WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 118: I Cut

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It was similar.

Not identical. Compared to five hundred years ago, his body was different, and the laws of the human race had apparently been rewritten, so perhaps that was only natural. Five hundred years ago, in that distant past, humans possessed neither Spirit Roots nor dantians.

Yet the fact that his head had opened was the same. Perhaps that was why it felt similar, yet different.

'Maybe it's because of the Spirit Root.'

He didn't think that was the only reason. A moment ago, he had become certain through the voice that had borrowed Jor's mouth.

The reincarnation of Sword Demon Raikal as Kyle Alastor was neither luck nor a miraculous coincidence. This miracle had been caused by some will, and that will had a definite wish.

::Annihilate him::

The voice could no longer be heard, but it had made its demand clear.

Why had he been born as a descendant of Ruin Alastor? It was an unpleasant birth, but there had to be a reason for it. That reason...

For now, he didn't need to think about it. Even if some will lay behind this reincarnation, even if all things had cause and effect, Kyle had a will of his own.

The one standing here now was Kyle Alastor, the reincarnation of Sword Demon Raikal, grandson of Julius Alastor, and son of Arian Alastor and Aslan Antares.

Kyle Alastor didn't intend to die today. He had too many people who would mourn him, too many things he wanted to do, too many swords he still had to swing.

"Don't get it wrong."

Kyle grinned through blood-soaked lips.

"I'm not killing because someone told me to. I'm killing because I don't want to die."

Whatever will had reincarnated him as a sword to be used as needed, Kyle himself was the one wielding that sword. Making that clear, Kyle gripped Baal tightly.

[M-Master, are you all right?]

Baal asked in a stammer. It seemed she hadn't heard the voice that had borrowed Jor's mouth, and she was worried about Kyle as blood poured from him.

'Are you worried about me?'

[D-Don't misunderstand! If the master dies, this one will be left abandoned in that damned garden again!]

Baal shrieked.

[So, Master! You must take responsibility for drawing this one out! This one hasn't cut down and killed nearly enough to be satisfied! If you drew me out, then take responsibility!]

"Puhahaha."

Kyle couldn't help but laugh at that. Responsibility for drawing her out. Yes, that was right. Whatever meaning Demon King Astaros had intended when he left Baal behind, to Alastor, Baal was the sword that started the Sword Garden. Kyle was the one who had drawn Baal, embedded there for five hundred years with only that symbolic meaning remaining, as a sword.

"You people need to take responsibility too."

Kyle spoke with a twisted smile. If they had reincarnated him to use him as a sword, they needed to bear the responsibility that came with it.

"Of course, I won't be swung only as you intend. A good, sharp sword is difficult to handle for that very reason."

Kyle intended to enjoy responsibility-free pleasure to the fullest. Baal heard his muttering and began shouting, misunderstanding it as she pleased.

[That is exactly right, Master! This one is a good, sharp sword and difficult to handle! But! If you properly wield this one, that arrogant demon will be no match for you!]

As Baal shouted at the top of her lungs, Kyle looked up at the demon.

The world looked different. It felt different. He could read the waves coming from the demon, the currents of its will.

Yes, read them. It was different from seeing with his eyes or sensing with his body. It was like seeing through something after long experience. Unlike predicting through signs, he could intuitively read the demon's intent. It was a new feeling, even for Kyle.

'Strange.'

Was it because of the necklace that held the Power of Direct Sight, the gift given by the Angel? Or was it some special trait of his reincarnated body? That wasn't something to think about now either.

What mattered was that the demon was radiating killing intent. Kyle judged according to what he could read.

The moment he judged, he arrived.

At the Boundary Realm, after opening the Upper Dantian, common sense and laws meant nothing. The instant he raised his will and made a decision, it had already happened. The stage where the body moved by command of the brain had vanished, so Kyle was already there.

The blooming flowers scattered uselessly. Leaping over the petals exploding into the air, Kyle charged toward the demon. The demon glared at him with a twisted expression.

"What are you?"

The demon's left hand, the one not holding the fan, wrapped itself in will.

Rumble...!

Not only will, but the tremendous mana that had swallowed the research building gathered in the demon's left hand.

"You are familiar with it. You only just opened your Upper Dantian, yet you act as though you have opened it before."

Flower Immortal. A Taoist from the distant east. A strange figure who had shed the human body hundreds of years ago, ascended as an immortal, and vanished from the world. Yet Flower Immortal had failed to achieve complete Ascension and been swallowed by an outer god halfway along that path.

The demon had accumulated every kind of experience in life, but this was a first. No matter how strange the world had become after hundreds of years, how could a brat who had only just opened his Upper Dantian handle this world so skillfully?

'It goes beyond skill. Even while his head was closed, he responded to this one's attacks. And now... now he acts as though he can read them.'

Even now, the demon's will was being etched into space. Wherever Kyle moved, flowers of death bloomed by the demon's sorcery, yet nothing could reach him. Kyle left before the flowers could even bloom. Even when the demon read his movements and placed seeds in advance, Kyle evaded as though he had glimpsed the future.

