Chapter 160

Adrian vs. Kai (1)

In the middle of the Frost Trial Grounds, Adrian and Kai stood facing each other some distance apart. No one else was around. All training had been canceled for the day amid the county's festive mood.

Adrian and Kai. Only the two of them stood at the center of the empty trial grounds.

"Let me say this again," Adrian cautioned. "I don't know much about swords. The techniques I use are strictly my own methods."

"..."

"Watching, figuring them out, and learning them—that's entirely up to you, Kai. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

Kai nodded solemnly and took up a wooden practice sword.

This was a friendly sparring match in which Kai would receive instruction. A sharp weapon was out of the question—

"Kai, use your sword."

"But—"

"Neither of us dies all that easily, do we?"

After a moment's deliberation, Kai set down the wooden practice sword and drew the sword at his waist. At that same instant, the look in Adrian's eyes changed completely.

Only his gaze had changed. Yet he seemed an entirely different person. No, an entirely different being—

SWISH!

A sharp sound sliced through the air. Adrian vanished from in front of him.

Right? No, left?

... Neither.

Then—

'Behind me!'

BOOOM!!

An immense impact. The stone floor beneath his feet shattered, sending fragments flying. Had he reacted even a little later... he would have taken the blow.

"Ghk...!"

Kai was pushed backward. Both arms trembled. Adrian did not budge, his sharpened nails pressing down on Kai's aura blade.

... Such tremendous strength. It was impossible to imagine a human possessing it.

Normally, the opening move in a sparring match began with sizing up one's opponent: their sense of distance, reaction speed, fighting style, and so on. The point was to understand them.

But Adrian was different. He showed no intention of gauging anything. He had skipped the stage of testing Kai entirely. From the very start, he had delivered a lethal blow aimed squarely at killing.

"Even with the same repetition, the experience you gain is different when your life's on the line."

Kai gritted his teeth.

... This was real combat. Not training that resembled real combat. This fight, this lesson, was not on that level.

One thing was certain.

"For the record, I won't use Monomolecular Blade."

... Kill or be killed.

* * *

At the dwarf's shout that Adrian and Kai were fighting, Seraphia, Iliana, and Isolde rushed to the Frost Trial Grounds. There, they saw them.

"Brother! Sir Kai!"

The two men were fighting as though intent on killing each other.

BOOOOM!!

A huge explosion sent up a haze of dust that momentarily blocked their view. Isolde heightened her energy sense to locate the two men, but soon realized there was no need. Within the pale dust cloud, red and blue radiance flared simultaneously and hurtled toward each other.

BOOOM!

An explosion erupted. There was no metallic clang. Every one of those strikes was a killing blow. The wounds they dealt each other carried far greater weight, and a single mistake would lead to fatal consequences.

BANG! BOOM!

Violent explosions rang out without pause each time Adrian and Kai clashed.

"Why are you two...!"

Seraphia's face instantly filled with alarm.

Naturally. Those two were genuinely trying to kill each other. Seraphia trembled.

"We have to stop them!"

She tried to run forward, but Isolde stepped into her path.

"You mustn't get close."

At that moment, Kai's sword swept in every direction. The blue aura unleashed into its path carried an overpowering force, tearing apart all the space around him.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!

Adrian did not evade it. He thrust himself without hesitation into the storm of aura—and his body drifted through the air as though gliding.

SWISH-SWISH-SWISH!

His joints moved in ways no human's could. Adrian reacted to every thrust, slash, downward stroke, and barrage Kai unleashed, responding to each and every attack.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!

The explosions overlapped. Isolde spoke with a tense expression.

"It's dangerous."

Stepping into that was no different from asking to die. Frankly, even Isolde lacked the confidence to intervene.

"But...!" Seraphia cried, her voice thick with tears. "They could die...!"

She was right. Adrian and Kai were fighting here prepared to die. Every blow they exchanged staked their lives. That was why she could not understand why they were going this far.

This was no formal duel between nobles. They were not comparing their skills or competing to see who was stronger. Only killing. A fight to kill each other.

"What's happening?!"

"Are Lord Adrian and Sir Kai really—"

The people who had followed them poured into the Frost Trial Grounds.

