Carpe Diem (2)
The Empire's third pillar.
Praise Horn Akut put on a mask. Wearing that ridiculous clown mask was proof that he had submitted to the Carnival King, and an act that declared he himself was now a clown.
A pillar of the Empire had betrayed them.
The mont Akut revealed his betrayal, he lowered his gaze. His eyes settled on an old man. A being who embodied the contradiction of an ageless Transcendent growing old, and the one Akut needed to fear most here.
The Empire's first pillar, First Horn of the Empire.
Gerd looked at Akut without a word.
Even with a pillar of the Empire betraying them, his expression did not change. Gerd had always been that kind of man. A man like steel that had cooled so completely it would never change again. Gerd spoke briefly.
"Did you take the Carnival King's side?"
"That is how it turned out, Gerd."
"I see."
That was the end of it. No cliches followed, like why did you betray us, why did you choose this, so you betrayed the Empire.
What ca next was sword strikes.
Akut's eyes widened as he swung his spear. Kaaang! With a roar, sword aura slamd into Akut's spear. The recoil hurled Akut far back, and he let out a hollow laugh. That sword aura was still terrifyingly dense. Sword aura fired away from the blade, and still this dense?
What a monstrous old man.
The strike did not stop there. The instant Akut was driven back, three more strands of sword aura were already flying at him. A violent gale surged, and the tearing air stabbed into his eardrums.
Watching the incoming sword aura, Akut clicked his tongue.
That old monster was absurd enough already, then he gained an eighth star and grew even stronger. Not soone he ever wanted to face head-on. And Gerd was not his only opponent.
Gooooong.
The air trembled. Akut knew exactly where that tremor ca from. It was the Sword Cry made by the Sword Saint's blade. Being rushed by two swordsn who fought for first and second place in sheer difficulty was not a welco situation.
Still, one thing was fortunate.
This stage favored him, not them. And soon it would favor him even more.
Clap, a sound rang out from sowhere.
「If the past is regret and the future is nothing but pain.」
The ground rippled. The earth swayed like waves and swallowed Gerd's sword aura. It was not just the ground. Everything in sight shook.
「Then why not laugh in the present?」
The Sword Saint clicked his tongue. Gerd frowned.
He had realized it. This place had been a trap from the beginning. They had been searching for the Demon King of Lantation in the wrong place all along.
「Enjoy today! Only today has value.」
Carpe Diem.
The Demon King of Lantation's laughter filled the stage.
At that mont, the stage flipped.
The Demon King of Lantation's Imagery smothered her domain. This was her territory. Inside the Starfield she possessed, her domain naturally amplified.
Crosses surged from the rippling earth. One, two, ten, dozens, hundreds, thousands of crosses shot upward. Humans were nailed to those inverted crosses. Their screams echoed across the stage.
Carpe Diem, the Demon King of Lantation.
She was a Demon King who had parasitized religion.
She harvested faith from worshipers who desperately prayed that today's suffering would one day be repaid, that god would watch over them, that they would soday be happy. And in exchange for that harvest, she gave them pain.
False god, false prophet, chief deity of heretics.
A deceitful false god.
The demon who imitated god and lured humans cast all of her tens of thousands of followers into hell. She used their screams as nourishnt and reached Transcendence.
Lantation.
A hell where tearing screams rang out, that was her Imagery. At the center of the stage, its master revealed herself. The demon wore the form of an innocent girl, or the form of a mature woman.
Because to deceive humans, a demon could beco anything.
The demon who had played the role of a false god smiled.
Kya-ha-ha, kya-ha, kya-ha-ha!
The Carnival King's laughter.
Clap, clap-clap, claaap!
The Demon King of Lantation's applause echoed through the domain.
"Welco to my stage!"
Carpe Diem spread both arms and welcod her guests. The screams of the humans hanging from the inverted crosses swelled even louder.
2.
Demons are bound by their concepts.
They have no self. They only live according to the concept given to them. For them, life's purpose is absurdly simple.
Fear, deceit, fascination, anything.
Use their concept to tornt humans, harvest their souls, and fatten themselves. Every demon lives for that one purpose alone.
But very rarely.
During that process, a demon reaches Transcendence. Just as humans step into Transcendence after long training, beings appear from ti to ti who surpass their limits and transcend their species.
Demons that gained a self.
The world calls them Demon Kings.
"It seems things have gotten tangled..."
Sword Saint Karan sighed. He looked at the Demon King of Lantation clapping in the distance. A Demon King was troubleso by nature. Because of that, they had ford a subjugation force of four Transcendents.
Because they were certain four would be enough to win.
