Carpeng Subjugation Battle (Finale)
I rested a hand on the shoulder of the girl who stood there, swaying on her feet.
"That's enough."
"N-no... I have to kill her... Carpeng... I have to... pro-protect... Ru-bia..."
She was already half out of her mind, muttering the words like a broken prayer.
Stubborn little thing.
"I'll handle the rest. So... stay by the priestess's side. How lonely must she be, all alone?"
With that, I gave her a light shove backward.
She went flying, landing hard on her rear right next to the priestess.
The sight of it made a laugh burst out of me.
Payback for kicking me earlier, you brat.
I ignored the dazed look she was giving me and quietly gathered myself.
I emptied my heart.
I swept away the vengeance that had been packed tight inside me, and in its place I filled myself with the memories of the past, the resolve of the present, and the hope of the future.
The headache vanished.
The trembling in my body vanished.
Fear, despair, darkness—all of it vanished.
My mind cleared.
The range of my Qi Sensing expanded.
I observed Carpeng's body.
I could feel her movements.
I could feel her breath.
Her pulse, her blood aura, her rage—everything.
I took a step.
Light.
Impossibly light.
A smile rose unbidden to my lips.
Even lighter than the steps I had taken when I first reached Platinum.
"Heh... so it was this simple all along."
[GRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAA-!]
A roar far more savage than before hammered against my eardrums.
But I felt no fear at all.
I looked down at the sword in my hand.
It was an old blade.
The edge was completely warped.
The teeth were gone.
Rusted through.
An old, battered sword that anyone else would have laughed at.
What of it?
As long as I had a sword, I could cut.
As long as I had the will, I could act.
And so—
I swung.
In a single stroke, I tore out five of her claws.
I swung.
Her blood aura scattered completely.
I swung.
Her wrist was severed.
I swung.
Bone was sliced clean through.
An even fiercer surge of blood aura whipped around me.
The bone regenerated.
The veins.
The hide.
The claws.
Everything regenerated.
I did not yield. I pressed forward.
Like the boy who had once walked through the dead of winter.
Like the boy who had carved his way through that freezing cold with nothing but his bare body.
To protect his little sister.
Who had stepped out into the world without a shred of fear.
Like the me of the past.
I stepped forward and swung my sword.
Not a Unique Ability.
Just an ordinary sword stroke.
The first swordsmanship I had ever learned when I took up a blade.
I recreated the swordsmanship of a perfectly ordinary adventurer.
My essence.
The power to protect everything.
I remembered it, and I recreated it.
The blade that cut through the air without a sound severed Carpeng's wrist in a single stroke.
Viscous fluid soaked the ground.
A storm of blood aura crashed over me.
Flesh tore.
Muscle burst.
Bone shattered.
It did not hurt.
If anything, it was welcome—it sharpened my mind.
A whirlwind of mana wrapped around my entire body.
Not mana honed to a razor's edge.
Not mana burning with vengeance.
A brightly shining mana.
A warm mana that reminded me of Lux.
Mana forged by burning the last of my life.
Everything of it moved my body.
I swung the sword again.
The wrist that had just regenerated was severed once more.
I thrust, then swung.
Her right arm was cut away.
If Heinzel were watching, he would be delighted.
I gave my arm a light swing and batted aside the thick blood aura.
"Something this simple..."
She detonated her blood aura in every direction—toward Heinzel and the girl.
It was almost funny.
I swung the old sword and cut the blood aura apart.
Light.
I advanced without rest.
Cutting, thrusting, swinging.
Sometimes throwing a fist, sometimes batting things aside with my body.
Toward Carpeng.
Into the freezing winter.
Into the endless nightmare.
Into my past.
I advanced.
I cut Carpeng's leg.
It regenerated.
I cut her arm.
It regenerated.
I split her belly and scattered her entrails.
It regenerated.
I burst her remaining left eye.
But—
It regenerated.
The blood aura hanging in the air gathered together.
It gathered and gathered until it reached its limit, then was swung, shot, and exploded.
It was the fiercest attack I had seen from her yet.
But if I stopped now, the dazed fools behind me would be in danger.
So I walked straight into the swirling death.
And once more—
I swung my sword.
My arm was torn away.
I didn't need it.
It was a one-handed sword anyway.
I swung.
My leg was crushed beyond recognition.
I didn't need to move.
As long as I could see it, I could cut it.
I swung.
My belly split open and my entrails spilled out.
That Noah brat had kept fighting even with a hole through her gut.
No reason I couldn't do the same.
I no longer needed to eat, so the bald bastard would be happy he didn't have to buy me meals anymore.
I swung the sword.
The blood aura scattered.
I cut through every last scrap of Carpeng's blood aura.
But the aura that had dispersed into the air took form once more and was absorbed back into her body.
No matter how much I cut, there was no end.
I could not cut it all away.
I still could not reach it.
Of course.
Of course I could not reach it.
Because what I had truly wanted to cut was never her.
What I had truly wanted to cut—
was the world itself.
It was only natural that I could not reach it.
A weak human.
A mere mortal.
An insignificant existence.
Trying to cut the world.
How foolish. How far beyond my station.
I had dared to plant both feet on the ground.
I had dared to look up at the sky with both eyes.
And so I had lost my legs.
And so I had lost my eyes.
Even so—
I still had to do it.
