Throw Him Off the Cliff
Srrrng!
Toten Robel drew his sword. The rasp of steel leaving its scabbard turned the air in the training ground razor-thin and cold.
"Did you say waiting was boring?"
He leveled the blue-gleaming blade at Dorian.
"I'll grant your wish. Draw. Right now."
"Start by teaching that insolent mouth of his a lesson. Make sure he never runs it again."
Phalen ground her teeth as she glared at Dorian.
"Urgh…"
Dorian's face had gone a sickly yellow. He looked back at Raon with pleading eyes that screamed for help.
"I know you have no intention of helping him," Wrath said, frowning at those trembling pupils, "but you won't even offer a word of advice?"
"That boy is weaker in heart than he is in strength."
That's the point.
Raon gave the terrified Dorian a cheerful little wave. The bright smile was a bonus.
"That's the point?"
You already know. Dorian isn't weak.
"From where This King stands, he is about as strong as an ant."
…
"What?"
Wrath tilted his head as if he genuinely meant it.
From your point of view, sure. But you know as well as I do that he won't get steamrolled.
It was true that Dorian's opponent, Toten Robel, was Expert Peak-Class. He had, however, barely stepped out of the entry stage of that realm. Impressive for his age — and still a long way beneath the team leaders of the Light Wind Squad.
"Well. That much is true."
Dorian thinks of himself as early Expert High-Class. His real strength is already pressed up against the wall of Peak-Class.
Dorian had trained steadily on his own and pushed past the entry stage of High-Class. After taking a leaf of the Ocean Spirit Flower, after Raon had helped him circulate his energy, his skill had climbed as if he were mounting a staircase. The live combat drills on the road here had carried him right up to the threshold of Expert Peak-Class.
He just still doesn't know it.
Raon had been beating him around at an early Master level every time they sparred, so Dorian had never managed an honest assessment of himself. He still believed he was weak.
Even in the duel back in the Owen Kingdom, he lost far too easily because his opponent was a comrade.
Dorian had drawn a fellow Light Wind Squad swordsman and gone down — but if he had fought in earnest, he could have won. The reason he hadn't was simple.
He never uses his strength for himself.
"Mm. That… is certainly true."
Wrath gave a small nod of agreement.
When he does put his strength on the line — when he finds his courage — it's always for someone else. You saw him splash me with Continental Tracking Scent.
Raon closed his eyes and let the day of his abduction rise again.
I never saw that coming.
The last thing he had seen before Merlin's artifact swallowed him was Dorian flinging Continental Tracking Scent across him. Who would have imagined that the most cowardly member of the Light Wind Squad would do a thing like that? Even while being dragged away, Raon had been stunned.
When it counts, Dorian comes through. The problem is that it never counts when it's his own business.
Raon opened his eyes. Dorian still hadn't drawn. His shoulders were shaking, and he kept flicking glances backward with the face of a man praying for rescue.
"Even so, you are raising him far too roughly. A little more gently…"
I think it's admirable that you treasure your subordinates. This time is different.
Watching Dorian's trembling hand close around the hilt, Raon let his gaze go still and cold.
This is the moment to throw Dorian off the cliff. So he can grow the strength to climb back up himself.
Changing that fearful nature overnight was impossible. It might never change at all.
But here, of all places, it has to.
Dorian had become this way because this was where his siblings — and everyone who followed them — had insulted him and ground him down. To smash that past, he had to climb the cliff with his own arms and legs.
"Throw him off a cliff, you say…"
Wrath turned his head and started moving his hands in a busy little flurry. Raon glanced over. He was taking notes on his own palm.
What are you doing?
"You cannot tell by looking? This King is taking notes."
Why?
"So that when This King returns to the Demon Realm, I can raise demons like you."
He grinned and added that two Raons would be enough to rule the Demon Realm.
Good luck with that.
"Do not make This King laugh. I shall clone Raon Zieghart and seize both the Demon Realm and the continent in a single fist!"
Unasked, Wrath launched into his grand strategy for conquering the Demon Realm and the surface world.
There can never be a second Raon Zieghart.
Raon could not even get a firm grip on his own nature. A past life spent as an assassin. A childhood lived as the family's disgrace, raised in Sylvia's love. From his trainee days until now he had been heavily colored by Rimer's lightly unhinged influence, and lately Glenn's temperament had begun to seep in as well. Two lives, and the countless bonds gathered around them, had kept his character and his disposition in constant motion.
