Chapter 65 – Catastrophe (4)

===================

Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

======================================

“You thing that’s like a demon!”

The Sword Emperor shouted as he charged at Agor.

“Hoho, isn’t calling a demon like me demonic more of a compliment?”

Agor giggled playfully, one hand still resting atop Kang Geom-ma’s head.

Blood streamed down from the Sword Emperor’s chin, and the wind passed straight through the hole opened in his abdomen.

Flames writhed like living things on every side, while life itself melted away as quickly as candle wax.

There was no chance of victory. Even so, Siegfried gripped the hilt and ran.

“Even if I have to sacrifice this one life, Agor, I’ll at least take both your legs with me!”

Kiiiiiiing.

The Sword Emperor’s blade cried out in place of its master. At once, a pure white light began at the joints of his fingers and flowed along the length of the blade.

The moment she saw it, Agor’s eyes widened round. A chill ran down her spine. With a blank look of disbelief, Agor muttered.

“…Sword Saint Aura?”

The identity of the light that wrapped itself around the Sword Emperor’s blade like a white membrane. It was the same sword aura of the human once called the first Sword Saint, the one who had threatened Agor’s life seven hundred years ago.

“Aron Nibelung.”

That thing was engraved into every cell of Agor’s body. The Fifth Legion Commander’s whole being went numb at the inhuman swordsmanship of a mortal who had exceeded all standards.

The face of the man who, during the First Human-Demon War, had raised a cold blade to her as though a mere human had the right, overlapped with the Sword Emperor’s. Her surprise lasted only a moment before a foul irritation surged up from deep inside her.

“…Y-you insect of a human…!”

Agor was just about to twist her face savagely and spit out the rage rising in her.

Whooooooo.

A dark shadow swallowed the sky. Even the magical flames that had been burning so violently began to subside.

“……!”

The air itself changed. An unknown sensation began slicing through the bodies of both Agor and the Sword Emperor.

As if forcefully pressing back the tension that had filled the area just moments before, the direction of the wind reversed.

Caught in a situation she had not anticipated, Agor lifted only her chin and looked up.

What was this?

“The sky was blackening. Broad daylight was changing into night in a single instant.”

The sun, which had lit the world, hid behind the shadow of the moon and left only a ring of light.

Reflected in Agor’s eyes as she stared blankly upward were countless stars.

Stars too many to measure, too overwhelming even to estimate, became a collective gaze filled with would and all turned toward Agor at once.

Then the roar of thunder crashed down into their ears.

Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!

From between the black clouds, thick branching bolts of lightning lashed out wildly like roots.

The maddened sky was filled not with starlight but with searing flashes.

Kwarurung.

A succession of deafening crashes that felt as if they would tear apart the eardrums.

As the sky itself broke apart along the lines of that ravaging thunder, the faded left of Yggdrasil, the great tree of life, began to scatter down like snow.

Soon the bolts, which had been colliding with one another in midair, gathered their will and began plunging toward one single point on the ground. There stood Kang Geom-ma and Agor.

Agor, who still had not fully grasped the situation, could only take in the lightning racing toward her at the speed of light with dazed eyes before it sliced through her.

Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

“Her sharp scream echoed back from the greenery. Yellow sparks and currents of lightning burst from the place where the strike hit.”

Huff… huff…

“Agor stumbled backward, her whole body charred black, dragging out rough breaths. Vein-like blood vessels had burst across her skin and were spurting blood.”

The wounds healed immediately, yet confusion lingered on Agor’s face.

The air was thick with dust, and the flames that had been raging everywhere were being gnawed away by the overflowing flashes.

The Sword Emperor swallowed dryly too as he looked toward the source of that immense force.

Th-this, this was…

“At the center of his gaze stood Kang Geom-ma.”

With the roaring blasts that left the ears numb as his background, a magnificent cluster of light surrounded him.

An indescribable radiance dwelled in his eyes, and the very space around his body warped and wavered like heat haze.

Seeing that sight, the Sword Emperor too swallowed dryly.

Even when he narrowed his eyes and tried to look closely, the form would not settle clearly before him.

Kiiing.

The sashimi knife clasped in both of Kang Geom-ma’s hands released a sacred blade-song.

W-what was that?!

“Agor, who had still been wearing an absent expression, shrieked as if having a fit. There was a feeling in her voice she had never known before.”

An unprecedented force and weight tightened around the demon’s entire body, making her thrash about like a weakling.

……

“Kang Geom-ma stood there in silence, firm beneath Yggdrasil.”

