Chapter 40: When Wind Met Steel

The imperial knights doubted their own eyes.

Is he really cutting wind blades?

Every time Ventios gathered blue light, wind blades shot forth from the air.

He, his fellow knights, and the soldiers who served Ventios all knew how extraordinary that magic was.

Ventios’s wind blades spun like windmill sails as they flew.

Their cutting power and force were incomparable to the wind blades used by other wind mages.

They could slice through an armored soldier’s body or a one-meter-thick rock wall raised by an earth mage.

They were the symbol and pride of those who served Ventios.

And now those magnificent blades were being split apart by a single sword.

“Hah!”

The gray-eyed knight swung his sword.

It was neither particularly fast nor slow, yet its trajectory and rhythm were utterly impossible to predict.

Whenever the off-beat slash touched them, the spinning windmill-like blades shattered with the sound of breaking glass.

I’ve never heard that Intezeruto knights were this strong. What kind of technique did he master?

The gray-eyed knight kicked the ground and charged.

The imperial knights and soldiers gaped.

Whatever training he had undergone, it was hard even to follow with the eyes.

Diagonal, then another diagonal—his path left flickering afterimages.

“No chance.”

Yet their lord did not let his guard down.

Fifteen wind blades created in mid-air shot forward simultaneously.

An area attack that could not be dodged or blocked.

Anplus exhaled and readied his counter.

Off-beat. Slowly.

Clang! Once again the sound of shattering glass rang out loudly, and the dusky wind blades melted into the air.

But the instant he swung the sword, he had to pause—even for a fraction of a second.

That tiny sliver of time was exactly what Ventios had wanted from the beginning.

In the end, a knight is mobility. As long as he cannot attack from range, he is only a knight!

Blue light gathered in Ventios’s grip.

Veins bulged on his forehead; cold sweat ran.

Anplus judged that hundreds of wind blades—the same that had killed the white monster—were coming.

I can’t block that. I finish this before it comes.

Instead of dodging or circling, he advanced straight toward the hand where the blue light was gathering.

The knights and soldiers serving Ventios let out self-reproaching sighs.

O ancestors. Why did you grant such courage to our enemy?

He could not be unaware that even a single beat late would turn him into minced meat.

Yet he charged straight at a mage.

They could only regret that they themselves lacked such courage.

Anplus advanced as though chasing a fired arrow.

In an instant the distance closed; they were near enough to reach out and touch.

All the while Anplus never took his eyes off Ventios’s hand.

He’s planning to detonate it only after I’m too close to dodge, trusting his regeneration.

One beat of his four-chambered heart stretched endlessly.

Even at this distance, I’m confident I can cut three times.

His pupils swept across Ventios’s entire body in order.

Right knee, left thigh, right flank, right upper arm, then throat. Enter through the shoulder, relax the elbow. The moment anything catches, I lock the elbow and sever the limb.

He prepared to recreate in his own way the continuous strikes Seongbaek had shown him: choosing the gaps in the opponent’s guard and linking the shortest possible cuts. The moment the first strike landed, he would stiffen the elbow and pour power to amputate.

In Anplus’s mind, Ventios’s limbs were already falling apart.

At that moment Anplus felt an inexplicable chill.

His gaze, which had climbed to Ventios’s throat, rose further to his face.

Just as Anplus was smiling, so was Ventios.

Ventios, having gathered enough mana and formed a powerful image in his mind.

He saw and blocked the wind blades. 

I don’t know how, but simply overwhelming with numbers won’t work. 

Circumstantially, this is the one who killed the ancient-like monsters we sent and Lobigos himself. I cannot let my guard down.

His will shaped the mana and created a miracle.

First, put him in a state where he cannot demonstrate his skill. 

He can cut wind? Then I’ll make a wind he cannot cut.

Anplus stared at the brilliantly glowing hand and silently gasped.

This—!

It’s not wind blades. The light isn’t dividing. He’s just going to brute-force push!

The blue-blood who possessed exquisite control to create spinning wind blades had chosen, laughably, the simplest form of attack.

A typhoon? A storm? What metaphor would fit?

A mass of air with overwhelming density was expelled like a gigantic steel fist.

Three steps away. 

Even if he doesn’t die, his limbs will be crushed.

Then I can finish him with wind blades afterward.

All of it.

Ventios smiled the victor’s smile.

But Anplus quickly regained composure.

Well made. Can’t dodge down, up, left, or right. Only straight through.

His mind grew ice-cold; the sword in his hand felt like an extension of his body.

Anplus smiled white and swung.

He unleashed the maximum tension of muscles trained to rigidity, choosing the exact moment they could no longer bear the load.

The instant the sword felt like part of his body, an uncontrollable weight was loaded onto it.

In that flash, the sword swept diagonally downward.

RRRRRRRRRRRRIP—!

The sound of tearing wind stretched endlessly.

The blue mana forming the core of the compressed wind flickered and scattered into the atmosphere.

Ventios, who had been preparing wind blades, froze as though struck by frost magic; the elite soldiers and knights doubted their eyes.

What did I just witness?

What was that?

O ancestors. Why did you send such a knight to Intezeruto?

Yet even halved, it was still powerful magic.

Anplus felt his body lift while still in the downward slashing posture.

A body clad in dozens of kilograms of armor was swept away like a leaf before a typhoon.

Had he lost his center of gravity, he might have rolled across the ground.

Anplus slid long, as though dragged by both arms like a prisoner.

