Chapter 197 : Chapter 197
Chapter 197
Five hundred soldiers under the Duke's command.
Knights and soldiers stood in disciplined formation.
I ascended the platform before them and began my explanation.
"I have no intention of drastically changing the fundamental framework of the swordsmanship."
As I had told Duke Crownhardt a few days ago, the swordsmanship had already been prepared.
The Crownhardt Ducal House's swordsmanship itself.
Using that as the foundational essence, I would carve it into shape.
It was not difficult.
Because I had already established the framework by raising Duke Crownhardt's level to Sword Expert.
The challenge came after that.
"You are soldiers. And you fight in an army. An army varies its strategy depending on the situation. The conditions also differ."
Sometimes five hundred, sometimes ten. As few as one or two.
I needed to design a swordsmanship that allowed those people to fight together even when flexibly shifting numbers.
To do that, I would completely dismantle the Crownhardt Ducal House's Advanced Swordsmanship.
"What matters most is, of course, the sword."
The Crownhardt Ducal House's sword was oriented toward combat swordsmanship.
What did that mean?
Focus on killing the opponent while staying alive yourself.
Even if you gave flesh, taking bone was a success.
"So the core is the sword, and everything else becomes a body that can be yielded to the opponent at any time."
I called one knight and one soldier to the front.
"The knight becomes the sword. Stance."
The knight assumed his stance without resistance.
It was the classic Crownhardt Ducal House sword stance.
"From here, we primarily retain the parts that can serve as the sword and strip away the rest."
I removed unnecessary elements of posture, just as I had refined Sword Intent and stances in class.
Here, "unnecessary" referred to everything meant for defense.
I was turning the Crownhardt Ducal House's combat swordsmanship into an assassination-style blade — one-strike kill, death upon failure.
"......Is this not too extreme?"
The knights murmured as much among themselves.
But there was a reason I had stripped away the defense.
"The rest of the body — the parts meant for defense — will be supplemented by another person."
The soldier, conversely, assumed an extremely defensive swordsmanship.
This was a part that had been hidden within the Crownhardt Ducal House's swordsmanship.
Hidden beneath real combat, real results, and instinct — the theoretical defensive Sword Force that must have existed when this swordsmanship was first created, perhaps decades ago.
And the records of those who had developed the swordsmanship through repeated real combat.
"Oh......"
Born from the same root, yet the stances were entirely different.
The sword did not point at the opponent but angled to shield both oneself and one's partner.
A sword to protect the person serving as the "blade" and to stop incoming attackers.
"This swordsmanship right now is 'armor.'"
"The whole body, you mean."
"If we split it between two people, it looks like this."
I added one more knight.
That person became the shield.
"Now I will split it among three."
A helmet was added.
Greaves and gauntlets, breastplate and cloak.
And within that, shin guards and lower armor for protecting the arms.
"Once all the armor is in place, we secure mobility and flexibility for offense."
Bodily ranges like arms and legs, neck and shoulders, wrists.
Mounts as a means of movement.
Everything an army needed was set in motion.
Before I knew it, more than thirty knights stood before me.
"But the core remains the sword, always."
I approached the knight at the very front, the one holding the sword stance.
Perhaps because he had been standing there maintaining his posture throughout, beads of sweat had formed on his forehead.
It was not simply from holding still.
As each person's body had been added, one by one, the mana of the training ground had been slowly converging on him.
"Aura refers to absorbing external energy and discharging it through the sword. The more people there are, the greater the mana the sword must endure."
So at thirty people, the knight could manage — but at a scale of five hundred, the Duke would need to bear it personally.
Not the current Duke, of course, but a slightly more developed future Duke.
For instance, a Duke who had become a Master.
"You say such absurd things with a straight face."
I gave a light smile at the Duke's words and stepped backward.
Ten paces opened between me and the knight.
I drew my sword and let it hang loosely.
"Remember your positions."
Receiving the energy that all of them collectively emitted, I slowly refined their stances and Sword Intents.
The killing intent flying at me grew steadily thicker.
Combat swordsmanship indeed.
The tingling on my skin was almost exciting.
'I have not properly swung a sword since reaching the stage.'
I had fainted and woken up a Master.
Since then, I had not shown my full power.
Perhaps that was why.
Facing an enemy this powerful, I felt anticipation instead of fear.
No — they were "not yet" a powerful enemy.
"Channel the flow of the entire body into the sword."
Let me build them up.
"When absorbing the body's full mana into the sword, do not try to contain all of it — you need to let some bleed off. After all, the Crownhardt Ducal House's swordsmanship is about the explosion. The instant you swing the sword, energy far greater than what you feel now will detonate."
Build them up more.
More, more, more.
I continued giving instructions, meticulously adjusting the knights' and soldiers' finger positions, lines of sight, even the placement of their hair.
I could feel the air around us growing taut.
"Get clear."
At my words, the knights who had been standing in formation around us fled to a distance.
Between me and the knights, Duke Crownhardt stood with sword drawn.
