Chapter 112
Chapter 112
Once before, I had been toyed with by the machinations of an Imperial Palace mage, teleported several hundred meters into the air above Britain, and dropped straight toward the ground.
Though I had learned swordsmanship and magic, my body was still that of an ordinary human.
If I had plummeted straight down, I would not have been able to avoid the fate of becoming nothing more than a crushed lump of flesh.
However, by improvising at the last moment, I had summoned the Armor of Achilles just before impact, and thanks to that, I had survived unharmed.
The Armor of Achilles, as expected of an artifact that had been kept in the Imperial Palace Treasury, boasted performance of a high caliber.
Still, after that incident, I simply hadn’t felt any particular urge to use it again.
Perhaps because I had reached the level of Sword Master, I hadn’t felt much necessity for it, and so I hadn’t bothered to summon it even in the battles I’d fought against Majin and demons along the way.
But as if to prove that it truly was a high-grade artifact, when its owner faced a crisis, it activated on its own and wrapped itself around my body.
That time, it had fully absorbed the impact of the fall.
Now, however, an intense pain struck my entire body, so severe that my breath was momentarily knocked out of me.
[SYSTEM: The Armor of Achilles has been removed due to receiving an impact exceeding a certain threshold.]
After the Armor of Achilles was removed, I sprawled across the ground with my bare body.
The surroundings were covered in thick clouds of dust.
Clutching my throbbing head, I let out a deep sigh, then turned my head and spat out a lump of blood that rose up from deep inside.
Even after that, perhaps because sand had gotten in, my mouth felt irritatingly gritty, but I had no leeway to worry about such things.
Isabel had clearly been cut by my sword, her body split cleanly in half.
And yet, after that, she had suddenly revived and ambushed me with speed and power far beyond what I could follow.
The last thing I remembered was being blasted away by an irresistible force and crashing into the city wall.
When I came to my senses, intense pain assaulted my entire body along with the deactivated Armor of Achilles.
Something sticky flowed down over my eyes.
I raised my hand to wipe it away, and bright red blood smeared onto my sleeve.
Whether it was a wound on my head or not, it soon covered my vision again.
“Tsk.”
I roughly wiped it away once more and stood up.
The dust that had blanketed the surroundings began to settle.
My hands and feet trembled from the excruciating pain coursing through my body, but I stubbornly managed to force myself upright.
“……?”
What greeted me around me, however, was a sea of monsters with no end in sight.
Rather than crashing into the wall, it seemed I had smashed through it and fallen outside, and there I was, standing in the middle of it all atop a pile of pulverized flesh.
Krrr—.
An ogre as large as a house nearby drooled as it lumbered toward me.
Perhaps because of that, sharp screams rang out from the wall side, which had grown momentarily quiet.
“Ostia!”
As the dust cleared and a brief silence fell over the battlefield, time began to flow again, starting with Petra’s shout.
Boom—!
A hand the size of a boulder came crashing down toward me.
I groped at my waist, but perhaps I had lost my sword while flying through the air, because it was completely empty.
But I did not have just one sword.
“Come, Excalibur.”
Woooong—!
A dazzling mass of light formed in my hand.
As if sensing my cold, settled fury, the long blade surged up in an instant.
I swung it forward without a shred of hesitation.
Slice.
The ogre that had been reaching toward me was severed in one blow.
With the largest ogre among the nearby monsters falling before me, it would have been natural for the rest to recoil in terror, but perhaps because they were being controlled, they lacked such instincts and instead slowly filled the gap as they advanced toward me.
“Spit.”
I gathered the foreign matter in my mouth and spat it out.
Then I grabbed the top of my head with my left hand and twisted it forcefully in the opposite direction.
Crack.
With the sound of bones grinding, my creaking neck snapped back into place.
Just then, a commotion spread along the top of the wall.
“…Ha.”
The soldiers wavered at the sight of Isabel revealing herself atop the wall, black demonic energy billowing off her.
But she paid no attention to her surroundings, looking down at me with a deep smile.
“Yeah, let’s do this properly.”
I glared up at her and tightened my grip on Excalibur’s hilt with both hands.
The monsters closing in around me were already outside my field of vision.
They couldn’t lay a finger on me anyway.
The only thing I needed to concern myself with was Isabel.
Boom—!
As she kicked off the ground and shot into the air, the wall itself shuddered.
She must have kicked off with tremendous force, because the soldiers nearby staggered from the shock, some even falling over.
I too poured strength into my legs and stepped forward, kicking off the ground with all my might and launching myself ahead.
I leapt up, stepping on the heads of the monsters blocking my path, cleaving through the sea.
Some with sharp reflexes reached out to grab me, but without exception, they were left one-armed, rolling across the ground.
“Hah!”
Above the radiance clinging to Excalibur, a pure white Aura Blade surged forth.
It split through the monster horde and rushed toward Isabel.
“Hmph.”
Having risen above the wall, she kicked off the air once more and charged straight at me.
Seeing the thick smile on her lips, it seemed she still thought of this as nothing more than a game.
Crash—!
“…Ghk!”
I swung my sword at her with all my strength, but instead I was overpowered and flung back.
The momentum I had built up reversed violently, my body creaking as I grit my teeth and bled off the impact.
“What in the world…….”
Just what was that black mass she had embedded into her heart, to make her so overwhelmingly strong in an instant?
