The Birth of Aura Sword Control
Schwarz charged forward fiercely, sword in hand. In a duel between swordsmen, seizing the initiative was usually a disadvantage, but Schwarz paid it no mind.
“Let’s kill each other, Kyle!”
As Schwarz closed the distance, a grin spread across his face. What came next was a lightning-fast sword strike that was nearly impossible to track with the naked eye. The only reason Kyle could keep up was his accumulated experience from countless battles.
“Ahahaha—! Not bad at all!”
While Kyle was busy swinging his sword, his opponent had enough breath to spare for laughter and manic chatter. He swung, swung, and swung again. Every time the Aura Blades clashed, they sent sparks of starlight flying. If any observers existed in the sky above, they would have doubted the reality they lived in upon seeing stars shining differently from a single point. Unless they knew a human could wield stars, they would continue living in that ignorance.
The collision of the two starlights seemed endless. As majestic and eternal as the stars themselves. However, just as stars don’t live forever, the conclusion of their duel began to draw near.
Slash—!
“Ugh—!”
A thin line was carved across his chest, blood spraying everywhere. Clutching his chest in pain and taking a step back, Schwarz also retreated and began licking the blood off his blade.
“Haaaa… Hot. So incredibly hot.”
“…You crazy bastard.”
“You’re truly the best, Kyle.”
Looking at Schwarz, whose eyes had narrowed into snake-like slits, Kyle felt a chill run down his spine.
What a genuinely insane gay fuck.
Was this what fighting a madman felt like? Kyle stared at the creepy Schwarz for a moment before quietly looking down at his own chest. The blood that had been flowing from the long gash had long since stopped, but the fact that he had been wounded while Schwarz remained unscathed was the real issue. It proved that after their clash, Schwarz held a slight advantage.
The master of the quick sword, huh…
Just as Sera had told him beforehand, Schwarz’s sword was so fast it was impossible to follow with the eyes. It made him wonder if they were even using the same type of weapon. Of course, such speed came with its drawbacks. The fact that his attack hadn’t left a deep wound on Kyle was evidence of that. Had it been Kyle’s strike, it would have sliced his opponent’s upper and lower body clean in half the moment it connected.
“Ufufu— Are you trembling in fear?”
“Shut up.”
“Let me enjoy this a bit more. Hmm?”
As if he could no longer hold back, the guy started charging like a dog in heat. Despite appearing excited, his sword was ice-cold. It flew toward only his vital points with precision. Kyle met the attack by swinging his sword just like before.
“Until when— can you keep blocking!”
Both of them knew how this fight would end. After all, he was the one being wounded one-sidedly. The seemingly invincible iron wall of aura would eventually crumble, and the opponent’s sword would slice through his neck.
…I can’t let it end like that.
He swung. Blocked. Swung. Deflected. He quickly realized one hand wasn’t enough. So he abandoned his insistence on using only one. He lightly transferred the longsword in his hands to his right, and emitted aura from his left hand. Unlike an Aura Blade overlaid on a physical sword, this was a blade made purely of aura itself.
Holding an Aura Blade in each hand, Kyle extended his arms fully and stared at Schwarz.
“…Dual blades?”
“Why? Scared?”
However, Schwarz didn’t look flustered or hesitate at the sight of the dual blades. Instead, he began to smile. Then he started sheathing his sword at his waist.
“Ha, ahahaha—! Is this fate playing tricks? Dual blades, dual blades. It’s not enough compared to four, but… it’s perfect for practice.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Come on, Kyle. Show me your blades.”
As he spoke, Schwarz gripped his sword hilt.
“Draw.”
As Kyle swung his twin blades to block the strikes, he realized that Schwarz’s swordsmanship had been created to counter something specific. It was a style designed to handle the five or six swords that a single person might wield. It wasn’t realistic. What swordsman in the world could swing five or six blades at once? Even dual-wielding was uncommon, and the three-sword style—with one in the mouth—was purely in the realm of fantasy.
How is it so precise…?
