I Will Not Break
"Ah..."
Dorian's jaw trembled as he stared at Raon, who had just cut down the 5th Apostle and the old man from the palanquin.
"W-what are you doing?!"
Raon had done the unthinkable — the very thing Dorian had prayed he would never do, even if it meant surviving alone.
"You idiot! You moron! You dense bastard!"
The words tumbled out in a panicked jumble. Raon had just kicked away their only chance of walking out of here alive.
"Still can't swear properly, can you?"
Raon looked at Dorian and let out a quiet chuckle.
"Y-you're laughing? Young Master, you won't survive this either! We're all going to die!"
It had been a long time since Dorian had called him Young Master. His eyes shook as the words left his mouth.
"Surviving on my knees wouldn't mean a thing."
"B-but you're different from us, Young Master..."
"I'm not."
Raon slowly shook his head.
"My life, your life, theirs — they're all the same."
"Th-that's..."
"People only ever look at results. How old were you when you reached Expert? How old when you first used sword aura? They rank your strength by numbers like that."
In my past life, I piled up results just to stay alive. In this one, I produced them to go further.
But results were never everything.
Raon straightened his back. He met the eyes of the White Blood Cult Leader and Tatcheon — two beings who stood at the very peak of the continent — and bit down on his lip.
"Even if I crawled through the filth and ended up with the same results as them, I could never be happy."
If he killed Dorian and the hostages to survive — even if he rose to Grandmaster, even beyond — this day would stay lodged in his chest for the rest of his life, a stain that would never wash out.
Better to die here than live with that knot of regret.
I won't leave any regrets behind this time.
One twisted life was enough.
This life, he wasn't alone. People believed in him. He would reach his results through a process he could stand behind without shame.
"No matter what you do to me."
He circulated the Ring of Fire, elevating the dignity of his soul. He could feel conviction flooding into his voice.
Raon leveled the Heavenly Sky Sword and the Requiem Sword — both still dripping with hot blood — at the White Blood Cult Leader and Tatcheon.
Hm?
But the two monsters' reactions were nothing like what he'd expected.
They're... smiling?
The two monsters were smiling, as if they were thoroughly entertained. They didn't even glance at the 5th Apostle and the old man bleeding on the ground. Their gazes were fixed solely on him.
"A little disappointing, actually. I happen to think results are everything."
The White Blood Cult Leader gave a light wave of her hand.
"I rather like it. Without a worthy process, you never get a worthy result."
Tatcheon nodded, as if he'd just heard something that pleased him.
"If it doesn't sit well with you, perhaps you'd care to withdraw?"
"I can't do that. I've already lost two Apostles to that child. The losses are too steep."
"If we're counting losses, ours are worse. We lost no fewer than four Master-level fighters."
Even now, the two of them were doing nothing but evaluating him. Calling them insane didn't even begin to cover it.
"That aside — so you knew as well."
The White Blood Cult Leader looked at Tatcheon, twirling a finger in the air.
"You underestimate me far too much. If the Cult Leader knew, how could I possibly not?"
Tatcheon offered a faint smile and nodded.
"If you knew everything, why accept the wager?"
"I wanted a proper look at the boy Merlin has been singing about. I wanted to see what kind of creature he really is."
"And your impression?"
The White Blood Cult Leader's burning gaze punched through the red beaded curtain and drove into Tatcheon.
"His talent with the sword is exceptional. His nerve is excellent. And that conviction he showed at the end — I liked that most of all. Merlin was right. Even if it costs us, he's a child worth taking."
The eyes behind Tatcheon's mask gleamed a deeper color. Unlike a moment ago, they were overflowing with desire.
"Then you're too late. The wager is already over. That child belongs to my cult now."
The White Blood Cult Leader leaned back in her palanquin and lifted her chin.
"Not quite. Merlin hasn't acknowledged it yet."
"He ate a soul Merlin held precious. You think she'll let that go? If anything, she'll want him dead."
"Who can say."
Tatcheon shook his head, as if even he couldn't know.
"Then how about a second wager?"
"You do love your bets."
"There's no cleaner way to untangle a mess this complicated."
The White Blood Cult Leader glanced at the 5th Apostle and the palanquin elder, both furiously regenerating, and gave a light nod.
"I still haven't gotten a proper look at Raon's sword. What if we each send one person and see who subdues the boy first? Doesn't that sound fun?"
