Chapter 27 The Masters Class (4)
A flash and a large explosion occurred. The blast was so immense that the robes of the examiners and Erzebet fluttered wildly in the aftermath.
Kwaaa!
Dust rose like fog in the arena, obscuring vision to the point that it was impossible to see with the naked eye what was happening.
Something was moving violently within.
Though they couldn’t see it with their eyes, Gael and the examiners could all feel it.
A monstrous mass of mana was thrashing about inside.
The examiners tensed, adjusting their stances as they waited.
Within the dust, a flash of light sparked, followed by a wave of light surging toward the third row at a terrifying speed.
Boom!
It exploded on impact, raising a tremendous cloud of dust.
Another wave burst through the dust, hitting the ground of the fifth row in the blink of an eye.
Kwaaaa!
The arena became a battlefield in an instant, with first to fifth rows enveloped in dust.
Even though their vision was obscured, Gael and all the examiners were unable to look away from that spot.
Within, the sounds of wood swords swinging could be heard repeatedly. The Plantara, at their highest level of aggression, were intent on killing Damian by any means necessary.
Suddenly, the light flashed several times, and something arced out from the dust towards the examiners.
Gael instinctively reached for her sword at her waist.
That round object fell to the ground, bouncing several times before coming to a slow stop in front of Erzebet’s feet.
It was a Plantara’s severed head, its cross-section as smooth as if a boiled egg had been sliced.
No one knew what sudden force had been unleashed.
But from within the arena, it was clear Damian was overwhelmingly dominant.
Had he not been using his full strength up until now?
Gael exhaled a small breath.
“Hmph, a mere decapitation won’t suffice.”
Plantara are not human. They don’t die from simple decapitation.
Therefore, although their heads may seem like an apparent weakness, slicing them off was utterly futile.
As Gael’s words barely finished, another explosion, alongside a massive noise, erupted.
Thud, thud, thud.
One after the other, the upper halves of Plantara tumbled across the ground, rolling out of the cloud of debris.
This time the severed ends were grotesquely twisted as if a dragon had swung down its clawed foot.
“…”
Erzebet chuckled softly.
“Haha, impressive showmanship.”
***
Flynn furrowed his brows when he first saw Damian’s swordsmanship.
From the very first swing, it was evident. Damian didn’t use his waist or shoulders correctly, which meant no real force behind the strike.
‘This is ludicrous.’
He couldn’t understand how someone who appeared never to have properly held a sword before was undergoing the ‘Trial by Sword.’
As expected, Damian was hit and flung back to the starting point on the first attempt.
Watching this, Flynn shook his head.
Damian stood back up and charged at the Plantara again.
Contrary to expectations that the examination would end in a laughable fashion, Damian’s unique movements on his next attempt piqued Flynn’s interest.
It looked like he was about to be knocked away again, but he was finding a strategic method to attack the Plantara.
‘What is this?’
Damian made it halfway and then was sent flying back to the start once more.
And again, he rose and charged at the Plantara.
After observing the third attempt, Flynn briefly lost his words.
After two failed attempts, Damian found a strategy and was even beginning to take down the Plantara one by one.
His movements were meticulous and calculated, yet on the other hand, they were extremely aggressive. It seemed closer to the motion of a beast or monster with extreme survival instincts rather than a human.
And he was penetrating deeper than before.
‘Was I at that level when I was sixteen?’
No, he was not. Even with his current skills, that level of movement was impossible.
Realizing that cutting in a conventional manner was futile, Damian resorted to ruthlessly ripping apart the Plantara’s ankles.
It seemed implausible to break through within ten minutes, yet if given enough time, it felt as if he could indeed reach Flynn.
The image reminded Flynn of a mad hunting dog breaking through a bramble path to get to him.
Though bleeding from thorns and despite the blows, the dog would keep rushing forward until it collapsed, aiming to tear at the prey’s throat.
His forearms bristled.
And when Damian threw his sword in what seemed like a moment of reaching his limits, Flynn felt a sense of relief.
Flynn was evidently in a more advantageous position, and his pride was oddly hurt by the relief he felt, but he had to admit it.
Given enough time, that man would find a way to cut down the flag.
Damian, having thrown his sword, seemed to have given up, closing his eyes.
But when it became clear that this was not the end, that there was a fourth attempt left.
Flynn began to feel a sense of dread.
Strange pulses of light. Massive explosions and dust clouds as thick as fog.
And within it, every time a flash of light occurred, the mangled form of a Plantara would be hurled out of the dust like a rag doll.
‘What in the world… What’s happening?’
Flynn couldn’t see but he could feel it.
The mana pressure, which was initially barely numbing the limbs, became suffocating, and soon, it pressed upon his heart like a heavy weight.
It was coming.
Out of nowhere, as if a devil had sprung from the earth itself.
After several more flashes of light, the dust grew ominously quiet.
Flynn could sense it.
There were no Plantara left.
One minute remained.
Then, through the silence, steady footsteps approached, and a dark figure was coming closer.
A long sword of light. And along with it, eyes that glinted like those of a wild beast.
Now it’s my turn.
