Book 10 Chapter 20
Episode 245
Her pale silver hair and skin, so difficult to believe belonged to a human, exuded an unsettling strangeness.
She wore a flowing, rippling sand-silk robe and a turban on her head, a style unseen in any region.
Her fangs were oddly long, and at her waist hung a sword whose blade was mostly broken, almost nonexistent.
“You, I saw you briefly at some adventurer guild before.”
Her heart pounded erratically.
This aura, this superhuman power… it was the same despair-inducing overwhelming force she felt when facing a Dragon Slayer in the past.
Feeling a sense of crisis, she clutched the hilt of the Demon Sword, but the sword clattered madly. Her hand trembled with instinctive fear.
“Hmph, if you're just some adventurer nobody, it’d be strange if you didn’t recognize me.”
The warrior woman puffed out her chest, haughtily lifting her chin.
“My name is Kashanu! The highest rank, permitted to only one person in an era, a Vajra-class adventurer, that’s me, you see.”
That self-important, talkative personality, it seemed familiar somehow…
No, focus now.
After calming her body's agitation with a deep breath, she plunged the Shurpen into the sand (it probably wouldn't be usable) and drew the Demon Sword from its scabbard.
“Aki, I’ll take care of this here, so get up to the lighthouse.”
“Amoot?”
“Quickly!”
“Strange, you don’t seem strong enough to have that kind of余裕!”
The moment his hand moved toward the hilt of his sword, Miria’s body surged towards Kashanu in an instant.
Only a red afterimage stretched straight in the trajectory the Demon Sword's blade sliced through, but…
Not even the slightest heavy sensation of piercing something was conveyed to her palm. Instead, only a voice was heard from behind her back.
“Faster than I thought, aren’t you? Your stance is sharp too. You must be high up in the Gold class.”
Driving her heel into the ground, she rotated her body with the recoil. Adding the force of inertia to the impact of her strike, she dominated the surrounding space.
“And you have an interesting sword, too?”
But even that strike, as if in mockery… Kashanu, who had leisurely created distance, placed her hand on her sword hilt.
“I have something similar, you know. It would be rude if only I watched, wouldn’t it?”
For a moment, a flash of starlight, eerily luminous in the moonless night, drenched her vision.
“Shine.”
Before she could grasp the nature of that light, her body involuntarily moved into a defensive posture, and a burning shock ripped through the flesh and bone of her fingers.
“Starfall.”
Two fingers flew off at the edge of her vision. It was only in the next moment that she realized they were the middle and ring fingers of her left hand.
‘What in the…’
The gushing blood from the severed ends was red. The pain nearly drained all strength from her body.
‘Is the sword’s name Starfall? Or is it the technique?’
There was clearly no blade, but a dazzling starlight blade was growing brilliantly from the guard of the sword Kashanu was playfully brandishing in her right hand.
“You only managed to cut off two fingers with this attack?”
Was the weapon type similar to the Demon Sword, or was it simply a realm of sword energy?
Though the weapons might be similar, the speed was entirely different. The level itself was different.
Even so, she couldn't give up here now…!
“You must have heard some information about my power, haven’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have blocked that with such skill.”
She couldn't do anything.
It wasn't that she was caught off guard or was unable to do anything.
Perhaps it was about 15 seconds.
No matter how much she swung, slashed, and thrust her sword, it was Miria whose stance strangely crumbled, who was driven into a corner.
“Strange. It feels like she’s a master, and yet she’s not at all.”
This was simply an overwhelming difference in skill.
Something was different from when she faced Rista. Back then, memories she didn't know flowed into her every time their swords clashed.
As if looking into a mirror, she had been able to parry those attacks…
“Yes, perhaps it’s just talent?”
She had to defeat this person quickly and go to Aki, had to go help Lane who was fighting Zernix alone.
She couldn’t see the front.
Her breath was catching in her throat, and her entire body was already covered in stab wounds. Blood flowed like sweat.
In one instant, after parrying a starlight blade and thrusting her crimson blade, Kashanu instead grabbed Miria’s wrist and threw her to the ground.
A lump of breath painfully escaped her lungs.
Even after that, flashes of crimson and starlight caused afterimages and crossed endlessly, but the crimson blade failed to touch the enemy's body and was always deflected.
And she couldn't even tell what had just happened.
“Too bad. I wanted to recommend her to my dad.”
She clearly thought their swords had met, but when she came to, she was tumbling uncontrollably across the white sand beach, swallowing pebbles and seawater through her mouth and nose.
“Hmm, I think she’d be more favored than me, so no. My dad is a sucker for beautiful women, you know?”
She tried to get up, but once again, a fierce starlight filled her vision.
Her breastplate split in half, creating a long stab wound extending from her right clavicle to her left side.
Blood poured out of the wound, which was scraped by pebbles and saltwater, causing unimaginable agony.
‘Did I really think I could defeat a Vajra-class adventurer?’
The only swordsmanship of Rista’s she could use was Space-Time Slash.
And compared to Rista, who performed that swordsmanship in a single moment, she was merely a novice.
All the successful Space-Time Slashes until now were only possible because her comrades created time for her; she couldn't even use it once against Puladon.
‘What delusion was I having?’
Did she mistakenly believe that because she possessed Rista's soul, she could exert Rista's perfect power?
‘Even if the souls are the same, the years built up by the body are fundamentally different.’
Rista was born the eldest daughter in the Apertas Sword-Duke House, a renowned swordsmanship noble family in the central Empire.
Born as the eldest daughter in this family, which had earned a noble title with a single sword, Rista received systematic swordsmanship training from the time she took her first steps.
