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"Advanced swordsmanship is about forgetting the sword that was centered on Sword Intent."
I lectured on the doctrine I had developed using Lord Murray as my test subject.
The fourteen students (Bonnie had been revived again by Berlith) listened attentively at an appropriate distance.
"Telling you to abandon the swordsmanship you have diligently mastered may sound sowhat abstract. You do not need to take this instruction literally."
I reached for the Holy Sword...... and then drew instead the blade Rozalin had procured in the capital.
Ever since obtaining the Holy Sword, I had developed a compulsion to use it, so I had been using it sparingly.
But this blade was also a fine sword.
I swung it a few tis through the air and settled into a stance.
It felt good — stably weighted in my hand as though molded to fit.
"Those who have observed my swordsmanship for a long ti will know."
A middle guard with my legs crossed diagonally.
It was a preparation stance designed to perform drawing, cutting, and sheathing in a single breath — a posture that maximized the use of my nine-lined Mana Road.
"My current swordsmanship differs little, even compared to the foundational swordsmanship I built back when I was a Walker — back when I could not even wield a sword properly."
There had been fine adjustnts, but the broad frawork had remained the sa.
This was the opposite of the state I had just urged the students toward when I told them to "forget swordsmanship."
"To be precise, what I am saying is to forget the act of thinking — or the act of holding intent — itself."
"If there is no intent, can Sword Intent even arise?"
I nodded at Pan's question.
"A fair point. Let us go a little deeper. Forget your will as a swordsman."
It was not about holding the sword and wielding it — one had to beco a sword oneself.
Accepting the mana of nature and creating miracles akin to magic.
That was the essence of Expert.
"This is my hypothesis, but it is likely that an Expert's sword aura will manifest with different characteristics for each person."
I was pursuing the ultimate sword.
The ultimate sword transcended the limits of the sword, yet could not step outside the frawork of being a sword.
That was why it had manifested in as the thod of "cutting," taken to its extre.
No matter how far away the enemy was, I could cut everything lying along a single line.
What would this look like when strengthened further?
Perhaps I could cut down an opponent without even physically swinging my sword?
Through pure intent alone, for instance.
"......Is sothing like that possible?"
"It is a hypothesis. What it actually looks like is sothing we will only know by going there ourselves. I am not from the future, after all."
Let us imagine other approaches.
Bonnie, for example.
"Bonnie's entire body is a weapon. Perhaps because of that, he can emit Aura from every part of his body."
Bonnie's Aura was a deep crimson.
Perhaps the original owner of this tooth had been the legendary fire dragon.
Fire dragons lived in mountains full of lava and breathed high-temperature fla from their mouths.
They were beings that truly ruled over fire itself.
An Aura from such a being would probably be sothing close to a blaze.
"Swing the sword, and everything around you becos a sea of fire."
"How is that swordsmanship? Is that not just magic?"
"That is exactly why I said — you must forget the limits of the sword."
If we could transcend the concept of "swinging a sword."
We would beco even stronger.
The students' gazes turned to Bonnie, who stood quietly.
They had sensed it instinctively.
Bonnie was our future.
"Well, if we die, we all beco bones anyway, so he really is our future, I guess."
"Do not make such absurd jokes. I am already feeling disturbed and shitty."
"Why? Because you look like you will be the first old man turned into bones? Co to think of it. An old man who dies and cos back as a Dragon-Fang Soldier cannot really be called one. Spear God Soldier? Soldier God Spear?"
"What is that? So sort of creative last will and testant?"
"Last will? I ca in second after Pan, so I am rank 3. And you, old man, are rank 7...... This is not picking a fight, it is called punching down."
"Rozalin, do not bully the pitiful 7th-place finisher."
"You brats, once this lesson is over and I reach a new plateau, I will make you all pay dearly."
The old Spear God ground his teeth.
I thought I understood why they were throwing around these silly jokes.
The path they had to walk from here on was so daunting that they wanted to lighten the mood with light banter, even if only a little.
"......Damn it. This swordsmanship saved my life more tis than I can count, and now I have to throw it away. Stings, it does."
Hati finally voiced what was on his mind.
Indeed.
So of the people gathered here had gone through sheer hell, even going so far as to regress.
To tell them to abandon their swordsmanship was, in a sense, to tell them to deny the monts of that struggle.
Just as everyone was growing anxious.
"But that thing you do, it is not really just 'cutting,' is it?"
Freizia, who had been quietly listening from the corner, raised her hand and asked.
"Hm?"
Perhaps it was because everyone else had gone silent and anxious.
The attention of every student fastened onto her.
"U-uwah?"
Freizia, already timid by nature, could not bear the stares and scooted behind Kantaros.
The scene looked like a grandfather and granddaughter.
"What do you an by that?"
"Th-the thing is. I thought slicing across distance was kind of just...... the sword."
Freizia haltingly voiced her thoughts.
"If you think of it as just a long sword — loosing arrows and all? That grandpa with the spear launches out long ones too — so...... is that really the limit of the sword? That is what I thought......"
"Is that so?"
"Even if you extend Aura and shoot it out, that is still just a sword...... What I thought was much cooler was what you showed us, Teacher, all the way back when you were a Runner."
"What was that?"
"Cutting magic."
Ah.
