Chapter 122 - About where do you stand? (3)

The knights drew their swords and encircled the dueling ground.

Colin still had not shaken off the pain of defeat, but he too had no choice but to rise and take up his sword.

Because he had sworn to do so.

"The Swordmaster's Code... This is truly absurd."

Jubert was always composed, yet even he shook his head as if the present situation was difficult to deal with.

The knights raised their swords for the flower that was just about to bloom.

The crests each of them bore were all different, but for this moment, it was their turn to fulfill their duty under a single code.

["Speak your name, boy!"]

Those who sought to drag him down, and those who sought to make him bloom.

Those who protected, and the one protected, all standing within a single world.

The sight Founding King Frausen had so desperately wished for was now being reenacted in the dueling ground of Deirmar.

"... He made it bloom."

At someone's murmur, Colin looked back.

Sure enough, there was a faint light there, only now beginning to bloom.

A boy walking unsteadily, as though he might collapse at any moment.

A boy who nevertheless did not stop and kept walking forward.

That boy was shining.

The boy held in his blood-soaked hands the world he had finally made bloom.

That boy's name was said to be Vlad of Soara.

* * *

CREEEAK!

"...!"

The closer the creaking of the swords drew, the more Colin's eyes filled not with rage, but with shock.

Aura wrapped around both arms like armor.

Right now, Vlad was pushing Colin, the man with the greatest raw strength in Philos, upward through sheer force.

"This is... doable!"

Innate strength could not be helped, but there was no limit to a world one had made bloom.

Through Lamund's body-hardening art, Vlad was now surpassing the limits of the talent he had been born with.

'He learned some bizarre technique somewhere!'

Startled by Vlad's technique, Colin hurriedly pulled his sword away and opened the distance.

He did not know what kind of sorcery the bastard had used, but in the end, it was only a petty trick.

Colin believed that such worthless little tricks would ultimately shatter before true strength.

"You insolent bastard!"

Rather than adapting to his opponent, he brought out his own advantage.

Colin swung his sword in the direction he had always believed in, exactly as he had lived.

The splitting flow of air came rushing in as if to cleave Vlad's head apart.

CLANG!

"...!"

But Colin's faith was not rewarded in the end.

A sound he never wanted to hear, even in his dreams.

In his memory, a one-eyed man was laughing.

"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

"... You son of a bitch!"

Was the thing shining blue before him now a sword, or an eye?

The man looking at him now was blooming a world far more splendid than anything from back then.

White lightning leaping from his closed left eye was smiling at Colin.

'In only one year!'

They said young ones grew in the blink of an eye, but this growth surpassed imagination.

No one who had been there could possibly imagine that the one crossing swords with him now was the boy from back then.

"Now it's my turn!"

'...!'

Dawn's first light shone from Vlad's open right eye.

Weakness discernment, granted to him by Imperial Enforcer Commander Auguste.

Even the boar breathing roughly had an opening he could do nothing about.

'The legs!'

To support powerful strength, one needed a solid foundation.

Colin's mighty raw strength came from the two legs planted firmly on the ground.

The flowing waves of aura told him so.

'Damn it!'

Colin was strong, but not flexible, and he was badly shaken by Vlad's attacks as they persistently targeted his lower body.

Because no one had ever attacked him like this until now.

SKREEECH!

Sword clashed against sword.

Between the gazes they aimed at each other, sparks leaping from their blades filled the air.

'How far have I come!'

The nimble swordplay that had pierced the fastest dragon cut into Colin's thigh.

The cruelty that had cut down the sharpest dragon persistently aimed for the knight's knee.

Every world Vlad had seen, learned from, and brought down now gathered upon his blade like starlight.

"Gragh!"

"Answer me!"

Now he wanted to know.

Where he stood in this vast world.

How much more he had to do to reach the end of the sky.

The time had come for someone to answer his question.

"You insolent brat!"

CLAAANG!

Along with a spray of dark-red blood, Vlad's world came to a halt.

Seeing Vlad dare to look beyond him instead of at the man right in front of him, Colin burst into a furious roar.

"You think I came this far just to fall to the likes of you?"

Bright red drops of blood burst over his blackened skin, but Colin did not stop straining.

He, too, was a man with a world of his own.

Dreaming upward was not a privilege reserved only for boys.

"Die! You goddamn brat!"

With Colin's furious roar, the soft earth thawed by spring warmth began to erupt as if exploding.

Like Colin's veins bursting over his swelling muscles.

"Urgh!"

At Colin's momentum, now distinctly different from before, Vlad realized he had missed his moment.

The flow was like a wave, and if one failed to ride the wave that came to him, it would pass to someone else.

"You asked how far someone like me has come!"

The flow of the ceaseless exchange had, at some point, passed to Colin.

Everyone had a history they had walked, and a world they had built.

Colin, too, was a man who had built up his own world.

"I, Colin of Philos, am this far!"

With a tremendous roar, aura began to blaze from the tip of Colin's sword, burning everything in the world.

Colin's consciousness, sunk deep into his inner self, was no longer thinking of tomorrow.

