WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ Sword Master of the Fallen Kingdom

Chapter 69

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Crossing Blades (4)

The dragon's dark-red maw gaped wide. Inside it, a white blade split in two and crossed at a diagonal. Pure-white Sword Aura and blood-red flame tangled together.

The dragon's head, blazing as if it would swallow Kyle whole at any moment, was being torn apart. Severed dark-red flames scattered sparks in every direction. The remnants rained down across Kyle's body. He felt pain, as if something were burning him, but he paid it no mind. He thought of only one thing.

Forward. Farther forward.

The sword raced with its master's will. In a world dyed white, Kyle stared straight ahead without wavering. There stood a red-haired knight, staring back at him just as he was.

Kyle's sword, split in two, did not stop. It pushed past the place where the dragon had vanished.

The white blade and the crimson sword brushed past each other.

Kwaaaaaang!

A beat late, an explosion burst out. Splinters from shattered chairs and fragments of broken floor were hurled violently across the ground.

Black smoke rose from the point of impact, mixed with thick dust. Kyle, forced backward, barely steadied himself and stared past the slowly fading smoke. Once the dust settled completely, Kyle could see the ruined interior of the chapel. Near the collapsed goddess statue, Damian had also been shoved back by the aftermath of the impact.

"Hah..."

A short breath escaped him, impossible to tell whether it was a sigh or admiration. Damian's red eyes lowered to his own chest.

Drip, drip.

As if an indelible brand had been carved into him, bright red blood flowed from beneath the golden breastplate where two sword scars crossed. The bleeding was heavy at a glance, and the wound was clearly deep. The white Sword Aura that had dug beneath his skin had burned away the surrounding tissue, then charred it black.

Had he been caught off guard?

No. This had simply been a sword form he could not block. He had not let his guard down.

"It has been... a very long time since I was wounded this badly."

Cough!

Damian vomited a mouthful of blood. His blood-wet lips moved.

"Was that sword form the hidden move you kept in reserve?"

The final form of the Celestial Sword was its fastest and most powerful form.

A sword art passed down through the Imperial family and refined generation after generation. Under normal circumstances, it was not blocked at all. Meeting it head-on should have been impossible.

Yet it had been pierced through in return. That was how refined the sword form that cut apart the dragon's head had been. Two unavoidable strikes carried along a single sword path.

Damian knew what that sword form was.

"I have seen it before. The previous Commander of the Knights of Ash used it before he died."

Damian spat out thick blood and lifted his gaze. Not far away, Kyle stood with his sword in hand, just like him.

"The last, seventh form of Asherad Royal Swordsmanship."

The corners of his mouth rose into a long smile. Kyle's condition was not much different from Damian's. Blood had been flowing from the deep cut on his shoulder for a while now. While breaking through the final Celestial Sword form and landing a strike, he had failed to block the scattered sparks.

Anyone could see he was fatally wounded.

His ragged leather armor was already a mess from the blood that had soaked through it. The black burn marks were no different. Everything about him was battered. Even so, the black eyes glaring at Damian remained as clear as they had been at the start.

"Did you kill the former Vice Commander of the Celestial Knights with that sword form too?"

Damian asked again. Kyle gave a short answer.

"I did."

"I see. If he took that seventh form in the past... then it makes sense that he died."

Damian accepted it at once. If that final form had caught him by surprise while Izra's Thorn had not been planted in him, even the Vice Commander of the Celestial Knights could not have been certain of his survival. The two strikes he had just seen were that sharp. They were not merely fast. There was something in them that made them impossible to avoid.

"Ah..."

Damian, lost in thought for a brief moment, suddenly looked upward.

"I have never felt this before."

Above him were pillars easily twenty meters tall and a ceiling finished in arches. Cold night wind flowed in through the shattered stained glass. The moonlight no longer passed through the colored panes and changed into countless hues. It simply cast the same soft white glow as before.

"It is not bad."

The blood running down beneath Damian's feet flared faintly for an instant. What began as a tiny spark slowly grew in size.

A much darker, blood-red flame climbed along the trail of fallen blood. Kyle's hand tightened around his sword.

It was not using mana as fuel. It was burning the blood itself.

"You seem to find it hard to believe."

A smooth smile once again settled on the red-haired knight's lips.

Mana property conversion. An extremely delicate method of control.

The moment mana in the air was refined inside the body, it held limitless possibilities. Sword Aura and magic differed only in how they were used. The miracle itself belonged entirely to the user. Depending on how it was handled, boundaries could be broken as much as one wished. Just as Kyle moved freely between sword and magic.

"My flame governs life."