Apparently to intercept any stray aftershock.
Good — at that level, I need not worry about the knights.
I looked at the thirty people, and at the knight standing in front of them.
The knight's eyes had gone completely unfocused; he gritted his teeth with an expression that said he did not know what to do.
In a formation of that scale, the sword was merely a sword.
The flow of the other twenty-nine would press against him so hard it would feel as though his very consciousness was being erased.
I knew the feeling — it was what I had gone through when I had drawn out Holy Power and magical energy.
At least I had had the Holy Sword and mana to help.
This unassisted, raw, savage energy —
How wonderful would it be?
"Cut!"
At my signal, the thirty people surged forward as one and swung their swords.
That energy focused into a single point and drove at me.
A single sword, a single sharp point commandeered my vision and began to erase the world.
Facing that point.
I smiled.
***
"......So the training will proceed roughly in this manner."
Cassian tapped his sword clean and sheathed it.
Unlike when he had first stood before them, his clothes were in complete disarray.
The fabric at his shoulder was torn through, and through the tear, a very slight abrasion was visible.
Near his cheek, too, a scratch oozed blood, and the ground was thick with dust.
"Honestly, I am not sure we can get to five hundred. That is not a matter of what I can teach but a matter of whether you can endure it."
Cassian dusted himself off.
Along with the dust, fragments of shattered swords fell away with a clatter.
They were not Cassian's sword.
More than half the swords of the knights who had charged him were broken.
The shards of those blades had scattered in all directions, now clattering to the ground.
"Your Grace will also need to obtain a good sword. Ideally, rather than something practical and fine, something heavy and solid would be better. Even so, in the current state, two hundred? That seems to be the limit."
Cassian smoothed his tousled hair with his right hand.
A scholarly impression — the kind of person who looked like he had never properly swung a sword.
Mixed with fatigue, it produced a strangely decadent allure.
"Every knight will take a turn standing in the sword position. That is how I will run the training. And every knight will rotate through the defense positions as well. By repeating the sword and the defense, your Aura will be tempered."
Duke Crownhardt sensed the training's effect intuitively.
Sword Intent was, in the end, the process of learning what purpose your sword moved for and why.
And here was Cassian, carving the Crownhardt Ducal House's swordsmanship into one-five-hundredths and laying it out.
Was there anyone who would divide their own body into units of one-five-hundredth and examine it that minutely?
Even the roughly thirty-part division used in today's exercise was a rare case.
If they repeated that several times, experienced it firsthand, and internalized their roles.
They would not merely understand Sword Intent — they would advance beyond it.
"Then I will take my leave. Please handle the cleanup, Your Grace."
Cassian walked away from the training ground, looking both satisfied and exhausted, staggering and trudging.
Until he exited the training ground and his silhouette disappeared in the distance, not a single person opened their mouth.
Not even the Duke.
And after a long while.
"Let us tend to the wounded."
At Duke Crownhardt's words, the knights and soldiers jolted to attention as though suddenly waking, and moved.
Where they headed was the ruined training ground.
Thirty knights lay on the ground, groaning.
"Are you all right?"
"Nnnghh......"
Not a single person was seriously injured.
All minor wounds.
And yet not a single one could properly get up.
"Unbelievable. Taking that kind of attack and only this much......"
"He deflected that attack without hurting anyone?"
"He just absorbed all of it. Insane."
The knights shook their heads in disbelief.
Subduing without injuring.
That was only possible with overwhelming superiority.
"On top of that...... he was not even hurt himself?"
"He got an abrasion."
"An abrasion was all he got."
There had been talk circulating among the knights.
Cassian was certainly an outstanding educator.
And a swordsmanship theorist.
The fact that he had created Aura.
Put differently, that was not so different from having invented a form of magic.
Even if a hundred, two hundred — nay, a thousand years of human history passed.
Cassian's name alone would be etched clearly in the history books.
Who could leave their name in a thousand years of history?
No matter how great the Empire, even a great Emperor's name would carry no meaning beyond a name.
But future knights — everyone who ever took up a sword — would pay their respects to Cassian.
They had thought that was the extent of it.
"His sword was even more incredible......"
He had cut just once.
A single, unhurried sword had dismantled all thirty swords.
A sword that severed energy, that made people submit.
"......Like a demon."
One soldier murmured, stupefied.
Demon.
A word that did not suit Cassian at all — and yet, strangely, it suited the swordsmanship he wielded perfectly.
Perhaps that was because of the Fantasies he had absorbed.
Or perhaps it was because of the aura his sword projected.
Like the Emperor of the Empire swinging his sword — an arrogance that proclaimed he alone had the right to stand in this space.
The sword of absolute hegemony, ruling over all others.
As the sword of Cassian the Sword Master was slowly taking shape.
THUMP—!
A demon more powerful than any demon before it appeared in the world.
Entity name: World Eater.
The worst, most terrible demon that had ended the previous world — when only the thinnest breath of life remained.