Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 80

Chapter 80
The Titan Mountains were one of the continent’s unclaimed borderlands along with the Crown of the Star at the northernmost edge. The area it claimed on the map was comparable to half a small kingdom.
Its true heart, the deep zone, rivaled a marquisate or greater in sheer scale. It was not the kind of place you wander through without a map.
Truthfully, though, who would come
here
to make a map when not even A-rank adventurers could barely crawl out alive? Not even the Empire, which once sent in three hundred thousand troops, could fully chart the deep zone of the Titan Mountains, so what chance did a lone adventurer or explorer have?
El-Cid, are you sure this is the right way?
Leon stepped carefully and muttered under his breath. El-Cid answered in a surly tone.
—I told you it is! What, you don’t trust me?
Hm
?
Can you blame me...? I can’t see a damn thing.
He’d thought the outer region was dark, but now that he was deeper in, that darkness was nothing. Even focusing Aura Sense into his eyes, the visibility barely stretched ten meters.
Light itself was too scarce; no matter how much he trained his night vision, it made little to no difference. Even a martial artist at their peak would lose half their strength here unless they somehow figured out a way to adapt to this environment.
Leon and Karen, however, moved forward without a single misstep.
If I hadn’t pushed Rodrick’s Footwork to level 6, this would have been a nightmare.
Leon took another step. As the ground pressed back against his soles, he felt how the impact rippled out in a ring, striking the earth within a radius of several meters before returning to him.
The sixth level of Rodrick’s Footwork allowed him to claim total dominion over the ground beneath him, perceiving every change through his senses without seeing a thing. For now, he could only read the shape of the terrain, but it was more than enough to walk through this pitch-black forest unharmed.
As if to round out the insight, El-Cid chimed in.
—Think of it like echolocation. Bats can’t see, so they hunt with sound. They send out ultrasonic waves and read the echoes. Footwork at level 6 is the same. You’re using your steps to read the ripples of movement around you. Once you master it, you’ll be able to read your opponent’s center of gravity and their planted foot to predict what they’ll do next.
Leon had hit this level only a few days ago, when monsters ambushed him in the dead of night. Up to that point, he’d relied entirely on Aura Sense to fill the gaps in his vision.
When dozens of monsters closed in, his senses blurred with confusion. When his concentration pushed past its limits, making his head ache like a spike driving through his temple—that was when he finally understood.
Vibration.
The same force wielded by Angela, the Holy Iron Inquisitor who’d fought beside him in Rubena. El-Cid had explained how versatile that power could be.
The essence of motion,
Leon thought to himself.
Digging deep enough into that principle, becoming stronger was a natural process. Angela had reached her level of strength at such a young age because of it—no doubt about it.
When he’d seen her in Rubena, she had mainly used it as a shockwave. However, the true strength of “vibration” lay in close combat—sensing all movement in advance, weakening an enemy’s blows, or amplifying his own. Against opponents of equal caliber, it could win him every single clash.
Karen’s a different story, though.
Leon could sense her behind him, a subtle flicker in the rippling earth, and he knew how she grasped her surroundings.
—A top-class assassin’s senses are basically a superpower. Of course, to get that far, you have to train to the point it’s basically torture.
El-Cid’s voice sounded oddly bitter. Just as he said, Karen pierced this pitch-darkness with nothing but her five senses sensing the brush of air against skin, a faint, fading scent, and a sound softer than breathing. She must have spent a lifetime pushing her senses to their absolute limit, practically reconstructing her nervous system down to the bone.
“
Ah
.”
Just then, Leon stopped short. Karen, a few paces behind, bumped right into his back with her forehead.
“Hey! What’d you stop for all of a sudden?” she asked.
“Look over there.”
“
Huh
?”
Karen turned her head the way he pointed, and her mouth fell open. The deep zone of the Titan Mountains, so infamous for fear and death, looked nothing like its reputation.
“Wow... it’s... beautiful,” she muttered.
They were still quite far off, but the spectacle was clear enough to see. A soft blue glow bathed the trees, turning the whole scene into something otherworldly.
—It’s a phenomenon created by a ridiculously high mana concentration in the air.
El-Cid’s tone was casual as if it were nothing.
—Deeper in the range, there are spots where the dimensional boundaries are blurred and those fissures are where monsters constantly spill out from. The Titans made it their mission to block those waves.
So this is what they have to do in exchange for the Goddess’ blessing...
—Exactly.
Leon felt a chill crawl up his spine. If El-Cid was right, then that beautiful sight was built on a mountain of dead monsters.
After several centuries of hunting and tens or even hundreds of thousands of monsters slaughtered, their blood spilled into the soil. So much mana was left behind that the ecosystem couldn’t absorb it—so it clung to the forest instead.
So this is where the real deep zone begins.
This was the ground where the Titans hunted. They didn’t waste their strength on petty B-rank monsters—their blades only fell on ones A-rank and above.
“Karen.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
She had pieced it together too, it seemed—her face had gone a little pale, but she nodded firmly. Their footsteps grew even softer. They passed under trees taller than thirty meters, their shadows like towering walls as they moved as quietly as possible, slipping through the heavy air as the mana thickened enough that even breathing took longer.
This place is dangerous.
They were being overwhelmed. Wiping sweat from his brow, Leon truly felt how monstrous this place was.