"Your body."

The demon's eyes burned crimson.

"Give all of it to me...!"

That was why the demon had returned. If it wanted to avoid returning to that dreadful stomach, it had to devour and take that body.

Rumble...!

The demon clenched its left hand. The mana and will gathered there swirled together, then exploded.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Hundreds of beams capable of piercing anything were etched into space. They were not fired. They simply appeared.

But before the light appeared, Kyle had already read it. Without defying his intuition, he drew forth his will.

Flowers bloomed in the gaps untouched by the beams. There was nowhere to evade, so he would cut open a path.

Kyle gripped Baal in his right hand and Fenris in his left.

'Cut.'

Wind became will. His head tingled, and power he could not use before, power he had handled in the past, flowed into his swords.

::I Cut::

Shkshkshk!

The two swords danced, carrying his will. Kyle cut apart every petal trying to cover him, creating an opening, then leaped toward it.

The demon twisted its face and kicked off the air.

Boom!

The fan collided with Baal. The demon's left hand rushed at Kyle, and Kyle met it with Fenris in his left hand.

Clang!

Fenris's strike was stopped by a force field, but it did not simply touch and fail as it had before. The impact passed through and shook the demon's sleeve.

"You bastard!"

The demon roared. The fan that had been pressed against Baal dropped, then spread open wide.

Whoosh!

The sweeping fan stirred up a gale. Kyle stepped back slightly and swung Baal again.

The wind was cut by the blade.

Another wind sprang from the severed wind and spiraled into a vortex. A whirlwind as sharp as a blade. Ten swollen vortices closed in, intending to grind Kyle alive at their center.

[A-Aah, aaaaah?!]

Just as he was about to respond, Jor, who had been silent, awakened with a scream.

Crackle, crackle!

Along with Jor's scream, Kyle's Middle Dantian filled with Thunder Energy. The Thunder Energy Jor released overflowed from the Middle Dantian and burst beyond Kyle's body.

Crack!

Violet lightning erupted around Kyle and tore apart all ten vortices. As if that weren't enough, flashing lightning surged toward the demon.

"Thunder Essence Stone?!"

The demon cried out in surprise and swung its fan.

Crackle!

The wind stirred by the fan bent the lightning's path. The Central Laboratory, covered in flesh, was scorched by the lightning, and the smell of burning meat spread through the air.

[A-Aaah! M-Master?! Wh-What just happened?!]

Jor continued releasing lightning in bursts, seemingly unaware of what she had said earlier.

'Are you really Jor?'

[Y-Yes? Wh-What do you mean? I'm Jor, Jormungandr! The one Master first met when you were five years old...]

'You're not acting, are you?'

[I-I don't understand what you're saying at all. What in the world... w-what is this power?]

The confusion in Jor's voice felt genuine. Kyle decided to believe her for now and guided the Thunder Energy overflowing from his Middle Dantian into the Primordial Chaos Sword Canon.

Crackle!

Thunder Energy began racing through the complex mana Circuits woven throughout his body.

Lightning radiance filled Kyle's golden eyes. His Chaos Spirit Root resonated with the Thunder Energy racing through his body, and even the will he handled through the Upper Dantian became saturated with Thunder Energy.

What he desired was lightning.

His will decided it.

The Thunder Energy bursting in every direction gathered into Kyle's body. In that instant, Kyle became lightning as he desired.

Boom!

A collision accompanied by a deafening crash.

The demon's body flew far backward.

"Impossible...! You can even handle spiritual energy?!"

The demon had no choice but to be shocked. If will was the act of opening one's head and etching intent into the world, spiritual energy was the more concrete power formed from that will. It was absolutely not a power someone who had just opened their head could wield.

Yet that insect was handling spiritual energy with ease. It mixed will into lightning and turned itself into lightning.

"You bastard!"

The demon spat blood and screamed. The fan spread wide, and countless blades of wind rose around it.

Facing the onrushing wind, Kyle made a simple, intuitive judgment.

Cut them all.

Crackle!

Wrapped in violet lightning, Kyle accelerated at a speed incomparable to before. If the former Kyle had been as fast as lightning, the current Kyle was lightning itself. In the realm of the Boundary Realm, where the decision of will and its result arrived instantly, hesitation could not exist. A fight at this stage was a collision of each person's conviction.

Baal, swinging from his right hand, cut through every blade of wind as he advanced. The moment the distance between them vanished, he read death coming from his left side.

Once again, Kyle did not hesitate.

Fenris moved in his left hand.

Clang!

The demon's left hand collided with Fenris. Will tangled with will, warping space. Fenris hummed and trembled.

Whose will was stronger? Who held the firmer conviction?

::I Cut::

Since his previous life, Kyle had never once swung a sword without conviction. Even if defeat and death awaited at the end, he had never hesitated to swing his sword. The same was true now.

Kyle gritted his teeth and drove Fenris forward.

Slash!

The demon's left hand was cut diagonally. Crimson blood sprayed out as the demon screamed.

"How dare you, how dare you!"

