Chapter 351 |
Skirmish (3)
The first Sword Saint.
A hero who lived in the same age as Arthur, a thousand years ago. Other names for him include Sigurd, Sigurdr, and more, but the name used most often was Siegfried.
Sword Saint, Siegfried.
To those who had lived through the same era, Siegfried was in some ways even harder to understand than Arthur. The reason was simple: he was the kind of man you could find anywhere, with a background and personality to match.
He knew nothing of honor or pride. He was nothing like a knight, and he had no dignity to speak of. No grand cause, no ideal about saving the world. He had no outstanding master, and there was nothing remarkable about his birth.
Siegfried was an ordinary man, the kind you could find anywhere.
"An ordinary human being, the kind found anywhere."
"And yet that sort of existence came closer to King Arthur than anyone."
The stars frown at that phrasing, of course.
Calling him "close to Arthur" is careless writing by later historians, and an insult to what Siegfried was. Strictly speaking, he was not close to Arthur but rather Arthur's rival, and in several battles he surpassed Arthur outright, or so they say.
Whatever the difference between them, one thing is certain.
Siegfried was a great hero on par with Arthur.
If Arthur was the demon slaughterer who killed the most demons, then Siegfried was the Dragon Slayer who killed the most dragons.
Gripping a single Holy Sword forged from divine wrath and lightning, he challenged the dragons who ruled the skies, bathed his body in their blood, chewed and swallowed their hearts, and decorated his own star domain with dragon bones and scales.
The stars say the lofty title of Sword Saint does not suit Siegfried. And Siegfried himself preferred a different name over that epithet.
Dragon Slayer.
Dragon Slayer, Siegfried.
2.
Thunder rolled across the sky. No lightning had struck, yet the sound rang out, because it was the Sword Cry produced by the sword in Siegfried's hand as it screamed.
A sword forged from divine wrath and lightning.
Its precise origins are unknown, but there is a sword believed to have been forged around the same time and in much the same way as Excalibur. That sword had been driven into the base of an ancient tree easily tens of thousands of years old, and despite the attempts of countless warriors, it could not be drawn free.
Countless heroes and men of noble character had tried and failed to pull it out.
Because what the sword wanted was not a hero.
Not a hero, not a knight, not a man of virtue. Honor and pride were unnecessary. Grand conviction was worthless.
What it wanted was the one who would wield it best.
It waited for a swordsman who would stain its edge with the blood of the greatest beings of his age. And so it chose Siegfried as its master.
Gramr.
The one weapon in this world treated as Excalibur's equal. But Gramr does not possess the variety of functions Excalibur has. The mystery Gramr holds is staggeringly simple.
It cuts what cannot be cut.
It pierces what cannot be pierced.
No power to strengthen its wielder, no regeneration, no ability to absorb starlight. Gramr focused entirely on the essence of what a sword is.
Ah.
A weapon that had reached the absolute limit of the concept of a sword.
Held by a swordsman who had reached the absolute limit of the sword.
It's coming.
Najin's instincts sharpened to a finer edge than they ever had before. Every sense pulled taut, and a chill crawled up his spine like lightning running through it.
He did not need to see the future.
Najin froze all movement and immediately took a defensive stance, drawing his sword close to protect his heart and throat. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and his body moved just as slowly within it.
Siegfried did not.
Flash.
With a burst of light like a thunderclap, Siegfried's silhouette vanished for an instant. No, it seemed to vanish. Najin could not follow the movement with his eyes.
For the first time, Najin had lost sight of an opponent.
It was not a surprise attack, and Najin had not been careless. His senses were raised to their limit, yet he still lost track of Siegfried, even if only for a moment.
Where is he.
By the time Najin's bloodshot eyes caught up to Siegfried, Siegfried had already thrust his sword forward, driving it toward the Boundary Line that divided Camlann from the Outland, the curtain standing between them.
The slow-moving seconds found their pace again.
Everything happened almost simultaneously in that single instant. A single line was drawn from far in the distance all the way to the face of the curtain. Along the line traced by Siegfried's Charge, the air expanded outward.
Something like a thunderclap split the world.
The dead near that line melted without a trace. Those far enough to escape the full heat were swept up in the shockwave as the compressed air surpassed its limit and exploded, their bodies torn apart.
Dozens of meters on either side of that line were left scorched earth.
Torn pieces of the dead flew in all directions. Their bodies burst as the Charge swept through them, and with a wet, heavy splat they painted the Boundary Line of Camlann a dark crimson.
All of it happened at once, and then the sound arrived a beat later.
Boom. The crack of thunder rolled.
Silence followed.
On a battlefield swarming with millions of the dead, wherever Siegfried's steps had fallen, there was stillness.
Siegfried's sword had stopped.
