------------------
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Starfall ]
------------------
Chapter 18: A Fleeting Revelation (6)
0.01 seconds.
That was the maximum duration I could maintain 【Soul of the Swordmaster】.
It was such a brief instant that I couldn’t even register the true force of the skill.
One moment I’d close my eyes, and when I opened them again, the enemy would already be dead.
Maybe that’s why—
Even though I’d used the ability twice, those 0.01 seconds while the skill was active remained a complete unknown to me.
…But this time is different.
Tick, tick, tick—!
The moment I activated the Authority Skill 【 Ritardando: True】, that fleeting 0.01 seconds began to stretch on like an eternity.
The Sky Dragonbird’s lightning moved like a slow-moving river.
Blue current arced across the air, approaching me in crystal-clear branches of electricity.
Rrrrumble—!
I could feel my bottomed-out base stats surge upward, rocketing past their normal thresholds.
It felt like every cell in my body was waking up.
My muscles swelled, and every sense sharpened.
Srring──!
In that moment, my sword moved.
So fast that even in this suspended time, the eye could barely keep up.
Ah.
The lightning split apart.
Those cleanly divided blue streaks veered away from me.
The Featherblade in my hand was trembling slightly.
Without any conscious command, it had moved on its own and cleaved the lightning.
What is this…
Was this what they called Unity of Body and Blade?
The Featherblade felt like an extension of my body—
Instinctively reacting to danger, as if it had a will of its own.
Just like how we reflexively shut our eyes when something comes flying at us.
Ding—!
〔An almost impossible, extreme-timing maneuver. You have perfectly blocked a deadly enemy attack.〕
〔Reward: You have acquired the passive skill 【Ultimate Auto-parrying】.〕
Floating messages lit up before my eyes.
I was honestly shocked at the reward—far stronger than expected.
…But there was no time to marvel.
The 0.01 seconds granted to me were not yet over.
Ssshhh—
The Featherblade moved horizontally, tracing a long line through the air.
Where the sword passed, a golden thread of light was left behind, like a scar in space.
Crkkk—!
There was a brief silence.
The Sky Dragonbird, which had been twitching even in this slowed-down world, suddenly stopped moving.
A faint line running down its body grew clearer by the second.
Like a massive pane of glass beginning to crack, fissures spread across its body.
And then—
SSSHHHHHHH—!
…Time began flowing again.
Raindrops that had hovered in the air finally surrendered to gravity and poured to the earth.
My heartbeat, which had slowed to a crawl, began to pound again.
The air, once frozen, stirred gently as the wind picked up once more.
That marked the end of 【Ritardando: True】's duration.
“……”
And yet, the world I saw still felt frozen in time.
I was still frozen mid-swing.
The Sky Dragonbird’s enormous body also hadn’t moved an inch.
Craaaack—!
In the very next instant, the creature’s upper body began to tip sideways.
Sliding along the thick fissure, the massive upper half plummeted straight down.
KUUUUUUNG──!
The earth shook as the Sky Dragonbird crashed down.
Dust exploded in all directions.
From the cleanly severed surface, dark indigo blood gushed like a waterfall.
“……”
That was it.
…It’s dead.
A Divine Beast.
Once considered an agent of the Elders—
Now, one of the continent’s worst disasters-to-come, a harbinger of apocalypse.
And it had died—without even putting up a fight—cleaved cleanly in half by a single stroke of my blade.
“...Ah.”
I heard a dazed voice behind me.
Adelia stood frozen, staring blankly at the Sky Dragonbird’s corpse.
“Adelia.”
I called her name in a deliberately flat tone.
“Did that help at all this time?”
Adelia suddenly looked up.
Her eyes trembled uncontrollably.
Still stunned, she couldn’t bring herself to answer—
Just opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish.
Well, even so…
Swoosh—
I looked at her with a faint smile.
No—more precisely, at the translucent system window floating above her head.
【Lv. 80】
…Looks like she had a major realization.
That’s right.
I didn’t even need to hear her answer.
