WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 32

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Like a Butcher

"What...?"

Barkas's jaw dropped. The Revolving Heaven Strike. Of course he knew it. His younger brothers Dante and Seros were both currently working through it.

"Th, that's impossible!"

Bruno, eyes wide, shouted. Face flushed crimson, he stomped the floor,thud, thud,manners forgotten entirely as he raised his voice.

"The Revolving Heaven Strike is a tier-three cultivation technique! You... you entered it?! Stop lying!"

Among Julius's children, even Dante and Seros, who had both awakened the lightning spirit root, had only entered the Revolving Heaven Strike at twenty. At ten, the age they awakened their spirit roots, they had trained in a tier-four cultivation technique.

Were their talents lacking? Not at all. None of Julius's children lacked talent. Every one of them was a prodigy or better by any ordinary measure.

Naturally, the higher a cultivation technique's tier, the harder it was to enter. No matter how sharp one's comprehension, if the body wasn't ready, entry was simply impossible. Higher-tier techniques required Circuits of a complexity that was on a completely different level from those below.

In the Great Archive's classification system, a tier-three cultivation technique stood at the absolute ceiling of what could be achieved using the lower dantian. Bruno, fifteen this year, had been working through a tier-four technique since he was ten, and his achievement was still at four stars. His Circuits weren't fully developed, and his spirit root had barely been cultivated. No matter how hard he tried, entering a tier-three technique was entirely out of reach.

And yet. That higher-tier technique, apparently entered by someone who had only awakened his spirit root yesterday. By any common measure, this was impossible. The very idea of entering a cultivation technique on the day of one's awakening was absurd on its face.

"Why would I bother lying?"

Crunch. Kyle took another bite of the thunderclap fruit and kept talking.

"And why would I tell a lie this easy to disprove?"
"You... you just want to look special!"

Bruno spat the words out, his whole body trembling. Kyle Alastor. His cousin, five years his junior, got under his skin.

Not just under his skin. He hated him. Bruno still hadn't forgotten the punch he'd taken from Kyle five years ago, right there in the Central Hall on the Sword Tower's first floor. The cold look in the Family Head's eyes he'd witnessed that day. His father's expression, sharp and merciless, when Bruno came home humiliated.

That wasn't all. Since Kyle arrived, everything in the Sword Tower had begun to revolve around him. The Family Head, whose mere glance terrified Bruno, always treated Kyle as something special. Every year the boy aged, his father's temper sharpened.

Especially yesterday. Kyle had turned ten, awakened his spirit root, and when his father came home after learning what kind it was, the look on his face,the most savage thing Bruno had ever seen him wear.

"You... you like being the center of attention. So you keep showing up at the Sword Hall whenever you get the chance, you park yourself in the middle of the Sword Garden just to get noticed... and now you're lying for the same reason. Am I wrong?"
"You have a strange way of thinking."

Kyle let out a short laugh and shook his head.

"If I actually liked being the center of attention, why would I go to all that trouble? Taking a good long dump right there on the Sword Tower's first floor would get me far more attention than any of that."
"What...?"
"Has any pure-blood ever done that in the history of the Sword Tower? No? Then if you want attention so badly, stop running your mouth and go down to the first floor, drop your pants, and give it a go. For all you know, Grandfather might decide you've got some real character and take a liking to you."

Bruno had held his tongue, waiting to see where this was going. It wasn't worth the wait. His face flushed crimson. Rage choked his words before they could form, and his lips moved soundlessly as he shook.

"Did you... really enter the Revolving Heaven Strike?"

Barkas composed himself and asked. Unlike his son, he wasn't inclined to think Kyle would lie about something like this, but what he was hearing defied common sense enough that he had to ask again.

Kyle popped the last of the thunderclap fruit into his mouth and raised a finger. Mana surged from his lower dantian, circulated through his Circuits by way of the middle dantian, and concentrated at his fingertip. Crack! A violet current bloomed at his fingertip, and Barkas's breath caught.

