Ch.164First Corner, Alderan Basaglia (4)

The First Horn, Triumph.

The Empire’s First Horn, Alderan Basaglia, brought down his sword.

The sword raised high as if to pierce the heavens falls toward the ground. It is a pure strike, unaccompanied by sword energy, without mental imagery, and devoid of any magical elements.

Just one swing.

······To escape the laws of the world and transcend the limits of the flesh, countless swordsmen and mages have relied on magical means. Things like sword energy, mana, magic. But here stands one swordsman who asks:

Why would you need such things?

For a swordsman, a single sword is enough.

Originally, a Sword Master refers to those who have transcended limitations with just the one sword given to them. Then, shouldn’t one be able to transcend physical limitations without relying on sword energy? To that question, Alderan Basaglia answers.

Of course.

To make the obvious truly obvious, Alderan demonstrates his answer to the world.

Triumph.

There is no complex principle behind this technique. There is no profound insight that penetrates the principles of the world, and the trajectory drawn by the sword’s tip is utterly simple. It is merely an honest strike, swinging down from above.

Righteousness, straight and true.

That is the value Alderan Basaglia believes in. A knight must always be straight and true. A hero of the Empire must always win honestly. This is the value Alderan has upheld throughout his life.

Alderan proves this value through his sword.

With each inch Alderan’s sword advanced, the air vibrated. The space around the sword distorted as if pressed down by something of overwhelming mass. Pressed and distorted, the space shattered beyond its breaking point. It broke into pieces with a ‘crack!’ sound like shattering glass.

The scenery split along the trajectory drawn by the sword. The moment the sword, dragging fragments of space, touched the ground.

Crack.

The ground split. The scenery split.

Though Alderan stood with his feet on the ground as he swung his sword toward it, that single strike split the clouds high in the sky and fell below the earth.

Sword energy burst from the tip of Alderan’s sword.

Not sword energy created through mana, but a storm created by the swing of the sword, sword energy created by reconnecting the split space. It was closer to a phenomenon than sword energy.

Kwagagagagagak!

Alderan’s sword energy advances, shattering everything that blocks its path. Like a ship’s bow breaking through ice as it sails, thus creating a path forward, it extends endlessly forward.

Najin witnessed all of this with his own eyes.

A strike where the middle process is cut off, leaving only cause and effect. Looking at the sword strike approaching him, shattering space like glass, Najin thought unconsciously. Beautiful, he thought. An incomparably beautiful strike.

He would have liked to stare in awe, but he couldn’t. After all, that strike was aimed at him. In this moment, Najin moved not by conscious thought but by instinct. His intuition, ringing alarm bells frantically, moved his body before his mind could think.

He couldn’t dodge it. Couldn’t deflect it. Couldn’t fully block it. All he could do was minimize the damage. Najin instinctively chose what to sacrifice.

Tick.

The moment Najin’s drawn sword energy contacted Alderan’s. In time stretched infinitely long, Najin saw it. Space shattering with a ‘crack’ sound around the point of collision. That shattering spreading to Najin’s sword energy.

That strike shatters everything it touches. Whatever it may be, it inevitably shatters it to clear a path.

A kind of law dwells in the sword swung by a transcendent, and before that law, an ordinary person cannot resist. Countless futures flashed through Najin’s mind. Scenes of his body being shattered and split.

······By rights, that shouldn’t have been the future but reality. But the current Alderan doesn’t use sword energy. He is not in his complete state, and there is no mental imagery in that technique.

Therefore, Najin can resist that future.

And Najin knew how to escape this future.

Not because he had attained enlightenment, nor because he had found the answer with his own eyes. It was because he had been taught. While teaching Najin, Alderan had explained his absolute technique and also taught him how to break it.

As if preparing for the day his disciple would eventually face him.

Recalling that memory, Najin moved.

“Don’t try to block it. You can’t block it. Don’t try to dodge it. You can’t dodge it. Deflect it? If that were possible, the Empress of Bliss’s heart wouldn’t have been sliced by my sword.”

“Give it up. The most useless part.”

