Ch.170Reestablishment

# What Does It Mean to Cut?

If you ask an ordinary person this question, nine times out of ten they would answer that it’s the act of breaking, slicing, or splitting a specific object with some kind of blade.

That’s not wrong. The vast majority of people wouldn’t think beyond this concept, simply imagining that cutting something with a knife is all there is to it.

That “specific object” could be many different things. It could be wood, metal, or perhaps even a person.

Going a step further, talents like Royal Knights or S-rank adventurers could cut things that ordinary people couldn’t even imagine.

For instance, feats like cutting water or slicing the sky.

And taking yet another step beyond that, a human who reached the pinnacle of such abilities could combine swordsmanship with magic to cut space itself.

Serena was precisely such a knight and swordsman, and that technique was Dimensional Severance. A skill that no one except a single person would even dare to attempt.

But now Serena needed to advance in a different direction. Moving beyond simply cutting something physically, and going further beyond. That was the requirement for transcending human limitations.

For example, cutting the very concepts that constitute the world.

“…Hah!”

Serena let out a short battle cry.

She deflected an approaching half-rotten hand and rammed her shoulder into its body. With the sound of ribs completely shattering, the creature’s body floated up before flying far backward.

Taking advantage of the brief moment when the closest creature was knocked away and other corpses sluggishly filled the space, Serena closed her eyes and concentrated as much as possible.

Though she deliberately didn’t infuse Wind Shear with mana, she was using physical enhancement, so she had more than enough time to think.

Instead of moving her body by instinct, she tried to perceive what lay beyond. Not to physically cut the decaying corpse reaching out to grab her, but to cut what lay behind it.

A period of less than one second in real time stretched to hundreds of seconds due to her extreme physical enhancement. Serena poured all of that time, every bit of it, into concentration.

And just before the creature’s hand could grab her forearm, she opened her eyes and swung Wind Shear diagonally.

Putrid blood burst forth from the cut surface, emitting a foul stench. Serena kept her eyes fixed on the cleanly severed corpse until the very end.

Twitch. The severed corpse moved. It meant failure.

“Damn it…!”

Serena spat out a curse in frustration, kicked off the wall, and leaped backward. Having instantly escaped the encirclement, she gritted her teeth and aimed Wind Shear again.

She thought she had it perfect, but she failed again. The pressure of disappointing her lord more and more the longer she delayed kept gnawing at her mind.

Noticing that the tip of Wind Shear was trembling slightly, Serena took a deep breath, trying somehow to calm her impatience. But once stirred, her heart wouldn’t easily settle.

It had already been a week since she entered this mansion.

Serena had spent that time cutting down those corpses without a moment’s rest. Not drinking a drop of water, not sleeping for even a second.

As long as she could use physical enhancement, spending a month like this wouldn’t matter at all. Serena was anxious not because of her own time, but because of her lord’s time.

Despite pouring an entire week into redefining concepts, she had nothing to show for it, which was enough to make anyone anxious.

Serena had rarely experienced failure, thanks to her superior talent that made people wonder if she was truly human like the rest of them.

From the moment she first met her lord and received sword training, she could perfectly replicate the boy’s movements, and even managed to copy the secret techniques and ultimate skills of the Royal Knights just by watching from the corner of her eye.

It would have been one thing if she merely copied them. Sometimes she executed them more cleanly and quickly than the originals, which naturally infuriated the knights who witnessed it.

‘I’m not sure what else I should try.’

Despite such tremendous talent, Serena now found herself facing a towering wall, painfully aware of her own limitations, which naturally made her feel even more desperate.

She had tried everything she could think of.

She had tried focusing all her consciousness on a single point or emptying her mind completely, and even erased all thoughts except for the single trajectory of her sword.

In extreme cases, she had even tried swinging her sword from the realm of unconsciousness. Blocking out all thoughts and memories, moving only as her body reacted.

Of course, they all ended in failure. No matter what method she used, those half-rotten corpses would reattach their cleanly severed bodies and continue pursuing her.

Now she had no methods left. She was just struggling desperately to step into a realm beyond simply cutting, concentrating her mind to the utmost.

‘One more time.’

She stepped her left foot slightly forward and aimed Wind Shear at the staggering approaching corpses.

Wind Shear’s blade was transparency itself. Without any mana infused, it was merely wind taking the form of a sword.

It was so clear and pristine that if you told someone you were holding a sword, they would sneer and accuse you of lying, only to be surprised after touching it themselves.

Serena composed herself in a familiar way. Emptying her mind and shaking off distractions, focusing solely on the single action of swinging her sword.

And as she opened her eyes, she rotated her arm widely and delivered a slash to the front.

