Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 78

Chapter 78
In the training ground of the Royal Academy, where Leon had not set foot for nearly a year now, a lone boy swung his sword. No—perhaps “boy” was no longer the right word for him.
His broad frame was packed with lean, honed muscle, and the last traces of baby fat were gone from his face, leaving behind a young man who could no longer be mistaken for a child. His sword cut cleanly through the air of the yard, splitting the drifting wind in two.
With a pleasant
swish,
a flawless, razor-sharp vertical slash was executed. Had someone been standing there, they would have found their helmet and skull cleaved in half without a doubt—and he didn’t even need to use Aura for it.
The human body was far stronger and more capable than most thought. If one built that foundation without compromise and learned to wield it perfectly, splitting a person in two—even without Aura—was no great feat.
Finishing that stroke, the young man—Lyon—lowered his blade and exhaled. That single breath vented the heat gathered in his chest. The early chill of the season turned his breath to mist, curling like thin fog around his lips.
He had been swinging that sword for over three hours. Muscles burning this hot would not cool with a few minutes’ rest. Standing still, Lyon steadied his breathing, drew the blade up once more, and poured Aura into it.
Along the honed edge, light kindled and rose with a hum. It was an Aura Weapon, or rather, as wielded through a sword, an Aura Sword. There was not a single flicker of waste—the flow of Aura streamed cleanly along the steel, wrapping the edge in a clear, focused glow.
The mastery of that flow alone put him squarely in the realm of seasoned knights. He still lacked the sheer reserves to ignite it into an Aura Fire, but at this rate, he would reach that milestone within half a year.
That was when a familiar voice applauded him.
“Splendid, Your Highness!”
At some point, the old knight Gilbert had arrived, watching him with eyes full of pride. His thick muscles twitched distractingly beneath the butler’s tailcoat that didn’t suit them at all.
Lyon gave a small, helpless smile at that sight and lowered his sword, saying, “Sir Gilbert. You’ve seen it so many times. What’s so splendid about it?”
“You needn’t humble yourself, Your Highness,” Gilbert said as he stepped forward, offering him a towel. “For someone your age—not yet even come of age—to handle Aura to this degree... There may be one or two in every ten thousand.”
“One or two in ten thousand, you say...” Lyon muttered.
“And that’s counting only those who, like Your Highness, were born of noble blood and trained relentlessly from childhood.”
It may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but not a lie. Strong bones and muscles were often hereditary, and a child who never worried about daily survival, learned under fine teachers, and trained in the best of martial arts was rare. Add all that up and one would struggle to find another like Lyon even if they brought together a million boys.
Lyon, however, did not accept that praise.
“Even so... I don’t think I’m anything special.”
“Your Highness...” Sensing the meaning behind those words, Gilbert said gently as if to encourage him, “How many times have we gone over this? That duel was nothing but a stroke of bad luck. You were taking those suppressants to hold back your strength—you fought trying not to injure him.”
“...”
“To find a comparison, it was like fighting a cornered beast while bound hand and foot. And he was an opponent you had beaten without fail for three years. It would have been strange if you hadn’t been a bit complacent. Had you faced him again, surely you would have won.”
Gilbert wasn’t wrong. Lyon liked to believe he hadn’t grown careless, yet the fact that he’d relied on the skill Circulation Manipulation to finish things quickly
was
proof of that carelessness.
Their stamina wasn’t so mismatched. A blow or two could have turned the match around at any time.
Why didn’t I do it then?
Lyon had gone with a different choice. Because he looked down on Leon—that boy with no secret techniques, no physical enhancing skills, and no Aura. He’d wanted to win with an impressive display—to put on a show and deliver the final strike with a flourish.
That judgment had been the fatal mistake.
“I win, Lyon.”
He could still see it. The instant his confident strike had been broken, his blade shattered, and that cold steel pressed to his throat. It was his first loss to someone his own age.
“I lost, Sir Gilbert.”
“Your Highness!”
Lyon raised a hand to stop him and kept going.
“It was my wager. My terms. That loss was the result of my own immaturity. I can’t deny that by claiming I held back or didn’t fight seriously.”
At first, he couldn’t accept it either. He’d run through every excuse—having held himself back, not using Aura—telling himself he’d win it back with another match. One rematch was all he needed. So, a few days later, he’d gone to find Leon to ask for a rematch, telling himself it was unrelated to the earlier wager.
How was I supposed to know he’d leave the very next day?
He still remembered that day. How he’d stood staring at Leon’s empty room, dumbfounded, then laughed in disbelief. Running after winning; only after that final twist of the knife did he truly admit defeat.
I lost.
That unexpected loss shook him to his core and utterly broke his heart. It wasn’t against the emperor or the demon king—it was someone he had beaten every single time for three years.
Since then, a void remained in him. There wasn’t a duty in the world that could help him fill it.
He had to reclaim the throne. He had to exterminate the evil that lurked in the world as the prophecy says. However, no matter how many times he told himself that, the void remained.
I can’t let it be this way. For the sake of those who’ve staked their lives on me.
No matter how fiercely he trained, only his body burned hot—never his spirit. That first, shocking loss had crippled his confidence.
His talent was undeniable. Even now, he stood on the threshold of the realm of Expert, but his steps only grew heavier and heavier. Some days, he was even certain he’d never move forward again.
Leon...
