The Sword That Drops the Sun
When the dragon took a single step, the earth trembled. It was quite large and heavy. Hundreds of humans like me would need to clump together just to match the size of this one beast. Its movements looked sluggish, and the real threats were its sharp claws and fangs. And that tail, perhaps? No. There was one more thing.
A scorching energy gathered in the dragon’s maw. Was this the breath attack that symbolized dragons? It seemed to possess considerable destructive power, but the preparation time was far too long. Considering it would shoot out in a straight line from its mouth, dodging it didn’t look particularly difficult.
Yet I didn’t move my feet. Instead, I raised my sword.
Flames erupted from the dragon’s mouth. The crimson fire carried enough power to incinerate the earth itself. If someone took that blaze head-on, they would be charred far beyond mere roasting.
I brought the sword I had raised high down in a simple overhead strike. It was the most basic motion even a child holding a wooden practice sword could perform, yet the principle contained within it belonged to an entirely different realm. There was no way the sword that drops the sun could lose to a mere creature of the earth.
The flames split apart.
“It’s inconvenient without internal energy. If I had even the body I use in Apis, I could have sliced that lizard apart along with its flames.”
Disappointing. I hadn’t expected anything on the level of the Outer God I faced before, but I had hoped it would at least show me something impressive. Surely this wasn’t the end?
If a pathetic breath attack like this was the best this thing could offer, I would be greatly disappointed.
“Just because there is no internal energy, does that mean the principles of martial arts disappear?”
Even without inner power, the martial arts engraved into my body do not vanish. I cannot perform transcendent feats like leaping through the void, cleaving oceans, or blowing away mountains, but splitting apart mere flames like these is well within my reach.
“Lizard. If you wish to be called a dragon again, show me something more.”
Surely this isn’t all you have? The technique you used while facing me to gauge my strength cannot possibly be your best. Reveal your true spirit. Or are you still debating whether you need to go all out? If so, I understand.
I shall personally force you to give it your all.
The moment I charged forward, the lizard raised its foreleg. Slow, and the motion was large. I lightly evaded and advanced. This time it whipped its tail like a lash. Faster than the previous attack, but still slow to me. I ducked under it and advanced once more.
Before I knew it, the lizard’s scales were right in front of me. The black scales looked incredibly tough. I didn’t know the exact details, but they were probably far harder than most metals. I could cut them with my sword, but the blade would likely be ruined in the process. So this time, I would use my fist.
No matter how hard those scales were, as a living creature there had to be flesh beneath them. Striking there would do the trick.
I leaped up in front of the lizard, stepped on the foreleg it swung to knock me away, and soared higher into the air. The instant I landed on its back, the lizard spread its wings to shake me off, but it was a meaningless struggle. The moment it allowed me to land, it could no longer throw me off.
I raised my fist and struck beneath the lizard’s scales. The dragon screamed in agony. My strikes did not end with one blow. Relentlessly. Fiercely. Again and again until my opponent crumbled.
The lizard thrashed about, but it was pointless. Did it really think I would lose my balance from mere shaking like this?
Then, as cracks began to form across its scales, the dragon spread its wings once more. This time it wasn’t trying to shake me off. It was trying to ascend into the sky.
The instant its body lifted off, I jumped down from its back to the ground.
Now then. Did you fly into the sky to run away? Or to struggle desperately?
If it’s to flee, I’ll let you go. It simply means you aren’t worth my time. But if it’s to struggle, I’m willing to play with you a little longer.
The lizard that had flown high into the sky spread its wings, blocking the gray sun hanging in the heavens.
As the dragon roared in a language I couldn’t understand, sections of the gray sky peeled away and meteors appeared from within.
That’s more like it. That’s how you should do it. Come.
Meteors began falling one by one from the sky, piercing through the clouds. It was the desperate pattern that signaled the start of Phase 2 for Baldur, the final boss of Sky’s End.
Roughly the size of a horse, the meteors plummeted from above, bringing destruction in their wake. Normally, players would block them with defense scrolls or skip the pattern entirely using the dragon language spell known as Dragonfall. But Ara had neither of those options. She had only just started the game, and her character had not yet awakened its power.
In that case, she should have been desperately running to escape the aftermath of the meteors. But Ara did not.
She stood in place, watching the meteor falling toward her, and swung her sword. With a single strike, the meteor split cleanly in half. The shattered fragments never reached Ara, who should have been their target, and instead destroyed some random houses and patches of ground.