Her father intended to make Rista a Fayquarrior to prevent a succession struggle with the eldest son, so he subjected her to strict training from childhood.
Even while educating her in etiquette, history, and language, he made her wield a sword, and she wore a sword even while eating.
It was training that a child could hardly endure, but Rista persevered to the end.
With a harmonious blend of prodigious aptitude and training, Rista, at just thirteen, had already defeated all the renowned knights of the Empire in live-blade duels.
At fifteen, she entered the False-Hero Sword Temple, and within a year, she was chosen by the Supreme Holy Sword Shurpen, becoming a Fayquarrior and spreading her fame throughout the world.
The moment all her goals were achieved, Rista felt lonely.
After gaining everything, everyone who approached her wore a mask when they dealt with her.
She had no family because she had to sever ties with her blood relatives when she made the Fayquarrior's vow.
Behind her ever-bright smile, the swamp of solitude and loneliness that no one understood grew deeper and deeper.
Her only friend was Friede, a priestess from the Republic, but even she was so overwhelmed with work that seeing her once a year was difficult.
- I'm not a genius, and I'm not a kid. I have a name, Rin.
The boy she met at the beginning of the final chapter of her life said his name was Rin.
The meaning of that name was 'spring breeze,' and true to his name, he blew into Rista's life like a spring breeze.
A boy utterly without pretense or deceit, just painfully honest.
Originally, it was a journey to mark the end of her life, perhaps so her father might be happy.
She couldn't truly smile, but she wished for a world where others could smile happily.
But the companionship with that boy, the companionship with Rin, who seemed honest but was easily shy and couldn't hide his emotions well… made her wait.
It made Rista hope for a future, a fragile ending like a dwindling candle, but still, a tomorrow.
‘If I were Rista herself, could I have defeated that Kashanu in one go right now?’
Through the process of body modification, her limbs would have grown longer, and her strength and reflexes would have been greatly amplified, making her much stronger.
‘Rista is lucky. If that guy had been by her side, Lane would have liked him much more.’
She could have given him several times more help.
They could have talked several times more happily.
And several times more than now, she wouldn't have worn a sad smile.
“What are you talking about right now?”
In the slowed world, someone else appeared before Kashanu, who was approaching her.
It was the lingering scent of a past life, a fragment of a soul, the shadow of a hero remembered by an age 300 years later…
Rista Alter Shurpen, with her white hair fluttering in the sea breeze, looked down at her with an expressionless face, pushing her hair behind her ear.
“I am you, and you are me.”
No, it's different.
I am merely a goblin hunter; you, a hero, are fundamentally different from me.
If I were truly you, I could have ended something like that in one blow.
“Don’t you remember how desperately you yearned for the life of an ordinary woman, not burdened by a hero’s mission, while you were with Rin?”
“…”
“You wanted your body, your flesh, not to be terminally ill, and to be together until each other's end. The result of that prayer, that miracle, is you.”
You think your liking Lane and my liking Rin are separate, but that’s not true.
Our souls attracted each other.
The bond gifted by the gods has only now blossomed. After waiting for nearly an eternity, now, 300 years later.
“So don’t give up.”
Rista, who had been looking down at her with a stern, cold gaze like her old father, suddenly embraced Miria with tears.
“Before we met Rin, when we struggled in solitude, call out the name of the friend who was always by our side.”
Our friend?
Friede? Kies? Who are you talking about… The moment she realized what it meant, Miria’s eyes widened greatly.
“Just as it did 300 years ago, it will lead us forward now too. It will transmit my power to you.”
Kashanu, who had been moving to finish her off, flinched and stopped at that moment.
‘She’s getting up again? Coughing like that because her windpipe is blocked by blood?’
Does she have some kind of conviction that she won't die easily? Does she intend to die holding her sword? Or does she think she can win against me?
“You dropped your sword over there, should I throw it to you?”
Miria didn't answer the question, which was half-mockery.
Instead, she simply stretched out her hand.
Towards the greatsword she had deeply plunged into the white sand earlier, towards her soul's friend.
“Shurpen.”
Shurpen spewed a dazzling light, flew into the sky, then spun around and flew into Miria’s grasp.
“I am Rista Alter Shurpen.”
The Prayer of the Sword.
As the prayer verse, which only a hero chosen by the holy sword could recite, was uttered, the holy sword began to burn more dazzlingly than the spring sun.
“I wish for the land to be filled with genuine laughter.”
The holy sword responds to that prayer.
The special ability of the Supreme Holy Sword Shurpen, 'Accelerated Internal Time,' manifested.
As that power permeated Miria’s body, a pure white mist erupted from her entire being.
‘What the hell?’
Is that woman crazy, dying?
She says she's Rista? Rista died 300 years ago and is a woman whose statues are enshrined all over the country.
Even thinking that, Kashanu couldn't suppress the shivers that violently shook her entire body.
‘What happened?’
The atmosphere changed.
Her very presence changed, like a completely different person.
“Unlike you, I don't have a hobby of tormenting weak opponents.”
This was the fear one only feels in the presence of an overwhelmingly strong opponent, the sensation Kashanu had hated so terribly as a child.
“I’ll finish this quickly.”
She remembered what she had been about to say: 'Weakling who's only been getting beaten up until now, how dare you speak…'
That voice was swallowed by the searing pain as her left arm was cut off, left unsaid.
She had thought that woman's body flickered and scattered like a heat haze, but her arm had flown off, and the enemy was standing some distance behind her.
“I didn’t realize I’d only cut off an arm with this attack. But next is your neck.”