Chapter 271
Chapter 271
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 271
>Chapter Title: Astonishingly Beautiful
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The sword of a knight who has reached the pinnacle sometimes feels more like magic than magic itself.
The process of swinging is invisible, with only the result of having slashed existing.
Aeviron's eyes sank deeply before that sword strike.
The grand archmage's perception shattered time into fragments. Dozens of bundles of sword strikes captured by his senses.
Tzzzzz—
When the flow of time returned, the air condensed around Aeviron. It was his signature wind magic.
Moments later, projectiles launched from the compressed air.
Bang! Boomboomboom!
Dozens of projectiles collided with the sword strikes and scattered. The weakened sword strikes, but the projectiles didn't end there.
Ping! Pibibibibing!
The endless barrage of projectiles fully neutralized the sword strikes before stopping, and soon Aeviron's form slid backward like it was being pushed.
The space where he had stood was sliced apart right after.
Space was severed...
Shwick—!
The slashing sound echoed belatedly.
It was a sight to chill the blood. But Aeviron assessed the situation with more calm than ever.
No, to be precise, he assessed his opponent.
The exchange hadn't even reached a few clashes, but it was more than enough time for Aeviron to gauge his foe.
'......Experienced.'
And cunning, too.
Deliberately closing the distance step by step on foot instead of leaping in one bound, dazzling the eyes with dozens of strikes when a single one could end it.
A veteran of battle.
......And battles against the strong, at that.
But Aeviron, who had lived through the old war eras, wasn't outmatched in a contest of wits.
Tzzzzz......!
Shine's body was yanked backward with a bizarre sound.
Even as he was pulled by the gravitational force, Shine calmly assessed the situation. He boldly turned his back to Aeviron and identified what was drawing him in.
The source of the strange pull was compressed air.
Could such force really come just from compressing air?
The doubt was fleeting.
"Where are you looking?"
Shine indifferently sheathed his sword at Aeviron's voice. And... clack!
The dozens of wind projectiles Aeviron had fired exploded with a bang! in that brief instant. He had slashed them all apart.
But his body was still being drawn into the compressed air.
'......'
Unlike before, Shine assumed a stance in midair.
The compressed air pulling him was severed with a shwick right after.
Thud!
Landing on the ground, Shine immediately spun to face Aeviron. No sooner had he done so than he kicked off. A destructive explosion charging at his back!
The compressed air had detonated, its blast drowning out all other noise in the area.
Eeeeeeeee—
A silent world filled only with tinnitus. In the fragmented time, Shine dashed forward faster than the explosion could reach him. In that state of hyper-focus, the only things visible were Aeviron and himself.
Shine traced an imaginary path toward his target, Aeviron. Dozens of options flashed through his mind even then.
Should he slash space? Or thrust? Diagonal? Horizontal? A leaping strike to the throat? Or shoot ether instead.
Prolonged thought breeds hesitation in action, but Shine suffered no such thing. All this unfolded in an instant of contemplation. And for Shine, such cognition was as natural as breathing.
Of course, it wasn't always like that.
Then why?
Aeviron von Prauksen. His opponent calculated dozens, hundreds of possibilities in a single breath. Naturally, his own calculations had to match.
Thus, in the finely fragmented time.
Shine and Aeviron clashed moves.
......One strike.
Shine's sword strike severed his opponent's throat. A fountain of blood sprayed as the opponent's projectile pierced Shine's heart.
'......Again.'
Shine reset his stance and conceived a new move.
......Another strike.
Crunch!
His body was drawn into the opponent's compressed air. The moment his flesh was crushed, he escaped the compression, and the launched ether cleaved the foe.
......Another strike.
This move couldn't be read. His sword clearly pierced the opponent's heart, but the response was unclear.
And so, in the imaginary exchange.
Shine and Aeviron died and killed.
If the first strike didn't decide it, then the second, the third...... The clashes grew fiercer.
It took little time for their exchange to surpass dozens of bouts.
But no victor emerged because neither knew the other's moves.
Even clean kills on the opponent felt unreliable. A victory too easily won was naturally suspect.
Thus, the two traded dozens, hundreds of clashes, seeking a scenario they could accept.
Even for these transcendent beings, it was no easy feat.
Though imaginary, each death inflicted indirect damage on the mind.
The accelerated cognition in fragmented time was a heavy burden, too.
In the end, Aeviron ended the imaginary battle first.
