<The Demon Lord of the Swordsmanship Family Chapter 170>
Let us rewind time a little.
The moment the trip to Saudi Arabia was confirmed. To be precise, when Spring and Jin Yu-ri were spending the whole day searching for Saudi weather and shopping while discussing, “Where should we go?”
At that time, I was meeting with Yggdrasil.
“It’s been a while, Ki-hyuk. Please sit. I was very worried about the situation in Japan, but you resolved it splendidly. As expected, you never fail to impress me. Hehe.”
“I dislike your roundabout way of speaking. Let’s get straight to the point. I’ve heard you’re heading to the Middle East. Would you mind doing me a small favor on the way?”
To which my reply was:
Let me hear it first.
But the contents coming out of his mouth were far from ordinary.
“Oh, this is fortuitous. I’ve wanted to say this for a while, but with the current Ki-hyuk, I believe you’ll understand.”
“What are these Guardians, you ask? The spreaders of mana, the guides of magic, the teachers of humanity, the balancers of this world… Yes, that’s how the world outside views us.”
“In the eyes of the people, we are gods with form, almost flawless, value-neutral… well, something like that. But is that correct? You’ve seen us, Ki-hyuk. Are we truly like that?”
Absolutely not.
Let’s start with desire.
Take Gigant, for example.
He’s obsessed with “curiosity” to the point of madness. Obsession is merely another form of desire.
What about Red Dragon?
Desire for possession.
For all his sophisticated pretense, he’s no different from a stubborn child of seven, simply insisting that everything belongs to him.
Therefore, Guardians are closer to humans down here than gods up there.
That was my judgment.
“Close to humans… Hehe. Harsh but undeniable. The story I’m about to tell is indeed very human.”
Among the eight Guardians, there are factions.
There’s the ‘Balance faction,’ which claims that this world belongs to humanity and Guardians should remain behind the scenes as balancers.
Then there’s the ‘Intervention faction,’ which argues that humanity is an imperfect being, and active intervention is the true duty of a balancer.
“The Balance faction includes the Flag of Freedom, Beast King, Gigant, whom you know well, and me, Yggdrasil.”
“On the other hand, the Intervention faction includes the cunning Taesa, greedy Red Dragon, and the radical Yellow Dragon. Euria is also included in this faction.”
“It’s hard to believe. She, so pure and kind, being mixed with such extremists.”
Anyway, it was tied 4:4.
The Balance faction and the Intervention faction maintained perfect equilibrium, and thus the world found peace.
…Which would explain why I’m not here.
“The conflict between the Balance faction and the Intervention faction continues to this day. The tension between Britain and France, or Korea and China, cannot be without its influence.”
“Just the same, our Balance faction views this prolonged deadlock not so negatively. After all, this deadlock is, in its own way, a kind of balance. And we are satisfied with it.”
“But what about the Intervention faction? Yes, they will undoubtedly find this situation disagreeable.”
Eventually, the Intervention faction will take an extreme turn.
They need chaos to exert their influence after all.
And yet, there was someone among the Intervention faction who was displeased with this radical movement – that was Euria.
“Euria truly is a pure and kind being. She joined the Intervention faction out of her deep love for humanity, out of her desire to cherish and protect them.”
Like the expansion of the Nile across the African continent.
Like the removal of Middle Eastern extremities and African shamanism.
Like the establishment of a union for minority tribes and weaker nations trampled by imperialism.
Euria genuinely loved humanity as a whole.
She was thus disheartened by the radical actions of the Intervention faction and finally made a decision.
“Euria told me she would switch to the Balance faction. However, she had one request.”
Should this happen, the balance of 4:4 would shift to 5:3.
A collapsing balance.
Premonition of upheaval.
Only one condition stood in the way.
A request: to protect one human.
“Bring that human to me, and I’ll give you anything you desire.”
The case was accepted.
And so, a few days later, I left Korea.
Something’s off.
I utterly cannot understand this existence before me.
“Really? You two aren’t married yet?”
“Ah… no. We’re not at that stage yet.”
“I didn’t know. You two suited each other so much that I assumed you were married. Then, the child named Spring we saw earlier…”
“Ah, there is a story. Just think of her as our child.”
“Goodness! How perfectly you two match.”
Jin Yu-ri and Euria seem to have taken a shining to each other.
Just as I thought they would proceed with serious discussion, the chat shifts suddenly to “What kind of lipstick do you use, Lady Euria?”
