Chapter 98
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Translator: Prime Works
Chapter: 98
Chapter Title: Radiant Resolve (2)
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Clang-!
Memories always hurt.
A blazing black inferno.
Corpses rolling beneath it.
Mom didn't move.
Dad's eyes had lost their focus.
He grabbed her shoulders. Pushed. Shook.
No response came, no smile.
Clang-!
A jolt shook his shoulders.
The shock pierced the memory. Twisted it.
Shouts flying in from outside the barn.
Something seemed to be over there.
He bolted up at once. Crawled. Rolled.
He crammed himself into the corner haystack in the barn.
In the cramped, musty haystack, he vowed.
This life his parents had hidden him to save.
He wouldn't die in vain.
He would survive.
And someday far in the future.
He would choose his own place to die.
Clooong-!
Another jolt pounding his shoulders.
Amid the shock, Haviel Asrahan opened his eyes.
He escaped the memory of the six-year-old boy in the barn haystack.
He lifted his head to face the present at twenty-one.
He saw the enemy's flustered face.
"What the...?"
A savage brilliance lit the enemy's face.
A radiant resolve wrapped around the table leg like a honed blade.
Aura bloomed from the wooden block in his hand.
It wasn't just the wooden block.
It overflowed from his grip to his wrist.
From his wrist to his forearm and shoulder.
Finally, to the powerful heartbeat in his chest.
Thump, thump!
An unprecedented mountain echo enveloped his heart.
It pounded open his solid Mana Heart.
Like a giant holding up the sky groaning.
The Mana Heart cracked and scattered.
Destruction for regeneration.
Death toward resurrection.
Shattering and reconstruction.
Dissolution and birth.
It scattered, split.
Gathered, connected, and breathed.
Beginning and end cycled.
The end called forth the beginning.
Between stimulus and stimulus.
At the end of balanced destruction and chaotic regeneration.
Like the vow in his memory, his primal heart beat.
Thump-!
The newly born Mana Heart let out its first cry.
A power on another level altogether drummed through his veins, awakening them.
It rampaged, spreading to every corner of his body.
Rampaging as it seeped in.
Every single cell reacted.
It was the endless mana circulation only a Swordmaster could achieve.
Within it, Haviel moved.
Boom!
"...!"
He swung the wooden table leg.
The aura wrapped around the table leg reacted on its own.
Like a living beast tracking prey.
Each strand of aura glow sharpened its edge.
It unleashed a ferocious storm of power along the table leg's path.
It bounced off the sword Sir Cherni was pressing down.
Clang!
The sword flew with one strike.
Sir Cherni's eyes filled with shock.
'What is this!'
It made no sense.
What was happening here.
Why aura clung to that silver-haired punk's table leg.
No, was it even possible to generate aura on a mere table leg.
Amid doubts, shock, horror, and disbelief, he barely recovered his sword. Pulled it back. Sensed the crisis. Instinctively defended his upper left.
Boom-!
Haviel's table leg came crashing down.
The aura on the table leg poured out like a beast's fangs.
"...Guh!"
He barely blocked it.
He'd only parried a single sword strike.
Yet his waist wobbled.
His knees nearly buckled.
'No way!'
He hastily retreated.
It was just a wooden block.
No more than a broken table leg.
Yet the aura's power alone forced him back.
'Lies. This is a trick!'
Crunch!
It felt like the common sense he knew was crumbling.
His pride shattered to pieces.
Amid it, Sir Cherni ground his teeth.
He gripped his sword even more fiercely.
He too was a genius swordsman.
A Swordmaster, called humanity's ferocious weapon, a strategic asset.
'I'll regain the momentum first.'
Heh, one breath.
That alone steadied his emotions.
He composed his fluster.
Pushed aside shock and horror.
Sorted his shaken mind and focused on the enemy ahead.
He analyzed the foe with cold eyes.
Swoosh!
Haviel's table leg slashed horizontally like lightning.
Chilling aura bloomed along its path.
'Acknowledge it. He's become a Swordmaster too.'
That's aura.
He had to admit it.
So he would counter with even stronger aura and crush it.
That alone would break the silver-haired punk with monstrous talent.
His eyes blazed with sharpened resolve.
'Hup!'
Crunch!
Head-on clash.
With honed determination, he charged.
