WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
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Chapter 169: The Sword That Slays Dragons
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Shrrrrk.
Hundreds of threads shot from the tips of fingers as pale and slender as jade rings.
Threads imbued with psionics stronger and purer than that wielded by hundreds of ordinary Seven Dragons Society masters tangled in midair, forming the shape of tigers.
Two enormous tigers charged, kicking off the ceiling framework as though they were living creatures.
Shhk!
A single flash of sword light pierced the two beasts that could have torn even a tank to shreds.
With one strike, the technique of one who had reached the pinnacle of swordsmanship severed the necks of both tigers charging from either side.
The threads lost their shape and scattered after their heads were cut off.
But that was an illusion.
The threads that seemed to be scattering tangled intricately in midair once more, becoming ten wolves in the blink of an eye.
Like hunting prey under their leader's command.
Seven wolves leaped at Rimon in perfect unison.
Four sought to bite his wrists and ankles, two rammed him from the front and rear, and the last aimed for his throat to finish him off.
Crack.
But Rimon did not falter.
Spinning in place like a top, he cut four wolves in two.
As he twisted his body and leaned back to avoid the two wolves' charges, he merely drew his sword diagonally and cut off their heads.
Then he drove the blade through the forehead of the wolf that had lunged for an opening.
At the same time, he stepped forward.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
While Rimon dealt with the wolves, the three wolves aiming for Tata's life were each split apart, one with every step.
The threads that had formed the wolves tangled together again, trying to take on new shapes, but Rimon paid them no mind.
He simply charged straight at Ainsha, who had been controlling them.
Perhaps she had no time to weave a complex shape against Rimon's lightning-fast advance.
What Ainsha swiftly gathered her threads into were a thick wall and five spears.
The wall, which could easily repel artillery shells, blocked Rimon's path, while the spears, capable of piercing even a bunker in a single blow, all targeted his vital points.
Shhk!
But that was all.
As though such hastily made toys could not possibly stop him, Rimon split the wall with one stroke.
The moment his sword slowly traced a circle through the air, the five spears halted sharply in midair like petals caught in a spiderweb, then shot back at Ainsha along the tip of Rimon's blade.
Ainsha instantly dispersed her psionics and erased the spears.
Her response was swift.
But not swift enough.
The instant Ainsha scattered the spears, Rimon was already right before her.
His blade shot forward.
The thrust, all the more terrifying for its simplicity, drove into Ainsha's thigh with such speed that it did not leave even a moment to blink.
Clang!
What blocked the blade was the cardigan flung wide open.
The cheap 5,000 won cardigan Rimon had bought her became an impregnable iron wall in that moment, blocking the Sword Master's blade, a blade that could pierce even a 500 billion won warship.
Still, Rimon was not disappointed.
As though he had expected her to block it, he swung his sword at Ainsha again without the slightest hesitation.
Ainsha was no more shaken than he was.
Facing the chilling storm of sword light, she swung her cardigan with an expressionless face.
Thus, the brawl began.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
She wrapped the cardigan around his swinging sword to block it, then lightly twisted her body and thrust out a leg at Rimon's abdomen.
Rimon deftly pulled his sword free from the cardigan gripping it tightly and blocked the kick.
The moment the blade seemed to meet her foot, a vortex-like twist seeped along the sword, trying to shatter his wrist. Rimon dispersed it merely by lightly flicking the sword tip.
A counterattack followed at once.
Dozens of sword strikes came in succession, skillfully avoiding vital points while targeting places that would hinder her movement.
Ainsha defended against that barrage, like a raging storm, with her cardigan while moving her psionics according to the Celestial Maiden Wave Style.
Clang-clang-clang!
Fluttering like a celestial maiden's robe yet batting away the sword like waves powerful enough to push back enormous ships, the cardigan repeatedly clashed with the blade.
With every collision, the sword grew faster, while the cardigan's undulations became greater and stronger.
When those undulations reached their peak,
a wave of psionics burst from the cardigan.
As Rimon split it head-on, the cardigan's hem lashed out like a wave and struck his chest.
Boom!
It was only a thin cardigan.
Yet strengthened by the psionics of the Iron Robe Long Garment Style and Celestial Maiden Wave Style, it sent Rimon sliding back as though he had been struck by an iron mace.
But the expression on his face was not one of dismay, but a cold smile.
And in Ainsha's mind, as she expressionlessly looked at her cardigan, now split in half, and her arm, bruised blue, a question arose.
Why?
Rimon had struck her arm and even cut the cardigan by exploiting the instant she fused the psionics of two martial arts styles into an attack.
His skill was astonishing, but not inexplicable.
He was the Sword Duke.
The Seven Dragons Society's greatest nemesis.
Yet as Ainsha halted, unable to solve that question, Rimon spoke softly.
“You still don't understand? Why you can't read my future?”
“...”
Ainsha flinched.
Unlike her expressionless face, her body's reaction was far too honest. Rimon let out a faint chuckle.
“There's no need to be surprised. It's merely a knack.”
“That is impossible.”
“No, it isn't.”
How could mere technique block precognition?
Cutting off Ainsha's unconscious objection, Rimon continued in a languid voice.
“This is a knack the Sword Emperor learned while fighting your ancestors, the Seven Dragons.”
“...!”
Perhaps because the words were so unexpected, Ainsha's pupils shook.
The moment they did, Rimon mercilessly pressed into that opening and swung his sword.
Even while shaken, Ainsha reflexively moved to meet Rimon's attack.
