Chapter 132


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    Demon Hunting (6)


    Zarkan’s head fell.


    Deprived of its supporting neck, it sumbed to gravity and plummeted to the ground. The earth, melted and warped by his earlier spell, offered no resistance and swallowed the head with a wet splosh.


    That marked the pitiful end of Zarkan, a dark mage who had lived for over a century. Few deaths could be considered dignified, but his demise seemed especially so, even whenpared to others.


    Crunch.


    His headless body crumbled to dust.


    When humans die, their bodies remain, but those who have bargained with demons leave nothing behind, their soul and body long since surrendered as payment.


    A death without a single thing left behind was the price paid for choosing an easy path and forsaking convictions.


    – In a way, that Demon Knight you cut down long ago was lucky.


    Merlin, observing the scene, spoke.


    – At least he left behind a corpse.


    Verheigen had been in with Excalibur.


    Since Excalibur had severed the very demon Verheigen made a pact with, it rendered the contract void. As a result, Verheigen had been allowed to die as a human.


    While it might have been his misfortune to meet Najin, it was fortunate for him since it enabled him to die as a human.


    “Is that really luck?”


    – Depends on how you see it.


    Najin flicked his sword lightly.


    Regardless, he had won and defeated Zarkan with his own strength, without drawing Excalibur. Feeling his growth, a quiet sense of pride welled within him.


    At that moment, as he savored his small triumph, a flicker of light caught his eye.


    A dark mage, barely alive amidst the chaos, pointed a staff at Najin. It was difficult to say the mage had “survived,” considering their state—they were dying from excessive blood loss.


    Before Najin could respond…


    sh.


    The dark mage’s body split apart after a sharp arc cleaved both the mage and the building they hid in cleanly in two. As if that weren’t enough, the ground itself was carved into a straight trench.


    The sound arrived a beatter.


    SCREEEEEEEEECH!


    It was Sword Aura,unched faster than the speed of sound. Fired from the peak of the fortress, it had sliced through hundreds of meters of air. Caught mid-movement, Najin blinked in disbelief. The scene before him defiedprehension.


    “You know, I’ve been thinking this a lottely…”


    – Hm?


    “The gap between a Sword Seeker and a Sword Master is just absurdly wide, isn’t it?”


    – Well, would a transcendent be a transcendent without cause? The journey from Sword Seeker to Sword Master is divided into three stages for a reason. Those three stages represent actualyers of progress.


    Sprouting, Blossoming, Full Bloom… those were the three stages a Sword Seeker had to pass through to be a Sword Master.


    – You know Roselin Ascalo, that mercenary leader you’re friendly with? She’s a Sword Seeker too, but she once diced up three other Sword Seekers at once. The only difference was that she’d gone through the Sprouting stage.


    “Now that you mention it, she did.”  Najin nodded.


    – That’s how it works. With each step you ascend, it bes harder topare yourself to others on the same ‘level.’


    – Mages aren’t so different. Speaking of which, did I ever tell you that the concept of a mage’s circle wasn’t properly established until—


    As Merlin rambled on, Najin half-listened, letting most of her words slip from one ear and out the other.


    While she droned on, a soft tap sounded in the distance.


    Yuel Razian leapt gracefully down from atop the fortress andnded in front of Najin. Unlike Zarkan’s earlier crashnding, her descent was elegant.


    Her white hair shifted slightly, but even her hem remained pristine.


    “Good work.” She greeted Najin with her usual doll-like expression, though a faint smile graced her lips.


    Then, she pped her hands together. “You’ve exceeded expectations. What a splendid battle. My god is giving you a thumbs-up as we speak. They especially enjoyed the part where you cleanly split the head open and are offering quite a detailedmentary on it. Yes, I understand. I’ll convey the message. Yes, yes, yes…”


    Yuel frowned slightly and muttered into the air before curtly saying, “Silence. Shut up.”


    “Excuse me?”  Najin asked, startled.


    “Oh, not you, I was addressing my god’s whispers.” She batted her ears as though shooing away an insect.


    Najin felt an odd sense of kinship. After all, Merlin had been endlessly rambling on with self-aggrandizing stories as well.


    People who spent their days with incessantly chattering constetions learned to filter such noise.


    Yuel and Najin were prime examples. Ignoring the voices in their heads, they turned their attention to one another and spoke.