He poured all his mana into his sword.
He unleashed his peak Aura Blade to meet it.
'In an aura clash, I won't lose!'
He had been a Swordmaster far longer.
His aura's power and skill in wielding it were several levels higher.
He believed in himself.
With conviction.
'I'll dominate the aura fight first, slice his wooden table leg, and ride the momentum to take his head!'
Swoosh!
Sir Cherni's Aura Blade.
Haviel's aura-clad table leg.
The two beasts' fangs collided.
Clang-!
The sword shattered.
It burst into dozens of fragments.
They embedded in Sir Cherni's body.
"...!"
No time to scream.
Not even a moment to feel the pain.
'Why?'
The moment shocked doubt arose.
Haviel's table leg gleamed coldly.
It sliced Sir Cherni's right shoulder like lightning.
Slash!
Spurting blood droplets.
Amid them, Sir Cherni's severed right arm flew through the air.
Still clutching the broken sword, it etched red patterns on the white marble floor as it fell.
"...Grah!"
Sir Cherni's face twisted in agony.
But he couldn't even cover the stump.
A merciless kick flew in.
Thwack-!
"...!"
His nose bone crushed in one blow.
He staggered, collapsing.
No, before that, his nape was seized.
"From now on, if anyone takes even a single step this way, I will sever this man's head."
Haviel's chilling voice rang from behind.
Only then did Sir Cherni realize his state.
'What? Me... a hostage?'
His trembling eyes looked ahead.
The banquet hall scene unfolded.
Noble ladies stifling screams with hands over mouths.
Pale nobles protecting those ladies.
Guard knights holding drawn swords, hesitating in confusion.
And... himself, right arm severed, nape gripped by the silver-haired punk, turned into a hostage.
Ssssss...!
Before he knew it, the table leg rested on his shoulder.
The aura around it coldly licked his right earlobe.
In that instant, he felt it skin-deep.
His defeat.
That he was a hostage.
That any resistance would mean his neck severed by that aura in an instant.
'Me... to this mere punk... Graah.'
Sir Cherni's expression crumbled along with the pride he barely held.
Of course, his despair meant nothing to Haviel.
Haviel's cold eyes fixed solely on the guard knights.
Holding Sir Cherni, he stepped back one pace, two, toward the corridor entrance.
Then, suddenly, he let out a wry smile.
'Of all people, this guy as hostage.'
The irony of taking the queen's would-be assassin hostage to protect her.
But it didn't matter.
Right now, keeping anyone from entering the inner lounge was paramount.
Who knew if more traitors lurked among the guards.
He couldn't trust anyone yet.
No one could pass.
'So, Lord Lloyd. Please, let this attempt succeed.'
And safely save the queen.
Haviel hoped, believed, and waited.
Just as he had jumped into this because Lloyd trusted him.
He vowed to guard this place trusting Lloyd in turn.
His resolve-filled gaze dominated the surroundings.
A new Swordmaster proclaiming his birth with his blade's cry.
Before the might of that iron-blooded knight, the guards dared not charge, merely lowering their sword tips.
♣
Whirr-!
[Asrahan Heart Method skill option ④: Circle Shift activated.]
[All circles set to gear 6. Fixed at RPM 6,000.]
'Huuup!'
The quiet royal lounge.
Lloyd's sweat drops fell plop, plop there.
Each time, high-speed circle rotation flared around his heart.
The fierce spin generated suction.
Deadly poison piled up layer by layer around his heart.
'Almost there.'
The deadly poison absorbed from the queen.
The amount stacked around his heart was immense.
Its momentum no joke.
'One mistake, and it'll spread through my whole body.'
Then?
Death certain.
He was sure of that.
The poison's ferocity felt indirectly was that intense.
'The instant it spreads, it'll sever nerves and melt surrounding tissue.'
Widespread tissue damage.
Massive blood clots blocking vessels.
Oxygen cut off to extremities, organs failing, shock state.
'So, never let the circle spin slow.'
Lloyd cautioned himself again and again.
His current state was like spinning a bucket full of poison as hard as he could.
While spinning hard, centrifugal force holds.
Centrifugal force maintained keeps poison in the bucket.
But if the spinning force weakens?
If rotation slows?
Centrifugal force gone, poison spills out.
Drenched in it, he'd die for sure.
