Reincarnation of the Sword Demon - Chapter 150

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Chapter 150: It Is Difficult, Too

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Serga's stance, sword held upright before him, was nothing special. It was the basic stance any swordsman would take. Yet the pressure Kyle felt from that ordinary posture sent a chill down his arms.

There was no overwhelming blaze pouring off him like Tebar, nor was there any chilling killing intent lurking within him like Lamika's. He was simply standing there with a sword in hand.

The stillness was almost unbearable. That kind of silence.

Naturally, there was no opening to be seen. He could have boldly pressed in, shaken Serga, and created an opening himself.

But a powerful instinct told him he should not.

'This...'

Kyle swallowed dryly without realizing it.

He could not sense any threatening momentum from Serga. There was no intent to attack, no tension of defense. Yet Kyle had the feeling that the instant he closed the distance and swung his sword, Serga would transform.

'He really does resemble Helenas.'

The result might have been the same, but the process that created that feeling was entirely different.

It was rude to Helenas, but she had no talent for the sword. What Helenas possessed was simply an age of time no human could live through. Five hundred years. Through that long stretch of time, Helenas had done nothing but swing a sword. By stubbornly grinding away with time, she had reached the mysteries of the sword that she herself did not possess.

Serga did not have Helenas's long life, but his talent was exceptional. Since becoming an Apostle, he had watched Helenas wield her sword up close for years. He had taken Helenas's sword, which reached the results she deemed natural through intent alone while boldly skipping the process, and reinterpreted it through his own aptitude.

Why did the sword have to move that way?

To the natural results Helenas had created over countless years, Serga had given a reason.

A sense of familiarity.

Kyle's lips trembled. He knew this sort of sword well.

To be honest, Helenas's sword did not resemble Raikal's, the sword that had given her the destiny of the sword. Raikal's sword did not force natural results upon anyone the way Helenas's did.

It was fierce and dirty. He had rolled through battlefields and crossed countless lines between life and death. His sword existed to kill his opponent. If he could not kill them, he abandoned his pride and ran. If the opponent's sword possessed something exceptional, he greedily devoured it and sharpened his own sword with it.

That had been possible because Raikal possessed a fighting spirit and a longing for the sword. Looking back, he had not even had much stubbornness. Raikal pursued only the sword. Every swordsman held a sword, so he had never been egotistical enough to insist that only his own sword was right.

But Helenas had neither a fighting spirit nor a longing for the sword. The sword she had swung for five hundred years was only the basics Raikal had taught her in the distant past.

Even if one did not understand the sword they were swinging, enough time could bring them to a realm of mastery. If an ape that could not even read were given infinite time, perhaps it could write a masterpiece of the century. Helenas had been like that.

And that was how the Sword Church Master, now called the continent's strongest swordsman, had come to be. Serga had watched her sword in silence.

"I heard you've never asked the Sword Church Master about the sword."

Kyle held Fenris upright as he asked.

"How could I possibly discuss the sword with the Sword Church Master?"

Serga answered quietly.

As he heard that answer, Kyle stepped forward.

At that instant, instinct clawed at his soul.

This was dangerous.

Before their swords had even met, his instinct screamed the warning.

"You say you've never asked, but your sword is the Sword Church Master's double."

"I have watched it for a long time."

Serga answered humbly.

Even if he had asked to speak about the sword, Helenas probably would not have been able to hold much of a conversation with him.

'Because Helenas still doesn't understand why she has to swing her sword that way.'

In truth, there was no grand mystery behind why one had to swing a sword that way. It was simply the basics. No matter how unpredictable a sword became, its foundation was cutting and thrusting. Without mastering the basics, one could not reach the pinnacle of the sword. Only after learning them could one put the sword they sought into practice.

To put it boldly, cutting and thrusting could be called the truth of the sword.

Kyle, Raikal, knew a swordsman who had come closer to that truth than anyone.

'Ruin Alastor.'

The sword that had defeated and killed Raikal. The sword that had captivated Raikal, who had escaped death on countless battlefields, so thoroughly that he had not even thought of running.

The sword that killed Raikal had not been so wildly unpredictable that it dazzled the eye. It had simply been a succession of cuts and thrusts, a sword so brutally pure that it was beautiful.

He understood the source of that familiarity.

The resemblance he felt from Serga was not to Helenas.

It was to Ruin.

Helenas had not understood the truth of the sword and had only reached its results. Serga had contemplated it, filling in the process she had skipped.

'This is the first time since I was reincarnated.'

Kyle swallowed dryly again and advanced. He ignored the screams of his instinct.

