinite power at infinite speed.
Like a crape myrtle blooming by a graveside.
And the ten wings imitate and execute that crape myrtle's trajectory, like a child mimicking a parent's movements.
—Sipmunjado, Fifth Form: Sudden Strike.
—Sipmunjado, Sixth Form: Flash Dance Slash.
—Sipmunjado, Seventh Form: Quaking Thunder Dragon.
—Sipmunjado, Eighth Form: Thunder Flame Sword Dance.
—Sipmunjado, Ninth Form: Severing Thunder Blade.
—Sipmunjado, Tenth Form: Cross Decapitation.
—Sipmunjado, Eleventh Form: Lightning Strike Severance.
—Sipmunjado, Twelfth Form: Soul-Annihilating Flash.
The vortex of the blade, painting crimson petals, liberates the souls that constitute the king's body and carves away the muscle, bone, and flesh beyond.
On and on.
Endlessly, endlessly.
A king is a king. Even infinite speed is captured within his gaze. Just as his movements were read and he was about to be caught.
[Youngest, hang in there….]
A subtle slowing in his body.
The force was far too weak to completely bind the king's body, but in the realm of infinity, that faint moment was immense.
The priestess Alidona, who had unfurled a long scroll of psalms, collapsed, vomiting blood from the backlash of reciting the Psalm of Oaths thirty-four times.
And she did not rise again.
Her death became another stepping stone, opening a path to swing his sword at a speed that even light could not follow.
Hold on, my heart.
Hold on, my body.
He was telling himself this. No, perhaps he was pleading.
“Tzaaaaaaaah—!”
Like a savage roar.
Like a sorrowful scream.
Perhaps, like a desperate cry to the gods.
“—Aaaaaaaaah!”
The clumsily used secret art of the sword caused the Divine Dragon's power to swell like a storm and run rampant.
From such a transcendent backlash, the muscle fibers within his body tore and screamed.
The king would never miss such an opening, one that mortals were bound to have.
Overwhelmed.
The desperate sensation of his vision tilting.
With no time to steady himself, the nightmare's grasp lunged before his eyes.
The hand, regenerated in the blink of an eye—no, a hand that had not yet finished regenerating—unfurled with death.
Just then.
The hand bent at an impossible angle.
No, it was severed.
By a slash of space-time that precisely struck the still-regenerating cross-section. It was a Spacetime Flash.
“—Forward!”
That cry, heard from somewhere beyond the sandstorm… like a whisper of fate, it pulled his body forward once more.
Once, twice, three, four times.
As if pushing his back forward.
The Spacetime Flash repeated a total of four times, completely butchering the king's arm and sending it to the ground.
Though it would regenerate in an instant, the few seconds bought by the vanguard of courage were priceless.
—Supreme Dragon Sword Art: Dragon Thunder Line Slash.
From the blade that dug into the exposed cross-section, a melody of lightning flashed and spread.
The power of lightning, layered upon the slash.
It fanned out in all directions—north, northwest, northeast, east-northeast, east, southeast, south-southeast, south, southwest, west-southwest, west, west-northwest—across the world.
This was one of the two secret arts of the Dragon Slayer.
The Heart-Swords, once layered upon the blade, split apart to draw infinite lines.
Following the target's weak points.
Following the earth's axis.
Following the heavens, the lines spread.
They present a path for the lightning that will soon follow. A path that guarantees the enemy's annihilation.
「──────!」
Neigallas's eyes widened as he threw his head back.
In an instant, lightning flowed along the blade of Aradamanthel, lodged deep in the cross-section, and seeped in, precisely targeting the king's sacred body and the pattern of his soul.
As the ten command swords mimicked their master's art, a banquet of lightning began, stripping all color from the world, leaving only black and white.
Radiant Thunderclap.
The power manifested by the Supreme Holy Sword and perfected by the Divine Dragon's authority tore apart the sandstorm, the burning desert, and the boiling lava, running wild.
Countless thunderbolts.
Flashing infinitely, striking down, and erupting from within his body and from the ground. So much so that the speed of his regeneration could not keep up with the rate of destruction.
*Piiiiing…!*
And an arrow, flying in with a spray of blue light, embedded itself in his body and immediately spread the roots of the World Tree in all directions.
An arrow from the White Spear Bow, Serwebon.
The arrow wrapped around the regenerating area, slowing down the body's restoration, which was already failing to keep up with the speed of destruction.
“Sword of Thunderous Fragrance Command, Converge!”
In that moment the weakness was exposed.
The thunder swords, which had been scattered in various directions performing a dance of lightning, converged as one upon the blade.
During those few seconds the weakness was exposed, he sheathed the power of the lightning that had become one and surged upon his blade. The next moment.
Iai Heavenly Flash.
The blade of lightning, which had been drawn into the sheath, shot out again, scattering a dazzling thunderous light as it cleaved ‘the heavens’.