Three half-rotten corpses charging toward her were dismembered at once. The severed upper and lower bodies tumbled across the floor. Blood dripped from the cut surfaces, but they paid no mind and rose again.

Another failure.

“You… you stubborn bitch! Just die already!”

Laila, standing at the opposite end of the corridor, jumped up and down in frustration. She had every right to be angry after being sliced hundreds of times by Serena who had rushed in claiming to seek enlightenment.

“I will not die.”

Serena calmly retorted while once again creating distance.

“Until I save my lord, I cannot die.”

Losing her lord once was enough. She had no intention of living out the rest of her life as a knight without a master, rotting away miserably while still alive.

She had no desire to become a tragic heroine who lost her loved one. By any means necessary, she would fulfill her lord’s command and reclaim her lifelong companion.

Therefore, she had to succeed. No matter how many failures she experienced, no matter how many attempts it took, it couldn’t be worse than the despair and grief she felt when she lost her lord.

Serena would never give up on her lord.

‘The boundary between life and death. That’s what I’m aiming for.’

She changed her thinking. She completely uprooted the fixed ideas in her mind and inserted new concepts.

She had been told that the creatures were in a state of neither living nor dying due to the magic cast on their bodies. If that was the case, perhaps she could cut the magic cast on them.

It wasn’t a difficult task. Hadn’t she already cut through numerous spells before? She had cut through magic circles that hadn’t yet activated, and had directly pierced through the highest-tier defensive walls.

She just needed to apply that to magic that had already been activated.

To the intangible magic that was keeping their souls bound to this world, despite having no physical form.

Serena infused Wind Shear with mana. Receiving a massive amount of mana, Wind Shear transformed like a glass artwork crafted by a master artisan.

Yes, perhaps the premise itself had been wrong. Perhaps she had misinterpreted and distorted her lord’s words, understanding them completely differently.

She closed her eyes.

Taking deep breaths in and out, she felt the flow of mana. She expanded her senses to not miss even the slightest change. Her skin prickled from the heightened sensitivity.

The world began to rotate around Serena. Despite having her eyes closed, she could understand all the mana spread around her. A sense completely different from visual perception.

Mana mixed with her exhaled breath. Serena’s body was enveloped in a blue light. It was a different form of light than when she wrapped her body in mana or used physical enhancement.

It felt like being completely submerged in a peaceful, vast lake deep in the forest where no fish lived, floating within it.

Tap. A tiny crack appeared on the surface of the lake. The waves overlapped, transforming into continuous wavelengths. The trembling vibrations touched Serena’s skin.

She opened her eyes.

The corpses charging with their mouths gaping open were moving so slowly that it almost created the illusion that time had stopped.

Her hazy blue eyes no longer focused on the corpses before her. Instead, she concentrated all her attention on what lay beyond the world she had stepped into.

As if possessed, Serena brought Wind Shear to her waist. And she took the battōjutsu stance she had done countless times before.

She spread her legs shoulder-width apart, placing her right foot slightly ahead of her left and bending her knees slightly. After hunching her upper body and preparing to draw her sword, she inhaled.

It was a technique she had used quite often when wielding World Eater, but there had been no need for it after receiving Wind Shear, which had no scabbard to speak of.

But now it was different.

A completely different world dissolved into her blue eyes filled with thick mist. A world that normally couldn’t be seen, and shouldn’t be seen.

‘It’s possible.’

Serena straightened her bent knees, stepped forward with her left foot, and with all her might drew her right hand, which had been holding Wind Shear’s handle at her left side.

The concept was shaved away.

In a very brief moment, a gap in time that even Serena might have missed if she wasn’t careful, she felt something small brush past Wind Shear’s blade.

Thud.

A half-rotten corpse that was about to touch Serena’s body tumbled across the carpet with its severed neck. The misshapen spherical head rolled toward the wall, unable to overcome inertia.

It no longer moved.

“Wh… what…?”

Laila, who witnessed this, blinked in confusion, letting out bewildered surprise. She simply couldn’t understand what had just happened before her eyes.

“So this is it.”

Despite causing such an impossible miracle, Serena was calmly preparing her next move. Her expression showed no joy or elation at having accomplished something.

By Serena’s standards, this was by no means a job well done. She should have accomplished it as soon as she received her lord’s command, but she had only now succeeded after repeated failures.

In other words, it meant she had barely managed to follow her lord’s words after a whole week had passed, so it was natural that she couldn’t be happy.

“So this is… the sensation of cutting what cannot be cut, my lord.”

Serena murmured. By expanding her senses to their limits and reading the flow of mana, she could vaguely understand what she had just cut.

But once was not enough.

She took her stance. Fortunately for Serena, there were many subjects available to test this newfound realization. Many foolish things that still clung to life existed.

The blue mist gathered in her azure eyes once more.