I Pulled Out the Excalibur - Chapter 501

WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Chapter 501: The End, an End to Everything (1)

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Dawn Sword, Cutting Night.

For a moment, Najin doubted his own eyes. A technique that had become his very symbol was unfolding from his opponent's fingertips. The Sword Aura dropping like a guillotine looked astonishingly like Najin's own sword.

‘How?’

It was not some slash imitated through magic. The Witch had effortlessly recreated a sharply honed Sword Aura, the kind only Swordsmen who had devoted their whole lives to the sword could possess. Gritting his teeth, Najin immediately lowered his blade.

Dawn Sword, Cutting Night.

He answered with the same technique. The two streams of Sword Aura cancelled each other out, scattering light as though it had exploded, yet Najin was shaken by the fact that they had cancelled out at all.

Imitations were supposed to be weaker. Yet there was no sign of that in the Witch's technique.

"Didn't I tell you?"

She raised both arms.

"You cannot kill me with something that already exists. Anything you can do, I can do just the same. Like this."

Something rose above the surface of the night sea beneath the Witch's feet.

Stars.

Stars covered in dark crimson veins began to rise one after another over the night sea. At first there was one. Then, when he blinked, there were ten. When he looked around, hundreds, then thousands of stars had risen.

Stars steeped in darkness and stained black.

Stars caught by Blight Stars draped over them like a net.

They were not the Witch's stars. They were the stars of the Constellations that had vanished into darkness when the Witch opened her eyes. Every star that existed in this land, and every star that had existed in the past, was here.

The Witch stretched out her hand and lightly tapped one.

Tap.

The star pushed by her touch bumped into another star. That star struck yet another, and it continued over and over.

Tap, tap-tap-tap, tap.

Constellations collided with each other. Stars mixed with stars, and the balance of the heavens vanished. Tilting her head amid that imbalance, the Witch spoke.

"The sky was mine from the beginning."

Tap.

"Just because you settled here while the owner was away from her land, did you think this place became yours? Perhaps it was for the past thousand years, but now that the owner has returned..."

The Witch lightly swung a star.

"It is mine."

If someone had planted crops and built structures on land while its owner was away, who did it belong to?

The Witch said that once the rightful owner returned, it all belonged to the owner.

And so the owner could do with it as she pleased.

Demolish it. Use it. Burn it.

That was for the owner of the land to decide, and the Witch chose to do all of it. She crushed the stars, forcibly wielded their power, and burned the Authority contained within them.

Every star set in the sky began to shine.

Not with platinum light, but with the dark crimson glow of Blight Stars.

The Witch could wield everything humanity had built as a weapon. Because it had originally all been hers. She had no reason to seek anyone's permission to use what belonged to her.

"...Ha."

A hollow laugh escaped Najin.

He was facing the entire world. All the wisdom, knowledge, and techniques humanity had accumulated over tens of thousands of years.

And on top of that,

the Witch herself, who possessed thirteen Blight Stars.

「Let there be stars.」

「And so the first stars were born.」

As if recreating a scene from myth, the Blight Stars poured out light.

Blight Stars, the stars that symbolized the Witch.

There had always been apostles throughout history who borrowed the power of Blight Stars, but Morgan was the only person known to possess a star classified as a Blight Star.

That was only true of recorded history.

There was also unrecorded history.

A story only Najin knew.

Najin knew of two cases, Yuel and Merlin. He had encountered Blight Stars twice before meeting the Witch, and once, he had even fought Merlin while she wielded their power.

Through those experiences, Najin had come to understand how the power of Blight Stars worked.

‘A Blight Star is the end of all things.’

Nothing in this land was eternal. A beginning foretold an end, and life guaranteed death. Where civilization advanced, decline naturally followed. Birth and destruction were the laws of the world. Just as light cast shadows, everything had its pair.

And Blight Stars brought those endings closer.

If one was destined to die someday, why was there any reason not to die today? If every civilization would eventually decline and perish, if the entire world would one day be filled with emptiness, why could that end not come today?

「Ah.」

Those who possessed Blight Stars had always wished for ‘the end of the world that would someday come’ to arrive today.

「I wish it would all just perish.」

She had become a Blight Star because she desperately wished for the Sealed City, that world like a closed cage, to collapse.