But that certainty had conditions. Succeed in a surprise attack, or at least seize the initiative, and destroy the Demon King's stage.
But the operation failed.
The ambush failed, the initiative was stolen, and Annihilation Horn, who was supposed to shatter the demon's stage, fell with his heart pierced. To Karan, it looked like instant death. No matter how strong a Transcendent was, surviving a pierced heart while defenseless was near impossible.
The situation had beco troubleso.
Annihilation Horn was a great mage, a Constellation with unmatched skill at crushing an opponent's Imagery. Normally, now that Carpe Diem's stage had unfolded, Annihilation Horn should have stepped forward.
So that was why they aid for Annihilation Horn first. She revealed herself right after bringing him down.
Karan sighed and looked at Akut. Of their four allies, one was dead and one had turned enemy. A Demon King alone was already enough of a headache, and now another Transcendent was piled on top.
Not easy.
It truly was not easy.
Karan glared at Akut, and the instant a tiny flash sparked from Akut's hand, he kicked off the ground.
...Praise Horn Akut's abilities were well known.
He was a martial artist who wielded a single spear, and his signature technique was thrusting. The simplest technique, but one that made full use of a spear's strengths. A Sword Master might ignore dozens of ters and still strike, but Akut's range went beyond that.
A range that easily exceeded hundreds of ters.
It was more accurate to say he used a greatbow, not a spear. The mont the spearhead flashed in Akut's hand, Karan turned his head. A flash grazed his cheek and shot past. A mont later, boom, the ground behind him caved in.
Flash.
Naturally, one flash was not the end. Flashes burst again and again. As white streaks fired out, Karan adjusted his grip on his sword.
Gerd was the one charging Carpe Diem.
Then he would erase Akut from his field and cut only what he had to cut. That was Karan's role. His eyes saw only his target.
Swaeaeaeaeak!
With minimal movent, Karan deflected Akut's attacks. Sotis he split them, sotis he sliced them apart. Najin's concise, efficiency-driven movent had originally been learned from Karan. Karan pursued restraint and simplicity.
Maximum results from minimal movent.
That was the sword Karan pursued. His restrained sword aura swings looked unimpressive for a Sword Master. At a glance, he could even look like a Sword Seeker. But the results his blade produced were unmistakably those of a Transcendent.
Boom, kwaaaang, boom!
Those light beams could blast ter-wide craters into the ground on impact, but the instant they touched Karan's sword, they split and scattered in silence.
Flash.
Akut's spearhead flashed, and dozens of beams surged at once, yet Karan's movent stayed quiet and compact. He stepped forward one pace at a ti, cutting each beam apart.
Between the scattering beams, Akut and Karan reached the sa conclusion.
This would not decide it.
Akut's spear flashed. Aura bursting from the spear stained the air around him. He drew his arm far back and swung. The mont a Transcendent exerted maximum physical force, space briefly warped around Akut's arm.
Flash.
With that flash, Karan saw it. A spear tearing the air apart, rushing in faster than sound. It was not condensed aura launched as a projectile. The spearhead itself had been fired.
A thrown spear.
Karan had already moved before it left Akut's hand. His restrained sword aura exploded upward. He swung a pure white slash.
Crack.
Spear and sword collided. The recoil shoved away the air, and even shoved away sound. The laughter filling the stage, the applause, both disappeared.
In less than a second.
It was decided.
Karan's sword knocked Akut's spear aside. The spear's path veered, scraped the ground, and bounced away. A huge crater opened where it struck, and the earth shook. Karan's stance wavered for a mont from the tremor, then he kicked off and charged Akut.
The weakness of a thrown spear, the obvious risk if you miss after throwing your weapon, was basic common sense.
But Transcendents were not bound by common sense.
Akut's spear, which seed to have missed, scraped the ground and curved back. Changing direction, it shot for Karan's back. Karan noticed, but did not stop. He accelerated and rushed Akut even harder.
In a one-on-one fight, he would have handled it calmly. But there was no room for that now. If he did not remove Akut quickly, the tide of battle would turn.
Karan made his decision.
It was the right one. Closing distance favored Karan. At point-blank range, how to handle an enemy, how to suppress them when blades could touch, Karan knew tens of thousands of ways.
The Order of the Sword was a place that dissected swordsmanship itself.
The Sword Saint who sat at its head was a being who had reached the limit of every technique.
What did trivial things like aura output or star count matter? Close the distance and he would win. That was Karan's confidence, and not arrogance, but objective fact proven in battle.
Whirl.
