Chapter 328

“I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve had this much fun.”
Jaifa said. His pupils were completely narrowed vertically as he smirked. A lung-squeezing life was spreading through the arena.
“How do you—.”
Schlieffen spat out blood. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Jaifa’s injury was not something that could be overcome by sheer strength.
His ragged body was dripping with black, gory blood. Its tail, which had been impaled by a railroad pole, lay severed on the ground. The clean cut suggested it had cut itself off in the whirlwind.
“That’s dangerous.”
Nabiroze bit her lip. Unconsciously, she brought her hand up and touched the scar on her collarbone. It was the scar she’d gotten from Zaifa in the sword battle. It was Zaifa in that state that had defeated her.
“Hoooooooo—.”
Schlieffen corrected her breathing. The pain, which felt like it was going to snap his spine, lessened over time.
Stay calm. As long as you don’t rush, as long as you have a good hit, you have a good chance of winning. It was a tense confrontation.
“I guess we can still play some more. Huh?”
As he spoke, Zaifa suddenly lowered himself. His hands gripped the ground in a stance reminiscent of a beast of prey before pouncing on its prey. Suddenly, Schlieffen, who was about to turn his sword into wind, froze.
“Dangerous.
The intuition that had brought him to this point was warning him. He shouldn’t make that choice now. Schlieffen instinctively raised his sword as the auror was slain. A thunderous crack pounded his eardrums, and he gasped at the sight of Zaifa before him.
“Great, did he read this?”
“What, the speed is—!”
Schlieffen gritted his teeth. Five claws, curved like hooks, interlocked with the Fail Rod. His hand gripping the hilt vibrated as if it might shatter at any moment.
The gap of more than fifty steps had narrowed to nothing. A cobwebby crack remained in the paving stones where Jaifa had stood. It was the mark of a leap, a stampede, a stab with great force. Zaifa had two hands, so her next attack came quickly. A claw slashed out from the lower left, scraping across Schlieffen’s sternum.
“Eek!”
Blood splashed. It wasn’t deep, but it was painful enough, and Schlieffen, who had barely escaped with his life, swung his sword as if to shake it off. Zaifa roared at the top of her lungs as she deflected the blow.
“Enough with the nagging and get to work!”
Bang! Sword and claw clashed, and lightning struck once more. Schlieffen’s lips twisted in disbelief at the barrage of blows. It was hard to believe that this was an enemy who had thrown away his weapons. Zaifa’s attacks had become even more dangerous and sharper than when he had heard the Unworldly Sword.
There was no time to let the wind anger the swordsman, and he straightened his stance and returned fire. The clawed Zaifa was certainly fast, but Schlieffen was no slouch when it came to speed.
Sparks flew from the air as claw and sword clashed. Dozens of sword strikes passed back and forth that a normal person wouldn’t even recognize. A fountain of blood splashed onto Jaifa’s shoulder blade. The corners of his mouth turned up in a grotesque fashion.
“Kaha, that works!”
“You—!”
Schlieffen’s eyes widened. This was an attack he had expected to be blocked. After a few more moves, he opened his mouth.
“—Black. Abstain.”
“I must have the wrong ear, what did you say, kid?”
“You’ve been asked to abstain. Are you willing to die?”
“You’re too quick to notice.”
Jaifa was stunned. Schlieffen’s face hardened. His physical condition was far from normal.
In retrospect, he shouldn’t have been. Zaifa had been hit squarely by a whirlwind that had shredded six of Nebula Clazier’s top brass. The wounds inflicted by the blast were gnawing away at his life in real time.
Things could go terribly wrong if they rushed the match. This was the place to decide the fate of the world, not an illegal gladiatorial arena where murder could be committed. But Jaifa had other ideas.
“It’s none of your business.”
“But—!”
“Shut up! If you come out like that, I won’t let you think of anything else!”
“Eek!”
Zaifa kicked Schlieffen. He bounced off the unexpected blow and landed in a swallow-turn. Zaifa suddenly crouched down and leaped up, kicking the ground. Clearly, the difference between the physical abilities of humans and weretigers was heaven and earth. People marveled at his leap, which was far beyond Schlieffen’s.
“That, that high—!”
“That’s great. That’s really great.”
“Holy shit, where the hell does it go?”
Ronan frowned, cocking his head to follow his trajectory. It was almost as high as it had been when he and the wyvern had been together. Zaifa’s form was almost a dot. With a sound like a gust of wind, the atmosphere around Zaifa began to distort.
“No way!”
Asel’s face hardened. His keen senses were reading an unusual movement in the mana. Black energy was gathering around the dot of Zaifa.
It wasn’t hard to see what was coming,” he shouted, his face white.
“Bar, we need to deploy the shields, now!”
“Mage Asel? Uh, get your shields up!”
The waiting mages panicked. Asel’s screams were met with a chorus of spells. Dozens of layers of translucent forcefields filled the gap between the arena and the stands. Boom, five black lines were drawn over the arena.
“This is—!”
Zaifa’s auror, Spatial Rift, and the five cracks that matched his claw marks were huge, stretching across the arena from end to end. Barely out of range, Schlieffen took a defensive stance. As the black line disappeared, shattered paving stones flew in all directions.
“Ouch!”
“Help, man!”
Screams erupted from all over the stands. One after another, stationmasters were being destroyed by shrapnel, large and small. Of course, they didn’t reach them because they were stacked on top of each other, but it was a horrifying sight nonetheless.
“Gumshoe—!”
