Kays Translations

Chapter 51: The Battle of the Skyscraper [Part 3]

Lenidus hadn’t come unprepared.

A wall of black light rose before him and stopped the Iron Magic Sword. It was extraordinarily hard, reminding Ren of his Shield Magic Sword.

“Kill him! Kill that boy!”

At Lenidus’s command, the cultists rushed Ren from behind.

“Stay back.”

They were no more than distractions.

Ren turned and swung the Iron Magic Sword. The enemies’ swords and staffs broke beneath the blow, and the pressure hurled their owners away. They struck the ground unconscious.

Ren advanced upon Lenidus once more. This time, a black gale erupted from the former priest and blasted him several meters backward.

“Why is a practitioner of the Mighty Sword Style this powerful?”

Despite Lenidus’s shock, Ren remained composed.

Was that black magic?

Black magic wasn’t itself the power of the Demon King. It was simply an attribute opposed to Sacred Magic. It could interfere with the mind, induce madness, weaken a person’s mana, corrupt the body, or produce flames that scorched flesh.

The remaining cultists slowly retreated around Lenidus, forming a protective wall.

Ren approached without haste.

There’s no need to rush.

The Flame King’s Gauntlet covered his left hand. It had grown so hot that it almost burned him.

He had summoned the Flame Magic Sword alongside the Iron Magic Sword, holding the fiery blade in his left hand. The gauntlet seemed to urge him to swing it at once.

“B-Bishop Lenidus! We can’t handle him!”

The cultists feared Ren.

Lenidus didn’t. He was a true fanatic. Ren’s strength had surprised him, but it hadn’t weakened his resolve. He intended to accomplish his objective even if doing so cost his life.

“I’ll offer myself to the great Demon King. Do all of you possess the same resolve?”

Their answer came as one.

“Yes!”

However frightened they were, the followers were fanatics as well. They didn’t fear sacrificing themselves to draw out a portion of the Demon King’s power from their marks. What they feared was failing before they could fulfill their purpose.

“To the great king of the Demon Continent!”

“To the sole sovereign who rules all demons!”

They placed their hands over the marks engraved into their shoulders, faces, hands, or chests. Their bodies convulsed.

That was as far as they got.

The man before them was the hero who had slain the Red Dragon. Forgetting that fact was the height of folly, and Ren had no intention of allowing them to complete the ritual.

The instant Lenidus gave the order, Ren hurled the Iron Magic Sword.

The same weapon had wounded Asval. Lenidus’s barrier had no hope of stopping it.

The black wall shattered, and the sword pierced the former priest’s right shoulder.

“Gah!”

The enormous blade drove through his towering frame and forced him to his knees.

For one instant, every cultist turned toward Lenidus.

That instant decided their fate.

When they looked back, the Iron Magic Sword was no longer where it had been thrown. Instead, enchanted vines erupted from the rooftop garden and coiled around their bodies, binding them up to their necks.

“Guh…”

“Nature Magic…”

Everything ended in the blink of an eye.

The vines tightened, and every cultist lost consciousness without being killed.

Just as Radius had predicted, Ren had completed almost the entire operation alone. The plan’s central objective—capturing the members of the Demon King cult alive—had been achieved.

“Kukukuku…”

Lenidus began to laugh.

An ugly, unsettling smile spread across his face.

“You’ve made a mistake! It was you who underestimated me!”

He seized the staff he had dropped and drove its stone tip into the ground. A complex magic circle appeared beneath him and rapidly spread across the entire garden.

“Holy Crest Technique?” Radius exclaimed.

“I once served Elfen! A Holy Crest Technique of this degree is only natural for me!”

Ren recalled what he knew.

Holy Crest Technique was a power wielded by priests who served the Chief God. It channeled a priest’s mana through special staffs and swords made in the Holy Land—implements refined with holy water from the Silver Holy Palace, the great temple at the center of that country.

Its power resembled Sacred Magic and could be exceedingly strong. The result varied according to both the priest’s own mana and the quality of the weapon prepared for them.

Ren adjusted his grip upon his swords.

He didn’t look surprised. If anything, he looked pleased.

“Good. That’s what I was waiting for.”

