The sword swings. Thanks to the excessively fast speed of the sword, the trail left by the Aura looked like it was following belatedly.
Before the trail left behind had even faded, a new sword strike flies in. Once, twice, over a dozen times. Continuously.
That sight seemed as if an Aura Blade was being layered onto the canvas of the world. By the time the two figures were obscured by the Aura trails resembling the Milky Way, a beam of light pierced through those trails and shot out.
“Hup-!”
Unless you didn’t know, no Aura Master falls for the same trick twice. Myung Wol unsheathed his sword and erased the Aura beam entirely.
With the Aura beam vanishing from the world, Kail shot forward. The limitation of the Battoujutsu technique—the need for time to sheathe the sword back.
Myung Wol resolved this with magic, but that gap wasn’t completely eliminated. The brief opening while the magic activated to return the sword to its scabbard—this slight gap was enough.
It meant that Myung Wol wasn’t the only one who found the countermeasure during their previous duel.
Shwaaak─!
“Ugh-!”
Myung Wol’s arm was severed, and a fountain of blood soaked the surroundings. Myung Wol grabbed his arm and retreated backward.
In that short moment of retreat, Myung Wol managed to seal the wound using Aura to stop the bleeding.
However, just because he stopped the bleeding didn’t mean his arm would function properly again.
“Surrender? I don’t want to kill you.”
“Die, die…!”
“Tsk, not in your right mind.”
Kail scratched his head looking at Myung Wol, whose arm was cut off. A master of Battoujutsu losing an arm meant he could no longer be considered Kail’s equal opponent.
But did that make him someone Kail could easily subdue without worry? Not quite. Even missing an arm, he was still an Aura Master.
If he were to recklessly charge at Kail with his life on the line, Kail might find himself in considerable danger.
‘And we still haven’t found the culprit behind this mess…….’
Kail couldn’t afford to drain all of Myung Wol’s strength. That was the problem. An opponent he couldn’t kill, yet also couldn’t easily subdue—how was he supposed to restrain such an opponent without exhausting stamina or causing injury?
His head throbbed. As Kail sighed heavily while staring at Myung Wol, he noticed a flicker in the corner of his vision and cautiously turned his head.
A woman, her nape smeared with blood, sat watching the fight. When she caught Kail’s gaze, she waved her hand cheerfully from side to side.
“And who are you─.”
“Flying Sword.”
While Kail was distracted by her, Myung Wol, seizing that brief opening, executed a one-handed draw. Perhaps one hand was sufficient for swinging a sword, as there was little difference from before his injury; a swift sword strike aimed at Kail’s vital spot.
Beyond the overwhelmingly fast wave of sword energy, the woman stood up with an “Ee-chaa~” sound.
Watching her naturally shake off dried blood and dust before leaving the scene, Kail realized she was the main culprit behind this chaos.
“Hey, hey hey-! Over there, that way!”
Realizing this, Kail pointed at her, trying to divert Myung Wol’s attention, but the Master consumed by rage and excitement wouldn’t be distracted so easily.
Ultimately, capturing her meant defeating the Master in front of him first.
After trying to persuade him for a while and then giving up, Kail let out a deep sigh and shouted at the woman running far away.
“You there, run as fast as you can.”
If she gets caught, I’ll kill her.
The woman who directly faced Kail’s murderous intent stopped mid-escape and turned to look at him.
Grinning, she gave a thumbs-up and said,
“Good luck.”
With that, she dashed away from the scene. Kail watched her retreating figure in the distance before turning his gaze back to Myung Wol.
Hanging limply with one arm, he still stared at Kail with burning eyes, showing no signs of giving up.
“Seriously─ how does this keep happening every time?”
Kail sighed deeply and resheathed his sword. He didn’t need to use his sword. Though Myung Wol sensed something odd about Kail’s actions, that didn’t mean he should ignore the exposed opening.
As soon as Myung Wol swung his sword toward the gap created by Kail resheathing his sword, a pure white sword came crashing down from the sky with a loud bang!
Myung Wol frowned at the sword that blocked his attack. Only an Aura Blade could block another Aura Blade.
