WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 272

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Where the Stars Shine (2)

A stage unfolded by a Transcendent was, in the end, their imagery.

Intense memories, unforgettable scenery, turning points that changed their entire life, scenes carved into their inner world in one form or another.

Most people buried those memories deep inside and lived on, but those who had reached Transcendence did not.

They brought what they had buried inside out into the open.

They made that scenery their stage, and affirmed themselves.

"..."

Najin stared silently at the scene before him. The stage Mordred unfolded was colorless. The land, drained of color, was covered in corpses. Standing atop the dead, Mordred held his sword.

Clarent, the sword that ended Arthur's legend.

Clarent vibrated with dark crimson Sword Aura. It sounded like a scream, and at the same time like a question hurled at the world. In place of its silent master, Clarent cried out in agony.

Creeeak, screech, creeeeak...

The stage itself groaned, unable to endure the power gathered into that single sword. Right now, Mordred was not even close to half of his true self, not even a quarter, but still, the power packed into that one blade was enough to be called transcendent.

A strike powerful enough to cut the entire underground city apart.

Najin knew it on instinct.

This would be the end. Mordred had put everything into that single strike. If so, Najin had to put everything on the line too. Holding the First Sword stance, he steadied his breath.

In his hand was the Star Sword, Excalibur.

Excalibur was a weapon forged as a star and strengthened as a star. Arthur's star formed Excalibur's outer shell, and Najin's star formed what lay within.

Challenge, Dragon-Slaying, Breakthrough...

The stars engraved on the blade lit one after another. Each time one star lit, a heavy thunk rang out as if gears had locked together, and Najin's Sword Aura amplified.

Indomitable, Requiem, Banter.

Najin's Sword Aura, shaped like constellations, shone brightly. The stage Najin unfolded was the underground city's scenery, and at its center a star rose and shone.

Selection.

With one final thunk, his Sword Aura surged in a great wave. Platinum light dyed the space around Najin. His eyes, shining platinum from reflected starlight, locked onto Mordred.

Their eyes met.

They needed no words.

Mordred and Najin each took a huge step forward at the same moment. The ground shook. Dirt and stone erupted upward as both moved almost simultaneously.

First Sword, Triumph.

The moment Najin brought down his blade, aligned in one line with the sky, Mordred's sword scraped the ground and shot upward.

A strike crashing from above to below, and a strike surging from below to above.

The sword that announced the beginning of a story, and the sword that announced a story's final curtain.

Platinum Sword Aura symbolizing shining stars, and dark crimson Sword Aura symbolizing the Baleful Star.

Swords holding completely opposite concepts crossed. Najin's stage and Mordred's stage collided. Their stars scattered light and slammed into each other.

In that instant, Najin saw it.

A dark crimson wave swallowing his starlight.

2.

The instant he swung, Najin saw Mordred's strike split his own apart. He saw Mordred's colorless stage covering the underground city. It meant Najin's defeat, and it meant the future that was about to happen.

A brief future Najin glimpsed ahead.

It was not hard to guess why he lost. The weight of their imagery was different. Mordred was a Transcendent who had lived for over a thousand years. That scenery carved into him was a vicious poison that had rotted inside him for all those centuries.

That poison would shatter Najin's stage.

As if to say the twenty years Najin had lived meant nothing before a thousand.

"Time is not what matters."

A voice rang out. Merlin's voice.

"What matters is how you choose to think."

She smiled as she wrapped her hand around Najin's. This was Najin's stage, Najin's imagery, so she, who had walked every step of the journey beside him, stood at his side here too.

Materialized beside him, she pushed his back.

As if telling him to believe in himself.

She did not speak for long. She only pointed at the seventh star engraved on Najin's sword.

Selection.

You were not chosen by Excalibur.

You were the one who chose Excalibur.

Najin smiled. Merlin always showed him where to go. This time was no different. He swung his sword and stepped forward once more. He swung toward a deeper place.

He had taken only one step.

But that single step changed a lot.

Release. The starlight stored in Excalibur surged upward and wrapped itself around Najin's Sword Aura. His Sword Aura, which had only resembled constellations, became true constellations the moment it held starlight. The lengthened aura shone as if it might reach the sky itself.

All of it felt like part of his own body. Through his Sword Aura, Najin felt the world and seized its flow.

Mordred's Sword Aura tore up from below to above, splitting the earth and rising toward the sky, and Najin received it head-on. The instant they collided, his entire body trembled.

A torrent, literally a raging torrent. A massive flow that could sweep away everything slammed into him.

To avoid being swallowed by that torrent, Najin clenched his teeth. He held his form so it would not collapse. Vibration, tremors, pain pounding through his body, he endured it all. Then, at a certain moment after enduring and enduring,

his senses that had expanded with Transcendence, his widened sight,

caught hold of something thin.

"Ah."

Najin let out a breath.

"I can see it."

He saw what had been invisible. He could not put it into words. Something that could not be verbalized. Something that belonged to the realm of abstraction. He still could not explain what it was.

But he could feel it.

And Najin was certain.

It was still a realm he could not reach yet.

Mordred stood in that realm. Even with reduced output, even if the stars he could draw on had fallen to less than half of half, Mordred stood there, and from there he could cut down people with far greater raw power than Najin's.

That was why Najin was being pushed back now.

Still, he had no intention of being pushed forever.

Clench.