'So, the three circles are playing bucket now. Alright, done.'
Whirr-!
Circles kept spinning.
Yet no more poison entered the circles.
Absorption complete.
"There. All done, customer... no, Your Majesty."
Lloyd slowly rose.
As slow as possible, lest the spin slow.
Like a sloth not fully awake, extremely cautious steps away from the queen.
'Absorption done, now safely expel.'
Conveniently, a wine bottle he'd eyed beforehand was in his retreat path.
He picked it up.
Uncorked it.
Emptied the contents.
He jabbed his right index finger into the empty bottle's neck.
'Refined to pure extract, maybe five drops?'
He gauged the actual amount of poison rampaging trapped in his circle spin.
Then focused his mind.
Controlled his breath.
Whirr-!
Maintained circle spin force, but shifted direction.
From collection to refinement.
From absorption to expulsion.
Reverse of before.
And it failed.
Thud-!
"...Gah!"
Lloyd clutched his chest unwittingly.
A sudden agony like something squeezing and bursting his heart.
The massive shock blackened his vision briefly.
Nearly halted the active Circle Shift.
'What. What is this.'
Flustered.
He'd just done as usual.
Absorb external energy, expel pattern.
Executed the familiar process exactly as always.
'So why won't it expel?'
The poison wouldn't expel.
No, it clung to the circle.
Like sticky oil residue, gumming up the spinning circle.
First time ever.
Chilling.
'What to do?'
No time.
Even in the brief moment pondering countermeasures, poison clung more tenaciously to the circle.
The circle spin slowed bit by bit.
Ding-dong.
[Asrahan Heart Method skill option ④: Circle Shift movement interfered with.]
[Strong external interference temporarily limits Circle Shift max gear to 5.]
[All circles forcibly set to gear 5. Fixed at RPM 5,000.]
Whirr... grind!
Suddenly, circle gears forced down to 5.
Max RPM dropped to 5/6.
The trapped poison reacted more violently.
Like beasts rampaging to break free.
'Crazy.'
His heart sank.
This was no joke.
Fail to counter, gears keep dropping.
Eventually, poison breaks free of spin.
'No way I'll let that happen!'
He racked his brain desperately.
Possibilities and hopes.
Attempts and outcomes.
Reviewed, checked, calculated all scenarios in a flash.
Perhaps reading his anxiety plain.
The queen, pallid face rising unsteadily, staggered closer.
"Is something going wrong?"
"......"
No time to reply.
The queen's face hardened.
"Can't expel the absorbed poison?"
"......"
He barely nodded.
The queen's eyes sharpened.
"Can you concentrate the poison in one arm?"
"......"
He could.
But no.
Suddenly, the novel Iron-Blooded Knight came to mind.
Forcing poison into one arm, then amputating.
That was Queen Alicia's self-emergency treatment in Iron-Blooded Knight.
Thus losing her left arm.
'No thanks.'
Eyes said refusal.
Gestured back.
'Amputation? Too extreme even for sure thing.'
If loss certain, reject outright.
Better all or nothing.
Like the method he resolved on now.
'Hoo.'
He huffed.
Opposite the queen.
Faced the wall.
Then, ominous message floated again.
Ding-dong.
[Asrahan Heart Method skill option ④: Circle Shift movement continuously interfered with.]
[Even stronger external interference limits Circle Shift max gear to 4.]
[All circles forcibly set to gear 4. Fixed at RPM 4,000.]
Thump-!
Even greater resistance on circle spin.
Like wheels in mud, laborious turn.
Poison tendrils slipped out of weakened spin.
Beast in crumbling cage.
Chilled, he reached out.
Grabbed dining knife from table.
Crunch!
No second chances.
Clean in one go.
Vowing, he adjusted gear shift.
'2 to 3 to 3.'
Whirr-!
Alpha circle to 2,000 RPM.
Others to 3,000 RPM.
Dropped spin force.
Finally, poison tore free of cage.
Escaped circle spin.
Immediately infiltrated toward heart.
But that instant.
Three circles resonated at 2-3-3 ratio. Pulled each other. Seized poison's nape.
And collided.
Boom-!
Lloyd's knife thrust out.
Beyond that silver straight line, a mana storm poured.
The final resort glimpsing his sole chance to expel poison.
Triple Blasting activated.