"This could go on forever."
Bang!
An explosion detonated right in front of the charging Shine.
Tap, tap-tap.
Shine retreated two steps and fixed Aeviron with deeply sunken eyes.
'......Old man.'
He'd thought him a blowhard with mere lofty realm, but he was no pushover.
Shine felt much the same as what Aeviron had sensed in him earlier.
'I thought that would suffice.'
In moments like this, he missed the pinnacle realm from his living days that he hadn't fully recovered. Back then, he could have handled any hidden moves.
But such regret was brief.
Shine's eyes flicked to the rear.
A lizard was waddling toward the fallen Aster. Aster was vomiting blood repeatedly, tending his internal injuries, and it didn't look easy.
......Time was short.
'No choice but to go all-in.'
The ether that had been gushing forth suddenly quieted.
Tzzzz......
The ether gathered—no, compressed.
A contest of wits? What did it matter.
No matter the opponent's response, overwhelming force that could shatter it all.
As he assumed his stance, his body rotated. With the rotation, his waist, knees, even ankles adjusted angles. His soles shifted with the changing posture, soon carving faint grooves into the ground with a grrrrk.
And Shine wasn't the only one resolved to go all-in.
"You know? This old man started magic rather late. So rather than the orthodox path, I took shortcuts. Mastering one to the extreme naturally brings insights in others."
Blah blah blah.
......What a nasty old coot.
There was reason to prattle on about his life story while gunning for each other's lives.
It was a ploy to disrupt focus.
Of course, Shine wasn't one to lose concentration to such shallow tricks. He soon blocked out sound and entered hyper-focus. Simultaneously, the transcendence he hadn't unleashed mid-battle opened.
Zzzzzzt, zzzzzzzzzzt—
His vision twisted and blurred.
Because it was the transcendence achieved as a human? Manifesting it in a vampire body created this dissonance. At least it was much improved from the start.
Thus, entering transcendence.
Aeviron, who had been rambling, focused his mind as well. He realized his petty tricks weren't working.
No probing either. It could give the opponent an opening.
Aeviron deployed his own transcendence. His domain didn't activate, but domain was just one aspect of transcendence. The heightened perception from opened transcendence elevated him to a higher realm.
Time fragmented once more.
In the imaginary space, the two clashed again. But it was clearly different from before.
No petty moves. Only gauging if a single strike could shatter all the opponent's options.
......And so.
The inhuman knight and the old mage faced off, staring each other down.
The auras naturally leaking from the two transcendents clashed, warping the atmosphere. Even the starlight in the night sky rippled in the flow, as if the vast plain—the entire world—converged on these two beings.
Aeviron seized the opening first.
Roooooar—
The atmosphere churned violently. Like a giant gathering all the world's air in massive hands, it condensed around Aeviron. No wind blew. It merely roiled like the calm before a typhoon.
Aeviron compressed the gathering air into a single point. Unadorned, the ultimate compression meant solely to kill one person.
Intent imbued it.
......Aeviron thought.
It was enough.
The opponent was extreme and arrogant. Clear from betting on a single decisive strike.
But such exchanges were Aeviron's specialty. How many brushes with death had he survived in his youth?
'Regrettable, but......'
The Sword Circle Lord would bury his bones here. Taking the Tower Lord would save enough face.
Crunch, cruuunch.
When the compressed air finally shrank to the size of a millet grain.
Aeviron's index finger pointed at the Sword Circle Lord.
—Thung.
The sphere shot from his fingertip, soon streaking forward with a whoooosh. Its target, naturally, Shine's heart.
So swift that it seemed to pierce Shine's heart the instant it launched. At least Aeviron believed so without doubt.
No sword strike could parry it. Even if parried, the ensuing explosion would be too much.
'I should worry about the Tower Lord instead.'
Aeviron fretted if the blast's aftermath might reach the Tower Lord.
......This all in an instant.
But then.
"......!"
Srrrring—
An impossible sound rang clearly in his ears. In the fragmented time, Aeviron couldn't hold back his shock. Only cognition accelerated, yet...... how did that sword move so fast?
It was a divine technique.
A sword arc beautiful to the point of awe.
Gazing at the arc as if entranced, Aeviron suddenly thought.
......Beneath that mask.
The Sword Circle Lord was smiling.
Mere conjecture, but...... Aeviron was certain.
And at that thought.
Shwick—!
The sword cleaved the air.