Damian raised his hand. The blood dripping beneath his grip melted into a single spark in midair.

"Life and death. Even the principles beyond them."

The pure-white Sword Aura that had seeped through the gaps in his breastplate was devoured by the dark-red flame and vanished. Each time blood flowed from the wound, the flame grew darker. Before long, half of Damian's body was wrapped in fire. The flame flickered very slowly, as if it possessed a will of its own.

"What about you?"

A pair of coldly glowing red eyes fixed on Kyle.

The next instant, the dark-red blade slid toward Kyle.

Kyle took in every one of those movements. His five senses had dulled compared to before. His eyelids felt heavy. Perhaps because he had lost so much blood, his vision flashed now and then. Fatigue had piled up, and with a fatal wound on top of it, Kyle had reached his limit.

The same was true for Damian. Burning mana would not last long. Human blood was not infinite. Even if it could seal a wound for a time, unless it was treated at the root, he would collapse sooner or later. Still, both swung their swords at each other without hesitation. Standing on the line between life and death, they risked their lives and walked a tightrope.

Kaaang!

The sound of steel rang out again. In the darkness, two swords danced.

"Do you still dream of something that can never come true?"

Light flashed. Each aimed for the other's neck. Kyle deflected the dark-red sword and thrust out his white sword at the same time.

"Do you truly believe you can bring down the Empire?"

The attack did not connect. White Sword Aura cut across the air. Beneath it, the dark-red blade rushed in. The flame burning with blood as fuel was far more persistent than before.

"Nothing lasts forever. You people will disappear into history someday too. Just like countless nations have until now."

"That is the worthless wish of a loser! Are you still a ghost of the past, trapped in empty delusions?"

Damian shouted. The dark-red sword sprang out from a blind spot and dug toward Kyle. Along the sword path that followed, deep blood-red flame carved a clear afterimage around them.

That sword was slow. Sluggish. Even so, its power had doubled from before. Between the scenery warping like heat haze and the wavering flame, Kyle looked at the white Sword Aura in his right hand.

Claaang!

Two lights met at a single point. With a sharp ring, Kyle's body was thrown backward. He forced his airborne feet down onto the ground. His body slid back from the inertia.

"This is getting tiresome."

Across from him, Damian, who had been thrown back in the same way, quickly fixed his stance. The dark-red flame, fed by spilled blood, swayed as if dancing. His scarlet eyes, fixed on Kyle, had settled into a strangely displeased calm.

"I was a little surprised, but that was all. In the end, you have grown weaker."

"......."

"If that sword form was your final move, then there is nothing more to see. Those three years were meaningless. At least for you."

The fact that Kyle had grown weaker than in the past did not change. Back then, that sword form would have been faster and fiercer. Perhaps Damian's own sword form just now would not only have been pierced through, but the battle itself might have ended. Not now. Too many things had changed since three years ago.

"I will show you one last interesting thing."

Damian raised his empty left hand. The wavering flame grew larger. The enlarged flames moved behind his back one by one, forming a single shape. Kyle, watching, murmured quietly.

"A personal sword form..."

"The past three years were a time of regression for you, but not for me. I advanced every moment."

The flames writhing up behind his back had already become a pair of wings. They shook slowly, spreading out like the membrane of a dragon's wings. Beneath the collapsed goddess statue, in the chapel where moonlight had settled, Damian's two blood-fed wings revealed themselves fully.

A personal sword form. A killing sword created entirely by oneself.

It was different from the sword forms of existing knightly orders, which had accumulated and changed over hundreds of years. It was intensely personal, shaped entirely for the one who made it. A tiny number of knights, based on the experience and values they had built up, created new sword forms of their own. Personal sword forms tailored completely to their users often displayed power a step above the standardized forms of knightly orders.

Damian aimed his sword forward. The two wings behind his back pulsed with short flutters and stretched out.

The outstretched wings overlapped in a straight line. As if they would charge in at any moment.

Then the sword aimed at Kyle moved right beside Damian's face, like a bowstring being drawn. His empty left hand joined the hilt he had been holding with one hand. Both legs bent, and his upper body lowered. The wings rising behind him fed on the blood dripping down and flared high for an instant.

Burn away everything that stands in the way.

Twin Wings of Annihilating Flame.

Swaaaak!

Blood-red fire shot forward. The wings beat wide, then stretched under the resistance of the air, drawing a long scarlet tail.

The darkness was melting under the rising dark-red flame.

Kyle could not see the point of impact. The blade had become one with the fire at some point. It was like an enormous wave of flame rushing toward him. Like a single spear sharper than anything in the world.

