WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 419

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Witch (3)

Not every battle can be honorable.

That is simply the way of things. Not every opponent comes at you face to face, one on one, and expecting chivalry from those who are not knights would be foolish.

Ambushes. Assassinations. Sheer numbers. Traps. Every underhanded scheme imaginable. The world is full of people who will do anything to win.

'A true knight.'

And a great knight is someone who can shatter those schemes head-on. Meeting treachery with treachery is not the way. Smashing the enemy's plans with sheer boldness, that is a knight's virtue.

Najin knew this.

He had lived by it.

Up until now, no matter what an opponent had prepared, he had broken through it straight on. He willingly stepped onto their stage and fought the way they wanted him to fight.

'But.'

That only applied when the opponent was human.

"......"

Najin looked ahead. Demon beasts of the Abyss filled his view. Witches who lived like animals. Puppets stripped of their selves, driven by the witches like tools.

Not human. Any of them.

They were the limbs of a witch walking a corrupt path.

Dialogue was something you shared with fellow human beings. Respect was something you extended to fellow human beings. Najin was not foolish enough to preach honor to creatures that were not human.

Spin. Grip.

He readjusted his hold on the sword, loosened his fingers around the hilt, and narrowed his eyes. Squinting up at the sky, the witches spread across the upper air like a net came into view.

There was no winning without tearing that net apart.

So first, tear the net.

The method was nothing special. No matter how dense a net looks, there is always a spot where the knots are loose. Najin found the weak point. A familiar face was there, but he had no time to spare for that.

He kicked off the ground.

Just a short time ago he had been fighting Fafnir, who flew several hundred meters in the air. These witches, hovering at a mere few dozen meters, felt close enough to touch.

Tap.

His foot landed on the tip of a long broom, the kind the witches rode. The broom shuddered slightly under his weight, and his body swayed with it.

Shk.

A quiet slicing sound. Ermina's body split apart. She had borrowed the power of the crown and the Abyss to recover the strength she had possessed as a Transcendent, but she was no match for Najin now.

Shhhhhhk!

Blood erupted like a fountain from the cut. The broom lurched again, and Najin, who had driven straight into the weakest point of the net, began springing from broom to broom.

The witches' brooms were his stepping stones.

Each landing and each leap happened almost simultaneously, and slipping a sword stroke in between was no difficulty for him at all.

Shk.

Three leaps, three strokes. Three witches fell. The higher-ranked witches could not be cut down in a single blow, so he dropped the weakest ones first.

'Because.'

That was how you made a gap.

Ripple.

A hole opened in the dense net. Najin exhaled shortly and fixed his gaze on it. Riderless brooms plummeted below him; crouching on top of one, he waited.

Kreeeeek, clack!

Completed spells fired toward him. Interlocked circles blazed in the air and poured out light. The magic of witches, a race beloved by it, came for him all at once. For an instant Najin's vision was stained with dozens of colors.

Spells of every shape and hue burst like fireworks.

All of it aimed at him. Najin uncoiled from his crouch.

Acceleration.

In an instant his silhouette vanished from the witches' sight. Too fast for even Transcendent eyes to track. Their gazes swept frantically across the sky.

"Ghk......"

One witch choked on a stifled breath. A platinum blade was buried in the back of her neck. The blade drew straight upward.

Shk.

Through the blood bursting from a skull split vertically, an afterimage flickered past. That afterimage moved to the next witch, the one who had been watching.

"Ah, ugh......"

She could not even scream. The blade had skewered her open mouth mid-spell. The root of her tongue was severed. Platinum starlight burned it away.

Thud.

The broom she rode shuddered once and fell. With every broom that dropped, Najin climbed a little higher. He soared toward the first witch, Kether, who held the highest point in the net.

Spells chased after him, but he had no intention of entertaining them.

He slipped past.

With minimal movement he widened the gaps between the spells and threaded his body through. The magic the witches had launched became a smokescreen that blocked their own view.

Thwam!

Bursting through the flames, Najin slammed into a witch and cut her in two. Before the scattered blood could reach him, he leaped again.

......It was not the sword of a knight.

He looked more like an assassin. A continuous sequence of movements restrained to the point of severity, nothing wasted. With those spare motions alone, the witches' bodies were being split apart.

"......"

The first witch, Kether, watched Najin coming straight for her. Her eyes alone tracked him, if slowly.

Just as Najin was about to drive his blade into one witch's head, Kether snapped her fingers.

Snap.