However, my attention is focused on Euria herself and the peculiarities surrounding her.
‘I can’t make sense of this.’
Yggdrasil mentioned she was kind and pure… but this goes too far. Even setting aside the subjective view of kindness, can a soul truly be this clear?
Power breeds conflict.
It is extraordinarily difficult for the soul of a power-wielding entity to remain this pure. In this context, Euria’s unfettered ‘kindness’ seemed off.
‘Then again…’
True, Gigant is also strange and the Guardians often miss a few screws.
But what really puzzles me is…
‘that the Guardians are surprisingly weak.’
I’ve met many Guardians by now – Yggdrasil, Gigant, Red Dragon.
Compared to them, Euria seems weaker by far. Almost two steps down.
This difference is such that it diminishes the sense of balance altogether.
Balance requires mutual checks after all. The current Euria struggles even with these basic checks.
As various questions multiplied, one of Euria’s servants approached from a distance. The servant had a strange form, a mixture of insect and human.
Simply put, it was a bipedal stag beetle.
“Finally, here it is.”
“What is it?”
“A drink. It’s reserved only for special guests, and it’s very good for the body. Let’s drink while we talk.”
Euria smiled as she handed me something. It looked like a giant water droplet. It really was shaped like a droplet.
A walking insect, and now a water droplet drink? Truly, there’s a lot of strange sightseeing going on here.
Jin Yu-ri, holding the droplet, seemed perplexed.
“How do I drink this?”
“Hehe, watch and follow.”
She touched her lips to the droplet, and it shrank like a deflating balloon.
“Easy, isn’t it? Would you like to try?”
Jin Yu-ri touched her lips, and I did the same.
Sure enough, it was a drink. As soon as the liquid touched my lips, a fresh aroma hit me.
“Wow! It’s delicious!”
“Isn’t it? I made it myself.”
“What are these popping things? It feels like bubble tea.”
“Ah, those are called edge-ino. Silk moth eggs with miraculous mana recovery properties.”
Pfft-!!
Jin Yu-ri, laughing earlier, had an episode and began to project outward. Euria, knowingly chuckled and turned to me with a wink.
“It’s good for men too.”
My thoughts confirmed.
There’s something not right with these Guardians.
After a brief commotion,
We returned to the main topic.
“Where was I? Oh yes, we were talking about Egypt.”
“We did. You said the cohesion of the African Union is weakening.”
“And that the Middle Eastern and African factions are diverging.”
“Ah, what a sorrowful tale.”
A brief sadness passed across Euria’s face before she began her story.
“Religion was always the problem. The Islamic Middle East and the shamanistic Africa always clashed. I tried to reconcile them, saying that it was merely a difference in faith, but it only lasted so long.”
“Time and again, they fought and reconciled. I grew tired too. At one point, I wondered if my interference was making them fight more rather than less. So I stepped aside.”
“To summarize, it was my biggest blunder. Even if it was difficult, I should not have let go of them. Now, it’s… sigh, reached a point where I truly can’t intervene anymore.”
As the story continued,
Actually, hearing it was unnecessary.
There are many kinds of wars in the world, but the hardest to understand is the one involving religion.
From an extreme third party’s perspective, one might think, “Why are these two fighting?” “Isn’t it something minor that they can simply compromise on?”
But to the parties involved, it’s their faith, their belief.
An otherwise worthless land transforms into a “holy site,” and wars over this holy site continue for centuries, spilling bl**d endlessly.
“Embarrassing, but to be honest, the African Union is practically defunct now. Even the academies have been separated between the African and Middle Eastern factions. It’s all falling apart.”
“But how… you must’ve been so exhausted…”
“The ones suffering are the common people unrelated to these two factions. If anything, it’s me who deserves punishment for becoming lazy and turning a blind eye to their conflicts.”
I still felt a strange sense of incongruity, but I held my silence and asked.
“Is that why you’re switching sides to the Balance faction?”
Euria sighed again.
“When things come to this, I often recall Yggdrasil’s words, that this land ultimately belongs to humanity.”
If there is conflict and bloodshed, it’s a natural cycle and harmony.
“Isn’t this my meddling out of personal desire that led to the situation? Henceforth, I plan to step aside and observe the world from the shadows.”
“Um…”
I continued to gaze deeply into Euria’s sorrowful eyes…
And finally couldn’t contain myself.
