Level up with swords (258)
After being confused by Rodelin’s transfer for a while, Leon and the others soon regained their composure and sat down around the round table again.
Unlike before, there was a small girl standing behind Leon, but everyone seemed to understand it, perhaps because of the conversation between Albion and El Cid.
I felt like things had somehow been resolved.
In conclusion, Albion’s anger was relieved, and by passing the ordeal, at least nominally, he acquired the qualifications to form a relationship with a dragon. It would be difficult to get better results than this.
however.
“Hey, Cardinal?”
“Yes, warrior. “Please tell me.”
Leon asked Irexana, who was still sitting with a calm expression on her face and occasionally squinting at Rodelin.
“Have I told you this before? That Rodrik’s soul exists inside the holy sword… ?”
“There was none.”
Irexana smiled at those words and shook her head.
“But again, it wasn’t hard to guess. Didn’t I tell you this once before? “Saint King Roderick’s martial arts skills have been put to use for a long time.”
“Oh, I did.”
“Nevertheless, he mastered the ‘Seven Star Sword’, one of Saint King Roderick’s representative martial arts, and raised his level without ever losing his way, so I had no choice but to assume that a ‘master’ or ‘guide’ existed.”
Only then did Leon understand, “Ah.”
The path of martial arts is profound.
You wouldn’t know it if you could do everything from start to finish with just one talent like Rodrik, but people who can’t do that climb the stairs step by step through numerous trials and errors.
If you take one step down the wrong path, you may have to waste ten steps to get out, and if you take a path that feels like a shortcut, you could fall into an abyss.
It was not for nothing that warriors coveted the vision of a famous gate and placed importance on the existence of a teacher.
[Heng, it’s because I taught you well.]
Leaving aside El Cid’s spiteful voice, Leon realized that what Irexana had said was true.
Even expert level vision is quite difficult, without having to go all the way to Aura Master. At a level where not only the movement of joints and muscles but also the flow of aura within the body must be controlled, it is nearly impossible to steal its essence by looking at it with the naked eye.
Even the secret book that the founder painstakingly wrote was said to be fortunate if he inherited half of Sim Deuk’s ability, or even half of that amount.
This is especially true if it is a martial art with enormous depth, such as 〈Seven-Star Sword〉.
“Hero. You know the saying, “It’s better to see once than to hear a hundred times,” right?
“Yes, of course.”
“Then what does it mean that there are two more verses after that?”
“… I do not know.”
“Only the first verse is publicly known.”
Irexana smiled as if she knew that would happen.
“Hearing a hundred times is worse than seeing once. And it is said that seeing a hundred times is worse than thinking once, and thinking a hundred times is worse than acting once.”
If you just listen to the first line and think about it, it can also be interpreted to mean not to be easily swayed by nonsense.
However, if we add the last two verses, we can see that this maxim is advice about the accessibility of information. This was to say that direct knowledge is faster and closer to reality than indirect knowledge.
This teaching applies to most situations in life, and it was not much different in the case of martial arts.
“Even if you have mastered the secret book of the Seven Star Sword, whether you can learn it properly is a separate question. It won’t be efficient either. However, in just a few years, the warrior mastered the ‘Seven-Star Sword’ and was able to use the five-pointed sword.”
Therefore, Irexana declared with a sigh.
“I guessed. “I think you learned in a more efficient way than by listening, seeing, thinking, or doing.”
Irexana’s gaze naturally fell on the hilt of the sword.
“Also, whenever I talked to the hero, I sometimes felt my consciousness flowing to the holy sword, even if it was only for a few seconds or less. At first, I thought it was my imagination, but if I ‘talked to the Holy Sword,’ all my questions would be completely answered.”
It was a reasonable inference.
Of course, Irexana’s ability to grasp even the slightest movement of Leon’s consciousness flowing towards the holy sword was even more impressive.
When she turned her eyes to Ellahan, she confidently shouted:
“The Goddess told me a while ago!”
“… really?”
“yes! How many times has King Seong told you not to listen to and learn from his vulgar language?”
“It’s an oracle.”
As Leon unconsciously agreed, El Cid dropped the hilt of his sword and let out a harsh voice.
“hey! Tell the poor bitch to come out now! How dare you talk about me behind my back?! If it weren’t for me, I would have been ruined by the devil 300 years ago, and I didn’t know any grace… !》
“wow! It is truly the Holy King!”
Ellahan was so excited by that voice that he bowed.
“Hello, King Seong! “I’m Ellahan, the 8th saint!”
《Does my condition look good now!? And since I’ve been seeing you for a while, there’s nothing new to say. Please take care of my student like you have done so far.》
“If that’s the case, I’m going to keep doing that even if you don’t tell me.”
“and.”
As if he was about to say everything as he opened his mouth, El Cid spoke to Karen, who froze at the sudden situation.
《I managed to get there with just one vision book. I thought it would have a good compatibility with the auror attribute of ‘Shadow’, but I didn’t know it would go far beyond my expectations.》
Then Karen asked a question carefully.
“Uh, ‘Run Dance in the Darkness’… “What do you mean?”
“okay. I wrote it to summarize the logic of Heo-sil conversion, but I didn’t use it often because it didn’t suit my taste. The compatibility with the ‘Sun’ auror was also very poor.》
Unlike the shadow that exists yet does not exist, the sun is a symbol of life force that looks down on all things from the sky.
There wasn’t even a speck of dust that matched the illusion.
Roderick, who was close to martial arts, was able to use that power by force, but there was no need to obsess over the transformation of Heo-sil when there were many more powerful and efficient methods.
However, when I found someone like Karen who was the right person for martial arts and seemed to wear clothes that fit her body perfectly, I became a little more ambitious as a founder.
《I have no intention of taking more disciples now… I guess it’s okay to just meddle to kill time.》
Karen’s ears perked up at the meaningful words.
She knew better than anyone else that when an opportunity comes, you should never miss it.
“Eh, uh, what do you mean by that?”
——————
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《Try to learn from me. Well, if you don’t like it, don’t.》
“I will accept it as the honor of a lifetime!”
I immediately bowed my back in case El Cid would change his words. It may be an exaggeration, but there were a mountain of people who would not hesitate to risk their lives if they had the chance to learn something from Saint King Rodrik, no, there were a lot of them.
It was then.
“Are you done with trivial talk?”
Albion, who was quietly listening to the four people’s story, spoke.
“You probably didn’t come to me just to chat, but I’m starting to feel like I’m running out of time, so I’d like you to get to the point.”
“Well, that’s a cheesy thing to say.”
“I don’t want to hear it from you?”
Leon quickly grabbed the hilt of his sword and silenced El Cid.
“All right. The reason we came all the way to Ground Zero in search of Albion-”
* * *
When the story about the Archbishop of the Evil Church ended, Albion narrowed his eyes as if he had heard something truly unpleasant.
It had to be that way.
The dragon race, a symbol of harmony and protection, corrupted itself and created an organization like an evil cult! Although I had never been close to mortals, the evil deeds of the evil cult were so base and terrible that every time I heard about them, it was hard to forget them.
But not only is it not enough that the dragons originated from the dragon race, but they are also actively pursuing the destruction of the world?
If it weren’t for what Roderick and his successor said, he would have immediately struck down the statement without even considering its truth.
“… Phew, this is terrible. The fact that there are people of my kind other than me still taints my ears. “It would have been better to remain alone and worry about endless promises.”
Albion said, looking into space with blank eyes.
“I can guess who it is. When all of my compatriots went to heaven, there was one person who did not show up. He left first, or I thought he left after-”
“Were you friends?”
“no way. That bastard, Vritra, is an ancient dragon born more than a thousand years before me. “In the dragon society, where age is equal to status, the gap is enormous.”
Vritra, Leon rolled the name around in his mouth.
The archbishop of the evil cult and the source of all evil.
It was the name of the monster who appointed the “Exorcist Bishop” and manipulated them, causing a bloody storm across the entire continent.
After 300 years, its true nature has been revealed.
Albion let out a long sigh and licked his lips again.
“If you came to ask me to fight that guy, I won’t be able to grant your wish.”
“yes?”
“As I said, my body is not in a normal state. “It was good to escape from the Fall, but the damage to the wings, horns, and heart that were cut off at that time has not yet recovered.”
That was the reason why sleep periods, which dragons usually only experience 3 or 4 times, were particularly frequent.
Dragon Heart’s output fell by less than half, its wings were cut off and it lost its ability to fly at high speeds, and one of the horns corresponding to its magic focusing organ was lost, slowing down the speed of magic recovery and magic development.
Compared to before it was contaminated by the <Corruption>, it was no exaggeration to say that its combat power had fallen below 30 percent.
“More than anything, it is highly likely that it has become much more powerful than it was 300 years ago, or rather, when it was a pure dragon.”
“… “Why?”
“This is the story of when Roderick defeated the Demon King.”
Although outsiders may not know this, the Demon King is not a monster that invaded from an outside dimension or a being created by outside laws.
A person born in this world without going against providence.
Therefore, the Demon King is free from the law of causality and is not restricted while exercising power and authority beyond the transcendental species.
Hundreds of years, maybe thousands of years. The demon lord was the entity that eventually formed a personality through the accumulation of dirt, distortion, and uncleanness over the years.
“Only the Holy Sword, a sword that returns all thoughts to their natural state, was the means that could completely defeat him. That’s why the goddess gave the holy sword to Roderick, who was already strong.”
Albion continued speaking.
“It was one-sided. “The Demon King was torn apart by Roderick like a mere goblin without being able to use his hands or feet, and without being able to even beg for his life, he was beaten like a training scarecrow until his last breath was cut off.”
“Well, that’s right.”
“Up until that point, it was okay. “The problem was that the corpse of the Demon King was shattered in the process.”
The Demon King’s fragment was a mass of ‘Corruption’, the power that could pollute all things in this world with the enemy and negativity of the world, just like himself.
The wounds that were directly cut or crushed by Roderick disappeared without leaving even a single fragment, but the body parts that were thrown away or scattered by the indirect impact were scattered around the battlefield.
The dragon tribe was summoned to clean up the place, and they dug into the ground for decades to retrieve the demon king’s body.
This was a project that Vritra also participated in.
“no way… !”
Ellahan, who had been listening quietly, covered his mouth. It was a possibility that was too terrible to mention carelessly.
However, the effort was meaningless.
Unfortunately, Albion confirmed that speculation.
“There is a high possibility that he used the power of <Corruption> while collecting the corpse of the Demon King. “That must be the driving force behind the dragon race, which ignores the interference of causality, leads an evil cult, and even antagonizes the goddess.”
“Are you saying that you maintained your sense of self even after suffering the ‘Fall’?”
“Either he was steeped in madness from the beginning, or he shares the same goal as ‘The Fall’. “I thought it was one of the two.”
She concluded, “I’m sure she’s not crazy either way.”
Leon and the others all fell silent with shocked expressions on their faces.
Albion, although weaker than before, is more powerful than all of them combined, an enemy that they profess to never be able to defeat.
When I thought about Vritra, the evil dragon who had even taken away the power of the Demon King, I felt like my eyes were turning dark.
“Albion.”
At that time, Irexana spoke.
“Can you predict how that heretic dragon, Vritra, will move from now on?”
“Hmm.”
Albion closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and answered.
“According to the news brought by the warriors, all the demonic events that have occurred so far on the entire continent for unknown reasons are the work of this bastard. The unstable dimension must have been distorted with the power of ‘tuning’. “It is the reason why the Titans were chained to that mountain range, and the reason why a demonic landscape like Mirror Canyon was created to hinder the development of Jugend.”
“Then,” Albion said after pausing for a beat.
“He will once again confuse the entire continent with his demonic powers. “Unlike the Demon Lord 300 years ago, he has no army, and he lacks the power to target the world with an evil sect.”
It was that moment.
The sound of metal vibrating violently was heard from a place a little away from the round table where Albion and Leon were sitting.
Unlike Leon and the others who didn’t know what was going on, Irexana and Albion stood up with their expressions changing.
Irexana approached the source of the noise first.
“I will take it.”
“hmm.”
Irexana lifted the metal bar with a click and started talking to someone as if she was talking to herself.
The story wasn’t long.
Irexana soon returned and spoke in a somber voice.
“This is an urgent report from the Jugend royal family. “It is said that about 30 minutes ago, the border of the magical realm ‘Winter Canyon’ ruptured and the monsters leaked into the surrounding area.”
“Cardinal! that!”
“yes.”
The four people’s eyes naturally turned to Albion.
“It appears that the evil dragon Vritra has begun to act, as Albion expected.”
The silence of Ground Zero adds even more weight.
Feeling as if he would suffocate at any moment, Leon gritted his molars and grabbed the holy sword.
The leader of evil, stronger than all the enemies he has faced to date combined, has finally revealed his evil plans. The intuition he had trained as a warrior convinced him that this guy was his archenemy.
The evil dragon Vritra.
This is the dragon of destruction that he will face in the future.