The body of the witch he was about to strike exploded without warning. Every drop of mana she possessed converted instantly into destructive force and swallowed him whole.

Kwaaaaaaang!

The brooms lurched at the blast. Najin's body plunged down through the flames and hit the ground.

"Ha."

He landed in a skidding slide and let out a short, disbelieving laugh. As if he genuinely had not imagined anyone would do something like that.

"I figured she treated her own kind so preciously that she had to take it out on humans......"

He spat blood.

"Guess not. Watching her throw her own people away like that."

She had sacrificed one of her own to attack him. That crown must be what made it possible. Najin exhaled and looked up. Kether looked back down at him without expression.

"It seems you have forgotten, human."

Kether tilted her head.

"This is the Abyss."

She flicked a finger. The witch whose body had just exploded began reassembling itself in midair. The crown fitted to her head had survived intact, and around that crown the witch regenerated.

A matter of seconds.

That was all it took for the witch who had blown herself apart, and dealt Najin real damage, to come back whole.

"In the Abyss, no one can die without Mother's permission, and Mother has not permitted us to die."

Kether pointed skyward with a sneer. Three Blight Stars floated there, glowing a deep, dark red.

"Beneath Mother's stars, we do not die."

The witches Najin had cut down began regenerating as well. Their restored eyes were vacant, no reason in them. The body regenerated first; the soul lagged behind.

Incomplete regeneration. Unable to cast spells properly.

But there was still something they could do. The crowns Kether had fitted to their heads flashed.

Shreeeeeeeeek!

They charged at Najin astride their brooms. The moment the gap closed, Kether snapped her fingers. The witches' bodies swelled and exploded.

Kwaaaaaaaaaaaang!

Fire bloomed with the blast.

Waiting for Najin when he tore through that explosion: dozens of witches overhead with their spells trained on him, and demon beasts of the Abyss charging from the ground.

An undying army.

A force that would not stay dead came crashing down on him.

2.

The battle wore on. Najin ground his teeth.

He had known it would be hard. He had known, but what unfolded before him was worse than he had imagined. A witch that came back to life in seconds, no matter how many times he cut her down?

There was the constraint that they could not cast spells immediately after regenerating, but...

'Even that is not much of a constraint.'

Because of Kether.

He could not work out the mechanism, but Kether could make the witches self-destruct with a single gesture, converting all their mana to explosive force at once. Those explosions were a genuine threat to him.

While alive, they pressured him with every spell they had. On the verge of death, they detonated and threw him back.

And even detonation was not their final move. A few seconds later they were back, and the moment they returned they flung themselves at him and exploded again, endlessly.

He almost had to laugh.

Infinite revival. Mana restored each time. So the explosions never stopped. As long as the Blight Stars hung in the sky and Kether was alive, this would go on forever.

'Is this even real.'

It was cheating. He felt like he was fighting an opponent who had simply bent the rules. He did know how to permanently kill the undying witches, of course. But to do it...

Not enough time.

Damaging a witch's star and breaking its concept would kill her completely, but he could not do that while being chased by hundreds, thousands of enemies at once.

"......Phew."

He caught his breath. The muddy ground sucked at his feet. Spells rained down without pause, and witches ready to turn themselves into bombs came at him from every direction.

The ground was no different.

They could regenerate and fight forever. Najin could not. He had an end point.

'Starlight is being consumed. Mana is running low.'

Even just resisting the curse saturating the Abyss kept burning through his starlight. If the battle continued like this, all of Najin's starlight would be gone within three days.

'When that happens, it's over.'

The Abyss swallows him.

A war of attrition was being forced on him.

"......"

Kether knew that too. She never moved herself. From the highest point she looked down at Najin and directed the other witches.

She knew that if she kept grinding him down, she would win. Even now the wounds on his body were accumulating. There was no need to rush. If things continued like this, that human would simply exhaust himself and collapse.

......And yet, for some reason.

Kether could not shake a sense of unease. Her mother did not expect her to win at all. The greatest witch was whispering in her ear.

"Your role is not victory."

"You can never win."

Why, she asked. The Witch of the Abyss laughed and answered.

"Your purpose is to make the poor little faerie move. Steal that child's breathing room, drive him into a corner, and she will certainly come out."

Kether knew which faerie was meant.

She clenched her teeth hard enough to crack them.

'Merlin.'

The dreadful being who had defeated her a thousand years ago and massacred her kind. She turned the name over in her mind.

The Witch of the Abyss was saying it plainly.

Your purpose is to make Merlin move. Merlin, who is right now suppressing your seal, your purpose is to make her come here.

