novelraw Chapter 168
Chapter 168
Chapter 168
Chwarreuk—!
A dazzling downpour of concealed weapons embroidered the dark desert night sky with light. The Heaven-Filling Flower Rain unleashed from Yuwon’s fingertips lived up to its name, pouring down like rain and completely engulfing Colbus.
It was, quite literally, a moment of utter desperation—a crisis where his life was about to be snatched away. Colbus could not even muster the thought of blocking it and could only stare blankly at the torrent crashing down upon him.
‘Ah… how beautiful…!’
What Colbus saw was not death, but beauty. Yuwon’s trump card was lethally beautiful in proportion to the fatal killing power contained within it.
‘So this is the ultimate state of martial force. Is this the attack that will reap my life…?’
As that thought crossed his mind, Colbus’s perception of time suddenly slowed. In that long, stretched-out flow of sluggish time, he even came to feel honored that he would meet his end by such a technique.
‘A splendid move, and a splendid duel. Ever since my master passed away, I thought I would never feel this kind of tension again….’
Rather than trying to avoid death, Colbus chose to face it head-on. His calm gaze turned toward the man standing beyond the curtain of falling blades—Yuwon.
‘Yurion Aphahiel. You are the strongest in the world.’
His eyes conveyed the words that would become his last. Just like that, Colbus’s eyes gently closed.
---
Before the closed eyes of Colbus, moments from his past life unfurled in a flicker, like a rapidly spinning lantern. Born the son of a poor farmer on a remote island in the northeast, he recalled brief yet happy memories with his family.
Then came the vivid image of the pirates who had turned his village into a sea of fire and slaughtered his entire family. And after that, there was a fateful encounter.
“...I was too late. I’m sorry.”
Appearing with the ferocity of a demon, his master had cut down the pirates—and even their ship—in a single stroke. That master took in Colbus, who had become an orphan overnight, raising him as both son and disciple.
‘Ah… to think my master would come to mind in a moment like this. I really must be dying.’
In the world flowing sluggishly around him, Colbus felt as though he could hear his master’s voice at his ear.
‘Colbus. From now on, listen carefully to what this master says and remember it well. Someday, it will be a story you must pass on to your own disciple….’
‘It’s useless now, Master. I lost a duel fought with my life on the line, and I will soon die. The sword passed down from you and from your masters before you will disappear forever because of an unworthy disciple like me. I’m sorry, Master.’
No matter how much he tried not to think of it, it was irresistible. His master’s voice, echoing like an auditory illusion, guided Colbus back into memories of his childhood. In that moment, Colbus was no longer standing before a rain of blade-like projectiles, but before his benevolent master.
In the distant past, when Tang Seogyeom had reached this world and began teaching humans how to wield mana through the sword, he faced two choices.
Should he teach them to accumulate mana in the inner core, as he himself had been taught? Or should he teach them to store mana in the heart, as the mages of this world did?
Everything had its pros and cons. As part of an experiment, Tang Seogyeom selected several trustworthy volunteers from among those around him and taught each of them the sword using a different method.
Though it was later distorted into a tale that Geiorn had taught the sword to only two people, that was not the truth.
The result of that experiment was clear: victory ultimately went to the Mana Heart. The Mana Heart allowed even those with poor mana sensitivity to more easily feel and wield mana, while the method of storing mana in the inner core was far slower and more difficult by comparison.
Thus, the Mana Heart was adopted. With the Mana Heart at the forefront, humanity drove out the monstrous beasts occupying the continent and ushered in the age of mankind.
After countless years had passed and Tang Seogyeom, having lived out his natural lifespan, returned to a handful of dust, the Mana Core had already been completely abandoned, leaving only the Mana Heart as the proper method of cultivation. Even so, amid such unfavorable conditions, there was someone who never gave up on storing mana in the core.
One whom no one in the world remembered.
He could be described as such.
A man who could not learn the Mana Heart because he had mastered the Mana Core.
A nameless swordsman who participated bravely in countless battles, yet failed to leave even a single line of his name in the history books.
And the youngest boy among the volunteers who had received direct instruction in the Mana Core from Tang Seogyeom himself.
Seral.
Around twenty years after Tang Seogyeom’s death, Seral reached the realm of the strongest in the world of his time, in a world without Tang Seogyeom. Of course, in the era of peace that followed the Continental Unification War, there were few who recognized it. In fact, even Seral himself only realized that he was the strongest among living humanity near the end of his life.
