WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 394: The Human Who Drinks Blood

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Hilde had continued observing the regressor throughout the journey. Tyr was old and powerful, but more than that, she was well known. She was practically a walking natural disaster, so Hilde had no need to learn more about her. Instead, she always kept both me and the regressor in sight, even putting us through small tests to gauge our reactions.

Her observations were more akin to research. Appearance, background, personality, voice and speaking habits, footsteps and energy arts. She observed and studied every detail, then broke it down and layered it over herself.

She relentlessly delved into the traits that made a person seem like themselves, then made others mistake her for them through an even more convincing performance.

Sometimes, that process revealed secrets her targets had hidden. Hilde had learned the regressor's gender because she had played her role.

'Shei's weakness is clear. Fighting people. When it isn't a world-shattering battle where authority clashes against authority, she's only somewhat talented at fighting within human limits.'

The regressor was certainly strong. Yet perhaps because she relied on the power of relics, she had openings when facing humans.

They said it was difficult to kill a chicken with a knife made for slaughtering cattle. How much trickier would it be to kill a small human living between heaven and earth with a sword that commanded both?

That was likely why the regressor had struggled against Partlaxion, the Absolute Spear, and the Gunslinger Historia. All the more so against someone who had reached the Principle.

Hilde had not reached the Principle, but she had once belonged to the Holy Sword Corps. Her faith had granted her a miracle comparable to it.

...Unfortunately, Hilde's faith was fluid, and her holy sword could freely change shape.

"...In that case~."

Two daggers flashed toward the regressor's arms as though hooking around them. Hilde checked the hand gripping Jizan rather than Jizan itself, while her other dagger met Skywarbler at its hilt and fought for leverage.

At a range close enough for their breaths to touch, where daggers held the advantage, Hilde constantly launched attacks and exchanged strikes. Just as the regressor barely fended them off with the Heaven-Reversing Boundary and prepared to counterattack.

'I am Historia. The military state's Gunslinger. Imitation Explosive Shot.'

The regressor flinched.

Her experience reacted before the Heaven-Reversing Boundary did. It was that dizzying sense of déjà vu she had experienced repeatedly in previous regressions.

The style of fighting while always keeping the blade's tip aimed at the enemy was one Historia, the military state's gunner, often employed. Historia used bayonet techniques and seized the advantage by holding gunfire in reserve.

She did not even need to fire. As long as she demonstrated a powerful shot using Explosive Shot and kept the muzzle positioned to fire at any time, she could force her opponent into a one-sided disadvantage.

Hilde was now using Historia's combat style exactly as it was. Realizing this, the regressor twisted her body and poured energy into Skywarbler.

At the same time, Hilde's holy sword flashed and erupted like an explosion. The two blades extended, grazing past each other. They collided in midair, altering their trajectories.

"...This is the Gunslinger's!"

"Oh? You handle it well, don't you?"

It differed from Historia's technique. Instead of Explosive Shot, Hilde used the elasticity of her body and the explosive force of her holy sword. Rather than speed, she tore her opponent apart with sharpness.

The reach was lacking as well. If the regressor moved just two more steps away, it probably would not reach her.

Still, the principle behind it was almost identical. So similar that even the regressor felt déjà vu.

"Now we're getting started~. Focus! If you miss it again, they'll find you with this holy sword lodged in your forehead!"

Lungken charged straight at the crowd.

There were no more warnings. They did not howl like a beast either. They placed the Progenitor's command before even the exhilaration they felt in battle. Swinging their arms wildly, they tried to sweep away as many people as possible.

Humans were dying.

Azzy had no intention of allowing that. She let out a furious howl and pounced on Lungken from behind...

"I don't have time to play, King of Dogs!"

At that moment, Lungken abruptly lifted a still-living Thunder Guardian and held them out. The human crumpled in Lungken's enormous hand dangled helplessly. Their arms were broken and their legs crushed, making them no different from a corpse, yet they were still alive.

That alone was enough to stop Azzy in her tracks.

"Woof! Woof woof!"

