I Pulled Out Excalibur Chapter 327

The One Without a Self (3)

The Carnival King was born weak.

She belonged to the demon race, yet she had none of a demon’s innate strength or authority. Even hunting a single soldier who could not wield Sword Aura was such a struggle that she had to risk her life.

That weak-born demon failed her hunts again and again.

She survived by picking through scraps, leftovers other demons had chewed and spat out. While barely clinging to life like that, she encountered a demon one day. It was so enormous she could not believe it belonged to the sa species as her.

Demon King, Baal.

The being at the apex of all demons. The great demon who forced every demon to kneel and reigned as ruler of the Outland. In front of him, the Carnival King could not even breathe. Crushed by the overwhelming difference in rank, she had no choice but to bow her head.

Baal strode with dignity, his eyes looking down on the world as if he feared nothing.

If soone beca that strong, would they truly have nothing to fear? Was personal strength all that mattered? Looking at Baal, she dread. Unlike her, who had been born weak, he had been born mighty and risen to the summit, and she envied him.

"Listen."

Not long after, she realized sothing.

The summit she had imagined was pitiful.

"As long as I live."

A voice rang across the Outland.

The speaker held Baal’s head in one hand. The aning was simple. Baal, who should have been immortal, had t death. His severed face was twisted with terror.

Even a being that seed to fear nothing, even one that powerful, had felt fear at the end of life.

"As long as I live, there is no place for your kind to stand on this land."

On that day, in that mont, she understood.

Personal might was worthless.

No matter how mighty a being was, it still t death. Even Transcendents who could split earth and sky with a single gesture still t death in the end.

Even the great demon Baal died.

Arthur, who killed Baal, also died.

Those who flaunted their strength all died. Those who believed themselves strong t miserable ends. Watching all of it, she ca to one conclusion.

That was not the path she should walk.

Instead of tempering herself, she gnawed at the weaknesses of others. She dug traps, gathered forces, and if necessary even borrowed human hands. A fight was relative by nature. If she was not strong, she only had to make the other side weaker than her.

Ten years, a hundred years, several hundred years passed.

She beca strong. She beca ruler of the Outland, collected hundreds of stars, and placed dozens of Transcendents beneath her. No one ignored her anymore.

Yet she was still afraid.

She feared the unknown and lived in that fear.

Because she was afraid, she kept expanding her power.

She made a contract with the Star of Forgetting. She stole knowledge from the Star of Omniscience. She knelt before the Witch of Camlann beyond the Outland and swore herself as her servant. The Witch of Camlann laughed as if the world were tearing apart and said, "How interesting, child." Then she gladly lent her power.

...And so a thousand years passed.

A thousand years passed, and she had beco incomparably stronger than she once was.

So why?

At this very mont, the Carnival King felt as if she had gone back to the past. Her gaze fixed on the knight standing before her. With shaking eyes, she stared at Najin.

‘How, exactly?’

She did not know. She could not understand. She had shown him a hell that would have broken an ordinary Constellation dozens of tis over. Even a Transcendent with an iron will would eventually collapse if their very starting point was denied.

He should have broken long ago.

He should have beco a clown and been dancing long ago.

But Najin did not break. He smashed apart the stage an 11-star Constellation had built with full power. To the Carnival King, it was a sight she simply could not accept.

‘...How did this happen?’

She had never let her guard down. She had dug countless traps and reached for every thod she could use. Until the final mont, she gave everything to facing Najin. She did that even though she had more stars, even though she was stronger.

Crunch.

The Carnival King ground her teeth.

It was all because of that human.

That one human ruined everything.

The First Horn of the Empire and the Golden Horn Knights, both of which should have fallen into her hands, were taken from her by him, and the plan she had prepared for 150 years was also destroyed by him.

He dragged her out from behind the black curtain onto the stage. He ruined her plan to build the false kingdom Londinel through the Blue Spear. He ruined her plan to use the Lighthouse as a hostage, pull in the Lighthouse Keeper, and overturn the continent. He ruined the spies she planted in the Empire. He ruined her operation to conquer the continent through the Knight of Betrayal...