Crack.

That is the best you can do. You can never kill that human. The Witch of the Abyss whispered it. Kether shook her head. No. She could kill him. She could win.

'Beneath Mother's blessing, we do not die.'

This was different from back then. Not the Outland but the Abyss, here, even if Merlin came, she could win.

Flash.

Kether kept pressing Najin without letting her guard slip. Certainly, he was an astonishingly strong human. He had held on for a long time even against this volume of assault.

Splitting spells. Ripping holes in the net. Cutting the self-detonating witches apart one step before they could explode. He charged across the battlefield as if reading several moves ahead.

Kwaaaaaaang!

He leaped high into the sky and came crashing down, literally grinding the Abyss beasts apart. Scattering platinum arcs, he slaughtered everything that came near.

Chunks of flesh flew. Demon beasts that grazed his scattered sword energy were split apart without a sound. Witches caught in the pressure wave were torn to shreds. And as time went on, he was not slowing down. He was getting faster.

Shaaaaaaaaaak!

Eyes shot through with red, holding an army at bay alone, it was enough to send a chill through anyone watching.

'But.'

It was not enough. That human did not carry the kind of "something special" she had felt from Siegfried and Arthur. There was nothing in sight that could overturn the tide. No variables.

That was Kether's judgment, and in that moment.

Their eyes met. Through the countless armies, through the witches, Najin's gaze cut a straight line directly to Kether. The instant their eyes connected, she felt a strange sensation, as if her heart had been seized in a fist.

Like standing in a line of fire.

The vast armies, the countless obstacles, the dozens of layered defensive spells the witches had erected, for just an instant it felt as if every single one of them had vanished.

And Najin.

Raised his foot and drove it into the ground. The earth shuddered. The beasts charging toward him were caught in the tremor and froze, and in that moment Najin angled his sword downward on a diagonal.

Something was coming.

Something was coming.

"......!"

Kether swept her arm. The crowns on the witches' heads blazed bright red as they threw themselves in front of her. She shifted from offense to defense. Dozens more layers of defensive spells stacked atop the dozens already there.

A judgment made on a flash of instinct.

And that judgment was correct.

The sword Najin had angled down began to glow. Ten stars blazed with an eye-searing light, and several afterimages overlapped across his body. The moment those afterimages became one, Najin moved. The sword that had been pointing down swung toward the sky.

A sword path shaped like a constellation cut through the witches.

Even having seen it coming, Kether could not resist it. Her eyes trembled.

Dawn Sword.

In the heart of the Abyss.

Cutting Night.

A sword stroke that cut through the night exploded outward.

3.

Platinum sword energy split the battlefield in two.

Kether saw it.

Every demon beast of the Abyss surrounding Najin evaporated. The heat born from his stars burned them all away, and the sword energy that swallowed that heat and launched forward carved a single line across the battlefield.

One stroke.

Before a sword stroke that shot in a straight line from earth to sky, the witches' resistance was meaningless.

Shk.

The witches' bodies split apart. Hundreds of layers of defensive spells were shredded all the same. The witches swept up in the pressure wave fell, and the witches the sword energy grazed could not regenerate in time.

Sword energy shaped like a constellation clawed at the sky.

Platinum sword energy cleaved the darkness.

But unlike in the Outland, it could not carve stars into the sky. The darkness it split closed up again almost immediately. The night of the Abyss was too deep to cut through. As Najin was now, he could not sever the night.

"......Ah."

Kether looked at her own body. She had sacrificed dozens of witches to manage it, twisted aside just in time. As a result, she had lost only one arm.

She clutched the stump and dragged in a shaking breath.

She had almost died.

If she had not twisted away she would have died. If that stroke aimed directly at her had caught her, she would have fallen too. Kether clenched her teeth and glared at Najin.

'But.'

Your trump card failed too. I was not cut, and you are growing more exhausted. She leveled her hand at Najin, who was visibly drained in the wake of the technique.

'Just a little more. A little more and it's done.'

It should be.

'And yet.'

Why was that human not trembling with fear?

"......"

What Kether saw was Najin looking around him. Even with his breath ragged, he was checking something, as if Dawn Sword, Cutting Night had been a setup for something else entirely. As if his real purpose lay elsewhere.

And then, with a short exhale.

Najin smiled. He smiled in a situation like this. Kether did not understand what that smile meant. The action he took next was equally incomprehensible to her.

Tap.

All at once, Najin kicked off the ground and started running.

Not toward the edge of the Abyss. Deeper in.

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