Flynn poured all of his sword aura into the Dwarf-forged sword he held. His arms were trembling uncontrollably without his notice.
Time was of the essence, but Damian was walking slowly.
It was as if he was saying it would take less than a minute to deal with Flynn.
He yelled loudly in an attempt to quell his fear.
“Damn it, come on, come on!”
The shadow moved, and the sword of light sliced through the air from low to high.
Then out of its trajectory, light sparked and a dazzling sword wave surged forth.
The sword wave hissed through the air and narrowly grazed Flynn’s left arm by a mere span, before exploding against the shallow dirt wall of the arena.
A chill ran down his spine.
‘Did it miss?’
Immediately after, light flashed and another sword wave surged toward Flynn at a blinding speed that left no time to react.
And again, this sword wave barely missed, whisking past Flynn’s right side.
Flynn then realized why the sword waves had missed him: Damian was in front of him, blocking the path to the flag.
‘If I don’t move aside, I’ll die.’
These two sword waves were a warning to Flynn.
Or perhaps it was closer to mockery.
Anger swelled within Flynn.
To yield and step aside for fear of dying would be the utmost disgrace he’d ever faced since taking up the sword.
Damian’s sword flickered several times. Soon after, the light from it dimmed.
Subsequently, the oppressive mana force pressuring Flynn seemed to weaken.
It was evident that Damian was becoming exhausted, perhaps from rampant use of the sword waves.
‘I don’t know what this is, but his power is waning.’
There was no way Flynn would budge.
Sensing that Flynn wouldn’t move, Damian propelled himself forward and began sprinting towards Flynn.
Only 30 seconds remained.
Flynn gritted his teeth.
“Come on, come on, come on!”
He pushed his sword aura to the maximum and let out a kiai.
It didn’t matter if he would be bedridden for days from exhaustion. He had to muster up all his strength and bring it to an end.
Damian emerged through the dust, wielding a sword of light, and leapt.
And Damian, straight above Flynn’s forehead, brought his sword down.
Flynn, too, had mustered all his strength, swinging the Dwarf-forged sword up to meet the blow.
Whoom!
Where the swords met, the air condensed momentarily before blasting outwards in all directions.
Locked in the clash with their swords, Damian landed on the ground.
Under the weight of Damian’s descent, Flynn slowly rose to his feet.
Neither Flynn nor Damian took a step back, each pushing against the other’s sword.
Damian’s sword, which had grown semi-transparent, sliced through Flynn’s sword aura and pressed in deep.
Creak, creak.
‘Impossible.’
The sword of light then tore through Flynn’s blade.
The sight was beyond belief for Flynn.
The Dwarf-made sword, known to cut through steel, was being overwhelmed.
And then something neither had anticipated happened.
The runes etched into the magic sword began to overheat, turning bright red.
Soon, the sword aura was wholly sucked into the runes, and the sword itself violently vibrated uncontrollably.
Due to the sliced blade, the enchantment within had gone awry.
Ddddd!
The destabilized Dwarf-forged sword finally ignited in a sapphire explosion of mana.
Boom!
Both were blasted far apart by the explosion.
Flynn, hurled by the blast, rolled right up to the front of the flag.
And Damian was flung into the cloud of dust.
Flynn picked himself up, frantically ran to retrieve his magic sword, and took a defensive stance.
Without a moment to check the state of his sword.
He kept his guard up, piercingly watching the cloud of dust into which Damian had disappeared.
Only 20 seconds remained.
Damian was nowhere to be seen.
But his trace was unmistakable.
At the edge of the flying dust lay the sword of light, sprawled on the ground.
The sword flickered faintly, nearly depleted of its strength.
Flynn swallowed and watched the sword blink intermittently before finally extinguishing a few seconds later.
The dust remained quiet still.
‘Finally, finally is it over?’
Flynn’s heart still pounded heavily.
He glanced back for a moment.
The flag had tipped over, caught in the fray, but was intact.
The examiners, too, seemed to have concluded the test was over, and they were all walking towards the interior of the arena.
Just 10 seconds left.
But the examination was over.
If he had launched the sword wave direct at Flynn, Damian would have won.
If he had taken it head-on, Flynn would have ended up like the smashed Plantara.
But Damian hadn’t done that.
After all, it was Flynn who had successfully thwarted Damian.
The tension released, Flynn finally let his sword down and half-collapsed.
He caught his breath with ragged gasps and muttered to himself,
“It’s over.”
And at that moment, which no one had expected anything more to happen,
Something sliced through the wind from within the dust cloud.
And it zipped right past Flynn’s ear.
It was so sudden that he couldn’t react.
By the time Flynn fixed his gaze on the object, it had already rushed towards the flag and, with a crack, shattered the flagpole.
What had flown out of the dust was one of the Plantara’s wooden swords.
Damian had been waiting for his chance until the very end.
“This… what…”
Shocked, Flynn was rendered speechless, fixated on the broken flagpole.
Everything seemed to stop, the world around him went silent.
As time passed, the dust gradually settled.
In the ravaged arena, the shattered Plantara steadily become visible.
At the center of it all lay Damian, unconscious and face down.
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