WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 354

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Skirmish (6)

Even magic that appears all-powerful has its limits.

Most magic draws on the surrounding environment, and creating something from absolute nothing is no easy feat. Transcendents enjoy a certain freedom from that constraint, of course, but even then, there are degrees.

The most renowned Constellations of the Outland could not comprehend what was unfolding before their eyes.

That's magic? Really?

A sea had appeared without warning in the middle of the battlefield. The ground had become a water's surface, and beneath it lay a deep ocean with no visible bottom. The abyss pulled at Siegfried, dragging him toward oblivion.

There was nothing conventionally magical about this spell. Whether it even deserved to be called magic at all was debatable, it simply crushed its target with overwhelming mass.

Every eye on the battlefield turned toward the woman who had cast it.

White hair with a blue sheen fell loose around her. Skin pale to the point of being ghostly, eyes a deep blue, she had a mysterious air that called to mind the fairies of old heroes' tales and folk stories.

Staff of Selection, Merlin.

The mage the witches called a nightmare. The being who had buried the race beloved by magic, with magic itself. The Constellations held their breath before her power, and then one among them let out a short, quiet sigh.

"Ah, over there..."

A pillar of light surged upward. A single flash shot from the very bottom of the abyss toward the sky. From one it became ten. Ten became a hundred, a hundred a thousand, then ten thousand, growing without end.

Only then did they understand.

Every last one of those was sword energy.

One sword cleaved the sea. The surface heaved, then erupted in a pillar of water. Through the spray of scattered droplets, he forced himself above the surface. Even a bottomless abyss could not hold him.

Not even that could stop him?

What more was there left to do?

Constellations who had poured out their full strength were collapsing one by one. But one figure had not fallen. A star dragged its battered body forward and kept walking.

Boom.

Najin had started running the moment Siegfried resurfaced. Now he kicked off the ground and accelerated. Trailing platinum sword energy with his sword held sharp and ready, he cut across the battlefield, and to the watching Constellations he looked like a single meteor streaking through the sky.

"That guy..."

Anton Quijano, pressing the stump of his severed arm to slow the bleeding, blinked.

"Was he always that bright?"

Even normally, the light from Excalibur and the platinum sword energy made Najin look like a meteor whenever he crossed a battlefield. But to Anton's eyes, the Najin of always and the Najin right now felt different somehow.

How to put it into words.

It was not just the sword energy or Excalibur. It was more like the body itself was glowing.

2.

This was the chance. A chance that would never come again.

Kicking off the ground, Najin opened his eyes wide. He could see droplets spraying upward. They fell like rain in slow, languid arcs. The instant he took a step, the drops that touched his face let out a sizzling hiss and evaporated.

One step.

He pressed his foot to the ground and launched off it in the same motion. The rate at which the scenery blurred past grew a little faster. His body creaked and screamed from accumulated injuries, but Najin clenched his teeth and pushed through.

Eight minutes since the battle began.

Dozens of Constellations had poured out their full strength just to buy those eight minutes. Two more minutes remained on the clock, but no strength was left in those Constellations to endure them. Najin knew that.

So.

It had to happen now. Not anyone else.

Me.

What he needed right now was speed.

Speed enough to catch the man in front of him. But Najin knew his own limits. Matching that man's speed at this point was impossible.

The years that had gone into their training were different. Siegfried had killed countless dragons and tempered his body through each one, and he stood dozens of steps ahead of Najin.

Not yet. Not able to catch up.

He accepted that. But acceptance was not the same as standing still. Najin drove his body harder, ignoring the creaking at its speed limit.

Just a little more.

In the slowed-down world, Siegfried was beginning to move. At this rate, he would be too late. Before Najin could reach him, Siegfried would swing first, forcing him to shift from attack to defense.

One moment. One chance is all it takes.

Thud.

Even just once.

The limit. A line drawn before him appeared in Najin's eyes, a line only he could see. Standing before it, Najin broke into a grin. Because when a line appeared, the only thing to do was cross it. That was how he had always lived.

Thud.

He stepped on the line and pushed one foot forward. In that instant, pain like every bone in his body shattering hit him at once. Muscles tore. His vision flooded red as blood vessels burst.

Crack, crack-crack-crack-crack...

Sparks flew before his eyes. Watching those sparks in a moment stretched thin, Najin thought.

A state where the sword feels like part of your own body.

A realm said to be reached by only an extreme few, even among Transcendents.

The Unity of Body and Sword.

Najin had once set foot in that state before. It had been thanks to Excalibur's unique nature, but the memory of it still lived in him, and now lightning crackled through his mind.

If the sword is me.

Blood sprayed from the wounds torn open. In those drops of blood, platinum particles flickered.

Then I, too, can become a sword.

The thought came without intention.

For one fleeting instant, Najin reached that state.

Tick, ti-ti-ti-tick...

The mana circulating through his entire body accelerated as if detonating. Just as Excalibur released particles of light through Emission, platinum particles burst from Najin's body. With each step, the platinum particles exploding outward drove him forward.

Swwwwwwweeee!

A burst of acceleration. Najin's body shot forward at a speed even he could not perceive.

...This was an insight gained without conscious thought.

As such things tend to go, it evaporated almost immediately. What he had managed to sustain was, at most, a single step. After that one step, his body returned to its normal state.

But that one step changed everything.

