A Beast of Cold Reason
Raon stood at the center of the training ground, facing Rimer, his hand resting on his scabbard.
"What brings you here? You never even bother to watch because it's too much trouble."
"Gotta loosen up every now and then or the joints start rusting. And besides..."
Rimer grinned as he drew his blade.
"It pains me to watch a disciple standing there with his shoulders slumped because every last sparring partner ran away."
"I see."
Raon nodded and drew his own sword.
A genuinely pure-hearted man, through and through.
Rimer was undeniably a slacker — but his care for his disciples ran far deeper than that. He had come here with no ulterior motive. He had simply come to help.
A chance to raise my mastery of the Mad Fang Sword in a single stroke.
Rimer was a swordsman who stood on a far higher plane. Sparring with him would elevate not only Raon's command of the Mad Fang Sword, but his skill as a whole.
"A shame we've only got one spectator, but shall we begin?"
"Gladly."
Both men looked toward Runaan, who stood waiting at the center of the floor.
"Begin."
Meeting their gazes, Runaan nodded and dropped her raised hand.
"Hup!"
Raon clenched his teeth and stamped the ground. He circulated the energy of the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames through his body, wove the formulas of the Mad Fang Sword through his blade, and brought it crashing down.
The air itself was carved away, as if a saw were splitting timber.
"Whoa. You've improved a lot."
Rimer marveled as he drew his sword in a smooth arc. A rounded bloom of green energy embroidered the empty air.
A savage shriek of steel rang out as the Mad Fang Sword's brutal strike collided with the gentle force Rimer had unfurled.
This is...
Raon's eyes narrowed. Rimer neither deflected the Mad Fang's blow nor blocked it outright. He simply settled the power packed into the sword's momentum, bleeding the violence out of it until it went still.
To take a strike that ferocious and quietly drain the force from it — he was no ordinary opponent.
"Strange, isn't it?"
Rimer smiled, spinning a blade that glowed a deep, vivid green.
"It's a sword art that spreads paper-thin strands of sword-ki in a bundle and uses them to control the opponent's strikes. There are plenty of ways for a sword to meet a sword. It's worth thinking not only about your own blade — but about how to use your opponent's."
"I see."
Raon nodded, honed the Mad Fang's formulas until the edge of his blade was even sharper, and fired it forward. He was already preparing the next technique — the fifth form of the Mad Fang Sword, the Winding Rend.
Sword strikes packed with overwhelming momentum burst out in a relentless chain.
Rimer dropped his stance and set his blade on a diagonal, pouring everything into his defense.
Then this is the way.
Fire sparked in Raon's eyes. The Mad Fang Sword was a sword art that shone brightest the more an opponent fell onto the back foot. He could already call this a winning position.
A deep, ringing crash shook the training ground. Raon poured every form of the Mad Fang Sword into breaking Rimer's guard. The strikes exploded with the ferocity of a giant wolf tearing into its prey — but Rimer's defense did not so much as crack. It stood like an iron wall.
"Tsk!"
Raon bit his lip and emptied every last form he had. No opening appeared.
"Starting to feel a little frustrated?"
Rimer grinned through the gap where their blades were locked.
"The Sensory Sword you've learned is formidable. Even at your current level of mastery, it can shatter other sword arts with ease. But it's far too one-sided!"
"Kh—!"
Rimer twisted his wrist. A vicious rebound hurled Raon backward.
Raon unwound the energy Rimer had coiled around his blade, then reset his stance.
"A Sensory Sword relies on the senses, just as the name says — but that doesn't mean you stop thinking. The one you've learned, especially, demands that you swing with your mind as well as your instincts. Think about why it has that name."
"The name? What do you mean?"
"I've told you enough. Asking me to hand over the whole purse on top of that is a little much, don't you think?"
Rimer shrugged.
Raon let out a rough breath and nodded.
He's not wrong.
Lean on a master for everything, and eventually there would be nothing left you could do on your own. If he had been given a hint like that, he had to think it through and move himself.
The name. The name...
The more he had used the Mad Fang Sword lately, the stronger it had become — that much was certain. But he had also felt his thinking grow simpler. All that filled him was the hunger to drive his blade into whatever opening he could see.
That's exactly what just happened.
He had stabbed at the gaps Rimer created, and the exchange had ended there. He could not grow like this.
"I'd like to go a little longer."
"Sure. Come at me."
Rimer smiled and crooked four gathered fingers in a come-hither flick.
Raon drew a deep breath and kicked off the ground, driving his sword at Rimer, who still held a defensive stance.
