The Apostle Wields the Sword
The apostle swung his sword. The strikes were so blindingly fast that the aura trails seemed to lag behind, chasing after the blade like reluctant shadows. Before those lingering traces could fade, another slash ripped through the air. One, two, a dozen. Endless. It looked less like a duel and more like someone painting over the canvas of the world with strokes of aura blade.
By the time the two fighters vanished behind a swirling galaxy of aura trails, a single beam of light punched through the chaos.
“Hup—!”
An Aura Master only gets hit by the same move once. Myungwol drew his blade in a flash and wiped the incoming aura ray from existence. The moment the light vanished from the world, Kyle shot forward like a bullet.
The weakness of the quick-draw style was the time needed to sheathe the sword. Myungwol had covered that flaw with magic, but he hadn’t erased the opening completely. That tiny window—when the spell activated and the blade slid back into its scabbard—was all Kyle needed.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one who had figured out a counter in their last duel.
Schwaaack—!
“Ugh—!”
Myungwol’s forearm flew off, blood spraying in every direction. He staggered back, clutching the stump. In that brief retreat he managed to seal the wound with aura, stopping the bleeding. But stopping the blood didn’t mean the arm would still obey him.
“Surrender? I really don’t want to kill you,” Kyle said.
“Die… just die…!”
“Tsk. Guy’s lost his mind.”
Kyle scratched the back of his head as he watched the one-armed swordsman. Losing a limb would have ended most opponents, but Myungwol was still an Aura Master. If the man came at him with suicidal fury, even Kyle could end up in real danger.
Still haven’t found the bastard who started this mess…
He couldn’t afford to go all-out on Myungwol. That was the problem. He needed to subdue an opponent he couldn’t kill and couldn’t easily overpower, all without wasting stamina or taking injuries. The thought alone made his head throb.
Sighing heavily while staring at Myungwol, Kyle noticed a flicker at the edge of his vision. He turned his head cautiously. A woman sat there, her neck and shoulders caked in dried blood, casually watching the fight like it was street theater. When their eyes met she smiled brightly and waved both hands.
“Who the hell are y—”
“Flying blade.”
While Kyle’s attention slipped, Myungwol seized the opening and drew with one hand. Apparently one arm was enough; the slash came just as fast as before, aimed straight at Kyle’s vital points.
Beyond the overwhelming wave of sword energy, the woman grunted and pushed herself to her feet. She brushed the blood clots and dust off her clothes and started walking away as if nothing had happened. The moment Kyle saw that, he realized she was the true culprit behind everything.
“Hey! Hey, you—over there! That way!”
Kyle tried to point her out and redirect Myungwol’s attention, but a Master consumed by rage and battle-lust wasn’t about to look away. Which meant he had to put this guy down first if he wanted to catch her.
After trying and failing to get through to the easterner, Kyle let out a long breath and shouted toward the woman who was already fleeing into the distance.
“You there—run as fast as you can.”
Because if I catch you, I’m killing you.
The woman, struck head-on by Kyle’s killing intent, stopped mid-sprint and looked back. She flashed a thumbs-up and grinned.
“Good luck.”
With that, she bolted from the scene. Kyle watched her retreating figure for a moment, then turned his eyes back to Myungwol. The man’s severed arm hung limp at his side, but his eyes still burned with fighting spirit.
“Seriously… why does this crap keep happening to me?”
Kyle exhaled and sheathed his sword. He didn’t need it anymore.
Myungwol sensed something off about the action but saw no reason to ignore the opening. The instant he swung at the gap created by the sheathing motion, a pure white sword dropped from the sky.
BOOM—!
Myungwol frowned at the blade that had blocked his strike. Only another aura blade could stop an aura blade. Yet in all his years he had never seen one move on its own.
“People kept telling me that becoming an Aura Master in my teens meant I had insane sword talent. That I possessed a gift no one else could match.”