All of it, because of that human.

The clowns she coveted were taken. Her plans collapsed. Her identity was exposed, her forces shrank, and even the clowns she cherished were lost.

"Why."

The Carnival King’s voice boiled like fire. Her face, made to do nothing but mock, twisted out of shape. She spat the words out.

"How can you be so..."

He was born gifted. He was chosen by the Star Sword. It felt as though every fate in the world revolved around him. Why should what she had prepared for hundreds of years be destroyed by the hands of a human who had lived only twenty?

"I think you’re mistaken about one thing."

Facing the Carnival King, whose bloodshot eyes glared at him, Najin raised his sword with a sneer.

"Excalibur did not choose ."

The fate of the world had not chosen him.

"I chose this path."

He had decided with his own hands. No great current had guided him here; he had reached this place by his own will. As he made that clear, Najin pointed Excalibur at the Carnival King.

The Sword of Selection pointed at the Carnival King.

The Star Sword pointed at the demon.

The false night sky tore, and Najin’s stars shone.

2.

The realm of the Transcendent, the realm of the Sword Master.

Najin had stepped into it early, but he had not reached it with his own complete power. Even though he had reached full bloom and had eight stars, he had still lacked one step, and Excalibur had filled that step for him.

But not anymore.

Star and star linked tightly. The linked stars beca a constellation, and that constellation beca the path Najin had walked, and his life itself.

By being certain of himself, Najin reached Transcendence.

...Even as a half-ford Transcendent, Najin had displayed martial power that overwheld most Transcendents. So what about now, when he had beco a complete Transcendent?

Boom.

The Carnival King saw the answer with her own eyes. Dozens of Transcendents rushed Najin, and their Sword Aura and magic poured down on him.

Shhhhhhhhk!

Najin planted his foot and swung once, sweeping everything away. As if he would not give even a second to the wraiths whose lives had been stolen, he charged.

The clowns could not regenerate fast enough to keep up with him.

Najin was sweeping the battlefield faster than they could regenerate. He raised his sword and slamd it toward the ground. In that instant, boom, the whole area shook. The ground bucked, and cracks raced across the stage.

Horn Charge.

As Aldaran Vasaglia once had, Najin wrapped his sword in a storm and drove it into the ground. A storm erupted from the earth beneath the clowns’ feet and hurled them skyward.

Grit.

The Carnival King clenched her teeth. The shape of the battle itself had changed. This was not like monts ago, when dragging it into a war of attrition made victory certain. In the end, she moved her own body directly instead of relying on her clowns.

The god of stagecraft, who had watched the stage from outside it, stepped onto the stage.

Najin had dragged the Carnival King onto it. She reached for a thod. To steady the scale that had begun to tip, she tried to find an answer in the path she had lived for the last thousand years.

...Najin’s sword flashed.

Should she drag him into the stage once more? No, impossible. She could no longer interfere in that story.

...Najin dove through the clowns being swept away.

What about strengthening the clowns? What if she sacrificed several clowns here and made a new Jester? No, there was no ti, and even then it would not hold that human. At minimum she would need to create sothing on the level of the Star of Scorn, and she could not produce such a masterpiece so easily.

...Storms raged. They cut through Transcendents’ weapons like paper and shattered, head-on, the supre techniques they had trained their whole lives to attain.

She reached for a thod.

...Transcendents threw themselves at Najin to hold him back. Ankles, arms, shoulders, whole bodies, they clung to him and tried to stop him, but Najin did not stop.

From the thousand years she had lived, from her own life, the Carnival King struggled to pull out an answer.

...Each ti Najin’s sword flashed, the clowns were cut into tiny pieces. If they had stood against him by their own will, they would not have broken this easily. But now they were only the Carnival King’s clowns. Najin was not weak enough to be held by those who had lost their will.

He was coming. Closing in.

Slash.

A line of Sword Aura brushed the Carnival King’s face. The mask she wore shattered. Blood ran down her cheek. She bit her lip hard.

The difference in star count was aningless in this mont.