He had already sensed that something lay hidden within the garden. Rather than leave an unknown formation behind, he had hoped Lenidus would activate it when cornered.

“Kuku… You speak as though you’re the one challenging me!”

Rain began to fall. It soaked Ren’s hair, but his gaze never left Lenidus.

“Large Holy Crest Techniques can leave their magic circles embedded in the ground,” Ren said. “Removing one afterward requires specialists and can take several days.”

“So what?”

Light began to rise from the formation.

Radius and the knights continued to trust Ren.

“So activate it. Once it reveals itself, I’ll erase everything you planted here. Capturing you isn’t enough. This operation will only be complete once every threat you left behind has been eliminated.”

“Fool! You know nothing of the power of Holy Crest Technique!”

“I know as much as you do—perhaps more.”

Dazzling light erupted throughout the circle. Everyone except Lenidus felt their bodies grow heavy as the radiance closed around them.

“Radius,” Ren said, turning through the rain. “Do you trust me?”

Radius grinned.

“Do whatever you believe is necessary. But the next time something troubles you, tell me before it reaches this point. Watching you brood is unsettling.”

“Sorry. I will.”

Ren gave him a youthful, unguarded smile.

The Great Tree Magic Sword vanished from his right hand. He shifted the Flame Magic Sword into that hand and held it in a reverse grip.

Show me.

No matter how confident he sounded, Ren would never gamble with Radius’s life. He acted because he possessed absolute confidence in what he was about to do.

The crimson jewel set into the Flame King’s Gauntlet glowed dully. Scorching heat flowed through it, as though the gauntlet itself commanded him to burn everything away.

Ren understood the Red Dragon’s fire better than anyone. Asval had once called him weak—but Ren had survived that flame.

“Burn beneath the light of the foolish god!” Lenidus cried.

The Holy Crest Technique would undoubtedly have displayed terrifying power—had it been allowed to activate.

“A power Leomel has desired for generations…”

Lenidus drove the stone point of his staff into the circle once more. Radiance gathered at its center, ready to erupt and consume everyone, including Lenidus himself.

But his final attack would never be completed.

“Lenidus.”

To everyone watching, Ren alone seemed to move between moments.

The former priest, Radius, and the knights appeared almost motionless as the reverse-held Flame Magic Sword descended.

The blade struck the magic circle beneath Ren’s feet.

Golden fire erupted, so brilliant that the Holy Crest Technique’s light became a mere shadow.

The flames raced outward along every line of the formation. They burned no person and touched no flower. They consumed only the magic circle.

Within the spreading fire, golden dragons seemed to coil and race across the garden. Waves of flame danced wherever they passed.

A moment later, the entire formation had vanished.

Where the Holy Crest Technique should have sent a pillar of light into the heavens, golden flames instead surged skyward.

The rain stopped within the heated space for an instant. Steam made the air oppressively hot and humid, then the rain returned amid a powerful gust produced by the departing flames.

With wet hair clinging to his forehead, Ren drove the Flame Magic Sword into the ground.

“I told you.”

He looked at the ruined formation.

“I was waiting for that.”

Lenidus had spent nearly all his mana and was losing blood from his shoulder. He collapsed into a seated position on the ground.

Ren swept his wet hair away from his eyes. His calm, commanding gaze caused the former priest’s fading vision to tremble.

“This…”

“Tell me, Lenidus. How did it feel to rely upon the power of the god you claim to despise?”

Before losing consciousness, Lenidus glared at him with pure hatred.

His voice was hoarse and weak.

“Heehee… May that power one day despair before the might of the Demon King.”

Then he collapsed.

Every cultist remained alive and unconscious.

The operation was complete. The ideal outcome Radius and Ulysses had demanded had been achieved almost entirely by Ren.

He turned toward the stunned prince and knights.

“Now we only need to clean up.”

Relief softened his face.

“What an extraordinary man you’re, my friend,” Radius murmured.

“Your Highness truly chose your comrade well,” one knight said.

“Of course I did! And after witnessing that, how could I not be eager to train? I would be lying if I said I wasn’t inspired!”

Ren let out a long breath.

Even so, where was the Sword King?

She hadn’t intervened during the battle. From where had she been watching?

