The Swordmaster Wants to Fall in Love 61. The Desire to Fall in Love (4)
The black hair sparkled and the tentacles writhed wildly.
It had happened dozens of times before.
Yet Low-Medon regenerated his tentacles without the slightest hesitation. Evan watched him and sighed inwardly.
‘This guy’s compatibility.’
Back in the dungeon they had tackled together with Rainia long ago. The demon lord that had crawled out of there carried the same cursed constitution as Llyeh. A body that would not die and a physique that regenerated infinitely.
An existence that could not be killed even if his sword sliced it apart.
To kill it, something beyond a blade was needed.
—Why?
Low-Medon’s hundreds of tentacles quivered. They trembled for a long while, mocking him, before slowly dying out.
Evan stared at those maddeningly trembling tentacles, then quietly opened his mouth.
“You can’t even kiss, can you? Tickles me.”
—We do not engage in such base reproductive behavior. We use higher methods.
“Ah, you… you’ve never kissed?”
—Whether a being has kissed or not does not determine its rank.
“The ones who’ve never kissed always say that.”
Evan, who considered himself experienced in kissing, puffed up with the confidence of a veteran and immediately pushed the argument.
“Pathetic. You’ve never even kissed.”
—…It is not that I have not done it. I simply choose not to. There is a world of difference between choosing not to and being unable to from the very beginning—
“Yeah, yeah, I heard the loser who’s never kissed’s excuse. So let me give you some advice as someone who has actually kissed.”
Swish!
The blade swept in a surprise arc, sliced through Low-Medon’s barrier, and hacked the cluster of tentacles to pieces.
Seeing the tentacles tumble to the ground, Evan grinned and said,
“First, let’s get rid of these filthy tentacles.”
—This, this damned human…! How dare you—how dare you call them filthy—!
“Oh? What’s this? Got a complex?”
Watching Low-Medon’s eyes bulge wildly as though he had touched his tail, Evan smirked.
Having one psychological weakness that made the opponent falter was a massive tactical advantage. Of course, its power weakened with overuse, so it was best saved for crucial moments…
—There is no filth in the bodies bestowed by our Great Father!
From every part of Low-Medon’s body, tentacles suddenly erupted. Dozens, hundreds, then thousands of massive tentacles rocketed toward Evan.
Evan watched the wave for a moment, then danced through it with precise movements. Avoiding tentacles was no challenge. The range they could move was limited, and Evan was not foolish enough to get hit by such sloppy attacks.
The problem, however…
—At this moment, movement is forbidden!
“Ugh—!?”
The forbidden-movement curse in Low-Medon’s mouth froze Evan’s body in place.
Unlike Evan, the tentacles Low-Medon had launched did not stop. Evan took a heavy blow from a tentacle falling from above, then immediately sliced it away with his sword before his body could collapse.
“You said movement is forbidden!”
—Who would strike a fool who uses their own ability against them?
“Yo! Stop that!”
—This looks like a sports match or tournament. Too bad. This is real combat. An all-or-nothing fight to the death.
Only then did Evan finally understand the fire in the Battleground’s Cheonma’s roar. Even in the fair rules of a tournament, where life and death were not on the line, the stakes were high. But when life and death were truly at stake, the heat would be unbearable.
‘Damn, that’s a cheat skill.’
Evan wiped the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth and glared sharply at Low-Medon, who had floated into the sky.
If it had been anyone else, distance would not have mattered. Evan possessed the Sky Slash, a strike that ignored range, and with nothing but that technique he could carve through almost any opponent.
Low-Medon could not do the same. The barriers he used blocked even Evan’s absolute slash.
‘Absolute Defense, or whatever it’s called?’
If it worked on double-layered attacks, maybe that was the secret.
It made sense when he thought about how the mage could use magic with a sword. If he knew magic, he could do impossible things like the mage.
In other words, to cut down the Low-Medon floating in the sky, Evan would have to use Absolute Slash double-layered with Sky Slash… which was impossible.
‘If I do something like that…’
Evan’s eyes flicked toward the one-hundred-million-elsos asteroid nearby. Even if he could somehow deflect the shock himself, he doubted the asteroid could take it.