He was swept dozens of meters, crashing through three burning tents in succession, before finally stabbing his sword into the ground to stop.

“Hoo… ha…”

He exhaled roughly and brushed off the embers clinging to him.

Far away, Ventios was preparing more than a dozen wind blades with a startled expression.

Anplus and Ventios thought at the same time.

If I don’t kill him in this clash, things may become difficult.

His control is so extraordinary it’s strange he’s not an officer-mage. 

His judgment is excellent too. 

He instantly analyzed that sheer mass is the only answer I can’t cut. 

I must finish before he adapts to my speed.

What kind of knight is that? Can a human body even move like that? 

Every muscle fiber should have torn, yet after crashing through three burning tents he stands up perfectly fine? 

That was power meant to crush limbs with just a graze.

Their eyes met.

Golden eyes and gray eyes hardened, clashed, and for the briefest moment curved into arcs.

Anplus raised his sword high.

Once again he kicked the ground straight forward.

Don’t try to cut every wind blade. 

Time is against me. Avoid only lethal blows and close in. Be bolder—much bolder.

Ventios stood his ground and summoned wind blades.

Dusky blue light filled his back and hands.

In close quarters I wouldn’t even be able to lift a hand. I must never let him approach. Even if power drops slightly, overwhelm with quantity.

“Anplus!”

“Ventios.”

Anplus advanced like a great white shark charging prey.

Ventios’s wind blades poured down like a sudden squall in response.

Fierce rain with a 1.5-meter diameter that could slice through rock walls.

Anplus took every dusky blue disc into his gray eyes.

He was running faster than the blades flew, so it felt as though he were throwing himself into them.

That made it easier to cut a path through.

Clang, clang, clang. 

The off-beat upward slashes shattered the sharp discs.

Slash, and at the same time swish.

Two crossing wind blades were severed, but one deeply cut Anplus’s left shoulder.

Blue blood, impossibly vivid, shone in the darkness.

“Pureblood?”

“And yet he wields a sword?”

The imperial knights and soldiers wore entranced expressions.

It was beyond their common sense.

The moment he landed a blow, Ventios decided to reduce the size of the blades.

The spinning radius shrank from 1.5 meters to about 50 centimeters.

Still enough to bisect a man—armor and all—but the number tripled.

They were ten steps apart.

The change was extremely effective.

Anplus’s steps, which had been shattering every attack as he advanced, slowed for an instant.

In that fleeting hesitation, the gray-eyed knight made the bold choice he had resolved upon when charging.

I’ll endure the grazes. 

That too is something I learned.

Enduring pain and controlling the body with reason is the mark of a warrior.

“Hoo… ha…”

Wind blades aimed at thick arteries—neck or thigh—he cut away.

Blades aimed at less vital areas—upper left arm or outer thigh—he let strike.

A stinging, burning sensation rose, but he ignored it.

As long as my legs still move.

Attacks came simultaneously at left neck and right shoulder.

He could block the right with his sword, but the left had to be taken on the gauntlet.

He had even been prepared for his wrist to be severed.

Then one path appeared in Anplus’s eyes.

In the end it’s magic that sharply compresses wind. If I angle it right, I can deflect it like parrying a dagger.

He swung the gauntlet diagonally as though parrying a blade.

Exact timing, exact position.

With a clack, the wind blade slid away.

The imperial soldiers and knights outright doubted their vision.

Most thought they had seen wrong; the rest simply stopped thinking.

Ventios laughed hollowly, “Heh… ha…”

Knights deflecting blades with breastplate and gauntlet—I knew that. 

Are wind blades blades too? Even if it drains all my mana, I should have pushed with pure mass.

The final five steps.

Dozens of wind blades flew.

Gauntlet and sword fluttered like butterfly wings; more than ten blades shattered, broke, or were deflected.

Yet another dozen blades dug into the knight’s body.

Muscles severed, tendons cut, flowing blood obscured vision.

The wounded body reflexively contracted muscles to staunch bleeding and robbed mobility.

But the knight did not stop.

Countless experiences of injury had made him detached before wounds.

Bleeding unrealistically blue blood in the deep darkness, the knight advanced.

“Lord Ventios!”

“Fall back!”

The spears and swords of the imperial soldiers who finally rushed from both sides merely slid off his breastplate.

He cut the throats of elite soldiers desperately clinging to his legs, and blocked the swords of knights throwing their lives away with his gauntlet.

Anplus dodged a knight charging at the back of his thigh, hooked the leg, and toppled him.

He leveled his sword at Ventios.

The elite wind mage intuitively knew he had lost.

He closed and opened his golden eyes.

This was not an honorable battlefield; he could expect no quarter.

The plan could have completely ruined Intezeruto’s reclamation. We never imagined a knight like this would appear. A completely unforeseen variable.

“Report everything you saw without omission.”

Using his last mana, he summoned a fierce gust.

He sent his most loyal knight flying into the darkened forest.

If he had not done so, a life would have been wasted in vain.

Instead of adding another line to Anplus’s achievements here, that knight had to return safely and report about Anplus.

He prayed the knight blown into the forest would find as much wisdom as his loyalty.

Anplus precisely executed a decapitating slash at Ventios’s throat.

The severed head flew into the air; the body tilted toward the ground.

At that exact moment Trichitas came panting out of the forest behind Anplus.

“Excellent—for a knight who can’t use magic!”

Anplus gave a bitter smile.

He no longer had the energy to be angry.

Trichitas gestured.

“Our drifting is now over! Let’s go home, retreat!”