He only turned his head slightly and met the eyes of the Sword Emperor, who was faltering in confusion. A sacred exhilaration filled the Sword Emperor’s heart.

Ah, ah.

“The old wrinkles around his eyes slowly reddened, and hot tears streamed down. They were not tears of grief like before, but tears of joy.”

The Sword Emperor bent one knee in a gesture of reverence.

If anyone were to ask him later why he had done such a thing, he would only have been able to say that it was an unconscious act as a swordsman.

I would cut.

“Kang Geom-ma said it without moving his lips.”

The words were not heard through the ears but drove directly into the brain. It was definitely Kang Geom-ma, and yet both the tone and manner of the voice ringing in his mind felt unfamiliar.

At that moment, flesh bubbled around the hole in the Sword Emperor’s abdomen and sealed the wound shut. Fresh flesh also began growing over the severed arm.

…What in the world was happening?

“The Sword Emperor touched his abdomen and the stump of his missing arm with a bewildered expression. No matter how hard he tried to understand, he could not even begin to estimate it.”

Agor watched him through blurred eyes. It was a reality beyond her perception itself, too alien even to attempt to understand.

Kang Geom-ma quietly closed his eyes. The sound of demon flames devouring the floodwater seeped into the air.

He gripped the hilt of the sashimi knife at an angle. At the same time, a pure white light burst out from beneath his feet and spread, covering the earth.

Chwaaaaaaak.

[Blessing of Painlessness: God is activated.]

[Blessing of Regeneration: God is activated.]

[Blessing of Transference: God is activated.]

The two blessings were carried by the Blessing of Transference and spread over the entire worldline, supporting the universe itself.

It was a realm of mystery that had long surpassed the dimension of blessings.

To Agor’s eyes, Kang Geom-ma looked like a shape hidden within pale fog.

It was as though her brain itself was rejecting the recognition of his existence, paralyzing both body and senses.

‘That is not human.’

Agor forced her frozen body to move and gathered all her mana.

The floodwater swollen with heat and the corpses strewn everywhere began to soften and melt away.

Focusing her would, she released the full limit of the body she had taken and gathered that mana all at once, causing the curtain of fire to blaze even more viciously.

Fwoooooosh.

“Blaze Tempest.”

A gigantic orb of flame rose into the air, great enough to dry up and even melt away the greenery and stream. It was a spell of scorching heat violent enough to devour even the body she had descended into if it turned on her.

‘If that one is allowed to live, he will surely block the path of our demon race.’

Suspicion turned to certainty in an instant. Agor hardened her resolve and stretched out her hand. The flesh of her forearm melted away, exposing blackened bone beneath.

Kwarururung.

A huge wave of sparks came roaring forward. The firepower was immense enough to burn the entire island. Even a single strand of that fire melted the rock into bubbling magma.

Kang Geom-ma quietly looked at the approaching demonic flames. A still light floated within the pupils half-hidden beneath his brows.

What entered his sight were the warped spaces within the blazing fireball and the countless thin red lines laid out in every direction.

Kang Geom-ma slowly raised one sashimi knife. It was a motion untouched by trivial habits, extraordinary skill, or even murderous intent, a movement utterly natural and free of seams.

The tip of the blade pointed toward the sky.

A brilliant light flashed along its edge.

Then the stroke pointed toward the earth.

Slaaash.

A smooth sound followed. A pillar of light cut diagonally through the fireball and continued onward. The golden flash stretched all the way into a beyond whose end could not be seen.

Fwaaash.

The flames that had been melting everything around them burst apart like bubbles without leaving even residual heat.

Kang Geom-ma’s slash was not an attack. It was a rule itself, a phenomenon that brought the concept of erasure into reality. Cause and effect had been overturned in absurdity.

Compared to that, Agor’s flames, no matter how tremendous as magic, were still only a part of the world.

That incomprehensible phenomenon severed the very root of mana itself.

“Ah.”

Agor murmured. A long wound appeared across her waist, and then the upper and lower halves of her body slid apart.

Only a moment later did she comprehend that she had been cut. No new flesh grew from the wound. No blood welled forth.

Thump.

Her upper body, severed at a slant, rolled across the ground. Even then, the sight filling her eyes left Agor unable to speak.

The scenery itself seemed to split with a slanted crack.

The boundary between earth and sky had been newly redrawn.

From the half-cleaved sky, a pillar of light poured down over Yggdrasil, and the rugged ridgelines, their cut surfaces exposed, had been sliced cleanly and horizontally, sweeping away the hellscape.

