Chapter 846 – Battle of Vajra -4-

000

The sounds of battle echoing through the corridors of the fortress were unfolding in opposite directions across the central part of the fortress.

It is a duel between Aine and her teacher, and Cleon against an automaton that suddenly appears.

Either way, there will be repeated fierce battles.

Aine was finally able to fight on equal footing after suffering a fatal wound to her leg.

Cleon was also robbed of two swords, a holy sword and a magic sword.

We had to sort out the other party as quickly as possible.

＂Haa…!＂

Among them, it was Aine’s side that moved the development of the fight first.

‘I only have one leg, but the reduced speed is much faster than I expected…!’

The leg on the side he had cut off was bleeding significantly, and the damage had even gone to the bone, so he couldn’t think he would be able to move it.

And, just as she thought, she was able to see that she was fighting while standing only on one leg.

On the other hand, she is limp, with her strength gone, and any attempt to step on her ground will only bring her pain.

In other words, you would be in a state where you have to run around and move like a scarecrow or a gangshi-

She couldn’t help but be impressed by her ability to swing her sword in response to Aine’s attacks without slowing down at all.

Aine may not know it, but her teacher was a member of the hero party that defeated the Demon King in the past.

Although the final duel was fought using this fortress and was a fight beyond human power.

She can’t even imagine how many turmoils she must have gone through to get to that point.

Moreover, even after her adventures as a Hero Party ended, she settled down in Asteris and has been active as a doctor and warrior for nearly several decades.

To put it simply, the difference in experience is overwhelming.

And, in addition, it can be said that it is thanks to her for brainwashing her and blocking her various senses.

It was the birth of the strongest soldier who did not suffer even when wounded, nor was his body slowed down by pain.

Of course, it could have been conveyed perfectly well that this was an act that seriously insulted life.

That’s why Aine had no choice but to be angry.

No, from the moment she first saw her, Aine’s anger had reached its peak.

By turning her precious person – the person she wanted to protect even at the cost of her life – into a puppet –

She couldn’t forgive him for using her as a tool to destroy everything she held dear.

However, even if that anger gave power to Aine’s sword, it alone was not the decisive factor in her victory in the duel with her teacher.

＂Haaa!＂

A sharp cheer rang out from Aine’s mouth.

Her sword comes down from above like lightning.

Put weight on it, and if you swing the sword with the same amount of killing intent, it will reach the deepest part of the enemy.

It must have been her who taught me that.

Kaang! And when the swords clashed, Aine bit her lip.

The fishy taste on the tip of her tongue must have been the taste of blood.

Her own sword did not contain that much power.

The deepest part of the enemy cannot be reached─

Even though I try to embrace her, her hostility, and her murderous intent, it somehow feels like acting.

At best, she can’t stop herself, even though she’s lost the use of one of her legs.

She has to hurt more, bleed more, break more bones.

But – what if it kills her?

Because of that fear, her resentment, unable to remove the hesitation that resides in her own sword, makes it impossible for her to achieve her victory.

‘Then what should we do? Will I waste time here and die by being cut by her sword?

─, Her inner voice asked Aine.

＂Kuh…!＂

She shook her head as if to reject that voice, but at that moment, her teacher got out of the position he was under and stepped behind her.

Immediately after that, a dagger flies towards Aine.

＂Ugh!?＂

As it flew at high speed, I raised my sword and deflected it to block it. The next moment, the dagger’s trajectory as it spun in the air was twisted into an impossible shape.

It’s like a snake coming from the bushes, aiming for her legs.

Magic? Incantation? For a moment, she thought she was that type, but unable to connect such a foolish imagination with her teacher, she continued to be pushed behind her, swinging her sword to deflect the dagger.

＂What on earth…＂

A dagger that moves freely, making full use of a small area, aiming for blind spots in the field of vision.

Aine manages to block it, but is occasionally caught off guard by the dagger’s trajectory, which passes shallowly through her arms, thighs, and legs.

＇Suddenly, where did this dagger come from-＇

─ After thinking that far, she took her eyes off her dagger and observed her teacher at the same time.

Then, her injured and uncomfortable leg was on her knee, and she was still moving only the fingers of her one hand.

It’s like playing the strings of a string instrument.

＇No way─＇

＂Augh!＂

The accident was delayed by one moment.