「I don't care about some great cause. I don't understand a world where every path leads to an ending like this.」

「Why does it have to be this way? Why must it be like this?」

「I didn't want it to end. But if it can only end this way no matter what, then I would rather...」

Merlin had faced an ending she did not want, one she had no choice but to face, and one she had foreseen awaiting her. So she chose to decide the end herself.

That was why she had been completed as a Blight Star.

Like this.

The essence of a Blight Star was to pull the emptiness that would someday come, the final moment put off until later, into ‘today.’ Its very nature was the opposite of a star that symbolized tomorrow and everlasting light.

Which was why...

Crack.

The Sword Aura Najin sent forward, scattering light as it flew, crumbled the instant it touched the glow of a Blight Star. Starlight scattered. Mana broke apart, then finally crumbled into dust.

It was like watching Sword Aura vanish after traveling too far.

Slap.

Waves crashed.

Najin was fighting atop the night sea. Dark crimson veins pulsed through its waters, and whenever scarlet eyes opened in the night sea and stared at him, Najin felt his body stiffening.

‘I'm being worn down.’

He was being eroded.

‘My mana and starlight.’

The mana and starlight surrounding Najin's body were worn away simply by being exposed to the light of the Blight Stars. Like land carved away by violent waves, like rock ground down by sandstorms, the Blight Stars relentlessly eroded him.

Najin faced the Witch while exposed to their light. He struck back at the stars she wielded. Without a moment to catch his breath, he had to kick off the ground and keep moving.

Sword Aura flew at him from somewhere.

The Witch created ultimate techniques that a Sword Master who had transcended after devoting an entire life to the sword might wield, all with a casual flick of her fingers. The Sword of Triumph, Dismantling Slash, and countless ultimate techniques of Swordsmen who might have existed throughout history came flying at him.

He met them. He cut some apart, deflected others, and slipped past the rest.

‘If it is only the sword, I can deal with it.’

By defeating Siegfried, Najin had mastered the weapon known as the sword. If it took the form of a sword, he could respond to it however he wished.

Yet of course, the things humanity had accumulated over tens of thousands of years were not limited to swords.

Horn Charge, Aurora, Mounted Charge, Piercing Spear.

Attacks that pierced an opponent through a single point. Ultimate spear and staff techniques rained down on Najin all at once. A downpour of arrows embroidered the sky like a meteor shower, while blunt weapons such as hammers and greatswords repeatedly pounded the ground and hammered Najin's body.

The stars shone without pause.

Tens of thousands of years of human history were fighting Najin.

Yet all of that was only decoration for this stage. Even as he blocked hundreds of attacks, Najin kept his eyes fixed on the Witch.

‘It's coming.’

Light flashed in the distance.

Sound vanished.

A straight path opened from far away toward Najin. Everything along that path evaporated.

No, evaporation at least left vapor behind.

Where the light touched, nothing remained.

"......"

Najin looked at his arm. He had barely twisted away from the light, but it had grazed his forearm.

No blood flowed.

His flesh, bone, and blood had all vanished.

The wound spread. Najin used Excalibur to cut away the place the light had touched. The severed flesh crumbled the instant it touched the ground and disappeared without a trace.

When he looked up, countless rays of that light were pouring down.

Each time the Witch took a step while humming, her song, footsteps, blinks, and breaths all became sharp weapons aimed at Najin.

Unique Magic, Silence.

Cold spread. Merlin was trying to hold back the raining beams of light, if only for a moment. But the instant the Witch stomped her foot, Merlin's magic shattered into pieces.

Merlin pieced the broken magic back together and completed it once more, but at half its strength, it could not properly hold back the beams.

They fired.

Lights from the Blight Stars.

The Witch gathered starlight that wore down the body simply by being faced, formed it into arrows, and fired them.

Najin blocked them. He struck some away and evaded others, but...

"Urgh."

Some pierced his body. Najin cut away his crumbling abdomen with his sword. Carving away his own flesh, he steadied his stance.

‘The battle King Arthur must have faced.’

He had seen it in Arthur's memories. In those memories, she approached the Witch as her body was eroded away. Holes opened across her body as she walked forward, and Arthur had burned all of her stars to reach the Witch.

The starlight created as stars died.

Using her life as kindling, she created flames and resisted the Witch's darkness. If Najin used the same method, he too could break through this darkness. He knew how to burn stars.

