WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ Sword Master of the Fallen Kingdom

Chapter 32

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The Forgotten City (12)

Arched windows lined the walls of the audience chamber. Artificial sunlight slanted across the room. Just moments ago, a brutal battle had raged here, yet now everything was eerily quiet.

The Death Knight had carried resentment too deep to pass on. But this was different from before. Like Kyle, the black knight had taken the Kingdom of Alenos sword salute, and his gaze was calm. The blue glow beyond his helmet no longer flickered like flame. It was still, like the surface of a lake without a single ripple.

Kyle let out a slow breath. He was aware of every inhale and exhale. Mana drifting through the air resonated with his will and spread rapidly through his body.

If the earlier fight had been a clash between undead and human, this was now a formal duel between knights. There were no witnesses, but both sides had agreed. That was enough. Kyle slowly lowered the left hand that had rested behind his back near his waist. The sword, held perfectly upright, tilted down like a falling leaf.

The lowered blade shifted from sword salute into a pre-attack stance.

Boom!

As if on cue, the two knights rushed each other. Their blurring forms flashed with steel.

Craaang!

A thunderous roar exploded from the first clash. The impact was far heavier than before.

Kyle immediately drew his sword inward, spun, and launched a second strike. With a chilling cut through the air, the silver blade bit toward the black knight's neck.

The black knight answered with perfect timing. The heavy greatsword knocked Kyle's blade away again. Kyle took half a step back to regain balance, then launched three strikes in the blink of an eye. The black knight moved the huge weapon like an extension of his body, blocked all three, then turned the flow and pressed forward.

Kang! Kaang! Kagaang! Kagagaang!

The blue-black greatsword came down in a storm. The black knight was not simply swinging one-handed. He used his entire body, drawing out every bit of recoil and inertia from each collision of steel. The greatsword was violently destructive, yet every path it carved was extremely refined.

Kyle was no different. He blocked what needed blocking and diverted what needed diverting.

He used the entire chamber. His feet moved sharply through the chaos of crossing blades. Then blue flames rose from the black knight's greatsword. Fire climbing the blade sharpened into vivid blue Sword Aura and crashed toward Kyle.

So he had not gone all out before.

Earlier, he had been fast and fierce but rough, like a wild beast. Now his attacks were clearly guided by intellect. His swordplay and Sword Aura control were both the same. The mountain-like pressure unique to a veteran knight bore down on him.

Kyle clenched his left fist until it nearly broke. At some point, a fresh magic stone had appeared in his grip, and it cracked, scattering sparkling particles of light. White mana threads unfurled and wove into pure white Sword Aura above his blade. Blue light and white light collided in the center of the audience chamber.

Fwaaaash!

Sword wind howled. The aftershock from the clashing auras blasted outward. Deeply gouged ground and shattered stone were shoved away with rough scraping sounds.

"Ugh...!"

Lena squeezed her eyes shut. The hem of her blue robe whipped violently. She raised an arm to shield her face, but the wind was so fierce she could barely open her eyes.

To her, it looked like a dance. Two knights wielding light in a sword dance. It was different from when Kyle fought the assassins. Back then, both sides had fought to kill as fast as possible. This time, it felt like they were exchanging swords. The drifting shards of light. The sweeping blade trails. All of it.

How long had they swum through that raging tide of blades?

Boom!

The black knight, who had been driving Kyle back like a madman, slammed his right foot into the ground. Fragments of broken stone burst up in front of them. For an instant, dust clouded the air.

Kyle's stance loosened by a hair. A streak of blue shot through the dust and stabbed in. Kyle knocked away two strikes in an instant. At the same time, he drove his mana-reinforced feet into the ground and kicked off. The world slid, and his body shot backward.

Whoosh!

Dust split hard to both sides. Beyond it, the black knight charged without hesitation, blue greatsword in hand. In an instant he closed the distance and brought the greatsword down from above his head.

Falling blue light. Kyle's foot slid sideways. His pure white blade angled up and redirected the greatsword diagonally. The blade buried itself in the ground again. This time, the black knight did not follow with another ground-rending strike. The instant the greatsword stuck, his left leg, wrapped in pitch-black armor, whipped toward Kyle.

Dangerous.

There was no time to recover the sword. Kyle reinforced both arms with mana and blocked the whip-like kick. The impact shook him to the bone, and both feet lifted off the ground. The black knight spun fully through the kicking motion, then snapped his right leg straight up in a vertical kick.

Kaang!

Iron slammed into iron. Kyle had not blocked with his arms. He blocked with the pommel. Even so, he could not erase the impact. His airborne body shot upward in an instant.