“It doesn’t seem right to me.”
“…Excuse me?”
“You’re lying right now.”
“What do you mean…?”
At this moment,
As I was about to speak,
my senses triggered an alarm, and turning my head,
Kuuuung—!!
Far away, the forest sank.
“…Spring!”
“…Hena!”
Without realizing it, I called out. So did Euria.
It appeared we were on the same wavelength. We glanced at each other briefly and flew off toward the collapsed forest. Amidst the cloud of dust, what I faced was…
Spring, with awakened wings.
“Ah! Let go of my hair! No, I won’t let go!”
And a child with spider legs and scorpion tails all over their body.
“My turn to let go!”
The two children were grappling with each other on the ground, holding onto each other’s hair.
“Youu!”
“Gyuh!”
…What on earth is going on here?
Park Bom thought.
‘Unbelievable!’
There’s a kid strong enough to fight Park Bom like this?
Currently, Park Bom is in a fully awakened ‘wing’ state. Not just that, she’s even calling on her bloodline power.
Even an average adult superhuman would be powerless against her.
And yet, blocking her?
Hena is just as incredulous.
‘This can’t be true?’
Stopping my tail? And that too by someone my age?
Each leg of Hena, sprouting from her back, was a ball of mana. Its pincer claw could tear steel rods as easily as paper, and her bee-like tail possessed a property that could dismantle mana itself.
For all intents and purposes, she was a human weapon.
And yet, Park Bom held her ground against everything Hena had thrown at her. She even broke Hena’s pincer with her bare hands.
“Youuu!”
“Let’s try!”
Park Bom nimbly sprang to her feet and kicked, using the bloodline power of the ‘evil cat.’ Her leg transformed into a streak of lightning, flying through the air.
In response, Hena didn’t flinch but instead crashed her forehead forward.
A hardened ‘beetle’s shell’ emerged on her forehead, colliding with the force-enhanced kick of Park Bom.
‘Clang-!!’
As if metal struck against metal, it emitted a resonating mana wave.
“Oof!”
“Ugh!”
Without needing anyone to say it, Park Bom and Hena recoiled simultaneously.
But after rolling a few times on the ground, they sprang up instantly, glowering at each other.
“Not bad…”
“You’re pretty good yourself.”
As the two stared at each other, Park Bom’s eyes slitted vertically like an animal’s.
Hena’s eyes crackled open like insect compound eyes.
Park Bom’s wings expanded in size.
From various parts of Hena’s body, insect-like appendages emerged.
“Let’s not hit each other in the face. Dad worries.”
“Agree. I don’t want to worry Mom.”
“Three seconds to prepare, and then we fight.”
“Alright.”
1.
The two children simultaneously lowered their stances.
2.
Each aimed their fists at each other.
3.
They pushed off the ground.
Their fists clashed.
The earth erupted.
As the blurred images flickered and disappeared, the two children appeared in mid-air, kicking and maneuvering.
Forest fragments scattered all around.
The clash of titans.
An evenly matched fight.
The two proud geniuses reached their peak in their battle, and they decided to pour out everything they had.
Park Bom planted her foot on a tree, adopting a horse stance.
She clutched a tree branch.
At that moment,
Park Bom’s hair turned white. Fangs protruded from her lips as she manifested into the awakened ‘Sword Master’.
Hena also transformed completely.
Her body below the neck was enveloped in a hardened shell, and the green fluid oozing from her joints combined to form a spear.
“I don’t care!”
“Neither do I!”
Clutching onto what they had, they unleashed everything they possessed.
Geomho-ryu Harmonization
The roots of Yggdrasil
Terraforming Ultimate Form
Horns
The ‘roots’ and ‘horns’ clashed.
Kuaaahhhaannngg-!!
Unable to withstand the shock, the forest crumbled. The ground was already in complete disarray. A long crater, resembling the scratch of a beast, remained, and a mushroom cloud began to rise.
About this time, Park Ki-hyuk, Jin Yu-ri, and Euria hurried to the scene, finding the two children rolling on the ground.
“Ah! Let go of my hair! No, I won’t let go!”
“My turn to let go!”
“Youu!”
“Gyuh!”
And then Park Ki-hyuk realized.
The essence of the incongruity he felt upon seeing Euria earlier.
“…You, what’s your connection with her?”
“…?!”
The energy radiating from Hena.
It belonged to Euria.