“Use the repulsive force, the impact force created by that strike in reverse. Accept the damage and throw your body into the repulsive force to escape the range.”

“That clown Quixote broke it that way. Of course, even after that, the bastard lost one eyeball and his warhorse, but the absolute technique I’m using now, much weaker than back then, you should be able to break it that way.”

Alderan had said so with a “Easy, right?” smile, but having now tasted the absolute technique of the Triumph Sword, Najin couldn’t possibly smile. This damn master, what’s easy about this?

The sword shakes. The sword energy shatters. The bones in his left arm holding the sword begin to shatter. Najin chose what to sacrifice and what to protect. He threw his body into the gap created at the cost of his left arm.

Repulsive force, storm, shockwave.

The moment he threw himself into it, Najin’s body screamed. Bones breaking, skin tearing, blood spraying. Najin silently cursed his master who had taught him this as a breaking method. Caught in the aftermath, Najin was thrown high into the sky.

Crack.

The last thing Najin saw was the scenery of the world splitting in half. The clouds in the sky were cut away, and the ground was deeply furrowed in a straight line. Najin didn’t miss the trajectory of the sword energy that passed by him and reached far into the distance.

Taking in all of this, Najin fell.

2.

Thud, boom! With impacts that shook his body, Najin repeatedly lost and regained consciousness. Judging by his spinning vision, he seemed to have been thrown high into the sky, then fallen without properly executing a landing technique, bouncing and rolling on the ground.

His vision flickered. Repeatedly fainting and waking in a short time, Najin barely managed to regain his senses. In the midst of confusion, Najin raised his arm and struck the ground.

There was a sword in that hand. Even through that chaos, he hadn’t let go of his sword? That was fortunate at least. The problem was that the hand and arm holding the sword were twisted at a grotesque angle.

Schwaaaak!

With the sword stabbed into the ground, Najin slid to a stop. Finally coming to a halt, Najin exhaled his held breath. Along with the exhaled breath, blood gushed out. It wasn’t just blood that came out. It seemed like things that shouldn’t be expelled were coming out too.

“Kuk, kuhup······.”

Exhaling was possible, but inhaling again wasn’t easy. Only after vomiting the blood blocking his throat could Najin breathe. With each breath, he felt pain in his lungs.

Excalibur’s healing power was restoring Najin’s body, but because that healing power first restored his damaged senses and nervous system, Najin had to endure extreme pain.

But thanks to that, his mind became clear.

His numbed senses also returned.

Najin raised his right hand and firmly grasped his half-torn left shoulder. Lightning flashed before his eyes. In pain that made him feel like he would lose consciousness, Najin concentrated Excalibur’s healing power on his left arm and shoulder.

“Heu···.”

Exhaling a long breath, Najin curled up the corners of his mouth. Those corners trembled, but Najin didn’t hide his smile. There were two reasons for that smile.

One was that he finally felt he could understand the absolute technique of the Triumph Sword.

And two······.

“······.”

Najin looked ahead.

The dust cloud slowly cleared. As the aftermath created by Alderan’s absolute technique subsided, the figure of Alderan staring straight at him appeared.

Alderan didn’t charge. He didn’t swing his sword toward him. He was simply waiting.

Until the dust settled, until his fallen opponent stood up again, that knight was waiting.

As if to say that a splendid duel should be like this. As if to say this duel shouldn’t end until both sides have shown their best.

Seeing this, Najin couldn’t help but smile.

Even with his consciousness lost, a knight remains a knight? Feeling a kind of reverence for that figure, Najin slowly rose to his feet. Though staggering, he stood on both feet and raised his sword.

Only then did Alderan also raise his sword.

Whoo.

Najin’s long exhaled breath settled.

‘He really is strong. Disgustingly strong.’

Without even using sword energy, with his physical body worn down and on the verge of crumbling, Alderan Basaglia was stronger than any opponent Najin had ever faced.

Despite pouring everything he had, Najin could barely touch the tip of Alderan’s feet. Using Excalibur might narrow the gap somewhat, but aside from dealing with the aftermath, it was a means that shouldn’t be used in this duel.