I still had one hand left.
I still had one leg left.
A faint spark of life still burned within me.
And I still had something I wanted to protect.
I raised the sword—
and cut.
I remembered the freedom that had been crushed.
The freedom I had tasted for only a moment had been so sweet that I had chased after it.
And so I did not break.
I cut.
I remembered the freezing cold.
That bone-aching chill had jolted my fading mind awake.
It had kept my body moving without rest.
And so I advanced.
I cut.
I remembered the pain of hunger.
Yet it had not hurt.
I had never eaten, so I had never known fullness.
And so I had been able to feed my little sister.
I had been able to endure.
I cut.
I remembered despair.
I had tasted a despair that made me want to vomit.
The bottom of the bottom.
The abyss of the abyss.
I had wanted my one and only little sister never to know that despair.
I had wanted her to chase only hope.
I had wanted her to hold hope in her heart.
And so—
I had been able to smile.
I had been able to be happy.
I had been able to dream.
I raised my arm and gave it a light swing.
Carpeng's body.
Her blood aura.
The landscape.
The sky.
The earth.
Sword scars were carved into them all.
A fierce wind rose from those scars.
A blizzard wrapped around my body and howled.
The freezing winter poured forth.
Flowers withered.
Trees stripped themselves bare and stood alone.
Snow falling upon the ground covered the world.
The death of life.
The end of all things approached.
A lonely, desolate winter.
A cold season that trampled everything underfoot as it walked.
And yet—
even so—
flowers bloomed.
White, so white.
Wildflowers blooming in full glory rode the wind, crushed the snow beneath them, and bloomed.
They put down roots in the harsh earth, endured with strength and boldness, and endlessly scattered their seeds.
They promised the next generation.
They waited for the next season.
And they announced a new beginning.
They did not chase the past.
They were not bound by it.
They did not cling to it.
They moved forward.
Toward the future.
Toward the next day.
Toward spring.
And so—
winter faded, and spring bloomed.
Summer would rush in, autumn would approach, and winter would howl once more—but after that, without fail, spring would bloom again.
I rose on my ruined legs.
I steadied my swaying body.
I raised my trembling arm.
And I brought forth spring.
A warm spring.
The spring when I met Habron.
The spring when I first held hope.
The spring when I became an adventurer.
The spring when I was gifted my sword.
The spring when Lux's laughter had bloomed so freely—
a happy spring.
I brought it forth.
"I reached it. I finally reached it."
Like cherry blossom petals scattering on the wind, a line was drawn across the world with the descending sword as its center.
That impossibly thin line pushed aside every landscape, and for a fleeting moment it cut through the dazzling sun—the sun that oversaw all things, the symbol of the goddess Lilith—and the world itself.
"Lu...ci...?"
Rubia's lost, wandering sigh reached me.
I dragged my creaking body and crawled toward Luci.
"Lu...ci... Uncle Luci...!"
I kept crawling.
Endlessly.
Toward Luci.
I reached him.
I touched the severed stump of his leg.
"Ahh... so it's you. Did you... see that just now?"
The corner of Luci's mouth lifted.
"Why... why did you—"
"I killed Carpeng. I cut the winter. I cut my past. I cut everything. Even so... even so, does my sword still look pathetic to you?"
He had no arm.
No legs.
No entrails.
Every bone was shattered.
And still he was running his mouth like that.
Stop.
Please stop talking.
Please.
"I took down the big one, so... won't you count this as my win?"
I nodded.
Even knowing he could not see it, I could only nod.
"Ah, and... here, take these... and shoot them up at the sky for me."
With his one remaining arm he rummaged inside his coat and pulled out a handful of short sticks.
"They're all broken, but they should still work. Hurry up and take them. My arm's about to fall off."
With trembling hands I accepted the "fireworks" I had once told him about.
Luci gestured at me, urging me to fire them already.
I could feel Luci's pulse.
I could feel his life.
An endlessly weak pulse.
A faint life.
"Why... why did you protect us..."
"I didn't particularly protect you. I'm getting sleepy, so... hurry up and shoot them... at the sky... before it's too late... I want to see... that scene you... talked about..."
I flipped my body, aimed the fireworks at the sky, and set them off.
A tiny flame caught at the tip of a stick.
That faint fire soon grew fierce, let out a strange sound, and shot toward the heavens.
When the sparks reached their peak, they bloomed with the sound of an exploding bomb.
I could not see the colors.
I could not see the bright light.
But more than any other time—
they were dazzling.
And beautiful.
"And... I'll give you this too... so treasure it. It's everything I have."
Then Luci held out his sword to me.
The old sword.
The shabby, worthless-looking sword.
And in the brightest voice I had ever heard from him—
a joyful voice,
a radiant voice,
and yet an endlessly weakened voice—
he laughed freely and said,
"It's the sword my little sister gave me, the sword that cut down Carpeng and cut the world. A sword that once touched this world... so it should be worth a fair price. You—"
The sound of the fireworks bursting scattered his final words.
I could no longer hear Luci's pulse.
I could no longer hear his breathing.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
I let go of the greatsword and took hold of Luci's sword—the flower petal he had left behind.
Then I aimed upward, toward the sky he had reached, toward this world, and fired the fireworks.
Hoping that he could see them.
Hoping only that they would be beautiful.
Endlessly.
Without stopping.