"We've only seen him strike from ambush, so that wouldn't be a bad idea at all."
"Both of you. Come here."
At the White Blood Cult Leader's summons, the 5th Apostle and the old man approached the palanquin.
The old man, his chest still pierced through, was calm. The 5th Apostle, whose throat had been torn open by the Requiem Sword, stared at Raon with murder thick enough to choke on.
"You took a proper hit, didn't you."
The White Blood Cult Leader traced a light finger down the 5th Apostle's neck. The blood that had refused to stop flowing ceased at once, and the wound sealed as if cauterized by fire.
Raon swallowed dryly at the sight.
She closed that instantly?
A wound saturated with demonic energy — the natural enemy of blood energy — healed in a single breath. The White Blood Cult Leader wasn't merely strong. She was a monster who possessed mysterious abilities on top of overwhelming martial power.
"You were struck, so it's only fair you return the favor."
The White Blood Cult Leader raised a finger and pointed at Raon.
"He'll be your junior, so don't treat him too roughly."
"...Understood."
The 5th Apostle's answer was obedient. The killing intent rolling off him was anything but.
"At that level..."
Tatcheon glanced to his left. Gold Masked Snake stepped forward.
"You can handle it, I trust?"
"Of course."
Gold Masked Snake bowed to Tatcheon and took his place beside the 5th Apostle.
"The first to inflict a fatal wound on Raon wins. So long as you don't kill him, do as you—"
"Can I get in on that bet?"
Raon stepped forward and cut the White Blood Cult Leader off.
"What?"
"Hoh?"
Neither the White Blood Cult Leader nor Tatcheon refused. They simply turned their heads toward him.
This is an opening.
Those two still thought of this entire situation as a game. The reason was obvious: their power. They were convinced that nothing he did could shift the advantage they already held, and that conviction was the source of their arrogance.
I have to use that.
This wager wasn't serious. It was a diversion — they simply wanted to watch his martial arts with their own eyes. He had to strike in the gap their carelessness created.
Wrath. Can you punch through that barrier?
-In your current state, putting a hole in it should be possible. Is it time?
No. Save your strength.
-Hm?
They gave me time because they don't take me seriously. I can't afford to waste it.
This region sat right in front of Camelun, with Owen and Valkar nearby. If they could just break through the barrier, the odds of everyone surviving would climb dramatically.
Even if those odds are still a speck of dust.
Raon discarded his impatience and cooled his mind to ice.
"And how exactly do you intend to participate?"
The White Blood Cult Leader tipped her chin, inviting him to speak.
"If I beat those two, you withdraw."
His current strength was Mid-rank Master. The 5th Apostle and Gold Masked Snake were Upper Master. From their perspective, it was a wager they couldn't possibly lose.
"Hoh..."
The White Blood Cult Leader turned her head at a leisurely pace.
"What do you think?"
"I've said it before — I like this child's nerve. I accept."
"Then I'll allow it as well."
Both of them nodded at once.
I can't trust a word they say.
The White Blood Cult Leader and Tatcheon stood at the pinnacles of the White Blood Cult and Eden, but they were creatures of malice who would break a promise the moment it suited them.
Even if he won this wager, they would never keep their word. The only reason he had inserted himself into the fight was to carve out a path of his own.
"Dorian."
Raon pulled a sword from his spatial pocket and held it out.
"Th-this is..."
"You protect them."
He pointed at the people who were only now beginning to come to their senses.
"You're a swordsman of Zieghart. Show them your will."
"A-alright."
Dorian took the sword, still flustered. He hid his fear as best he could, stepped in front of the hostages, and drew the blade.
"I've kept you waiting."
Raon took his stance before the 5th Apostle and Gold Masked Snake, resetting his grip on both swords.
"You little shit. You sure had me fooled."
Gold Masked Snake narrowed his eyes to slits.
"I told you I'd be back."
"Hmph. Who'd believe that?"
"Anyway — thanks for taking my side earlier."
"Shut up!"
He ground his teeth, irritation blazing in his eyes.
"That's right. Talk while you still can."
The 5th Apostle shoved himself between Gold Masked Snake and Raon, raising a tide of blood energy. Tremendous blood qi coiled around a fist like a boulder.
"Once this starts, I'll smash both of you."
He hurled a crushing wave of pressure not only at Raon, but at Gold Masked Snake as well.
"I'd rather fight you one-on-one, you bastard."