Azzy could only leap around and bark with a terrified expression, as if begging them to stop the slaughter and turn their attention toward her.

Lungken ignored Azzy's cries. To faithfully carry out Tyr's will, they chased after the fleeing humans.

"I'll deal with you later! After I've carried out every one of the King's commands!"

Each time Lungken followed the Progenitor's will, darkness gradually wrapped around them. The Progenitor's authority, the darkness that protected vampires from cursed sunlight, bestowed its grace upon them.

Within that darkness, even sunlight could not harm their blood energy. They moved through the faint rays of the sun without feeling the slightest resistance.

Able to draw out all their power, Lungken used it to carry out the Progenitor's command.

Blood surged like a storm.

At the same time, Valdamir raised his greatsword.

Wrapped in crimson blood energy, he took a single step forward to begin his slaughter. That was all, yet the space where humans could survive shrank. His sharply refined, swirling blood energy resembled a storm filled with blades.

Even amid the slaughter, Valdamir murmured calmly.

"You've had a good encounter."

That was the end of his observation. It was time to work.

Valdamir kicked off the ground. The red mist wavered faintly, and before anyone realized it, he stood in the middle of the crowd.

The Thunder Guardians who had approached to protect the Thunder Lord flinched at the huge figure that had suddenly appeared. Before they could react, they were swept away by the sword strike unleashed by the crimson greatsword.

Blood crashed like waves.

Amid the blood energy, the only one who managed to respond to the Duke of Crimson Blood was the Thunder Lord.

[...Duke of Crimson Blood!]

The Thunder Lord swung her lightning-charged arm.

Her body, united with lightning for an instant, shot forward at comparable speed. Sacred lightning condensed and condensed until it could burn even blood energy black. An Elder could not be killed by ordinary power, so the Thunder Lord had deliberately closed the distance and allowed herself to be seized to prepare this attack.

Heaven's punishment shot forth to punish the Elder.

The power that moved Claudia was wielded to kill a single vampire...

Yet Valdamir moved one step sooner.

He slipped the hilt of his greatsword inside the Thunder Lord's arm and lightly twisted it as he pushed. The greatsword became a wheel-and-axle and spun. Their positions twisted around each other, the Thunder Lord's attack missed, and it pierced empty air.

Pure white lightning flowed along Cloud Waterfall.

The city's power vanished in vain.

No matter how great a power was, if a human wielded it, it could be overcome through human skill.

Valdamir had been called a genius swordsman from birth. Even after death, he had received true blood and accumulated power and experience. Crimson Duke Valdamir had already reached the pinnacle of humanity through pure technique alone.

He did not need to take immense power with his body. He redirected it.

That alone was a tiny fragment of the Duke of Crimson Blood's skill.

[Ah.]

They were on different levels.

His power and skill were both far beyond hers. If an immortal beast even honed its technique, how could an ordinary human possibly oppose it?

In the weakness that followed unleashing her power, the unavoidable opening before it could be gathered again, Valdamir drove in.

He gripped the spine of the greatsword and gave it a short push. The Thunder Lord tried to defend herself, but her arm was already bent at an awkward angle. With one fluid motion, he neutralized her defense and tore into her body.

The Thunder Lord's shoulder split halfway apart, and bright red blood stained the edge of the greatsword. She hurriedly grabbed the blade with her other hand and tried to push it away.

"Harder than expected."

That was the end of his observation.

If she was tougher than expected, he simply needed to use more strength than expected.

Valdamir's greatsword absorbed blood energy and gnawed through the Thunder Lord's body. Blood Demon Technique. Like a blade pressing down on ice and melting through it, the greatsword cut through her arm.

It was only a matter of time before it cut all the way through.

Then something entered the Duke of Crimson Blood's senses.

An irresistible, enormous current crushed the space he occupied. He was one step away from killing the Thunder Lord, yet he pulled out his greatsword without hesitation and raised an arm to block the unknown attack.

Boom.