Najin's movement, accelerated for just that instant, made Siegfried take a defensive stance for the first time. For just that instant, Najin was one move ahead of him.

One step.

The last burst of acceleration. Najin's sword moved.

A grand motion like Triumph or Cutting Night was out of the question, those were techniques for cutting the enemy down, which made them wrong for this situation anyway. Najin could not cut Siegfried down, not right now.

So what technique should he use?

One to send him away.

A technique to push the enemy, to hurl him into the abyss. The most fitting one that came to mind was Horn Charge. He had always used it exactly as Crünbell taught him, but now that he was a complete Transcendent, that was no longer necessary.

He refined the Horn Charge, the breathing, the footwork, the way the body moved, the force of a storm wrapped around it, honing the technique itself to a sharper edge, and then he reshaped it into something suited to him.

Conveniently, there was a fine model right in front of him. Najin broke down the movement of Siegfried, who had been charging like a single bolt of lightning, and corrected it to fit his own body.

The technique was complete.

The moment Najin thrust his sword forward, the air split along the blade's edge. Where the original Horn Charge gathered power in place before launching the weapon, Najin threw his sword forward with the full momentum of his charge behind it.

Normally that would have shattered his balance, but his superhuman sense of balance held what was crumbling together by force and completed the technique.

Najin crashed into Siegfried, who had raised his three-meter sword like a shield. The moment the blade met the flat of Gramr, a shockwave erupted together with an immense wave of heat. The ground split, and the falling rain evaporated in the heat.

For the first time, Siegfried was pushed back.

The moment one of his feet lifted off the ground as he stumbled, Najin twisted his sword. The storm coiled around the blade was released, and Excalibur's blade shone like a star.

Emission.

Najin released every last bit of starlight he had accumulated. The battlefield, sunk in darkness from its proximity to the abyss, blazed bright in an instant. Starlight erupted from the darkness and flooded everything.

The storm wrapped in starlight slammed into Siegfried.

The sight came first. The sound followed late.

Crash-crack-crack-crack-crash!

A thunderous roar split the air and the ground fractured. His body lifted off the earth and caught in the storm, Siegfried was fired like a cannonball. The storm plowed across the battlefield, tearing up the ground, then struck the Boundary Line of the abyss.

Carried by the storm, Siegfried was hurled to the inner side of the Boundary Line. The eight minutes had only just barely passed, but the moment he crossed inside, chains erupted from all directions and bound his body.

Crash-crash-clank!

Siegfried roared and cut, sliced, and swept through the sealing formations wrapping around him, but his feet came to a stop before the Boundary Line at last. His body would not obey him, worn down by accumulated injuries.

The tattoos carved into his flesh blazed a deep, burning red.

As if vomiting unspent rage, he began to thrash wildly inside Camlann. But before long, even that sight disappeared.

The black fog dense throughout Camlann, the Black Mist, swallowed him. Only the sound of what seemed like lightning crackling inside the fog continued to echo out at intervals.

"Urk, cough."

Najin spat out a mouthful of blood and let his arms hang limp. He no longer had the strength to grip his sword. Fighting to keep his eyes open, he kept watching Siegfried until the very end.

If this was not over yet, he would have to move again immediately. Standing there with clenched teeth, refusing to let go of the sword, Najin only released it when the sounds of Siegfried thrashing could no longer be heard.

"Kgh, cough..."

His eyes closed. His body felt impossibly heavy.

Najin vomited blood and crumpled where he stood.

The backlash from moving past his limits.

3.

Najin blinked slowly. The area around him was bright. It seemed he had returned to the continent rather than the Outland, but his head felt thick and slow.

He must have been out for quite a while. How long had it been since he stayed unconscious this long?

In his estimation, the Emission was probably the main cause. Pouring out every last bit of starlight stored in his body and his sword would naturally lead to total exhaustion, and he had even drawn on the starlight meant for regeneration, which had slowed his recovery enough that waking up took this long.

His vision was blurry.

It cleared only after blinking a couple of times. The first thing that came into focus was someone perched on the edge of his bed, staring down at him. Sensing that Najin had opened his eyes, the figure leaned in.

Sitting on the bed's edge, she tilted toward him. Her upper body inclined, her face drew close, and her hair fell forward.

Rustle.

White hair shot through with blue light tumbled down over Najin's face. Through the curtain of swaying strands, he met her gaze.

She was beautiful.

Enough that even Najin's attention was stolen for a moment.

A beat later, he recognized who was looking back at him. Merlin. It was Merlin, but not the Merlin he knew. She looked much older, closer to how Merlin must have appeared in her past.

Long hair that rippled down like waves. None of the mischief or easy carelessness Merlin normally had; in its place was an impression that was precarious and cool, almost cold.

By the time he had confirmed that much, Najin was certain.

Ah. This is a dream.

Am I seeing Arthur's memories again? While that thought crossed his mind, the Merlin staring at him made a displeased expression. Then she reached out and tapped his forehead, lightly.

"It's not a dream."

Najin blinked.

Merlin let her long hair hang loose and leaned her face a little closer to his.

"I said it's not a dream."

Blue eyes visible through long lashes stared steadily at him.

"Merlin?"

"Yeah, it's me. Your guide."

Only then did Merlin smile. When she smiled, she looked exactly like the Merlin Najin knew.

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