It wasn’t entirely wrong. But surprisingly, Kyle Meyer’s actual talent for swordsmanship was merely that of a normal genius. Better than most, worse than some other Aura Masters. To ordinary experts it would seem like heavenly talent, but that was it. It wasn’t the overwhelming genius required to break through the wall of Aura Master in one’s teenage years.
“They weren’t wrong… but they weren’t completely right, either.”
He was a genius. That couldn’t be denied. Just not a genius of the sword.
Thud. Thunk. Thud-thud-thud—!
Ten aura blades fell from the sky like white rain. Each one carried the exact same level of power as the aura blade gripped in Myungwol’s hand.
“Something always felt off. If you’re a Master because you’re good with a sword, shouldn’t it be Sword Master? Why Aura Master?”
Kyle Meyer. The day he first learned aura, he had reached Aura Expert. A genius of aura itself. That talent towered so far above mere swordsmanship that there was no comparison. Swordplay had simply been the lubricant that helped him cross the wall.
“Let’s finish this quickly.”
In this moment, there was only one true Aura Master standing on this battlefield.
The ten aura blades immediately flew toward Myungwol.
“Hmm-hmm~♪”
The culprit hummed cheerfully as she made her leisurely escape. She stopped once she had put a comfortable distance between herself and the two Masters. Their fight didn’t seem likely to end soon, and even if one of them chased her, she was confident she could handle it. If Kyle came after her, she could simply drive him into a frenzy the same way she had done to Myungwol. After all, not even an Aura Master could resist that person’s authority.
“I’ll need to replenish a bit on the way. Used too many…”
She hadn’t come out of the fight completely unscathed either. Dozens of devotees who would have gladly given their lives for her had been slaughtered by Myungwol’s blade. Feeling the need to recruit new followers, she pulled out a map and checked for any small villages nearby. No one would notice if a remote village or two disappeared.
“Hmm… there should be one around here…”
“What?”
“A village, I was sayi—”
She turned her stiff neck toward the voice behind her. The creaking motion brought her face-to-face with Kyle. The culprit let out a piercing scream and broke into a sprint, but Kyle casually sliced off her leg without hesitation. He had seen her revive from a corpse once already; there was no reason to hold back.
The woman tumbled across the ground, staring at her severed leg with tears in her eyes.
“Kyaaaah! You’re so mean!”
“You didn’t even scream when I cut your head off earlier. Spare me the act.”
“P-please spare me! I’m just an ordinary civilian! I only went over there to watch, I didn’t do anyth—”
“Hey.”
“Y-yes!”
Kyle stabbed his aura blade straight through her neck. Her head and body separated, and one more life hit the dirt. But moments later the decapitated woman looked up at him with a bright smile.
“What the hell are you, you monster?”
“Ah. Busted.”
The headless woman casually reached out, picked up her head, and pressed it back against her neck. The instant it reattached, Kyle sliced it off again. The head rolled through the dirt, coughing and spitting dust as it complained.
“You can’t kill me, you know?”
“Shut up.”
Ignoring her, Kyle stomped down and crushed the skull beneath his boot. Yet just as she had claimed, the shattered pieces began crawling back together on their own. Kyle frowned at the regenerating head, drew his sword again, and started carving it into pieces small enough that it couldn’t possibly recover.
“It’s useless.”
Even when he sliced it into 1mm strips, even when he burned and smashed it, the woman kept reviving. Eventually Kyle stopped swinging his sword. The moment he did, the apostle let out a mental sigh of relief.
I’m alive… If I died a few more times I really would have been finished…
The authority of resurrection wasn’t something she could use indefinitely without cost. The secret was substitution. When the apostle died, one of her followers would die in her place. She had been quietly expanding her forces in the shadows, but dying this many times might truly lead to her permanent death.
It was fortunate that Kyle had given up and stopped. She prayed desperately in her heart.
Please… hurry and come save me…!
And so the apostle waited for her comrades to arrive.