But never in his life had he heard of an Aura Blade moving on its own.
“People say that becoming an Aura Master in your teens means you must possess extraordinary swordsmanship talent. Talent no one else could replicate.”
Not entirely wrong. Surprisingly though, Kail’s own swordsmanship talent was merely average genius level. Neither better nor worse compared to other Aura Masters.
To ordinary people, it might seem like a heavenly gift, but just that much. It wasn’t an overwhelmingly dominant talent capable of breaking through the barrier to become an Aura Master in his teens.
“Not entirely wrong…… but not entirely right either.”
He was a genius.
An undeniable fact.
But not a sword genius.
Thud, thud- pabababang-!
Ten Aura Blades dropped from the sky.
Each one carried the same level of Aura as the Aura Blade Myung Wol held.
“Something felt off─ If you’re good with a sword and a Master, shouldn’t you be a Sword Master instead of an Aura Master?”
Kail Meyer.
The Aura genius who achieved Aura Expert status on the very day he learned Aura.
His talent far surpassed anything related to wielding a sword.
Swordsmanship was merely the lubricant that helped him overcome barriers.
“Let’s finish this quickly.”
At this moment. The only Aura Master standing here was him.
Soon after, ten Aura Blades flew toward Myung Wol.
* * *
“Hmm-hmm～.”
Humming a tune, the mysterious figure fled leisurely, stopping at a location a fair distance from Myung Wol and Kail.
It didn’t seem like the fight between the two Masters would end anytime soon, and even if one of them chased her, she was confident she could handle them.
If Kail came after her, she could simply drive him berserk like she did with Myung Wol. After all, even an Aura Master couldn’t escape the divine power.
“I need to replenish a bit on the way. I’ve used too much…….”
But she wasn’t without any depletion. Hadn’t dozens of her devoted followers lost their lives to Myung Wol’s blade?
Feeling the need to recruit new followers, she pulled out a map to check for small villages nearby. No one would notice or care if a sparsely populated village disappeared.
“Hmm…… There should be one around here…….”
“What?”
“A village, duh─.”
Naturally starting to speak, she stiffly turned her head to look behind her. Creaking, her head turned to face Kail standing behind her.
Kyaaak- Screaming, the mysterious figure started running, but Kail casually slashed her leg without hesitation. He’d witnessed her resurrection from being a corpse.
Rolling on the ground, the figure looked at her severed leg and teared up.
“Kyaaak-! You, you monster!”
“A year that doesn’t scream once?”
“P, please spare me! I’m just an ordinary civilian! I was just there to watch, I didn’t do anything─.”
“Hey.”
“Yes, yes!”
Kail thrust an Aura Blade into the mysterious figure. Her head separated from her body, and just like that, a life rolled on the ground.
But shortly after, the decapitated figure grinned and looked at Kail.
“What are you talking about, you monster brat.”
“A, busted.”
The decapitated figure nonchalantly moved to reattach her head to her body. The moment head and body connected, Kail sliced it off again.
Rolling on the ground and coughing from the dust, the figure complained.
“You can’t kill me, you know?”
“Shut up.”
Ignoring her words, Kail stomped on her head and shattered it. But just as she claimed, the shattered head began reattaching itself.
Frowning at the head that kept restoring itself no matter how many times he sliced or crushed it, Kail drew his sword and began slicing her into pieces so fine she couldn’t regenerate.
“It’s impossible.”
Yet, no matter how finely he diced her—even slicing her into 1mm pieces, burning and smashing her—she kept resurrecting. Kail eventually stopped swinging his sword.
Right after he stopped, the mysterious figure inwardly sighed in relief.
“I’m alive…… If I died a few more times, I’d really be done for…….”
The power of resurrection wasn’t unlimited and cost-free. The secret of resurrection was substitution. Whenever she, an Apostle, dies, one of her followers sacrifices their life instead.
Though she was quietly expanding her influence, dying repeatedly like this could lead to permanent death.
Thankfully, Kail had given up and stopped.
“Hurry up and come, please……!”
So, she waited for her comrades to come rescue her.
