Chapter 271
The gap between Sisyphus and I... is absolutely clear, Leon thought, realizing that more than half of his available options had vanished the moment he stepped a single pace closer.
When fighters passed a certain threshold, their battles became contests of calculation. A single mistake blossomed into a fatal opening that spanned hundreds of exchanges, while groundwork laid unnoticed by the enemy became the stepping stone for reversal.
One could say that fighting while reading the future was the profundity of martial arts. How much farther, how much more precisely one can see—those differences decide a contest where even the next instant is unclear.
And so, Leon understood immediately. If Sisyphus gets serious, I die within thirty exchanges...
The instant he envisioned a true fight to the death and looked several moves ahead, an icy image of death crawled up the back of his neck. Thirty exchanges were being generous. It wouldn’t be strange if he were killed in a single exchange.
The line of a slash stretched out sharply from the blade of Leon’s Holy Sword, only to be blocked by just an index finger. Sisyphus held out a single finger, perfectly straight, and stopped the blade. There was no clash, no recoil, not even a sound. Leon only realized what had happened after seeing it with his own eyes.
His attack wasn’t blocked, nor was it deflected. It was neutralized, simply, literally, rendered powerless.
What is this weird defense?!
Despite the shock from the incomprehensible phenomenon, Leon drew his sword back and still unleashed a four-hit combination. If one strike wasn’t enough, then several would be. It was textbook.
He crossed the body’s central line, where vital points are aligned, from four directions in succession. By the time the rotation that started at his ankle reached his waist, Leon had already completed all four cuts.
“Huh...?”
He felt nothing. He had clearly sliced through the space where Sisyphus stood four times, yet there was no sensation of cutting anything at all.
Through the Stigma of the Observer, Sisyphus appeared to be standing still, almost as if offering his body to the Holy Sword. But contrary to what Leon’s eyes showed him, not a single scratch marred his body.
And then, with a loud clang! Leon barely managed to block the finger thrusting toward his forehead. He was sent skidding backward, carving two long furrows into the ground due to the absurd amount of power.
Leon shook his head several times, flinging away cold sweat, and scanned Sisyphus from head to toe again. He couldn’t tell what kind of trick this was, nor whether it was even martial arts at all.
El-Cid chimed in, —It is martial arts.
What?
—The ultimate destination of soft techniques, the art of yielding. Dodging and deflecting are merely stages of training toward that realm.
El-Cid continued, —Soft techniques are, in the end, about handling ‘softness.’ Strength, speed, sharpness, weight—every kind of force and interference. To accept them all and return the result to nothingness. That is the destination of soft techniques.
Return it to nothing... like what just happened?
—Exactly. He passed your blade through with permeation. If you want to touch his body, you’ll have to break through that domain with your own law.
Any force and any interference were nullified. Because of that, the realm of permeation gave a strongly defensive impression, but Leon wasn’t so naive.
Even at the level of an Aura Master, regardless of one’s style, offense and defense can be switched fluidly. Even martial arts heavily biased toward one side lose that distinction past a certain point.
Now, if one were a Grandmaster? Transcendents who had stepped into the realm where all flows return to one could not possibly be unable to wield their abilities freely.
El-Cid immediately agreed. —You’re right, my disciple. The realm of permeation is offense and defense as one. When used offensively, it becomes a spear that nullifies the opponent’s defense and evasion, piercing vital points in a single strike.
A Grandmaster wasn’t called a transcendent for nothing. They were individuals who stood in a realm where contradiction was made real. An impenetrable shield and an unstoppable spear—those who can make both coexist were Grandmasters.
—Forget Aura control and ultimate techniques.
El-Cid advised quietly, —If you want to challenge this with your current level, you have no choice but to carve through it within the realm of pure martial arts.
Pure martial arts...?
—Face him with swordsmanship alone. Push your heart to its absolute limit, construct your domain, and cancel out Sisyphus’s permeation. It feels like I’m telling someone who can’t even run to fly, but there’s no other option.
The realm of transcendence existed beyond the sky. Climbing mountains only brought one to the peak. To reach the heavens, one had to forge wings that didn’t exist and spread them.
“All right. I’ll try,” Leon declared.
Understanding fully how unreasonable El-Cid’s guidance was, Leon nonetheless scattered his Aura at once. The strength that felt capable of lifting mountains faded. The speed that could outrun sound vanished. As he stripped away the power that had made him formidable, only a young man holding a sword remained.
For some reason, the moment he became weaker than ever, Leon felt a sense of déjà vu. It felt as though he had returned to the distant past.
Ah... I see, Leon mused to himself.
He had gone back to the days when he couldn’t properly use Aura, let alone an Aura Blade. He had gone back to his time at the Academy, gripping nothing but a wooden sword, drilling fundamentals endlessly, unable to imagine even the next inch of the future. This was where
Leon had started; without a shred of Aura, only hands hardened and twisted by calluses clamped down on the hilt. And since then, so much had happened.
“Ha... Haha.”
He had slain monsters and followers of Evil that threatened to swallow entire cities. He had spoken with the Giant King from the Titan Mountains, a being he’d only known from storybooks. He had clashed with an ancient king buried by a bygone age and defeated a demigod descended from the Clyde Empire.
And yet, still, from beginning to end, all that remained in his grasp was a single sword. From Leon’s hands, utterly devoid of Aura, the Holy Sword rang loudly.
The resonance of a sword was a cry that only a blade perfectly attuned to its wielder could produce. To Leon, who had fallen into a state of complete selflessness, the sound echoed as if from a great distance, nudging him forward, pushing him deeper into the core of his consciousness.
