The Sword Drawn from the Heart
As I drew my sword with a soft schwing, Kayness’s expression hardened. He raised both hands slowly.
Kayness was speaking naturally when, at a timing he could never have imagined, he twisted his body and launched backward with a sharp whoosh.
The moment he flinched, I charged straight after him. But strangely, the distance between us refused to close. Looking closer, I realized he was sliding across the ground as if it were ice. I had no idea how that was possible.
Aura manifested in countless different ways depending on the user, right? Maybe becoming a Master with a bow instead of a sword let you pull off something like that.
So I used the one privilege only a young body in its teens could offer: bottomless, endlessly surging stamina. Without holding back, I slammed my feet into the ground like I was trying to crack it open and shot forward.
A ridiculously fast yet embarrassingly childish chase lasted only a few seconds. Kayness slipped a hand into his coat and pulled out a miniaturized bow that had been shrunk by magic. The instant his aura flowed into it, the embedded spell activated. The bow expanded into something roughly half the size of his usual weapon.
A compact crossbow meant for shooting from horseback or while moving appeared in his grip. Even while still sliding backward, he twisted only his upper body and fired.
Piiing—!
The arrow wasn’t particularly fast, so I had planned to swat it away lightly. But the moment my aura blade clashed with the aura wrapped around the arrow, an overwhelming pressure slammed into me. My arm was whipped backward, and my charging body suddenly decelerated.
The instant my speed dropped, Kayness seized the chance and began firing arrows nonstop, suppressing me. Once the distance opened up from our previously even pace, it grew so wide that closing the gap became impossible.
Having fled far enough that I could no longer catch him on foot, Kayness stopped leisurely and tucked the bow back into his coat.
Kayness shrugged as if to say that excessive confidence had ruined everything. Of course that wasn’t possible, but if I had dragged even the academy’s headmaster here? There was no way he could have escaped so easily.
“Huu…”
Kayness turned to leave when he suddenly realized something had sliced clean through his arm and flown past. He looked down at the arm that had fallen to the ground with a dull thud, then cautiously turned his head. There I was, standing in a throwing stance.
Having hurled my sword, I grinned at the sight of Kayness missing an arm.
Kayness pulled the bow back out as he spoke. I had wondered how he could shoot with only one arm, but then I noticed no blood was flowing from the wound. Droplets formed at the stump, but nothing more dripped down.
Wondering how that was possible, I soon spotted aura gushing from the severed cross-section and understood. ‘What the hell is that?’
Kayness had used aura to recreate his lost left arm. By sealing the wound with aura, blood could pool but not pour out. With an aura hand now formed, he gripped the bowstring with his left hand. Aura flowed from his fingertips, condensing into a razor-sharp arrow.
Watching the arrow—condensed from Heavenly Bowaura—fly toward me, I realized the world was slowing down. It was the same phenomenon as the flashback you see on death’s doorstep. My instincts screamed that taking this arrow would mean death.
But I could neither block nor dodge it. To use an aura blade that could cut through anything, I needed a sword—and I had thrown mine far away earlier. Since the arrow was made of pure aura, dodging was pointless. Even if I leaped aside, the aura linked to Kayness would simply curve and follow.
‘Damn it, I shouldn’t have thrown the sword.’ That was the price of acting without thinking.
In this infinitely stretched world, I would either live forever like this or accept death and return to normal time. Neither ending appealed to me. I didn’t want to be trapped in a mental world forever just to avoid dying, nor did I want to accept death.
Then I had to solve the problem in a way no ordinary person could imagine. After thinking for a moment, I realized the answer to every problem ultimately lies within the problem itself.
‘Aha.’
Right now, the problem was the aura arrow flying at me. Staring at that arrow, I found the answer.
I closed my eyes. I seized the aura flowing inside my body. The common belief that you couldn’t manifest an aura blade without a sword had been controlling my subconscious. But hadn’t Kayness just proven that wasn’t true?
‘Draw it out.’
I pictured a single sword growing inside my heart. For an ordinary person, pulling a sword from the mind was impossible. But for an Aura Master, it wasn’t. We had more than enough material to turn imagination into reality.
So I drew it.
I looked at the aura blade gripped in my hand and smiled with satisfaction. In the next instant, I sliced apart the arrow flying toward me.
Though both were condensed aura, the blade clinging to my body was far denser than an arrow detached from flesh.
Kwaaaang—!
The collision of aura against aura erupted with a deafening roar. Watching the aura arrow explode, I finally let out a long, heavy breath.
I stood there dazed, breathing in and out repeatedly, until I suddenly remembered I had been chasing Kayness. I snapped my head up.
Kayness had already picked up his severed left arm and fled.
‘That crazy monster… what the hell is he?’
While frantically fleeing with his severed left arm in hand, Kayness recalled the scene he had just witnessed. A swordsman who had lost his blade creating a new one from pure aura and slicing his arrow apart.
He didn’t arrogantly believe he was the only one capable of making bows or arrows from aura. If he could do it, others surely could too. But the idea that a swordsman—especially a rookie who had only just become a Master—could pull off such a feat was unbelievable.
Even the “Sword” from the same organization couldn’t do that.
‘Should I nip this in the bud right now?’
Kayness knew all too well what happened when you left talented monsters alone. They grew at a terrifying rate with every blink. If he let Kyle be, he couldn’t even imagine how strong the boy would be the next time they met.
‘…I’ll have to suggest it as soon as I get back.’
Fortunately, the organization was full of lunatics who loved crushing such promising buds. Unless the fruit was fully ripe, these madmen would devour it whether it was underripe or not the moment it became a Master.
Thinking he would return with them, Kayness quickly left the academy grounds.
After the fight ended, I walked in the direction I had thrown my sword to retrieve it. When I saw where it had landed, my face stiffened.
‘Ah, I’m screwed.’
The sword was buried deep in the headmaster’s office window. Considering that the headmaster had personally set up a barrier around his office after the last theft incident, this meant my sword had shattered his barrier and embedded itself inside.
Imagining the headmaster stroking his beard while trying to calm down, I felt a chill run down my spine. I cautiously made my way up to the headmaster’s office.
Just as I had feared, the headmaster was sipping tea with a sullen expression.
“Well, you see—”
I did my absolute best to explain. A terrorist had infiltrated the academy. I charged in to catch him but thought I might lose him, so I threw my sword. I saw it cut off his arm, but I never expected it to fly all the way here.
After listening to my excuse, the headmaster looked at me as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Thankfully, the headmaster let me off relatively lightly.