Chapter 78: Magic (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 78: Magic (2)
Did you know this?
Majin can wield magic. They secretly puffed out their chests with pride over that fact, and dragons were hardly any different.
Even dragons friendly toward humanity felt immense pride in their magic. Though they never showed it openly, they doubted not for a moment that Majin were superior to human heroes.
If even dragons were like this, what about the other demons?
The demons believed that although they had suffered defeat twice at the hands of humanity, it was purely a matter of bad luck. The cause of their defeat in the 1st Human-Demon War was that monster named Balor Joaquin, and the cause of their defeat in the 2nd was an even greater monster named Kang Geomma.
Furthermore, Valerion knew that both men were closely tied to the Counterforce. The reason for the demons' defeat was not their own inferiority, but because the Counterforce had favored humanity.
...However, it seemed that opinion would have to be retracted. Watching the way Kang Geomma wielded his power, the dragons felt firsthand just how arrogant they had been.
Kang Geomma seemed to be teaching them a lesson: This is how you use magic. If you rely on magic alone, your ceiling is clearly limited.
Use everything.
Crackle...!
Kang Geomma moves. No, he teleports. The instant electricity coats his sashimi knife, his form vanishes and reappears from a completely unexpected angle.
Leon somehow manages to react. But he cannot counterattack. Defending alone takes everything he has.
Before long, the flowing electricity transforms into a web of lightning. Geomma is moving—and growing faster by the second.
A refraction of lightning. Materializing out of nowhere, Kang Geomma thrusts toward Leon's back. Leon catches the movement with superhuman eyesight and summons every ounce of his core strength. The blade grazes past his twisted waist.
He avoided a fatal hit. Yet Kang Geomma's sashimi knife never truly misses. If he draws his blade, he is the kind of man who will cut off at least an arm. This time is no different.
"Kh...!"
Leon groans. Blood trickles down his flank, soaking down to his knee.
Valerion could barely follow the fight with his eyes. He glances around at the spectators. The only one whose dilated, shaking pupils match his own is Metatron.
"Your son is remarkable," Valerion remarked quietly. Without knowing the context, it might have sounded like mockery.
"...Yes. He is putting up quite a fight."
Fortunately, Metatron took it literally. And understandably so. Was there anyone in this world who could endure ten exchanges against Kang Geomma? Perhaps only the handful gathered here.
And even now, Kang Geomma was likely not fighting at full strength. The last time he had gone all out was during the Parsi Massacre. Metatron had seen that footage, if only on video, and realized then:
Lord Geomma is a being fundamentally different from us.
Even describing him as being on a different level felt inadequate. Kang Geomma's very nature was fundamentally unique.
"Pardon me for asking, but the reason your son, Leon, can fight so valiantly is likely..."
Metatron nodded.
"You are correct."
It was the effect of Miracle Blessing.
'Please protect the world from the Demon King.'
Compatibility.
The match-up between the Hero and the Demon King is inherently skewed.
After all, isn't that how every story goes? A Demon King who drove humanity to the brink of collapse falls to the sword of a single human. That predictable narrative, that inevitable conclusion.
Even as people criticize it as cliché, they take poetic justice for granted. They naturally champion the Hero as good and condemn the Demon King as evil. For no complex reason—simply because the Hero is human.
From a broader perspective, even the mass-produced mobile gacha game Miracle Blessing M was the chronicle of Leon von Reinhardt, the Hero. He possessed a natural advantage over the Demon King.
That Leon, vastly outclassed in physical scale and power, managed to endure more than ten exchanges by a hair's breadth was strictly due to that 'compatibility.' Yet the disparity was beginning to show. Kang Geomma's terrifying swordplay ignored natural advantages—or perhaps cut right through them.
"Not this time...!"
Leon didn't have the strength left to squeeze out the rest of his words. Whooooosh. A gust swept through the enclosed room. Releasing a fierce battle cry, Leon erupted with fighting spirit. The floating sashimi knives faltered in midair. His intent was to completely disrupt the web of lightning.
At a glance, it seemed effective. The lightning cage that had trapped him on all sides had vanished.
Kang Geomma wouldn't stop at this.
Leon clamped down with force in his right shoulder. Blood squirted like a water gun from the severed stump.
Gush. Dozens of sashimi knives were drenched in blood—a sickening sight at first glance.
"...Oh."
Instead of groans, exclamations of awe broke out among the spectators. Leon's judgment was sharp, the absolute best move he could make in this situation.
"If that happens..."
"The electricity won't be able to arc along the blades."
His intention worked. The density of the loosely woven lightning web diminished. Forced out of hiding, Kang Geomma materialized in midair.
Snatching a single Daixo sashimi knife, he dove straight in. As if he had been waiting for this moment, Leon swung Balmung.
KABOOM!
A shockwave laced with thunder.
Kang Geomma pressing down from above, and Leon holding his ground below.
Yet the blades of the two men didn't even touch each other. Though they appeared to clash at a glance, a careful look revealed a fingernail-sized gap between the swords.
"Ha..."
"He roughly understands Lord Geomma's ability."
Though Leon did not know the details of the Blessing of the Sword God, experience had taught him that those sashimi knives cut through anything.
"To withstand it with fighting spirit..."
Fighting spirit aside...
"He utilized his 'compatibility.'"
Valerion muttered. He tore his gaze away from the fierce clash and looked toward Metatron.
"To maintain his composure against Lord Geomma—that alone proves no other human could match him."
"Hardly."
Not a muscle twitched in his cheek. Metatron was utterly serious.
"He is simply lucky. And even among humanity, there are those superior to Leon."
"...Is that so?"
Valerion had little interest in humans. At most, he paid attention to Leon, who had resided in the Demon Realm for ten years.
Metatron elaborated in response.
"There is a man called the Sword Emperor."
"I have heard of him... but isn't he old?"
"His physical prowess has likely declined significantly compared to his prime. He is human, after all. But from what I heard from Leon, he never lets go of his training."
Keeping his eyes on the battle, Metatron continued calmly.
"Because they do not settle, humans evolve."
"You praise them remarkably highly."
"Not at all. It is a dispassionate assessment."
"I have one more question. You clearly said 'those,' plural, rather than just one person. Were you referring to the rest of the Seven Stars?"
Metatron shook his head gently.
"They are certainly exceptional, but they would not be able to exchange blows with Lord Geomma. They do not burn with the same competitive fire as the Sword Emperor."
"Now I am curious. What kind of people are those you hold in such high regard, Archangel?"
"Haha, they may be closer than you think."
"...?"
As Valerion tilted his head, Metatron cast his gaze to the side. Two women stood there.
"Those two are surely..."
Lord Geomma's two wives.
"I sense immense potential in those two. I feel remorse saying this while my son fights so desperately, but their potential growth seems to lightly surpass Leon's absolute ceiling."
"Is such a thing possible for a human?"
"Dragon Lord."
Metatron offered a firm rebuke.
"Humans are far more infinite than you think, Lord Valerion. They are beings even those false gods failed to anticipate."
"..."
"Even right now, case in point."
Metatron looked back to the front.
The gap between the Daixo sashimi knife and Balmung narrowed. Leon's resistance was weakening. The scale of physical strength, which had briefly seemed balanced, quickly tipped.
Leon's fingers broke. He pressed the shoulder of his severed arm against the spine of his sword, holding on with desperate tenacity. It was a harrowing sight, pitiable to watch.
The conclusion was drawing near. Yet Leon fought furiously; judging by the atmosphere alone, one might have thought he was winning by decision.
But Leon himself was far from satisfied. He released another burst of fighting spirit. A roar-like aura swept through the area, fluttering hair wildly and forcing Choi Seol-ah to catch her jacket as it nearly slipped off her shoulders.
"You got too greedy," Kang Geomma said.
A sting of panic flashed in Leon's eyes, his pupils dilating moment by moment.
Dozens of blades closing in from the edges of his vision... gleamed impeccably clean. Blood stained them here and there, yet the steel remained sharply exposed, glinting blue.
Tap. Kang Geomma's figure stretched out like an embossed relief, then vanished right before his eyes. Leon whipped his eyes around toward his rear. Darkness waited there.
He swung his sword. The blades collided. Balmung snapped in two. Next, a diagonal sword scar was carved across Leon's body. His severed torso was flung far back, crashing into the wall. This entire sequence unfolded in less than a second—a phenomenon rather than a mere sequence of events.
[Subspace Sparring has ended.]
The purple light began to drain away, and the lingering echoes of the fierce battle faded. Leon's lower half, which had been tumbling across the floor, turned into fragments of data. The data gathered beneath his upper body, wriggling together to restore his form.
Kang Geomma flicked his sword clean out of habit, though the floor was spotless. Finishing the motion, he walked over to Leon.
"This subspace performance is incredible."
"..."
Grab.
Leon grabbed Kang Geomma's forearm to pull himself up. Dusting off imaginary dirt from his shoulders, Leon sheathed Balmung. Geomma offered a faint smile.
"You held out three exchanges longer than last time."
"I got lucky."
"Luck is skill, too."
"Can't argue with that, then."
Leon shrugged with a smile.
"...What do you think?"
Metatron finally spoke. His expression seemed oddly overwhelmed with emotion. Valerion felt much the same way.
These two dimly understood the true identities of Kang Geomma and Leon. The Demon King and the Hero. Yet here those two were, engaging in friendly competition and exchanging words of encouragement.
Demon did not inherently mean evil.
Human did not inherently mean good.
The two natures merely possessed different colors; the scales of good and evil were not tilted. Regardless, the demons—the defeated side—and especially the dragons, who stood at their head, suddenly felt a surge of emotion.
Harmony. Could the union of demon and human overwhelm them to such an extent?
As if on cue, the dragons shivered in unison. The Dragon Hearts, which had suppressed their pulses for countless ages...
Thump. Thump.
...throbbingly beat here in the Human Realm. They all placed their hands over their chests. Currents of air escaped through the gaps between their fingers.
Mana. A Dragon Heart was an infinite engine of magical power. The purity of their mana was breathtaking, second to none.
And that mana...
...was flowing in.
Into Kang Geomma's chest.
Resting there was the EX-rank Sashimi.
In this world, an armament grew stronger the rarer its materials were. For a Dragon Heart to pulse on its own accord was something Valerion had never experienced in his life—not in tens of centuries.
Kang Geomma's sashimi knife was growing stronger, in real time.
Furthermore, as the subspace dissolved, a new web formed within the room. The flow of light and mana was no longer aggressive like before; it was gentle.
"Fascinating."
The Dragon Lord's eyes grew wide with awe.
Air gathered softly around Kang Geomma and Leon. Only their figures remained distinct. It was a sight as if the world itself were fixating its eyes upon them.
Valerion twitched his stinging nose, then voiced his thoughts:
"Mystery."
A word that had eventually degraded into a mere term for a technique.
"'Mystical' feels like the right description."
There was a language that had been the origin of mysticism.
—Magic. [End]