Until Dawn
Raon drew a long, steadying breath, feeling the monsters' killing intent close around his heart like a fist.
"And just how do you plan to hold out?"
I'll open my senses as wide as I can and fight.
"There will be moments when you sense it coming and your body still cannot move. All the more so when you are protecting those behind you."
He glanced back. No one there could fight — they had all been caught in the explosion before they even fell.
"Now do you understand? How stupid a thing you have done. All that remains for you is a dog's death."
I won't know until I try.
"This King does not speak falsehoods. Unless you seal off one side, a worn-out wretch like you cannot protect them all. Moved by sentiment… what a pathetic fool!"
As if they had heard Wrath's words, the marine monsters began to charge.
Pathetic, huh…
Raon let out a short laugh and loosed a blade of sword aura. The crimson edge, tracing a half-moon, tore the pack of marine monsters in two.
He's not wrong.
In his previous life, he had seen countless people die because they were moved by sentiment. He had even used that against them when he assassinated. But he felt no regret. The man he was now was not Raon the assassin — he was Raon Zieghart, the swordsman.
I'll endure.
He opened the Sea of Senses and drew up the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames. What was done was done. He resolved to fight with everything he had until he saved them.
"Enduring will not be enough. Hand your body over to This King. I shall freeze every last one of those monsters and save the humans."
So that was your goal? Showing your true colors for the first time in a while.
"This King's purpose has been that one thing from the very beginning…"
Be quiet so I can concentrate.
"Lord Raon! Get out of the way!"
He ignored Wrath and was raising his sword when Dorian's warning reached him. He looked up to see a long, massive boulder falling from Dorian's hands.
The boulder slammed into the earth with a thunderous crash and formed a wall that sealed off the right side.
"Hyaaah!"
Dorian kicked the rubble of the collapsed rampart on top of it, building the wall a little higher.
As I thought, that isn't an ordinary Subspace Pouch.
Not only could it hold a vast number of items — it seemed to temporarily lighten whatever was drawn from it. At the very least, it was a Unique-grade pouch or higher.
"I told you! Everything has a use! This is what rocks are for!"
"Huh…"
A dry laugh escaped him. Dorian had apparently been holding onto the time Raon had scolded him for carrying rocks around.
"Th-this is all I can do! You have to hold on!"
Dorian gave an awkward smile and stuck up his thumb.
"Yeah. Thanks."
This will be enough.
Of the center, the left, and the right, the right was now sealed. He only had to hold two directions. It was incomparably easier than before.
"Using a rock like that? Grrh!"
Wrath stared up at Dorian with a look of utter disbelief.
"Come at me!"
Raon stepped forward and unleashed a roar laced with aura.
"Grk!"
"Kieeek!"
"Grrrr!"
The monsters flinched at that savage snarl, but they could not restrain their hunger and madness, and they charged.
"Krararak!"
The first to rush in was an orc, aiming a rust-red axe at his head. Raon deflected the axe with the Mad Fang Sword and took the orc's neck.
"Kyaaah!"
A gnoll followed, bringing a mace down, its target his skull. Twisting his torso, he drew his blade and split the gnoll in two.
Through the spray of the gnoll's blood, a blue-gleaming axe came crashing in — an orc champion that had been waiting for its chance from behind. The instant he raised his sword horizontally to catch the axe, the champion's second blade came down like a thunderbolt.
Even knowing it's coming, it's still chilling.
He had read every movement of the orc champion through the Sea of Senses, and still the killing intent it radiated was enough to send a chill down his spine. Battle Qi and fighting spirit that exceeded mere physical power.
Raon's eyes went cold as he whirled his sword. The blade spun like a windmill and knocked both axes aside. From where the edge had stopped below, he drew it straight upward. The orc champion tried to catch the steel with Battle Qi, but it was not a strike that could be stopped by that. The champion's chest split on a diagonal. Its eyes rolled back as it toppled.
"Tsk."
Raon clicked his tongue.
Not even a moment to catch my breath.
A tremor in the ground, and a shadow falling from above. An Ice Troll was dropping from overhead, and a Sharkmaw was rising from below. He drew his sword back and thrust it like a spear. The instant the Sharkmaw surged up and the Ice Troll came down, flames erupted from the blade and swallowed both monsters whole.
"Grrrk…"
"Kieeek…"
Before the petals of flame that erased the night, the monsters froze as if seized by fear.
"Kyaaaah!"
A bizarre cry rose from behind — the shriek of an Orcus, a marine monster that resembled an octopus. True to its intelligence, it was issuing commands with its tentacles.
The monsters charged as one. Not at him — at the defenseless soldiers behind him.
"Damn it."
Raon bit his lip. The soldiers on the ramparts were drawing the monsters' attention, but there were simply too many. He could hardly expect help from Milland — the moment the commander left the center, the castle itself could fall.
I'll have to do this alone.
He resonated the Ring of Fire and opened the Sea of Senses to its limit. Drawing up the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames, he stamped his foot. Wrapping his blade in seething fire, he thrust. The fangs of the Mad Fang Sword tore the orcs apart. The flowing force of the Soft Sword split the trolls limb from limb. He breathed the flames of the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames into the oncoming green tide. Fire spilled out like a breath, spreading in a half-circle and melting the monsters before him.
Raon let out a ragged breath. His body was wearing down, but his mind and senses grew sharper by the moment. For the first time in a long while, he tasted the feeling of the spirit ruling the flesh.
A tremor ran through the wall Dorian had raised. The rock shattered to pieces, and a marine monster with enormous pincers — a Crat — burst through. The rocks came down like catapult shot; the wounded were about to be crushed. Raon bit his lip and swept the Mad Fang Sword. A viciously curving slash smashed the falling rubble aside, and with his left hand he drew the Requiem Sword.
