I Pulled Out Excalibur Chapter 316

First Horn of the Empire (2)

The Carnival King's domain was right in front of them.

It was now close enough to see with the naked eye. In one more day, they would breach it. At that point, the Imperial Army began its final preparations.

"First Horn, reconnaissance is complete. May I give my report?"

"Proceed."

Inside the command tent where the key figures of the subjugation had gathered, Blue Tower Master Bernard snapped his fingers before the Empire's pillars and Transcendents.

A map floated up in the middle of the tent.

"The terrain matches the intelligence we gathered beforehand. The domain is split into six sectors, and each sector contains a magic formula that strengthens the Carnival King's domain."

Blue Tower Master Bernard.

He was a mage known as a master of search, detection, and tracking magic. At his gesture, the map turned three-dinsional. As he rotated the model, showing rises and dips in the terrain, he continued his explanation.

The commanders listening nodded.

Nothing had changed from the original plan. A few variables had appeared on the way here, but Dawn Horn had shut them all down. Now only one thing remained, storming the Carnival King's domain.

"So the operation stays the sa."

The Platinum Tower Master nodded.

"We divide into six corps. We strike at the sa ti and corner the Carnival King. It's simple, but effective. The real issue was how much strength we'd preserve before getting this far..."

She glanced at Najin, then laughed in disbelief.

"Our losses are low. Far lower than expected. At this point, it's fair to call it almost no damage at all. That's all thanks to Dawn Horn. I'm not being sarcastic. I an it."

That was simply true. Most of the traps the Carnival King had scattered were destroyed by Najin's hand. Each one had been lethal, enough to cause heavy losses, even enough to break the Imperial Army apart, yet the damage was shockingly light.

Najin had done that alone.

In the Platinum Tower Master's gaze toward him, there was not only amazent but fear.

In her eyes, Najin was soone she never wanted as an enemy. He was a walking mass of variables. Impossible to calculate, impossible to predict, impossible to prepare for. Thank god he was an ally. Thinking that, she tapped the table.

"Inside the Carnival King's domain, the remaining forces will be gathered. aning the Transcendents who escaped the previous battle, along with the clowns. Blue Tower Master, correct?"

"Yes. Several Transcendents have been detected deeper inside the domain. Not only the ones who descended near the edge of the Outland. There are several others as well."

Dots began appearing on the map.

After checking the distribution map of the Transcendents, they finalized the plan one last ti. They split the corps and balanced their strength.

"Second Corps Commander, Karan."

"Third Corps Commander, Yuel Razian."

"Fourth Corps Commander, Star Incarnation."

"Fifth Corps Commander, Loren Aresche."

"Sixth Corps Commander, Cipria Gachevskaya."

From the 2nd Corps to the 6th Corps.

The Transcendents who had descended to aid Najin were split and assigned to each corps. The knights were also assigned as planned.

Amid all that division, two people did not move.

Gerd, First Horn of the Empire.

Najin, Dawn Horn.

Neither belonged to any corps. More precisely, the two of them ford one corps by themselves.

"First Corps Commander, Gerd Isabalt."

The forces under him numbered one.

A corps made of only Najin and Gerd. The two n silently stared at a single dot on the map. The Carnival King's domain was split into six sectors, and each sector was cluttered with dots marking Transcendents, but at the point where the First Corps would enter, there was only one dot.

In the image captured by the Blue Tower Master, a lone knight stood there. Armor stained with paint. A stained helt. A knight wearing a broken-horn helm, standing guard.

Aldaran Vasaglia, forr First Horn of the Empire.

The Empire's erased hero was there. Facing him would fall to Najin and Gerd.

...When this operation had first been drafted,

the commanders had raised doubts. Gerd had declared early that he and Najin alone would handle the Forgotten One called "Aldaran," and no one had openly objected.

From the commanders' perspective, it was not a rational choice.

Was that one Forgotten One truly so strong that the two strongest mbers of the Imperial Army had to engage him together? And if he really was that strong, should they not send multiple Transcendents and crush him by sheer numbers?

Gerd answered their doubts with a question.

"Do you know the na Aldaran Vasaglia?"

They knew it, at least in outline. He was Gerd's reverse scale, the tragic hero recorded in Imperial history books even if no one truly rembered him.

Forr First Horn of the Empire, creator of the original Imperial Swordsmanship, and founder of the Triumph Sword that Gerd wielded.

His fa was known, but mostly as lines in books. Most people had a habit of underestimating what they had never seen with their own eyes. They could hardly assess soone erased from history properly.

"He was the founder of the Triumph Sword. And originally, the Triumph Sword was swordsmanship optimized for facing many enemies."

Gerd pointed at his own sword.

"The Triumph Sword was born in an age of war. It was designed so he could win on battlefields, cut down one more foe, and move across one more battlefield."

That was the original Triumph Sword.

Of course, once its ultimate forms were completed, its aning shifted sowhat, but its root was still the battlefield. It was a sword ant to face countless enemies alone.

"There is no way to know how much of his power he has recovered. We will only know when we face him."

But, Gerd said,

"in the worst case, if he has returned to the days when he was called the Empire's hero..."

The days when Aldaran was called the Empire's hero.

No one alive now rembered his pri except Gerd. Even the Aldaran Najin had fought last ti had been far weaker than his pri.

"The fewer opponents he has, the better."

That ca from soone who rembered the Empire's hero.

"No matter how many co, they will only be swept away in one strike."

Gerd was not a man who spoke in exaggeration, lies, or bluster. If he said so, then it was true.

A hundred and fifty years had passed.

But Gerd rembered clearly. He rembered the back of the Empire's hero as he swung his sword and wiped out the hundred-thousand Forgotten One army led by the Inverse Star. He rembered his master's figure as he drove the Inverse Star back alone. The old man could never forget the ultimate form of the Triumph Sword his master displayed that day.