‘But I cannot win that way.’

It was a method that already existed. A method Arthur had already tried. Arthur had not been defeated, but if Najin repeated it, he would lose.

From the start, it was not a means of winning. It was a desperate struggle not to lose.

It did not suit Najin.

He gripped his sword.

Drawing up starlight, he took a step forward. The Witch's attacks shone before him, while Merlin's magic flashed behind him. Even now, only the dark crimson starlight of Blight Stars blazed across the night sea.

Other stars faded before those Blight Stars.

‘No.’

Najin slammed his foot down.

‘They do not fade.’

He drew up his starlight. Shaking off the Witch's grasp as it tried to bind his stars, Najin clenched his sword.

Najin had risked his life in countless battles. Using the price of his own life as stake money, he had made the greatest gambles of his life.

There was no Lesser Evil or second-best path in Najin's life.

‘Either the worst, or the best.’

Lose everything or gain everything.

As he always had,

Najin made another gamble. As he drew up his starlight, a single thought came to him.

The instant Merlin shared that thought, she laughed without meaning to.

-Thought you might say that.

It really was the kind of method Najin would think of.

Morgan le Fay, the Witch of the Abyss.

Possessing absolute strength, she had always fought as though toying with her opponents. But today, she did not toy with them. She pressed them relentlessly, even wielding trivial powers she would not normally use.

The stars she was wielding now were proof of that.

She was strong even without wielding such stars. Without needing to use what belonged to others, she was terrifyingly strong with what she possessed alone. Even Arthur, the great hero humanity had created, had failed to kill her.

Morgan knew her own strength.

And yet, intending to use everything available to her, she seized every tool within reach.

Out of respect for her opponents?

Was it a sign of reverence for those humans who had reached this point, who might possess strength greater than Arthur's?

No. Not at all.

It was the opposite.

The Witch found the two who had come this far disgusting. She had respected Arthur, but she could never respect those two. She despised them instead. She even felt revulsion toward her own kind for making the same choice.

"You must have burned everything so this would not happen."

The Witch's eyes narrowed.

"Yet you insist on repeating it."

Night Fairies, those who lived in dreams.

"You should have lived in dreams and died dreaming. How pitiful. How foolish."

She laughed at the challengers.

She laughed at Najin, who kept moving toward her despite being pierced by magic, and at her own kin, who was coughing blood while supporting him.

Clench.

The Witch closed her hand.

For the first time, she made a large movement.

At that moment, the ground exploded, and a massive hand rose up and seized Najin. Caught in that enormous grip, Najin vanished from sight.

"If that child is what made you choose life..."

A smile curved across the Witch's lips.

"What choice will you make?"

It was a hand made from Blight Stars. The moment he was caught, his body would begin to melt away. Even if he escaped that hand, he would not be able to move right away.

From the beginning, resisting Blight Stars was impossible unless he burned his own life as kindling.

But that child could never use such a method.

Because they were looking toward what came next.

The Witch knew that if what came next vanished, if that child sacrificed himself, then even if miracle after miracle piled up and they somehow won, the victory would have no meaning.

They would know it too.

They knew what would happen then.

‘A new Blight Star will be born.’

There was no way they did not know.

Merlin had only delayed it. She could become a Blight Star at any moment. The only reason she had not was Najin's existence. The moment Najin died, Merlin would no longer be able to delay awakening as a Blight Star.

So they would try to win while preserving themselves, and the Witch could only laugh at such complacency.

They could not overcome the Wall before them even if they gave everything, burned their lives, and sacrificed themselves, yet they thought they could cross it while preserving themselves?

The Witch even felt offended by that half-heartedness. Did the sky look so easy to them?

Another hand closed over the first.

Wanting to crush and ruin Najin completely, wanting to bring tragedy upon them, the Witch intended to destroy Najin first.

Once countless hands had layered over him and even the starlight of Excalibur was hidden, the Witch looked at Merlin.

Certain that she would despair.

"What are you looking at, you crazy bitch?"

Yet instead of despairing, Merlin raised her middle finger at the Witch. She did not spare even a glance for her Companion.

It was not indifference.

It was certainty.

Certainty that he would not be buried beneath something so pathetic.

What did she trust so blindly?

The Witch soon learned where that belief came from. Light burst from the hands gripping Najin. The instant she saw it, the Witch's eyes widened.