Cracks spread from where the blade had been driven into the curtain, Camlann's Boundary Line. He had split the seal open, if only for a moment, and was now forcing his body through to the outside.
Najin checked his sword without a word.
Excalibur, raised to protect his heart and throat, was glowing.
"......"
His mind understood that the curtain of Camlann stood between him and Siegfried, that the thrust would be stopped by it. And yet the moment Siegfried had raised his blade, Najin's body had already shifted into a defensive stance on pure reflex.
A short, helpless laugh escaped Najin's lips.
So this is what it feels like.
Millions of the dead swarmed around them, countless Constellations watched from above, and a great curtain stood between them, yet all of it felt meaningless right now.
"......"
Siegfried and Najin locked eyes.
This time, a little closer than before.
Tearing through the curtain, Siegfried stepped outside Camlann. The seal immediately moved to reclaim him, but Siegfried gave his sword a casual swing and threw it off.
Ten minutes from now.
That was how long Siegfried could operate freely after breaking out of Camlann. And it was not hard to imagine what a Transcendent of that caliber could do in ten minutes.
In that moment, Najin understood completely why Merlin had said, "Without you, they'd probably just leave him alone. They'd let him rampage for ten minutes."
There was no stopping that.
If the people here tried to stop Siegfried, everyone except Bedivere would die. Najin was certain of it.
Because.
Even now, countless futures were flashing through his mind. Najin read those futures and settled into his stance. That took less than a second.
And the second hand began to tick.
A clock set to ten minutes started moving.
Tick. The second hand moved one step forward. With that, one second had passed and nine minutes and fifty-nine remained, and then thunder struck the battlefield again.
The same Charge as before.
This time, Najin did not lose sight of Siegfried. He saw him coming straight at him and acted immediately.
Deflect with the sword.
No good. He would be the one sent flying, and the opening at his heart would be run through at once.
Redirect it.
Impossible. There was no deflecting or redirecting that Charge's trajectory. He would be pierced.
Evade, counter, leap, flee...
A flood of options rose and vanished in Najin's mind. What remained after they were stripped away was one. For all Najin's gift of foresight, Siegfried had forced him down to a single answer.
Block. That was the only way.
3.
I have to block.
Najin raised his sword. He pressed his arm against the flat of the blade. Unlike before, when he would hold a loose stance ready to shift into a counter at any moment, now he devoted everything to defense.
Siegfried Charged with his sword raised.
Faster than any Charge Najin had ever seen, so fast that even sound could not keep up. The moment the blade's tip and Excalibur collided,
A silent shockwave erupted. Every dead creature rushing at Najin was swept up and burst apart. The ground beneath his feet split. His feet scraped across the earth as he was shoved back, shoved back and then off the ground entirely.
Najin's body was lifted into the air.
The veins in his wide, staring eyes stood out red. The shockwave hammered his body as he fought to keep his grip on his sword.
Sound came late. The crack of thunder, and the roar of air tearing itself apart,
But Excalibur could not be pierced. Gramr might cut through all things, but its mystery did not extend to Excalibur, which stood as its equal.
Siegfried grasped that truth and changed tactics.
He stopped the Charge. He let Najin go flying, pushed along by the shockwave. Standing in place, he shifted his stance, a movement Najin recognized.
The foundational stance of the Sword Order.
Four basic stances that branch out into hundreds, thousands of paths. The very person who had created that swordsmanship took his position.
In that instant, Najin's eyes went wide.
He could not read the future.
Not because he could not see it, but because too many futures were visible at once. Stabbed, slashed, struck down, struck upward, pushed away, hundreds of futures unfolded before him. He could not choose any single one.
Because the moment he chose, his opponent's choice would change too.
In that moment, Najin's foresight became useless. All he could trust was immediate judgment. Najin clenched his teeth. Siegfried moved with Najin's greatest advantage locked down, pinning him to the present rather than the future.
Spin, crack!
Still airborne and flying backward, Najin twisted his body. He drove his sword into the ground as a brake and skidded. There was no time to catch his breath.
Crack. Boom.
Stamping his foot down, he ripped the sword free. Along with a spray of thrown earth, Najin swung.
Boom.
Siegfried was already at close range. A massive blade several meters long cut through the air and bore down on him. Najin barely managed to receive it, but there was nothing to feel good about.
Because that had been little more than a feint. Whether you could call a strike that could sever a neck in one blow a feint was debatable, but from Siegfried's perspective, that was exactly what it was.
The moment Najin responded, Siegfried's sword began changing its path to match.
The Sword Order's blade.
Najin bit down harder. He knew the Sword Order's techniques well, he had spent much time with its practitioners and its head, Karon.
The defining trait of their swordsmanship was this: force a specific posture on the opponent, apply pressure, drive them into a dead end. Every time blades clashed, the opponent grew more disadvantaged while the swordsman grew more favored. Grinding the enemy down slowly and surely, winning by accumulation, that was the Sword Order's way.
