Chapter 128
Chapter 128
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 128
>Chapter Title: This Place is the Afterlife
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Tsssp—!
That was when Shine's aura shifted completely.
Super concentration.
A state he'd already entered once before in the Hamern Great Forest.
Elevating focus to its peak, erasing the world and sensing only himself.
But this was different from the Death Knight state, when he'd forcibly entered it.
True 'super concentration' didn't stop at erasing the world.
It was the膨胀 of the self.
Swelling one's existence to encompass the world. And what happens then?
'The world is me...'
...And I am the world.
Shine's sword sliced through space, filling the entire world with his presence.
Kclang! Kagagang!
Relentless blades of cold air assaulted him. Piercing ice spears shattered.
Up to that point, only a single stroke was needed.
Step.
Shine advanced one step, sword lowered.
This was the step of a knight.
It contained everything he saw, heard, and felt. Within that single step lay...
Everything a knight could do.
Advance, retreat, slash, thrust, parry—all possibilities packed into one step.
And that single step shattered Parun's focus.
“...!”
Immense pressure, like a mountain.
Parun instantly halted all ongoing spell casts.
'Dodge...'
His signature multitasking yielded the path to survival. Every nerve, split across the eight Eight Hearts, moved to preserve his life.
But.
Amid the blizzard, Shine's fangs gleamed sharply.
'There's no place to dodge.'
Power surged into his planted foot. As his waist twisted, ether gathered in the sword she'dathed in its scabbard.
Completely defenseless. Yet no spell struck Shine.
Kwaduk, kwaduduk!
Jeeeng—!
Lightning crashed mere inches away, and a brutal ice spear grazed past, leaving just a hair's breadth.
As if avoiding what needed to be dodged.
A bizarre sight.
But believe it.
Shine's single step pierced every possibility. In a fraction of a fraction of a second. A step that accounted for every probability.
This was no transcendence.
Simply...
Shine von Leman.
King Slayer.
The manifestation of the realm naturally enjoyed by the unparalleled genius who dominated an era.
A genius who butchered a Master Knight guarding the emperor... without even a demonic sword, that transcendent artifact.
The absolute pinnacle among all knights!
That absolute being had finally found his place.
“Let's end this.”
Just one word.
No muscle contraction or expansion. No breath. Forearm gripping the sword, sole pressing the ground. Thigh muscles exuding power, waist, shoulder, and arm transmitting it. All those muscles were merely at peace.
It had to be.
This was a strike that transcended the realm of the flesh...
'Slash.'
A strike that entered the realm of concepts itself.
And that was the end.
When Shine's sword reached its rightful destination.
Srash—
The world was cleaved.
And through the blizzard split along the sword's path.
Parun, eyes wide, took in Shine.
As their gazes locked in midair, a stunned Parun could only utter one thing.
“...Sufficient.”
“Indeed, it had to be.”
Only then did the blood fountain erupt.
Shwaaaaa—!
Blood exploded from Parun's diagonally slashed chest like a burst.
And then...
Thud.
Parun lost consciousness and collapsed.
A bone-chilling silence descended on the training grounds, once roaring with battle.
Shine von Leman, the peerless knight with the devil's talent.
Even in a vampire's body, that talent shone brilliantly.
* * *
Shine closed his eyes gently, basking in the afterglow of battle.
“...Good.”
Only now did he feel truly alive. Yes, this was proof of being alive.
After obtaining a vampire's body.
Shine had spent nights sleepless with unfulfilled emptiness. A kind of void.
Why?
He could understand it as a Death Knight.
Rejecting reason and lingering in the world as an undead came with suffering.
He could endure it.
Aster, Obern, that blabbermouth Pathfinder, and so on...
It had been quite enjoyable.
He deemed it bearable pain.
Of course, rage toward the black mage who desecrated his corpse was rage, but how could one live on anger alone?
Even writhing in agony, he hadn't let go of that tenuous thread of life—not out of sheer fury.
The joys slipping between moments of pain were the true driving force enduring hardship.
But what truly sustained Shine was something else.
The sword.
No, the martial arts encompassing all.
The sheer joy of indulging in it made the pain bearable.
Yet... why?
The pain hadn't vanished.
'Why?'
He had a body now.
The soul's torment was gone.
Yet this pain disrupting his mind at every turn—what was it?
'A disconnect between body and soul?'
It could be.
A vampire's body. He'd gained a vessel for his mind, but its contents were human—bound to create a gap.
He thought that was all.
Thought he could endure.
But...
“...That wasn't it.”
Suu— haa.
Shine deeply inhaled the icy air piercing his lungs, then exhaled.
In this moment, Shine realized.
The presence of a body wasn't the measure of life.
What made him alive wasn't pulsing flesh or a beating heart—nothing of the sort.
What made him alive was solely martial arts.
The path he'd devoted his entire life to, and would devote his remaining life to.
Having realized this late...
How could he not be joyful?
“This body is Shine von Leman.”
He spread his arms, embracing the world.
Stars poured from the night sky. Not literally. Just how it felt to him.
Unable to contain his excitement, he recited his grand ambition.
Or tried to.
“I am the one and only being who will stand at the pinnacle of all knights... Gahk!”
A heavy blow to the back of his head.
Stars sparkled before his eyes.
Had the sky's stars come to him? No, it just hurt like hell.
It didn't take long to grasp the situation and surge with rage.
But Shine couldn't even fully vent it.
“How dare you strike this body...!”
“Me.”
“You wanna die? How dare some lowly guard lay hands on...”
“Dunno about 'lowly guard,' but you know damn well what you just did.”
“...?”
Shine tilted his head in confusion.
What the hell did this guy eat wrong?
Why so brazen?