Crushed beneath the defeat of the past, Colin did not have the confidence to bear even today's defeat.

"Die!"

"...!"

BOOOOM!

Vlad rolled away from the ground erupting as if in an explosion.

Clods of earth pouring down like rain were falling over his head.

"Hah, haah."

The battle was already over.

Only the duel remained.

The soldiers who had been clinging to the gate and stabbing at one another were all frozen like stone statues, watching only the match before them.

Everyone realized that the fight between these two would be the beginning and the end of today.

"Heh heh..."

A vast duel too great for a small village to contain.

As everyone watched with bated breath, Vlad was laughing.

It was a laugh even the falling rain of dirt could not hide.

"Why are you laughing?"

Colin shouted loudly at Vlad, who had suddenly begun laughing like a madman, but the smile that had begun in those blue eyes did not stop.

"Because I think I can do it."

Vlad's sword, his laughter finally ended, was swung.

The sword of the star, shaking off the piled-up dust, was shining blue.

This was a battlefield unlike any before, with no help from anyone and no consideration.

Yet Vlad could be certain.

"Someone like you... I can handle now."

"What?"

With those words, Vlad raised his sword.

A sword made by spirits and given by the World Tree.

Feeling once again the sensation he had when he held the unadorned sword, Vlad wiped away his smile and returned to a serious expression.

"Thank you for giving me an answer."

Looking at the man before him, Vlad had gained today's answer.

Colin of Philos.

A fine knight who had awakened aura and built a world of his own.

But I have already surpassed this man.

"So let us end this now."

And now, he would prove it.

The worlds Vlad had built began to swirl along the Sword Path established by the first Swordmaster.

"Fine, come at me! Vlad of Soara!"

The steps of the boy who had staggered forward to make a single blossom of a world bloom had not yet stopped.

The precarious footprints he had left until now had been stacked neatly within the boy's world, creating the knight he was today.

"Yes. Not brat."

At Colin's shout, Vlad's eyes began to flash.

The blue eyes of the little dragon, who had finally learned where he stood and had therefore awakened to his own potential, were shining blue.

"Call me Vlad of Soara."

Today, Vlad had protected the wedding to the very end.

With his sword, he had protected someone's happiness, and he had protected people's everyday lives.

So now it was time to throw them, at the very end, a single red rose.

"...!"

In that instant, light flashed.

They had started facing each other, but at some point, within the gazes that slipped past each other, Vlad and Colin had switched places.

It was a light one could not block even while seeing it, and could not dodge even while recognizing it.

"Urghhh..."

Colin's eyes were wide with disbelief.

A single sharp stake that permitted no further life was lodged in his heart.

A heartbeat gradually fading away.

The black shape slowly crumbling poured out red liquid as it collapsed over the small village.

Colin, knight of House Philos.

Today, he had become one of the proofs Vlad had created.

"Now that I've climbed this far."

Victor and loser.

Having taken Colin's breath as the price of a rightful duel, Vlad felt the light touch his shoulder and slowly raised his head.

A single moon had at some point risen into the sky.

"If I go just a little farther, I think I can reach it."

A moon with the same forlorn blue light as that day was looking down at Vlad.

To Vlad, the moonlight shining down on him seemed a little closer than before.

* * *

A large mansion bathed in moonlight.

The dust settled on its floor was full of grains of sand.

The dry wind that began from the barren land was always tormenting the people of the West.

"Count Gaidar."

A vast lobby.

In a space too wide for only two people, Count Gaidar looked at the knight bowing his head to him.

"The time has come, Count Gaidar."

"... In detail."

At the highest point of the lobby.

The knight of blue moonlight was climbing the staircase that even a son of his blood could not ascend.

He was a man qualified to approach the count.

Because the blood and corpses he had created were no different from the paving stones of these stairs.

"The Dragonblood Duke has spoken."

Godin, having approached the count, whispered into his ear in a small voice.

The grains of sand drifting through the vast lobby hid his voice.

"Is that so?"

After hearing Godin's words, Count Gaidar gripped the armrest of his chair tightly.

In his face, twisted from sheer joy, his two eyes blazed fiercely.

"The time has finally come."

The cold-blooded ruler of the West.

A usurper who did not mind taking what he wanted.

Count Sigmund Gaidar.

He had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

"I have waited far too long, Godin. It was so tedious it had become painful."

"I understand completely, Count Gaidar."

No matter how much they swallowed, they were always hungry; that was like the fate of those born in the West.

Because this damned land always made them yearn not for the land where they had settled, but for lands far away.

This unending hunger was like a curse.

"Go, Godin. Go and find my son's sword."

The taker had endured for a truly long time, despite having been robbed.

But now the time had come, and the West no longer needed to endure.

Because the fence that had barely maintained even its shape had collapsed as of today.

"Go to Deirmar. Go there and drag the bitch who calls herself the gatekeeper of the North before me!"

"Understood, Count Gaidar."

A knight who had received his lord's command.

Godin, as always, would not hesitate to carry out that command.

From the window behind Gaidar, blue moonlight shone upon Godin.

It was the same color as the moonlight that had descended upon Rose's Smiles that day.