    “That was quite a spectacle. You seem to enjoybat of that nature—using the terrain and creating variables. I enjoyed such battles too, before ascending to Sword Master. It brings back memories.”


    Yuel nodded, a satisfied smile ying on her face. “You’ve only recently reached Sword Seeker, correct? Yet you’ve already aplished so much? I find myself wanting to see more of yourbat prowess.”


    “Uh, thank you?”


    Yuel’s eyes narrowed, studying Najin keenly. “You’re still holding back, aren’t you? There’s something you haven’t shown me yet. I don’t know what it is, but you still seem at ease.”


    Her gaze sharpened. “So, how about it?”


    “How about what?”


    “A duel with me.”


    “…You mean an actual duel, not just sparring?”


    “Of course. I don’t trust myself to hold back. Ick the control of a Sword Saint. I’ll limit my Sword Aura, but I can’t guarantee I won’t kill you. If death is a possibility, then it’s not a spar—it’s a duel.”


    Her clear, expectant eyes fixed on Najin.


    ‘I want to see your limits in a duel. You might die, but hey, up for it?’


    That was how Najin interpreted her words. He wasn’t suicidal.


    “Well? What do you say?”


    “I’ll pass.”


    “How disappointing.” Yuel sighed, but her face betrayed genuine regret.


    Once, someone hadpared dark mages to mold.


    From Najin’s perspective, it was a strikingly urate analogy.


    After all, operations to eliminate dark mages were eerily simr to cleaning mold. Simply scrubbing away the mold (dark mages) that illegally upied the wall (cities) wasn’t enough—you had to eradicate the source.


    You’d rip off the wallpaper, pry out the nks, and rece the wood that had absorbed moisture. That, or you’d ventte the room to drive out the dampness.n/?/vel/b//in dot c//om


    The post-purge efforts against dark mages mirrored the process exactly: burn all their research material to ashes, destroy their workshops, and topple their research facilities. Without such thorough measures, it wouldn’t take long for a new dark mage to show up at the same spot, eximing, “What a perfect ce to use those free research notes!”


    The pattern was evident when the workshop left behind by Kefalon, a 7th-circle dark mage who had once plunged the Empire into terror, became a treasured asset for his sessors.


    “I heard you’re heading to the Ound.” That was why Najin was walking alongside Yuel Razian. As they walked, Yuel casually swung her sword. With every swing, buildings suspected of being dark mage research facilities split apart with a sharp crack.


    “Yes. I n to head to the Battlefield of Stars.”


    “Is that so?” The cleaved buildings crumbled, disintegrating into fine dust that drifted away in the breeze. “Then be cautious.”


    Her warning wasn’t the usual advice about the dangers of the Ound. It came from a Sword Master who had transcended, wandered the Ound, and still frequently ventured there whenever time allowed.


    “The Ound, the edge of the world… The deeper you go into its depths, the more you’ll find yourself doubting.”


    “Doubting?” Najin asked, confused.


    “Doubting your very existence. To put it another way, you’ll experience a denial of your being.”


    Najin blinked, struggling to make sense of her cryptic words.


    Yuel borated further. “You are aware, aren’t you? That you will no longer age.”


    “I know that reaching the level of a Sword Seeker grants freedom from aging.”


    “Yes, any warrior or mage who reaches a certain threshold of power stops aging. They transcend mortality. It’s notplete immortality, but they be something akin to an immortal and are no longer at risk of dying from old age.”


    She continued, “The world rejects such beings. It’s unnatural. Biologically and ecologically, we are anomalies. The cycle of life and death, of birth and return to nature, is the natural order of the world. To the world, people like you and me are ‘mistakes.’”


    A mistake—something erroneous and unnatural.


    “Thus, the world rejects us and pushes us away to its outskirts. The Ound is where such castaways gather. Not all of them, but most. That’s why they call it the ce for those who should have already died.”


    It was a ce closer to the afterlife than life.


    “Interpret it as you will, but I personally believe the Ound exists to do what the world cannot.”


    “And that is?”


    “To bring about the death of the undying.” Yuel stopped walking and turned to look directly at Najin. “Do you know how transcendents meet their end?”


    “No, I don’t.”


    “A transcendent cannot die by conventional means. That might hold true in the continent’s bounds, perhaps, but in the Ound, where the rules of the world hold less sway, theye very close to true immortality. Still, that immortality is only physical.”


    What could bring about their end?


