The Weight of Death
“Gkkh!”
A split second before his blade could sever my neck, I lunged with my free hand and seized the edge of the sword.
Kagagagak! Tseuuuuu!
The blade of light bored into my palm, burning white-hot. At this rate, my hand would be melted clean off.
[Resonance: Storm Slash]
Drawing on Rir's power, I whipped up a ferocious gale.
“Another bizarre trick—!”
Huoooooo!
The wind howled down on Marca as if to tear him apart.
“You think something like this will faze me? I'll take your head along with that hand!”
Puuuk!
“Kgh!”
The sword bit deeper into my palm. As I suspected — this alone was nowhere near enough to break through a World Ranker's defense.
Then how about this.
Onto that storm—
“Amhon!”
I poured out flame of violet-black!
Hwarururuk!
From the tail end of Storm Slash, the dark soul's fire began to spiral upward, seeping into the gale — and within moments, blades of violet-black shot up in every direction and descended on Marca.
[Amhon — Fire Dragon Ascends]
“Kr… kh…!”
His body shredded to ribbons, he soon let go of his sword and crumpled. A lance-hole punched through his belly, his whole body ground to tatters by the blade-wind.
“Now you're finally worth looking at.”
My own condition wasn't exactly pretty either — but compared to his, I might as well have been brand new.
“Don't make me laugh. Wounds like these are only fatal to a mortal like you…!”
Light gathered over Marca's injuries, and they began to regenerate.
“I'll get back up as many times as it takes — until your head rolls!”
“Oh… is that so?”
Sorry to disappoint, but I happen to know a thing or two about recovery myself.
A trait that elevates mana and stamina alike — and even accelerates the body's natural regeneration.
Not that it holds a candle to whatever he's using, mind you. There was another reason I could afford this leisure.
Deliberately, insolently, I smiled and extended my lance toward him.
“You're tired, aren't you?”
“…What?”
“I'd been wondering what felt off. Your raw attack power and swordsmanship are clearly World Ranker class.”
A strangeness I'd been sensing bit by bit ever since the fight began. It was this:
“The longer the fight drags on, the more your speed and precision slip.”
His blade was dulling with every exchange. Especially just now —
When I caught his sword in my bare hand.
If he'd still had the momentum from the start of the fight, he'd have cleaved through my hand and everything else in one stroke.
And yet the blade had been stopped by my palm alone. It was a gamble I'd taken precisely because I'd already built this hypothesis.
“It struck me as odd, you see. Why would someone with a healing ability like yours leave the wounds from his fight with Diana just… sitting there?”
Before our battle began, Marca's body had been a mess of wounds and dried blood. He'd erased worse injuries with his light without a trace — yet he left those superficial ones alone?
There's only one explanation.
He isn't healing himself for free. He's paying some kind of price — stamina, or life force — to restore his body from mortal wounds.
“Those leftover cuts don't kill you and they don't slow you down in a fight. So you don't heal them. Paying the price would be a waste.”
“…….”
“And every time you repair your body… you grow a little more tired. A little weaker.”
And it wasn't only Diana. Everyone he'd fought on his way into the Magic Tower's labyrinth.
The tower's mages. The Argos guard. The Council of Elders. People who, dying, had risen one last time to defend the tower.
They had ground Marca down, piece by piece, and brought him to his knees.
I know it's impossible. But I hope you were watching. Your deaths meant something. I'll make sure they did.
“I'm not the only one killing you. Every mage of the Magic Tower is fighting alongside me.”
“Me… tired… because of mere humans…?”
A shadow fell over Marca's face. Then his eyes brimming with murderous intent locked onto me, and he began to rage.
“Do not dare crawl upward! No being wearies of crushing insects beneath its heel!”
“That's because what you killed weren't insects, you insolent abomination.”
These were not lives to be dismissed so cheaply. Each one carried its own history, its own long years — a world unto itself, every single one different.
To kill someone is to end a world.
To you, who know nothing of that weight — and to the lord you serve — I could never carelessly hand over the place where I live.
“Let's finish this, Yeokcheon.”
Fully restored, Marca blazed with his most brilliant light yet.
Eleventh Sword: Stellar Convergence
The scattered light converged on a single point, gradually heating to a furious crimson. Heat shimmered up around Marca, and the surroundings warped into something out of a burning hell.
“Heh.”
A hollow laugh escaped me on its own. He hadn't even begun his technique — this aura was radiating from the mere act of preparing it.
I can feel it. That sword carried power rivaling Diana's Magic Sword Luna — and the main attack skills of any number of World Rankers.
To unleash a sword like that in a depleted state… I couldn't deny it anymore. He was stronger than I'd thought.
“Then… so will I.”
The only option was to prepare something that would knock that smug mouth wide open.
“Hell Three Spears.”
Above the lance bearing a Demon Duke's rank —
Hwarak—!
the flames of Amhon ignited.
[Amhon temporarily detonates the power stored within the Demon Spear Dantalion.]