No, at least to that human, the number of stars was truly just a number. Every star he had was shining to kill her.

‘Ah.’

The Carnival King let out a low sigh. What she had turned away from for a thousand years, in the end, was all that remained.

Personal strength.

Her own strength, borrowed from no one.

It felt as though that human, who was driving her back with his own strength alone, was telling her this: the path you walked was all wrong, and my existence proves it.

At that shout, the Carnival King...

"Ha."

Burst out laughing. Cackle, cackle, the laughter echoed. Did he think she would regret it now? Did he think she would admit now that her path had been wrong, that she was losing because she had walked the wrong road?

Never.

‘I was not wrong. Do not the countless lives I stole prove that I was not wrong?’

Driven into a corner, the Carnival King understood.

Her own essence.

In the end, the Carnival King was a demon. A demon was a being that fed its belly with human souls. No matter how she crowned herself and draped herself in splendid clothes, her essence was no different from a beast that craved human spirit and flesh.

Creak, creeeeeeak...

The gears rising behind her began to turn. Following the movent of her fingertips, the black curtain that had rged with her shuddered. Stars shone on the black curtain that covered the night sky.

Lives and stars she had stolen.

The Carnival King was a mage. And when the words demon and mage stood together, one word always followed.

Offering.

The foundation of black magic. By offering sothing, you gain power beyond what you possess. Called offering, called sacrifice, called, called...

Burnt Offering.

At that mont, the clowns ignited. As if offering sacrifices to a god, the stars hanging on the Carnival King’s black curtain began to burn. Their flesh and souls, their lives and stars, all burned, and they scread. The Carnival King devoured those screams greedily.

The number of gears rising behind her was ten.

Ten gears shed together.

At the fingertips of the Carnival King, the great mage, one spell was completed. It was a spell she had believed she would never need to use. It was no different from turning the thousand years she had built into nothing.

But what would she not do to survive?

She could simply start over from the beginning.

And so the Carnival King completed one spell. Burning hundreds of stars and offering the lives of dozens of Constellations as sacrifice, she intoned the empowered spell.

Night Fall.

And then, boom.

The sky shook violently for one mont.

Right after, the stars hanging in the sky fell as teors. As dozens of stars poured down, the whole sky began to sink toward the ground.

...Until the very last mont.

The Carnival King clung to the path she had walked. She raised herself by wringing out the lives of others. No compromise. This was the only right answer she believed in.

And Najin.

He looked at the falling night and tightened his grip on his sword.

3.

The sky sank.

The false sky began to fall. Hundreds of stars poured toward Najin like a teor shower. It was the first 10-circle spell Najin had ever faced, and a spell strengthened by offering hundreds of stars.

Najin was ignorant of magic, so he could not know how trendous that spell was, but if rlin had been here, even she would not have been able to hide her shock.

A single demon’s thousand-year life.

Najin fixed his eyes on the flashing stars. He took his stance, sword aid at the falling night. Facing that spell, which was no different from the Carnival King herself, Najin steadied his breath.

...Now that he had beco a complete Transcendent, Najin could see what he had not seen before.

It was the paths spread before him.

The path Gerd and Aldaran had seen with their own eyes in that battle. The path Najin had only vaguely felt. What countless Transcendents called the sword path.

He closed his eyes and opened them.

"..."

Countless paths lay there.

The mont he began to see sword paths branching into tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, Najin laughed without aning to. Because the mont he saw those paths, he realized it.

Right, co to think of it, I never had a technique that was truly mine.

He had learned techniques from great teachers. He had made those techniques, soaked with their lives, into his own. But there had been no technique there that was only Najin’s.

In a way, he had confidence in himself all this ti, but no self within that confidence.

If so, was that not no different from the Carnival King?

‘That could not be.’

Najin steadied his breath.

Using the techniques of the Transcendents who had adorned his life as lanterns, Najin lit the way.

Then the countless paths disappeared, and only one remained.

Clench.

The instant he reached his hand toward that path, sothing was caught in it. He felt he knew what it was.

He had already felt this sensation eight tis.

The ninth star shone.