    Yuel tapped her temple lightly. “The moment they begin to doubt their existence; the moment their story falters, when they lose their confidence in themselves, a transcendent dies.”


    She gently swung her sword. Another building split apart, crumbled, and vanished into nothingness. “When one denies themselves in the Ound, their body corrodes and twists; they cease to be human, bing something closer to a beast. Eventually, they lose themselves entirely. That’s when a transcendent truly dies.”


    Perhaps that was why Yuel lifted her gaze to the sky, staring at the stars that filled the night.


    She softly murmured, “Do you know why the stars burn so brightly? Is it to illuminate the darkness? That’s unlikely. It’s because, every time someone gazes at their star and reflects on the feats associated with it, the constetions feel the rity of their existence. They are freed from the doubts that gnaw at them.”


    Her face remained expressionless, “It’s their plea. To be seen. To be remembered. The light the stars emit is close to an act of desperation.”


    Najin nced at Merlin. She remained silent, though he recalled the tales she had once shared.


    「Constetions aren’t as great as you think. They’re not as noble as you believe. In fact, some might be even more wretched than you.」


    「They’re the ones stranded in Cann, endlessly yearning for the next step in their unending journey.」


    Was that what she had meant? As Najin pondered, Merlin, noticing his gaze, finally spoke.


    – That girl didn’t tell you the whole story. That’s not all the Ound is, and the stars shine for other reasons as well, but…


    Merlin gave a bitter smirk.


    – Most stars are like that. It’s a sky full of heroes who stopped being heroes.


    ‘Not too bad.’


    – What?


    Najin shrugged. ‘Amid the fakes, the real ones shine even brighter, don’t they?’


    Merlin blinked; then she broke intoughter tinged with both disbelief and satisfaction.


    They walked on until Yuel stopped again. She turned and regarded Najin intently. “That’s why your decision surprises me. Most start preparing to leave for the Ound after living about 100 years. By 120, they head there because their bodies begin to corrode if they remain on the continent.”


    Najin was only eighteen, far too young to embark on a journey to the Ound.


    Najin tilted his head slightly. “If corrosion starts at 120, then how are you still on the continent, Lady Yuel?”


    By his reckoning, Yuel Razian was at least 150 years old. Historical records ced her age at a minimum of 150, with some suggesting she was closer to 200.


    How was she still active there?


    “Ah, I’m an exception,” Yuel replied nonchntly. “I’m a peculiar case, not a reference point. I live simply without burdensome thoughts or a need to doubt myself. They say ignorance and forgetfulness are blessings, and I’ve embraced that.”


    She offered Najin a faint smile. “I live for the pleasures of the moment. I have no grand aspirations of saving the world, perfecting swordsmanship, or fulfilling some lofty ambition. Perhaps that’s why corrosion hasn’t caught up with me.”


    Listening to her, Merlin shook her head in disbelief.


    -Don’t ask me how it works. She’s an oddity, even from our perspective.


    An oddity among the constetions… On the continent, she was regarded as a ughterer and a murderer; in the Ound, she was a singrity.


    Najin found himself chuckling involuntarily.


    Before long, they arrived at the gates of Baldornos. The city had been cleared, and the purge wasplete.


    Standing before the gates, Yuel turned to Najin. “In the Ound, never doubt yourself. Many will try to shake you, to make you falter and crumble. Stay steadfast.” She grinned “Or you could always take the simpler path, like me.”


    “I’ll pass on that.”


    “A pity. I thought I might make a kindred spirit.” She didn’t look particrly disappointed, despite her words.


    “Ah.” Just as Najin was about to depart in his carriage, Yuel called out with a short exmation.


    When he turned back, she spoke, as though something had just urred to her.


    “I nearly forgot.” Raising her hand, she pointed to the sky. Above them, a constetion of ten stars glimmered, each a different hue, reminiscent of fireworks.


    Yuel warned, “Beware the Carnival Emperor in the Ound.”


    The Carnival Emperor?


    As she spoke the name, she loosened her cor, causing the shoulder of her otherwise modest uniform to slip down, exposing a long scar along her pale shoulder.


    Tracing the scar with her fingers, Yuel said., “If you had to name the most dangerous person in the Ound, it would undoubtedly be him. This scar is his handiwork. If you ever encounter him, run.”


    She added onest piece of advice…


    “If you don’t want to be a clown, that is.”