Chapter 366: The Tin Knight and the Land of Emeralds (16)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 366: The Tin Knight and the Land of Emeralds (16)
Clank. Clank.
Walking down the emerald corridor, you quietly assessed your condition.
Your consciousness extended to every corner of your body, meeting no obstruction. Your senses were honed to a razor's edge.
The mana flowing from Dorothea was more abundant than ever, its depths seemingly endless, and there were no restrictions on your actions.
You were certain.
This very moment was the most powerful you had been since becoming the ‘Tin Knight’.
But even knowing this, you did not let your guard down for a second.
Because just as your condition was at its peak, the enemy awaiting you was the strongest of opponents.
At the end of the long corridor.
As you opened the ornately decorated doors, the scene beyond came into view.
An emerald throne.
And sitting upon it, a single knight.
Unlike the other soldiers of the Heavenly Kingdom, his body was made not of emerald, but of flesh and blood.
The limbs he had lost in the fierce war were back in their rightful places, and not even a minor scratch remained on his body.
The mana that should have originally been in his body was gone, but in its place, a far greater and more intense holy power filled him to the brim.
His form was so powerful, so majestic, that it overwhelmed all who looked upon it.
You knew instinctively.
In terms of pure physical performance, this knight was stronger than you. He might even be superior to how he was in his past life.
That in itself wasn't a cause for despair.
Many had tried to overwhelm you with pure power before, and you had overcome them all head-on.
Clank.
The knight quietly rose to his feet.
His cold, emotionless eyes pierced through you.
Shing.
With a chilling sound, the knight drew his sword from its scabbard.
You, too, aimed your sword at him.
Fwoosh!
You were the first to move.
From the tips of your toes to your ankles, knees, waist, and up into your torso.
Mana was sequentially distributed to every part needed for movement, immediately passing from one to the next.
If you divided 100 units of a resource among 100 parts, each would only receive 1 unit of power.
But by precisely distributing it only to the parts bearing the force of the movement, the multiplier could leap by several, even dozens of times.
It wasn't easy. To use reinforcement on only specific parts meant that the rest of your body was left defenseless.
A single misstep carried the risk of your own body breaking under the strain of its own movements.
But the effect was absolute.
SHWIIIIISH!
Your impossibly heavy body tore through the air.
A moment too late, air rushed into the vacuum you left behind, creating a shockwave and a deafening boom.
It was a charge that an ordinary person—no, even a knight—would find impossible to perceive. They would only realize what was happening when the blade was already at their throat.
However, the knight clearly perceived your approach and swung his sword.
Not at you, but at the empty space in front of him, before you could even reach him.
His perception and reaction speed were astonishing, which made the act of swinging his sword before you were even in range seem foolish.
But instead of questioning or mocking his action, you threw all your strength into changing direction and leaped to the side.
Thud!
Slice!
You dodged left, and an instant later, the very space along the path you had just been charging down was sliced away.
You knew.
The knight’s swing had not been a mistake.
The place where you stood—no, the entire battlefield—was within his attack range.
And then, the knight swung his sword once more.
This time, instead of evading, you raised your shield to receive the attack.
A long-range slash was a trick Kalidahs had also displayed, but the knight’s sword was quite different from hers.
Where Kalidahs’s attacks specialized in overwhelming output and wide-area destruction, the knight’s were extremely restrained and efficient.
A slash that was calculated—the power needed to cut the target, the mana consumed to reach it—and then compressed to an almost imperceptible degree before being fired.
It held enough power to cleave not just your shield, but you entirely in two.
KAAANG!
But the slash never cut you down.
The knight’s attack had been swung under the assumption that you would pour mana ‘evenly’ into your shield, but you had concentrated your mana precisely along the slash’s trajectory.
Moreover, having blocked two attacks, it was now your turn.
From the upper right to the lower left. From the lower left to the upper right. Then, spinning your body and sword, from the upper left to the lower left.
A threefold flash of light swung toward the knight’s body.
The interval between the sword strikes was so minuscule that it looked less like three attacks and more like a single, continuous one.
But the knight was calm.
He blocked with his sword, deflected with his sword, and twisted his body to evade.
No matter how short the interval, an interval was an interval. As if to say that if there was a gap, he would simply deal with each attack one by one.
Using the momentum from your swing, you delivered a back kick to the knight’s torso.
POW!
With a loud crash, the knight’s body was pushed back.
It wasn't a direct hit. The knight had also raised his shield to block your kick.
He quickly regained his posture and this time, charged toward you.
He swung his sword down from above.
The problem was that his sword energy came flying from the right.
You blocked his blade with your shield and the sword energy with your own sword.
At the same time, you kicked out at his ankle.
BOOM!
A shockwave powerful enough to shake the ground reverberated, yet the knight’s body didn't even flinch.
The knight raised his shield and swung it upward from below, launching your heavy metal body into the air.
Shhhk.
The knight drew back his longsword as if pulling a bowstring. An ominous mana began to rotate around the blade like a drill.
