WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 119: The Rift of Time (9)

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Kyle did not reject Prisia's mana. Forgetting even to swing his sword, he stared as if entranced at the Dragon Heart floating before him.

Light burst forth.

A familiar sensation caressed his entire body.

There was no hostility within it. Kyle already knew this feeling. He had felt the same light from Prisia when the Black Crow Merchant Company's trade ship was half-destroyed in the Pargon Strait, and he fell into the sea. It had descended like salvation when death stood right before him.

Warm and comforting, as if it could shield him from every harsh storm in the world.

In an instant, Prisia's light swallowed everything around him. Kyle's pure white Sword Aura and the Ice Dragon's condensed breath attack, which had been right before him, no longer existed.

Everything was colorless. The surroundings had been dyed in shades of white, gray, and black. In that space he had seen once in a dream, Kyle felt his five senses, sharpened by mana, rapidly settle.

Then they went out completely.

The colorless landscape turned pitch-black.

No.

The scenery had not changed. His vision had been cut off. He could no longer see his own hand, which had stopped midway through swinging his sword, or Prisia's Dragon Heart rising from where it hung around his neck.

There was only complete darkness.

What is this?

In a world where not a single sensation remained, Kyle desperately turned over the one thing left to him, his mind. Was this an illusion created by his own mind? A simple hallucination? Or had space itself truly changed?

[This is impossible! It cannot be!]

A familiar voice rang out.

[Prisia! How could you possibly...!]

The Ice Dragon's shocked voice echoed in his ears.

Trying to grasp the sudden change, Kyle focused on its faint voice. Sight, touch, smell. Everything was gone, and only his hearing had returned.

[Were you not in hibernation? What have you been doing for centuries, only to appear now?!]

Soon, the voice came again. The Ice Dragon's shock had become anger.

A thought struck Kyle's mind.

Wait, hibernation?

[Are you protecting a mere human? You, the Progenitor Dragon?]

Come to think of it, Prisia existed in this era as well. A thousand years ago, before dragons went extinct, Progenitor Dragon Prisia had been the oldest living dragon.

As that realization reached him, a question he had overlooked all this time surfaced.

What is Prisia of this era doing right now?

[Why is your Dragon Heart with that human in the first place?! Did you die somewhere? If not, did you tear out your own heart and give it to that human?!]

The Ice Dragon's furious cries continued as his thoughts raced on. Then its anger abruptly shifted into confusion.

[What did you say?]

It reacted as though it had heard something impossible to believe.

[Impossible! Something like that cannot be possible!]

The Ice Dragon cried out again.

[No! Are you interfering with me? Not even in person, but with nothing more than a fragment of your Dragon Heart?!]

Kyle felt his other senses return.

[Me, defeated by a mere lower life form like a human...!]

The Ice Dragon's voice cut off there. When Kyle opened his eyes, the world that had been painted black slowly regained its color.

The middle of a frozen lake. The star iron sword in his hand, like an extension of his own body. The Dragon Heart around his neck, which had leaped out from his clothes on its own and was now settling back down. The breath attack that had somehow vanished without a trace. And someone shouting from the hill behind him.

"Kyle!"

His stretched perception of time returned to normal. Remaining in the posture of his charge, Kyle bent low and prepared a sword form. The blade had already grown blindingly white.

[Get out of my sight!]

As if it had been blinded by Prisia's light, the struggling Ice Dragon raised a foreleg high and slammed it down onto the center of the frozen lake. A wave of frost rose as the ice twisted, sweeping toward Kyle.

He did not dodge.

Clang!

The towering wave of ice shattered with a clear sound. More than a dozen invisible blades had shot out from behind him.

Elysia. And Alfred.

He did not need to turn around to know. The flow of mana did not lie.

Kyle advanced through the opening in the wave and immediately used a sword form. Fragments of ice scattered above his head, refracting sunlight and dyeing the space around him with shimmering rainbow colors.

Asherad Royal Swordsmanship, Fourth Form.

Flowing Moonlight.

The white light wrapping around his blade compressed to its limit. The path of his swinging sword then became a long crescent moon. The pure white Sword Aura, racing across the overturned ice, struck the Ice Dragon's shoulder, which had been slowed by its wounds and spellcasting.

Kyaaaaaah!

The Ice Dragon let out a far more desperate cry than before. Seeing the Sword Aura dig into the sky-blue scales near its shoulder, Kyle looked down at his sword, whose light had faded, and his body.

Thankfully, he was not seriously injured. The bone-chilling cold of the dragon's Authority had nearly vanished, perhaps because of Prisia's mana.

The others are fine too.

Kyle glanced over his shoulder at Elysia and Alfred on the hill, then let out a quiet breath of relief. Since they were slightly outside the range of the Authority, they did not seem to have suffered major injuries. Other than looking exhausted from casting so much magic, neither had any visible wounds.