Taking advantage of a brief moment to steady my breathing, I hurriedly searched my memories, but nothing like that had ever appeared in the original work.
A Majin only grew stronger by awakening like I had and evolving into another species, or by attaining enlightenment and reaching a higher realm.
Isabel had not been a character who appeared in the original work.
Then was that thing just now her own unique, special ability?
Countless thoughts churned through my head, but unfortunately, I no longer had the luxury to ponder them.
Fwooo—!
A pitch-black vortex created by Isabel dropped toward where I stood.
It tore apart the countless monsters in its path as if it were the most natural thing in the world, surging straight at me.
Tap—!
I kicked off the ground and retreated backward with all my strength, but as if it had eyes, the vortex twisted its body and began to pursue me.
“[Prometheus’s Flame]!”
With a rapid incantation, I raised one hand and summoned sacred fire.
Blue flames wrapped around my arm as they flared up, and I swung them straight toward the vortex.
Like a flamethrower firing, the blue flames roared forth and swallowed the vortex whole.
It burned itself away, shredding the demonic energy to pieces, and vanished from the air without leaving a trace.
“Hah!”
I followed up by unleashing a slashing strike.
The pure white Aura Blade cut toward her in a straight line, but when Isabel swung a fist formed from condensed black demonic energy, it shattered like glass struck by a blow.
Of course, I hadn’t thought that would be enough to bring her down.
Sword Saint Style Secret Art Star Cluster.
Shiiish—!
Brilliant sword light was etched across the air.
A Sword Saint Style secret art that only revealed its true power when combined with an Aura Blade.
Its true worth exploded forth from the tip of Excalibur.
Perhaps unable to take it lightly, Isabel withdrew her hand and thrust out her own sword.
The black demonic energy pouring from her body coiled around the blade.
It soon took on the form of a sword itself and sliced through the air at the same speed as mine.
“This big sister’s got a bit of confidence in swordsmanship too, you know.”
When she swung her sword once, a black line remained in the air.
She swung her blade without pause, and the black lines densely erased the gaps, filling the space before her.
‘…A sword barrier?’
A technique where masters swung their swords to block attacks with the lingering remnants of their qi, something you’d only expect to see in martial arts novels.
The pure white Star Cluster soon poured down onto the pitch-black sword barrier.
In an instant, they annihilated each other and vanished as if they had never existed.
“…Pretty boy, what’s your connection to the Sword Saint?”
After blocking the Star Cluster, Isabel lowered her sword and asked, her eyes narrowed.
There was nothing strange about the question.
The name Sword Saint was one no swordsman could fail to know.
Especially since she herself had reached the level of Sword Master, she must have heard that name many times.
But for some reason, the look on Isabel’s face was unsettling.
“I learned a few moves from that old man.”
“…What?”
Just in case, I tossed out some bait, and the demonic energy behind her wavered.
Seeing her clearly shaken, a question arose in my mind.
‘…What’s the connection? Don’t tell me a hidden bloodline?’
No, the Sword Saint only had one granddaughter.
She was a year younger than me and, unusually, didn’t wield a sword, instead aspiring to become a mage.
She was probably set to enter the Academy next year.
“I see. So that’s how it is.”
Her eyes sharpened.
Then, with a deep smile, she spoke.
“To be honest, I was planning to play with you a bit and then kill you. Reviving you afterward would’ve just meant asking some other guys to do it.”
“And who said I’d die just because you felt like it?”
I shrugged and shot back, but Isabel ignored it and replied with a twisted expression.
“I’ve changed my mind. I’ll play with you as painfully as possible, then turn you into something that can neither live nor die.”
Her voice was so vicious it sent chills down the listener’s spine.
‘Damn it, Master. Just what did you get up to, to make this girl bare her fangs like this.’
Deciding I’d grill him about it later, I let out a sigh.
The problem wasn’t just this one girl.
Because of the rampage between Isabel and me, part of the wall was in danger.
Some sections had already collapsed, and others were riddled with cracks.
The monster legion was persistently attacking those weak points.
They wouldn’t break through all at once, but if casualties kept increasing from here on out, I wasn’t sure they could withstand the relentless assaults until reinforcements arrived.
If I joined the fray, I could turn the situation around in an instant, but dealing with the leech-like pest right in front of me took priority.
Crackle.
The demonic energy pouring out of Isabel showed no sign of stopping.
It grew ever denser, now seeping into the ground itself and causing cracks to spread everywhere.
It was becoming difficult just to stand in front of her.
‘Honestly, Gremory was easier.’
Back then, I’d had the Count of Sheffield’s support, making things manageable.
Now, I had to take Isabel’s demonic energy head-on in the middle of a monster swarm.
‘And something’s strange.’
Excalibur was the natural enemy of demonic energy.
Against most Majin or demons, they shouldn’t even be able to move in front of it.
The reason the fight with Gremory had been so hard was precisely because I hadn’t been able to use Excalibur.
But now, Excalibur’s power surged freely, unimpeded.
In fact, its light was even more intense than before.
A Majin of Isabel’s caliber should have been cut to pieces in an instant—and in fact, she had been.
Yet the demonic energy of the revived her had something off about it.
It didn’t yield to Excalibur.
‘I really don’t want variables like this.’
A change in the very compatibility I’d trusted the most.
As I groaned inwardly over that, a new demonic presence was felt nearby.
“Isabel.”
At the two presences approaching from behind me, Isabel’s smile deepened even further.