The forest too recovered the greenery it had lost, and a clear sun shone down once more.

The world ceased turning, and Agor’s eyes turned toward the sky.

Through the opened heavens, the sunlight that had been hidden in the dark burst forth all at once.

“The sudden brightness stung Agor’s eyes.”

Kgh.

“Groaning, Agor sensed death drawing near. Pressing one hand to the ground, she dragged her legless body upright.”

I cannot die like this.

Agor forced strength into her glare. She had reached the brink of death and still could not even begin to gauge that one strike. Only one certainty remained turning in her mind.

‘Kang Geom-ma, that one’s existence was a catastrophe to demonkind.’

Kang Geom-ma, who had been standing still, suddenly staggered as though losing his balance. After delivering a blow like that, there was no way his body could remain intact.

‘This is the only chance now.’

“Agor burned away what remained of her life, turning it into mana as she chanted.”

Flama.

Just before she could gather the strength to snap her fingers.

Thud.

The sound of a blade tearing through the air. A pure white straight sword pierced through the back of Agor’s neck and thrust out through her mouth.

“Agor twisted her creaking head backward. The Sword Emperor, with only one arm left, was looking down at her, his sword buried deep in her flesh.”

To turn your back on an enemy. You and Basmon were alike after all.

“Agor’s nails scraped the ground in pain. The Sword Emperor bared his teeth and spat out the words.”

“You son of a bitch!”

Begone to hell, you thing that was like a demon.

With the blade jammed through her mouth, Agor could only spit out shrill cries. Her tongue had been cut, so the sounds no longer formed proper words. The Sword Emperor instantly poured the Sword Saint Aura into the blade and tore it through her body.

The moment the sacred light wrapped around the wound, demonic energy streamed from Rei Shion’s eye sockets.

“Cracks then spread across Agor’s body, and the light of aura shone through the fissures.”

“You descendant of Aroooon, you bastard!”

Even so, your life was more stubborn than Basmon’s.

The Sword Emperor twisted the hilt. With one final inarticulate cry, Agor’s flesh exploded apart. Even the little mana she had left evaporated like a mirage.

“The death of Agor, Empress of the Dream Demons and Fifth Legion Commander, was astonishingly quiet.”

And my name was not descendant of Aron. It was Siegfried von Nibelung.

The Sword Emperor shook the blood from his blade with one arm and declared it. Then he hurried to the staggering Kang Geom-ma and caught hold of him.

Kang Geom-ma was pale and skeletal, his whole body emaciated, but fortunately he was still breathing. The Sword Emperor gently laid him down on the ground.

Sitting cross-legged beside him, he looked over Kang Geom-ma’s body. A great warrior also served as a medic when crisis demanded it. And as for the aftereffects of blessings, there were few who understood them better than the Sword Emperor.

‘His breathing is steady, though some channels are blocked. There are no fatal wounds. His life isn’t at stake by the second.’

“After confirming Kang Geom-ma’s stability, the Sword Emperor let out a deep sigh of relief. Wiping away the thick cold sweat that had gathered on his jaw, he muttered quietly.”

…Kang Geom-ma, just what were you?

Siegfried thought. At first, he had simply believed him to be a once-in-a-generation genius.

But as time passed, the sense of strangeness he felt toward Kang Geom-ma only grew, until it became outright alien.

The Sword Emperor replayed Kang Geom-ma’s single strike in his mind. No matter how hard he tried to think it through, he could not understand what it had been. It was not an attack but something closer to a phenomenon. The dull shock of it, like a hammer blow to the skull, still wrapped around his body.

He widened the scope of his thoughts, using all his past experience as material.

One thought led to another, trying to gather itself into some conclusion. The Sword Emperor’s white brows narrowed. The ideas that rose chaotically one after another eventually began proposing new hypotheses.

‘Is this one truly human at all?’

The Sword Emperor lowered his gaze and looked down at Kang Geom-ma. Even lying there with his eyes closed, he gave the impression of someone gazing over the world itself.

He lifted only his chin and looked back up at the sky. Great chunks of cloud, severed unnaturally, drifted across the heavens. Then he lowered his gaze again to Kang Geom-ma.

“……”

Long ago, since antiquity, humans had believed that incomprehensible wills dwelled within all phenomena of heaven and earth.

Storms and floods, bolts of lightning from a clear sky, even comets falling across the night.

Such superhuman, supernatural intrusions had always been objects of terror to mankind.

Yet paradoxically, in order to receive blessings and grace from those transcendent powers, people came to worship them.

And people called all of that.