Gold Masked Snake spat on the ground, his face twisting.
"Begin."
At the White Blood Cult Leader's gesture, Gold Masked Snake and the 5th Apostle slammed their feet into the earth at the same instant. There was no mercy in it. Colossal energy erupted from sword and fist alike.
Raon clicked his tongue as he watched a sword strike boring in like an awl and a fist crashing down like a hammer.
This fight is a waypoint.
This battle was only one piece of the plan. He could afford to take damage — but he had to finish it fast, and spend as little aura as possible.
He drove his foot into the earth with a true step. Circulating the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames and Glacia at once, he knocked aside Gold Masked Snake's sword strike with the Heavenly Sky Sword and split the 5th Apostle's fist with the Requiem Sword.
Sword met sword. Sword met fist. The shockwave that erupted from the collision shook the ground itself.
"Hmph!"
The 5th Apostle snorted and generated rotational force from his shoulder, pouring it into his fist. Fist aura dense with Silk-Reeling Force drove straight at Raon's chest.
"Tch."
Gold Masked Snake clicked his tongue and brought his whirling blade down. A sword strike wrapped in Fighting Spirit sharp as a razor's edge poured toward Raon's skull.
Now!
Raon stepped into the Supreme Harmony Footwork. The instant his left foot shoved against the earth, his field of vision changed. In a single heartbeat he crossed space itself and opened the distance between himself and both men. It was the Supreme Harmony Footwork as it existed after shedding a layer of its shell in the mental world.
"Ngh?"
"Ugh!"
Charging in from left and right at the same time, the 5th Apostle and Gold Masked Snake slammed sword and fist into each other in the space where Raon had been.
A deafening crash. Their power was evenly matched. Each was driven back ten paces. The deep footprints gouged into the ground told the story of the impact.
"You bastard!"
"Not even looking—"
The instant both of them stopped moving, Raon took the second step of the Supreme Harmony Footwork. Like an arrow loosed from a drawn string, he punched into Gold Masked Snake's space in a fraction of a breath.
"Are you looking down on me?!"
"I'm just more used to you."
Raon bit down on his lip and thrust the Requiem Sword. Flame flared along the short blade, spinning furiously as it sought Gold Masked Snake's shoulder.
"I already know that swordsmanship!"
Gold Masked Snake slashed his sword down on a diagonal. Fighting Spirit spread like a breaking wave and snuffed out the flames of Revolving Heaven.
But that was the feint. The real strike came behind it.
Raon drew power up from his aura core and pulled it through his right hand. The blade of the Heavenly Sky Sword, flickering with blue light, shot toward Gold Masked Snake's chest.
A blade of frost that blooms twice — the first to break the guard, the second to pierce the heart.
"I know that one too!"
Gold Masked Snake dropped his center of gravity. He brought his sword up from below and cut down through the midsection. Two streams of Fighting Spirit-clad sword energy rose to meet Frost Lotus's first blade.
Steel crashed into steel, and a tremendous shock erupted.
"What?"
Gold Masked Snake's eyes bulged. His sword failed to hold against Frost Lotus's opening strike and was flung backward.
"How...?"
"Simple."
Raon clenched his molars and drove the second blade of Frost Lotus forward.
"I got stronger."
"Ghk!"
Gold Masked Snake hauled up his Fighting Spirit to mount a defense, but the second blade was faster. The frost of Glacia — grown after absorbing Rocta's soul — punched through the red Fighting Spirit and buried itself in Gold Masked Snake's chest.
It landed clean.
He had executed a sword art Gold Masked Snake already knew, at a power and speed that fell outside every prediction. If the man hadn't been careless, it would never have ended this easily.
"Gahk!"
Impaled on a spear of frost, Gold Masked Snake staggered backward and went down hard.
Raon didn't spare a second to savor the victory. He spun immediately.
"You arrogant little—!"
The 5th Apostle closed like a shadow and threw a punch. A fist wreathed in gray current shot toward Raon's heart.
Using the rotational force of the turn itself, Raon swept the Requiem Sword upward. The flames of the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames intertwined with demonic energy, and the heat climbed higher.
A colossal impact. But it wasn't over. The 5th Apostle was already firing a second punch with his left fist.
I have to read the flow...
He resonated the Ring of Fire to its extreme. The 5th Apostle's incoming fist slowed, fraction by fraction. The wrinkles and scars packed into the knuckles, and the current of blood energy trailing behind them, all came into view.