And that decrease in thinking speed leads to the possibility of her losing her life.

I looked down at the dagger stuck in her shoulder, but it was pulled out of its own accord, as if it had come to life again.

Fortunately for her, the wound wasn’t serious enough to break her bones, like the wound he inflicted on her a little while ago.

However, Aine was convinced of what had just happened.

She narrowed her eyes and was able to see something sparkling in the air.

‘Wire – of course!’

The dagger she was using was a dagger with a wire that she had thrown to create an opening for her a little while ago and then gave up on returning the dagger and fell to the ground.

If you think about it, since she taught herself how to use this memorization, it was only natural that she herself would be able to use it more skillfully.

What she would have had to do with her arms and hands, she was able to do with just a little bit of strength, and a little bit of movement that you couldn’t tell if you looked closely.

There, Aine once again lamented her own shortcomings.

It is only possible to pick up and reuse a discarded weapon that has been dropped from your hand during battle when the enemy is ignoring you.

Her teacher once told her not to allow such luck to happen in real life.

Of course, there was no way Aine would do something like ignore her – at the same time, with one of her legs injured, she would stop at nothing to win –

She had to realize that she had the option of picking up the weapon that had slipped from her hands and using it.

When she failed to do so, it was her own mistake.

The wound on her shoulder was something she had no choice but to accept as punishment for her foolish disciple.

This pain will become a lesson, and the scar will become an unforgettable memory of failure.

─But!

＂Right now, there is no time to suffer from your own mistakes…!＂

A mistake was a mistake, so you have to overcome it.

Right now, she was aware that if she was caught up in her mistakes, she would not be able to save what she needed to save.

Move, move, move.

To reach her, don’t stop moving her legs.

To protect her own body, don’t stop looking at her.

The wire’s trajectory follows as if reading her own movements.

In that case, the choices you had to make between prediction, avoidance, and breakthrough were simple.

Feeling the pain in her shoulder go away a little with her regeneration, she slowly put the sword in her hand to her mouth.

It is a last resort to free both her hands and prevent her sword from being lead.

And what she holds in her hand is the dagger that she learned how to use first during her training with her, and that it has many more uses than a ‘sword’.

If you think about it, what the half-ghosts themselves learned was not swordsmanship to cut down ghosts, but martial arts to move secretly in the shadows and memorization to hide in the darkness and cut down the enemy’s vital points.

From the beginning, there was no such thing as fairness to them.

In the fight against ghosts who don’t know honor, such virtues were unnecessary.

It’s okay to be cowardly, as long as you can win.

It’s okay to be cowardly, as long as you can protect it.

She was the one who taught me that, and I was the one who learned it.

Use everything around you that is available.

Under her pressure to be an example to her younger sisters, she was forced to break through her shell of who she was.

Well, I have to take off the ‘last layer’-

In the true sense, I realized that I could become a ‘ghost’ that catches ghosts.

Aine’s eyes brightened.

Those eyes, unlike before, had a pomegranate-like red color in the pupils, and the spirit in that gaze was enough to make you wonder if it was the usually gentle Aine.

As she realized that she had to be more greedy and achieve her victory, her ‘modesty’ was an unnecessary adornment.

The dagger dancing in the air, aiming for her gap, flies in once again – this time to pierce between her eyes.

Aine watched it straight until it reached her own body and then-

She read that she was trying to avoid it by tilting her head, and felt the dagger that changed her trajectory pass by her cheek.

Rather, Aine’s head remained where it was when it first appeared.

One step, Aine takes a step forward, the dagger’s trajectory passes her cheek and then moves forward a little, leaving a small gap before it has to turn behind her.

That one shot-

The step taken while the dagger was behind you was the ‘starting point’.

Fault! And Aine kicked her on the floor and went straight forward.

The dagger would have accelerated to follow Aine’s rapid movements, but it seemed insufficient to catch up with her as she had already moved behind her.

─So.

When Aine attempted to reach her with an explosive acceleration that seemed to break the layer of air, the girl who confronted her stretched out her hand with her leg as if waiting.

Then, he pulled out Aine’s dagger that was stuck through her and threw it at her.

If she slows down her legs even a little to avoid the swords coming from the front and back and from both sides at the same time, she will be caught by the daggers coming from behind.