Sensing that a defense was impossible, you released a burst of mana to twist your body to the side.
SHWAAAA!
Following the trajectory of the knight’s thrust, a chunk of your side was cleanly gouged out.
As you quickly rolled across the floor to break your fall, the characteristic clatter of metal echoed through the hall.
The knight swung his sword down from above.
It was such a simple motion, yet it was as if five giant fangs had materialized in the air, seeking to crush you.
Mana burst from your body in clumps, as if a dam had broken.
You wove it into sword energy and swung with all your might.
KAAAAANG!
The five fangs were split in half, and sparks flew from the knight’s armor.
Proof that your sword energy had clearly reached him.
You swung your sword again, and the knight did the same.
CLANG! CLANG-CLANG!
Your techniques and the knight's were uncannily similar.
Practical, unrefined, and above all, focused on efficiency.
It wasn't that you lacked flashy techniques, but they were mostly feints to conceal a fatal blow.
The direction of the sword’s swing rarely matched the direction of the sword energy, and if necessary, you didn't hesitate to use means other than the sword—fists, kicks, or shield bashes.
The result after dozens of exchanges was clear.
You were at a disadvantage.
Slice!
A part of your helmet was sheared off at an angle, revealing its contents.
Your condition was grave, even at a glance.
Your body was gouged, slashed, pierced, and crushed all over.
In contrast, the knight’s armor was only slightly scratched and dented, but his body was virtually unharmed.
A difference in skill?
No. Your skills and the knight’s were on a level where no clear superiority could be determined.
A difference in power source?
That wasn't it either. Dorothea was supplying you with a near-infinite amount of mana, enough to match the knight’s vast reserves of holy power.
The problem was the body.
Even with repairs and modifications, your body was, by the standards of this era, an old-fashioned doll.
In contrast, the knight’s body retained all the characteristics of his prime, yet was enhanced even further.
Since technique and energy were equal, the difference in physique was absolute.
The advantage of a metal body over a human one was the ability to ignore minor injuries and demerits like fatigue and pain, but that was hardly a significant benefit in a short, decisive battle like this, though it might be in a prolonged war.
“…”
The knight’s face was placid.
There was no excitement from the fierce battle, no confidence from having the upper hand, no sense of duty that he could not lose.
Seeing that, you—
[The ‘Tin Knight’ points out that it doesn’t matter how good the shell looks if the substance inside is missing!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ shakes its head, scoffing that at this rate, it could win with its feet!]
—unleashed a torrent of abuse without hesitation.
Comparing your tattered state to the knight’s perfect form, the taunt was almost comical.
No, it couldn't even be called a taunt.
It was unclear if the knight could even hear you, or if he had the ego to react in the first place. This was not a tactical provocation.
But you didn't stop talking.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ decries the foolishness of the heavens, scoffing that the idea of creating the ultimate warrior by simply jamming all the strongest parts together is a notion even a child would laugh at!]
The knight before you was strong.
The finest technique. The strongest body. Bottomless holy power.
This secret weapon, created by the heavens with immense resources and time, already possessed power that could overwhelm the other angels.
But in your eyes, he seemed utterly lacking.
You knew.
You knew what the knight’s battles had been like, what was in his heart as he cut his way through the battlefield.
The knight had not been victorious because he possessed a body stronger than the eight brave generals.
The knight had not been victorious because he wielded power greater than the guardian angels.
Objectively speaking, the knight had never once been ‘stronger’ than his opponents.
He was always the underdog, his battlefields always disadvantageous, his journey always a precarious tightrope walk.
Because he made the impossible possible.
Because in the deepest darkness, he seized a chance of victory that might not have even existed and dragged it into reality.
That was why he was a hero.
And you were the successor chosen by such a hero.
You knew.
You were originally a being with no connection to this world.
Your link to this world was not due to some grand destiny or special guidance, but merely a coincidence, or perhaps the whim of some unknown entity.
To you, such a being, the previous knight gave a role.
It was because of him that you met the black witch, the lion, and the scarecrow.
Just as the scarecrow lamented his stolen disciple, just as the lion sought to avenge his bloodline, just as the witch vowed revenge for her teacher…
You, too, were enraged by their desecration of your predecessor’s death.
You were furious at their attempt to use only his power, without seeing or even trying to understand the true essence of what he had accomplished.
It was then that the throne the knight was guarding began to tremble, and a violent surge of holy power erupted from it.
Seeing that form, like a beast with its guard raised to the absolute maximum, you realized your companions had destroyed the throne.
An immense amount of holy power poured out of the knight’s body.
It was as if he intended to finish you off before your companions could arrive.
No, it was as if he were simply and blindly carrying out an order from above, an order imbued with that will.
Though he possessed a human body, his posture was that of a mere doll.
A massive slash, imbued with immense power, fell like a guillotine.
You swung your sword, completely deflecting the attack.
The knight’s body trembled for a moment, as if flinching.
His subconscious, or perhaps the experience etched into his very body, seemed to have noticed the anomaly.
That’s right.
That was not the knight’s technique.
It was yours.