[Hell Three Spears is enhanced into Demonic Realm Single Spear!]
Demonic Realm Single Spear. Unlike Hell Three Spears, it was a skill consisting of a single thrust.
So what? The point was that this alone wouldn't be enough. If Demonic Realm Single Spear is the demon dragon's power drawn out to its very limit —
Pazuzuzuk!
The yaksha's silhouette overlaying my form — that, at least, belonged to me alone.
Demonic Realm Single Spear. Nameless Spear Method.
The two powers coiled at the lance's tip, rotating in a spiral.
Spear God's Wild Dance. Chaos Origin Ultimate Dance.
Forget everything else. Devote yourself to one thing only — piercing the enemy before you through the heart.
That was the mindset required whenever this spear dance unfolded.
Kwakwakwakwakwa—!
The spiraling lance, devouring everything in its path, locked onto my opponent.
“And— through.”
Kwang!
I stamped down with an explosive step and charged straight at Marca. He too, his preparation complete, leveled his sword at me and surged forward.
Tseuuuuk! Kwaruk…!
Heat so intense that everything it grazed began to melt. He was compressing his overwhelming aura into a single point and pouring it all into that blade.
“DIEEEE!”
“HAAAAAAH!”
The final clash, both of us staking everything we had. The lance of light and the lance of darkness met at the very heart of the labyrinth —
Kwaaaaaaaang!
— and collided.
The first thing I felt was the chill of death biting all the way down my throat. Even as searing heat melted my body, my soul felt as though it were being flash-frozen.
“-Uuuuuugh!”
Flesh melting. Muscle burning. Bones catching fire, organs boiling.
“Heuk…! Kh…!”
My body was screaming. Let go of the lance and run, or die.
Bulgeulbulgeul!
Skin bubbled like lava and sloughed away, exposing grotesque muscle tissue, then bone. The shock racking my body detonated from within, tearing me apart from the inside out.
I'm dying. As someone who's died once already, I could say it with certainty — this was the sensation of death. My body was being sold to the death god in real time.
But — the same goes for him!
Kwakwakwakwa!
The spiraling lance punched through his blade and began grinding into Marca's chest.
“Kreuuuuugh! AAAAAAGH!”
He threw everything into regenerating with his light —
Kwadeudeuk!
— and every time the flesh knit itself back together, I tore it apart again.
“Give it up, Yeokcheon! I can keep healing forever — you can't! Look at yourself, collapsing like ice in the middle of a desert!”
“Give up…?”
Ridiculous. If I'd ever done that, even once —
I wouldn't be here right now.
This had become a pure contest of endurance. Whose reserves would give out first — Marca's recovery…
…or me, melting away first?
“Kreugh…! Kraaaaaah!”
“H-how can a human endure this—!”
“BEATS MEAAAAH!”
The secret is just to clamp your teeth down and hold. That is the way the weak fight — dirty, obsessive, relentless, unkillable. Stake everything on one thing only: bringing the other man down and surviving.
Kwadeudeudeudeuk!
The lance's reach kept widening. Which meant his reserves were dwindling at last.
“N-no! My soul! It's shrinking…!”
So that was the price he'd been paying all along — he'd been consuming his very soul to repair his body.
Which means that sword of light was forged the same way. No wonder it had hurt like hell.
“KAAAAK! This can't… be happening! I am Marca! I am the great Cardinal!”
“Cardinal, schmardinal!”
It was about time. Get out of my world, you alien bastard.
Kwaaaaaaang! Kwadeudeuk!
At last, the light went dark — and the spiraling lance, as if it had been waiting for exactly this moment, began to ravenously devour him.
“AAAAAAGH! KRAAAAAK!”
First it ground through his torso, then broke and crushed the rest of his body, piece by piece.
“Y-you…! You think this is how I end?!”
Even as the spiral swallowed him, Marca's eyes still burned with menace. Gritting his teeth, he vented light he should have already spent entirely.
“Twelfth Sword! Black… Spot—!”
The instant he reached for his final attack —
Kraaaaa—!
a black dragon crashed in from behind and cleaved through Marca's brow.
“Seo-ha!”
“This is the intruder, right?”
Seogeogeogeok!
Baek Seo-ha drove her sword in again and again, scattering his light. A massive hammer came down on his skull right after.
“Eit!”
“Kkh…!”
Karin hammered Marca again and again with grim, unflinching eyes. Even the light he'd scraped together with his last strength winked out.
“Now, Mr. Tae-hyun!”
As the light died completely, Karin and Baek Seo-ha fell back — clearly to stay clear of my attack.
Ssik!
I lifted the corner of my mouth.
“Understood!”
I readied the end.
“A-aaah…! Iron-Blooded… Under Heaven…!”
Toward him, stammering in terror — I hurled the final spear without mercy.
Kwaaaang!
The thrust that carried everything. At its end was the spiral that had devoured all — and,
Tuk! Degurur….
rolling across the floor, nothing remained but Marca's severed head.