Before he could dwell on the question, a monstrous roar rolled down from far above the clouds.

Something enormous emerged from the rain-dark sky.

Four pairs of wings—eight in total—beat against the air. Moss-colored ocher scales covered a body shaped like a grotesque jellyfish, from which countless tentacles writhed. Eyes opened across its entire form, and its mouth was lined with vicious fangs like those of an Earthworm.

It was so immense that it seemed capable of swallowing the Grand Clock Tower whole.

The Unholy Sky Tyrant Aiuro!

Ren remembered it from the final portion of Legend of the Seven Heroes II. It was a B-rank monster from the Demon Continent, employed by the cult leader Lenidus had mentioned.

Other than Asval, the strongest monster Ren had fought was the Mana Eater Yelquq had created at the cost of his life. Even that creature had been upper C-rank at most. It didn’t belong in the same class as the monster filling the sky.

“Tch…”

An aerial enemy of that scale would be extremely difficult for Ren to fight.

Perhaps this was Lenidus’s true final weapon. Knowing a defensive field protected the region around the Imperial Capital, he may have kept it waiting beyond the barrier until the Holy Crest Technique provided a signal.

“Ren! It can’t cross the defensive field!” Radius called.

“What? You said the Grand Clock Tower no longer possessed that power.”

“I’ll explain later! For now, understand that the monster can’t reach us!”

As if demonstrating his words, Aiuro stopped at a fixed distance above the tower. Its tentacles hammered against an invisible wall but could advance no farther.

Even if the defense held, they couldn’t leave such a creature in the sky.

Ren was about to ask Radius how they could attack it when he suddenly widened his eyes.

A torrent of power swept toward the rooftop—then immediately turned upward.

The sky around the Unholy Sky Tyrant split.

Its scream shook the heavens.

A distortion appeared in the black night as though the sky itself had cracked. Sound vanished. The rain stopped. For an instant, the distortion seemed to become the center of the world, drawing everything toward it.

White light flashed.

The enormous monster was severed in two and burned away.

“That’s why I asked His Majesty to request her assistance,” Radius said.

Ren could only laugh dryly.

Seeing such power with his own eyes was entirely different from watching it through a screen in his previous life. He couldn’t understand how any living person could wield it.

Was that the strength of the world’s greatest swordswoman?

Was it the strength of one of the five Sword Kings, the supreme practitioners of every school?

Ren had never questioned why five people could all bear a title implying they were the strongest. Sword Kings existed beyond ordinary comparisons. Each one was simply a monster in a realm of their own.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Many renowned swordsmen developed personal combat Arts.

The technique that had destroyed the Unholy Sky Tyrant was among the most decisive and destructive of them all. It had slain only the evil creature without damaging the defensive field Radius had promised to explain.

Its name was Re-Verna.

In the ancient language of its creator’s homeland, the Sky Continent, the name meant “Wrath of Heaven.”

It was the symbol of her absolute power—an Art never displayed even in Legend of the Seven Heroes.

She stood upon a secluded level of Elendil’s Hanging Garden, slightly higher than the Grand Clock Tower and forbidden to ordinary citizens. A landing platform there served magic ships reserved for the imperial family.

Alone beneath the clearing night sky, she enjoyed the breeze after the rain.

“So Ashton truly existed.”

Her clear voice rang like a silver bell.

Silken silver hair gleamed against vestments of dark blue cloth embroidered with gold. Beautiful enough to seem unreal, she looked toward the sky as she spoke.

A white-silver sword nearly as tall as she was rested upon the cobblestones beside her. It was so famous that even Werlich was said to have admitted he could never forge a superior weapon.

She wrapped the sword in a magic cloth that served as its scabbard, lifted it, and departed.

Fifth in the Sword King Rankings—the White Dragon Princess, Lutreche.

Not even the Emperor knew what had passed through her mind when she agreed to assist.

She had no intention of explaining it.

Her reasons belonged to her alone.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Several minutes later, activity resumed in the rooftop garden of the Grand Clock Tower.

Ren and the others had been stunned by the Sword King’s power, but they soon remembered their mission. The prisoners had to be secured and the site searched.

Ren examined the garden while the knights carried the unconscious cultists away.

Nothing else seems to be hidden here.

