The Red Devil Who Cradled the Stars (6)
The girl came to her senses and looked ahead.
This was the Empire's capital, its name resounding across the land.
Her Heaven-Sundering Fist, which had been advancing and crushing everything in its path, had at some point been knocked away into empty air as if something had firmly blocked it.
KWAAANG—
…
Right. Of course. An empire that unified an entire continent couldn't possibly end this easily.
At the far end of the several-hundred-meter trench carved along the path of her fist stood the Imperial Palace, plastered in gold from top to bottom, and before it, an elderly knight was watching her with eyes like ice.
Virdel drew the sword hanging from Clay's waist, scabbard and all.
> Remaining power: 10.8%
That last punch alone had burned through two percent in an instant. The girl checked her remaining power and gave a small nod.
Thud, thud—
She walked calmly along the road she herself had carved.
An elderly knight with a drawn sword.
Somehow, his face looked familiar. They had never actually met; it was simply that the old knight was so famous throughout the Empire that she could recognize him on sight alone.
One of the Empire's Sword Masters.
The old knight's name was most likely Grand Duke Einhardt.
He was the captain of the Imperial Guard who resided with the royal family at all times — a Sword Master hailed as the Shield of the Empire and the Iron-Wall Sword Saint.
Given that even across this distance she could feel that overwhelming presence through her suit, it had to be Einhardt.
The girl slowly approached the old man who stood blocking the palace gates with his cold, glinting gaze. She gripped the scabbard taken from Clay in her left hand and wrapped her right hand around the hilt of the sword.
The grip fit perfectly into her palm. Her senses should have been dulled by the suit, which had transformed into full plate armor — yet somehow, it felt as if she were holding it with her bare hands, without the slightest resistance.
Feeling the texture of the grip, the girl took a deep breath.
"Hoo…."
She took in the entire palace at a glance. Her retinas were painting a vivid picture of the movements inside the Imperial Palace, as though captured by a thermal imaging camera.
She lowered her head and looked at the old knight. His mouth slowly opened.
"Who might you be? No — are you even human?"
Somehow, the girl found the situation almost funny. Wasn't this the very same girl who, until only yesterday, had crawled along the bottom of society, spat on and pelted with stones by the Empire's commoners?
A great and mighty figure she never would have warranted a second glance from under normal circumstances was now wary of her and asking who she was — and that gave rise to a strange, indescribable feeling.
Still, she could hardly afford to laugh at the skill of the old knight barring her path.
The girl extended her right leg and planted her foot firmly against the ground.
"Hoo."
Creak, groan—
From the scabbard clamped in her fist rang a sound like iron screaming as it crumpled.
'Draw.'
The girl's sword, sheathed in the dark crimson of her full-body armor, left its scabbard and split the air like a beam of light. In that instant, Einhardt's eyes went impossibly wide.
Faced with the crisis of a lifetime, Einhardt was forced to pour out every ounce of his strength.
Along the path her blade had traced, space itself split apart with a shuddering crack.
A sword strike incomparably larger than anything before it descended upon the Sword Master.
⟨ Vacuum Slash ⟩
A technique passed down by a mysterious expert on the community forum who went by the username SwordDrawDevotee.
The fruit, he had claimed, of no fewer than ten billion swings. SwordDrawDevotee, who had taught her the technique without holding anything back, had unfortunately never even been registered on the community's unofficial blade-ranking board.
He had spouted outrageous claims at every opponent he met on the blade boards, earning himself the collective wrath of the entire community.
She had listened to his rambling seriously, and he had promptly handed the technique over to her.
And now the Vacuum Slash of that very SwordDrawDevotee unfolded at the girl's fingertips.
It likely fell far short of the power he had claimed. But the reinforced suit named Hydra had stubbornly managed to reproduce, at least in part, the secret essence of that grand art of the draw — the Vacuum Slash.
A slash over thirty meters long tore through space itself and swept everything before it away.
A ten-percent-power Vacuum Slash cleaved the sky.
Could that thing truly be called sword energy?
Grand Duke Einhardt's hair stood on end as the colossal slash filled his entire field of vision. An aura blade had, at some point, wrapped itself around the sword in his grip.
And yet.
'This strike… I must not meet it head-on!'
It was hard to believe, but this was not aura, nor magic power, nor anything of that nature. The slash alone, all by itself, would not have been an exaggeration to call the incarnation of a god of destruction.
Could an aura blade truly parry a slash tens of meters long that came flying while tearing space apart?
Overwhelming violence.
Power beyond comprehension.