No matter how transcendent he was, a sum that large carried enough power to prevent reckless sword swings.
While Evan hesitated, Low-Medon’s mouth opened.
—Servant of our Father who dwells in the heavens, appear and slay the enemy of the owner in this place.
His jaws gaped wide, and a winged, grotesque form flew toward Evan like a gust of wind.
Fast. Evan instinctively mixed Sky Slash and Absolute Slash and swung his sword, cleaving the two monsters without a second thought.
Yet that had been the trap. Low-Medon’s tentacles quivered.
—Curse the bandit who killed your servant!
The next instant, Evan felt an unknown aura wrapping his entire body and a chill ran down his spine. His body felt heavy, as if weighed down by soaked cotton.
Startled, he looked at Low-Medon, who was again shouting incantations while waving tentacles.
“Yo! Don’t use that either!”
—Y҇́̉̎̎̃l̎̂́͌̇̕i͗̑̀́́͠ d҇̇̎e҇͂̂ȧ̿̅͡
“Don’t use it, I said!?”
Even with Evan’s shout, Low-Medon kept chanting silently. Watching him, Evan gripped his sword tighter and raised his head with annoyance.
“You. You said you came to get that asteroid too, right?”
Whether it was one-hundred-million elso or some rare ore was no longer Evan’s concern.
Money was not worth his life.
So.
Whether they all died or not was none of his business.
—You, what the hell are you…
Low-Medon noticed Evan trying to do something and stopped the incantation to move and protect the asteroid.
Too late. Unlike the incantations that needed dozens or hundreds of lines to activate, Evan’s magic fired simply by swinging the sword.
“Die.”
The double-layered Absolute Slash sliced through the air and struck Low-Medon. The space torn apart by the slash warped dimensions to repair his body.
In an instant, a mushroom cloud swallowed the storm.
* * *
Kuuuuuung…!
Working on documents as usual, Duke Shtel suddenly heard a sound like a great earthquake and turned his head toward the window.
Seeing the massive mushroom cloud blooming outside, he froze mid-sentence and stared blankly out the window.
It carried an awe-inspiring presence. A divine power that humans could never hope to resist.
“What… is this…?”
Shtel watched the cloud for a moment, then immediately contacted the Blue King through the emergency communication device possessed by every noble.
—What is the matter?
“Something terrible has happened, Your Majesty. There is a problem with the asteroid…”
—What kind of problem?
“It would be better if you saw it yourself…”
Shtel said this and turned the communication screen toward the window. There was nothing left to say.
—…
Fortunately, the mushroom cloud blooming outside was explanation enough.
The Blue King, who had been silent for a long while, opened his mouth carefully.
—I will come in five minutes. No, three. Prepare yourselves.
“I will obey.”
Shtel ended the call and hurried to the armory in the corner of his room. He grabbed the armor there and rushed out.
The armor was light and flexible, yet the weight was almost too much for a woman’s body to move. No matter.
“…It has been a while since I wore a woman’s body.”
Even if he could not move, the Blue King would not be immobile either.
Shtel’s eyes blazed, and his figure shot through the air toward the place where the mushroom cloud had bloomed.
* * *
—Insane… insane…! What the hell…
After Evan’s near-self-destruction attack, Low-Medon had barely pulled together his mind and will to block it. He now glared at the cliff where Evan stood, covered in bruises from head to toe.
He had no idea whether the explosion had killed him or whether even his corpse remained—yet he was certain Evan was dead.
With the Great Father’s blood, his will was in the upper ranks of his organs. No matter how strong the attack, it should not have been unstoppable.
If he had blocked it with his bare hands… Low-Medon had every intention of abandoning this place and fleeing.
—I can’t win, so I just throw punches and die! He’s not even a transcendent!
“…Who died?”
The moment he heard the voice behind him, Low-Medon jolted and turned.
There stood Evan, covered in soot but otherwise unharmed.
Evan grinned and raised his sword.
—S, sav—
“No.”
Slash—!
Evan’s blade split Low-Medon clean in two.