Power, variation, and speed.
The 5th Apostle's fists were a blend of raw strength, blistering speed, and endless variety. Ten fists bloomed at once, each seeking a vital point.
I can't dodge them all.
In his current state, evading every one of those punches was impossible. He abandoned evasion. His judgment was fast — and his aura moved just as fast.
Raon whirled the Heavenly Sky Sword and unfolded the Flame Bead Wall of the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames.
The 5th Apostle's punches hammered the Flame Bead Wall, and shock rang through Raon's entire body. He swallowed the urge to double over, stepped forward, and snapped the Requiem Sword into a new angle.
From the reddened blade, a deeper flame bloomed. Fragments of fire that had left their buds became a violent storm and shot toward the 5th Apostle's throat.
"I won't fall for the same trick twice!"
The 5th Apostle didn't flinch at the flame storm driving in on a straight line. He thrust a tremendous punch forward and erased the Flower Spirit of the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames in an instant.
The moment the 5th Apostle's fist crushed the Flower Spirit, Raon took one more step.
He drew the Requiem Sword he had sheathed after using Flower Spirit. An illusory principle seeped into the crimson blade, and a melody of resentment and screaming burst forth.
A dreamlike, hazy blade that severs the enemy before they can even react — and conceals a second killing edge behind the first.
The 5th Apostle's senses plunged to their lowest ebb, and the Requiem Sword, steeped in the principle of Silver Sword Dream, slid toward his throat.
"Kh—!"
The 5th Apostle snapped back to himself in an instant, guarding his neck with his left hand while throwing a punch with his right. A staggering reaction. To attack and defend in the same sliver of time — this was no empty Upper Master. He was a monster who had earned the rank.
But that reaction is going to kill you.
Your neck isn't what I'm after.
From the opening ambush through every exchange that followed, Raon had aimed at the throat. The only thought left in the 5th Apostle's head would be to protect his neck. This was a sword of illusion, designed to bait that exact defense.
The true strike of Silver Sword Dream, hidden behind the false blade, stretched toward the 5th Apostle's heart.
"Ghk!"
The 5th Apostle yanked back the punch he'd been about to throw, but it was already too late. The Requiem Sword had already bared its teeth at its true target.
The Requiem Sword split the blood energy and buried itself in the 5th Apostle's left chest. In the instant Raon tried to crush the man's heart with demonic energy, the strength drained from his hand all at once.
"What is this...?"
"That's far enough."
The White Blood Cult Leader had extended her hand. She hadn't even circulated blood energy. Raon had no idea how she had stopped his body.
"I'd rather not lose any more Apostles."
She flicked her fingers lightly, and the 5th Apostle — a hole punched through his chest — was dragged toward the palanquin.
"Just as Akyanggwi said. You truly are displaying power beyond your realm."
Tatcheon applauded without so much as glancing at Gold Masked Snake, who still lay on the ground. The desire in his eyes burned even thicker.
"Raon won the wager. Will you let him go?"
He looked at the White Blood Cult Leader as he asked.
"No."
The White Blood Cult Leader shook her head at once, as if she couldn't believe he'd even asked.
"Of course not."
Her gaze pressed through the red beads. Eyes coiled with a desire that surpassed even Tatcheon's drove into Raon as if they meant to pierce his heart.
"You don't let a jewel like that walk away, do you?"
"I thought as much. I feel the same."
Tatcheon nodded in agreement.
"What kind of bullshit is that?!"
Raon ground his teeth as he glared at the White Blood Cult Leader and Tatcheon.
"You said if I won, you'd let us go!"
"There's no rule that says a promise has to be kept."
"Honestly, promises exist to be broken."
"And you call yourselves the leaders of the Five Demons?!"
"That's exactly how we became the leaders of the Five Demons."
Tatcheon curled the corner of his mouth, openly mocking him.
"It's a poor substitute, but I'll give you a choice."
He crooked a finger.
"Eden or the White Blood Cult. Pick one yourself."
That was bullshit too. The moment he chose one, the other would attack with everything they had.
"Damn it!"
Raon bit his lip until it bled and dropped to his knees. The despair on his face was a performance. Inside, he was calmer than he had ever been.
Wrath. Hand me your power. Let me use it.
-That?
The technique you used the first time you appeared in your true form.
The massive frost art that had frozen his entire field of vision in a single instant. If he used that, he could bind even those two.