The left hand that had clearly been cut and was spraying blood reattached itself. It was the kind of immortality that made it difficult to kill. Even so, being cut in itself was humiliating. Though it had achieved incomplete Ascension and risen to the heavens on its own, the demon trembled with humiliation as it raised its fan.

"You make this one accept a great loss, Turning Point!"

Will swelled. Mana merged with will and formed into spiritual energy. The Central Laboratory itself became the demon's domain.

Rumble...!

The floor made of flesh rippled, and reddish-green roots burst out. The five trees that had once been researchers, now tattered from the aftermath of battle, screamed as they connected to the roots.

"Flower Grove!"

The demon declared it.

The five trees split apart with cracking sounds, and countless branches burst from them. Flowers bloomed from the root-covered floor and from the branches. In an instant, the entire space filled with flowers.

The scent of those flowers was blood and rotting corpses. The dizzying stench was poison. No matter how resistant Kyle's body was to mana, this poison was deadly even to him.

His breathing caught, and his vision swayed. Everything inside his body felt as though it were collapsing and breaking apart, while the taste of blood grew strong in his throat.

"Didn't you say to give you all of it?"

"I'll leave you your head...!"

The demon snapped at Kyle's taunt.

Whoosh!

The fully bloomed flowers exploded, their petals scattering through the air. Kyle became lightning without hesitation.

Crack!

Violet lightning streaked through space, breaking through the petals.

Whoosh!

Though he reached it and cut, the demon became petals and escaped the slash. Immortality or not, it was useless to cut with Baal if the demon escaped like that.

Cough.

Kyle vomited blood and twisted his body. From far away, the demon's hand was pointed at him.

A massive carnivorous flower rose from the ground and swallowed Kyle in its gaping mouth.

Crackle!

The moment he was swallowed, lightning burst from Kyle's body. The flower exploded into fragments.

[A-Aaaah...!]

Jor panted and continued to discharge electricity. Will transformed that endless torrent of lightning into spiritual energy.

Crackle, crackle!

The lightning spiritual energy overflowing from Kyle's body became a massive sword.

Slash!

The Thunder Sword swung wide and cut across the space. The trees that endlessly bloomed flowers were all severed in two and collapsed, but the petals gathered around the demon formed a barrier and stopped the Thunder Sword.

"Urgh!"

It did not stop it completely.

The demon spat blood, and so did Kyle. It was terrible pain, as though all his Circuits and dantians were overheating and melting. On top of that, he was breathing in deadly poison. It was truly unbearable.

'Not today.'

Thoughts of death shook his conviction. Kyle steadied himself and suppressed the trembling in his body. His attacks were working. If he pushed a little further, he thought he could kill it.

'What's lacking?'

Distance.

Then he would close it.

The collapsed trees began to reattach themselves, and Kyle turned into lightning and charged forward.

'Vision.'

Don't look only at the present. Look farther ahead.

No, read.

The waves of will.

The moment he arrived, the demon tried to become petals and vanish again. It had not happened yet, but Kyle read it. The demon's intent was clear to him.

The lightning bent.

The demon, which had moved onto a branch blooming with flowers, recoiled in shock and swung its fan.

Clang!

The fan caught Fenris.

::I Cut::

The force field around the fan was cut away by Fenris's blade. He had not placed his will only in Fenris. Kyle held two swords now.

Fenris in his left hand, Baal in his right.

::I Cut::

He swung Baal in his right hand.

The demon immediately reached out with its other hand to stop Baal, but ::I Cut:: held stronger will. The conviction carried by the sword created the result.

Slash!

The demon's left hand was cut off by Baal.

"Argh!"

A scream of pain burst from the demon's mouth. The wound Fenris had made regenerated, but the wound Baal had made could not. Its left arm cut clean off, the demon staggered back, but Kyle did not stop.

::I Cut::

He closed the distance and read farther ahead. The demon's intent was crystal clear to him. He could read what its will intended to etch into space.

The flower bud blooming from the branch beneath his feet. The petals scattering around him. The wind rising behind the demon.

He would not retreat.

If he did at this moment, that would become a lack of conviction. Kyle had no intention of being lacking. In battle, the one who lacked nerve was usually the one who lost.

Crunch!

A flower blooming beneath his feet bit down on Kyle's left foot. A flood of petals shredded his body. Wind meant to kill him for certain came crashing down.

Kyle also swung his sword to kill for certain.

He let go of Baal for a moment. Both hands gripped Fenris.

The sensation was so familiar. A beloved sword was a beloved sword, after all. Whatever else could be said, swinging Fenris was what felt most natural.

Dozens of slashes were mixed into a single swing. Wind, petals, all of it was swallowed by Fenris's path.

As he opened a path, Kyle let go of Fenris. Baal, which had been falling through the air, flew into Kyle's hand.

::I Cut::

Kyle gripped Baal with both hands and swung it down in a broad arc.

All of this happened in a single instant.

In that instant, Kyle's conviction surpassed the demon's. The creature had been stumbling backward, preparing to evade.

Slash!

The demon could not evade.

Baal cut diagonally through the demon's body.

Footnotes:

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