"What the..."

A low curse left him. Awakening the lightning spirit root allowed one to convert mana into thunder energy, but in the early stages of awakening, that wasn't yet possible.

The reason was simple. The spirit root was still weak, and the Circuits underdeveloped. Lower-tier cultivation techniques existed to lay the groundwork needed before higher ones became possible.

And yet the child standing before him, who had only awakened his spirit root yesterday, was producing thunder energy at his fingertip. No tier-four technique, the kind pure-blood children started with, was capable of that kind of mana conversion at the point of entry.

"You really entered the Revolving Heaven Strike...?"

Bruno could no longer push back against it. Kyle drew the thunder energy spinning at his fingertip back in and smiled.

"You came here to bond as family, didn't you, Uncle?"

Hardly an innocent family visit. Given the high-handed attitude and all the talk about Knight Candidates, the real intention was probably to use family bonding and instruction as a pretext for a sparring match.

"I'm genuinely glad you came with that in mind. I've been wanting to get closer to my cousins anyway."

Kyle glanced over at Bruno. The rage and shock twisting his face were slowly giving way to something else. His mouth corners and cheeks twitched, his eyes darted without settling. Bruno was running his original purpose through his head and quietly sizing up Kyle's level.

"So how do we go about getting closer?"

Kyle asked with a guileless smile. That question kept Barkas quiet for a moment.

Entering the Revolving Heaven Strike in a single day. Extraordinary. Exactly the kind of talent the Family Head would cherish. In all the history of Alastor, there had probably never been a monster to match this boy.

But fortunately, this monster hadn't fully ripened. To his credit, Barkas acknowledged that his son's talent was simply in a different class from Kyle's. Even so, no matter how vast the gap in talent, time was still on Bruno's side, at least for now.

The total volume of mana would decisively favor Bruno, but in terms of swordsmanship...

Crack.

Barkas ground his back teeth. That arrogant nephew had spent five years walking in and out of the Sword Hall like it was his own bedroom, learning the sword directly from the Family Head. The Family Head himself had called it play rather than instruction, but the Thunder Emperor Julius Alastor swinging a sword to match the moment, for a monster overflowing with talent, was more than enough as teaching.

Lucia herself had said she'd never beaten him in a straight swordsmanship match either.

Kyle's talent was simply beyond all reason. And Lucia had the sword gift that Gladiheim itself had taken notice of. Lucia, who had only become a Knight Candidate at the start of this year, was drawing more attention than Bruno, who had been one for two full years. On top of that, Kyle had spent five years working through every tier-five sword technique text in the Great Archive.

Winning a pure swordsmanship match against that boy was impossible for Bruno, but...

That was only in a straight duel of technique. Kyle might have read every text, but Bruno's practical experience handling mana far surpassed his. Barkas settled his thoughts and rested a hand on Bruno's shoulder.

"Among Martial family children, crossing swords is always the best way to grow close."

He had no intention of using this chance to injure his nephew out of resentment over the boy's gifts. But that kind of blind confidence needed to be knocked down at least once.

The more gifted, the more arrogant. The more full of themselves. Kyle in particular had come to the Sword Tower at five and had never once experienced defeat. Everyone calling him a genius, a monster. A boy who knew exactly what he was, brimming with confidence, losing to someone he'd written off as nothing,that wouldn't just be one defeat. It could scar him for years.

Barkas sincerely hoped for exactly that. He gripped his son's shoulder tight.

"My son Bruno has spent two years learning the sword as a Knight Candidate. Kyle, you'll become a knight as a pure-blood Alastor someday too. So let Bruno teach you how a knight wields a sword, how a knight fights."

A cheap, petty pretext. Kyle could just as easily learn those things from Lucia, or from Erika, who was already an Apprentice Knight.

"I'm fine with that."