The Titan Mountains’ assigned danger level was “Unmeasurable.” Even major guilds, full of Master-level warriors, refused to touch this place.
Thirty years ago, an arrogant Swordmaster marched into the Deep Zone and was killed by a passing Titan warrior. Not even the Giant King himself—just a warrior.
They’ve survived here all this time. Of course, they’re strong.
With each breath, mana flooded into him. He wondered how much stronger he could grow if he trained here.
More than the mana’s blessing, though, the monsters—and the Titans themselves—filled him with awe. They’d fought and killed in this place for centuries, not years.
Suddenly, the ground rumbled and quaked beneath him. He’d felt tremors before on the outskirts—but never like this. The force hit his legs like a hammer and froze them in place as he realized that this was at least six A-ranks clashing at once.
He and Karen locked eyes, then both turned, their resolve burning, and sprang forward toward the source. It was time to face the true heart of the Titan Mountains.
***
If the ogre was the king of land monsters, then the wyvern was the king of monsters that rule the skies.
Its scales and hide could shrug off even an Aura Weapon. Its talons can shred mithril with a single swipe. And as if those weren’t enough, its Breath could melt full plate armor into molten slag.
And yet, none of that alone would make it an A+ rank threat. What made the wyvern even deadlier than an ogre was simple—it flew, and it hunted in packs.
With a chilling shriek, the wyverns opened their jaws. Rows of teeth, each bigger than a grown man’s palm, gleamed inside mouths slick with acidic drool. Deep inside, fire began to churn.
A breath attack.
A wyvern’s Breath attack was said to rival a fifth-tier attack spell. Six torrents of that very scarlet flame roared down at once.
With a
fwoosh,
tough, ancient trees turned to charcoal in an instant. The scorched earth oozed like magma, belching black smoke. No living thing could survive it—or so anyone would think.
“
Kahahahaha!
”
However, from the heart of that inferno, a booming laugh rang out as a giant swung his spear, and the wind blast alone scattered the converging flames.
The spear—easily five meters long—swept through the air so fast it left afterimages, pushing the fire back before it could reach him.
As the giant spun the spear into a furious vortex, a whirlwind kicked up, shoving the wyverns’ breath aside. Even the wyverns themselves seemed stunned—they broke off their attack and stared down at the giant.
That was their mistake. Used to swooping freely through the sky, they’d grown complacent and not used to
being attacked
.
A chilling slicing sound tore the air as an axe came hurtling up at them. The wyverns flapped frantically to gain altitude or dove to dodge but it was too late.
The axe clipped through three wings in a single pass like paper. Sure, a wyvern’s wing membrane was structurally weaker compared to the rest of its parts, but no average blade could damage it. However, the Titan’s strength ripped through it like nothing.
The three wounded wyverns shrieked as they plummeted. The giant who’d swung the spear wasted no time—he lunged and climbed on top of them as soon as they fell.
A grounded wyvern lost more than half its power. His spear punched through one’s chest and his boot came down on another’s spine, shattering it with a crunch. With the giant’s ogre-level brawn, precise targeting of vital points, and mastery of weapons, the wyverns didn’t stand a chance once grounded.
“What is this? Is this all you’ve got?!” He snarled as the last of the three went limp while the surviving wyverns flinched upward under his roar.
Then another giant stepped out—the one who’d thrown the axe—to stand at his side and said, “Not as vicious as I’d hoped. If they were wild enough to strike first, I thought they’d at least give us a fight.”
“Maybe they nibbled the wrong mushrooms, or something.”
The giants stared coldly up at the distant wyverns. They were still within range—the monsters could’ve rained breath down freely, but fear froze them in place. They instinctively knew that the moment they opened their jaws, another axe would come flying. Seeing that, the giants looked annoyed.
“Boring. Let’s just clean this up and get back to our patrol.”
“Agreed.”
The giant with the spear nodded and then leaned forward, tilting his torso to line up the wyverns in his sights.
A spear, but really just a tree he’d whittled down. Throw one, make another. Simple enough.
“
Hup!
”
His burly frame swelled, muscle piling over muscle—then shimmered with a faint blue light as more power gathered. Anyone witnessing it would’ve been struck dumb.
It was Aura.
The giants could wield
Aura
. Even with no sophisticated training, a Titan’s raw body alone could rival an A-rank—even threaten a Master. Add Aura to that? The result spoke for itself.
“Diiie!”
He hurled the spear with a roar. It sliced the air like a cannon shot, the shockwave rattling the forest as its afterimage chased the wyverns.
Dodging was pointless. The spear’s path would pierce them like beads on a string.
Faced with death that close, the wyverns froze, but that was when a sound they hadn’t expected snapped through the air.
The giant with the axe widened his eyes in disbelief and stammered, “T-that’s...!”
The spear, hurled with Aura, had shattered in an enormous maw—caught and crushed as if it were nothing. And the creature that had done it was no wyvern.
A massive beast soared like an eagle above them—ruling the skies, herding the wyverns, eyes burning red as it sneered down at the two giants. Horns jutted hideously from its skull, and its wings spread wide with monstrous grace.
They knew exactly what it was. Their voices dropped to a tense murmur.
“A drake...”
The apex of lesser dragons, a monster of danger rank S+ had appeared over the Titan Mountains.