Merely having it before his eyes stole the breath from his lungs, raised goosebumps across his skin, and set alarm bells ringing in his skull.
So this was what it meant to cut space itself.
Einhardt the Iron-Wall Sword Saint, the Sword Master, abandoned any thought of blocking it. His only hope lay in twisting his body to the limit and escaping a direct hit.
Aura exploded from within Einhardt's body, and tremendous strength surged up through his limbs.
"HAAAH!"
With the feeling of staking everything on this single strike, Einhardt swung his sword.
The Iron-Wall Sword Saint.
Truly, a man standing at the summit of the Empire's guardian swordsmanship.
Einhardt threw himself into motion and brushed aside the very tail end of the slash with his aura blade, barely evading the direct hit.
"Kgh—! Insane."
Raising his sword to shield his body against the attack he was certain would follow immediately, Einhardt stared after it.
The small mercy, perhaps, was that his opponent was still inexperienced — because even at that terrifying speed, evasion had not been impossible.
Einhardt shot a glance at the unidentified enemy and tried to plan his next move.
"…?"
But the opponent was lowering her drawn sword?
'What is this? Is she letting her guard down?'
Had she closed in to press her advantage with another strike, a difficult battle might have awaited him. Momentum and rhythm carried no small weight in a duel, after all.
But the opponent simply stood in place, waiting.
Einhardt scrutinized her, unable to hide his tension.
Full-body armor of dark crimson with the strange luster of an insect's carapace. A sleek yet alien silhouette. And yet Einhardt could not simply stand there in admiration — for from her eyes flowed tear after tear even as she unleashed an awe-inspiring, overwhelming presence.
…
'What is this? Surely she can't just throw out attacks like that one casually? If so — is now my chance?'
Einhardt's mind began to churn.
Keeping his eyes fixed on the enemy, he slowly began to move.
…
'All I need to do is buy time.'
No one had ever had the audacity to assault the Imperial Palace of the capital itself, so the only Sword Master residing in the palace was Einhardt himself. But it would be a grave mistake to think that was the full extent of the palace's strength.
Knights of excellent caliber, even if not Sword Masters, were scattered throughout. And the palace had that man as well.
The Archmage Pilaf.
Whatever one thought of his conduct, he was, officially at least, a mage of the Imperial Palace. With commotion this loud, the man would surely arrive soon!
He only had to hold out until then!
But as Einhardt stared his opponent down, a strange unease crept over him. Behind that faceless helm, he had the odd sensation that she was smiling.
What was this? Why so composed? What was she hiding?
His question was answered soon enough. In the worst possible way.
"Grand Duke!! It's a disaster! The palace…! His Majesty the Emperor!!"
Einhardt's heart plummeted. Without taking his eyes off the unidentified opponent, he roared back.
"What are you saying!!"
One of the Imperial Guard knights under his command cried out as though vomiting blood.
"His Majesty and the Crown Prince, who were in the audience chamber… Kghk! Not only that — Lord Pilaf and the other high ministers could not escape grave injury, and…."
KWAAANG!
A mighty aura burst violently from Einhardt's body.
"What in the world are you saying!! Speak properly, damn you!"
"Kghk! His Majesty and the Crown Prince have fallen to an unidentified attack!! The other ministers, too, are in mortal danger from critical wounds!"
"Th-that can't…."
Einhardt turned his head, almost against his will, toward the attacker. The crimson-armored assailant, standing there without a trace of agitation.
And then Einhardt understood.
He realized, finally, that the slash he had barely evaded had never been aimed at him in the first place. That his opponent was not some green novice lacking experience.
The attack that had slipped past Einhardt had gone on to carve through the Imperial Palace itself and tear out the Empire's sun by the roots.
Despair welled up in Einhardt's eyes.
"Th-that's impossible."
What now? Could he hope to stop the assailant without Pilaf?
No — with His Majesty dead, what was there left to….
Then the crimson attacker slowly turned away.
Leaving behind a single sentence.
"Watch from there. It's about to get very interesting."
Einhardt could not bring himself to pursue the Red Devil.
A dark, sealed room.
"Haah…."
William, a member of the Empire's Special Task Force, was drafting a report with a grim expression. As the words flowed from his pen, he could practically see the Empire's bleak future with his own eyes, and his hands and feet trembled uncontrollably.
"What are we supposed to do…."
The Empire's future was no longer the issue — the present moment, right now, was what demanded his worry.
His report read as follows.
Subject: Virdel
Threat Grade:SPECIAL (+++)
Estimated Combat Power:Grandmaster (–)