To anyone watching, it would look like she was using cheats. Others might ask if she had come with massively boosted stats. But Enri knew the truth. Ara hadn’t touched a single setting. She was playing as a protagonist who had only just begun Sky’s End today, nothing more than an ordinary person with slightly above-average strength, yet she was accomplishing such impossible feats.
There was only one source that allowed her to perform acts that defied common sense. The techniques she had possessed from the very beginning. Because the human named Ara was strong, the game character she controlled was strong as well.
“Is she really going to kill the final boss in the prologue?”
Normally, defeating Baldur in the prologue was impossible. The gap in specs between an unawakened protagonist and Baldur was huge, but there was an even bigger problem. Once Baldur entered Phase 2, it would attack the protagonist from the sky using dragon language. Unless you used Dragonfall, it would never willingly descend to the ground. It would remain far above, securing a cheap yet certain victory.
It wasn’t impossible to bring Baldur down, but that required laying the groundwork during Phase 1. Since they had entered Phase 2 without doing anything, no matter how desperately a player struggled, they had no means to force the dragon down and would inevitably lose.
No matter how strong Ara was, it should have been impossible for her to overcome such physical limitations. Yet Enri could not declare with certainty that Ara would lose. Somehow, she felt that if it was Ara, it might actually be possible.
Baldur’s attacks did not end with meteors. The dragon poured out dragon language like a madman, and the words that affected the world itself produced countless miracles. Lightning fell from the gray sky. The earth itself moved to entangle Ara’s feet. Flames tried to wrap around her and burn her alive. Meteors continued to fall intermittently. The dragon’s roar even restricted her movements.
Yet even after receiving all those attacks, Ara still stood firmly on the ground with both feet. Without a single wound, wearing a bored expression as she gazed up at the dragon floating in the sky.
“It seems I’ve seen everything worth seeing by now. Do you have anything else hidden?”
While lightly dodging the hundreds of ice spears raining down, Ara asked the viewers in a flat tone as if she were about to yawn. It was a situation where a single mistake could mean instant death, yet neither Ara nor the viewers felt any tension. Everyone already knew she would never allow herself to be hit by attacks of this level.
“Haa. Why is it that whether in the East or the West, none of the creatures called dragons are any good?”
Ara, you’re just too far beyond the norm.
Watching the screen, Enri unconsciously muttered those words.
Baldur was not weak. Phase 1, where it played around with players on the ground, was easy for a final boss. The first players who faced it had even complained that it was too much of a pushover. But Phase 2 was different.
Baldur, which now avoided direct confrontation and actively utilized dragon language, was an existence that made players spit out curses. Even setting aside the fact that normal attacks couldn’t reach it, the magic patterns Baldur used were never easy to deal with. Each hit hurt so much that even endgame gear made players scream, the casting speed was so fast that you had to memorize every pattern to react in time, and because it mixed multiple dragon language spells at once, unfair patterns appeared quite frequently.
Phase 2 of Baldur was so difficult to handle that people criticized the game for changing genres from RPG to shooter. Enri had struggled tremendously the first time she faced it. Even after coming fully prepared with endgame gear, potions, magic, a bow, and Dragonfall, it had still taken her four hours. And that was actually considered fast.
Streamers known for being bad at games took at least six hours, and some had spent an entire day before barely managing to win. Baldur was definitely strong. It was simply that Ara was even stronger.
“Let’s finish this now. It doesn’t seem like it’ll be fun to play around any longer.”
Enri was curious too. What method would Ara use to bring the dragon down? A normal player would choose to run away at this point, but Ara clearly wouldn’t. She was the type of person who would make enemies flee, but would never choose to flee herself.
“The swordsmanship I am using right now is called the Falling Sun Swordplay. In other words, it is the sword that drops the sun.”
For the first time, Ara gripped the hilt with both hands.
“The one who created the origin of this sword is said to have cut the sun itself and turned day into night.”
The ice spear pattern ended, and Baldur began chanting a new dragon language spell. During that time, Ara took her stance. Her eyes looked up at the sky.
“Compared to the sun, that dragon is much closer and its size is smaller, is it not?”
Ara’s foot stomped on the half-destroyed ground.
“Cutting something that exists lower than the sky is something even this pathetic body can do.”
The sword cleaved the world apart.
And the dragon that had taken the sun’s place began to fall.