Kwaaaang!

A ceiling at least thirty meters high burst apart. Broken stone rained down near the black knight's feet. The black knight calmly raised his settled blue gaze. In the middle of the shattered ceiling, Kyle had buried both feet and hung there as if defying gravity.

"..."

Silence fell for a moment. Kyle looked down while hanging from the ceiling. Even though the black knight could have leaped up and chased him at once, he did not.

Was he waiting? Or watching and staying guarded? Either way, if this dragged on, Kyle would be at a real disadvantage. Reaching that conclusion, he tightened his grip on the hilt.

Sssshh...

Light particles bled from Kyle's left hand again, for what must have been the sixth or seventh time. Directly below, the black knight stared up at him with shining blue eyes.

Kyle shifted from a one-handed grip to both hands. Facing him, the black knight gripped his greatsword with both hands as well. Their eyes locked in suffocating tension, and Kyle muttered inwardly.

Boom!

He kicked off the ceiling. The force of both legs, combined with gravity, launched him downward at terrifying speed. He raised the hilt above his head with both hands.

Mana roared. For an instant, time seemed to slow. His senses sharpened like needles, and everything stretched long. In that space, the pure white blade swelled explosively. A pale afterimage carved white light through the air along his falling path.

Asherad Royal Swordsmanship, Sixth Form.

Repose of the North Wind.

Suaaak!

From the ceiling where Kyle hung to the floor where the black knight stood, pure white light dropped in a straight line. Rising heat haze warped the surrounding view.

Directly below, the black knight fixed his gaze on Kyle and raised his greatsword. Blue Sword Aura wrapped around the broad blade, swelling just like Kyle's. A knight's sword form. A single slash honed to the absolute limit. Through the descending pure white flash, blue flames spiraled upward like a storm.

Kwaaaaaang!

A blast loud enough to deafen in an instant exploded. The dust cloud that spread dwarfed even the one from before.

Kang, kang, kagagaang...

Through the billowing dust, the blue-black greatsword spun and tumbled away. The blue flames that had wrapped its blade were gone. Flung in the opposite direction was a black suit of armor, the black knight who had traded that final strike with Kyle.

[Excellent, knight of Hailen. Your final strike was truly a sword form worthy of the end....]

As the dust settled, Kyle came into view. The white light around the sword in his hand had already gone out. He glanced at his right hand for a moment, then sheathed the blade. He steadied his rough breathing and stepped forward until he stood beside the black knight.

"I haven't been pushed this hard in a very long time."

[...Is that so?]

"Yeah. If you had faced me while truly alive, not as a Death Knight, I couldn't have guaranteed my odds."

[...That does not feel bad.]

A clear vertical scar remained across the black knight's breastplate, where Kyle's Sword Aura had passed. Black particles slowly spread from the split armor. Watching that, Kyle understood. The knight before him had finally let go of his final attachment.

[When I was alive, I often wondered what my end would be like.]

Lying on the ground, the black knight's blue eye-light looked up at Kyle. Kyle did not avoid that gaze.

[Though I failed to protect my king, I was defeated knight to knight in the end, so I have no more regrets. The dead should leave the world of the living.]

"..."

[Let me thank you once more, knight. Thanks to you, I remained a knight until the very end. Please grant my king peaceful rest as you did for me....]

With those words, the light in the visor went out. The black knight's head, arms, and legs fell limp. The black particles spilling from the split breastplate thickened. Not long after, the pitch-black armor and blue-black greatsword vanished like smoke.

"...Kyle-ssi."

Lena, who had stayed in the corner, approached carefully. Kyle looked down at the spot where the black knight had disappeared, then spoke slowly.

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine. Just like you told me, I stayed in the corner..."

"Good."

"Kyle-ssi, are you okay?"

"Just a little tired. I didn't take a fatal wound."

His sword hand and the forearm that had blocked the black knight's gauntlet ached, but it was not serious. A potion and a few days of rest would be enough.

"More importantly..."

Kyle's gaze turned toward the audience chamber. Lena followed his eyes. On the raised platform above the rest of the room, the white-robed Lich sat on the throne.

Even after the black knight vanished, the Lich showed no reaction. Just as Kyle expected, there seemed to be some reason it could not move. Telling Lena to wait, Kyle climbed the stairs along the ruined red carpet toward the throne.

On the final step, he stood before the Lich and extended the right hand that had held his sword only moments ago.

And then.

Fwaaash!

The air changed. The atmosphere shifted so abruptly that Kyle tried to turn around at once.

[It has been a very long time since I had a guest.]