Blade met blade, and a thick cry of steel rang through the training ground.
Raon flipped the sword that had been pushed back a fraction and dragged it straight down. Rimer's blade rolled to the right. A perfect defense — the same impenetrable guard as before, the kind that left you no choice but to try to break through.
Raon called upon the Ring of Fire.
The resonant rings around his heart spun to life.
The swordsmanship was still savage. The mind, however, grew still.
In that instant, a field of vision that had known nothing but attack took in Rimer's left side. It was not an opening. It was a place fortified with solid defense.
But still.
A premonition lanced through his mind — that an opening could be made.
Raon carved his sword down on a diagonal. Rimer eased his shoulder up to meet the strike that fell like a waterfall.
The rebound of blade on blade shoved Raon's wrist back — and in that same instant, a gap bloomed at Rimer's left waist.
Raon twisted his ankle at once and changed the sword's path. He poured the rotational force that ran from calf to thigh into the thrust and drove it home.
"Hhk—!"
Alarm flared in Rimer's eyes for the first time. He stepped back, whipping his sword around in a hurry.
He could not withstand the violent energy packed into Raon's blade, and gave three steps of ground.
"Wh-what was that just now? Why did the sword path suddenly...?"
"I saw it."
"Saw it?"
"Yes."
The moment he loosened a mind that had been buried in the Mad Fang Sword's offense, his opponent's openings began to show themselves. No — not openings. He could see how to create them. In other words, he could read the next move.
"How?"
"I can't go telling you all of that, now can I?"
Raon smiled, reciting Rimer's own words back at him.
"I wasn't planning on teaching you the mouth, too."
"Kids learn by watching, after all."
Raon tapped the ground with his foot, then lunged at Rimer, who had not yet fully reset his stance.
"Then I'll be coming at you again!"
Rimer watched Raon charge and let out a low whistle. He raised his sword to meet him.
"You've still got a long way to go."
The moment he laid his blade flat into a perfect guard, Raon's movement changed. The sword that had been rising toward Rimer's waist twisted and went for his left wrist instead.
Damn—!
Rimer's face tightened. He turned his body, formed aura at the tip of his sword to defend, and looked for a counter.
But Raon's blade was already falling again. It was the movement of a trained beast, hunting for openings not by instinct alone, but through experience.
This kid is really...
He had given the boy the smallest of hints, and already Raon was beginning to grasp the Mad Fang Sword's true shape. It was past astonishing. It was enough to make the hair on his scalp stand on end.
Rimer swept his sword in a fierce arc. The green energy beading along the edge unfurled and sealed every direction ahead of him — save one gap, too fine for the eye to catch.
Raon's pupils flashed a vivid red. He turned the blade he had been swinging with wild abandon and drove it at that single opening.
No doubt about it.
A disbelieving laugh escaped him. In the span of this brief spar, Raon had understood the true Mad Fang Sword.
Then helping him walk that path faster is a master's job.
He was a first-time instructor, but thanks to Raon — and the other trainees — every moment of it had been a joy.
"Good. Keep coming!"
Rimer swung without pause, carving out a single gap that no one short of a true expert would ever find. Raon, as if reading his mind, drove a vicious edge into that tiny opening.
He's insane.
The sound caught in Rimer's throat on its own. The sword path was precise, yet the strikes were savage. If that sword ever reached completion, no ordinary martial artist would be able to withstand it.
"But it's no fun if it's too easy."
Rimer erased the opening. He unfurled a sword art that the current Raon could not break through, and pressed him hard.
In power, in the clarity of the sword's path — Rimer was above him in everything. Raon did not give up. With a chilling light in his eyes, he stopped hunting for openings and started making them.
That's it.
Rimer nodded. On a real battlefield, an opponent did not kindly leave gaps for you. You had to find them yourself. And the Mad Fang Sword was the finest sword art there was for creating those gaps.
Crash after crash rang out as Rimer and Raon swung at each other endlessly at point-blank range.
He's getting stronger by the second.
The sword's momentum swelled. There was no break in the flow. The boy's mastery was rising at an explosive rate.
"Haaaah!"
Raon roared and brought his sword down. The instant a defensive stance was set, he launched an attack meant to wrench that defense apart. The shift was frighteningly fast.
What kind of monster is this...
He kept punching through the guard. Even while holding back, a chill ran down Rimer's spine.
But he could not hand the boy a victory. Not yet.
"Come back after you've eaten more!"
