Chapter 53 : Chapter 53

Chapter 53 - Two Battlefields

The Bone Sword and a much larger bone sword mixed chaotically.

The flavor of the two materials was distinctly different.

If the former was extremely light and fast, but the spiciness hidden within was impressive.

The latter's point was its heavy, deep aroma and the savory taste of the very first bite.

Swift strikes based on a quick sword were fired wildly at its entire body.

The power compressed into a single point called a sword-tip and the swordsman's feet kicking off the ground meshed well, turning a person into a bullet.

Everything was a valid hit.

The edge of the blade was already stained black.

But its depth was shallow.

The Demon Knight also knew that.

That's why it was waiting for a single, precise blow.

It was aiming for only one precise blow that exploited a weak point.

Kwaaaang─!!

The great bone sword shattered the stone floor of the lowest level.

“……”

It was the place I had intended to step on just a moment ago.

If I hadn't seen the sudden change in the direction of the force, my leg would have been parted from me for good.

‘This bastard…. He's at a level where he can read my movements and even predict them.’

Moreover, blocking it was impossible, so it was a fight where I had to assume only evasion.

My palms were gradually getting damper.

“It costs quite a bit of money to repair floor tiles. That Gatekeeper is eating up all my money.”

“…?”

A voice from behind, not loud, but faintly audible as if it were a monologue.

But it was clearly a voice meant to be heard.

The Youngest Son's voice reached my ears.

“Hooo…. I'll have a lot of places to spend money in the future, but to deplete the budget like that. Is he just ignoring it because it's not his own wallet?”

“……”

Hwarrrrreuk─

Something flared up.

It wasn't a demon, but heat coming from none other than a human.

Its name was rage, and to put it a little more elaborately.

It was a state where the pressure of the Monarch's Aura was gathered in the heart, tensing the entire body to its limit.

Chiiiiiiiih─

The tendons all over his body stood out, and his skin turned red with vital energy.

A heat haze shimmered over his shoulders, and steam rose from his limbs.

The Youngest Son's few words had demonized even an ordinary person.

The blood vessels in that fiend's eyes stood out.

Yet his head was as cold as if it would shatter.

‘Refrain from making changes within a single sword form.’

It was meaningless to add variations within the quick sword.

From quick sword to heavy sword. From heavy sword to phantom sword. From phantom sword to flowing sword.

Although I couldn't read the four sorcery branches, I certainly didn't play around during that time.

The nine sword forms that the northerners called the Nine Sword Forms. I knew all of them.

Furthermore, it wasn't just knowing them.

「Monarch's Aura Body」

「Limitless Nine Swords」

Unparalleled Change

Applying the Nine Sword Forms to the Limitless Sword is the Limitless Nine Swords.

The thousands of sword strikes that follow from the Limitless Nine Swords, each one different, is Unparalleled Change.

What's more, this time, he didn't form a Hand Seal.

He could run.

“—!!”

Letting out a heat-filled shout, he instantly took the rear.

A movement faster than the swift strike he had just unleashed.

By directing the pressure of the Monarch's Aura to his heart, he increased the burden on his body.

In return, the Monarch's Aura Body was a sacrifice effect that also increased the body's potential.

That potential compensated for the sacrificial effect of giving up the stability and mobility of the Hand Seal.

The Limitless Sword, directly imbued in the sword and fired, aimed for the rear.

Swishshshshshshshk─!!

Even the defense of raising the sword's flat side to block was slow this time.

“Here—!”

The Gatekeeper moved his body to his heart's content, intensively shattering the Demon Knight, and the floor, with the Limitless Sword.

The intention was to squander the budget on tile construction.

But the Youngest Son saw that far.

“Since this side has ground it down a lot, it might be okay to aim for a reduction in the construction budget. It would be nice if he could break it all the way to that corner.”

This time, it was a real monologue.

A human red with rage could not hear a sound of this level.

Furthermore, the Demon Knight could not respond to such a human's speed with that thick armor.