Kyle grinned wide. He had decided to play along with Barkas's all-too-transparent intentions.

They'll just keep looking for trouble regardless.

Kyle was no stranger to this kind of pecking order. He'd been through it since childhood in the mercenary band, and he didn't mind it one bit.

There was one other reason.

"Brother, are you out of your mind? You want to pit someone who just woke up their spirit root against a Knight Candidate?"

Arian shot Barkas a look like he'd lost his mind. Kyle calmly took hold of her sleeve.

"I'm fine, Mom. Sparring is something I do all the time, and I genuinely want to get closer to my cousins."
"But Kyle...!"
"Really, I'm fine. If it were dangerous, you and Uncle wouldn't just stand by and watch, would you? And Bruno's older now, so I don't think he'll lose his head and pull out his Aura like last time."

At that, Bruno's face crumpled. Hearing something like that from a kid five years his junior was hard to swallow.

"You arrogant little..."
"If my attitude bothers you, let's make it interesting. If I win, I'll keep calling you whatever I feel like. If you win, I'll call you big brother."

Kyle cut him off and smiled.

"If big brother isn't enough, something else works too. Bruno-ssi? Bruno-nim? Whatever you want."
"You..."

Bruno's eyebrow twitched upward.

"Keep your promise. Got it?"
"I'm the kind of person who has never once broken a promise in their life."

Of course, Kyle had no actual memory of whether that was true.

Kyle and Bruno faced each other in front of the Rose Mansion.

Kyle wouldn't have minded using a real sword, but at Arian's insistence they used wooden swords for the match.

I don't even have a real sword yet.

He was properly entering martial training now, so Kyle was at least eligible to carry one. The first sword was normally custom-forged at Gladiheim's smithy, but he didn't feel any urgent need for that right now.

Because Fenris existed. His body hadn't grown enough yet to swing it comfortably, but if at all possible, he wanted the first sword he used in this life to be Fenris. Even if that mutt didn't recognize its own master, there was a bond from five hundred years ago that meant something.

That little...

Bruno glared at Kyle with a twisted expression. They stood facing each other, wooden swords in hand, a set distance between them. No one had called the start, but a wooden sword was still a sword, and right now they were holding them in front of each other.

What's he even looking at?

Kyle's eyes were pointed forward, but his gaze wasn't resting on Bruno at all. Bruno ground his back teeth.

That red hair. Those golden eyes. That infuriatingly smooth face. From first to last, there was not one thing about this kid he didn't hate.

Calm down. Keep it together.

Bruno's worst habit was his temper. He'd been told about it his whole life, and it had never once improved. He drew a long breath and gripped the wooden sword in both hands.

Five years ago, Bruno had awakened the earth spirit root. Following that, he had trained in the cultivation technique for earth mana and the sword art paired with it.

Earth was vast and unyielding. It didn't sway like the sea, flutter like the wind, rage like fire, strike like lightning, or chill like ice. Earth was always still, holding all of those things firm beneath it. And when the moment came, it had to rise like a mountain and crush whatever stood against it, without wavering through the entire process. That was the sword art Bruno had trained in.

His father had said that winning a straight swordsmanship match would be difficult, but...

Bruno had his own pride and his own stubbornness. He had learned the sword before Kyle, and since becoming a Knight Candidate he had trained with a ferocity that made death look preferable. Losing to someone who had only ever swung a sword as play, with Lucia going easy on him,that wasn't something he was willing to accept.

But Barkas was someone Bruno feared as much as the Family Head, or more in a different way. So he would do exactly what his father asked.

No matter how refined Kyle's swordsmanship, strength was strength. Without it, he couldn't push through Bruno's blade. Receive the light strike and counter. Or just crush him with raw force.

Bruno poured mana into both hands gripping the wooden sword. Surge! The wooden sword vibrated faintly as the mana drawn from his earth spirit root wrapped around the blade. With it, Bruno's whole body took on a weight and pressure like a boulder that had lain buried in the earth for ages.

