Carpe Diem (3)
For a Constellation, death was an ambiguous thing.
They were undying, immortal, and transcendent all at once. After living one hundred, two hundred, five hundred years, and nearly a thousand, the boundary between body and soul naturally blurred.
Transcendents who had lived that long often ca to see the star above, not their flesh, as their true self. Wasn't their life recorded there? The body was only a shell that trapped the soul. That was how they thought.
If they regarded that star in the sky as themselves.
If their story was spoken again and again through other people's mouths.
If soone rembered the story held within that star.
If they did not lose themselves.
When those conditions were t, so Constellations did not die even after losing their bodies. People called that Ascension.
Quite a few long-lived Constellations had reached Ascension.
The Thorned Martyr was no different.
She had lost her body long ago, but her soul was never corrupted, and her believers did not see their chief deity's death as annihilation. And so, the Thorned Martyr reached Ascension.
"Ascension isn't that great."
One Constellation said this.
"Without a body, you can't directly interfere with the world. You can't move on your own and perform miracles. All you can do is watch."
She gave a small shrug.
"You can only interfere through stored starlight, or through your believers. Imagine how frustrating that is. And you can't grow anymore either. From the mont you ascend, you beco an 'unchanging' being."
"That's no different from being preserved as a specin."
"In a way, it's horrifying," she muttered.
"But."
"But."
"Even so, even while enduring all of that, there are still things you have to accomplish."
With a conflicted expression, pity in her eyes, rlin looked toward a certain star.
The star of the Thorned Martyr.
A star that had never stopped killing demons, never stopped taking revenge on them, even after Ascension.
"Pitiful child."
"You're still dreaming."
rlin murmured to herself.
* * *
The territory of the Demon King of Lantation.
What Yuel did when she arrived at Carpe Diem's stage was simple and brutish.
"Let's go in."
Breaking into a Constellation's stage after it had already fully unfolded was extrely difficult, but Yuel did not hesitate. She had a tool that could punch a hole through the stage.
"Star Incarnation."
"..."
Star Incarnation let out a deep sigh, as if the earth itself might sink, and reluctantly raised her hand. The mont her star aligned as one, Yuel raised her sword.
Crunch.
She twisted the sword she had stabbed into the stage curtain. A small tear opened, and just as the crack began to seal itself, Yuel shouted.
"Now."
"Aurora."
A pillar of light slamd down. In a blinding flash, the curtain burned white. With the sound of shattering glass, Yuel and Star Incarnation broke into the stage.
The stars of Heaven-Slaying and Polar Night shone.
Falling alongside the shattered stage curtain, Yuel looked down. Carpe Diem, staring at the uninvited guests who had entered her stage, t Yuel's eyes.
A stage lined with inverted crosses.
A stage echoing with screams.
And the owner of that stage, the Demon King of Lantation.
Falling from the sky, Yuel narrowed her eyes. In a single glance, she grasped the state of the battlefield. She had already decided what needed to be done and where to drive her blade. All that remained was to act.
Flash.
Starlight settled on her sword.
It was not Yuel's starlight. It was the starlight of her chief deity, the Thorned Martyr.
What she was about to do was open a passage.
Yuel swung her sword, and a small passage appeared.
Unlike the battle against the Carnival King last ti, this passage was tiny and ager. It had to be. Too much starlight had been spent then.
The largest passage the Thorned Martyr could open now was only big enough for one star to pass through. It was even too small for a Transcendent. At best, it could bring in a few Sword Seekers.
The owner of the stage burst out laughing.
"Pointless!"
Carpe Diem sneered.
Intervention from Star Incarnation and Yuel was surprising, but only up to a point. Would adding a few Sword Seekers really change a battlefield of Transcendents? She mocked them for wasting starlight on sothing aningless.
"Now."
But the Thorned Martyr did not smile. Yuel did not smile either, and neither did Star Incarnation. They did not think this was aningless.
Because they knew.
They knew exactly who would co through this passage.
"Najin."
The instant the small passage opened, soone kicked off the ground from the other side.
Boom.
With the sound of earth exploding, an afterimage shot between Yuel and Star Incarnation.
The Star of Dawn entered the battlefield.
The Free Knight's coat snapped in the wind. Spinning once in midair, Najin loaded montum into his spear.
Ram.
The spear tip spat out a storm.
The storm burst apart the clown horde that had been about to swallow the Sword Saint.
The mont that aningful change was made on the battlefield, the Demon King of Lantation stopped laughing.
As Carpe Diem widened her eyes and swung her arm at them, Yuel and Star Incarnation moved at once.
A guillotine-like sword aura and a blazing white pillar of light fell toward the Demon King of Lantation. Yuel and Star Incarnation joined Gerd, while Najin joined Karan.
The Star of Heaven-Slaying, the Star of Polar Night, and the Star of Dawn.
With the intervention of those three stars, the battlefield turned upside down.
2.
Joining Karan, Najin saw it.
Clowns rushing in like waves.
And beyond them, Praise Horn stitching his arm back together.
"..."
Najin looked at Karan in silence. There was no ti to exchange words. Karan took the left, Najin took the right. That was all.
Bang.
Karan kicked off the ground and began to run. Every step he took split the wave of clowns. Pure white sword aura carved through the tide. Watching him, Najin stepped in one beat behind Karan.
The clowns rushed from the right to fill the space Karan had cut open on the left flank. Najin steadied his breathing and swung his sword.
Flash.
Sword aura shaped like a constellation cut through the clowns. It burned them and shattered them. But on that stage, they were endless. Cut down ten, and twice as many crawled over ten corpses to replace them.
It was a wave. Literally a wave.
A human who had not reached Transcendence could not split a wave with a single sword. Even if one cut it, rushing water filled the gap again.