“Your Excellency!”
Amid the dance of lightning.
A path opened.
A path to split the king's body in half and advance to the core of the soul beyond.
“Now is the time!”
The Stepping Stone Bridge of Blood and Corpses,
The Forgotten King Neigallas Subjugation (6)
[Commander, I'm going ahead….]
Roveris, whose withered hand had finally let go of Scherpang, lifted her head and looked up at the light.
Blood surging from her crushed organs obscured her vision, so she couldn't make out the situation, but she could see the flickering of the light that clove the heavens.
The flickering of that light was as if the wrath of the gods had been made manifest on earth. It was a holy light, as if the gods had returned to this land once more.
‘Kaisen, we leave this path to you now and depart….’
Our path ends here.
But yours will continue on. Forgive us for leaving you alone in this world.
And then she closed her eyes.
Those peacefully closed eyes would not open again, forevermore after that day.
[Your Excellency, now is the time!]
At the same time, far away on the horizon, Mirngadia's eyes, which had been closed as he lay fallen, opened in agony.
His eyelids moved.
His fingers twitched.
His body began to move.
Since the end of the ‘Black Summer,’ his body was sick and stiff, and he would vomit blood every time he moved.
“At last, my final moment has come….”
Mirngadia briefly looked up at the sky, praying to his father who had passed away long ago.
“Abba, Father, please guide me on my final path….”
And for the last time in his life, he looked at his sisters.
His farewell gaze was sorrowful.
*Shimmer…* Soon, with the sound of gently rippling water, the scene—no, the entire world—changed.
Only the world of Neigallas and Mirngadia had changed.
The king's sacred voice, which mortal perception could not dare to hear (blocked by the power of Thunderous Fragrance), could now be heard in this world.
「Po has, what is…?」
It was a lake of pure white.
And at the same time, a world of pure blue.
Upon the shudderingly clear and pure lake, Neigallas's sacred body stood.
Into the king's bewilderment came a voice clearer and more serene than the lake itself.
“This is my dimension….”
The regeneration of his body, being restored by the swirling sandstorm and the seething lava within, came to a halt.
At the same time, tree trunks and vines shot up from beneath the lake's surface, coiling around his body and beginning to envelop the core of his soul.
The trees had the form of trees, but upon closer inspection, they were strings of characters.
The characters of creation.
The verses of the Psalm of Creation's Mandate.
That power, which banishes all beings that defy the providence of creation to the realm of the outer cosmos, began to seal Neigallas's soul.
“And it is the eternal grave for you, who lives for infinity, and for me….”
Mirngadia said.
His body looked as if it were one with the lake. No, it was becoming one.
He intended to become one with the World Tree rising from below the lake and binding Neigallas's body, to forever fight Neigallas in this world and guard the seal.
The king's face, realizing his intent, twisted with fury.
“You bastard… I, Neigallas, am Ruin!”
These trunks.
These bindings of characters.
“I am the perversion that twists all the providence of this land!”
Even trying to shake them off.
Even trying to melt them with spewed lava.
Even trying to drain all moisture with a sandstorm and wither them.
“An ignoramus who has never fully mastered a single element of transcendence—not eternity, not distance, not nothingness, not limitlessness—!”
They do not break.
The power that the Blue Star had prepared his entire life and woven from tens of thousands of deaths would never break.
The trees gradually began to burn with a radiant flame, solidifying into a single form….
“—You think you can judge the realm of I, Neigallas, blessed by the one who sees the providence of the deep, with such paltry words of creation—!”
The roar that had echoed as if tearing apart the world's soul ended there.
As the dimension fully formed.
The connection to reality, to the burning desert, was severed, and the world of the lake, the Blue Star, and Neigallas vanished to somewhere far away.
*Hwoooooo…*
A great silence, like the end of a war, pierced the void left by the disappearance of the two immense presences.
……………………*Ooooooh*.
The sandstorms that had raged from all sides.
The sea of violently boiling lava.
The intense heat that had melted all the corpses into sludge vanished in an instant, and the volcanoes that had thrashed in agony began to fall asleep one by one.
[Reptilians, the Reptilians are suddenly collapsing!]
[What…?]
[No, look! The volcanic ash, the sandstorms, they're all clearing up!]
[Lord Blue Star, you succeeded! Your Excellency? Your Excellency!]
[This is Ria of the Black Rose, main force, please respond, main force! Anyone, please!]
Was it because the power of Thunderous Fragrance, which had been blocked by Neigallas's immense power, had spread far and wide?
The voices of those who had survived the battlefield and craved life until the very end flooded in, filling the silence.
At that moment, none of the survivors answered.
Setsunen knelt before the spot where Mirngadia had disappeared, crying like a child, while Akirea held her by the shoulders.
“Ah….”
Kaisen limped forward with his shattered body.
