WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 350

──────

Skirmish (2)

The Cursed Ones of the Abyss. Once human, they had been swallowed by the Witch of Camlann and transformed into the dead.

Crack, crackcrackcrackcrack!

Watching them move in swarms was like watching a plague of locusts. Hundreds of billions of insects massing together, devouring everything in their path. The only difference was that the creatures doing this were human in shape, dozens of times larger than any insect.

They trampled and gnawed at one another, slamming their heads against the barrier in a desperate push to escape the Abyss. Splat, a skull burst open and stained the curtain dark red, and the next wave of wraiths slammed their heads against it in turn.

Splat. Splat. Splat.

Najin had seen plenty of horrific sights traveling the Outland, and even he found this genuinely jarring.

Still, that was not what held his attention.

Past the Boundary Line. Past the swarm of wraiths.

Deep within, someone was going berserk. The movement was nearly too fast to follow, and even Najin lost track of it for a beat here and there.

"......"

He narrowed his eyes and focused hard. Only then could he keep up.

There was a man in there.

He had thrown himself barehanded into the tide of wraiths. Into a wave numbering in the millions, he dove in and started tearing through them. He burst skulls with his bare fists, wrenched arms free and swung them like clubs, stomped and kicked.

Dark red viscera scattered in every direction.

Chunks of flesh fell like rain, thudding against the man's body. He let out a guttural roar and lifted one foot.

Boom. He stamped the ground.

The earth heaved.

...The Abyss was the graveyard of countless heroes, the burial place of warriors from an age even older than Arthur. And planted through that ground like headstones were the weapons they had once wielded.

Spears, halberds, greatswords, longswords, war hammers, and every kind of polearm besides.

The moment he stamped, the earth lurched, and just as an earthquake sends objects great and small flying into the air, the weapons buried in the ground were flung skyward.

Clack.

He snatched one out of the air. The catch and the swing were a single motion, impossible to separate. The instant he grabbed a spear he was already thrusting it, and the shockwave erupting from its tip pulverized the wraiths in front of him.

When the force snapped the spear, he grabbed something else and did it again.

He showed no preference. Whatever came to hand was fine. Spear, sword, greatsword, hammer, halberd. Every single weapon he touched, he wielded with utter perfection.

The "perfection" being described here was not the kind ordinary knights debated. This was the perfection Transcendents spoke of, the kind of mastery one might expect from someone who had spent an entire lifetime devoted to nothing but that single weapon.

...What is that?

For the first time, Najin doubted his own eyes.

He could handle several weapons decently well besides the sword, but that was firmly in the territory of "capable of using them." It was nothing close to a Transcendent who had spent a lifetime devoted to a single weapon.

But this man was different.

Every weapon, wielded with absolute mastery. Not just holding his own against Transcendents who had spent their whole lives with each one, but utterly overwhelming them.

So who was he?

The answer came from Merlin.

"Sword Demon."

She said it quietly.

"Sword Demon of the Abyss. Siegfried."

Her expression was complicated.

"I mentioned it once before, remember? There was one swordsman who, though not a knight of the Round Table, traveled alongside Arthur until the very end."

"The first Sword Saint."

"Yes. That's Siegfried."

Najin parted his lips.

"Wasn't Siegfried a Sword Master?"

"He was. A thousand years ago."

"Then what is he now?"

Najin pointed into the depths of the Abyss. There was no word like "Sword Master" that could contain whatever that was.

"I don't know."

"...Pardon?"

"I said I don't know. That thing has moved past the point where talking about strength or rank means anything. Some Constellations call it names like Weapon Master, but you'd need someone who actually reached that level to confirm it, and no one has."

A being who had reached a place no one else had.

And so, Merlin said, no one could put a name to that level.

"Even a thousand years ago he was something else entirely. The only human who could stand against Arthur himself, and then that man spent a thousand years in the Abyss without a single day of rest, always fighting..."

A being once equal to Arthur, swinging a sword for a thousand years without pause.

"He ended up becoming a monster and trapping himself in the Abyss, but regardless. This is on a different level."

Merlin bit her lip.

"This situation just got messier than I wanted. I didn't expect Siegfried to have come out this close to the line. He usually rampages much further in. Why is he here?"

She let out a long sigh and muttered to herself.

"The why doesn't matter right now. What matters is how we respond. Bedivere?"

"Yes, Merlin."

"Go ahead."

"Understood."