Striking this body on the head was a capital crime deserving death.
As a Death Knight, bound by lord-vassal ties, he couldn't punish it—but now he could exact proper retribution.
The fool had to know that...
“You still haven't grasped the situation?”
“...?”
Aster eyed the clueless Shine, then jerked his chin.
“See that?”
“See wha—Gasp.”
Shine sharply inhaled.
Only then did he see.
“P-Parun...!”
Following Aster's chin toward where he turned his head, Parun lay demurely.
But his state was eerie.
Blood soaking the ground.
A man with a deathly pale face.
Lying straight, arms neatly crossed over his chest... yeah. Just like a corpse.
“N-No way?”
“No way? You caught a vampire.”
Shine shook his head in denial against unbearable reality.
“N-No. No way... I controlled my strength. It wasn't lethal. Y-You saw it too.”
“I didn't. You swung the sword.”
“No, impossible...”
Even drunk on the moment, he wouldn't cross that line.
That final strike—well. It had a bit of sincerity, but not fatally so.
Sure, the finishing touch felt a tad deep...
“No, but wounds like this are a dime a dozen in spars, right? Huh?”
Yeah, such injuries were commonplace.
Not sure about other families, but in the Leman house, they were.
Training mimicking real combat was why the Lemans once reigned as a swordsmanship dynasty.
But.
If asked whether he'd truly controlled his strength...
The more his thoughts spun, the more Shine's mind frayed. That's when Aster drove in the wedge.
“You'll probably spend your life hunted as the murderer who killed a Jenion Academy professor. Even the headmaster won't shelter you. Hell, he might hand you over first.”
“Bullshit!”
Shine bellowed as his world crumbled.
Before he knew it, his feet kicked off the ground toward Parun.
And when that step reached Parun.
“...Huh? What's this?”
Shine tilted his head.
Parun's condition was off.
Not bad off—good off.
He'd clearly seen the blood fountain, yet the exposed chest through his disheveled collar was smooth.
Not a single scar.
While Shine was lost in self-absorption, Aster had swiftly applied Light of Healing!
Then, Aster's voice drilled into the dumbfounded Shine's ear.
“Falling for it again, you parasite.”
“Y-You... you fucking bastard!”
Parun's mansion.
Shine's hollow echo reverberated.
* * *
After Shine and Parun's bout ended, we returned to the office carrying the unconscious Parun.
I carelessly dumped the Parun I'd been carrying onto the sofa, then quickly claimed the head seat.
“You vile thing. Is that your place?”
“Places aren't preset. They shape the person.”
Shine snapped at me taking the head seat, clearly displeased, but I brushed off his nonsense.
Anyway.
'Shine, that parasite...'
When did he grow so much?
Sure, his size had peaked over 200 years before I was born.
No, not just size—he'd died, rotted, turned to dust scattering in the dirt.
Obviously, the 'growth' I meant wasn't physical.
—Let's end this.
That final strike.
'...Not transcendence.'
But witnessing it, I was stunned enough to mistake it for transcendence for a moment.
No wonder—Shine's single sword stroke contained realizations beyond count.
In other words... yeah.
'A sword stroke containing everything.'
Like the final spell I'd unleashed in my clash with Destrow.
A single move packing every realization.
The difference?
I'd borrowed transcendent power to contain it all, while Shine contained every realization through his own skill, without transcendence.
Easy to say.
'Easy to say... but utterly absurd.'
Seeing it up close like this, the gap in 'talent' was stark.
Put simply... yeah, relative deprivation? A novel feeling for me.
A sentiment I'd never felt even in my past life.
'Is this how mortals feel beholding genius?'
Of course, by others' standards, I too possessed staggering talent.
The wall of transcendence.
In my past life, I hadn't breached it, but most mages died without even nearing it.
Died once, came back, and breached transcendence?
Those who couldn't in a hundred lives couldn't.
So now that I'd breached it, I could boast of talent too.
But.
'There's a gap.'
I took in Shine anxiously eyeing Parun.
'Vast... truly vast.'
If transcendence is the sword, reaching it is like tempering.
Endlessly hammering and forging one's realizations to hone the ultimate edge.
That births the transcendent treasured sword.
But that sword was too heavy for me.
Not just due to my immature body.
They say you see as much as you know? Now I knew for sure.
'Even if my body matures, freely wielding transcendence will take ages.'
A sword I can't control.
But Shine?
Transcendence or beyond—he'd handle it effortlessly.
Like birds knowing flight and fish swimming from birth.
That was the difference in talent.
'Genius.'
Their lives, probably.
A topic I'd never deeply pondered in my past life.
And without Shine, I doubt I'd have in this one either.
But now... I thought.
'Talent...'
I want to surpass it.
Not the realm—but shatter my own talent's limits.
Even devoting my whole life, surpass this innate boundary.
Crunch.
My clenched fist screamed, but I gripped harder.
I didn't want to extinguish this newfound spark of competitive spirit.
...How much time passed?
“...Where is this?”
Parun, who'd lost consciousness, regained awareness.
“Y-You're awake? Sir Parun. How's your body?”
As the fidgety Shine rushed to check Parun's complexion, I cleared my blank mind and spoke.
“Ah, asking where this is?”
Then I should answer.
“This place is the afterlife.”
My killer line, if I do say so.
But why?
“...”
“...”
The two cooling off with tepid stares.
Well, whatever.
...The proverb says black-haired beasts don't get taken—not that it matters, these bastards are just screwing with me.
Anyway, not the point.
“...Now that you're up, snap out of it quick. Huh? Let's talk about what comes next.”
Not changing the subject out of awkwardness.
Really.
Truly... because the Infinite Chain Gun was a time-sensitive critical matter.