This, too, is part of preparing the Sword Realm Manifestation.
Sword Realm Manifestation was not simple swordsmanship. It was the life a Zieghart swordsman had lived, given form. Even now, Raon's own Sword Realm Manifestation was taking shape, slowly, inside the landscape of his mind.
Either way, I'm leaving Dorian as he is.
Whether he broke the wall of Expert Peak-Class in this fight or not did not matter. Raon only wanted him to open his heart and take even a single step forward.
That said, he ought to at least crush someone of that level. I did give him more than a month of personal training.
"That was not training. That was you beating him sen—"
Same thing.
"No, it is considerably differ—"
"Dorian!"
Raon cut Wrath off and waved at the boy whose jaw was still chattering.
"You called them small fry! Crush them already!"
"…"
The voice from behind made Dorian's teeth clack together.
What is wrong with that man today?
Raon was always a little unhinged, but today he seemed more than halfway gone. It felt like watching an upgraded version of the already mischievous Rimer.
"Hey."
Toten Robel's patience had run out. A cold glitter slid through his eyes.
"Draw your sword. If it isn't out in five seconds, I'm coming as you are."
He meant it. His presence hardened into killing intent and pressed in from every direction.
"Kh…"
Dorian bit his lip and drew.
"I'll make sure you never run that mouth again!"
Toten Robel kicked off the earth and came on in a rush. The blade crashed down with the full spring of his charge, a ghastly sheen of sword aura pouring from the steel.
"Eek!"
Dorian stepped through the Cloud Profound Step and slid to the right.
"Where do you think you're going!"
Toten snapped his line of attack around and chased. A gimlet-sharp pressure hammered in from both sides. This was a swordsman who had properly mastered both the precise sword and the swift sword.
"Kh—!"
Dorian glided backward and unfolded the Ten Gates Profound Sword. Sword aura unfurled as softly as silk and met Toten Robel's piercing blade.
KRAAAANG!
Dorian could not absorb the savage shock and was driven straight back. Toten gave only three short steps.
"You've got the mouth for it, I'll give you that. But…"
Toten frowned at his faintly trembling blade.
"That much doesn't even tickle!"
He glared and charged again. This time he was using his real skill — faster than before, the aura sheathing his edge burning a deep, dense blue.
BOOOOM!
The second collision carved a small crater into the center of the training ground. Overpowered, Dorian tumbled across the dirt like a ball. Toten drew up still more aura and gave four steps of ground.
"What do you think you're doing? Stomp him until he can't even lift his head!"
Phalen jabbed a finger at Toten, whose eyes had narrowed.
"Hold on a damn minute."
Toten ground his teeth and locked his gaze on Dorian.
"So you were hiding a card."
Blue aura rolled and flared above his shoulders as he pulled his full strength to the surface.
"I-I don't have one…"
Dorian shook his head and clenched his jaw until it ached.
A card? What card?
He had only caught Toten's sword aura on instinct. There was no hidden technique. There was no hidden anything.
SHIIIIING!
Toten came on like a bolt of light, his sword falling in a relentless chain. The aura bent into whipping curves and lashed in from every side, like a coachman's crop.
KANG! KAGKGKGANG!
Dorian ran the Ten Gates Profound Sword from its first form to its last. Cloud-soft sword aura drifted out with a flexible, rhythmic grace — and still it could not hold against Toten's savage blade.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
The aura of the Ten Gates Profound Sword tore apart without mercy, and a nauseating shock rolled through Dorian's gut.
"Hup…"
He swallowed a groan and knitted his swordwork together with his footwork, hardening his defense — but Toten's assault did not end. His hands and feet grew steadily more tangled. The space to run began to vanish.
"So this is your level after all? Running your mouth with skill like this — if you'd stepped onto a real battlefield, your head would already be gone!"
Toten seemed to have taken Raon's words as gospel. His eyes had gone bloodshot, and the cuts he poured out grew sharper still.
"I knew it. Trash like you can train a sword all you want."
Phalen had recovered her composure. She folded her arms and let out a sneering little laugh.
"Dorian! What are you doing? With your full power you could smash him in a single blow! Use your ultimate — the Infinite Track Invincible Demon Slaying Sword!"
Raon was at it again, grinning as he spouted nonsense. What in the world was an Infinite Track Invincible Demon Slaying Sword? For the first time in his life, Dorian wanted to punch that smug face.