With one hand, she swung the half-remaining cardigan to knock aside his sword. With the other, she attacked using countless beasts and weapons made from hundreds of threads.
She diverted the assault with distinctive circular movements, then spun like a whirlpool and struck with kicks, counterattacking and breaking his rhythm.
Her movements were wondrous.
She used the principles of countless martial arts styles as the situation required, proving herself the White Dragon Clan's greatest master.
But Ainsha herself had no room to spare. Rather, beads of sweat ran down her expressionless face.
She read a future where her wrist was cut.
But it missed.
She read a future where she struck Rimon.
But it vanished.
She read a future where she blocked his sword strike.
But it tangled.
At first, she merely could not see Rimon's future.
But as their close-quarters battle continued, and every time she received Rimon's sword, her own future also blurred. That realization shook her.
I don't want this. It's horrible.
To her, a prophet, it was terror.
It was a sensation more horrible than being blinded, deafened, and having her limbs torn away one by one in real time.
That was why Ainsha forcibly shook off Rimon and drew up her psionics.
It was not because she judged that she needed to finish things quickly as it became harder and harder to know what move to make next.
It was the overwhelmingly desperate urge to cast off that sensation even a little faster that drove Ainsha to take a risk.
She overlapped both hands and imbued a thousand threads with the psionics of the Heavenly Net Forming Style, giving them shape.
She pulled the threads taut, adding strength greater than steel with the Iron Robe Long Garment Style, then plucked the taut threads to infuse them with the vibrations of the Celestial Maiden Wave Style.
She wrapped the middle of the threads around her ankles, adding the rotational force of the Spiral Sinking Kick Style. Then she stepped on the threads with her toes, adding the suppleness of the Taiji Flowing Movement Style.
The psionics of five martial arts styles blended into a thousand threads, amplification upon amplification building upon itself.
Then, from the thousand threads crossing and tangling a thousand times in midair, a single form filled with white radiance burst forth.
『Five Ultimate Techniques of the Seventy-Two Martial Arts Schools
Dragon King Reigns』
Rumble!
It was a wonder.
A White Dragon, delicate enough to seem impossible to have been crafted from mere thin threads, yet large enough to fill the entire ceiling.
But it was not merely a beautiful ornament.
The waves of psionics that burst out whenever the White Dragon's form stirred, and the filming set shaking as if struck by an earthquake, proved that.
“W-What? An earthquake?”
“More importantly, what is that? Special effects? Was something like that planned?”
Perhaps because of the sheer spectacle and its aftereffects, the host, staff, and audience, who had not understood what was happening until then, looked up at the ceiling.
But Rimon was neither surprised nor flustered.
He merely held his sword diagonally in both hands and gave a dry laugh.
“A dragon before me, of all things... How amusing.”
In the distant past,
the Sword Emperor, the first Sword Master, fought almost alone against the Seven Dragons and the Seven Dragons Society that ruled the world.
What hindered the Sword Emperor most at the time was their precognition.
Their ability to find him wherever he fled and know whenever he attacked smothered the very will to resist.
But precisely because of that, the Sword Emperor gradually learned how to deal with precognitive opponents through repeated attacks and escapes.
As he fought the Seven Dragons, that knack accumulated principles and became a technique with its own system.
“Then I shall show you as well.”
Sword Intent that only the two disciples who had stood beside the Sword Emperor against dragons,
who had fought on the same battlefields as the Sword Emperor,
and who had been drenched in dragon blood alongside the Sword Emperor could learn.
A Sword Principle that no Sword Master afterward had dared to comprehend, and which only one remaining Sword Master remembered after the other died.
The Sword Emperor's final disciple awakened that swordsmanship, no longer passed down even in legend, across the vast passage of time.
“What a sword that slew dragons is like.”
『Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword: Origin
Kill Every Last Dragon Bastard. Dragon Slaughter』
The writhing dragon opened its jaws and flew toward Rimon.
And the moment Rimon extended his sword toward it,
the future of the world split.
* * *
“...!”
Ainsha caught her breath.
It was not merely because the dragon, which held enough power to crush a mountain, was being torn apart like meat ground in a grinder.
It was because only she could clearly see what Rimon was doing now.
The future split.
One certain future became two.
Two incomplete futures became four.
Then eight, sixteen, and more.
Every time Rimon swung his sword, her precognition split apart, and tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of futures swept over her like a storm.
This is...
What he was cutting was not merely the dragon's form or psionics.
Just as he had built up process and cause to destroy Tata's precognition,
the principles of the sword he had built up step by step by reading Ainsha's thoughts and seeing through her movements became overwhelming reality, cutting down flimsy futures.
Only then did Ainsha understand.
It was only natural that precognition did not work on Rimon.
To someone who could create infinite possibilities simply by swinging his sword, there could be no predetermined future.
And she understood something else.
This was the Sword Emperor's sword.
The sword of a superhuman who had faced the Seven Dragons with only two disciples and finally ended the Bronze Age, a sword that created its own future.
That was why her ancestors had never faced Rimon, only fled from him.
But when she realized that,
Rimon's sword, having already shredded the dragon's form entirely, was extending toward her.
Overwhelmed by the sword of an absolute being that cut even the future, Ainsha was about to receive its blade without any resistance.
“Princess!”
Shhk!
A figure stepped between her and the blade.
Scarlet blood sprayed into the air, soaking Ainsha's cheek as she stood frozen, eyes wide open.
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