A style where, if you don't know its traits, you find yourself cornered before you even realize you're losing...
And Najin knew the Sword Order's techniques well. He understood how stance connected to stance, how it herded an opponent step by step.
He knew, and yet,
Crack.
The opponent in front of him was different. Even knowing it, he could not respond. The movements were too fast, and the transitions between stances happened too quickly.
The sword aimed at his throat changed course. It went for his legs. He swung his blade down to block, and along that blade the sword surged back up and immediately targeted his throat again.
In a single moment the sword paths shifted several times over.
With his remarkable dynamic vision and reaction speed, Najin barely managed to receive each of Siegfried's strikes, but he could not keep that up forever.
A mouthful of blood spilled from Najin's lips.
Every clash of blades had generated a shockwave that rattled his insides to pieces. Excalibur's regeneration could not keep pace with the damage piling up. The moment Najin's stance buckled, even slightly, Siegfried did not miss it.
The moment Najin raised his sword to defend, Siegfried released his.
The instant he let go, Gramr vanished into thin air.
Najin had wasted one move, and Siegfried had gained one move's advantage. In a fight between Transcendents, that single move was all it took to decide everything.
Boom.
Siegfried brought his raised foot down in a stomp, planting it on the flat of Excalibur, which Najin had angled up for defense, and pinned it to the ground.
Crunch. Excalibur was driven into the earth.
Siegfried was barefoot, but the sword aura wrapping Excalibur could only burn his foot at best, not sever it. His body, having slain hundreds upon hundreds of dragons and bathed in their blood, was like dragon scales itself.
Skin with tremendous resistance to mana and to stars.
That skin could not be wounded unless struck by an edge sharpened with sword aura. The sword aura wrapped around the flat of the blade could not cut or injure Siegfried.
What in the...
With his foot pinning Najin's sword to the ground, Siegfried grabbed at empty air. He did not stop at grabbing, he swung. Drawn from nowhere with a crack of lightning, Gramr was swung toward Najin in that same instant.
Lightning flared in front of Najin's eyes.
A sword swung like a lightning strike drove into his shoulder. Najin's body, fortified with mana, meant nothing before Gramr's cutting edge. Flesh parted. Bone snapped, vessels severed, blood sprayed.
Gramr, having bitten into the shoulder, cut through the collarbone, sheared through a rib, and drove toward Najin's heart.
In the instant the blade was about to touch his heart,
Clunk.
Siegfried's stance broke. Excalibur, which he had been standing on, disappeared, and the disappeared Excalibur reappeared in an instant to intercept Gramr. That alone was not enough to halt Gramr's advance, of course.
A defense from an unstable stance, wasn't it? Excalibur would be pushed aside, and Gramr would surge forward. That was the future Siegfried could see.
Not the future Najin saw.
The two of them were looking at different futures right now. The gap came from a difference in information. What Siegfried could not know, Najin knew.
Crackle.
The wound on Najin's body froze over abruptly. Even the blood that had sprayed froze in midair and across the surrounding ground. White frost climbed Siegfried's body, slowing his movements, and beyond that, it stopped Gramr itself.
Siegfried possessed a body like a dragon's and overwhelming resistance to magic. Only two people in all the world could affect him with magic strong enough to matter.
The Witch of the Abyss, Morgan le Fay.
The Staff of Selection, Merlin.
One of them was here right now. Through the rising frost, blue hair streamed. Merlin, fully materialized, pressed one hand against Najin's shoulder while stretching the other straight out toward Siegfried.
Magic she had been holding at the ready, loaded, from the moment the battle began. Under normal circumstances, Siegfried would have cut it apart with Gramr before it could land. But not now, not with Gramr buried in Najin's body.
Merlin snapped her fingers.
Silence.
Sound vanished. Everything froze. Even Siegfried could not simply shrug off a direct hit from Merlin's magic.
Siegfried, his body coated in frost, stopped moving.
He, who moved so fast that only someone with Najin's reaction speed could track him, was pinned in place for the first time.
"Now."
Najin shouted.
Immediately, stars flashed in the sky.
The Star of Heavenly Slaughter, the first star, and Anton, along with other Transcendents who specialized in close combat, all threw themselves at Siegfried, while Lapis and the other Grand Mages unleashed every loaded spell they had been holding in reserve.
Unlike Najin, who was shielded by Merlin, Siegfried was exposed to every single one of those attacks.
Flash.
Dozens of Absolute Techniques from Transcendents, each strong enough to bury an ordinary Transcendent in a single blow, poured down on him all at once.
And Siegfried.
The ancient hero who had fought in the Abyss for ages uncounted, consumed by its curse until his reason was lost.
Had his eyes on Najin still, and only Najin.
As though everything else in front of him was not worth a second glance.