WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 420

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Witch (4)

A war of attrition was being forced on him.

Even while swinging his sword, Najin's eyes kept moving.

This is bad.

The enemy was fielding an inexhaustible supply of troops and an undying army, grinding his side down piece by piece. He was holding on for now, but Najin knew he couldn't hold on forever.

And on his end, what tools did he have to grind them down in return?

None. He could charge in without a thought for the consequences and kill Kether, sure. He could shatter the witches' forces, but then the Abyss would swallow him whole.

Merlin...

Was in no position to help him.

Having her come would only complicate things further anyway. The only path forward was for Merlin to restore the binding seal and suppress the Witch of the Abyss.

How long do I need to hold out?

Najin calculated how much time he had to buy. He reached his conclusion almost immediately. Not like this. At this rate, his side would be devoured first. He couldn't hold out this way.

No reinforcements to expect from outside, either.

The Abyss had become a vast prison locking him in. He had to fight through this alone. He needed a different approach, some way to break the situation open.

A different approach.

Even as he kept swinging, Najin's eyes swept rapidly across his surroundings. He took in everything within sight, searching for another option. The movements of the witches, the flow of the enemy forces, the twisted, warped environment of the Abyss...

The Abyss. The environment.

That phrase snagged in his mind. The Abyss had a unique environment. And that uniqueness didn't apply only to him. A bolt of realization shot through Najin's thoughts.

Ah.

The most frightening thing in the Abyss was the witch, but with the witch sealed, the most dangerous thing here was something else entirely. The moment that thought clicked into place, Najin made his decision. A single move had come to him, one that could flip the entire board.

Thoom.

Driving his foot into the ground, Najin swung the most powerful strike he could manage.

Dawn Sword, Cutting Night.

Three days' worth of mana and starlight poured out in a single chunk. But it was worth it. The witches' formation caught in the Dawn Sword's sweep fell apart. The beasts of the Abyss were swept away, opening a gap, and the thick fog blanketing the area cleared in an instant.

The gap it created.

The line of sight it secured.

Najin saw it. Far in the distance, a flash of light, a brief glimpse of something reacting to the constellation he had carved into the sky. What to do next was obvious.

Boom.

Najin kicked off the ground and started running. An all-out sprint. Not toward the outside of the Abyss, but deeper in. Even Kether was thrown off by the sight of him charging inward.

Skreeeeeee!

Hundreds of heat rays split apart and chased after him. Magic fired at the speed of light blasted his back, then pounded the ground ahead of him. The earth burst open, clouds of dirt shot skyward, and explosions rang out one after another.

Crash!

And Najin punched straight through all of it. Deflecting only the lethal strikes, he kept running. Blood ran from wounds where heat rays had torn through him, but he did not stop.

What is he aiming for?

Kether's objective was simple: destabilize or outright destroy the binding seal containing the Witch of the Abyss. She had two ways to do that.

One, drive the human into mortal danger and force Merlin to descend to this location.

Two, push him deeper into the Abyss.

Either one succeeding would shake the binding seal further and let her mother recover her strength. There was no way the human didn't know that, so why was he sprinting straight toward the heart of the Abyss? Kether could not read his intent at all.

Clink.

Jaw clenched, she chose to give chase. Time was on her side. The longer this dragged on, the better her position became.

She had no intention of letting fleeing prey escape.

2.

The pursuit continued for some time, Najin running, the witches chasing. On the ground, forces swept across the land like a black tide. In the sky, the witches poured magic down on him without pause.

After a long while of this.

Kether had begun to genuinely fear what Najin was. The fact that he was still going, that even in a situation this overwhelmingly in her favor...

Chaaaaaaash!

One moment of carelessness and everything could flip, and that thought frightened her. He looked like he was just sprinting straight ahead, but the instant Kether's flight altitude dropped even slightly, he wheeled around and slashed.

Fpt.

The sword energy grazing her ear made Kether's skin crawl. Still. Terrifyingly sharp. He should be exhausted by now and showed no sign of it. His body was bleeding from magical wounds, burned and pierced all over, and yet those eyes stayed clear.

What on earth.

What kind of person is he.

The human carried ten stars. And even that despicable King Arthur, when she had ten stars, had not been able to put on a display like this alone.

Alone, single-handed, one person...

Facing the entire Abyss by himself. Kether was nearly speechless. At the same time, she was certain. He had to die here. If he gained more stars, if he grew any stronger than this, she would no longer be able to contain him.

She poured magic onto him without pause.

She drove at Najin without letting her guard drop for a second.

And then, at last, Najin's speed began to slow. Had he run out of stamina? Were the accumulated injuries catching up? Whatever the reason, the fact that he was slowing was what mattered.

Krrrrk, clank!

Kether did not let her guard down even now. The moment Najin slowed, she engaged her circles. The interlocking circles ground against each other like gear teeth, spinning with a grating, unnatural sound.

Now.

While the monster of a human was finally exhausted, this was her chance. The crown on her head blazed deep red. At the same moment, the bodies of the witches escorting her burst into flame.

Eight witches, each carrying eight stars, went up in fire.

Kether stripped away their mana and circles entirely and fused them into her own. What took shape from that was the most powerful magic she possessed.

Kreeeeeee!

Ten stars and ten circles.

Fueled further by the burning sacrifice of eight witches, the spell blazed with even greater power. A magic comparable in force to Merlin's original spells came to light.

Good.

Drawing the vast current of magical force with her, Kether took aim at Najin. Even if Merlin arrived late, even she would have to absorb considerable damage. Stopping this spell without any preparation would be impossible.

She might even be able to kill Merlin along with him. The corners of Kether's mouth split wide.

And at that moment.