Jjeojeojeojeok─

The black and red armor, which had been cut, torn, and fragmented, began to crack.

That was partly due to the slashes, but self-harm was an even bigger factor.

Kwaaaang─!! Kwaaang─!!

It punched, tore, and pulled out its own body.

As it shattered its armor with its own hands and let it fall.

Even the flesh attached to that armor fell off in clumps.

All that remained was a body as gaunt as a dead tree, with rotting skin and exposed bones.

“Even so, the result does not change.”

He swung the Bone Sword.

I didn't want to admit it, but it was a strike influenced by the Youngest Son who had unleashed the Limitless Sword with a Magic Sword.

A slash begets a slash, which connects to another slash, creating the limitless.

A slash that seemed like it would tear the bare face without armor hundreds of times.

The Demon Knight was about to be ground to pieces in that vortex at any moment.

-It should have been.

But the proxy of the demon of the altar, which had eaten and grown on tens of millions, did not fall so easily.

“What a strange fellow.”

It wasn't something for a man who was human yet whose entire body was feverish and skin had turned red to say.

But that thing was indeed strange.

“The armor was a restraint, and that is your true form?”

His gaunt body, nearly 3 meters tall, was no different.

But the armor he had taken off. Its fragments.

They stuck to the great bone sword, and the already huge weapon became even larger.

Now it no longer looked like a sword.

The pressure of sharpening a building pillar and swinging it weighed down on my shoulders like its weight.

The Youngest Son muttered softly from behind.

“In professional terms, it's called phase 2.”

But the swordsman's body felt no resistance to the pressure thanks to the Monarch's Aura.

A man who survived countless battlefields and crawled out from the brink of life and death.

He was strong.

“Don't think you can scare me with a mere big sword. Brat.”

He readjusted his grip on the Bone Sword.

In that short moment, he threw away even the slightest hesitation and also threw away the will to live.

Fight as if you're going to die.

Those who survived on the battlefield were always such people.

Madmen who charged as if they had no lingering attachment to life.

The man, who was one of them, ran forward again today.

***

I left Dusk Citadel.

I swept up all the guns at the firearms shop, paid the price, and also bought a wagon and horse to move around.

The Mystics side agreed to cover the activity costs.

It's someone else's money anyway. Might as well spend it lavishly.

So I also threw in the repair costs for the firearms shop on my way out.

The Mystics were a renowned family even 15 years ago, and if they had become Millesdusk's in-laws, their position would be even more solid.

“I left not only the repair costs but also your ransom, so don't worry.”

“……”

The wagon didn't just contain guns.

There was also a girl, gagged, with her hands and feet tied, and a long needle stuck in her chest.

The girl lay as if collapsed, bruised here and there.

If she moved rashly and the long needle shifted even a little.

The tip of the needle could touch her core, and it would become impossible to do anything.

So all she could do was glare. And review.

‘Mana that assimilates with darkness. In pure magic, he made darkness, which isn't even an attribute, flow with mana and made it his own.’

This was a constitution rarely seen even among the pure mages of the west.

‘A mana assimilator…. To think there'd be one in the east too.’

Of course, in the east, even if there were, most people wouldn't be interested and the person themselves would just live on.

But in the west, a mana assimilator was a target of both hospitality and contempt.

‘A mana assimilator deals with what pure mages haven't established as an attribute, but they can only handle that one thing.’

In that man's case, it was darkness.

That was why I had scattered light-attribute magic as soon as I saw him subdue Reggie.

So I thought I could easily subdue him if I just maintained the intensity of the light, but.

‘I never thought he would move in and out of the shadows and strangle me from behind.’

The man not only used shadows like a part of his body but could also hide within them.

The opposite was also possible, so turning his back to that man was no big deal.

It was the failure of the pure magic way of thinking, which didn't think deeply about darkness.

Knowing deeply only what I knew.

‘A mana assimilator like Kio. Damn it…. If Kio had been at the shop instead of Sir Jubel's workshop, I would have had a chance.’

