WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 328

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The One Certain of Himself (4)

Night came crashing down.

The stars hanging in that night fell one after another, tail chasing tail. As they poured down with the night like a meteor shower, the wasteland shone pure white. It was a collapse so vast it could be seen from far away, even from beyond the Outland.

Najin, watching it from closer than anyone,

steadied his breathing and looked up at the sky.

His eyes were calm. They were not the eyes of someone admiring the view, nor the eyes of someone merely looking up. They were a swordsman's eyes, calculating how to cut his opponent when blade met blade, and a duelist's eyes, searching for a way to win.

What he had never seen before came into view.

And once he saw it, a path opened naturally.

Najin stepped forward. The stars engraved on Excalibur became lighthouses, illuminating the road he had to walk. Following that road, he began to move.

Tap.

The moment he took one step and chose a path, all the countless paths before him vanished. Tens of thousands disappeared, leaving only one. He did not know whether it was the right answer or the wrong one...

"At least it'll be a better answer, won't it?"

It would be a better answer. Najin chose his own road. In a way, he had selected his own path from among tens of thousands.

Swoooooosh!

A meteor dropped toward Najin with a tail of light. Stars filled the sky and rained down. Every falling star was someone's life and achievement. They were no different from ultimate techniques detonated by Constellations offering up their own lives as sacrifice.

None were easy to deflect, and cutting them was even harder. Every single one was lethally dangerous, but

flash.

The instant they touched Najin's blade, the stars exploded. Bursts of light scattered in glittering flashes. Najin's sword cut through the dust cloud left by the blast.

Two.

Light burst out like an explosion.

Three.

Najin's sword did not carve through dozens of meters, did not summon storms, did not create any grand spectacle. But wherever Excalibur's tip brushed past was completely Najin's domain.

Four, five, six...

He shattered the falling stars one by one. Crushed fragments collapsed, and Najin stepped over those crumbling remains as he moved forward.

Seven, eight, nine.

He had cut nine stars, yet hundreds remained, and even that vast sky was still falling. So his steps did not stop.

The blade that had been moving slowly accelerated.

His light steps turned into a heavy stomp, boom, and Najin began moving fast, as if he had only now fully adapted to his own motion.

Then the change began.

The stars engraved on Excalibur lit one after another. The first to shine was Najin's starting point. The moment the Star of Challenge shone, his stance changed. It was Atanga's sword. Najin's blade shattered a star head-on.

With the Star of Dragon-Slaying, Najin hurled himself into the meteor shower like the day he had leaped into the center of a dragon's flames. He pierced stars as if piercing a dragon's heart, then burst out through the light.

The moment the Star of Breakthrough lit, Najin grabbed empty air. Now he understood how to retrieve a spear once thrown. The spear flew through the air into his hand, and he drove it straight ahead.

Horn Charge. With storm at his side, a path opened.

The Star of Indomitability supported his steps, the Star of Funeral Rites held funerals for the falling stars, and the Star of Jovial Laughter cast a spotlight on Najin like the highlight of a stage.

The sword of Selection shone, and the Star of Adventure pushed Najin forward as he looked toward the sky.

...At some point,

the stars touched by Najin's blade no longer exploded or shattered with noise. They split soundlessly and scattered. Meteors poured down without end, and Najin's sword flowed without end as well.

Where should he swing his sword?

Where should he advance?

He could clearly see where his blade had to go, so there was no hesitation in it. In the end, people find answers through the past they have built. The more Najin looked back, the sharper his sword became.

Kwaaaaaang!

Severed meteors crashed into the ground with a roar. The earth caved in. The ground shook violently. But Najin was no longer there.

Boom.

Already several steps ahead, Najin planted his foot and raised his sword.

First Horn, Triumph.

The moment Najin swung, a pure white streak split one edge of the sky. The pouring meteors were erased in an instant. There was still more to cut, but in that temporary silence, Najin let out a long breath.

At the end of retracing the past, what appeared was an unknown road.

He could not see it clearly. He could not guess what kind of path it would be, because no one had ever walked it before. Looking at it, Najin laughed in disbelief.

Had all those people walked roads like this?

Unknown. A path so unknown he did not even know how to walk it, a path filled with fear of the unknown. They must have walked that road and created techniques of their own. Crunbell's Horn Charge had done so, Aldaran's Triumphal Sword had done so, and the Blue Hydrangea of the Blue Spear must have done the same.

Now it was Najin's turn.

"When everything is unknown, even taking one step is frightening. Being afraid is only natural."

Tap. Icarus pushed Najin's back.

"But when you take one step despite that fear... only then does a new view finally appear."

Just as he said, when Najin stepped forward once, a scene finally came into view.

The ninth star engraved on Excalibur lit up.

Najin's sword, bearing the Star of Self-Confidence, shone.

2.

The stars were splitting. The stars that had adorned her were disappearing. In this moment, as everything she had built over a thousand years vanished, the Carnival King felt fear.

How could this be?

Each one of those meteors was practically an ultimate technique, made by trading away Transcendents' lives. How could they be breaking this easily?

...She could not understand it, but

the falling stars under her control had no self in them. No matter how overwhelming a spell became by offering stars, if there was no self in it, how could it be called the life of a Transcendent?

They broke, they were cut, they shattered and scattered.

And the more that happened, the closer Najin came to the Carnival King.