The knights conducted a meticulous final inspection with specialized magic tools.

Even so, Ren couldn’t stop thinking about what he had witnessed. He knew he would replay that single strike in his mind for years.

He had once spoken with Lessard about becoming a Sword King, though he had never seriously considered the ambition.

How presumptuous of me.

Lutreche was one of the strongest beings in the world. The gulf between them had been obvious enough to overturn his sense of scale.

A great deal had happened that night.

As Ren exhaled, Radius approached him.

“I ordered every knight present to keep your power confidential.”

“Thank you. Are you certain that’s wise?”

“You clearly wish to conceal it. But the more battles you fight, the more people will see what you can do. You can’t hide it forever.”

“I know. I never expected to keep it secret for my entire life.”

Ren remained wary of revealing Magic Sword Summoning. He hadn’t yet explained his true circumstances to Radius, but the prince respected that hesitation and had already promised not to press him until he was ready.

“What were you brooding about just now?” Radius asked.

“Me?”

“Yes. You were staring into space.”

“I was thinking about the Sword King. After seeing strength like that, it’s difficult not to feel how weak I still am.”

Radius fell silent.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

The prince shrugged, weariness plain on his face.

“I was thinking that, from my perspective, even you possess strength beyond comprehension. Hearing you call yourself weak is difficult to process.”

“I’ll accept that as praise.”

As Ren grew stronger, he had become increasingly able to recognize the distance separating him from an opponent. Lutreche had revealed not merely a difference in technique, but something approaching a difference in species.

Even so, he wanted to reach her feet someday.

“Come,” Radius said, beckoning him toward the mechanism at the rear of the garden.

He ordered the knights to keep their distance. When he and Ren reached the device, they stood so their bodies concealed it from view.

“There’s something I must tell you.”

“This concerns your claim that the Grand Clock Tower no longer contains its defensive power.”

“Exactly. You understand quickly.”

“But the region is still protected. We just watched the field stop Aiuro.”

Radius nodded.

He placed a hand upon a black stone box engraved with intricate patterns. The patterns glowed, and the box opened vertically to reveal a small platform within. A metal pedestal stood at its center.

“This is the Grand Clock Tower’s control unit, created by Mirim Altia.”

“There’s no magic stone.”

The pedestal was clearly designed to hold one.

“Of course there isn’t,” Radius said. “The power once housed in this tower is no longer here.”

“Did it break down with age?”

Radius stared at him, then laughed.

“Ren, please don’t say something so absurd with such a serious expression.”

“I was serious.”

“Then I apologize. The contrast between that question and the battle you just fought was too great.”

He closed the control unit.

“More than fifty years ago, the imperial family and the Altia family moved the tower’s original defensive power. It’s been managed at another location ever since.”

“So attacking this tower was pointless from the beginning.”

“Correct. The Demon King cult had no means of discovering that secret.”

A matter protected jointly by two powers of that scale couldn’t be uncovered through ordinary investigation.

Radius and Ren turned away from the device and headed toward the staircase. The descent would be easier now that there was no need to hurry.

Radius had also already used Analysis on Lenidus, fulfilling another of the operation’s primary objectives.

“When I think about it, Leomel would never have left such an important facility unchanged for generations,” Ren said.

“You understand now?”

“Yes. Even if the system were ancient, a defense that shut down whenever its magic stone was replaced would obviously need improvement. I had wondered why the preparations took so long.”

Radius couldn’t confirm classified details, but his smile was answer enough.

Ren stepped onto the long staircase first, prepared to shield Radius if anything happened.

His exhausted leg suddenly gave way, and he stumbled.

He would have recovered immediately, but a hand caught his arm from behind.

“Don’t slow me down,” Radius said.

The prince was supporting him while wearing an amused smile.

“I could have recovered on my own. Still… thank you.”

“I was joking. After everything you accomplished tonight, I could hardly accuse you of being a burden.”

Their exhausted expressions eased.

Fatigue wasn’t the only feeling they carried. Both were filled with an accomplishment that outweighed it.

When they finally reached the plaza, the waiting knights greeted them with cheers.

Ren and Radius looked at one another and laughed.

Then they raised their hands and struck their palms together with a sharp clap.

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