Merlin gave Bedivere a look.

Bedivere nodded and raised his pennon lance.

Then, boom.

He drove it into the earth and the ground shook. The murmuring voices of the Constellations were swallowed by the vibration. In the momentary quiet that followed, Bedivere spoke.

"Everyone, please fall back."

2.

Bedivere, knight of the Round Table.

A thousand years on, he remained with the Round Table and dedicated himself to humanity. There was no star in existence that did not know his name, and every one of them had heard his story at least once.

"Everyone, please fall back."

The moment Bedivere spoke, the Constellations fell silent and listened.

"Does anyone here carry a legacy tied to dragons, or weapons forged from dragon blood or dragon flesh? If so, please raise your hand."

A few among the Constellations who had stepped back raised their hands.

"Those of you who raised your hand, please withdraw from the battlefield. Your willingness to come here is appreciated, but the Sword Demon of the Abyss has appeared near the Boundary Line."

Sword Demon of the Abyss.

At those words, the color drained from the faces around them. The name's infamy was well known.

"The Sword Demon of the Abyss prioritizes targets connected to dragons above all others. He is fundamentally a being bound to the Abyss, but over the past thousand years there have been instances where, in situations like this one, he temporarily crossed the Boundary Line."

It had happened about five times.

This would be the sixth, and if Siegfried crossed the line, those with any connection to dragons would be his first targets.

"Once that happens, you will need to endure the Sword Demon of the Abyss targeting you for roughly ten minutes. If you are confident in your strength, you are welcome to stay, but personally, I recommend withdrawing."

When Bedivere finished speaking, every Constellation carrying dragon-related legacies or weapons left the battlefield.

"Najin?"

As those who remained prepared for battle, Bedivere approached him.

"If my memory is correct, you once absorbed dragon blood."

"Yes. When I killed the red dragon at Stonehenge, I ended up drenched in its blood."

"And you carry the Dragon Slayer star as well."

Bedivere rubbed his chin and thought it over.

"What will you do?"

He did not pressure Najin.

He only asked.

"Siegfried will target you without fail."

Dragon blood, Dragon Slayer, and Excalibur.

Every single thing that could be called Siegfried's reverse scale, Najin carried. The moment Siegfried crossed the Boundary Line, he would come straight for Najin's throat.

"Once he crosses the line, a binding seal activates and will drag Siegfried back into Camlann within ten minutes. Which also means there is no avoiding those ten minutes."

Siegfried, thrashing and cutting through the seal wound around him, raging. If Najin stayed, he would have to hold out against him for all ten of those minutes.

At that, Najin was quiet for a moment.

To be honest, he was not feeling the full weight of how serious this was. Not out of arrogance, but because Najin was a nine-star Constellation, and there was no longer a Constellation in the Outland who could gain the upper hand against him, aside from Lancelot and Guinevere.

Objectively speaking, Najin was strong.

And he was not here alone. There were at least twenty Constellations still standing on the field, Bedivere among them.

Siegfried was powerful, but holding on for ten minutes rather than actually winning, was that not manageable?

By Najin's standard, that was a reasonable judgment. From Merlin and Bedivere's perspective, it was not. Merlin, who had been quietly listening to his line of thinking, spoke up.

"Things are moving fast, so I'll keep this short."

She looked at him.

"Could you beat me?"

"You right now, Merlin?"

"Not the me standing in front of you. I'm talking about my True Body."

Najin thought back to the Merlin he had seen at her peak inside the Black Spire, and the magic she had unleashed during the campaign against Icarus. Magic she had said was roughly half her True Body's full power. He thought about that, then answered.

"No. Not a chance."

If he staked his life on it, he might be able to take an arm. But winning was something he could not imagine.

"Then picture me in Siegfried's place. Targeted by dozens of Constellations at once, coming at you to kill you. Could you hold on?"

Not easily, Najin thought.

Merlin caught that thought and added:

"Everything I can do, Siegfried can do too."

"......"

"And on top of that he carries an insane sword that cuts through any magic and any mystery, so most things just don't work on him. Only something like Excalibur can actually take a blow from it."

Only then did the full weight of the situation land on him.

"If I don't engage him, what happens?"

"Same thing it's been for the last thousand years."

Merlin said.

"He gets left alone for ten minutes. He runs wild, then gets dragged back into the depths of Camlann."

She estimated the distance with a glance.

"The Boundary Line of Camlann would expand by a few dozen kilometers. The Outland would expand by double that."