Or perhaps the Carnival King was the one approaching Najin. The falling night was no different from her True Body. She had only borrowed a woman's body. Her essence was closer to a curtain meant to deceive others and block their sight.

She stole others' stars, parasitized them, mounted them onto her own body, and used them to decorate herself. Even if she had grown large enough to cover the whole night sky, her essence had not changed.

So in this very moment, she felt fear.

A fear that had gnawed at her for a long time.

It was fear of death and annihilation.

A demon, a race originally meant to be immortal, should be too far from death to feel this kind of emotion. But the Carnival King had been born weak, so she always felt the threat of death, and she had watched countless demons meet their end.

She feared death.

That fear made her thorough, and that thoroughness raised her to this height. To her, fear was as good as the sharpest weapon.

But...

not once had she ever taken a step forward while braving that fear. That was the decisive difference between Najin and the Carnival King.

First Horn, Triumph.

Najin's sword cut one edge of the night. Blood flowed from the Carnival King's body. It was the same sword that had pierced her heart in the past. Her eyes shook harder.

Excalibur shone.

The fear carved into the entire demon race shook the Carnival King's soul. Arthur's voice echoed in her ears, the voice that had raised Baal's head and declared his words to the demons. But the Carnival King's fear was not directed at the past.

It was directed at the human standing before her now.

The Carnival King felt fear toward the human named Najin, the one aiming his sword at her.

Even so, the Carnival King thought,

Night Fall could not be stopped.

Even after losing the stars that adorned her, she was still an eleven-star Constellation, and a being contracted with the Witch of Camlann. Before that falling night sky, Najin took his stance.

A stance he had never shown even once until now.

Then, together with the newly rising ninth star, Najin's sword shone.

3.

Under the falling night sky, Najin suddenly thought:

Come to think of it, the night sky had always held many meanings for him. Since birth, he had lived while looking at a false sky. The ceiling of the Underground City was no different from a fake sky.

He had lived beneath a curtain someone had made on purpose, a curtain that blocked the real sky.

That was why the first dream he ever held was simple: I want to see the stars. How happy he had been the day he escaped the Underground City and could finally see the sky. Remembering that past, Najin looked up.

There was a false sky there.

A demon-made night sky covered the heavens. It blocked the stars shining beyond it, deceived him, and tried to blind him.

Then what should he do?

What did he want to achieve by swinging his sword?

Najin asked himself. The answer had already been decided long ago. He calmed his breathing and stomped the ground.

The air trembled. The earth heaved. Rocks that rose into the air froze in place.

Time slowed beyond slowing, nearly to a stop.

Within that endlessly stretched time, Najin produced his own answer. No one could help him through this process. It had value only if it was an answer born from his own thoughts alone.

Najin hated night.

He hated the false night sky where stars could not be seen. He hated the gloom the very word night carried. He hated the Underground City's night, where luminous ore lamps were turned off just because it was "night" even though it was no different from day. He hated that dim stretch of hours.

Najin hated a night without stars.

Looking at that false night sky, he used to think how good it would be if stars were hung there. How good it would be if stars rose to light the dark sky of the Underground City. But no one ever granted his wish for him.

Then what else could he do?

He had to seize it with his own hands.

With his open right eye, he saw the falling night sky. With his closed left eye, he saw the scenery of Underground City, Artman within himself. The sky seen with his open eye was only dark, but the sky of the Underground City seen with his closed eye had stars shining in it.

The Star of Dawn.

A star that lit the night.

In Najin's inner world, in the sky of his dreams, stars were shining, but the real sky was dark. So what? Najin was a Transcendent, and he was one of the La Mancha expedition that had adventured with the knight who turned dreams into reality.

As far as Najin was concerned, there was no reason he could not unfold the scenery inside himself into the outside world.

He learned Atanga's sword. He learned the fundamentals of the Sword Sect. He learned the Sword Saint's sword, saw the executioner's sword, mastered a razor-sharp strike from an evenly matched foe, inherited the Triumphal Sword of the Empire's First Horn, and took in the charge of the Star of Mirth...

Countless people stayed by Najin's side and moved on. Their lives adorned his life. They shone like stars and became footholds for each step he took.

He could see the way.

Najin wove together, in his own way, everything he had realized while learning their techniques. On a solid foundation, he made his own flower bloom.

Dawn Sword.

If the long night was to end and dawn was to come,

Dawn Sword, Cutting Night.

first, the night had to be cut away.

Najin swung himself. He swung his own stars like a single sword. Following the blade's tip as it rose in a diagonal slash from low to high, he heard the sound of something splitting.

Shhk. A cutting sound rang out.

Starlight that began from the very lowest place shot up toward the sky and finally drew a single line across the heavens. At that moment, the falling night sky stopped in place. The night sky could no longer advance, and the Carnival King's True Body shook.

And then.

A sword scar resembling the constellation of the Star of Dawn was carved into the false night sky. Light flooded along that diagonal constellation mark. The overflowing light split the night sky.

It severed, cut apart, drove out the darkness, and ripped the false sky to shreds.

Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!

With surging light, the night sky was cut apart. The lines connecting the Carnival King's stars were severed, and the night sky that was no different from her True Body shattered into pieces. The very concept that formed the star called the Carnival King was denied.

"How...?"

To the demon staring at him in disbelief, Najin said,

"I told you, Carnival King.

I alone am enough to cut you down."

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