If the Mana Heart burned away a person’s potential limits and rapidly drove them to that ceiling, the Mana Core was the opposite.
Its growth rate was less than a third, even a quarter, of that of the Mana Heart. In exchange, it expanded one’s limits, allowing the talented to surpass the boundaries of humanity itself.
Even Tang Seogyeom had failed to realize this. The mana of this world—far purer, clearer, and more abundant than that of the Central Martial World—made it possible.
“…The core was right.”
On the day Seral realized that he himself was the strongest, the sky was clear without a single cloud.
Ten years later, Seral slowly closed his eyes on the eternally frozen land of the northern continent. It was a light and peaceful passing, after he had taught everything he possessed—and even left his name—to a northern native orphan he had met by chance.
Thus began the one-person succession of the Mana Core and Seral’s sword, which endured for several hundred years. And after that long passage of time, here now stood Colbus.
The name Seral, inherited alongside his master’s teachings, had long since changed from a given name into a family name. The swordsmanship itself had been passed down for centuries, its color fading little by little at every link until it was completely different from its origin. Even so, there was no doubt that Colbus was the inheritor of Seral’s sword.
The swordsmanship Colbus had learned bore the marks of use from his master, his master’s master, and all the predecessors who had carried that sword forward.
Before their lives ended, each of them poured the very essence of their lifetime as swordsmen into it, repainting the faded portions with new colors.
A sword art stitched together in such a way. If compared to a painting, the original image would be impossible to discern beneath the many layers of paint, resembling an oil painting painted over countless times. But precisely because of that, it could become stronger.
Stagnant water rotted; only flowing water remained clear. The sword Colbus had learned was a sea formed by converging streams.
Beginning as a single feeble drop, the trickles that gathered over long ages became streams, then lakes and rivers, until they finally formed a vast ocean.
The predecessors had at times been wanderers, knights, or warriors. But all of them had been swordsmen.
Swordsmen who sought not to flaunt their achievements, but to strive toward ever greater heights, leaving behind only their best and highest attainments across generations. A sword that rose in one leap to the pinnacle through the touch of countless hands.
Tang Seogyeom had widely spread the method of wielding mana, but he had never taught the entirety of martial arts in full. This meant that while the Mana Core originated from Tang Seogyeom, the swordsmanship Colbus had mastered belonged wholly to this world, not to the Central Martial World.
Colbus’s sword represented the swordsmanship of this continent—of this world itself.
In the blink of an eye—no, in a span so brief there was not even time to blink—there was enlightenment within that recollection. A bolt of lightning struck Colbus’s mind, flashing brilliantly through his thoughts.
‘I see it. It’s not the Mana Core, and it’s not Seral. And… it’s not Yurion Aphahiel either.’
Lightning battered his consciousness, filling it completely. At the end of that lightning-fast revelation, Colbus snapped his eyes open.
‘It’s me.’
A powerful will settled over his dark pupils, and strength naturally surged into the grip that had barely managed to keep hold of his sword.
‘I… my sword is the strongest in the world.’
Time began to flow again at its original pace.
---
At the end of enlightenment, the world resumed its full speed as if nothing had happened, and Colbus’s eyes shone brightly.
‘It’s true that my master was stronger than me. But the only reason he could be stronger was because he trained with the sword for far longer than I have. I will surpass him. With my sword…!’
Colbus began swinging the sword in his hand not according to the forms he had learned from his master, but according to where his own hands led him. Amid the rain of concealed weapons, Colbus stood at its very center and confronted the downpour head-on.
Sshaaak—! Sshhk!
With a chilling tearing sound that shredded the air, Colbus’s sword began to exhibit wondrous transformations.
It seemed to strike straight down from above, only to slide off and sweep upward from below. Then, without the slightest warning, the upward-swinging blade twisted sharply midway and thrust straight in.
Clang—! Clatter-clang-clang—clang!
With each individual movement, dozens of Yuwon’s flying blades were intercepted, ringing out with a cacophony of metallic sounds.
A sword art spanning centuries. A sword forged not by a single life, but by the lives of more than a dozen. In the hands of Colbus—the most gifted among all its inheritors—that sword bloomed in brilliant splendor.
Thud—! Thwack—!
Occasionally, gruesome sounds of flesh being torn followed. Along the altered trajectories of deflected blades, crimson blood sprayed outward.