As Karan closed in, Akut drew a short spear and tried to hold him off, but in just a few exchanges, he lost one eye. The instant sword and short spear clashed, Akut's own spear bent along an incomprehensible path. Karan's sword, which should have been aid at his arm, rose in an instant and took his eye.
The mont half his vision vanished, Karan's sword grew even sharper. One exchange, two, three, and Akut lost an arm.
Swaeaeaeak!
The delayed spear arrived and tried to pierce Karan's back. Karan tilted his head back. Twisting his body, he brought his blade down on the spear's shaft.
Crack, and the spear slamd into the ground.
As if it had a will, the spear trembled and tried to spring back up at Karan. Karan stomped down with his raised foot and swung his sword at the sa ti. The stomp, the evasion, and the slash were not separate actions.
Everything was one motion.
Spurt.
Akut's remaining eye vanished. Even blinded, a Transcendent's senses still let him asure distance. Akut retreated far back. Karan pressed in another step, refusing to let the retreating enemy escape.
Akut had six stars.
The Sword Saint had six as well.
In this situation, where he was being overwhelmingly pushed back by soone with the sa number of stars, Akut's expression was hidden behind his mask.
But only for a mont.
Karan's sword carved out the eye section. The cracked mask broke apart and fell with a dry crumble. As Akut's face was revealed, Karan felt a brief chill run up his spine.
Akut was smiling.
As if he could not contain his delight.
3.
It was not the laugh of a madman. It was the smile of soone certain of victory, and amused beyond restraint by the situation itself. Karan's senses sounded an alarm. The feeling that sothing was wrong crawled up his spine.
Karan was a once-in-an-era genius.
If he closed the distance, he did not lose.
But that only held in a pure one-on-one with no outside interference, and with the stage's Authority removed.
Thud.
Hands rose from the ground. Those hands grabbed Karan's ankles and calves. Karan swept them all away with his sword and stepped forward again.
Fwoosh.
At that mont, Akut reached toward Karan. As if to press the mask in his hand onto Karan's face. A cheap trick. Karan swung and severed Akut's remaining arm.
The instant he cut it off, not blood but paint splashed across Karan's face with a wet smack.
At that mont.
Kya-ha-ha-ha, kya-ha, kya-ha-ha-ha!
Laughter robbed Karan's senses. It stole his hearing, and paint bursting from Akut's arm like fireworks stole his sight.
...A Transcendent could predict with near-foresight precision, but that prediction was built from information gathered through senses like eyes and ears.
Take hearing and sight, and foresight beca useless.
In that brief instant when Karan's foresight was paralyzed.
The Carnival King's forces hidden underground revealed themselves all at once. Clowns kept hidden until the very last decisive mont. Into Karan's legs, body, shoulders, and arms, they drove their weapons.
"Ha."
Then Karan laughed.
"What a pathetic trick."
There was no need to wait for his senses to recover. The mont sothing touched his body, Karan moved. His sword swept through the clowns and burst them apart.
Standing on paint-stained ground, Karan blinked several tis. With his delayed vision restored, he glared at Akut.
Akut was gathering the clowns' paint to restore his missing arm and eyes. By contrast, Karan's wounds from the clowns did not heal.
Kya-ha, kya-ha-ha.
Laughter still echoed in his ears. Around him, clowns continued to rise from the ground. Widen his view, and he could see Gerd locked in a solo clash with the Demon King of Lantation and being pushed back.
The situation was worsening.
Their odds of victory were dropping by the second. Karan frowned at the ever-louder laughter. Regripping his sword, he charged into the clowns.
To split apart Akut, who was recovering behind them.
* * *
"Now."
"Aurora."
* * *
Cut, cut, and cut again.
He cut down the endlessly rising clowns.
Kya-ha, kya-ha-ha-ha-ha!
The more paint covered him, the louder the laughter beca, stealing Karan's hearing. So he could not hear it.
The sound of soone punching a hole through Carpe Diem's stage.
The sound of soone smashing through clowns from the flank.
Karan noticed the change only when a streak of storm slamd in from the side and blasted clowns away.
Battering Horn.
Successive bursts of storm swept the clowns aside. Thunk, a spear planted itself in the ground right in front of Karan. It was not Akut's spear.
"Heh."
Then soone landed in front of that spear in a smooth slide. When Karan saw who it was, an involuntary laugh escaped him.
An unexpected reinforcent.
When he looked up, the Star of Dawn was shining.
No words were needed.
After a brief exchange of glances, Najin took Karan's right. Karan stood on the left. As if they had rehearsed it, both kicked off the ground almost at the sa mont and charged the clowns.
The Star of Dawn and the Thousand-Sword Star shone.
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