A voice spoke. It came from the Lich before him. Unlike the black knight's low voice, this one was clear and pleasant. Kyle reflexively moved his hand to his waist. No, he tried to.

"What...?"

But his right hand did not move as he intended. It moved slowly, as if something were dragging it back. The tiny mana left in his body behaved the same way. In that strange stretch of time, Kyle looked at the Lich.

[Do not be alarmed. I only wish to speak.]

"...What did you do?"

Kyle stared at a speck of dust right in front of him. Dust that should have fallen under gravity seemed frozen in midair. It only looked that way because it was falling so slowly.

[I stretched time for a moment. More precisely, I stretched perceived time.]

"...Thought Acceleration?"

[Correct. You understand quickly, and that is good. Stopping time is impossible even for a mage of the highest attainment, but temporarily accelerating thought is possible, in one way or another.]

As the Lich spoke, the voice felt less like sound through air and more like something ringing directly in his mind.

"What are you?"

[The lord of a nation that once ruled the south.]

The answer was short, but Kyle understood much from that single line.

[I've sat on this throne and slept for a very long time. A mind worn away by the flow of years could not endure forever.]

The Kingdom of Alenos had fallen to civil war. And this was the ruler of that ruined nation, the one who inherited the final throne just before its collapse.

[I waited a very long time at the boundary between dream and reality. Far beyond what a single human could ever count. But too much time passed. At some point, even who I was and where I was became hazy. My consciousness sank deeper and deeper.]

Like the black knight, white eye-light flowed from the Lich's empty sockets.

[If not for you, even the faint self I had left would have disappeared.

So forgive my rudeness and let me ask one thing. Exactly how many years has it been since the Kingdom of Alenos fell?]

The Lich asked politely. Kyle thought for a moment, then answered slowly.

"...Three hundred years."

[Three hundred... I expected as much, but much time has passed.]

"..."

[As you know, this place is an underground city built in preparation for ruin. A kind of ark. As the civil war over the throne turned against us, we hid here....]

The Lich's eyes shifted to where the black knight had stood before disappearing.

Its white eye-light trembled faintly. Even without words, many emotions passed through it. The light in its sockets vanished for a moment, then returned.

The white gaze turned back to Kyle.

[Thank you for freeing my knight. He was my most loyal subject and my only true friend. When those I trusted betrayed me and turned away, he died protecting me to the end... his resentment was too deep, so his soul remained.]

"Were you the one who killed the other rebels?"

[Killed... It would be more accurate to call it mutual destruction. While fighting the rebel forces that invaded this place, I came to my senses and found myself on this throne as a body of bones. Watching the friend who died for me struggle, bound to the past, was unbearable. But now he has left without a trace. Thanks to you, it seems he has truly cast off his regrets.]

Unlike the wistful look from before, the Lich now spoke with relief. Kyle watched it quietly, then asked.

"I have something I want to ask."

[Speak. If I can answer, I will gladly do so.]

"The Magic Tools left in these ruins. Were they all things you brought while fleeing into the underground city, or were they made here?"

The Lich thought briefly.

[Some were brought, and some were made here.]

"Not far from here, there was a massive archive...."

[The Grand Archive.]

"Were the grimoires there made here too?"

The Lich nodded.

[Correct. To be precise, I made them myself. Even if we fled underground, I believed the will of civilization had to remain. So I gathered every book I could and created a grimoire to manage them all. Is it in your possession now?]

The Lich's gaze moved to Kyle's hand. Kyle gave a small nod.

"It's in my Inventory Pouch."

[Hm... so you dispelled the Illusion Magic.]

"Should I not have?"

[No, no. The kingdom has already fallen. No citizens remain, so the grimoire that managed the archive has no purpose now. If it helps you, take it.]

"Then..."

[But separate from that, I want to give you a reward.]

"A reward?"

The Lich raised its skeletal right hand. Mana gathered, and space warped above its palm.

Kyle felt it immediately. The mana flow matched exactly the Teleport Magic that had dropped them into these ruins. It was advanced spatial magic of an extreme level. Calling it archmage-class did not even feel sufficient.

[I am already dead. I should have left this world long ago.]

The Lich looked down at its hand as it spoke.

[Yet for some reason, I became undead and remained. So I searched for someone who could grant rest, for me and for my knight. Sadly, undead bound by such constraints cannot kill themselves.]

For more than three hundred years, not a single person had granted them rest. A few mercenaries had reached the audience chamber, but they died unable to defeat the Death Knight, who had lost his reason and charged like a beast.