She’d reached Level 78 during the battle with the Sky Dragonbird—
And now she had climbed two more levels.
Just watching my strike had brought her overwhelming growth.
Genius really is something else.
To think she could grow so much just from seeing another person’s sword.
No wonder she’s considered the character with the highest potential in the world of Loel.
Ah, of course…
She wasn’t the only one who achieved something remarkable.
Ding—!
〔You witnessed the pinnacle of swordsmanship with the naked eye and personally experienced overwhelming talent.〕
〔Error: With your current Cognition stat̶̞̻̀̅,̵̳̦̃ ̶͓͐͝yo̸̦̍̇u̷̧̽̎ c̷̫̋͑an̷̹͖̉̍n̵̟̅͆o̶̼̿͋t̵̟͆ a̴̻̕͜#̴̢͕̉t̴̗̭͑a̶̙͖͒i̶̺͍̾̓n̶͛͊ ̶͖̔͛@̴̍͝ͅ?〕
〔V̶̛͓́ò̸͉͝ting f̴̜͑̕oȓ̷̝ the Pä̴̠́͐ntheoṇ̶̾͆ (萬神殿) has b̴̜̟̈́e̴͙̰̊͗g̵̖̋̐un̴̲͒.〕
……
Fsssshhh—
System notifications streamed down before my eyes.
And only after reading the final one did I finally allow myself a smile.
Ding—!
〔Reward: The sealed talent “Sword Lv. Max” has been unlocked.〕
…I did it.
At last, all my efforts had borne fruit.
Ding—!
〔Hidden Message: @̴̻̕͜?̴̗̭͑&̶̙͖͒%̵̯͑ successfully unlocked.〕
〔Hidden Achievement: $̶͛͊͜*̶͖̔͛@̴̻̕͜?̴̗̭͑ (1/12) completed.〕
“……”
Adelia continued to stare blankly at the Sky Dragonbird’s corpse.
Her eyes still carried the image she couldn’t believe she had seen—
The arc of the blade cleaving through lightning.
The golden line that split the beast in two.
Every single motion was etched deep into her retina.
This is the realm of the Swordmaster…
Until now, she’d never had the chance to clearly observe Sir Gaon’s sword.
What happened in the underground arena was too sudden, and during the fight with Peterpan, she was too preoccupied.
But this time was different.
Thanks to Gaon’s forewarning, Adelia had been able to focus solely on his strike.
Watch closely. Engrave it into your eyes.
She had been so fixated on his sword that she forgot to breathe.
It was breathtakingly beautiful. A flawless strike without the slightest excess.
Thump—
And in that moment, Adelia instinctively understood.
The wall that had blocked her for so long—had finally crumbled in silence.
“Only now…”
After a long silence, Adelia slowly opened her mouth.
“…Only now do I understand. A little, at least.”
The look in her eyes had changed.
The answer she had so desperately searched for—was now right before her.
And now, she would follow it.
Pursue it to the very end.
Nod—
Hearing her words, Sir Gaon nodded with a gentle smile.
* * *
‘What a mess.’
I clicked my tongue inwardly as I slowly surveyed the area.
It was a truly miserable sight.
The broken wreckage of carriages and strewn corpses were scattered haphazardly, and the acrid stench of blood stung my nose.
Finding survivors in this situation seemed unlikely.
After all, surviving both a monster wave and the Sky Dragonbird’s assault was no easy feat.
‘Huh?’
Murmur, murmur—.
But contrary to my expectations, quite a few people had survived.
Once things quieted down, those who had been hiding began crawling out one by one.
Their hiding places varied—under broken carriage parts, beneath monster corpses, inside burrows, and so on.
‘Ha.’
Seeing this, I couldn’t help but let out a dry chuckle in disbelief.
…They really hid away like cockroaches, didn’t they?
Tch.
Though I said that to myself, truthfully, I felt a small sense of relief at their faces.
There were maybe five or six survivors.
Not a large number by any means, but considering the scale of the disaster, their survival bordered on miraculous.
Thankfully, the caravan master was among them.
