Episode 73.
Sword King.
Literally, words that referred to the King of Swords.
William was one who had awakened the qualities and talent befitting a king.
This characteristic called the Sword King was not simply a reference to someone who wielded a sword well.
He was a master of the sword, possessed of overwhelming talent.
And one of the Sword King’s innate abilities was ‘Sword Technique Duplication.’
The ability to replicate a sword technique seen but once—a capability that only the Sword King could exercise.
And during his time in China, William had witnessed the Plum Blossom Sword Technique through Wang Lei and the Awakeners of Mount Hua.
The Twenty-Four Stances Plum Blossom Sword Technique, hailed as the greatest among Mount Hua’s sword arts; and what he had just executed was its first stance, Maehwa Nobang.
Lines drawn in the empty air, and the red plum blossoms blooming upon them.
Unfortunately, as he had yet to reach that realm, only a single plum blossom could bloom; but that alone was enough.
Shhk!
「Uaaaaaaagh!」
A scream erupted from the giant.
And for good reason.
One of his nine heads had been severed and was rolling on the ground.
No matter how many heads he had, losing one was inevitably painful.
「Damn it, you son of a bitch!」
The giant’s tone changed.
A dramatic change, as if his personality had switched.
And for good reason.
Because until moments ago, the one controlling the body had been the first head, ‘Udun.’
The Great Adversary of the Underground Kingdom had nine heads, and each of those heads possessed an entirely different personality.
Since the first head called Udun had fallen, ‘Bunno’ had taken its place.
And.
Bzzzzt!
The thorned spear the giant held changed accordingly.
What was completed was a white, blunt club.
「Kill, I’ll kill you. I’ll chew you up!」
Bunno of the enraged face—the new personality—approached, swinging the club threateningly.
But William remained composed despite the threatening force.
Rather, he felt more at ease than before.
‘Weakness? Sever the heads. It won’t be so difficult to deal with him since his strength weakens each time a head is lost. It’s just that the heads…’
He had also heard about the giant’s weakness from Yunchan.
Since one head had been severed, he would not be able to demonstrate the overwhelming might of before.
As proof of that, the giant’s body had shrunk slightly.
His original height exceeding three meters had decreased by roughly twenty centimeters.
His momentum was the same.
His ferociously surging force was now incomparable to what it had been moments ago.
Though he had to cut off eight more heads, if it was a form that gradually weakened, he could muster the strength.
That is, if it had remained severed far away.
「Husband! Take this!」
Behind the giant, his wife picked up the fallen head and threw it as is.
The monstrous strength to hurl that massive head, and the accuracy with which she aimed for the severed neck, was proof that she was no ordinary being.
But the problem was not that strength or accuracy.
Thwack!
Surprisingly, the thrown face attached to the neck.
Not simply attached.
Flash!
Udun opened his closed eyes.
That instant.
Swoosh!
His height grew back to the previous three meters.
That instant.
‘…I need to beware of the heads reattaching.’
He realized the meaning of the warning Yunchan had given.
The giant’s wife, whom he had thought an ordinary woman no different from any common housewife.
Yet she was anything but ordinary.
She was a healer capable of reattaching a severed neck in an instant.
‘If so, then from her…’
Attacking the healer first was the obvious strategy.
William moved to kill the wife.
Swish!
As he passed the giant and tried to approach the wife behind him.
「Kyaaaaaaaack!」
She burst forth with an enormous scream, much like the one that had awakened the giant earlier.
It was not within the realm of an ordinary scream.
“Kuk!”
An enormous sonic attack powerful enough to generate shockwaves.
Because of it, he had to face a dangerous moment where his body stiffened for a moment along with tinnitus.
「Damn it! Die!」
The giant’s club that approached with large strides.
Smaaaash!
It crashed down, shattering the atmosphere.
“Uguh!”
In that fleeting moment, William rolled, drawing forth strength he hadn’t known he possessed.
Kwa-booooom!
An incredible explosion erupted from where he had been moments ago.
After rolling across the ground several times and rising, William couldn’t help but feel cold sweat running down his spine.
‘If I approach carelessly, I’ll suffer!’
He realized only then.
That approaching the healer who reattached severed heads would not be easy.
No, rather, if he approached, he might face a crisis like the one just now.
“Are you alright?”
Yeil, who had approached at some point.
Hummmm!
She raised a golden aura and replenished his lacking stamina.
His stamina had already been rapidly depleted by the tension of life hanging by a thread.
Yeil’s healing compensated for this to some degree.
And the vital energy she could not replenish there.
Crunch!
He replenished through the Gongjindan she had provided.
“We aren’t the only ones with a healer. I have one too.”
Although he had suffered the absurd event of the head he had barely cut off being reattached, the same was true for the opponent.
They too had a way to recover stamina, so they wouldn’t crumble like this.
‘This bout is a war of attrition.’
It was a battle with a very high chance of turning into an ultra-protracted war.
*
As William had expected, the battle entered an ultra-protracted war.
Neither the giant nor William knew how much time had passed.
They were only aware that an extremely long time had gone by.
「Huff, huff…」
The wife, who had looked fine until moments ago, began to breathe roughly.
It was only natural.
The ability to reattach heads did not happen just like that.
It was by using the wife’s characteristic called ‘Pulchil,’ and that ability was not infinite.
It was restoring the neck of her husband, the Great Adversary of the Underground Kingdom, by sacrificing mental strength and a certain amount of stamina.