Even as he desperately blocked the attacks, one or two of Yuwon’s concealed weapons embedded themselves into Colbus’s body.
From the beginning, Colbus neither could nor intended to block all of Yuwon’s attacks.
‘How could a human possibly stop falling rain? If I cannot avoid getting wet, then I will get wet. But I will not be swept away and vanish beneath the rain.’
That was how Colbus confronted the downpour. As a result, he was somehow managing to withstand Yuwon’s Heaven-Filling Flower Rain—an attack he had believed impossible to block even with a sword barrier.
Thus passed five seconds that felt like eternity. When Yuwon’s hand finally stopped, having expended every concealed weapon he carried in those five seconds, Colbus stood opposite him, his entire body drenched in blood.
“…Fifth Prince. Is this the end?”
It was easier to find injured spots than uninjured ones. Colbus whispered softly. To Yuwon, that voice rang clearer than any sound in the world.
“To think you actually blocked it… I have no choice but to acknowledge you.”
“It’s over, then. In that case, it’s my turn now.”
Where had he been hiding such strength? The instant those words ended, Colbus became a streak of wind. Transformed into a raging storm, he unleashed his attack.
Colbus’s sword lunged for Yuwon’s throat, and Yuwon—having exhausted all his concealed weapons—met it with his two daggers.
Clang—! Clatter-clang—!
To Hastings and Bernid, watching from afar, it looked as though there had been only a single exchange. In reality, Yuwon and Colbus collided blades multiple times. After one bout of offense and defense, Yuwon hurriedly leapt back, his expression stiffening.
‘What the—! His sword suddenly feels like it belongs to a completely different person!’
The moment of shock passed, and Colbus pressed the attack without granting even a breath, as though he had no intention of relinquishing the momentum once seized. Against Colbus’s transformed sword, Yuwon struggled relentlessly.
Clang—! Clatter—! Clang!
The sword in Colbus’s hand traced dazzling forms as it assaulted Yuwon from all directions, and Yuwon could only barely deflect the strikes before they reached his body. Until now, Yuwon had been on the offensive while Colbus struggled to defend—but in an instant, their positions were reversed.
Whoosh—whoosh—!
The duel continued without a single word. Colbus’s sword bent sharply at right angles in midair, drawing physically impossible trajectories and striking at Yuwon’s vital points from directions beyond imagination.
‘Kgh…! What kind of nonsense is this…!’
The suddenly transformed sword of Colbus. Faced with a mystical sword art unheard of and unseen even in the Central Martial World, where swordsmanship was far more advanced than in this world, Yuwon was forced steadily backward.
‘Ghk—!’
Colbus’s sword was far sharper, more relentless, and more dazzling than the sword he had once learned from his master. For Yuwon—who excelled more in concealed weapon techniques than in close-range clashes of blade against blade—it was an unfavorable battle from the start.
The moment even the smallest opening appeared, Colbus pressed Yuwon mercilessly, as if to cut him down outright. As Yuwon struggled to deflect the attacks, his eyes gleamed sharply.
‘There’s no need to panic. If I focus, I can see it! If I’m blocking it now, there’s no reason I won’t be able to block it going forward. No—going forward, it will become even easier. I won’t lose. No. I cannot lose!’
As Yuwon’s eyes shone, so too did Colbus’s, blazing just as fiercely from the opposite side.
‘The Fifth Prince is flustered. My sword is getting through! I’ll solidify the advantage and decide this right here…!’
A life-and-death duel between two transcendent beings, too fast for the eye to follow.
Clang—!
So swift were they that only streaks of light with long tails remained where their bodies should have been. Then, once more, they stood face to face, swords colliding. Mana negated mana, and metallic shrieks burst forth from the clashing steel.
Grrrk—!
With their swords locked between them, the gazes of the two men crossed.
Eyes burning hotter than the mana-flames clinging to their blades. Yuwon’s gaze devoured Colbus, and Colbus’s gaze devoured Yuwon.
“Ghk—!”
“Kgh…!”
Yuwon, who had received the one and only complete teaching left behind in this world by Tang Seogyeom—rather than the countless imitations. And Colbus, who had inherited the greatest of those imitations.
No—what Colbus now wielded with his own hands was no longer an imitation at all. It was a complete martial art in its own right, the greatest sword of this world, standing as its very representative.
Within the swords of the two men as they collided, two worlds were contained.