If he went any farther, he would die. If he dared face this sword, he would die.

What did any of that matter?

'Thinking I could die happily to a sword like this.'

Crack!

Kyle kicked off the ground and rushed forward. For the moment, he used no tricks. Kyle's body and Fenris became a single line as they shot toward Serga.

Clang!

Serga's sword collided with Fenris. It had not been especially fast, yet Serga's sword had naturally been waiting exactly where Fenris thrust.

'There is a process.'

What had made sparring Helenas so difficult was that he could not read the process. Five hundred years and intent had skipped the process that should have been there and already arrived at the result.

But Serga's sword was different.

A chain of minute movements. The shifting of weight at his toes, the turn of his shoulders, the angle of his wrist. Unlike Helenas's sword, which contained only the result, Serga's sword held every step needed to reach that result.

'They're so alike it gives me chills.'

Kyle's brow twitched.

He could see the process. He could read it. But seeing it did not mean he could twist his own sword around it. If he did, his sword path would become tangled.

A tangled sword path could not display its power properly. Forcing it to twist would turn it into a wrong answer, and the cost of a wrong answer would be painful.

The other side had to carry out that wrong answer, but even that was not the correct answer. The correct answer was already in Serga's sword.

Serga's sword was like a vicious answer sheet. It stated the correct answer, then demanded that the opponent produce a new correct answer.

If this clash were graded with O, X, and △, it was a △.

Neither correct nor wrong.

'Similar, but...'

Kyle immediately pulled Fenris back from the clash. His body and Fenris turned together.

Clang!

Serga's sword was already there where Kyle swung.

'He isn't as perfect as Ruin.'

From a single exchange, Kyle understood how deeply Serga had immersed himself in the sword and reinterpreted Helenas's sword. Every swordsman's starting point was the same.

Holding a sword.

That was where a sword began. What one put into that sword determined its path.

Ruin's sword, Kyle could say boldly, had reached the end of the sword. Helenas's sword had not reached that end. Serga's was the same.

It was too early to speak of the end with Serga's sword.

But among every sword Kyle had seen across both his past and present lives, this was the first that called the end to mind with such purity.

'If the Sword Church is a religion that worships the sword...'

Their exchanges continued. Every sword Kyle swung was blocked by Serga's.

In the clash of simple basics, Kyle added irregularity. Fenris writhed like a snake and slipped into Serga's sword path. A curved sword, an unpredictable variation that scattered expectations.

'This man worships the sword with absolute purity.'

Serga's sword did not waver. No matter where Fenris bent or swept as it came cutting in, Serga's sword was already waiting at its end. He did not meet irregularity with irregularity. With the simplest straight cut, he sorted out every one of Kyle's curves.

'I see.'

A chill ran through Kyle as he understood.

Serga was not reading Kyle's sword. He already held the answer to irregularity. To someone who had pursued the simplest basics of cutting and thrusting to their limit, no matter how complex an irregularity appeared, it was only a variation of a cut or thrust.

'This man has no need to chase irregularity.'

He only had to return to the basics at the root of every irregularity and swing his sword there.

When every sword Kyle had devoured from Lamika was blocked, he did not cling to it any longer and leaped back.

He grabbed Baal, which he had planted in the ground.

The moment it came free, he ignored Baal's cry of joy.

Krrraack!

Baal scraped across the ground as Kyle charged forward.

Woooooo!

The authority of annihilation, that horrific killing intent, wrapped around the blade.

Boom!

Baal crashed down on Serga. Once again, Serga graded Kyle's attack a △ with a simple correct answer. Annihilation did not reach him. It was cut off before it could.

The Baal driven into the ground failed to unleash the explosion it desired.

Serga's sword attacked in that instant.

As though he would not allow a chain of repeated explosions, he forced his own correct answer upon Kyle.

△, △, △.

Kyle swung a sword that was neither correct nor wrong, smiling broadly all the while. It was a joy to be able to speak with someone through the sword this purely.

'It isn't absolute.'

Serga's sword was neither absolute nor flawless. If Kyle attacked aggressively enough, he could shake it. Even now, Serga was not receiving head-on the chain of explosions Kyle's sword sought.

That was the correct answer.

An obvious process, an obvious result. Meeting a sword like that head-on with the same approach was ignorant arrogance. Such an interpretation did not exist among the correct answers Serga envisioned.

'No, would that really be true? You could deal with it if you wanted to. You simply choose not to.'

The sword Kyle was using now belonged to Lamika and Tebar. They were Apostles of the same Sword Church, and Serga had likely watched both their swords many times. Perhaps that was why he could deal with them.

