WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 283

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Wings of Icarus (3)

There was a man named Anton Quixano.

Romanticist, the man who loved a witch, a fool blinded by love. He had countless names, but all of them referred to Anton Quixano after he met Lapis.

Before that.

Before he met Lapis, four hundred years ago, Anton had been called by a different name.

Mad Anton.

A hunter who roamed alone, killing witches. A rabid dog that tore into anything connected to witches, no matter what it was. Madman, mad dog, every word used for Anton in those days was vicious and ominous.

And Anton lived a life that matched the name.

He killed witches. He killed and killed again. As if testing how much of himself he could throw away for a single purpose, Anton abandoned everything and carried out his revenge. What he achieved in that madness for vengeance was enough to be called a true feat.

He killed witches in the double digits.

He even hunted down the Witch of Blazing Flames, who had eight stars.

Except for Merlin, the person in history who had killed the most witches was Anton Quixano.

"..."

Recalling those old days, Anton Quixano took up a sword again for the first time in four hundred years. The instant he gripped it, his eyes sank into cold stillness. When he opened them, he saw the Battlefield of Stars, where stars crashed against stars.

Gwoooooooo...

A deep chorus of whale cries rumbled out. Millions of whales swam there, raising waves across the battlefield.

Flash.

Countless stars collided while scattering starlight. Clowns had slipped in between those stars as well.

It was complete chaos, a battlefield that could only be called an all-out melee. Taking in the whole scene at a glance, Anton curled one corner of his mouth.

"Ah."

Forces were tangled together so tightly no one could even tell friend from foe. This kind of battlefield was exactly what Anton loved most.

Tap.

He kicked off a leaping whale and started to run. Even after four hundred years, time had not rusted the sword he drew. Each time Anton's blade flashed, whale bodies were carved into fragments.

Swaaaaaash!

Blood sprayed in every direction. Then, with a wide swing, Anton used the wind pressure of his strike to blast the severed pieces everywhere. Using them as footholds, he leaped again and again, crossing the battlefield.

"Urk."

"Kgh..."

The moment Anton moved, suppressed groans burst out across the battlefield. He raced forward, slicing off shoulders, arms, legs, and ankles from the Constellations targeting Najin.

There were no large or flashy motions.

He repeated restrained, concise movements.

Killing a Transcendent in one strike was difficult, but shaving off parts of a distracted opponent was not. Victory was built from small things like that.

Slash.

His eyes flashed through rising streams of blood. After cutting across the battlefield, Anton slid over the sea and smoothly flipped his sword into a reverse grip.

He left a single path carved across the war.

Anton had scattered his starlight all over the battlefield. He drove his reverse-gripped sword into the ground. Unlike the Anton of his mad-dog days, the Anton of now was not alone. He could use methods far more efficient than before.

"Lapis."

The woman who held half his heart, half his star. Anton spoke the name of the woman who was his other half.

Clack.

At that moment, from very far away, he heard the clear sound of a staff striking the ground. No matter how far apart they were, Anton could feel it now. Lapis's presence. Lapis's voice.

The path Anton made by scattering starlight became a fuse. Lapis, who shared one constellation with Anton, lit that fuse.

9-circle spell, Cataclysm Flame.

Fire erupted.

From the wounds Anton had cut into the Constellations, from the path he had crossed, from all across the battlefield, dark crimson flames shot high into the sky. Stars screamed as they burned, and steam roared up as the sea boiled, throwing the battlefield into even greater chaos.

Tap.

Steam piled on top of it all, and now the battlefield was so dense they could not see an inch ahead. Anton plunged back in.

The madman rampaged.

Blood jets rose. Then fire. Then screams.

2.

Catching his breath on the sailboat, Najin watched Anton tear across the battlefield and let out a stunned breath.

"So it was true..."

This was far beyond what Najin had imagined. One man alone was overturning the flow of the battlefield. Lapis suddenly shoved her face toward him.

"Well? Cool, right?"

She smiled like she was proudly showing off her lover.

"A bad habit never goes away, huh? Even if he keeps it down because of me, that guy's true nature is a damn bastard. An absolutely perfect damn bastard."

Najin could not tell if that was an insult or praise, but looking at Lapis's eyes as she gazed at Anton with affection, it had to be praise.

"A man like that fawns over me and watches my every mood? That really drives a person crazy, you know. Ahhh, it's nice seeing this again after so long."

"..."

"Oh my, what are those eyes for?"

"It's nothing... I just thought it was unique."

Lapis snorted.

"Love is always between weird fools, and between people who are just crazy enough for each other, little one."

She muttered, still a kid, then gave Najin's back a light shove.

"Leave this to us and go."

Lapis tapped the ground under Najin's feet with her staff. Magic for a leap formed beneath him, and she flicked the tip of her pointed hat with one finger.

"Because this isn't where you need to be."

Snap. The spell activated the instant she flicked her fingers. Boosted by magic, Najin launched himself high and looked back. He saw Lapis slamming her staff down on the sailboat.

Eight stars rose.

Nine circles interlocked in the air.

Storm and fire from an archmage raged behind him, and Najin turned forward.

"..."

He advanced.

"Open the way!"

"Do not let him get blocked. Break through no matter what. We have gathered our strength for this day!"

With help from countless Transcendents, he moved forward.

"Now!"

"Push! Grab them and hold them down!"

Najin passed the Transcendents and pressed on.

Tap.

