Episode 203. Conversation (2)
“What happened?”
Gulp.
The moment Jill closed and opened her eyes, something happened.
Rex, who had been charging at a fierce speed.
The moment Jill opened her eyes, he was rolling on the ground with his whole body armor shattered.
“I’m sure I······ even cast a reinforcement spell······?”
It didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t that Rex’s defeat itself didn’t make sense.
I couldn’t understand ‘how’ Rex was defeated.
The opponent was a great demon (a being that emits tremendous magic power) that took the form of a sword.
I thought that the great demon would not be good at fighting head-on, so of course he would take hostages and fight sloppily.
The opponent unexpectedly came to the forefront and took Rex’s charge head-on.
The opponent was a demon’s flesh surrounded by magic.
That’s why I thought that the means of attack would naturally be magic.
He actually wielded a sword made of magic.
······Rex was not hit by magic.
“What the hell happened?”
Jill hurriedly operated the dashboard to view the record.
Then, the phenomenon that appeared during that moment appeared before her eyes.
A sword made of magic is swung.
For a moment, something black and unidentified spreads from the sword.
Its shape, which spreads endlessly forward, resembles a crescent moon.
It instantly broke Rex’s sword, dug into his armor, and blew Rex away.
“Rex! Fall back!”
The opponent is not the great demon we knew.
A monster among monsters that already exerts superhuman combat power in close combat!
Jill urgently ordered Rex to withdraw.
Rex is definitely strong too.
I don’t know about the past, but now he boasts close combat abilities that are by no means inferior to any superhuman.
However, that’s when the body is healthy, and now that he has suffered a major wound from an unexpected ambush, it was clear that he would not be able to exert his full abilities.
So after retrieving Rex, wait until the Frost Lord arrives······
“Ugh! Ugh! Ahahahaha! I held out! I ‘again’ held out! Come in, Great Demon! I am an elf who received the secret of Eugene, the legendary sword master, and did not die! I will never be broken until the day my life ends! A valuable lesson I received from a mere human! I will never forget it!!!”
“Ah! What is that elf doing?!”
Things started to go wrong again.
.
.
.
“I heard later that Eugene mastered the secret of swordsmanship called Dakia-ryu. No, that’s not all. I heard that he believed that the secret that did not exist in the world because it was not completed, and finally created it. When I heard that story, my head felt dizzy as if I had been hit in the back of the head. While a human who has held a sword for a short period of a dozen years has reached the point of creating a new secret, I, who have lived for hundreds of years, have not even mastered the secrets that have already been created!”
“Hey······. Can’t you stop the bleeding······?”
Rex, who was bleeding profusely from his abdomen and spitting blood from his mouth, shouted.
But soon his muscles swelled.
The wounded area was compressed, and the bleeding stopped.
I was speechless at this.
“That day! I do not regret pouring out all of my 800-year lifespan! The enlightenment I gained from fighting that human with all my might is something I would not have been able to gain in 800 years no matter how hard I tried! From now on, I will go all out, Great Demon!”
“Oh, my God, this guy is not a great demon, Rex!”
“Ahahahaha! It doesn’t matter anymore! I know it too! There’s no way a great demon would face me head-on like this! But I can’t put down my sword just before I reach the threshold of enlightenment!”
“······.”
Rex, who pulled out a second sword from behind his back and laughed heartily.
This kid.
He has long forgotten the purpose of the fight.
What he wants is the fight itself with me.
Do you want to gain enlightenment from fighting me?
No matter how you look at it, it’s a mistake to get caught up in a real battle.
“If you want.”
“Ah, why are you trying to fight again, sir?!”
Still, I can’t back down.
Rex’s eyes.
Those are the eyes of a man that no one can talk down.
I was the same.
If I could just escape the Demon Realm, I could pay any price and do anything.
Perhaps Rex, if necessary, would not hesitate to erase his existence like me.
“I know that feeling well. Come in!”
“Kuaaa!!!”
If I can gain the enlightenment I’ve been chasing all my life by just hanging out with me, I’d be happy to.Rex, the elf who had been driven mad by a misguided revenge, was now charging at me with the eyes of a warrior.
His momentum was different.
I’m not just talking about a simple change in attitude.
Of course, that had changed too.
But the real big change was that the focus of his gaze had shifted.
‘Is he looking at me?’
Surely I must be invisible to Rex’s eyes.
With the exception of the strange girl in front of me and Mijeong, I was in a state where I was forgotten and could not be recognized by anyone.