Had three years truly been such a long time?

His thoughts accelerated. In a world stretched endlessly thin, Kyle watched the flame close the distance with every passing instant.

Time that had passed would not return.

At the same time, he thought that everything already gone could not be taken back. By the time Kyle, who had avoided reality and rationalized his own retreat, resolved to point his sword at the Empire, many years had already passed. Unlike him, the Empire had recovered a large portion of the power it had lost.

The bastard was right. For Kyle, the past three years had been a time of regression.

"Are you pathetically sniveling again?"

Rowen's voice rang in his head. The man in his memories, someone he could no longer see, clicked his tongue as if Kyle was pitiful.

"Avoiding it will not change reality."

I know, Rowen. I was always like that. Painfully weak. Always busy running from everything.

"There is no such thing as impossible. What matters is your will."

Still, because you were all there, I could move forward. I could stop running.

"Did I not tell you? Your talent leaves nothing to be desired."

It was still true now, even after everything precious had vanished. What Kyle feared was not death, but their sacrifices turning into nothing.

"Only one thing matters."

Another voice overlapped with Rowen's faint voice.

"Whether it is sword or magic, if you want to make something of your own, you have to reveal what is inside you. Memories you cannot forget. Recollections. Sorrow. Wounds that will never disappear as long as you live. Dreams and fantasies that can never come true. You have to pull out everything that forms the roots of who you are."

Cecilia's face flashed through his mind for an instant. Even on the days he took sword lessons from Rowen and sparred with Yurian, Kyle had learned magic from her without fail. Everything that made up Kyle, reborn in this world, had come from them.

"Personal magic is the same. You overlay reality with an ideal. Wishing for a miracle that should be impossible."

Everything that made me who I am.

Kyle raised his sword. The pure-white Sword Aura that had grown hazy shone brightly once more. The ring on his left hand glowed in a completely different way.

As if a dam had collapsed, the mana inside poured out like a waterfall and filled every direction.

By then, Damian's sword had already reached right in front of Kyle's nose. Even within the stretched time, the blood-red flame was vivid. A wave of heat rushed over his face, so hot it felt like it would melt away. Kyle took every bit of it into his eyes and poured all his mana into a single sword. He set the blade, wavering like an illusion, upright before his face. Then, as if making a wish, he recited.

"...Blur, reality. Bloom, illusion."

Frostflower of Daydreams.

Hwaaaaak!

The wave of fire that had charged fiercely like a sharp spear split apart. Along the outstretched pure-white blade, the whole world was covered in white light.

The scenery changed with the spreading radiance. The dark-red flames that had rushed at Kyle as if to burn him away suddenly lost form and vanished. There was a broken sword, stopped blood, and mana that melted away without leaving even a trace. Along with a lost sword path.

What is this?

No, how?

Damian's face filled with confusion. When he looked down, a cool wind was wrapping around him from below.

Saaaaa...

A vast green field swayed. The moonlit interior of the chapel no longer existed there. All that remained was languid midday sunlight and a single large tree standing in the middle of the hill. Gray shadows resembling hanging leaves and branches stretched diagonally down the slope.

Was he dreaming?

He turned his head. Far in the distance, he saw a range of snow-capped mountains.

The Caldra Mountains.

Below them stood a vast city. Damian knew that place well.

Baldheim, the capital of Hailen. Damian's eyes widened as if they would tear at the familiar sight he had brought down three years ago. Everything before him was a scene that should not exist, and could not be seen, inside an abandoned chapel on the borderlands of the southern continent.

Illusion Magic?

He looked forward again. The tree on the hill still had lush green leaves, just like the surrounding field.

But only for a moment. With another gust of wind, the scenery slowly began to change. From somewhere, white flower petals came flying one by one. The moment the petals touched the ground, they turned into ice flowers.

Damian felt the touch of white petals against his skin and his blood vessels freezing cold.

Edelweiss...

Petals made of pure mana. Waves of flowers filled every direction. When even the green field and the tree on the hill disappeared, Damian gazed at the endlessly scattering flowers within his mana, which had stopped completely.

Beyond them, a blade was emerging. A world dyed white. Even among the flowers covering everything, the pure-white blade was especially clear. The blade came like certain death and settled gently on Damian's shoulder, like a rain of falling flowers.

And then.

Crunch!

The chillingly white sword dug into his shoulder blade. Something broke with a harsh sound.

The world made of flower petals was collapsing. The sword, lodged inside after smashing through his pauldron, passed through and split his ribs. Like the melting petals, the red blood, the only color in this world, scattered violently.

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