Najin knew what happened when the Outland expanded. He was quiet for a moment before he spoke.

"Either way, he's someone I'll have to fight eventually."

"Probably. When you enter Camlann, Siegfried will be the first one to greet you."

"Then I might as well get a feel for him now."

If this was an opponent he had to face someday, and a wall he would inevitably have to clear, experiencing it early was better. Najin made his decision.

"Figured you'd say that."

Merlin let out a breath and gave Bedivere a look. Bedivere added nothing to Najin's decision. He simply nodded, pennon lance in hand.

3.

One by one, the wraiths of Camlann who had been slamming their heads against the barrier began crossing over. They screamed as they broke through, as if fleeing from the Sword Demon of the Abyss.

First one or two, then dozens.

Dozens turned to hundreds.

Hundreds to thousands, ten thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions.

The tide of wraiths surged forward with howling shrieks. The Constellations began intercepting the Cursed Ones of the Abyss as they crossed the line.

Sword slashes flashed. Magic flashed.

Dark red chunks of flesh erupted and rained down. Najin stood at the center of that battlefield where crimson rain fell. He was at the front line, and he reached into empty air.

Flash.

Excalibur was drawn. The moment platinum starlight bloomed in the middle of the battlefield, the wraiths froze for just an instant. The Cursed Ones of the Abyss hated Excalibur. Feared it.

They screamed and threw themselves toward Najin.

Even as they were ground apart by the other Constellations' attacks, they reached out to bury that hateful light.

Shhk.

Of course that was never going to happen. Who could possibly blot out a starlight that even the Witch of the Abyss could not smother? The moment Najin swung his sword, wraiths were cut apart. The platinum starlight burned the Cursed Ones of the Abyss.

Cutting down the wraiths that rushed at him, Najin looked into the interior beyond the Boundary Line.

Inside, wraiths were being swept away there too.

By none other than the Sword Demon of the Abyss.

"The Siegfried of right now makes no distinction between ally and enemy. He attacks everything in sight. Under ordinary circumstances he stays deep in the Abyss, cutting down the Cursed Ones and preventing them from overflowing."

"To maintain the seal Arthur left behind."

"Siegfried sealed himself in the Abyss. He said he would become the force that kept the Abyss's monsters from spilling out."

A thousand years had passed.

Siegfried had forgotten his original purpose. He had become simply another wraith, attacking everything without reason. And as a wraith, he was a terrifyingly powerful existence.

Perhaps even stronger than he had been at his peak, Merlin had said.

Dragon Slayer, Siegfried.

He was not quite Arthur's equal, but there were plenty of legends attached to Siegfried too. The most famous was the tale of the dragon slaying. The story of how he had killed a dragon that could not be killed.

The strategy Najin had used when he killed the red dragon had first been conceived by none other than Siegfried.

A great hero equal to Arthur.

Najin felt a bitter sadness at the fate this kind of hero had been brought to. But this was not the moment to sink into that bitterness.

Najin took his stance.

And.

"......"

-......

Separated by the Boundary Line of the Abyss, Najin and Siegfried's eyes met. The two looked at each other. In that instant, Najin felt as though the world had stopped.

The howling of the Cursed Ones of the Abyss.

The sound of them bursting apart.

The war cries of the Constellations. The crashing explosions of sword slashes and magic colliding and detonating.

All of it receded to an impossibly distant place. It was not an illusion. The dark red blood raining from the sky and the rocks ricocheting off the ground had all come to a halt exactly where they were.

A halted world. Still and silent.

In that silence, Najin and Siegfried moved. Siegfried moved first. He dropped the weapon in his hand. This man who had never once shown preference for any particular weapon let it go, then reached into empty air.

The space around his clenched fist warped.

Space groaned. Twisted. Dark red lightning gathered toward his hand, and then...

Eeeeek, eekeeeeek.

From within the lightning, a sword was drawn.

A sword unique in all the world. A sword that stood in the same position as Excalibur. Different regions called it by slightly different names, but most knew it as this.

Gramr.

A sword whose name meant divine wrath and thunder.

Far larger than any description in legend, the sword was leveled at Najin. In that moment, Najin knew it in his gut.

He's coming.

Thunder rolled across the battlefield.

The Sword Demon of the Abyss was coming.

Glowing-eyed dark figure stands in black smoke holding a massive cruciform sword at rest.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried