Sword Devouring Swordmaster-Chapter 56 : Chapter 56

Chapter 56 — Race Duel (5)
There was nothing more foolish than facing Demons on a night when the sun had hidden its face. Anyone who knew the Seven Races would have agreed with that sentence.
***
The crows cried out. With the fierce beat of wings, bats flew across the dark sky. The combatants from several races standing on the ground could not move a single fingertip at that moment.
“……Uugh, uh, ugh.”
The sun had hidden and the moon had risen; the master of this place had become the Demons. While everyone froze in place, only the Nobles of the Night moved freely within the darkness.
“You've all lived hard lives, haven't you?”
The Demons who emerged from the deep blackness looked out of place here. Jet-black formal wear fit for a banquet, an unhurried gait and tone of voice. They looked less like fighters and more like nobles who had come to watch the spectacle.
“Y—y—fucking—”
That was the Demons’ hallmark. Other races who knew the Demons always summed them up with one sentence.
Unlucky bastards.
“When night came you should have covered your eyes and hidden. If you don't want to meet us.”
A seductive voice spilled into the dark forest. The Demons walked with unruffled steps, letting their hands pass once over the cheeks of fighters frozen as if turned to ice. Even when pricked or prodded with a fingertip, the other fighters did not so much as twitch.
“Ahah, there’s no answer back; how boring.”
To be precise, they could not move. Because reality did not appear to the eyes of the fighters right then.
“You all must be busy having pleasant nightmares.”
That was the most famous among the Demons’ special powers. Once anyone experienced it, merely hearing the word “Demon” was enough to ruin their sleep — a cruel power that, if luck ran bad, could utterly shatter the mind or trap someone forever in sleep.
People called that power by a single name.
“Please never wake up and sleep peacefully.”
Hell.
***
Darkness swept the forest.
Seol Yoon, swallowed by the blackness, squeezed her eyes shut before she knew what she was doing. The moment she opened them, she did not see darkness or trees. Instead, a desolate plain stretched out before her. Dust rose in a gray haze from the barren land. Countless people lay scattered on the ground like dust.
“Ah.”
The sprawled bodies made no sound. Seol Yoon stared blankly and scanned their faces one by one. Each person lay in a different state. Her kind neighbor lay with peaceful closed eyes; the cheerful aunt who always cracked jokes stared wide-eyed while clutching her son; the five-year-old child in that aunt’s arms held a straw in tiny hands and had closed eyes.
Those countless lives, each of which had lived different lives and might have lived many more, had all shattered here — like heat shimmering under the blazing sun.
“…….”
Seol Yoon took in the scene without a word. She knew this was not reality. But she could not turn away from the sight laid out before her. This was not a hallucination or a nightmare.
It was a distant memory she had kept. A memory she had desperately wanted to forget but could not and must not forget.
A distant voice echoed in her ear like a far-off echo. It wasn't the language of the West. It was a language she knew well — an Eastern tongue.
“We killed them all cleanly, leaving not one,” someone said.
“Excellent.”
The voices came from beyond the dust. Mounted soldiers spoke dryly behind the pale haze of rising dirt.
“Don't look back. It wasn't a mistake. Someone had to do it.”
“……Was that really so?”
“Yes. It was necessary for the great land.”
Seol Yoon remembered every moment. She remembered the faint iron tang of blood that had hung in the dust, the acrid smell of dirt, and the heavy scent of tobacco they carried. The horses they'd ridden exhaled as if still alive. It felt like yesterday.
“Believe in the great land. If you cannot believe the great land, then believe the great conqueror. Our Khan is not wrong.”
She remembered their words without dropping a single syllable — their murmured soliloquies.
After that short exchange they left. Hoofbeats pushed off the ground, and when the sun hung dead-center in the sky, Seol Yoon was the only living human left there. The tiny, insignificant girl was left in the middle of death.
“…….”
Seol Yoon watched a child version of herself crawl out from the well of memory. The small Eastern girl that had lost all color looked at her neighbors and friends who had died like dust, and at the corpses of parents who'd left the world before her. Unable to accept reality, she didn't stop at looking; she reached out with fern-like hands and touched them.
But nothing changed. Only then did the child burst into tears.
In the tear-streaked girl’s eyes, she saw a filthy blade. It was a sword — far too heavy for the child to lift. Seeing that weapon, the girl thought of a legend she had heard once:
— Seol Yoon, they said that if a swordsman's mastery reached the heavens, they would ascend and go to paradise. In that paradise those you cherished would be waiting and sweet happiness would be abundant.
Yes. That was the moment the little Seol Yoon died and the swordsman Seol Yoon was born. It was the memory of the turning point that had overturned her life.
“……Unlucky Demons.”
Seol Yoon whispered in hatred as she faced her distant old memory. The scene before her swam and wavered. As if rewindable, the sprawled people rose and life returned. In the rewound world, her loved ones smiled brightly — and then a long, sharp lance flew with the sound of hoofbeats. Crimson blood spurted across the peaceful everyday.
“Stop!”
A person fell with a scream that tore ears. Arrows, spears, and swords rained down on those desperately fleeing. People’s bodies crumbled far too easily. The whole process unfolded vividly before Seol Yoon’s eyes; even when she closed them it played on inside her head.
“Stop, stop……”
Seol Yoon ground her teeth and let out a pained voice. She knew this was the power the Demons were wielding — an art that invaded a living being’s mind, replayed its worst memories as endless nightmares, and destroyed the psyche. A deceptively simple mental attack, but it was lethal to most living beings.
“Stop.”
Seol Yoon was a prodigy swordsman. But before this Hell she was reduced to a mere blade-bearer. She could not cut away the nightmare in front of her, nor dispel the boundless darkness. There was nothing she could do but face the repeating nightmare. Powerless, painfully so.
Screams poured into Seol Yoon's ears without end. And then…….
「I hated the fact of breathing the same air as that bastard.」
A familiar voice rang from somewhere.
「How are we still celebrating that devil? How can that man be praised and live on?」
「Why is this world going so wrongly?」
The Hell that spread before Seol Yoon began to tremble.
「No matter how I thought about it, I couldn't accept it.」
「There were simply too many things I couldn't accept.」
「So my conclusion was clear.」
Seol Yoon slowly opened her eyes. She knew the owner of those voices.
「Only a Swordmaster can kill another Swordmaster.」
「So I decided to become a Swordmaster.」
The little gladiator. Arhan.
***
It was very foolish to oppose Demons at night. From the moment the moon rose, the Demons’ physical power and their ability to manipulate Mana rose astonishingly. At the same time their true strengths, dormant by day, awakened.
One of those powers was Hell.
“Huh.”
Shamans communicated with the spirit world. Elves communicated with elementals of the elemental world. Many races and classes drew power by communicating with various worlds rather than the middle realm. Among them, the “Demons” were special.
They could communicate with Hell, but only under the condition called ‘night.’ Hell was, in a sense, a world.
It was an inner world that contained living beings’ most painful memories, sins they had committed, regrets, and fears. Because it was an inner world, any sentient creature held its own Hell deep in its heart. The Demons could touch that world.
They could force sleeping ones to endlessly replay their worst memory as a nightmare, make them repeatedly live their most regretted moments, or materialize a greatest fear to poison the mind. A Demon’s battle began and ended in ruling Hell. And only Demons possessed the power to command that Hell. Thus, when night was black, Demons reigned as beings everyone loathed. Unless Demon blood flowed, there was no way to resist the Hell they cast.
Of course, some resisted even if they could not fully oppose it: priests who entrusted their souls to gods and received sacred protection, shamans who split their souls and dispersed them into the spirit world to be free of mental interference, and noble Sky Witches who had thrown off painful memories and regrets.
“How quaint.”
But to Harthias, the “Red Count” among the Demons, the human before him did not belong to any of those categories. The human had no spiritual ability, no Demon bloodline, and no sacred power.
The human was a pure swordsman. And for a swordsman to resist Hell with only pure personal strength, armor was needed — a sturdy armor that could stop anything, the next stage after radiant wings: the invincible armor that only Sword Experts could possess.
“What is that?”
But the youth before him was a pure human, only a “Sword Walker” who hadn’t even sprouted wings. Yet he was driving the darkness back. Harthias could not make sense of the situation.
“What on earth are you harboring there?”
Harthias watched the human. The Hell he drew from the youth’s sight vanished before it manifested to the world. Instead, another inner world replaced the darkness.
In place of the jet black came a barren land without a blade of grass. A terrible silence reigned, and on the still ground a conspicuous hill rose. A house stood on that hill where it didn't belong; in the yard, a boy sat with no expression.
“That’s not a talent a human ought to have.”
Displaying one’s inner world to fight was a specialty of shamans and mages; an inner world’s solidity scaled with the caster’s mental strength. Novices’ inner worlds were hazy and unstable.
But the boy’s world that unfolded before Harthias was unnervingly solid — as if forged of steel rather than spirit.
Harthias saw the boy alone on an empty domain. The boy’s voice flowed out.
「Only a Swordmaster can kill another Swordmaster.」
At that moment cool iron chunks fell from the sky and slammed into the ground. Blades rained like rain. Cold swords were planted one by one into the quiet ground like tombstones.
“So I decided to become a Swordmaster.”
The boy’s face aged into a youth. Behind the now-youth stood the transparent spirit of an old man. A lion-like elder, that old man fixed his gaze sharply on Harthias. The old man's voice rumbled like a beast.
「You do not have the right to step into the Land of Swords.」
The instant those words ended, Harthias felt a violent pain: a strange, terrible sensation as if his whole body were cut by blades. Harthias laughed without meaning to.
“This… I have truly found an interesting human.”
He didn't lose his smile even under the torment of being slashed all over. He did not avert his eyes from the human before him. Madness filled Harthias’s pupils.
“I will come back before this night ends, I promise.”
With that the darkness that had surged dispersed. Without a trace.
“I remembered you! You.”
***
The darkness that had veiled their sight had vanished. The oppressive pressure that tightened their bodies was gone. When I opened my eyes I was back in the jet-black forest. Around me I saw fighters with dazed faces. There was no way to know what had happened.
A Demon had appeared and before it finished whatever it intended, the gift the Orc Elder had given me shone. The Demon muttered that it would remember me, that it would come back, then vanished. Everything had happened in an instant; one thing was certain: time had been bought.
So it would be foolish to waste this moment standing around bewildered.
“Seol Yoon!”
“……Ugh, uh. Ooh?”
“Snap out of it and move!”
I grabbed Seol Yoon’s hand tight and pulled her. With everyone’s minds shut down, it was an opportunity. As the race duel was breaking into a brawl, just getting into the right position could gain a lot. We had to move quickly…….
「That Orc fellow gave you a useful present. I don't much like it, though.」
I ran holding Seol Yoon’s hand.
「Well, still. For the sake of a worthless descendant, I could do a few bothersome things — as a forebear ought to.」
“Will you please stop muttering. It’s distracting!”
「Oh-ho. What manner of speech is that? I just did you some trouble.」
“Didn't ask. Explain later, later.”
「Ha. Polite for whose descendant you are.」
The situation was urgent, so I couldn't indulge Liam Karavan’s chatter. With everything already chaotic, the constant droning of my master’s voice grated on my nerves. Whether he had agreed to listen or sulked, Liam shut his mouth.
And then.
“……?”
While running, the ground dropped away beneath us.
‘Damn it—’
A trap. And……
“Got you, human scum!”
The race best at ‘making things’ among the Seven Races.
“This is how we Dwarves of the Sky Mountains fight, wahahahaha!”
We had fallen into a trap made by the Dwarves.
“I detest fighting idiots head-on! Ughahahaha—!”
An unpleasant laugh poured from outside the trap. I had fallen into a dizzying pit, and when I looked at my ankle it was clearly twisted. I could not fight properly.
“Master.”
The time had come to use my trump card.
“Is there no way to talk the Dwarves down?”
「…….」
“After all, aren’t I a fine descendant of the Dwarves? I desperately need your sage advice, master — your guidance that always gives me the correct answer. This foolish descendant asks for ancestral wisdom.”
「…….」
“Please. Are you sulking?”
「Didn't I tell you to shut your noisy mouth because it was distracting?」
“Hey, that’s a bit extreme……”
Liam sulked with a huff. The old man’s behavior only made anger rise, but there was nothing to be done.
「Kneel and say you were wrong. Call me Grandfather and I’ll help.」
“I'm sorry, Grandfather.”
He was the great forebear of the Karavan line, the most powerful Swordmaster in their history and a respected ancestor — kneeling was nothing.
「Once more.」
Truly nothing bothered him.
「Hurry, or I won't help.」
……Truly, not a bit bothered at all. Not one bit.