"Ready?"

Bruno growled, eyes locked on Kyle. His father was watching, and there was a bet on the line. This time there would be no carelessness like five years ago. None at all.

At that, Kyle's gaze, which had been somewhere else entirely, finally settled on Bruno. He let the wooden sword hang loose at his side, held in one hand, and answered.

"I've been ready for a while. Shall we start?"
"You arrogant little..."

Bruno nearly snapped completely, but barely managed to hold it together. Don't get worked up. This cultivation technique and sword art demanded the stillness of earth.

The match began.

Kyle just stood there, sword in hand, perfectly still. Bruno glared at him. For all that banter, he had expected Kyle to come charging in from the start, but Kyle showed no sign of moving first.

Fine. Change the approach. Bruno moved to close the distance himself, intent on crushing him with overwhelming force.

Strangely, his feet wouldn't leave the ground. Was it his connection to the earth? That wasn't it. If he willed it, this great rocky mountain could press down and bury whatever stood before it.

His feet wouldn't move for a reason that was entirely, terribly simple.

Don't approach.
Don't raise the sword.
Don't attack.

Why? Cold sweat started running down Bruno's forehead. He had walked the path of the sword too. Even from a stance alone he could read where attacks would come from, spot the openings, at least to a degree.

Right now, Kyle was full of openings. He wasn't even holding the sword properly, just standing at ease. His build was a bit larger than average for a ten-year-old, but nowhere near Bruno's level. Elixirs? Bruno had consumed plenty of those as well. Add mana on top of that, and he was confident he could crush whatever physical strength Kyle could put out like stepping on a dry leaf.

All of that was true. And yet he couldn't do it. He didn't want to. Something told him he shouldn't. His mind, locked up somewhere along the way, had arrived at that conclusion.

Move forward and die.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The cold sweat running down his forehead began to fall to the ground. Not just his face. Bruno's entire body was soaked in it. His hands too. Gripping the wooden sword had started to feel deeply wrong.

He just wanted to drop everything, put the sword down, and run.

What is...?

Watching from the side, Barkas narrowed his eyes. Even before the match began, Bruno had drawn up his mana and seized the advantage in presence. The Bedrock Sword Art Bruno had trained in was built around pressing the opponent down with overwhelming weight and force.

But Bruno himself couldn't move. His face had gone pale, and the legs that should have been immovable were trembling.

"..."

Barkas clenched his fist and stared at Kyle. A cold chill crept up his spine. Just a ten-year-old boy standing still. And yet, impossibly, Barkas felt a pressure coming off this child.

Not a sword pointed at anyone. No killing intent being projected. And still, Kyle's presence was unnervingly immense.

His eyes...

Barkas worked out what he was feeling. Kyle's gaze. Those eyes, settled into a deep stillness that had no business on a child that age, all the earlier playfulness completely gone, watching Bruno.

Where that gaze landed: the throat, the heart, the arms, the legs. Everything that could be stabbed or cut. Barkas swallowed without realizing it.

The boy showed no bloodlust at all. Like a butcher studying a cut of meat, he watched Bruno with the calm, practiced eye of a man who knew exactly where the blade would go.

What the...

The stance itself was easy, relaxed. But if the intent behind those eyes followed through, that wooden sword would make short work of him. Barkas saw it clearly. Bruno, on some wordless level, felt it too.

If he'd known nothing at all, he might have charged in blind. But he had walked the way of the sword, and so the fear had seized him entirely.

[What are you doing, Bruno? Stop being afraid and charge!]

Barkas sent his voice to his son through mana.

[Don't be fooled by his eyes! Right now, you're stronger! So get in there!]

Barkas kept sending his voice in sharp bursts, but Bruno barely heard his father at all.

Right now, Bruno was far more afraid of the boy standing before him than of the father he had spent fifteen years fearing.

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