Sisyphus’s eyes widened at the change, and he muttered, “Χμμμμ?”
Then, he reached out a hand. The trajectory of his hand, which did not disturb even the subtlest tremor in the air or its flow, was utterly unpredictable. Reaching the pinnacle of soft techniques meant the same thing as this: no one could read the flow of his power.
The moment Sisyphus’s outstretched hand was about to touch Leon, a sharp sound rang out. Sisyphus reflexively pulled his hand back by a hair’s breadth and stared at the air before his fingertips, cleanly split as if sliced.
He could have neutralized it with Permeation, yet he instinctively withdrew his hand. That was how sharp it was, sharp enough to stir even his worn-down instincts.
“χα, χαχαχα!”
A deeper smile spread across Sisyphus’s lips, all traces of playfulness gone. For someone who had suffered for eternity in Tartaros, what tormented him was not physical pain, but boredom.
Even the agony of being crushed alive was dull enough to make him yawn. If someone could make him forget that, even for a moment, then anyone would do. He could even give up this life!
“πολεμιστής! Έλα!”
With both arms spread wide, Sisyphus stepped directly into Leon’s domain. It was an utterly defenseless posture, and yet Leon narrowed his eyes and took a step back.
Permeation, the miracle born of a Grandmaster’s martial art, was collapsing his domain. If swinging the sword could not cut, then swinging it at all was meaningless. If he narrowed the area of his sword domain, increasing its density and compressing it until it was as thin as a single strand of hair, perhaps he might break through.
Then, a sharp, bone-chilling metallic sound rang. Sisyphus, who had been striding forward without hesitation, halted. The blade edge had stopped precariously in front of his Adam’s apple.
Had it gone just a fraction deeper, it would have pierced his throat, but it could not. No matter how desperately Leon focused his will, Sisyphus’s Permeation was several times thicker and more intense.
El-Cid said, —If you can’t pierce through in one instant, pull back and wait for the next chance. To penetrate his permeation with your sword domain, you’ll have to explode all your latent potential. In the briefest instant, in that tiny gap, drive your blade in.
That voice reached Leon even in this state of selflessness. Nodding without realizing it, Leon retreated together with the Holy Sword. Swinging the blade without Aura through such forced motions had torn his forearm muscles and raised dark bruises across his skin, but he showed no sign of it.
It was a sensation so familiar it bordered on comforting. It was pain he had experienced every single day for three years, even before gripping El-Cid’s sword hilt on the Academy’s back mountain.
This much, I can...
He could keep going indefinitely. An Aura Master was a state where body and mind were unified. Even if flesh and muscle tore, even if bones shattered, as long as the mind remained firm, one could somehow keep moving.
—Good. Sink your steps deeper.
El-Cid’s guidance pointed the way forward. Leon corrected his own flaws word by word, swinging a sword sharper than before.
He was entering a deeper layer of this quiet, ultra-focused state of selflessness, a realm where all teachings could be absorbed instantly, regardless of one’s innate talent or disposition. Reaching it even once in a lifetime was said to consume all of one’s luck.
But unfortunately, Sisyphus still stood unscathed.
“χαχαχαχαχαχα!!”
He stepped forward and threw a single punch. There was no killing intent, no hostility, just playful roughhousing, yet Leon was sent flying violently, the shock rattling his organs hard enough to make him vomit blood.
His knees buckled. His grip loosened. If he collapsed onto the ground, he would not have the strength to rise again. Knowing this, Leon desperately held himself together. He barely steadied himself, raised his sword, and it began again. In exchange for each meaningless strike, he glimpsed a living hell.
Still, Leon forced his eyes open wide and swung his blade, his body and blade one. From wrist to elbow, from elbow to shoulder, there was no unnatural break in the flow, as if his entire arm had become the sword itself. The smooth arc was beautiful, yet felt capable of severing even steel.
“χα, Είναι ακόμα πολύ μακριά!”
Even such a refined sword could not reach Sisyphus. The blade still stopped just a hair’s breadth away, trembling, and the counterattack that followed sent Leon flying like a pebble.
A body no longer protected by Aura had lost all of its fortress-like resilience. His joints screamed, his skin tore, and bright red blood streamed freely.
Despite that, planting the Holy Sword into the ground like a cane, Leon propped himself up on the hilt and stood again.
“Ghk... gk... guh....”
—This time, your legs were half a beat late. Re-coordinate your upper and lower body. Your will must not move first, nor your body move ahead. Make them perfectly one.
“Ghk.”
He did not even have the strength to spit out the blood pooling in his mouth. It dribbled from his lips as he nodded once in acknowledgment.
Once more, and then again. Until his battered body could no longer move.
Leon challenged Sisyphus without a single moment of rest. That challenge, closer to sheer self-destruction than struggling, like smashing an egg against a rock until it broke, was ended by Sisyphus’s gentle voice.
“πολεμιστής.”
It was far livelier than when they had first met. However, it also came with a punch that flew almost immediately.
“Πήγαινε για ύπνο.”
The force that passed through Leon’s body exploded like a sonic boom. Had that power not dispersed, Leon would have burst apart like an overfilled waterskin, leaving nothing behind.
Sisyphus had used precisely enough strength to knock him unconscious. That exquisite control alone spoke volumes of his realm.
—Hah, you like my disciple too, huh, Sisyphus?”
Sisyphus’s gaze turned toward the Holy Sword. A transcendent, and one of a different order even among them, he could sense the monster lurking within the blade.
—Playing around like this is fine, Sisyphus. But...
Holy King Rodrick glared at him and issued a warning. —Step out of line, and I will kill you.
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