-You mean Frozen World?
If that's the one that froze the entire mental world in one go, then yes.
-Hmph. This world has a law of causality and effect. Cause and result. Wanting something does not make it so.
So you're saying I can't?
-I'm saying it will be difficult.
Wrath let out a short sigh.
-There is a limit to the power This King can give you, and even that much will wreck your body. The pain may be enough to knock you unconscious.
It's fine. I can take it.
Thanks to his previous life, he was well acquainted with pain. As long as he didn't die, he could endure it.
-Tch. Typical.
Wrath clicked his tongue and clung to Raon's wrist.
-Leave your body to This King. Not surrender it — follow the current This King creates, exactly as it is.
The moment Wrath finished speaking, an enormous tide of power surged in through the wrath bound to Raon's soul, flooding him like a rising sea.
-Now!
Wrath opened a new path through the frost flowing along Raon's mana circuits. Raon followed that current, circulating Wrath's power and his own aura through his entire body at once.
Kh—!
His teeth clenched. The terrifying energy tore through his mana circuits until his whole body felt as if it were being ripped apart, and his aura core heaved as though it would explode.
-Keep going!
I know!
His blood vessels must have ruptured — his vision flooded red, and agony wracked every inch of him — but he gritted through it and drove the energy to the end.
-Picture it. Picture every last one of them freezing solid!
Listening to Wrath's voice ringing in his ears, Raon closed his eyes. He recalled Frozen World as Wrath had shown it in his true form, and detonated every scrap of power gathered in both hands.
-You pictured it well.
"Dorian!"
Raon rose, coughing blood. The internal damage from channeling that much power in a single instant was severe, but this was no time to treat wounds.
"Bring the people!"
"Y-yes!"
He walked toward the barrier on heavy legs. He still had aura left. He had to take the additional frost Wrath was feeding him and smash this barrier apart.
Wrath — the wave, this time.
-Understood.
Following Wrath, he stretched out his hand. A freezing tsunami rose from his grip and crashed down on the barrier.
A sound like the earth itself being crushed. Blue cracks spidered across the barrier. But it did not break.
Even Wrath's power can't punch through?
Raon swallowed dryly as he watched the barrier knit itself back together. Wrath's eye for these things had never been wrong. He had never imagined they wouldn't even be able to put a gap in it.
"A pity."
At the soft voice behind him, Raon whipped his head around. The vast ice that had been holding the White Blood Cult Leader and Tatcheon frozen had melted away in an instant.
"As long as I am inside it, the barrier only grows more solid. At this moment, I am confident no one in the world could break it."
Tatcheon smiled pleasantly.
"I didn't expect you to be hiding that much power. If I'd been careless, even I might have been stuck for a while. A Mid-rank Master channeling, even for an instant, a force that surpasses Grandmaster... I truly am curious how you did it."
The vivid red lips of his mask curved in a strange, delighted smile.
"I thought you were an uncut gem. I was wrong."
The White Blood Cult Leader lifted her chin. She parted the beads slightly and sent her gaze through herself. The moment Raon met those obsidian-black eyes, his heart dropped.
"Kh..."
Raon clenched his teeth. He looked back. Dorian and the hostages were on their knees, their eyes full of sorrow.
Is this it...?
Every plan had fallen apart. Even with Wrath's help, stopping those two with his current body and aura had been too much.
All that's left is a gamble.
One method remained. Hand his body over to Wrath, ready to die.
Wrath.
-...This King has subordinates of his own. I will try.
There was a tension in Wrath's voice that wasn't usually there.
"You're mine."
"That will not do. After seeing what I just saw, I cannot possibly let him go."
The desire in the White Blood Cult Leader's and Tatcheon's eyes gleamed as if it had taken physical form. The two monsters stretched out enormous hands, determined not to let him slip away.
"Hah..."
Raon looked at the two monsters' claws reaching for his head and clenched his fists until they bled.
Wrath. To you, I—
The moment he prepared to surrender his body to Wrath, the White Blood Cult Leader and Tatcheon both stopped cold.
"It can't be..."
"This is..."
Both of them stared up at the sky, eyes wide. It was the first time he had seen them look surprised.
What's going on?
Raon lifted his trembling head and followed their gaze. In the dark night sky, a golden star flashed.
A golden star?
The instant his eyes met the star's crimson gaze, the entire world drowned in red.