At the end of that path waited the largest whale of all. The mother of all whales, the one carrying the ancient castle of the Heaven-Wandering Star, roared at Najin as he approached.

Its cry thundered across the sea.

With echoing pulses, water pillars burst from the surface. Those pillars were made of whales, and all of them charged straight at Najin. The largest whale did the same.

Countless whales and the greatest whale.

Facing the whales rushing to swallow his star, Najin gripped Excalibur tightly. He waited until the distance closed enough. Then, when everything fit in one view, he spoke.

"Merlin."

He called her name. Najin pulled out the method he had saved until now. As if she had waited only for this moment, Merlin laid her hand over his.

Rings spread out behind Najin.

One, two, three... nine rings in all. They creaked because they were made by borrowing Najin's starlight, but they still began to turn as they interlocked.

"..."

With cold, sunken eyes, Merlin looked ahead. She took in the charging whales, the sea, the water pillars, the stars, everything at once, then lightly snapped her fingers.

Unique Magic, Stillness.

The whole world turned pure white.

3.

While holding Excalibur, Najin was a Transcendent.

Even if only half, once he had stepped into Transcendence, he could now transfer his Imagery into reality perfectly... and that meant Merlin, who had taken root within that Imagery, could materialize.

Of course, it was not perfect.

What rested inside Najin was only Merlin's soul-body. Her True Body was elsewhere. The power a soul-body could use was limited, and even that had to rely on Najin's power.

"The efficiency is terrible," Merlin had said.

In the end, she was pulling Najin's power and using it as her own.

"If I really decide to drag your power out and burn through it, you'll collapse after one or two spells."

"Remember how you crumpled after using one secret art of Triumph Sword before? That kind of feeling."

In short, the cost efficiency was awful.

So Merlin had said she should stay in a support role.

"But on the Battlefield of Stars, it is different."

Except for a few unusual cases.

"Excalibur has a function that absorbs lingering starlight nearby."

Of course, it could not absorb Najin's own starlight once it shattered and scattered. But it could replenish power through starlight created by other stars.

"A battlefield filled with stars."

"On a battlefield where stars crash into stars and starlight fills the air, I can draw as much as I want without worrying about efficiency."

"And if we add Excalibur's Release on top of that, I can output around half of my real body's power."

One chance only.

Gather every bit of surrounding starlight and pour it into one spell, and it could be done.

That was what Merlin had said.

"Now."

And now, they were carrying it out.

The battle had gone on long enough.

Enough starlight had scattered.

They had gotten close enough to the one who created this stage.

The conditions were met. This was the moment.

Kiiiiiiing!

Nine rings interlocked around Excalibur. The rings, biting together with a hard clack, spun violently.

The starlight filling every direction.

The lingering mana.

Everything created as stars slammed into each other.

All of it was sucked toward Excalibur.

This was power Najin at this point could never handle. If the power Najin could use at once was one cup of water, what gathered to him now was a vast lake.

Power that would overflow and be wasted.

But Merlin was beside him. She took that wasted power and packed it directly into her circles. It was too much for a soul-body to control, but through sheer calculation and experience, Merlin interlocked the circles and spun them.

And what she completed was Merlin's unique magic.

In circle terms, it was magic close to 10-circle.

Merlin displayed a miracle, casting 10-circle class magic with nine circles. Transcendents who witnessed the overflowing torrent of mana in the sky widened their eyes. Even to the stars above, it was astonishing and terrifying.

Young stars, unable to grasp what was happening, could only stare blankly. But old stars, and stars that had lived in Merlin's era, turned and fled the battlefield without even looking back.

Because they knew.

Merlin, Wizard of the Lake.

How terrifying the magic of the archmage was, the one who had brought down hundreds of stars alone.

"..."

Looking down on the world with cold, sunken eyes, Merlin snapped her fingers.

Unique Magic, Stillness.

The nine rings shattered. The gathered starlight and mana burst out in a single instant. The torrent of power became a giant wave and swept the battlefield.

Then, flash.

The world turned pure white.

It was not a figure of speech. In an instant, everything froze into pure white.

The rising water pillars, the whales charging Najin, the largest whale, the stars, even the entire surrounding region including the sea, all of it froze solid. What came after was stillness with no sound at all.

In that stillness, only a single cracking sound rang out. For stars friendly to Najin, it was only a thin layer of frost. But not for the others. The stars whose entire bodies had frozen began to split apart.

Dozens of stars crumbled.

"Hoo..."

Najin looked at Merlin beside him as she let out a long breath. She had said she could wield power equal to half of her True Body.

Repeating that in his mind, Najin thought:

Half? This is half?

It was a scene he could not believe even while seeing it with his own eyes. Najin remembered Merlin in her prime at the Black Spire and swallowed dryly.

"Admiring it is fine, but."

Merlin's body, drained by using too much power, scattered into starlight. She could no longer maintain materialization and returned to Najin's inner world.

-Right now, you still have a long way to go. Hurry up.

She pointed ahead.

There stood the frozen ancient palace carried by the largest whale, the palace of the Heaven-Wandering Star.

Najin landed on top of the whale.

Was it because Merlin's magic had frozen even time and made it slow, or because he had reached the center of this stage where time flowed differently? Every scene outside moved sluggishly as Najin walked.

A frozen sea.

A frozen whale and a frozen castle.

In a world where everything was frozen and stopped, Najin alone crossed the stage and threw open the gate of the ancient castle. Toward Icarus, who would be in its center, Najin kept walking.

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