"What... wh-what is that...?"

"Good heavens...!"

They, too, were utterly appalled by the two men's fight.

* * *

Adrian's immense strength bore down on him.

... He could not resist.

Beyond Kai's downward-forced gaze, Adrian's flashing red eyes seethed with murderous intent.

Adrian was trying to kill him. To make absolutely certain of it.

Once again, Kai understood.

... Kill or be killed!

He summoned his aura. Adrian moved first, withdrawing the nails that had been pressing down on him.

... He would not miss this chance.

Kai swiftly twisted at the waist and swung his sword.

SWISH!

The sharply defined aura blade cleaved through space in an instant.

BOOOM!

Yet what erupted was an explosive roar. An aura blade could slice through steel as though it were tofu, but it had failed to cut through Adrian's nails.

... Impossible. But Kai was not rattled. He already knew this.

He lowered his stance, driving in from below toward an opening in Adrian's guard. And...

He did not swing his sword. No, he could not swing it.

It was not that he could see no openings. Bluntly put, Adrian was full of them. He might have exposed them deliberately, but that did not make them impossible to exploit.

Yet... Kai's body would not move.

An indescribable oppressive presence bore down on him, as though it contained every ounce of ferocity in the world. His breathing quickened. Sweat coated the fingers gripping his sword, and his muscles stiffened.

The feeling that he could not win kept rising within him. Was it Adrian's fighting spirit? No, that did not seem to explain everything.

This sensation was familiar somehow.

... Ah, yes. He remembered.

Kai had felt this oppressive presence before.

The ogre. The strongest predator on land. A ferocious monster that reduced every land-dwelling being beneath the sky to prey.

This was the same oppressive presence he had felt when facing the ogre.

Their positions reversed in an instant. Kai had tried to exploit an opening, only to expose one himself.

He could not dodge.

It happened just as he expected.

BOOM!

The explosive impact shook Kai's body. Fortunately, he managed to block it.

But—

'The damage...!'

It defied imagination. It was... utterly absurd.

He had not blocked it with his sword. More accurately, he and his sword had been struck together. His vision wavered for an instant. His insides churned as though violently concussed. He barely suppressed the blood rising to the back of his throat.

... He was still all right.

Immortality—the ability he had acquired upon reaching the rank of Master. But Immortality was not a healing ability like Regeneration. It merely prevented wounds from being fatal. As a byproduct of eternal life, it could only sustain his life force.

Both arms gripping his sword shook uncontrollably.

... An ominous premonition kept returning. The premonition that he might die here.

Kai adjusted his grip on his sword, forcing the foreboding away. It was true that the oppressive presence had affected him. But that did not mean he would submit.

He would not submit.

He pictured it: himself defeating Adrian.

Picture it. Imagine beating Adrian here and now.

Kai drove his oppressed mind forward, straight into the pressure.

* * *

BOOM!

The force of Adrian and Kai's collision exploded outward in every direction. At the center of the blast, Adrian extended his left hand.

BANG!

He detonated his left hand, releasing an explosion in a straight line. It rushed over Kai as though tearing space apart. At that very moment, Kai's sword descended from above.

KRA-BOOOM!

The two forces collided with a thunderous crash.

"Th-that..."

"Is he... human?"

Could that truly... be called human? This did not look remotely like a fight between humans.

"Sergeant? C-can you actually see anything?"

"M-more or less...?"

"Really?"

"I can't see a damn thing."

"Actually, neither can I, you fucking bastards."

Everyone gathered there shared the same thought.

"This is the first time... I've seen Lord Adrian fight properly."

Of course, they had known Adrian was strong. But their knowledge had been vague, based solely on stories.

Stories of him single-handedly repelling a monster legion. Of defeating an enormous beast in Violess. Of beating up the deputy commander of the Royal Knights. Of fighting an ogre and winning.

It was impressive. But abstract. Like hearing the exploits of a hero in a fairy tale, it had never felt particularly real.

But the fight unfolding before their eyes told them everything.

... He was on a different level. The world he operated in was an entirely different dimension.