The Ice Dragon before him was different. It had already been gravely injured in its battle with the vermilion dragon and could not use its wings. On top of that, Kyle's Sword Aura and Alfred's flames had left scar-like marks across its scales.

Just before its final breath attack, lightning fired simultaneously by Elysia and Alfred had completely burned away its right eye. Golden sparks still crackled intermittently across its long neck.

It was clearly on the verge of death.

[You... how...]

In the sudden silence, the Ice Dragon spoke.

[What are you? What is your relationship with Prisia? Did you come from the future?]

The Ice Dragon's blackened eye fixed directly on Kyle. Unlike before, it no longer ignored him or raged. It only questioned a reality it could not understand.

"From the future?"

[More than one Dragon Heart cannot exist at the same time! That object you possess is clearly a fragment of Prisia's heart. But that woman entered deep hibernation hundreds of years ago. She could not have died somewhere, nor could a human have stolen her Dragon Heart. Unless you came from the future.]

"I see. So that's why I couldn't see her."

Kyle carefully grasped the pendant around his neck with his empty left hand. Mana beyond measure still swirled within the fragment of Prisia's heart, even after its light had faded.

"Thank you. You gave me some useful information."

Kyle tightly clenched the Dragon Heart in his hand.

Prisia of this era was in a deep sleep. As expected, the Dragon Heart contained Prisia's will, and for some reason, it was strangely favorable toward him.

He would have found it hard to believe in the past.

Kyle recalled his conversation with Alfred. Prisia was not the Empire's guardian Dragon. She was only a victim used by the first Emperor. That was likely why she was favorable toward him.

Since two versions of the same being could not coexist in one era, perhaps that was why she had entered hibernation...

[Fine. Let us make a deal, human.]

The Ice Dragon's voice pulled Kyle from his thoughts. Bleeding all over, the dragon continued in a voice slightly hoarser than before.

[You attacked me because you did not approve of me settling here, correct?]

Kyle did not answer. Having guessed their purpose on its own, the Ice Dragon added in a magnanimous tone.

[I will leave as you wish. I will not touch the village again.]

"Now?"

[If we keep fighting like this, you will not escape fatal injuries either. I wonder if you would still react this way after I tore your companions apart and killed them.]

"When you drove off the vermilion dragon that lived here, did you care about that?"

Kyle sneered at the Ice Dragon. Perhaps because it sensed the threat of death, it did not react emotionally as it had before.

[The strong devour the weak. That is the law of this world. That coward only fled because he valued his own life. He is nothing more than a defeated loser. What is the problem?]

"You're right. Which is why we have no reason to back down."

Kyle tightened his grip on his sword. As he slightly twisted it, sunlight from the bright, cloudless sky shattered across the blade like starlight. The bloodied Ice Dragon, blinded in one eye, distorted its face as it glared at Kyle.

[You intend to see this through to the end?!]

The Ice Dragon finally let loose the anger it had been holding back.

[Did I not say I would leave the village alone?! I said I would quietly leave, so what are you so dissatisfied with?]

"Our goal was your life from the beginning."

Kyle spoke while glancing toward the hill behind him.

"More precisely, your heart."

[You bastard! A lowly human dares mock me!]

The moment the Ice Dragon unleashed a thunderous roar, an immense wave of mana burst from its body and spread widely with a fierce wind.

The sky-blue dragon stretched out its wounded wings. Beneath the cracked ice, water from the lake rose around it and took the form of long spears. The frozen spears of frost then surged mercilessly toward Kyle and the two mages on the hill.

"Dodge!"

Alfred shouted urgently. Kyle raised the sword he had lowered.

Ice spears rushed toward him.

Yet they did not touch his body. Each time Sword Light flashed, shattered fragments scattered behind him, casting brilliant colors through the air.

Alfred, watching the scene, raised his staff as well. Dozens of spears had reached him by then. Their speed and power were on an entirely different level from ordinary mages' spells.

I'm tired. There are more than I expected.

The old mage briefly clutched his throbbing head after unleashing magic for so long, then steadied himself and gathered mana at the tip of his staff.

Elysia beside him was faster.

Crack, crack, crack!

Clear sounds like shattering glass rang out in rapid succession. The approaching ice spears struck invisible streams of wind and burst apart in midair. The remaining spears were all intercepted by identical ice spears fired back at them.

"Huh..."

"It's not over yet."

As Alfred gave a faint exclamation of admiration, Elysia fixed a sharp gaze on the dragon at the center of the lake. Transparent frost had gathered around the Ice Dragon's flapping wings, as though wrapping around its injuries.

"Don't tell me..."

[Then I will kill every last one of you! This disaster is one you brought upon yourselves!]