The backlash of transcendence pierced his body; the tendons in his legs, unable to even support his weight, snapped, and his joints crumbled.
On broken knees, he pushed himself forward, using Aradamanthel like a cane to push off the ground.
The darkness of unconsciousness and the light of awareness flickered in his mind as cold sweat poured down like rain.
Even the grip strength to hold his sword was gone.
He slammed his body to the ground and continued to crawl forward with both hands.
[Main force, please respond!]
Forward, forward….
[The Reptilians are gone, but a demonic legion has appeared! Their numbers are overwhelming!]
The members of the Iron Cross Warrior Party were scattered, having died alone, leaving their equipment as their gravestones.
For Alidona's melted corpse, fallen on the lava, only Friede's tobacco pipe remained as a gravestone.
The gravestone for Tval, whose upper body was crushed, leaving only his lower half buried in a pile of rocks, was the Dragon Bone Spear.
The spot where Mern had died, leaving only a bloodstain, was guarded by the White Spear Bow, Serwebon.
[If you're alive, proceed to 1701 immediately, if you can't move, let us know! Lord Thunderous Fragrance! Lord Blue Star! Kaisen? Kaisen! Seira! Senior Roveris!]
Each time he passed such gravestones, Kaisen would stare blankly for a moment before crawling on.
And finally.
Before one corpse, his hands, which had been tracing the signs of battle, stopped.
Roveris Alter Scherpang.
Her face was relaxed in the smile of one who had completed their given path.
Her hair, eyebrows, skin, and lips were all so pale they were nearly white.
Like a pile of ash, having burned everything away and vanished ephemerally.
- Forward…!
When you cried that out, wringing out your last drops of life like a wet rag, did you wish for me, at least, to live?
In a world without you.
A world with only me.
Did you want me to walk the path you had walked in your stead?
[We have to depart! Lord Thunderous Fragrance will be fine on her own!]
Now, only questions with no way to be answered survived, swirling chaotically in his mind….
[No! There might still be survivors!]
This way of fighting, using the thousands of corpses of your comrades as stepping stones….
This path of battle, where blood, grudges, and dreams are woven together and engraved on a memorial with the single sentiment of loyalty….
At every moment, at all times, it coldly tears and pierces the heart, only widening the hole….
[There are too many enemies to wait!]
[Those bastards, looks like they're seriously pissed that their king is dead.]
[Enemy numbers, too high! 1701, departing now!]
One, two, three.
And again, one, two, three.
And once more, one, two… three… With a pain that never becomes familiar, every death is lined up from the beginning and counted, one, two….
[Vice-Commander Ria! This is 1703! We can't advance because of 1702! Too many enemies!]
[1703, how long can you hold out?]
[A thousand wounded and less than a hundred able to fight! We can't even last a minute!]
If this fate is one where I must advance by piling up millions of corpses as stepping stones, a number that still won't be enough….
If I must stack the entire world as a stepping stone just to cut down all the kings and see the future….
Then the hole pierced in my heart will have grown to the size of this entire world….
Whether I can endure that pain and walk this path, or not….
“Aah….”
With only a vacant gaze.
In the silence of severance.
The boy warrior, now once again the sole survivor, looking upon the deaths of his comrades who had died before him, finally pressed his forehead into the sand.
“…Ah, aaaaaah, aaaaaaaaah!”
Until his consciousness faded away, he sobbed like a child in the sand.
For a long, quiet time.
And in that moment, he wished that the impending loss of consciousness would be death for him as well. He just wanted to die.
[Wha-what?]
[Re-reinforcements!]
[This is 1703! Reinforcements, it's reinforcements! There are so many! Armored divisions and even an air force…!]
That wish was not granted.
Upon the world where the sandstorm had vanished, there was a light that swept through the enemies who were charging forward, kicking up clouds of dust.
‘Light…?’
Was it a pre-death hallucination?
The light was so noble and brilliant, it looked like the moon had descended upon the earth.
A light that engraved itself dazzlingly even into his fading consciousness, with the thrill of a dawn that tears through the darkness of night.
‘How can such a beautiful light be on the ground….’
A wave of steel followed that light.
An endless procession of spears, swords, and flags began to trample and crush the demonic wave.
The victory cry shouted by that wave in voices filled with awe echoed across the wasteland.
“““Sharrilion! Sharrilion! Sharrilion! Sharrilion! Sharrilion! Sharrilion! Sharrilion!”””
Recalling the dream Seira had before the operation began, his consciousness went completely blank.
‘Sharrilion, the True Holy Sword? The same True Holy Sword Sharrilion that Tarsiyo was always talking about…?’
Was it the next moment?
His consciousness was completely severed, and he was just floating emptily in the darkness of the unconscious.
Faint yet distinct like the twilight of dawn, a brilliant voice descended like light into that darkness.
“Kaisen, you've waited a long time, haven't you? I'm here. Just as I promised on the day we parted.”