Najin cannot control Excalibur. He doesn’t wield Excalibur; he is wielded by it.

“A swordsman is one who wields a sword.”

“Not one who is wielded by sword energy or the sword, but one who wields the sword with conviction.”

That’s what Alderan said while teaching Najin. Don’t be wielded, he said. How can it be your strength if you’re being wielded? That’s right. This was also Najin’s last pride.

‘It’s regrettable.’

At this moment, Najin feels regret.

He wanted to face Alderan on equal terms and achieve a complete victory in this duel.

He wanted to completely surpass his master Alderan and give him a satisfying end in this match.

But he was too weak to fulfill that wish. Far too weak. Only by raising sword energy, drawing up mana, and even pulling down the starlight from the sky could he cross swords with Alderan. Najin felt regret at that fact.

‘But······.’

Regrettable as it was, all the more because of that.

‘I must win. Without fail.’

Najin desperately recalls.

The absolute technique of the Triumph Sword that Alderan just demonstrated. Although this was the first time seeing the complete form of the absolute technique, it wasn’t the first time seeing this technique.

The Helm Knight, who had lost his transcendence by forgetting himself, tried again and again to remember himself. He desperately tried to recreate the technique he had forgotten. Najin clearly remembers the traces of his struggle, those desperate movements.

And the moment when the Helm Knight remembered himself and rose again to transcendence, becoming Alderan Basaglia······ Simultaneously, how his sword changed, how he filled in the lacking parts.

Grip.

Recalling all of this, Najin gripped his sword.

Exhaling, he raised his sword.

Though Najin could steal techniques after seeing them just a few times, he couldn’t steal Alderan’s absolute technique. He understood it but couldn’t recreate it. Because Najin had not yet reached transcendence.

The gap between a transcendent and himself.

Najin could never fill that gap.

But giving up because he couldn’t fill it didn’t suit Najin’s character. Najin fills that gap with what he has. As he always has, looking up at the stars shining from high places, Najin reaches out.

Tak.

Like Alderan, planting his feet, like Alderan, Najin raised his sword toward the sky. Of course, unlike Alderan, Najin couldn’t create sword energy that splits space and raises storms just by swinging his sword.

Flash.

Instead, Najin has his own sword energy.

Constellations wrap around Najin’s sword. As Alderan taught him, Najin wrapped sword energy around his sword. The compressed sword energy distorted the surrounding scenery. Najin’s star hanging in the night sky shone, strengthening the sword energy.

Sword energy, mana, starlight.

Using all means at his disposal, Najin recreates Alderan Basaglia’s technique. In response to that effort, Alderan also takes his stance once more.

Splash.

Blood poured from Najin’s wounds with every movement. Though blood flowed from his open wounds, Najin’s stance didn’t waver. To surpass his limits here.

Rustle······.

With every movement Alderan made, his body turned to powder and scattered. The moment he unleashed the absolute technique of the Triumph Sword, Alderan’s physical body had already reached its limit, but Alderan’s soul had not yet surrendered. He whips his body at its limit and moves beyond that limit.

The two looked at each other.

The gazes of master and disciple crossed.

The swords of knight and apprentice knight shone.

The fallen star and the rising star sparkled.

The First Horn.

There was no telling who was first.

Triumph.

The two swung their swords almost simultaneously.

3.

Alderan Basaglia, as always, sets an example. He has always been an exemplary knight and hero. Those who followed him ran along the path Alderan opened. This time too, Alderan is simply setting an example.

Eight crumbled stars shone.

Najin, as always, watches the back of those who go ahead and learns. Walking along the trajectories of heroes who crossed the world before him, he glimpses their lives and learns their techniques. To go further than them.

Three stars and a rising fourth star shone.

Najin, Alderan Basaglia swing their swords.

Same stance, same stride, same breath, exactly the same trajectory. Though the results produced by that strike aren’t the same, the form is perfectly identical.

For the rising star, the One Horned Star shines.

For the fallen star, the Morning Star shone.