Chapter 161: The Protection of House Rosedale
The ancestral swordsmanship of House Rosedale emphasized the purity of the ice elent and the biting sharpness of sword intent, not brute force, so she had never needed to toughen her palms with thick calluses the way warriors who wielded greatswords did.
And yet now, those very hands were gripping a sword that was holding back a tongue several ters thick.
The skin at her grip had long since split open. Blood ran down the hilt, into her sleeves, warm and sticky. She could feel it cooling little by little inside the fabric, slowly clotting.
Her fingers were trembling.
Her wrists were trembling.
Her entire arms were trembling.
She could not hold on any longer.
She really could not.
She rembered her childhood, the first ti her father had taught her how to hold a sword.
At the ti, she had only been six, and that wooden sword had been taller than she was. She had clutched it in both hands, shaking so badly that the tip dragged a crooked line through the ground.
“Father, I can’t hold it.”
Her father had stood behind her, his tall figure casting her whole body into shadow. He did not help her. He only said,
“Lillian, do you know where our family’s sword ca from?”
She had shaken her head.
Her father crouched down until he was level with her. That man who was always stern-faced had shown her a rare trace of gentleness.
“Our family’s swordsmanship was passed down from our ancestors. The first patriarch was nad Drey Rosedale, also known as Frostblade. He was a very, very cold man, as cold as the sword in his hand.”
“Was he very strong?”
“He was. But he was not that strong from the beginning.” Her father paused. “When he was young, he was only an ordinary swordsman, and his affinity for the ice elent was only average. One day, his beloved was taken by his enemies. He went to rescue her. Alone, with a single sword, he chased them for three days and three nights, all the way from the Southlands to the Northern Frontier.”
Lillian had listened, enraptured.
“When he finally caught up, his beloved had already been bound to an altar, and his enemies were preparing to kill her. Our ancestor rushed forward and fought them with everything he had. But he could not win. There were too many of them. He was knocked down and got back up; knocked down and got back up again. His whole body was covered in wounds, and his blood had soaked the ground.”
“And then?”
“Then he heard his beloved calling his na. In that mont, sothing inside him exploded. He felt as though he had beco one with the sword in his hand, one with the frost around him, one with the sound of her voice. When he thrust that sword out, ice spread beneath his feet and froze the entire altar solid.”
Lillian’s eyes had widened.
“That one strike killed twenty-three people and saved his beloved. From that mont on, he truly beca Frostblade Rosedale.”
Her father looked at her, his expression complicated.
“Our family has practiced this swordsmanship generation after generation, but there are almost none who can truly reach that strike. Because it cannot be trained into existence. It is forced out. Only when you truly wish to protect sothing can you thrust out a sword like that.”
He had reached out and patted her head.
“If one day you can thrust out that sword as well, then it will an you have encountered sothing more important than life itself. When that day cos, do not hesitate, and do not leave yourself with regrets. Rember the resolve of our ancestor, and rember the will of protection that has been passed down through every generation of House Rosedale.”
At the ti, Lillian had not understood.
Sothing more important than life itself?
What could possibly be more important than life?
Now she understood.
The tongue pressed down another fraction.
Her knees gave way completely, and her whole body was forced lower. The mud swallowed her waist, then her chest.
She lifted her head.
Rex was still there.
That fool was still charging forward.
He could have run. With those long legs of his, he could outrun anyone. He was rough-skinned and strong, and his chances of escaping alive alone were far better than if he tried to drag her with him.
But he had not run.
He had rushed at that tongue instead.
He had put his own body between it and her.
Lillian’s eyes burned.
Father, you were right.
There really are things more important than life.
The light on the sword suddenly flared.
The fire inside her blazed hotter and hotter, until her entire body felt as if it were burning. She felt herself growing lighter and lighter, almost as though she might float away.
She could feel her life force slipping out of her, like sand running through her fingers. She knew what this was. It was that legendary power, the very power their ancestor had used when he thrust out that sword.
Using it would injure her.
It might even kill her.
This was the very day her father had feared would co.
But she was not afraid.
She stared at Rex’s back, that broad back that always carried that foolish grin, as he raised his greatsword and charged toward that scarlet tongue.
Gathering the last of her strength, she opened her mouth.
She wanted to call his na.
But the sound caught in her throat. No matter how hard she tried, it would not co out.
The light on the sword grew blinding.
Then—
The tongue stopped.
Lillian froze.
She blinked, half convinced she had imagined it.
But the tongue had truly stopped.
It hung motionless in midair, less than a ter away from Rex.
Rex froze as well. He stood there with his sword raised in the middle of a strike, his whole body gone rigid.
Then she heard a sound.
Very light. Very far away. Like wind.
It ca from deep within the marsh.
But it was no ordinary wind.
It was a howl coming from afar, growing louder and louder, as if sothing were tearing through the air, tearing through the wetland itself.
Both of them lifted their heads and looked toward the source of the sound.
From the forest—the silver-gray forest they had co through—sothing was approaching.
At first it was only a vague gray blur.
Then the blur grew larger and clearer, until they could finally make it out—
It was a tornado.
No, not an ordinary tornado.
The wind column rose tens of ters high, like a gray python connecting heaven and earth. It rampaged through the forest, and wherever it passed, those giant trees thick enough to require several people to encircle them were ripped from the ground one after another, drawn into the storm, shredded, and spat back out.
The uprooted trunks spun within the cyclone like enormous clubs. So were as thick as water barrels, so as thick as millstones, and others—thick enough to require several people to embrace them, over ten ters long, like giant battering rams.
The tornado was moving this way.
Closer and closer.
Faster and faster.
Its howl hurt their ears.
Then—
WHOOSH!
A tree trunk shot out of the cyclone.
It was as thick as several people embracing it, over ten ters long—just as thick, just as long as the toad’s tongue. It crossed more than a hundred ters in an instant, moving as fast as an arrow, the wind it carried screaming through the air.
BOOM!
The trunk smashed into the toad.
It speared through its side and burst out the other end, pinning the entire thing to the ground. Dark green blood sprayed from the wound in every direction like a fountain.
The toad let out a shriek, a sound like thunder, like the rumbling of the earth itself, like ten thousand beasts wailing at once. It twisted frantically, that scarlet tongue lashing wildly through the air with a whipping roar.
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