"Honestly, is that not more amazing? A sword cannot cut magic. But your sword cuts magic, Teacher. No, even setting aside your sword......"
"All Aura cuts magic."
"Yes...... So what I was thinking was, maybe your ability might actually be more definitive on a different front, kind of a feeling-sort-of feeling of a thought, but it is all abstract, so yadda yadda?"
Freizia trailed off incoherently, unable to finish her sentence properly.
Even she seed to realize she had lost track of what she was saying — her face was flushed bright red.
But her words struck like a switch.
'I said to forget the sword, but did I end up fixating on the one thing I am most confident in?'
That was what she seed to be telling .
"You are right. I have not actually tested what kinds of magic I can cut, or how."
"Ooh, as expected from the lovestruck girl asking Teacher about his first love! You are interested......"
"N-no! It is nothing like that!"
"What? You little brat, are you disrespecting our Teacher?!"
"N-nooo...... Big Sis......"
Co to think of it, when I had gone to the Academic Exchange Conference in the Empire, Ban had fired sothing at .
Whatever that magic had been, thanks to Giant-Block — or because I had cut through it with sword aura — it had vanished quickly.
At the ti, I only knew that Ban had done sothing — I had no idea what it was.
So it was probably not an ordinary spell but sothing from the curse category.
'I should go ask Berlith.'
Cutting magic that was invisible and could not even be sensed.
That was similar to cutting an opponent's will on the abstract level.
Perhaps the future of my sword lay in that direction.
Here I was trying to teach my students, and I might end up growing stronger myself. The old sages were right — even a master can learn from a pupil.
"Now then. For today's lesson, let us pick apart Bonnie's movents themselves — the ones that stepped outside existing martial systems. Our skilled teaching assistant, step forward."
***
"So this is a...... Fantasy."
"Yes. That is correct."
Red Light, the leader of Red Moon — the intelligence and counter-intelligence unit conducting espionage in the Empire's vassal and enemy states.
Red Light was eting Avril of Goldline outside Imperial territory.
In Avril's hand was a single blue gemstone giving off an eerie glow.
A "Fantasy" — the gem said to be obtainable by slaying a demon.
"I had heard the rumors. That it is a stone that grants power truly like a demon's. What ability does this one possess?"
"Allow to demonstrate."
Instead of explaining, Avril clenched the Fantasy in his fist as though to crush it.
A yellow light erupted from the Fantasy and swirled around Avril's fist.
Gradually, the environnt around them began to change.
The place where they had t was the center of a vast grassland.
Tall grasses reached up to their waists, and countless trees stood throughout — shelter for wild animals.
All of it slowly began to wither.
The grassland grass began to break apart into tiny fragnts and scatter, turning a dull yellow as if winter alone had descended on this patch of land.
The air grew stiff and arid, leaves fell and began to rot on the ground, and the trunk of an ancient tree shriveled.
"Entity na: Desert. A demon that creates deserts."
"You are saying it evaporated every trace of moisture in the area?"
"You must be feeling it."
Avril was right.
With each breath, the suddenly arid air scratched at his throat.
His eyes felt dry — a sensation like walking through the middle of a desert.
But Red Light was worrying about sothing other than the miracle before his eyes.
"You are telling you possess five — no, six of these things?"
"That is correct. And those Fantasies are weapons so powerful that the Desert Fantasy I brought with today cannot even compare to them."
The Goldline rchant Guild was a place suspected of being the killer behind Professor Hollians' death.
And Avril Goldline was the individual suspected of having killed Hollians.
Despite that, the reason he had co all this way to et Avril was that Avril had said he possessed important information regarding Cassian.
'Cassian Defnos.'
His level of threat was not on a scale comparable to Avril's.
He had founded Aura, raising the military might of vassal states, while simultaneously beginning to unite the nations outside the Empire into one.
He had made the Kingdom of Namress a vassal, and he appeared to have so form of relationship with the Great Forest that was currently destabilizing the Empire.
The Saintess of the Holy Kingdom seed to be in so deep relationship with Cassian at Akarind Academy.
On top of that, he had six Fantasies?
As much as it pained him to admit it, with power at that level, the man could overthrow the Empire.
"If left alone, he will beco an obstacle to the Empire's future."
Avril pressed on that very point.
He was an unpleasant man, but nothing he said was wrong.
"......The fact that you have co to see like this suggests you have a plan in mind."
"Move the Magic Tower."
Red Light's eyebrow twitched at Avril's words.
"The Magic Tower? This Aura you speak of — is it not a power that cuts even magic? And yet you tell to use magic?"
"Is the Magic Tower not currently conducting research into black magic in its basent?"
At Avril's words, Red Light fell silent.
It was a secret that was never ant to leak to anyone.
How did a re rchant know of it?
"He is, in the end, nothing more than a swordsman. Before he grows any stronger, cast a curse upon him through that black magic. In the way the Empire does best — the way most fitting of the Empire."
"......"
Avril said this, then slowly turned and walked away with steady steps, disappearing from view.
Red Light watched his retreating back for a long while.
The man was certainly unpleasant, but what he had said was not wrong.
'Indeed. No matter how well that man cuts magic, he cannot possibly overco a curse that cannot even be seen with the eyes.'
Cassian had to be dealt with.
Before he grew any stronger.
In the way most fitting of the Empire.
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