Najin gripped his sword hard. Staring at that realm, he brought his blade down. He knew he could not reach it yet. So what? Najin had always reached toward what he could not touch.

Had his master not said the same thing?

Reach for what you cannot touch.

'If you cannot reach it, imitate it. Copy it.'

The star of Challenge blazed and fed power into Najin's sword. In that instant, the sound his blade produced changed. Until now it had sounded like he was forcing something forward. Now it sounded like he was slicing through something.

'My technique is lacking. My skill falls behind. Our realms are different.'

He knew that.

That was exactly why he was using everything.

'Excalibur's special nature, my stars, Sword Aura output, my senses, everything I could drag in and use.'

Pushed back, pushing forward, pushing, getting pushed, again...

The collision itself lasted only an instant, but in a Transcendent battle, time was relative. Nothing was absolute. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of moments. In that long, endless-feeling stretch, Najin ground his teeth.

Blood streamed from his eyes. Blood burst from his nose. His healing wounds split open again under the impact of the collision, and blood sprayed out. The blood that flew up evaporated in the heat from his Sword Aura.

After enduring and enduring, an anomaly occurred.

Crack.

Mordred's Avatar Body started to crumble. It was not only because he drew more power than an Avatar Body was allowed to hold. Just as the shockwaves from Mordred's Sword Aura battered Najin, the light made by Excalibur battered a being of the Abyss.

Even as his body crumbled under starlight, he did not release his sword.

The star of Final Curtain surged violently.

The story he had ended, the story he had no choice but to end, was beginning again, and Final Curtain screamed. The star asked Najin.

This was a story that had stopped for a thousand years.

A story of failures who had failed long ago.

You, too, would meet the same ending as us. No matter how hard you struggled, you would face a massive wall you could not cross, and in the end you would collapse.

At that scream, Najin laughed without meaning to.

He had to laugh.

'Countless people already failed. Do you think you are different? That light does not suit you, it is too much for you. Know your place. Give up...'

Countless voices brushed past Najin's ears. They were the same things he had heard until he was sick of hearing them in the underground city. And Najin had already left his answer to those words in the past.

"That is your story."

That was your story, not mine.

I will write my own story.

That was why I pulled this sword in the first place.

The star of Selection shoved aside the star of Final Curtain. The balance broke. The dark crimson wave split apart. Najin's sword surged forward, cutting through Mordred's Sword Aura. In the final moment, what decided the match was not technique, not Sword Aura output, not even imagery.

Mordred asked a question.

Najin gave the answer.

He shattered Mordred's sword that had risen toward the sky while splitting the earth, and Najin's sword, falling from the sky while splitting it, carved through the ground. The Star Sword split everything before it.

For a new story to begin, the old story had to be cut away.

Najin's sword cut Mordred down.

Overflowing starlight swept across the colorless stage.

3.

Mordred's stage was dyed in starlight.

The corpses spread across it were swept away by that light, and the dark crimson Sword Aura scattered. What remained there was Mordred, missing half his body.

"..."

Mordred, who had lost the left half that did not hold the sword, looked at his body. Soon, he looked around him. At last, he raised his head and looked at Najin.

A boy holding an Excalibur different from Arthur's.

Mordred looked at the boy who would write a new story, then let go of the sword he had held to the very end. Clarent scattered into the air.

"It was not that I was selected."

Mordred said quietly.

"You said... you chose this path."

Mordred rolled those words around, then gave a short laugh.

Clench.

With the hand that had released his sword, he tore out his own heart. He threw that heart at Najin. For some reason, his face looked relieved. As if he had been freed, at least a little, from a rage that had lasted too long.

"I will be waiting."

With those final words, Mordred's Avatar Body, without its heart, collapsed. At the same time, his stage collapsed too. The stage vanished, revealing the scenery of the underground city, Artman.

"..."

Najin silently looked around.

There were people watching this place.

Even with the shockwaves from a Transcendent clash, even if those shockwaves might swallow them, the residents of the underground city still watched.

As if they did not care if they got swept away and died.

They were people who had gathered because they wanted to see a star one last time. Even those who had not gathered stuck their heads out from their homes and looked at the star Najin had made.

Countless gazes.

Longing, admiration, yearning, envy, nostalgia, gazes mixed with every kind of emotion were fixed on Najin.

Under those eyes, Najin steadied his breath.

Because he knew he still had something to do.

Najin walked toward the center of the underground city. It was the place where he had once pulled Excalibur. As he walked there, his eyes met a child.

His younger self was looking at him.

When he blinked once and opened his eyes,

the child was gone without a trace.

Najin gave a small smile and slowly raised his sword. He looked up at the sky of the underground city.

A false sky. False stars.

There had been days when he had looked at that sky and found comfort. Days when that ceiling had looked like an enormous wall he could never cross. Days when he had believed he would rot in this place for life and die without ever seeing a real star.

He walked through those days and stood here now.

Najin gave a light swing of his sword.

The strike that shot up toward the sky cut the underground city's ceiling. That sky, which had already been cracked once by the Triumph Sword, split apart from Najin's light swing. The cage that had trapped his childhood self shattered without a sound.

The ceiling of the underground city collapsed.

And what spread out beyond it was the outside world.

The city built above the underground city, the night sky that even the towering buildings of that city could not block, and the countless stars pinned into the night all shone down on the underground city.

The stars shone.

The stars were shining.

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