Yet the Schwarz that Kyle faced moved as if he had experience against an opponent who swung five or six swords simultaneously, following incredibly precise trajectories. There was no way to block a sword style made to counter five or six blades with only two.
“Resist a little more—! Young swordsman!”
Beyond the dazzlingly scattered Aura Blades, Kyle saw Schwarz’s face drenched in madness. In this very moment, the swordsmanship he was unleashing was becoming more and more complete. He was growing in the middle of battle. That fact greatly wounded Kyle’s pride.
Are you the only genius here?
All Aura Masters were overflowing with talent. If Kyle could do it, so could his opponent. And if the opponent could, then so could he.
Six swords… How do you even swing that many?
Kyle knew it well. Just handling two swords was enough to overload his brain capacity. Like how drawing a circle with one hand and a star with the other caused them to tangle, maintaining perfect sword paths with two blades was already the limit. From three onward, the paths would become ordinary, and four or more would be the absolute limit of what he could swing. But Schwarz was operating on the assumption of facing six swords at the same time.
—Then I won’t swing them.
If that was the case, he wouldn’t swing. There was no need to. An Aura Blade was a powerful weapon and an authority in itself. It was the power of a transcendent that could cut through anything with mere contact.
“Hoo—.”
After exhaling lightly, Kyle seized the aura flowing through his heart. The principle was similar. Just as he had drawn out an Aura Blade with his bare hands before, he would create one in the empty space beyond that. It wasn’t impossible. The secret technique that Kayness had shown previously proved it.
Create a sword from aura…
Control the energy with will. Control the sword with that energy.
Control multiple Aura Blades remotely using will and energy.
Ten Aura Blades rose into the sky. The moment Schwarz saw it, his face was dyed with ecstasy.
“Kyle…!”
It was an expression and tone one might show to a beloved lover. Kyle looked at the disgusting male face and steadied his breathing before waving his hand. A moment later, the ten Aura Blades shot forward.
Schwarz had been blocking with a single sword, but he couldn’t overcome the fundamental truth that one hand couldn’t handle ten. With a sickening sound, the moment his arm was severed, the subsequent blades pierced through Schwarz’s body like skewers.
“Ah, ahaha—.”
Even pierced to the point he couldn’t move, Schwarz couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his lips.
“What a shame…”
Inside his head, the monster that hadn’t yet been settled remained. The monster that wielded six swords with six arms.
“Ka… Kyle… You, that bastard—.”
“Shut the hell up.”
With a final thrust, Kyle severed Schwarz’s neck without listening to his last words. For a member of a terrorist organization that had shaken the entire continent, it was an awfully dull ending.
The moment Schwarz’s head dropped, Kyle collapsed backward. Manifesting aura outside his body and controlling it freely had consumed an extreme amount of aura. With both his physical strength and mental energy completely drained, he was crawling on the ground when footsteps approached from afar.
“You actually won. I thought you were going to lose.”
“Then why didn’t you help?”
“Didn’t you tell me not to because we’re just weaklings?”
Listening to Gawain’s thoroughly grudging words, Kyle used his shoulder to pull himself up. The lightly sliced area on his chest throbbed painfully. Frowning for a moment, Kyle remembered the Stigma engraved on his hand. The divine power granted by the Saintess. Having recalled it late, Kyle used the Stigma to heal his body.
As the divine power restored his body, Kyle met the eyes of Gawain, who had been carrying him on his back and was now staring at him with an incredulous look.
“…Kyle, you. You could use this whenever you wanted?”
“Yes? Of course. You didn’t know?”
“I thought it was something like a church free-pass token. I had no idea it was an ability you could use at will…”
Gawain, saying this, tilted his head in confusion as he looked at Kyle.
“Wait, if you can use it freely, why didn’t you use it during the fight earlier?”
“…Ah, right.”
“Did you seriously forget?”
Kyle pressed his lips tightly shut and distanced himself from Gawain. In the ensuing awkward atmosphere, Gawain clicked his tongue and muttered “stupid bastard” at Kyle. Since he couldn’t think of any words to refute it, Kyle simply walked the path in silence.