The instant its rapidly moving wings folded at a right angle, the Ice Dragon powerfully kicked off the frozen surface with all four legs. Its massive sky-blue body shot above the lake in an instant.

The three of them widened their eyes.

"How..."

Elysia murmured softly. One thought came to her first.

Is it trying to run away?

"...No."

As if he had read Elysia's mind, Alfred firmly denied it. As he said, the Ice Dragon was not fleeing. Blood dripped beneath the frost covering its back and wings, but it paid no attention. It continued to hover in place, repeatedly beating its massive sky-blue wings.

"Be careful! It's coming again!"

Before Alfred had even finished speaking, bone-numbing cold spread long and wide from the sky to the lake below. It was not magic, but Authority. A wave of pure power entirely different from mana froze everything around it.

Shattered ice fragments, the rippling lake surface, cracked ice. Everything.

"Goddamn it."

Alfred cursed. The Ice Dragon was opening its enormous jaws. Though it had lost its right eye and become one-eyed, the sky-blue dragon's gaze never left Kyle below. Blue cold gathered once more deep inside its open throat.

He knew it was coming and still could not stop it.

Alfred gritted his teeth.

They had survived earlier because of the Dragon Heart's lucky intervention, but could they do it again?

He forced mana into his unmoving body and prepared a spell. Then Alfred's hand stopped.

At the bottom of the gentle hill by the lake's edge, where the two of them stood, Kyle was in the middle of the ice field. He was forcing himself to turn his neck and look their way.

Please.

Kyle mouthed the words. He said nothing more, but Alfred understood his intent at once.

"Ha... it can't be helped."

The old mage's lips curled into the same playful smile as before. Having loosened some of the Authority's cold from his body, he turned to the side. His descendant, more than three hundred years in the future, was looking at Kyle with an anxious expression.

"Elysia."

"Sir...?"

"Prepare yourself. We're going to use magic. It is an extremely precise spell. I need your assistance."

Wrinkled golden eyes met bright golden eyes. The two pairs of eyes shared the same color. Their brief exchange was enough to convey what they needed.

"I will set the coordinates. Help me with the calculations."

Alfred pointed his staff toward Kyle. With a resolute expression, Elysia nodded and placed her slender white fingers over the back of the bony old man's hand gripping the staff.

The bright yellow gem resembling amber at the staff's tip blazed fiercely. Air resonating with mana shook around their bodies and whipped their robes. Even through the dizziness clouding his mind, Alfred drew his lips into a long smile. Elysia barely held onto her consciousness through the immense amount of mana leaving her body.

"Distortion of the Boundary, Leap of an Instant."

Alfred murmured softly. Mana erupted in response to his calm voice. Guided by the rushing wind, the flow of mana reached Kyle's feet far in the distance.

"Now!"

Blink.

With Elysia's help, Alfred drove the staff aimed at Kyle into the ground. Mana spread outward in concentric circles from where the staff struck. The entire lake trembled as if its surface were rippling.

Kwoooooong!

Extremely condensed blue cold plunged down from the sky. With a roar loud enough to deafen them, the area around the lake was swallowed by bright light. The Ice Dragon's breath attack fell in a straight line, erasing the spot where Kyle had stood along with the ice field.

Kwakwakwakwa!

The Ice Dragon turned its gaping jaws toward the hill where Alfred and Elysia stood. Unbroken blue cold poured from its mouth, smashing through the lake's icy surface and rapidly climbing toward the hill.

Alfred pulled the frozen Elysia into his arms and instinctively wrapped Wind Magic around his feet, kicking off the ground and rolling to the side. A beat later, freezing cold poured over the hill where they had been standing.

The light from the breath attack slowly faded.

[Foolish creatures. Mere humans dare oppose me. You do not know your place...]

Still floating in the sky, the exhausted Ice Dragon muttered. Below it lay the ruined surface of the lake, where broken ice and water mixed together. The hill was the same. Not a blade of grass remained where the breath attack had passed in a straight line. Only faint traces of frozen, crumbled ground remained.

[Hm?]

Yet Kyle's corpse was nowhere to be seen. The vertically slit pupil in its white eye rapidly widened. Only then did it see the two mages who had barely survived beside the hill struck by the breath attack.

Even so, there was no trace of Kyle.

He's gone?

Where did he go?

"Got you."

At the chillingly calm voice, the Ice Dragon snapped its head upward. Just above its own head, Kyle was circling through the air against the clear blue sky.

Asherad Royal Swordsmanship, Seventh Form.

Brand of Ash.

The star iron in his hand glowed more brightly than ever. His vision flashed white along the trajectory of his swinging sword. Kyle's blade was faster than the Ice Dragon's cry.

Two strikes contained in a single path smoothly cut into the shocked Ice Dragon's neck.

Footnotes:

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