Adrian. What sort of being he was began to etch itself unmistakably into their minds.

It was a level that even Kai, House Whitewolf's head knight—a prodigy who had reached the rank of Master at just twenty-one—could not handle.

Sword and nails. The instant their trajectories crossed, blood sprayed. Adrian's nails tore a long gash across Kai's chest.

"Ghh...!"

Kai's body was hurled backward. Adrian did not let the opening slip away.

CRUNCH-RIP!

A ghastly sound of tearing flesh erupted. Kai's entire right arm was ripped off.

Blood dripped from him.

... It was gone. One arm was nowhere to be seen. Only brutally torn flesh clung wetly to him, soaked in blood.

"Sir Kai!!"

Seraphia screamed. Fear and shock tore through her mind.

Of course they did. Kai could not regenerate his injuries like Adrian. Once his arm was torn off like that... that was the end.

"Whyyy...! Whyyyy...!!"

Her tearful gaze and voice turned toward Adrian.

Then, at that very moment—

"Not yet... It's not over yet."

... Something truly bizarre unfolded before Seraphia's eyes.

* * *

Kai swayed as though about to collapse. His Immortal Link[E] had no ability comparable to Regeneration[B+]. Thus, the fight should have been over the moment he lost an arm...

"Not yet... It's not over yet."

Kai raised his sword again. His unwavering eyes had lost none of their fighting spirit.

Then his severed arm suddenly twitched. Flesh writhed at the blood-soaked stump, and blood vessels began knitting together.

I could tell.

... During the fight, Kai had learned and imitated my Regeneration[B+]. And now, at this moment, he had finally made it his own.

So while it looked similar to Regeneration[B+], it differed distinctly in concept and function. My Regeneration[B+] was based on tissue regeneration through processes such as cell division. In other words, it consumed nutrients to heal damaged areas. It could be considered an extreme extension of natural wound healing.

But Kai's ability was different. Rather than healing, it returned things to their original state. It consumed aura to restore damaged areas—their form, structure, condition, and so on. Returning them to exactly how they had been—

Reconstruction.

RAT-A-TAT!

Kai's severed arm flew over in an instant and attached itself to the wound. Pieces of flesh stitched themselves together, reassembling into their exact original form.

"Eeeek!!"

"What the hell is that?!"

Every onlooker's face filled with horror. Their eyes widened in disbelief, and some clapped their hands over their mouths.

"His arm... reattached itself?"

"It really went back on?"

Flesh, tendons, and even bones locked together. It was restored perfectly, as though time itself were rewinding.

"Entropy is reversing?!?!"

Iliana's cry rang out, so shocked she nearly fainted. Her wide blue eyes filled with an emotion beyond horror, closer to terror.

Naturally.

"Once energy disperses into disorder, it can't come back together!!"

From Iliana's perspective, this was something that could never happen. Above all, if that was possible—

"That means even death can be reversed!!"

Iliana began to tremble. It was impossible under the laws of magical studies.

But no law in this world existed without phenomena to support it. If a phenomenon contradicted existing laws, that did not mean the phenomenon was wrong. It suggested that the existing laws were wrong.

In that sense, I knew what this was.

Aura, that absurd power which ultimately brought something existing only in an individual's imagination into reality. Immortality, that preposterous ability.

Using those two as his foundation, Kai had learned and imitated my Regeneration[B+], creating the unreal ability called Reconstruction.

Just as I thought.

"Even with the same repetition, the experience you gain is different when your life's on the line, right?"

And that—

"Goes for me too, Kai."

Kai was not the only one gaining experience in this fight.

CRACKLE!!

Sparks leaped up in an instant. Some of the flesh knitting itself together on Kai's body crumbled as though being torn apart.

"A-Anti-Mana?!?!"

Anti-Mana, the power that used Predation[S+] on mana. Just as my Regeneration[B+] required energy in the form of calories, Kai's Reconstruction required the energy of aura. And aura was, after all, mana converted into a usable form of energy.

In other words, I could neutralize the aura of Immortality used in Kai's Reconstruction.

"Wh-what kind of fight are you two even having!!?"

Iliana's horror had passed beyond terror and was reaching despair.