At the very least, that meant our escort mission hadn’t completely failed.
Not that it matters much at this point…
I was in the middle of indulging that pointless thought when—
Clamor, clamor—.
The surroundings suddenly grew noisy.
The survivors had spotted the Sky Dragonbird’s corpse and were in an uproar.
“H-Holy crap!”
“Good heavens, what is that…?”
They stared at us in disbelief.
They must’ve been too tightly hidden to see what had happened outside.
Even if they’d peeked out, the raging storm would’ve made it difficult to grasp the situation.
“How is something that big even real?”
“That’s huge. Is this the wyvern we’ve heard so much about?”
“W-Wait, you two took down that thing? Just the two of you?”
In any case—
The common mercenaries and merchants didn’t recognize what it really was.
They were simply stunned by its massive size and vicious appearance.
But the caravan master was different.
He had sharp enough insight to see through Adelia’s identity—so it was no surprise he instantly recognized what this creature was.
“It can’t be…”
The caravan master wore a face of utter disbelief.
He approached me carefully and whispered, “That… that’s the Sky Dragonbird, isn’t it? One of the Divine Beasts of the Great Elders…”
I gave a silent nod.
His eyes grew even wider.
“B-But why on earth…?”
His voice trailed off.
Still, it wasn’t hard to guess the questions he had in mind.
Why would a Divine Beast attack humans?
And how could you two possibly kill it?
“……”
I hesitated for a moment—
Then slowly opened my mouth.
There was only one answer I could give in a situation like this.
“The world you once knew… is over.”
“……”
“Be prepared. After today, many things will change.”
Killing the corrupted Sky Dragonbird didn’t mean the foretold apocalypse would be delayed.
Even the corruption of the Divine Beasts was just the beginning of the catastrophe awaiting this world.
* * *
“That aside…”
Once the immediate aftermath had been settled, Adelia spoke to me in a concerned voice.
“...What should we do now, Sir Gaon?”
Finding survivors didn’t mean we could simply rejoice.
The situation was still dire.
Every single carriage had been destroyed, and nearly all the horses had died.
To make matters worse, even the ones that had survived had long since bolted in fear when the storm raged.
Whinny—!
Right on cue, the caravan master approached, holding a rein.
A well-built horse followed behind him.
Its glossy mane and coat suggested it had been well cared for.
“This is the only usable horse left. A prime specimen, one of the finest.”
Tap, tap—.
He gave the horse’s side a few proud pats.
Its eyes gleamed with intelligence, and the fact it hadn’t run away like the others showed it was exceptionally loyal.
“We can’t carry everyone on this, so it’d be best if one person rode to the nearest village to get help…”
But midway through his sentence, the caravan master paused, looking puzzled.
Then, following my gaze, he turned to look far off in the distance.
“Y-Young master? What are you looking at so intently…?”
“Wait.”
I cut him off.
“They’ll be arriving soon.”
“…Excuse me?”
Pause—.
The caravan master’s expression turned increasingly confused upon hearing my reply.
Not just him, Adelia and the other survivors began eyeing me as if I were acting strange.
And honestly, I couldn’t blame them.
Who on earth would show up in a place as dangerous as this?
This was the middle of the Silk Road.
No one would just randomly appear with a helping hand in a place like this.
Clatter, clack—!
“...Huh?”
But just then, the sound of a carriage echoed from afar.
Everyone perked up and turned their heads toward the source.
Something appeared over the distant hill.
Amid the hazy sunlight, a faint silhouette of a carriage emerged.
It approached skillfully, weaving through the wreckage left by the monster wave as it made its way toward us.
“Ah…”
Adelia gasped again, her eyes widening more and more.
“That person is…”
“Aheh! Tsk tsk!”
Before she could finish, a familiar voice rang out.
A raspy old man’s voice, slightly metallic and rough in tone.
“See? I told you I’d get you there safe for just two million shillings!”
“……”
“You can’t just go around riding any old carriage because it’s cheap, you know? That’s how you get yourself killed!”
------------------
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Starfall ]
------------------