If only Leon had stayed, might he have found that missing spark? After Leon’s departure, Lyon had become utterly isolated at the Royal Academy. No one else truly challenged him. He found some small relief talking with Chloe, but stepping out of her presence always brought the same cold emptiness rushing back.
Seeing Lyon’s shadowed expression, Gilbert cut in firmly, “Your Highness.”
There was no use saying more. He’d only tear open old wounds. It was better to change the subject entirely. Besides, there was something else he needed to .
“The men we left behind in the Empire have sent word, Your Highness. It seems the Usurper has finally begun a large-scale purge. They say the heads of high-ranking nobles are now displayed all throughout the capital.”
“Even the high nobility...?!” Lyon repeated in shock.
“Yes, it seems he intends to slaughter everyone who did not support his ascension.”
At that unimaginable , Lyon’s complexion turned pale. The current Emperor’s power was absolute. He was the man who had murdered the former Emperor and stolen the throne.
He had wiped out every other heir with an army summoned from who-knows-where, pulled three Dukes into his camp, and seized the whole system in one strike.
The blood spilled in the process alone numbered in the tens of thousands. Even for the mighty Empire, that was a staggering cost—yet it hadn’t ended there. Now, another purge?
“He’s mad...”
“Yes, Your Highness. Among the common folk, they already call him the ‘Mad Emperor.’”
“
Hah
...”
Lyon pressed a fist to his chest as if to beat back the weight tightening there. There was still a month to go until the day of the prophecy, yet he couldn’t even imagine how much worse things would get in that time.
Lyon Cailum Gladius Pon Clyde. The blade meant to rebuild a fallen Empire from its rot. Today, the name he had been hiding felt heavier than ever.
“But Your Highness, it is not all bad news.”
“What do you mean?”
Gilbert, kneeling on one knee as always, let a faint smile cross his face as he added, “The Holy Church has begun to move.”
“The Holy Church?”
“Yes. I believe you remember that not long ago, a new Saintess was appointed. The Eighth, Elahan. Word is she has left the Church’s central branch and is traveling south.”
“The Saintess? But why?”
Lyon frowned, questioning the reason. The Hero had not yet appeared—why would the Saintess leave the church to walk the world?
Gilbert answered as if he had expected this question all along.
“Why else, if not to meet you, Your Highness?”
“To meet me?”
“Yes, Your Highness. The same prophecy that guides House Clyde must surely be known to the Holy Church as well. And their information network is not far behind the intelligence service of the Empire, if I may say so.”
“I see...”
It made sense when Gilbert said it—yet something in Lyon resisted. The Saintess would surely know why he kept his identity hidden—so would she appear so openly? If he joined with the Saintess and revealed who he was now, the Mad Emperor would drop everything to send assassins at once.
“Gil—”
He was about to say something then quickly decided against it. He realized how cruel his own unspoken thought was.
What if I’m not the Hero after all?
If the Saintess wasn’t coming for him—if he was just an ordinary man, unrelated to the Hero’s mantle—what would become of Gilbert and these loyal retainers who had followed him so far? They had dared to stand against a mad Emperor, risking death, only because they believed Lyon was the Goddess’s chosen.
If that belief crumbled, they could not fight on.
No... No, that can’t be.
Lyon forced his expression calm, swallowing back the words rising in his throat. Just one more month. One month more, and fate would speak at last. He only had to endure the uncertainty until then.
“The Eighth Saintess,
huh
...” he muttered and forced a faint smile. “I wonder what she’s like. I’m quite looking forward to meeting her.”
All while the fingers curled around the hilt of his sword trembled ever so slightly.
***
The Titan Mountains. A realm where the Giant King ruled—a land so fearsome that even dragons were loath to fly above it.
Towering trees, far greater than those of any common forest, grew so thick that once you stepped in too deep, the sky itself vanished from view. It was a land overflowing with life force.
From time to time, seekers of power tried to stake out dwellings within those mountains—but most lasted only a handful of days before fleeing in terror. The monsters were simply far stronger than those anywhere else.
Beneath the canopy’s constant darkness, one could never afford a moment’s lapse in vigilance. Life there was, in many ways, a slow torture.
“
Hup.
”
And yet, at the edge of those same mountains, Leon had already survived for over three months.
In a forest so dark that visibility fell to barely five meters, Leon stood with eyes closed and brought his sword down in a single, fluid motion. A golden arc of light split the darkness.
A grotesque beast, part bat, part wolf, was cut clean in two with a single strike. These misshapen things came crawling out from deeper within the mountains. They were losers in the survival struggle of that brutal place, and yet, even these rejects were several times stronger than the monsters outside the mountains.
“That’s the last one.”
Leon raised his sword once more, and the light clinging to its blade scattered outward, driving back the darkness.
The sight revealed in its wake was grotesque—a mountain of monster corpses stacked around him. Blood pooled into shallow ponds, its raw life force drawn by the Holy Sword, flowing into its hilt.
What he had stored in this moment alone would be enough to unleash Merak three, four times over. At first, the sheer amount and density had shocked him, but three months were enough for him to get used to it.
“That should be good, right?”
Having absorbed all that monster power, Leon raised his sword high. In these months, his Aura had grown enormously in both quality and quantity—he had surpassed the limits of B-rank and stepped into the realm beyond.
The Holy Sword drank in Leon’s Aura and burned with golden light. Then, with a
fwoosh
, a beautiful, golden Aura Fire blossomed along the edge of his blade.