But it was too late to regret it now.

Instead, I stretched my gaze out of the wagon as much as possible.

We had just left the citadel and entered a forest.

But that too was brief.

Kkireuk─

The horse stopped, and the wagon stopped.

It was strange.

At this speed, we couldn't have reached anywhere around the citadel.

The reason was not the place.

“It's about time you came out.”

The man sitting in the wagon holding the reins, Halsin, shouted towards the forest.

Like a monologue to himself.

The voice echoed only through the empty forest, and then.

Someone revealed themselves from a tree in the back.

Being in the back, Josephine, who was in the wagon, could also see it.

‘S-Sir Edwin…?’

The subordinate of the 500 gold coin master, Edwin D. Hacid, was in that spot.

“Leave the contractor and go. Then I will not pursue.”

“Contractor?”

“She is the one who will be responsible for the increase in D-District's military power. Put her down. And leave.”

“Seeing you mumble something about D-District. You must be that Edwin D. Hacid. I've heard a lot about you.”

It hadn't even been half a day since I came to the citadel, but I felt like I had heard that name dozens of times.

Halsin dropped the reins and plopped down from the carriage.

“This is a strange affair. For a person of power in the citadel to apprehend someone in a place that isn't his own district, and not even in the citadel.”

Besides, kidnapping people in the citadel is a common occurrence if one looks for it.

But the person of power himself came out, not his subordinates.

Even walking all the way outside the citadel.

“This Wisdom must be that important, huh?”

“…Wisdom?”

“You didn't know? Well, I suppose. The Wisdom herself must have been hiding her identity for a long time.”

Halsin smiled lowly and patted the wagon.

“Sorry, but I can't give you the goods in here. I have to use them for a vampire hunt.”

“Vampire, hunt….”

“Yes. I am a vampire hunter. This should be a sufficient answer, right? You are the one obstructing official duties.”

Clack─

In an instant, a Winchester rifle finished loading and its muzzle pointed forward.

He tilted his head to the side.

“So get lost. While I'm still being nice.”

D. smiled faintly.

The gentleman's mustache he had stylishly grown since becoming an Associate Councilor went up with the corners of his mouth.

“There are three reasons why I cannot back down.”

First.

Whatever that girl's origin, D-District will be far ahead of other districts because of her.

Second.

That girl was sent by the flip side, the Youngest Son.

And finally, the third.

“What do you think you are, a bum like you. To try and harm the lord I serve.”

Jjeo-eo-eok─

A spatial artifact opened.

It was a new spatial artifact he had prepared upon becoming an Associate Councilor.

Also, the citadel was a place where one could buy all sorts of things.

The allowance for maintaining dignity as an Associate Councilor given by the citadel was enough to pick and choose among them.

Swaaaaaaaaah─

The chill of the netherworld flowed out from the other side.

The contents within stretched out long, elegant legs outside the opened spatial artifact.

The arms, as long as those legs, nocked an arrow on a longbow as long as itself.

Despite the dreary color of a spirit, its innately noble appearance remained unchanged, as did its long ears.

Halsin curled up the corners of his mouth.

“A Spirit Dark Elf? You use quite a rare thing. But that one won't be of much help against me.”

“Who said it was just one.”

The money obtained through his grace was not a small amount.

Shwaaaaaaaaah─

The spatial artifact had not yet closed.

The Dark Elves that came out from within totaled five.

The arrows shot by the ghost archer unit are silent, do not ride the wind, and strike the opponent's soul.

Defense ignored. Attacks coming at oneself are also ignored.

That was the characteristic of Spirit Sorcery and the privilege of a Spirit Sorcerer.

Halsin slowly nodded his head.

“Yes. You're determined to do this, I see.”

“It was a foregone conclusion from the moment you took her. But now, I must kill you.”

The archers released their bowstrings.

The gray arrows, as befitting the souls of master archers, all hit their mark.

Yet the hunter's smile did not fade.

“Yes. The more bait, the better. I'll humor you while the information arrives.”

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