Shhhhhhk!
Yet there was a swordsman before him who split waves. Every ti the Sword Saint swung, the wave parted. Clown corpses piled up, unable to fill the gap. Watching that back, Najin clenched his teeth.
The distance between Karan and himself.
Najin asured the distance to Karan, who kept surging ahead. That was the gap between a Transcendent and an ordinary man. Until now, he could only watch. Now was different. Najin's lips curled.
'The Sword Saint left the right side to .'
He was running ahead as if telling him to follow.
Najin decided.
Now was the ti to run.
He cald his breath, kicked off the ground, and charged into the clowns that spawned twenty when ten were cut. Seen one way, it looked like a suicidal dive into the wave. It could even look like the charge of a madman who did not value his own life.
Najin was neither.
Flash.
His sword shone. It flashed again and again. If one strike could not split the wave, then two. If two could not, then ten. He kept cutting.
Whirl, thunk.
He threw his sword forward and drew his spear at the sa instant.
Ram.
The storm split the wave. Clowns caught in it burst like balloons. Najin's sword, swept by the storm, flew far away, but he did not care.
Azure Hydrangea.
He swung the spear like a rake, and the storm's direction reversed. Clowns were ground apart in the storm now rushing back toward Najin. Through the shredded clowns, Najin's sword flew back, slicing the air.
Thunk.
He snatched it and swung in one motion.
Pouring out every technique he had, Najin chased Karan. The distance between them still existed, but it was no longer impossibly far. He could see it.
And when Najin took one more step.
"Ha!"
Only then did he hear Karan laugh. Karan glanced back at Najin pursuing him and curled his lips, as if this was exactly how a swordsman who dread of Transcendence ought to be.
"It's coming."
Karan spoke briefly.
At once, a flash blazed from beyond the clowns. Najin could not react imdiately, but Karan did. He swung, and the beam of light was knocked away.
Boom, KABOOOM!
The deflected beam slamd into empty ground with a roar. Karan clicked his tongue as he watched the beam that had pierced through the clown horde.
"No rcy, even for allies."
"That was..."
"An attack from Praise Horn. Looks like he stitched his arm back on. Better dodge it if you can."
Dodge that? Najin blinked, and Karan laughed.
"An unreasonable request."
Boom. Karan stomped the ground.
"Let ask one thing."
Karan lowered his sword behind him.
"Praise Horn, can you cut him?"
"..."
A question of whether he could cut down a Transcendent.
Najin stayed silent. At this point, Najin defeating a Transcendent was close to impossible. But at the sa ti, he rembered. Praise Horn was a clown. A Constellation deeply tied to the Carnival King.
"I can't cut a Constellation."
Najin gave a small shrug.
He raised his sword tip and aid it at Praise Horn.
"But if it's a clown, I think I can cut it."
"I see."
Karan gave a faint laugh. No one needed to explain that he was not talking about the clown horde in front of them, but the masked clown beyond.
"In that case, run."
He gestured at Najin. Go first. Najin did not question Karan's words.
How?
By myself?
Instead of wasting ti on questions like that, Najin kicked off the ground and ran. He ignored the clowns, the spears and blades, and the beams from Praise Horn. The Sword Saint had told him to run. Najin was not stupid enough to miss what that ant.
"Duck."
He simply ducked.
"Thousand Swords."
One short line.
Shhk.
A clean, concise slicing sound rang out.
But what spread before Najin's eyes was neither simple nor concise.
Hundreds of clowns lost their heads in a single strike.
The dozens of beams Praise Horn had fired, the applause filling the stage, the screams, the crosses, all of it split apart in an instant.
And so, a brief silence ford.
"Run."
Karan said.
"I'll open the path."
3.
Karan was the Sword Saint.
Sword Saint ant one who stood at the summit of the Order of the Sword, one who had reached the extre of swordsmanship. Karan knew the weight of that na.
In other words, a Sword Saint was one who had mastered the sword.
Karan learned every kind of swordsmanship. If it was a technique for wielding a sword, he learned it all without exception. To him, every swordsman was both teacher and manual.
Countless sword arts and techniques.
After refining every kind of blade into his own, Karan pursued efficiency. He pursued simplicity. He honed his techniques to close in on enemies by any ans.
'If we're in range for blades to clash, I win.'
More than anything, he prioritized reaching that distance, close enough for their breaths to touch. That was how he won.
Yet paradoxically,
the technique he produced at the end of all that refinent, one worthy of being called his supre move, was not a technique for closing distance. It was the opposite. A sword swung after stopping in place and steadying his breath. It stood far from the extre Karan pursued.
Even so, it was Karan's supre technique.
'It couldn't be helped.'
It was because the technique of Siegfried, the First Sword Saint, which he had glimpsed in the abyss, had taken root in his mind, in that place where a thousand swords and ten thousand weapons stood planted.
From that day, from that mont, Karan could no longer imagine any other extre.
"Thousand Swords."
Karan imitated the First Sword Saint's technique.
He swung a sword he had still not fully made his own.
A thousand swords and ten thousand stances.
The Thousand-Sword Star swung Thousand Swords.
Everything in sight split apart. Clown heads were severed. Beams of light split. The arm Praise Horn had only just reattached split again. Karan's blade crossed hundreds of ters and cut Praise Horn.
But he could not cut him down in one strike.
That realm was still far, far away.
'Didn't cut him down, but.'
The path to Praise Horn was open. Najin sprinted through the split clowns.
Six stars shone behind Najin.
Even without reaching Transcendence, Najin bore stars like a Transcendent, and his sword flashed. The Blossoming sword aura dyed the space around him platinum.
Where the stars shone was Najin's stage.
User Comments
0 comments from readers