[If not for you, I would have lost myself and become only a Lich that moved for slaughter. My knight as well. But you freed my knight. And you can likely grant me rest too. So before I send you and your companion back, I want to repay you one final time.]

The Lich looked straight into Kyle's eyes. Kyle did not answer immediately.

[It is not difficult. Ask for whatever you want. Call it a trade if you like. A precious Magic Tool, an Artifact, even magic itself.

For all this, I was the greatest mage in the kingdom.]

"Then can you do this too?"

[What?]

Kyle raised his forearm. Thought Acceleration had slowed his perceived time, but it had not immobilized him completely.

He rolled up his sleeve and drew mana directly into himself. Not mana released by crushing magic stones, but unrefined ambient mana taken straight into his body. Sharp pain lanced through him, and purple thorns burst out. The Lich's eye-light narrowed.

[What a... what a vicious curse.]

"..."

[What did you endure? It is rooted deeply not only in your flesh, but in your soul itself. This is not something ordinary magic can solve. The fact that you are alive is a miracle. If you were not a knight of your level, you would have died dozens of times over. There may be a chance with very powerful holy power, but....]

Staring at Kyle's forearm, the Lich slowly shook its head.

As expected.

Kyle looked at his own forearm with a blank expression. He had expected this. He had searched every kind of text to break the curse, as well as Magic Tools, Ancient Relics, and even high priests.

As expected, none had worked. Even so, he had still hoped.

With faint disappointment, Kyle snapped off the thorn, poured Baekilcho potion over it, and pulled his sleeve back down. With perceived time stretched by Thought Acceleration, even taking out the potion and pouring it took a while.

Just as he tried to return the remaining potion to his Inventory Pouch.

[But there is another way to remove your mana limitation.]

That one line jolted Kyle fully awake.

"What did you just say...?"

[Exactly what I said. Ordinary knights and mages draw ambient mana into their bodies, refine it, and use it. Is your curse not one where mana crystallizes into thorns during that process, instead of moving as intended? Then use externally refined mana with outside assistance. How have you used mana until now?]

"By crushing Magic Stones...."

[Then this should do.]

Space above the Lich's palm twisted. A white ring appeared.

[The Brightest Star of Dawn.]

A gemstone sat at the ring's center. Inside it, red, yellow, green, and blue light mingled in an uncanny glow. At the core rested a pure white light like a nucleus.

[It is what I treasured most. Calling it the greatest treasure of the Kingdom of Alenos still would not be enough.]

The ring floating in midair drifted slowly toward Kyle. He carefully took it.

"This is..."

[A ring that automatically absorbs ambient mana, refines it, and stores it. You can draw mana directly without refining it again inside your body. There is a storage limit, but unless you unleash sword forms hundreds of times at once, you should never run dry. Though that itself would be impossible.]

Kyle gave the ring a slight twist. Inside it, still radiating brilliant light, mana churned in an amount equal to hundreds of Top-grade Magicite.

No, perhaps far more. And since it absorbed and stored mana on its own, he no longer needed magic stones. It was an item that shattered the shackles that had eaten away at him all this time.

"Can you really give me something this valuable?"

Kyle asked after studying it for a long while.

[As I said before, I am one of the dead. The dead have no need for such things.]

The Lich answered as if it were trivial. As it had said, this ring was extraordinary. Not only for someone like Kyle, whose mana use was impaired.

A treasure that let one skip the mana refinement process entirely.

For mages and knights alike, this single ring could drastically raise both the power and activation speed of magic and Sword Aura. If it ever appeared at auction, no one could guess the price.

[Take it. It suits you better than it suits me now.]

"..."

[And....]

The Lich trailed off. Kyle knew exactly what this fallen king wanted.

He slid the ring onto the middle finger of his left hand. At once, an indescribable tremor raced through his body. Like the day he first awakened mana. Beginning at the ring, mana flowed through every corner of him, filling him with a sense of power.

A sensation he had forgotten long ago, one he believed he would never reclaim.

[Thank you. Thanks to you, I can finally rest.]

The low murmur was deeply peaceful. Kyle pressed his left hand, ring still on it, against the Lich's chest. With a cracking sound, fractures spread through the bones making up the Lich's body. Even as his body crumbled to powder and scattered, the Lich smiled. Or seemed to.

[May your path ahead be full of fortune.]

With those final words, the slowed perceived time returned to normal. Kyle turned around.

White light burst from every direction. It was the same large-scale Teleport Magic as before. Lena, waiting below the throne, flinched and looked at Kyle. Kyle stared at the ring on his left hand for a moment, then surrendered himself to the white light filling his view.

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