Crrrk.
He bit down hard enough to crack a molar.
Why is everyone doing this to me?
He was angry at Toten Robel, who had swallowed Raon's bizarre performance whole and was now hammering away with everything he had. He was angry at Phalen, the sister who had not seen him in nine years and still dismissed him, still mocked him. And he was angry at Raon, whose teasing today had gone several steps too far.
Crack.
Something knotted in his chest made a sound like a shell being crushed, and the noise rang through his whole body.
"Damn it!"
A curse he never used tore out of him, and he wound the rising fury straight around his sword.
BOOOOM!
The Ten Gates Profound Sword shed its softness and erupted in a violent pulse, smashing aside the cut that had been crashing down toward his shoulder.
"Kh—!"
Toten let out a short grunt and gave five steps. Dorian rolled across the ground again.
"You little—!"
Toten's eyes flooded red. He shattered the dirt underfoot and came charging in, for all the world like a fruit fly that had caught the scent of something sweet.
"Bring it on!"
The feet that had been retreating locked in place. Dorian stopped hiding the emotion boiling up from his gut and poured it, raw, into his swordsmanship.
I don't even know anymore!
Raon clearly had no intention of helping. He would have to settle this himself. The will to beat every last idiot in front of him surged up, and the shell around that knot in his chest split with a sound he could almost hear.
WHOOOOM!
The eighth form of the Ten Gates Profound Sword unfolded — Hanging Heaven Peak.
"A technique like that won't work on me!"
Toten had already read the form. He slipped in low and drove his sword up from below.
"You fool. You idiot!"
Dorian snapped his wrist over until it nearly folded. The sword aura of Hanging Heaven Peak, which had been stretching out as lofty as a cloud caught on a mountain summit, changed in an instant and vomited a savage force.
KRAAAAAANG!
A violent shockwave burst. Toten Robel was driven back seven steps.
Rumble.
Dorian did not roll this time. He had been pushed ten paces — but he was standing on his own two feet.
"You filthy bastard. Hiding your strength this whole time."
Toten was talking nonsense again as he crashed in from the right. Sharp threads of sword aura lanced toward both arms, the shoulders, the legs.
He's strong, no question. Strong enough that the flesh hurts and I want to cry. But…
He's not what I thought he was.
Toten Robel's sword aura was powerful, fast, and keen. Compared to Raon Zieghart, whom Dorian had sparred with every single day on the road here, it belonged to another world entirely. His eyes had grown so used to Raon's blade that the blue aura screaming toward him looked almost frail.
SHIIIIING!
Dorian unfolded the secret art of the Ten Gates Profound Sword — Returning Profound Finale. Sword aura flowed as coolly as a cloud riding a typhoon and knocked every last thread of Toten's blade aside. The shattered remnants scraped the dirt and vanished.
"You arrogant—!"
Toten could not endure it. He charged in himself and brought his sword down. Dorian did not give ground. He scraped the earth and carved his blade upward.
KRAAAAAANG!
Sword met sword. And Dorian's eyes met Toten Robel's.
"I don't care what you've been hiding."
"I haven't been hiding anything!"
"Shut up!"
Toten shoved the blades apart and rolled his wrist. A ghastly force surged up the silver edge in rivulets, and more than a dozen threads of sword aura came screaming in. They spun as they flew, boxing him in until there was nowhere left to run.
"I'll make sure that mouth of yours never moves again!"
He meant it. The place he aimed hardest was the face — the mouth, specifically.
WHOOOOM!
Dorian's gaze whipped around. Toten Robel, already certain of victory. Phalen, wearing that sneer. And Raon, still smiling that bright, easy smile. Irritation at all three of them detonated at once.
"What the hell did I even do? You damn bastards!"
The words he had been holding in tore free, and the shell around the knot boiling in his chest shattered completely. The crash of it rang through every inch of him.
KRAAAAAANG!
Power flooded his body as if shackles had fallen away. He felt as if he could do anything.
FLAAAAARE!
Dorian opened his aura to the limit. A colossal force he had never felt in himself wound around his sword, and a vast bank of cloud-mist bloomed into the air.
The final secret art of the Ten Gates Profound Sword takes form upon the world.
"You idiots! I said I didn't do iiiit!"
On the heels of that shout, a cruciform blast of sword aura smashed through Toten Robel's storm of blades and hammered his entire body without mercy.