Rimer wrapped his blade in a storm of wind and fired the aura condensed along the edge in a single shot.
A storm coiled around the blade. Condensed aura fired in a single, devastating slash.
Let's see how you handle this.
The sword he had just unleashed was still more than Raon could comfortably overcome. Rimer licked his lips, curious to see what the boy would do with it.
Raon came running with his sword drawn back. Even as the Wind Soul Slash's gale shredded his clothes, he brought the blade down without a care.
The Wind Soul Slash took the ferocious strike and still was not cut. But Raon did not stop. He stepped back through his footwork and kept swinging, again and again.
Bit by bit, the Wind Soul Slash began to split. At last it showed a fracture — and a gap was born.
Raon let out a long breath and carved his sword through. A crimson light flared like a blazing sun, and the Wind Soul Slash melted away into empty air.
"Huh."
Rimer's mouth fell open.
What the hell did he just do?
He had shown the Wind Soul Slash so the boy would develop the Mad Fang Sword. Instead, Raon had shattered it outright. What kind of lunatic was this?
Raon stood at the center of the training ground as a violent cloud of dust rose around him, planted there as if he owned the place.
"Hey. You..."
"Don't."
The moment Rimer started toward him, Runaan stepped in and caught his arm.
"Hm?"
"Not now."
At those words, he looked ahead. Raon's pupils had gone slack and unfocused.
A trance?
The boy seemed to have grasped something while fighting the Wind Soul Slash.
What in the world...
An enlightenment other people were lucky to meet once or twice in a lifetime — why did it keep showing up for this kid?
Runaan released Rimer's hand and walked out of the training ground. She was going to keep anyone who might approach from getting near.
How did she even notice?
Rimer himself had not realized Raon had fallen into a trance. How Runaan, who had been standing farther away, had seen it was a mystery.
"That kid really is blessed, I swear."
Rimer shook his head and sat down right where he was. Like it or not, it looked as though he would have to stand watch over Raon.
"I was hoping to wrap this up quick and go grab a drink."
He looked at the setting sun and clicked his tongue.
Raon let a long, settled breath slip out and opened his eyes. It was dark. The sun that had hung in the sky had been replaced by the moon, but he was not surprised.
Because I entered a trance.
Facing that last, overwhelmingly powerful sword of Rimer's, a sudden enlightenment had struck. Whether to push further forward, or to protect the insight he had already gained — of those two paths, he had chosen to go forward, and he had been able to grasp something even greater.
"Looking pretty pleased with yourself."
Rimer, who had been sprawled out on the floor, squinted up at him.
"Thank you."
Raon sheathed the sword in his hand and bowed his head with genuine respect.
Even lying there as if he hadn't a care in the world, Rimer's energy still blanketed the area. He had clearly been watching over Raon the entire time.
"Thank her, too."
Rimer lifted a finger and pointed behind him. Silver hair fluttered at the training ground's door.
"Is it over?"
Runaan opened the door and came in.
"She noticed your trance before I did."
Raon nodded and stepped in front of Runaan.
"Thanks."
"Did you get stronger?"
"Yeah."
"So we don't have to spar anymore?"
He smiled and nodded, and Runaan's face brightened a little.
"Claiming you've gotten stronger with that much confidence — looks like you really did grasp something."
Rimer stood and patted the dust and dirt from his clothes.
The Mad Fang Sword was not simply a savage, brutal Sensory Sword. It was a unique sword art that used not only instinct, but experience and the mind, to wrench open an opponent's gaps.
He still had a long way to go. Even so, it felt as though he had taken his first true step onto the path of the real Mad Fang Sword.
"Makes the time I spent worth it. Drinks are going to taste good tonight."
Rimer grinned and headed for the training ground's exit.
"Thank you."
Raon bowed once more. Rimer waved a hand and walked out without looking back.
"Raon. Let's train."
She came up beside him and drew her sword. Not a spar — she meant sword practice.
"Alright."
He owed Runaan another debt. Helping her train was the least he could do.
Raon studied her swordsmanship from end to end. Perhaps because he had learned the Mad Fang Sword, what she was missing stood out at a glance.
"When you execute the second form, push your foot forward about another finger's width, and straighten your knee a little more."
"Okay."
Runaan's swordsmanship grew finer, sharper. Watching it change from a single piece of advice, he was reminded all over again — her talent was the kind that could reach across the continent.
Raon offered her a few more pointers, then lifted his head. A great, full moon was pouring its light over the training ground. He gave a small nod.
Preparations for leaving are almost done.
All except one thing.