The arm covered in blood energy exploded. Amid the scattering blood, a small fist wrapped in cloth appeared. Valdamir recognized his opponent and furrowed his brow.

"Holy Maiden?"

"..."

His powerful body could not endure it for even a moment. It was not strength or skill. Some miracle on an entirely different level dwelled in that fist.

Having coolly assessed the situation, Valdamir shifted his grip on the greatsword and struck Peruel. The concise but powerful attack, as natural as breathing, drove into Peruel's abdomen...

Thunk.

The greatsword that had seemed to pierce her simply bounced away. Despite holding enough force to collapse a building, it did not leave so much as a scratch on Peruel. Her skin did not even dent.

The strongest Elder's full-force strike could not change the result of her self-precognition. Peruel's existence had already been determined.

"Then I cannot kill you. That must be your fate."

Valdamir accepted that fact.

His mountainlike movements changed. He lowered his stance and held his greatsword close. It did not look like he intended to flee, since his fighting spirit had not faded.

Peruel saw that the sword tip, soaked in blood, still pointed at the humans. Clenching her fist, she said,

"Fate... can change. Just as fate has been twisted now. But you, cursed vampire, have neither the power nor the right to change it."

An Elder's immortality was remarkable, but it was not perfect like the Progenitor's. Blow apart the head, crush the heart, cut the body into pieces, and scatter it into a sea lit by the setting sun, and there would be no way to endure.

Her target was the Duke of Crimson Blood. To crush that cursed, strongest vampire, Peruel followed the image of herself she had seen in the future through self-precognition.

An irresistible strike, one that could not dare be described merely as strong or solid.

It was already fate and truth.

Before that attack, Valdamir...

'No! I have to stop the Duke of Crimson Blood! Whoever goes against him will...!'

...yielded.

He did not resist Peruel's unavoidable precognition. He inserted his body into its flow as a pivot. As Peruel's fist was about to crush Valdamir's arm, he used his own body as a lever and sent the force in another direction.

Their wills interlocked, and the blood-red greatsword moved along a trajectory no one could have predicted.

The crimson greatsword spun wide and fell.

At its end stood the Thunder Lord.

The Angel of Lightning, gasping from her wounds, belatedly noticed the greatsword descending as if to split her head apart. She no longer had the strength to block it.

The greatsword split through the Thunder Lord's body. The blade entered through her shoulder, reached her chest, and tore free. There was not the slightest hesitation in the cut.

Instead of Peruel, whom he could not kill, Valdamir kept his distance as though fleeing and coldly harvested the lives of the wounded. Peruel's precognition belonged wholly to her. She could not know the Thunder Lord's fate.

Having lost the Thunder Lord in vain, Peruel looked at Valdamir and shouted,

"Fight us! If you truly wish to escape your terrible fate!"

Valdamir ignored Peruel's provocation, as though conversation was not worth his time. Instead, he answered by lifting his leg high and crushing the human groaning beneath his feet.

Warm blood splashed across Peruel's face.

Enraged, Peruel unleashed one killing blow after another, but Valdamir responded calmly.

If an attack came directly at him, he simply took it. Fists that were too powerful pierced through Valdamir's body with ease and could not stop him. Even as holes opened in his body, the Duke of Crimson Blood silently harvested humans.

If she swung broadly, he sensed it and used that force against her. When Peruel tried to break the greatsword, he twisted it slightly. He preserved his head and heart even if he had to sacrifice other parts of his body.

Even as Peruel destroyed his body, he regenerated and calmly massacred the Guardians.

The regressor's judgment had been right. No one standing here could stop the Duke of Crimson Blood.

Above all, his slaughter was concise and without waste, making it fast and quiet. Unlike Lungken, there were no loud screams. Every human Valdamir passed fell to the ground with some part of their body cut open.

Even with Peruel clinging to him, he was capable of that much.

The regressor, the only one who could at least hold back the Duke of Crimson Blood, was tied down by Hilde, who had likewise revealed every move she possessed.

At this rate, no one would survive.

...That was why Perru moved.

Footnotes:

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