That’s why she immediately threw one of the two daggers in her hands forward, hitting the dagger flying in front of her and knocking it down.

That’s why she couldn’t stop her steps, and she was now only a few meters away from her teacher when she saw her opponent lifting.

At the same time, the fingers that control the wire-attached dagger are constantly moving.

If her sword clashed with her, her own movements would naturally have to stop.

In the end, it was a self-evident fact that if that happened, my body would be pierced by the dagger from behind that seemed ready to reach me at any moment.

But – having come this far, she doesn’t change what she has to do.

As she lost the use of her legs, there was only one thing she had to do.

Using ‘everything around her’ to win over her.

Aine threw the remaining dagger upward without even looking.

The opponent probably thought it was a bluff and didn’t respond to the sudden aim for the ceiling.

She thought that a dagger thrown into that orbit would not cause any harm to her unless it was attached to a wire as if she were controlling it.

However-

Clink!!

And when I thought I heard the sound of something breaking – the surroundings suddenly became dark.

What happened? By the time she decided, it would already be too late.

In the sudden darkness, Aine disappeared and the sound of running on the ground disappeared for a ‘moment’.

In a place with a stage called ‘darkness’, it was Aine who prepared the stage that was able to hit the ‘player’.

One second before she adjusted to this darkness and regained her vision.

She paid the utmost attention to everything.

Opening her mouth, letting go of the sword she was holding, she held it in her hand.

If she had kept it in her sheath, her location would have been known by the sound of it being pulled out.

Even with her feathers, she lands lightly on the ground, holding her sword with both hands-

She wanted to let out a scream, but kept her own mouth shut ─

Without even paying attention to her own lower lip, which was pierced by fangs and bleeding.

The pierced sword pierced through the warm thing and came out towards the other side.

＂…!＂

The person who was stabbed didn’t let out a single scream, but he did gasp out of surprise.

Because Aine’s sword went right through the joint of her other leg.

With a jolt, she felt her body lose its balance.

But not yet, you can win if you move her arms and cut her, whose body is pinned down by her own stab, before she collapses.

Brainwashed into judging her own life as expendable, she made her worst tactical judgment at that moment when she attempted to swing her sword –

Kwadeuk.

Silently, something flew into her arm where she was holding her sword.

She knew best what it was.

Until just before, the woman who was chasing Aine was a dagger with a wire that she was controlling.

Aine stabbed her own leg with her sword, incapacitating her, and at the same time pushed her body so that her dagger stuck in the arm holding her sword.

The arm doesn’t move.

And the next moment-

As soon as the sword stuck in her leg was pulled out, pain once again hit her other arm.

This time too – there was a knife stuck.

The knife that Aine stabbed in.

Feeling that both her arms and both legs – all limbs needed to move her body – were pierced.

Her body finally collapsed.

＂…─Tsk, haha…! Ha…!”

Aine’s voice, which had been in a state of extreme tension, has returned.

She looked down at her teacher, who was expressionless even though she had collapsed, and looked like she was about to cry.

To her – her teacher is talking.

“… I won brilliantly, so why are you crying?”

＂──.＂

Also. That’s what Aine felt.

Although she did not have the freedom to move her body, she could speak her words to Aine.

However, she is afraid that if she speaks as ‘Quartz’, she will feel hesitation about swinging her sword at her.

She just couldn’t do it.

＂Sorry… Sorry… Old man…!! Because I couldn’t save you…!”

Aine said this as she sat down at the thought that she had not been able to save her, but her quartz could not move her body anymore, and she spoke without even shaking her head. Br〉

“No. You really saved me. Because I didn’t have to kill my beloved child who was like my own child.”

And, she barely moved her facial muscles and smiled slightly.

“Therefore. Go now. Because you still have to move. Shouldn’t we save it? The people of Asteris.”

＂──… Yes!＂

Aine answered by nodding her head, and she lifted her teacher’s fallen body and placed him against the wall.

Blood traces flowed on the ground and led to the wall, but Quartz was unable to offer much resistance.

Because all of her limbs are already broken.

And, I couldn’t heal her like that.

If that happens, her brainwashed body will target Aine again.

Until her brainwashing is lifted-

So, Aine had to hurry.

To save everything.

We had to neutralize the remaining incineration bombs and move over to the general area where Cleon would be.