But Rex was clearly looking at me, not at Belphegor, but at me holding Belphegor in my hand.
The meaning of this was clear.
Even though he couldn’t see me.
He believed that the opponent holding the sword was there.
He was fighting, firmly believing that there was a transparent being wielding the magic sword that was waving around in the void.
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“You’re getting closer to the answer!”
Kwaang!
The sword energy that extended from Belphegor’s body spread out in a crescent shape.
However, Rex slid flat on the ground to avoid it, as if he wouldn’t be fooled by the same technique twice.
Before I knew it, the distance was already less than 100 meters.
If I allowed him to get any closer, I would be pushed back in terms of weight class.
Ignoring Belphegor’s screaming voice, I swung my sword.
In all directions.
“What the hell is this?!”
In an instant, the sword energy filled my field of vision.
My will, contained in the swordsmanship, was scattered.
This time, it flew in as a dense net that was absolutely impossible to avoid.
Rex’s eyes widened at this.
There was no way he couldn’t recognize it.
This was the very technique he had been hit with and defeated by.
It was the Iron Blood Storm Strike.
“Are you going to pretend you don’t know this!”
Rex had to recognize it.
No matter how invisible and inaudible I was.
The moment he saw this swordsmanship, of course…!
“Kuaaak!!!”
Kwa-ga-ga-gak!
Rex broke through, deflecting some of the Iron Blood Storm Strike with his sword and taking the rest with his body.
Originally, his body was so strong that the Iron Blood Storm Strike, which spread out widely by dispersing his will, did not cause much damage.
But with this, I gained something bigger.
With this, Rex noticed my presence.
At the very least, he must have realized that I was still alive.
“What the hell just happened?”
“Ah······.”
Rex suddenly made a stupid expression and turned around, looking confused.
Judging from his reaction, it seemed that he had lost his memory for a very short time.
He had lost all memory of seeing the Iron Blood Storm Strike and being hit by it.
Suddenly, a sense of powerlessness washed over me.
“Ha······. This isn’t going to work either······.”
It’s useless.
No matter what I do, I will never be seen by someone who cannot recognize my existence.
I already knew that.
But seeing this kind of resistance happening right before my eyes made me feel even more powerless.
I guess nothing will work.
As long as he can’t erase me from this world, he’ll erase other people’s memories, reorganize them, and do all sorts of crazy things.
But even so, I can’t give up.
If the path is not visible.
If there is nothing but walls in front of me.
I have no choice but to break through and create a path.
“Then how about this!”
“Mister?!”
Pak!
I planted Belphegor in the ground and stepped forward with my bare hands.
Then I saw a flicker of emotion in Rex’s eyes.
If all he could see was Belphegor, made entirely of magic.
What if I came out bare-handed?
“I can’t feel it with my five senses or with my magic power······. But something is approaching.”
He can’t see it.
But the warrior’s sense must be telling Rex.
That something is coming.
Rex closed his eyes and raised his sword.
The direction the sword was pointing was eerily in the direction I was.
He couldn’t recognize me, but somehow he was interacting with me.
There is such a thing as a loophole.
Even though his perception of me had become dull.
“The conversation of the sword works!”
Passussu.
A transparent aura gathered in my hand.
Is it because there is no medium called a sword?
The aura was not as dense as when I was sharpening the Iron Blood Storm Strike, but it was gathering nonetheless.
Before I knew it, a transparent aura extended from the inside of my hand and took on the shape of a sword.
A sword forged purely by my will.
It was not yet solid enough to be called a sword, and its shape was not fixed, but it fluttered in the wind.My sword that will never break or be lost.
“Kukukuk······. It’s been a long time. This eerie energy! The pressure that feels like death is right before my eyes! It feels similar to when I first faced Eugene’s Iron Blood Storm Strike! Come at me, invisible ghost! I have a feeling that this fight will be a turning point in my life!!!”
This guy.
Is he seeing my ‘will’?
Even though he knows the general direction, Rex’s sword tip, which was shaking because he didn’t know my exact location, is coming straight at my forehead.
The sword tips faced each other.
Now, we can finally communicate.
Rex is doing this to achieve enlightenment and reach a higher realm.
And I’m doing this to master the art of wielding this sword made of will.
Also······ what was it?
I think there was another reason why we were fighting.
Anyway, let’s forget about all that and charge at each other.
Rex mutters as he draws irregular trajectories with his one-handed sword.
“Merida-style secret technique.”
“······!”
Something serious is coming.