"So it has to be two."

Gerd stated it flatly.

Not simply because they were master and disciple. It was because only those who knew the Triumph Sword could face him.

2.

As the Transcendents prepared for battle, the knights also sharpened and readied their weapons.

The Carnival King's domain was right ahead.

Inside that place sward inverse stars, fallen stars, and Forgotten Ones the Carnival King had collected over long years. Forr heroes turned into clowns would be there as well. Tension spread among the knights preparing for what could be the final battle.

Carnival King.

A thousand years had passed since the Witch of Camlann was sealed. In that millennium, many demons and inverse stars threatened the continent, but none had shaken it as deeply as the Carnival King.

She ruined heroes who left for the Outland.

She lit the fires of war across the continent.

She dropped the Rebel Knight into the center of the continent and nearly overturned the Empire itself.

She was evil enough to be called a great calamity.

Had there ever been another case where a single demon wielded influence this overwhelming? Baal, the great demon said to have existed a thousand years ago, was the only one that ca close, and even he had only nine stars.

A demon with eleven stars.

As the knights looked up at the grotesquely writhing star in the sky, they swallowed dryly.

"..."

Najin was looking up at the sky too.

Each corps split off and prepared to advance, and in the middle of that, Najin silently stared upward.

One step ahead.

As he pictured the Helm Knight he would soon et again, Najin felt his gut burn. He had longed for that reunion, but never wanted it to happen like this.

Crackle.

Najin lit a small campfire. He stared into it and steadied his breathing. The army moved out under each corps commander, and the noisy surroundings slowly fell quiet.

Tap, crackle...

Only the sound of sparks rising remained.

"Looks like you have a lot on your mind."

And a certain old man's voice, like those sparks.

"..."

Najin lifted his head without a word and looked ahead. Gerd was seated across the fire. The old man had drawn his sword and was wiping it with a cloth.

Crackle.

In the wasteland the knights had left behind, Najin and Gerd sat across the campfire in silence, cleaning their blades. Silence lingered, but it was not uncomfortable. Through the flas, Gerd spoke.

"You were right."

"About what?"

"Master did not leave the Carnival King's domain. More exactly, he could not leave. Because you disrupted the Carnival King's plan."

Originally, the Helm Knight had been fated to beco the Carnival King's clown in complete form. He had endured for a hundred and fifty years, but by the ti he t Najin he had already reached his limit. If a little more ti had passed then, he would have beco a monster in the end.

But because of Najin, the Helm Knight did not beco a monster. In his final mont, he declared himself a knight and t death.

"No matter how much the Carnival King can use even the dead as clowns, she still could not fully unravel a story that had already reached its proper end."

Crackle.

"He can move only inside the Carnival King's domain. That is the right conclusion. If it were not, he would have moved with the Star of Scorn already."

The Helm Knight had not appeared anywhere else on the battlefield. That was proof his state was unstable. While wiping his sword, Najin gave a bitter smile.

"Even after death, he grabbed the Carnival King by the throat and slamd her to the ground. It was never going to be easy for her."

"That sounds like him."

Gerd gave a short laugh. The old man who usually looked at the world with a hard face always smiled, at least a little, when speaking of his master.

"He was that kind of man, my master."

The old man spoke while looking at his sword.

"Wrong was wrong. He was stubborn beyond reason. Go this way, it's easier. Go that way, it's safer. No matter what advice people gave him, he never even pretended to listen. He was the kind who would say, 'I'm going this way. Who are you to block my path? Do you want to die?' and then swing his sword."

There were people like that. Stubborn, foolish, never changing once they decided, exhausting to watch from the outside.

"He was like blazing fire. When the flas of war spread across the continent, he beca a fire himself and set a greater counterfire. If war was the problem, he said he'd burn everything down and snuff it out, and he swept through the battlefields."

Crackle, the campfire rose.

"He lived like fire."

Then, with a small tap, Gerd touched the sword's edge.

"So his end should burn in splendor too. His life was too brilliant for this farce to be his finale."

"I agree."

Looking at the burning sparks, Najin said,

"At the end, he removed his helt. He showed the face that had turned monstrous, and he declared he was a knight."

He had endured for a hundred and fifty years.

Until the very end, he had wanted to remain a knight.

"Then he is a knight."

And Najin was a Free Knight. For one who wanted to be a knight, Najin knew what he had to do.

"So shouldn't we send him off like a knight?"

Gerd smiled.

"The Empire's hero deserves honors worthy of him. Properly, he should receive a state funeral in the imperial capital. This is not the capital, but since I stand here, it changes nothing."

The longsword's edge glead.

"Master's funeral should be held as a duel."

He would probably have preferred that.

Muttering that, Gerd looked up at the sky.

"It is a coincidence."

Stars were shining overhead.

Beside the eight-star constellation First Star, another eight-star constellation was shining too.

"Or perhaps it was inevitable."

The Star of Dawn, Najin's constellation.

And farther off, where paint hid the view, there would be another star there as well. And that one too would have eight stars.

One-Horn Star, Aldaran Vasaglia.

Both First Star and The Star of Dawn, born from him, held eight stars each. Faced with sothing that felt like both coincidence and inevitability, Gerd let out a long breath.

"Let's go."

The First Corps began walking toward their battlefield.

flutter.

The wind blew, and the First Horn of the Empire's war banner on Gerd's back flapped. The Golden Horn Knights' banner tied to Najin's shoulder flapped, and the Lance of the Crossed Star shone under starlight.

One was the First Horn of the Empire.

The other was the commander of the Golden Horn Knights.

Two knights who had divided a na that originally belonged to one man took their steps forward.

To face their master.