Najin turned around. Had he been waiting for this exact moment, when she was building her most powerful strike? The fact that he had been looking for a chance to counter-attack all the way to the very end genuinely impressed her. Yes, if he cut her down now, she might fall too.

But I won't be the only one falling.

They would die together. His sword cutting her and her magic burning him to nothing would happen at the same time.

Unique magic, Execution by Fire.

This was not a spell unique to Kether alone but one shared by the entire witch race. In the inner world of every witch existed burn scars from a fire, and from those scars they drew their memory of scorching flame.

The most agonizing fire, one that nothing could extinguish, that would burn them until the very moment of death.

The sky you look up at while burning is red. Everything is red. That redness was what they gave form to in their magic. The instant Kether swept her fingers through the air, a wave of fire flooded out. Flame that would burn everything came rolling in.

And standing before that wave of fire.

Najin swung his sword lightly. Not toward Kether, but toward the sky. At the tip of the blade, a single star blazed with fierce intensity.

What is he...

Kether couldn't understand it. In that final, ultimate moment, she met the eyes of Najin as he looked her way and twisted his lips into a grin, and a chill ran through her.

What could that star be.

She looked at it. She glimpsed the story and concept contained within the star.

Dragon-slaying star.

The instant those words surfaced in her mind, Kether's eyes went wide. Every sense she had stood on end.

Ah.

Only then did Kether understand Najin's intent. Why he had sprinted into the depths of the Abyss. Why he was still smiling at the very end. She understood all of it.

And as always.

By the time she understood, it was far too late.

"Every..."

The moment Kether tried to say something to the witches, her voice and the telepathic message she was spreading to them were swallowed up by the Thunderclap that drove down into the battlefield a moment later.

3.

Light comes first, and sound follows.

A dark crimson flash erupted in the middle of the battlefield. The thunder that rolled out afterward split every other sound apart.

Boom.

It was not only sound that split.

The fire blanketing the ground, the net Kether had spread across the sky, the protective wards, the wave of flame that had been flooding toward Najin, even the landscape itself.

All of it cracked apart in a single instant.

Kether's magic was undeniably powerful. Even with Merlin present, it was not something that could be stopped without preparation.

But that was mage logic, and nothing more. There existed in this land of the Abyss something to which mage logic simply did not apply.

"The natural enemy of mages," Merlin had once said.

"A mage can never beat him. How could they? No matter how painstakingly built a spell might be, in front of that man it tears apart like paper."

He was the natural enemy of all mages.

"...Ha."

Kether let out a hollow laugh. She stared at the being who had appeared on the battlefield with the lightning.

Something that reacted to Excalibur's starlight and to anything connected to dragons. Something no one could control, now regarded as little more than a natural phenomenon, the most unpredictable existence in the Abyss.

Sword Demon of the Abyss, Siegfried.

The mad Sword Saint had arrived. And the Sword Demon was hostile to every living thing on the field. The moment Siegfried appeared, silence settled over the battlefield.

"......"

Witches, beasts, every last one of them instinctively shut their mouths. In the strange silence that held, Siegfried slowly raised his head. His dark flame-like hair shifted. In the place where eyes should have been, white flames burned and wavered.

A true master swordsman keeps within their sight whatever they intend to cut.

Siegfried looked. He took in the witches flying through the sky, the beasts crawling across the ground, the Knights of Death, the cursed things of the Abyss, the net the witches had woven across the sky, everything existing around him came within his sight.

If it was within his sight, he would cut it. That was all.

The several-meter sword wreathed in dark crimson lightning moved. The sword that could cut through anything lifted in the hands of the swordsman who could cut through anything. The instant a beast, overcome by fear, screamed, Siegfried's form blinked out of existence.

Boom.

Lightning struck. A sword swung like lightning.

Kreeeeeeeeeee!

The sound of space being twisted rang out. Dark crimson lightning, divine wrath, swept across the ground. When you closed your eyes and opened them again, the beasts of the Abyss had all been turned to ash.

Creak, creak...

Siegfried's body produced a grotesque sound. His muscles expanded and contracted in rapid pulses. Steam hissed up from his flesh.

Flash.

The moment the white glare of Siegfried's eyes contracted, he let out a roar and slammed his foot down. The ground shook. The air in the area surged violently.

"Son of a..."

Kether swallowed the rest of it. The tide of battle had turned. The careful trap she had built was overturned entirely. She made her decision: first, put distance between them.

Put some distance, and then next, what next...

As she desperately tried to think of her next move and shot upward to gain altitude fast.

Thud.

Someone landed on Kether's broom. Eyes wide at the lurch beneath her, Kether turned her head around to find someone standing there.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Najin. Lips curled up, Najin stood at her back and looked at her.

The moment lightning struck and Siegfried appeared.

Najin, who had known in advance that he was coming, used the instant every eye turned to Siegfried to move. He slipped past the frozen witches, vaulted off the broom, and closed the distance to Kether.

Threading into blind spots was Najin's specialty.

"You should have been watching your surroundings."

Before the flustered Kether could react, Najin drove his foot into her back in a hard, shoving kick.

Crack.

The kick sent Kether plummeting toward the ground. He didn't bother cutting her down, because Kether now needed to buy him time.

From who?

From that monster. Najin had chosen to run from Siegfried instead of running from the witch. Kether stared up at him with wide, furious eyes as she fell.

"You little..."

Najin flashed her a grin. He had no intention of being honorable when dealing with someone like her. If she was going to fight this way, he would simply fight dirtier.

Leaving Kether to fall, Najin leaped.

He kicked off the ground and started running at full speed. Almost the same moment Najin moved, Siegfried swung his sword. Najin didn't look back, but he felt it.

Every last thing in the area being cut apart.

There were no longer prey and hunter on this field. Before a disaster of this scale, they were all nothing but sacrificial lambs.

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