Schlieffen was stunned. A gust of wind blew the dirt away as he swung his sword. Ronan cursed at the horror of the scene.
“Nimi.”
When the arena is reopened, it looks like a plowed bean field. The facility has barely been restored after being destroyed by Nebula Clazier, and it’s worse than before.
The Emperor swayed as he grabbed the back of his head, but it didn’t matter. Zaifa, falling like a black meteor, landed behind Schlieffen.
“Oh, no—”
“You’re late!”
Schlieffen spun quickly, but he was a step too late. Zaifa’s right hand swept across his side. Poof! Five gaping wounds were carved, and blood spurted out.
“Huh.”
Schlieffen’s normally stoic face contorted in pain. Zaifa’s fangs bared in laughter. But Schlieffen was not to be outdone. He staggered to his feet and raised his sword. A gust of wind along the blade’s path swept across Zaifa’s upper body.
“Crack!”
A pain that knocked me unconscious. He was struck where Nabiroze had once stabbed him. The two men retreated for a moment, then clashed once more. Kagak! With each clash of sword and claw, a new bloodstain was being carved at their feet.
“Don’t, I need to dry it.”
The lesser Iril rose from his seat. She didn’t think it would be strange if Schlieffen or Jaifa collapsed and died right away. Sobbing, she started to move to find someone. Ronan, sitting next to her, put an arm around her shoulders.
“Sis. No.”
“Ha, but at this rate, two people will be—!”
“I know what you’re thinking, but no. Sit back down.”
Iriel burst into tears, but Ronan was adamant. It pained me to see my sister grieve, but this time I had no choice,” Ronan said as he sat her back down.
“Dude, what the hell is wrong with you— aren’t you even scared of dying?”
“You can’t be a swordsman if you’re afraid of that. I know it’s hard to understand, but just watch—and don’t worry too much.”
“—Huh?”
“That Schlieffen guy has a reason to win.”
Iriel snorted, but Ronan only smiled, not speaking. He remembered the oath Schlieffen had sworn to him.
The fool said. You have no right to declare that you will defend this amount for the rest of your life unless you are the strongest swordsman you can be. To Schlieffen, that was what marriage meant. The battle was intensifying. Ronan, arms folded, fixed his gaze on the two of them, and muttered, “I’m not going to marry you.
“Win. Schlieffen.”
I never thought I’d be rooting for a man who would take my sister, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t think there would be a better one on the continent for another hundred years.
The mop was now in the middle of Schlieffen and Zaifa’s sword and claw attacks on each other. For a moment, Zaifa’s vision blurred.
“Quack—.”
It was a side effect of losing too much blood. A moment. For the briefest of moments, his commanding stance slipped. It was barely a second, but Schlieffen seized the moment. A grunt escaped his mouth as he gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands.
“Haaaaah!”
A sharp stab flew toward Jaifa’s heart. At this rate, her sword was faster than her fists. But Jaifa didn’t stop. Poof! The sword pierced his chest, and a huge fist slammed into Schlieffen’s forehead. The sword narrowly missed his heart, but the fist unmistakably shattered his skull. It’s over. Zaifa’s lips curled up into a smile. Shriffen’s form vanished like ashes blown away by the wind.
“What the—!”
Jaifa’s eyes widened, and he realized with a start that the pale rod that had pierced his chest was gone. Schlieffen hadn’t been standing in front of him in the first place. It was just a trick of the wind.
“If so, where is it?
Zaifa’s fur stood on end. Suddenly, she felt a tap on her back. Sensing danger, Zaifa spun around. A flurry of blows sliced through his side like a comet.
“—Crack!”
Blood spurted from Jaifa’s mouth. The blow was fatal. Not a sound came from the silent crowd. Schlieffen, who had charged with the sword, landed twenty paces away.
“Ugh.”
Schlieffen staggered, narrowly avoiding falling as he drove the tip of his sword into the ground. Zaifa remained unmoving, her side slashed open.
“Blood is the tears of a sword.”
After a moment of silence, he turned his back to Schlieffen and opened his mouth. Black blood dripped from beneath his sharpened fingernails, though it was unclear which belonged to whom. A cracked voice asked a question.
“Can you handle the tears?”
It was a word that meant many things. Once a father, hunter, and leader of the Northern Watermen’s Alliance, now the Emperor’s sword, he had literally lost count of the number of times he had cut.
A sword’s tears meant death. A swordsman was the best sword in the empire. He was the strongest, but also the one who had the most tears to reap.
And no one could say for sure that this peace would last forever. Jaifa was asking about responsibility. A burden she would carry, perhaps forever. After a moment of silence, Schlieffen spoke.
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation in his voice. Schlieffen’s gaze lingered on the stands, or more precisely, on Iril and his friends sitting there. No matter how great and heavy a choice he was forced to make, the sight of his loved ones always gave him confidence and courage. He glanced back at Jaifa and shook his head.
“Whatever it takes to keep it.”
“—Heh.”
Jaifa laughed. Slowly, his body tilted and he fell flat on his back. The dizzying blue sky stretched out overhead, the cumulonimbus clouds they’d torn apart now a flock of dozens of sheep, playing on the wind.
It’s a view I would normally pass by without a second thought, but today it was somehow refreshing. The clouds, shapeless and dispersing at will, seemed unusually free.
Staggering before him, Schlieffen bowed. It would have been polite to join him, but alas, he had no strength left. With a flick of his hand, he expressed his regret and closed his eyes.
“I lost. Sword.”