KRAAAAAAAANG!
A tremendous shockwave burst, and brown dust boiled up until it filled the training ground.
WHOOOOSH!
A wind from somewhere tore the dust apart and laid the end of the duel bare. Toten Robel was embedded in the dirt with his eyes rolled back. Dorian stood over him, dragging in ragged breaths.
"Ah?"
Phalen's mouth fell open far enough to unhinge her jaw.
"H-how did…"
She could not finish the sentence. She could not believe what she was looking at. Just as Raon had instructed, her mouth snapped properly shut.
"I-I won. Y-you idiots."
The excitement had not left him yet. Dorian's hands were shaking, and a flush had climbed all the way up his face.
"Dorian!"
Raon — who had spent the entire spar spouting nonsense — called his name. Dorian turned, and Raon lifted a hand with a sly little smile.
"You're going to end it that uncool?"
"Ugh!"
Something ignited in Dorian's chest at those words. Not the old knot. A hot, rising pride.
He bit his lip and beckoned to the two warriors standing behind Phalen.
Raon watched Dorian beckon with that new, overflowing confidence, and a warm smile settled on his face.
There. He finally reached it.
All that time Raon had been matching him at an early Master level. Once Dorian came to his senses, crushing someone like Toten Robel was only what he ought to do.
But…
The boy really was too kind. After unlocking that knot, the worst he had managed was I didn't do it! You idiots! You morons! A cinnamon roll of such pure grade he could not even swear properly.
I was right, wasn't I?
Raon flicked the now-quiet Wrath on the head and pointed at Dorian.
I told you he could handle it on his own.
"Yes. This King saw it well."
Wrath nodded, the corner of his mouth curling up.
"The emotion he used to break the wall was wrath! A choice worthy of This King's subordinate!"
He grinned, thoroughly pleased that Dorian had crossed the wall by exploding in anger.
Honestly.
Because of the gluttonous streak Wrath showed every day, it was easy to think of him as the monarch of overeating. In the end, though, he really was the Demon King of Wrath.
"Bring it on!"
Dorian flicked his nose with his thumb and beckoned to the remaining warriors.
He's properly fired up.
He had used his own strength to the fullest for the first time and beaten a strong martial artist. The high had clearly gone to his head. Needling him had been worth it.
"Should you not rein him in now? That is excessive."
Just watch.
Raon smiled thinly and called toward the front.
"Nice work, Dorian! Just as planned — your sister shut her mouth!"
The words were aimed at Dorian. The voice, however, punched straight into Phalen's ears.
"Khhh…"
Phalen's eyes flashed red. She ground her teeth.
"Beat that bastard down right now!"
She spun on the two remaining warriors and glared.
"Now!"
At her shout, the warriors glanced at each other and let out a short snort of laughter.
"If the client wants it, I suppose we don't have a choice."
"I'll handle it."
The bigger of the two men rolled his shoulders. He was just starting to move when a middle-aged man in mercenary clothes walked out of the shadows.
"I'll pass on any more night shifts."
He shook his head and started toward Dorian.
"Come at me, all of you!"
Dorian spun his sword with a hot, blazing light in both eyes. The joy and excitement of reaching Expert Peak-Class had left his expression slightly unhinged.
"You intend to leave him like that?"
Wrath frowned as he looked at him.
"That one is a Master!"
He scowled as he watched the newcomer draw his blade.
Yes. A Master.
And not just any Master — a mercenary-born Master who had seen every kind of real combat there was.
"Surely you do not believe that boy can win?"
No. He couldn't win if he died and came back to life.
"Then why provoke him into—"
Because the confidence that was on the floor is punching a hole in the sky. He needs to get beaten down a little so it bends.
Let children drink only among themselves and they picked up ugly habits. If Dorian was not properly educated now, he could die a pointless death on a battlefield.
Of course, that isn't the whole of it.
Raon's gaze settled, cold and still, on Phalen Sefia.
She needs a lesson as well.
She needed to learn that what Dorian had built over nine years was not merely his own martial strength.
Raon rolled his shoulders and ankles, slowly, so that he could move at any moment.
"S-so. You mean to plant the confidence — and then stand there and watch it shatter to pieces?"
That's right.
"You…"
Wrath looked at Raon, who was loosening up with that chilly little smile, and let out a hollow breath.
"Have you ever considered becoming a Demon King yourself?"
He had a feeling history's greatest archdemon was about to be born.