Then what about a sword he knew nothing about?

Kyle gripped Baal with both hands.

[Ahhh!]

Baal cried out in a voice filled with ecstasy. What Kyle was about to do was no different from touching Baal's most sensitive spot.

[This sword! The sword of my true master! Lord Astaros!]

He did not like that she cried out for a former master who had died long ago while being swung by her current master.

But this was not the time to complain about it.

Demon King Astaroth Erebos.

His destructive swordsmanship, brimming with killing intent, was recreated in Kyle's hands.

This sword needed no buildup and no explosion. It simply swung and came crashing down with brute force. An exhilarating sword that cleaved a massive hunk of flesh in two with one stroke. A sword that killed the opponent no matter how it was swung.

Baal's path came to a simple, clear conclusion.

I Cut, I Cut, I Cut.

Thinking of nothing else, Kyle swung Baal.

At that moment, a strange light appeared in Serga's eyes. For the first time, Serga's feet began to retreat step by step. He did not grade the place Baal would reach as wrong.

He intervened in its sword path before it reached that point.

Right before the most lethal and powerful force could erupt, Serga's sword slipped into the middle of Baal's path. The flow of attacks was cut apart again and again.

The △ did not become an O.

[How dare you, how dare you!]

Baal, who had been trembling with ecstasy, let out a shrill scream. The slash meant to divide Serga from head to groin was blocked halfway through, and Kyle once again threw Baal behind him without hesitation.

He took hold of Fenris instead.

[Kyaaaah!]

He returned to Raikal's sword.

Fenris settled into Kyle's hand with the most natural weight. It was the sword carved into his body over countless brushes with death since his past life.

Kyle steadied his breathing.

Then he swung his sword.

From above to below.

△.

It was the same grading as before.

He cut again, this time from the side. Serga's sword was there.

△.

Kyle cut again. He did not stop.

Each swing was a single strike. Yet countless irregularities and intentions were mixed into every sword path.

Serga's sword wavered slightly.

Cut, thrust, cut, cut, thrust.

It was not a sword with anything that stood out especially, unlike Lamika's or Tebar's.

Serga's eyes narrowed.

The swords Kyle had used moments ago had clearly belonged to other Apostles. Lamika's sword, Tebar's sword, and an unknown sword filled with killing intent. They were splendid, dazzling, and irregular.

Yet strangely, this one was the most troublesome.

'This...'

As he received Kyle's attacks, Serga felt a sense of discord.

The earlier swords had also felt unusual, but this sword even more so. It did not feel like the sword of a sixteen-year-old.

Countless years. Numerous battlefields. Endless brushes with death.

It felt as though the peak of a lifetime, a place only someone who had passed through all of that could reach, had melted into the sword.

When Kyle wielded the earlier swords, he had clearly been a genius boy.

But now, the Kyle swinging his sword carried the scent of an experienced swordsman who had spent decades rolling through battlefields.

'Can one person wield swords this different?'

Serga's grading wavered.

It was difficult to declare his own sword the correct answer. The △ was slowly filling in. Where Serga placed his correct answer, Kyle forced his own correct answer as well.

'This boy knows the essence of the sword.'

For the first time, Serga felt tension.

To think that swordsmanship from that boy would make him tense.

Serga was not arrogant by nature, but he had never expected this. The correct answer Serga had considered flawless was the sword of Helenas, the Sword Church Master.

Now, Kyle's sword was directly challenging the correct answer Serga had chosen and pursued.

Their starting points might have differed, but the destination their swords sought was the same.

The end of the sword.

Their swords collided one after another. Their conversation through the sword continued. Those simple clashes were the fiercest exchanges of the entire spar.

So much agonized thought filled the sword paths they each drew.

Serga displayed the answer to the sword he had contemplated his entire life. Kyle displayed the answer to the sword he had carved into himself over decades of battle.

Two paths toward the same truth crossed in the heart of Sword Grove.

'Ah.'

Kyle felt a delightful thrill.

That moment when he had no thought of running, forgot even death, and could not bear how much he enjoyed sharing swords.

The conversation Sword Demon Raikal had joyfully continued with his sword until his final moment.

'What a shame.'

In the end, Serga was not Ruin.

Ruin's sword was a completed truth, while Serga's sword was still walking that path. Raikal's sword, Kyle's sword, neither had reached Ruin yet.

Their swords were still unfinished.

But those two unfinished swords were heading toward the same place.

The moment he realized that...

'Ah, I see.'