A single flash steeped in demonic energy. The Crats' armored shells meant nothing — their heads burst in a single stroke, and they fell.
"Kieeek!"
The Orcus's voice rose again from behind.
There you are.
He brought his heat-wreathed blade down upon the wave that had risen in the Sea of Senses. Scarlet sword aura split the night air and cleaved the blue octopus in two.
Raon crossed both swords and stamped a true step. Over the splitting earth, a crimson current bloomed and burned.
Milland narrowed his eyes as he watched Raon overwhelm thousands of monsters alone.
He had thought it reckless courage. He had assumed a greenhorn flushed with a small victory here had overestimated himself and charged in. Protecting thirty wounded men in that hell was a feat bordering on the impossible.
But Raon held. Even with Dorian sealing the right with a boulder, he was weathering the ceaseless onslaught of monsters. Without even a proper breath, he cut orcs, burned trolls, and smashed Crats, displaying the majesty of a peerless warrior all by himself. Thanks to the perfect defense Raon held in front of them, the soldiers lying helpless behind him had not been so much as scratched since they fell.
That isn't a normal sense.
A sense that surpassed his martial power. Raon's perception had reached a realm higher than his strength. The measured swordsmanship he unfolded from that keen sense became a thick wall that protected the soldiers.
And he's getting stronger even now.
He was taking this worst of situations as an opportunity and growing. In all the decades Milland had held Habun Castle, he had never seen anything so strange.
"Kellen!"
Without taking his eyes from Raon's back, Milland called for Kellen, commander of the Night Fox Knight Order.
"Yes, sir!"
"Rescue the wounded."
"Sir? But…"
"It's all right."
He nodded as he looked at Raon, who had just unleashed sword aura and taken down even the Orcus.
"He will hold. Get down there and save the wounded!"
Milland clenched his sword tight. Seeing Raon accomplish the impossible, vitality surged once more through his weary old body. A colossal slash erupted from his blade and swept every monster before him away.
"Hold!"
Fierce frost energy surged from the sword he thrust toward the sky. Seeing that blade-light that seemed to connect with the moon, the soldiers' eyes took on the same color as his.
"Can't you even control a Boom Skull properly anymore? Your skills have gotten rusty."
The man in the blue robe snorted as he watched the rampart collapse from the middle.
"The control was perfect enough to fool even Milland. The one who fired that sword aura simply had extraordinary senses."
"Spare me the excuses… hm?"
He giggled as he spotted the blond swordsman who had leapt down from the wall.
"What the hell is that lunatic?"
"That's him."
"What?"
"The one who triggered my danger-sense ability — the one who just cut down the Boom Skull — is that kid."
"Hrm…"
At those words, the man in the black robe's eyes narrowed.
"He doesn't look like much."
"You'll see."
With that, the black-robed man closed his mouth. The man in the blue robe wrinkled his nose and fixed his gaze on Raon.
He just looks like a fearless pup.
Young, immensely powerful, and outstandingly brave. But he felt nothing beyond that.
"To a brat like that… hm?"
The man in the blue robe stopped mid-sentence, his eyes flying wide.
What?
The orc champion had used the gnoll's corpse for a perfect attack — and the boy had knocked it aside as if he had known it was coming. The strangeness did not stop there. From orcs to trolls to Crats, he read every target they aimed for and ended them in a single stroke. His sixth sense was developed to a grotesque degree.
"That brat's senses… they're far beyond the realm of his actual strength. How is that even possible?"
"If I didn't have the troll shaman's danger-sense ability, he would have pinpointed my location too."
"Hrm. There's a vicious killing intent steeped in his swordsmanship as well. One blade, one kill. To wield a slaughter-sword like that while protecting people… he's an odd one."
"That's not all."
The man in the black robe told him to look more closely and pointed at Raon.
"Hhk!"
The man in the blue robe, who had been scratching his chin as he studied Raon, let out a dull groan.
"R-right now, is he…?"
"Yes. That brat is growing even in this very moment."
The black-robed man's voice sank like the bottom of a mud pit.
An orc brought its axe down. He read the flow and cut orc and axe together. A bearwolf swept its claws. He let the attack slide past and opened its throat.
An Ice Troll Warrior roared and charged, Battle Qi gleaming on its enormous fists. After six clashes, a small gap opened in the troll warrior's Battle Qi. He raised the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames and drove into that opening. The troll warrior's heart burst; it dropped to its knees and fell.
He was not seeing with his eyes. The Sea of Senses. He read the enemy's movements through waves of frost born of mental imagery.
It was thrilling. His concentration had been honed to its peak, like a pencil sharpened again and again until only the lead remained. The enemy's breathing, the shift of every muscle, stood out with piercing clarity.
He cut, and cut, and cut again.
Every time a monster fell like a collapsing line of dominos, every time another soldier behind him was carried away, his spirit soared as if a shackle had come loose. He burst a Sharkmaw's chest before it could erupt from the ground. He took a Crat's neck before it could harden its shell. He split a Mantakun the size of a castle gate with a single stroke.
His exalted spirit rang through his heart. Things he had thought impossible became possible. There was nothing that aching-blue blade could not cut, nowhere his reaching feet could not land.
Every time crimson blood veiled his sight, the sky changed. Light settled over the darkened night sky, and a full moon rose once more. By the time even that full moon had waned, not a single monster remained before his eyes.
Only then did he lift his head.
Dawn lighting a blood-soaked earth. Beneath that auspicious light, a mountain of corpses had been piled.
Overwhelming martial power…
Extreme concentration…
Glacia has been acquired…
Raon collapsed looking not at the messages, but at the rising golden sun.