At first, she had restored it effortlessly once or twice.
But if that was repeated dozens or hundreds of times, she would inevitably tire.
「Huk, huff!」
It was the same for the Great Adversary of the Underground Kingdom who had received the healing.
The pain of the instant his neck was severed, and the tension, were things an ordinary person couldn’t endure even once or twice.
That he still stood despite having his head severed hundreds of times itself proved the giant’s incredible mental strength and stamina.
Then what of William and Yeil who faced him?
“Huu—”
Though they were not quite gasping for breath, they were tired all the same.
Although they could recover a certain amount of stamina through the Gongjindan and Yeil’s healing, complete recovery was impossible.
Of course, it was true that they were in better shape than the Great Adversary of the Underground Kingdom and his wife, but they too had consumed quite a lot of stamina.
‘Advantage? No, slightly disadvantageous.’
Even if he had the upper hand in stamina, the opponent possessed nine heads.
Unless he eliminated all of those heads, it would inevitably be William’s defeat.
But Yeil’s stamina was spent.
Even with extra Gongjindan, she couldn’t reserve enough stamina to cut off all nine heads.
‘I need to make a desperate gamble.’
He couldn’t drag this out into a longer war of attrition.
He had to choose, and he decided to stake it all.
“Yeil. I’m asking you. One last time.”
“…Understood.”
With the last remaining handful of prayers, she performed a miracle.
Hwaahk!
Feeling an effect that seemed somehow stronger.
『Possession』
William manifested Possession, an ability imbued with terror.
Suuuuu—
The purple mist that erupted, that vengeful spirit, seeped into William’s body.
That instant.
Goooo.
The flow of time stopped.
A strange situation where even the flowing atmosphere had halted.
「Hoo, this is quite a body I feel.」
A voice echoing in his mind rather than his ears.
It was the soul of the Sword Demon that had manifested through the ability of Possession.
Sword Demon referred to those whose swordsmanship had reached a certain realm—truly those who were mad for the sword.
An ordinary person would have cowered and had their body forcibly taken away just by summoning that existence.
But William was the Sword King.
Even if that soul was that of a Sword Demon, he had the confidence not to submit.
「Please lend me your strength.」
He got straight to the point without beating around the bush.
He had an overflowing amount of talent.
But that was a story of potential.
What William needed right now was martial power.
And the soul of the Sword Demon was the only means to fill that lacking martial power.
「You want me to fight in your place?」
「Yes.」
「You are quite the brazen fellow.」
「I’m about to die, so would I quibble over that? It’s urgent. So, will you help or not.」
William pressed strongly for a reason.
‘He was making a fuss because he wanted to handle my body at least once.’
He had used it several times to check the ability.
The Sword Demon soul he had met that way had been impatient, wanting somehow to handle his body.
It couldn’t be helped, for it was the talent of the Sword King.
Anyone who handled the sword couldn’t help but covet that body greatly.
It was the same even for the currently summoned Sword Demon soul.
「It certainly is a covetous body. However…」
This time, the Sword Demon’s soul had a somewhat different purpose.
「…Rather, it might be more fulfilling to teach?」
Education.
He had the desire to pass down his swordsmanship to posterity.
「Very well. I accept your proposal.』
Thus the Sword Demon accepted William’s proposal.
「But what is your esteemed name?」
To William’s question.
「Nameless (無名)」
「Yes?」
「Just know me as a nameless swordsman who had settled my debt at Mount Hua.」
With those words,
Swaaaah!
Purple energy began to burst forth from William’s body.
This was proof that Possession had been properly achieved.
“Hmm.”
Nameless—not William—who swung Terror in his hand a few times.
“Good.”
With that simple preparation, he had grasped the structure and limits of the body completely.
“Watch closely.”
And he spoke toward William seated within.
“Such an opportunity does not come easily.”
It was when the Sword Demon smiled.
「Uwaaaa!」
The Great Adversary of the Underground Kingdom charged at tremendous speed.
A rough movement to trample William at once.
Smaaaash!
The thorned axe from his hand destroyed the atmosphere.
“….”
The Sword Demon who had been staring blankly at that sight moved his hand slowly.
Swish, swish!
A red trajectory drawn by his hand.
That instant.
Sniff, sniff.
Yeil could feel some fragrance tickling the tip of her nose.
‘Flower scent…?’
It was a faint flower fragrance.
Where on earth from?
No, finding its source was not very difficult.
Suuuuk.
The plum blossoms that began to bloom along the Sword Demon’s trajectory.
The fragrance came from those dozens of plum blossoms.
For fragrance to come from plum blossoms made of the sword.
It was something unbelievable even when witnessed with one’s own eyes.
But the unbelievable spectacle did not end there.
A plum blossom leaf falling from the plum blossom that bloomed on the red trajectory began to flutter and dance like a butterfly.
『Twenty-Four Stances Plum Blossom Sword Technique (二十四手梅花劍法)
Second Stance
Plum Blossom Butterfly Dance (梅花蝶舞 : The plum blossoms dance like butterflies)』
Nameless.
What he unfolded was the second stance of the Twenty-Four Stances Plum Blossom Sword Technique, a supreme art of Mount Hua, Maehwa Jeommu.
And he demonstrated the domain of the plum blossom fragrance that only one who had reached the pinnacle could manifest.
Shhhk!
The plum blossom petals that flew like butterflies easily blew off one of the Great Adversary of the Underground Kingdom’s heads.