"Are we really going to let him do this?" Estelle asked as she watched Eliron begin the impossible climb.
Even Yennefer, who had seed so confident, now looked unsure.
"I don’t know..." she confessed as she stared at him.
"Look at the state he is in..." Estelle said.
Eliron’s body was shaking all over, his clothes were now like they were soaked in a river, and his skin was red.
Estelle shook her head. "If we don’t stop him now, he might end up with a serious injury."
"Stop him?" Yen bit her finger.
The more she stared at Eliron and the mountain, the more she felt a pang of worry in her heart.
Heart Snatcher Mountain did not get its na on a whim, it was given its na by the wood elves because of its unique nature.
Not only was it extrely steep, making it difficult to climb, it also had loose soil that would sotis get undone and cause you to slip.
Once you fell off Heart Snatcher Mountain, for a normal person, death was hardly avoidable.
"Tiny, get closer to Eliron!" Yennefer instructed.
"Hruuu!"
The wyvern unfurled its wings and took flight, reaching Eliron in a short ti.
"Eliron, don’t you think it is enough?" she asked, raising her voice to grab his attention.
Stopping at the foot of the mountain was already more than impressive.
"One... two... three..."
Eliron continued to mutter. His head was tilted downward, staring at the floor, and his normally sharp eyes seed hazy.
’Is he alright?’ Yennefer thought.
It was almost as if he was in so sort of...
"Is he in a trance?" Estelle asked, taking the word right out of her thoughts.
Trances were of different types...
To a regular person, having a trance was almost always seen as a bad thing, as it was indicative of an illness, a serious dical issue or even possession.
But for a mage, or a knight, a trance could be either one of the things she had ntioned earlier, or it could be a path to enlightennt.
"One... two... three..."
Normally, Yennefer would have believed he was experiencing the positive type of trance, but considering the torture he had put himself through, she was inclined to believe the forr.
Estelle seed to be just as confused.
"I think we should get him down..." she sighed, running her hand through her hair.
"I swear, this kid is a handful. Trance or not, are we going to let him climb up that mountain??"
Haaa—!
Yen sighed as she closed her eyes, multiple thoughts running through her mind.
’What would Eliron want?’
He was the type of person to chop down trees from morning till night, work out till his muscles gave up...
Even in his last life, when Yennefer glimpsed into his past dying reincarnation, all she could describe him with was one word.
Hard work.
That was his personality, that was who he was.
"Let him climb!" Yennefer declared, her hands tightening by her sides.
Although she hated to see him suffer, it was what Eliron would want.
"I’ll be with him all the way, I’ll make sure he survives it."
•••
"Where am I?"
Step
Step
Eliron could not tell how long he had been walking for. Three hours? Four? There was no way to tell.
He had since beco lost to the struggle.
Every part of him felt like it was on the edge of breaking down.
His muscles felt like a pack of cards stacked together, even the faintest winds threatened to pull him down.
He had long forgotten what he was even doing, all that remained were those words.
"One... two... three?"
"Oh!"
He finally rembered what he had been doing before the haze took over. He had been walking.
’Am I still walking?’
It felt as though he was paralyzed, like all his nerves had gone. "Well this is a shitty job and packed up."
There was no feeling.
No pain...
No sensation...
Just... nothing.
It was maddening, and so to keep his amity intact, Eliron decided to focus on sothing, anything to anchor his mind to.
And so he rembered a story from the original novel.
There was a man who once wished to seal the heavens...
Declared as the greatest martial master across the realm, he traveled from nation to nation, seeking a worthy competitor.
He had long reached the peak of his martial prowess...
He had dismantled the martial masters of the east, demolished the knights of the west, and even defeated the arch mage of the tower, a man deed to be the next Magus Supremus.
But he was not satisfied.
As long as there was no one to push him, his blade would grow dull, his image would age, and his legacy would cease.
So he sought out enlightennt.
He sought to grow above the sword.
To teach this level of mastery, the master sought to detach himself from worldly affairs.
He fasted for weeks, he only drank water from a brook and lived in isolation, shutting himself off from the mortal world.
Until he reached the stage of body and mind dissonance.
Only then did he attain the power to cleave the heavens.
Supre Sword Aura.
"KEHKKK—!"
Eliron opened his eyes to a vast, windy peak, but he was too busy vomiting his stomach acids to realise.
When he raised his head, his eyes widened as he hurried forward.
"The hell?!"
He had been sitting right at the edge of a high drop, several ters high. A rock slipped down from the edge, descending down the mountain.
He did not hear it land...
The sky had been blackened by night, the moon in full bloom and the sky alight with golden stars.
But Eliron was not focusing on any of it...
Only then did he attain the power to cleave the heavens.
Those words continued to ring in his head like a mantra... he was unable to think of anything else.
"I need a sword!"
Eliron could not feel his body as he marched across the mountain, looking for anything remotely close to a sword.
Due to the amount of strain he had put on himself, his mana core had beco turbulent in an attempt to sustain him.
As a result, the mana pathways in his body had been forcefully expanded, pure, turbulent mana flooding through them.
His body began to glow faintly, steam pooling out of his skin like he was a bucket of boiling water.
Mana ford a layer above his body like a second skin, slowly circulating around him, and his eyes had a fierce glow.
Still partially unconscious, Eliron stumbled through the mountain until he found a well-shaped stick.
He grabbed it with both hands and raised it.
Eliron had already used the sword skill of one of the greatest swordsn in existence.
He had the complex theory morized from rereading that particular part of the story so many tis that it beca a part of him.
Due to his grueling workout, he was at a point where he could no longer feel his body, a temporary state that mimicked body and mind dissonance.
Now all he could feel was his mana...
A never-ending stream that gushed out of his core, begging to be let out as it crashed turbulently into his pathways.
He knew just what to do.
"Unleash everything."
His eyes flared, the mana around him pulsed and then he let out a loud cry, pouring out his frustrations.
The mont Eliron swung the wood, the air distorted, a bright flash erupted from it, and then a wave of compressed mana surged out.
Swoosh!
At first, it looked like nothing had happened.
But a few seconds later.
The trees all around him fell, sliding off their trunks as they collapsed with a bang.
Although it was not perfect, that strike alone ant he had done what many martial masters could only dream of mastering.
A technique that wasn’t even a skill or spell.
Supre Sword Aura.
Eliron stared at the carnage, a small smirk appearing on his face, just before he fell.
But before he could land on the floor, soone hurriedly caught him, holding his body with both her hands.
Yennefer sighed, sweat flowing down the side of her face. "That was close..."
If they had not laid flat before he swung, then they would have all been dead.
"What the hell was that?" Estelle asked, watching Eliron with wide eyes.
Yen shook her head, clearly confused. "I don’t know..."
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